At the center of every magical world, there’s always something holding it together. Maybe it’s an idea, or a phrase. Maybe an image. An object. A place. A memory. Maybe something that defies description altogether. But regardless, there is always, always a center. It just makes sense, after all. Magic is something that’s made, not something natural. It needs a foundation to build upon, or it would simply fall apart in the face of the mundane.
My world had a tree at the center. Tall and proud, visible from the furthest edges we had ever explored. Drops of mana dripped from its leaves like water after a rainstorm.
At the base of the tree was a city. Not the largest city in the world, but there was a certain beauty there, to be built around a world-center. A certain pride in being its protectors and stewards. The greatest mages came to study there, where the mana was thickest, and reality at its most malleable.
When I was a child, I would always dream about climbing that tree, seeing what I could see from the top. Tasting its fruits, breathing the summer scent of its leaves as the wind blew through them. I’d train for hours each day in the local playgrounds, climbing the jungle gyms to start, then smaller and more mundane trees… as I grew older, I started climbing the sides of houses as well. Everyone else in my school just called me ‘Monkey’, knowing my love of climbing. I practiced every technique I could find. Learned how to use pitons and how to secure a safety line before I learned algebra.
On my 15th birthday, I went for my first climb of the tree itself. Only up to the top of one of its massive roots; still a daunting task for the unprepared, although mitigated somewhat by the fact that pathways had been built along the root’s length. Of course, I went up the side rather than the path… not like there’s going to be a path up any farther.
When people realized I was serious about my ambition, they started trying to dissuade me. They thought it was too dangerous. Too impractical of a task. Not understanding the desire to surmount a challenge nobody has managed before. Nobody had ever tried to climb the Great Tree in recent times, and the climbers in the distant past were all thought to have died on the trip up.
I was not to be dissuaded. At the age of my majority, I gathered my climbing supplies into an enchanted pack of holding; enough food and water to last a month, plenty of rope and pitons, harnesses, my binoculars, a tent that could be set up like a hammock against the side of the tree, and a journal and pen to record my journey.
Nobody was there to see me off on my journey, but I did not let it discourage me. I had been preparing mentally as well as physically, knowing that nobody would understand.
I began to climb…
After the first week, I was wondering if I had made a mistake. Not in setting the goal, but in the amount of supplies I had bought. I had been climbing for a week, and used up a week’s worth of supplies… and yet, I was nowhere near the halfway point. And since I had to go both up and down, I felt myself feeling… worried. Still, I pressed on. There were creatures living on the tree here and there, and smaller plants growing from its surface… I could hunt and scavenge.
Two weeks, and I had started to adapt, learned to find food upon the tree’s surface. My use of my own supplies had slowed. I learned where the best spots to camp were too; how to identify the shifts in the bark that would show where my tent would hold fast, or even to track an occasional plateau where I could properly stretch out. A rare treat when climbing.
A month in, and I was among the tree’s leaves, and had fully adapted to life upon its bark. My own supplies were tapped only rarely, only in emergencies. My pitons had almost run out, but I had begun to carve my own from monster horns, with ropes made of vines to accompany them. The top was so close I could practically taste it.
A month and a half into my journey, and I sat high upon the crown of the tree. The world stretched out below me. I breathed the fresh air through the leaves, and drank drops of mana scooped up into my hands. I had made it. The wind was in my hair, and the world was laid out before me down below. I could see from one edge to the other. Could see the clouds from up above, the curls of the wind… ships in the ocean, little ant-size dots. Kingdoms appearing to be the size of my thumbprint up there. I was so high up that, if not for the wind magic I had learned during my climb to keep warm, there would be not enough air around me to breathe. I was closer to the moon than to the world’s surface.
Having finally reached the top of the tree… having claimed the desire I have felt since my birth… I only have one question for you.
How, precisely, did you manage to get a pizza up here in 30 minutes???
Commentary: I freely admit, I couldn’t think of a good way to wrap this one up, so I gave it a punchline instead of a resolution. I still think it’s funny though.