She tightened her fist and hardened herself. The journey to the Tilting Tower had been almost a week long trek and all of her energy had been sapped. Stale blood crusted along the breaks in her skin and if she focused she could still smell the singe of her hair from that unfortunate encounter with an overzealous dwarf. Dirt decorated her skin and a swelling still burned and bubbled over her poignant brow.

And yet she hadn’t felt the shudder of fear until she passed the mountains and her eyes first laid on the tower. A mist - which she had previously assumed to be just fallen clouds - enraptured the base of the building, like an evil trying to shroud itself. Trees stood strong behind the structure, but in front there grew only mushrooms, which Eilidh assumed to be poisonous and - despite her rumbling belly - chose not to test her theory. Half-formed wooden graves and rotting bones marked the front garden of the tower and jagged rocks lined the pathway to the tower’s entrance. The tower itself was structurally impossible, leant so far to its left that the only explanation for its standing must be magic: Eilidh was in the right place.

She swerved up the stone path and rapped her knuckles against the deforming wooden gate - which still held together miraculously well. Silence. She pounded against the door once more and, again, no response. She was about to let loose a third series it knocks when a raspy voice yelled, ‘Go away!’

The voice surprised Eilidh, this man was meant to be a great wizard, she had expected a domineering, bass, not a weak rasp. ‘I need your help!’

‘I don’t care!’

‘Please, the Kingdom is on the verge of destruction,’ she begged, with a slight of aggression in her tone.

‘Not my problem.’

A frustrated anger rose up through Eilidh. When she had set off on her journey all who had once known the great wizard called her a fool for trying to duel with his arrogance. But there was a reason only she could recruit the legendary figure.

Eilidh took a step away from the door and felt her emotional palette clear, like water over dirt. Another gaze around the area forced her to admit to herself that this place enamored her. The eerie mist now only felt like scary face paint over a pleasant face, in fact something about it made it feel removable. And the lack of sunlight appeared to be a purposeful invention. Behind the tower blocks of rock and soil floated, they levitated as if bobbing through the ocean. It was remarkable. And the flock of crows which circled the tower agreed with her, taking rest on those impossible islands. Yet the fantasy of the area didn’t deter her from her mission, it couldn’t. She uttered her ace, ‘Help us. Dad.’

In that instance the door, which looked as if it should have decayed a century ago crumbled to dust. And multiple thuds, like meteors, sent shockwaves through the land. The top half of the tower rumbled and Eilidh almost began sprinting away as she feared the whole structure would cave in and suck her into her grave. But the top of the tower too crumbled to dust. What remained was a small hut with no door and a yellow light shining through from a hallway. The structure was easy on the eye, especially as the mist had dissipated and whatever had blocked out the sun had disappeared.

From the hallway emerged a man - a head taller than Eilidh, bald but with a fierce graying beard and two eyebrows which could burn a hole in someone. He stood there, motionless. His lips trembling as he searched for the right words. Eilidh took the lead, ‘We need to talk.’