In this day and age, the Tower of Marvels was only five stories tall, and its interior had been renovated. The bottom three floors were for merchandise and exhibitions, the fourth floor was an auction area open only to distinguished guests, and the top floor belonged to the inventors' club.
Mr. Finch had intended to invite Shade to tour the Tower of Marvels. He was immensely proud of the shop he had founded all those years ago. But the moment the two stepped through the entrance of the white tower, carpeted in red, before Shade could even properly inspect its interior, a young man of the second ring hurried over:
"Mr. Finch, something happened on the Fourth Floor. Mr. Munoz asked me to find you and bring you there quickly."
As he spoke, he looked at Shade as though he wanted to say something, but Mr. Finch shook his head:
"This is the young man I mentioned, the one I wanted to introduce to Munoz. It's fine, take us both to the Fourth Floor. What exactly happened? The tower doesn't keep anything strange in its collection, does it?"
"You'd better come upstairs and see for yourself. I can't explain it clearly either."
From the first floor of the five-story Tower of Marvels, one could see all the way to the top. The central portions of the floors above had been removed and enclosed with railings, forming something like an atrium. Besides stairways along the sides connecting the floors, there was naturally also an elevator.
And this elevator was not the sort commonly found in ancient ruins, with an unknown power source. It was a genuine steam-powered elevator, like those in the Outlander's memories.
The floor tiles in the tower formed alternating indigo and white squares, while the walls had all