The Fractured Tower

Book 2, Chapter 25

The two climbers had been stripped down to their pants and shirts. Their pockets were empty and anything they could conceivably use as a weapon was far out of reach. That having been said, Sorin was well aware that soulprints didn’t generally require any equipment to function, so he approached the captives with all due caution.

“Let’s start with something easy,” Sorin said. “Who sponsored the bounties?”

The one Sorin had captured, who he mentally dubbed as ‘Chokey,’ sneered up at him. “Black Hellions.”

No surprise there.

“Samael himself, or someone a bit lower in the chain of command?”

“How the fuck would I know? I don’t ask who wants you or why, I just ask where to bring you to get paid.”

“And where’s that?” Sorin asked.

“Blackmoore Street, same place all Hellion bounties go. They got a little prison built into the basement there. What happens to a bounty after I drop them off isn’t any of my business,” Chokey told him.

Sorin glanced back at the rest of his team. “You guys know it?”

Rue nodded. “Nothing new so far.”

“So, you have no idea who put the price on our heads. You just saw an opportunity and decided to grab it,” Sorin said. “You realize that if you don’t know anything else, you’re not exactly useful to me. Half your team is already dead. It won’t be much trouble to throw four bodies over the edge instead of two.”

Fear flickered in Chokey’s eyes, but Lumpy appeared to be too concussed to really follow the conversation. Other than staring blearily and occasionally straining against his ropes in a futile attempt to get comfortable, he just sat there.

“What else do you want to know?” Chokey asked, licking his lips as he glanced from Sorin to Yoru to the two dead bodies, and then back to Sorin again. “Sorry, but they don’t list who’s sponsoring the bounties on the board, just the price tag and whether they want you dead.”

“And did they want us dead?”

“You alive, the rest of your team negotiable, but more value alive.”

That could mean they wanted to question the team about Sorin or that they wanted to hold them as hostages so that he’d do whatever it was Samael wanted. Either way, Sorin’s take on it was that Samael had probably decided it was far too difficult to try to hunt them down with his relatively limited personnel and that offering an enticing sum of money to every single climber everywhere was the smarter option.

That would explain why I didn’t run into any Hellions trying to grab me down at the portal hub, too. Someone spotted me, ran back to Floor 0, and collected a finder’s fee to tell them where I was. That let a different person in the organization, maybe Samael himself, but probably a middle manager type, know to dispatch his brute squad. Only they underestimated me, again, and lost three more teams.

“Where are they putting up these bounties at?” Sorin asked. “Who’s seeing this information?”

“All over the place if you’re the right part of society. Honestly, man, how do you not know this already?”

Sorin was well aware of how the criminal elements of Floor 0 operated, but that was broad strokes knowledge carried over from his home tower. He didn’t know the specifics of how this city’s underworld had organized itself, or who they’d gotten their tendrils in. But Yoru had been persuaded to hire a team of mercenaries who hadn’t thought twice of disposing of him when a better opportunity came along, so Sorin had to assume they’d gotten their hooks into some pretty powerful people.

He got a couple more names and places out of Chokey, but he didn’t push too hard because the truth of it was that Sorin wasn’t a subtle man. He was mostly looking for Black Hellion strongholds to hit for when he went back to Floor 0 in a few months at rank 20 and trashed their holdings. The exact specifics of who managed the bounty board didn’t really matter.

When he was done, Yoru shoved his way in. Things got a bit more physical there when he started creating small, fast-moving pebbles to shoot Chokey with in between demanding answers. It didn’t help, but considering how badly injured Yoru and Vendis had been when Sorin had arrived, he could understand the loss of control.

Sorin couldn’t follow much of that part of the interrogation; it involved a lot of people he’d never heard of who’d apparently vouched for this or that person. He did notice that Nemari seemed to understand most of what was going on, and made a note to see if he could get the abbreviated version of events later.

Eventually, Yoru seemingly ran out of questions. He cast one last disgusted look back at the pair of captives, then said, “Give me another twenty minutes. I’ve already sent a message back home to summon a pair of porters and some guards to take all of this off your hands. They’ll bring your payment, as well.”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Sure,” Sorin said easily.

The longer they waited, the more likely it was someone would interfere, but a giant sack of money would be useful for their next resupply and some more upgrades once they reached the Floor 4 hub. Unless Samael himself came strolling up the trail, he was confident they could defeat or escape any new issues that popped up.

“You all are sure you want to challenge the floor guardian immediately?” Yoru asked. “I know you said you planned to, but…”

“Learning about the bounties just means it’s even more important we get off this floor as quickly as possible,” Nemari told him.

With an unhappy sigh, Yoru nodded along. “I suppose that’s fair. Honestly, I’m amazed you all have made it this far. You’re incredibly lucky. If it were me, I’d be retreating back to a lower floor and spending my days moving around as much as possible.”

Sorin didn’t mention that he’d planned on doing exactly that for the rest of his team, especially since they wouldn’t be taking the normal floor portal to do so. Given the rewards waiting for people to bring his entire group in, it was probably impossible to move through any portal hub without their movements being reported back to the Hellions.

“There are four of you,” Yoru said. “Would you be interested in making a bit more money?”

Sorin saw where this conversation was going immediately. “If you want to tag along for the kill, that’s fine by me.”

“I’d planned to take the Antechamber portal this time as well.”

“Not really interested in climbing Floor 4 with you,” Sorin said. “No offense.”

“Believe me, the feeling is mutual. However, your team seems to be fairly desperately in need of climbing supplies that can be obtained discreetly. I propose a partnership through the portal and to the Floor 4 hub--let’s say to within a mile or so, given your lack of desire to be seen. In return, I’ll provide you with the rations to keep you all well-fed for the next week or so, and additionally run in anything we find trekking across Floor 4 to the portal hub, as well as bring you a resupply back out.”

“Give us a moment to discuss it, please.”

Sorin retreated down the trail a little ways, though he wasn’t confident it was far enough to avoid being overheard. Any number of soulprints would give Yoru the physical boost needed to eavesdrop.

“I don’t have any big objections,” he started out, “and the resupply would help push that problem down the road another month or so, maybe. However… it does derail our plans a bit. And there’s a bit of danger in going so close to the portal hub.”

“At the same time, we’re approaching Floor 4 blind,” Nemari said. “I only know vague details about the floor, nothing specific like geography of monster composition. But I bet Yoru’s got the map memorized, so he’d probably be a big help figuring out where we land and which way to go.”

“Sure, but he was also a giant dick the first time we met him,” Rue said. “Do we really want to hang out with him for however long it takes, especially with… you know… everything we’ve got going on right now?”

“From a practical angle, having another healer in the group would allow me to focus more fully on working the front lines of the fights,” Odric pointed out. “Sorin hasn’t really been around to fulfill his role in our team lately, and we’re moving up to an even more dangerous floor.”

“I would not leave you alone on Floor 4,” Sorin said. “That was never the plan.”

“If we do this, he’s going to find out about stuff you didn’t really want spread around,” Rue told Sorin. “You know he’s not stupid, right?”

“I’m not really trying to hide what I can do. He’s welcome to think whatever he likes. Just keep the details to yourself, and we’ll be fine.”

Nemari shook her head. “You say that, but you don’t know what the high families are like. Their politics can get vicious, and Samael’s got connections throughout them. Yoru’s is probably the least connected, from what I’ve heard, and they can’t deny Samael if he leans on them. Yoru knowing anything about you puts him at risk the same way I was.”

“That’s something we can make clear to him, but it’ll be his choice to accept that risk. If he’d rather wait until he can round up a new team to enter Floor 4, that’ll be up to him.”

No one offered an objection to that. After a few more moments, Sorin asked, “Any other thoughts on this change to our plan?”

“He’s still a dick,” Rue mumbled under her breath.

“Sure, but I like not having to ration our food or spend half the day foraging, and monster meat usually tastes like shit. I’m willing to put up with his entitled attitude for a few days if it means a month or more of not having to worry about where the next meal is coming from,” Sorin said.

That more or less ended the conversation, and they split back apart. Yoru hadn’t moved from where he was standing over the prisoners. They were sitting there, Chokey in sullen silence and Lumpy with the occasional groan. He must have had some sort of regeneration soulprint, because his concussion was already clearing up. Those ropes wouldn’t hold him if he decided to break free, which was looking increasingly likely based on the fidgeting.

“We talked it over, and we’re fine with your proposal so long as you understand that you’re putting a target on your back if people find out you’re associating with me,” Sorin told Yoru softly, his head turned away from Chokey. “Those two are absolutely going to have to die, though. Whatever you decide to do, if you let them live, you will have the Black Hellion himself wanting to talk to you.”

“They won’t be leaving the interrogation chambers while they’re still breathing,” Yoru said darkly. “Don’t concern yourself with that. Breaking faith with a Telpike is never a good idea. If they’d thought farther ahead than their next purse full of danirs, they would have known better than to try this in the first place.”

The porters and guards showed up soon after. Chokey used some sort of cutting ability to sever the ropes and tried to make a break for it by literally jumping over the side of the trail and skidding down the mountain slope, but he barely made it twenty feet before Sorin took his legs out from under him with a force blade. Lumpy didn’t even manage to get upright.

The excess gear went with the two prisoners, leaving Sorin’s team alone with Yoru and Vendis. All six of them climbed to the arena, which was nothing but dark, scorched earth and irregularly spaced squat stone pillars. There were several corpses strewn about, some up the slope and caught on protrusions, others laying limp at the edge of the arena.

“Damn, you weren’t kidding,” Rue said as she eyed the place up. “You’re sure you got them all?”

“As much as I can be,” Sorin told her. “I figure if there was another group, they’d have come out to help when I was fighting these ones.”

“My God,” Yoru said. His eyes flicked from one body to the next. “I thought you were exaggerating about the amount of resistance you’d encountered. Samael must hate you to an incredible degree to waste this many of his men on you, even if they’re the weaker ones.”

“Well, they’re dead now. Let’s get this over with before more show up,” Nemari said.