This is a serial, the first part is HERE

Chapter 25: Defensive Recursion

The hatch led to a marble white staircase that seemed to spiral back into itself. The walls and ceiling were close to this, and apart from a ball of clear water that seemed caged by the stairs, there was nothing to be seen. The walls and ceiling were as the staircase, and it lent another dizzying aspect to the stairs that were plenty disorientating themselves.

“Oooh, that’s getting me right in the stem. I’m going to close my eyes Doctor, I cannot stand to look at it”

She couldn’t stand at all, in a sense on account of having no legs, but Doctor Bones set her pot down on a step and thus, you could call that standing.

-It isn’t that bad- Dr. Bones quibbled, leaning dangerously close to an edge of the stairs, which were, I might add, completely without rails of any kind.

“Not bad? It makes my head feel like it’ll swell like an over-ripe melon!”

Dr. Bones was merely considering how the stairs compared to the innards of some creatures. There were a lot of beings who had internal parts that were arranged in a much more disturbing manner. Still, he didn’t want to argue with a plant, no matter how advanced in thought she was. So, instead he nipped her complaints in the bud with a distraction.

He pulled out her prosthetic body again and slotted her into it.

After Miss Fern had finished spasming, she had a question for Dr. Bones, who if one believed all appearances was inspecting the steps of the stairs.

“Is this really all that’s in this tower? Tell me its secrets Doctor, there has to be more, right?”

Dr. Bones nodded and entered into lecture mode.

-There’s a good bit more, yes. This room is an isolation chamber. It had several defences against intruders and contaminants. The most simple is that if you kept walking around on the stairs, you’d never get anywhere. You have to leap into the water, which will cleanse you and then you’ll appear in the first few levels. There should be other defences and safeguards, but our main issue here is that the transportation from the water isn’t functioning. I’m trying to jog my memory to find a way to get it going, even if only temporary-

“Oh” Miss Fern remarked, following only a bit of what Dr. Bones was saying.

“Wait, we have to jump in there?”

Dr. Bones didn’t even reply as he was sitting crosslegged and had his fingers splayed and pointing at his skull. His glowing eyes grew dark. He was entering into his own mind. He hadn’t tried it before for a number of reasons, but upon a staircase folding in on itself, there were few environments as good for a little heavy introspection. That and he needed to kludge a fix for the water.

Yet, what greeted Dr. Bones when he attempted to plumb the murky depths of his own memories was fire.

Fire and what at first seemed a bird of flame.

Yet, no bird has the body of a serpent.

No bird has the head of a unicorn.

The head of a unicorn, but instead of one horn, a heavy crown of thorny horns.