The Fractured Tower

Book 2, Chapter 29

“You are not rank 4. No way. It’s impossible,” Yoru said, jabbing a finger at Sorin. “I thought I must be mistaken when I saw you unleash that Still Winter, that it was something weaker but similar, because a rank 4 couldn’t possibly have a D-rank soulprint, but no, every time I see you fight, I’m more and more sure I’m right.”

Yoru was right, of course, but Sorin knew how he felt to others, and that was exactly like what a rank 4 was supposed to. A part of him almost wanted to tell Yoru the truth, that he was rank 7, but that would only invite more questions, and those would inevitably lead to topics he didn’t want to discuss.

“I see. Well, I won’t tell you what to believe, Yoru. If you want to think that I’m too good to actually be the rank I obviously am, that’s fine by me. Now, how about we sort through these warblers and see if we can’t find a soulprint or two?”

“I… But… And you… You just…”

Sorin walked past his temporary teammate, clapping a hand on his shoulder as he went, and started sorting through the bodies. With a massive, disgruntled sigh, Yoru gave up on whatever it was he’d been trying to say and went the opposite direction.

“Oh, here’s one,” Sorin called out, beckoning the others to come closer. “Odric, looks like a simple Water Breathing soulprint. Think you could get that out while I check the rest?”

“Uh, yeah, but the rain’s going to make it difficult to get it into some preserving fluids without contamination.”

“I’m sure you can manage, but I guess if no one objects, I’ll just take it now. It’s not like I won’t need it eventually.”

Sorin wasn’t terribly excited about this weak version that had limited functionality. It would only work properly in shallow water, and he was pretty sure it had to be fresh water, too. That wasn’t even looking at the time constraints—roughly half an hour before needing to surface. He could strengthen it, of course, but he’d rather just get something better later on down the line.

“Actually, I was wondering if it might be useful for Water Bond later,” Nemari said.

“That’s an excellent point. You should take it instead,” Sorin told her. “Yoru? Any objections?”

“None,” came the reply.

“There you go. Let’s get this frog sliced open for you. Watch out for the blood; it’s mildly acidic.”

Sorin stabbed a knife into the corpse and split open the flesh, being careful not to get any of the bubbling green blood on his skin. After a few quick movements, he pulled sideways and revealed a glistening gray organ to the open air. “There you go.”

Nemari stuck a hand in the warbler’s body until her finger touched the organ. It started to crumble a moment later. “Got it,” she said.

They also found Water Walking and Acidic Blood in two of the other warblers, which was a fantastic haul, as far as Sorin was concerned. “I thought you said we weren’t going to come across any copies of Water Walk,” he casually mentioned to Yoru as Rue claimed that soulprint.

“I did not expect to take on an entire colony of warbler frogs,” he admitted. “At least, I didn’t think we’d win. It was a bit of a desperate situation, not something I’d voluntarily farm.”

“Well, it worked out for us in the end, so it’s fine. We took two of the soulprints, so I guess we can just say the Acidic Blood one is yours to do what you will with.”

“Mutagenic soulprints always sell well. I’m sure I can get a decent price for even this one.”

“Really? I didn’t realize there was such a big market for them.”

“It’s—” Yoru paused, looking askance at Sorin. “The Black Hellion has a standard order for them. The prices don’t fluctuate much because he’s let it be known how much he’s willing to pay for them, and it’s more than they’re normally worth.”

“Huh. Interesting use of his funds, I suppose.”

Mutagenic soulprints caused physical changes in the user’s body. Musclebound was a popular example, increasing a climber’s base strength by sculpting their body to beyond human limits of fitness and increasing their height to accommodate the excess muscle. Even if the soulprint was later torn out, the physical changes remained, which could be a blessing or a curse.

In many cases, the magic of the soulprint helped maintain a body that couldn’t function on its own. Acidic Blood was a prime example of that. If someone used it to turn their blood to acid, it would dissolve their own body from the inside unless a small but constant flow of anima went toward shielding the user. Removing the soulprint would destroy that protection, killing whoever was stupid enough to try.

That wasn’t always the case, however. Musclebound made permanent physical changes and used anima to maintain the strength infused into those muscles, but removing it would only result in the user needing to work out religiously to hold onto their physique. They would almost certainly fail and lose some muscle mass, but other than that, the only damage would be to their soulspace from ripping out the soulprint.

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Samael is presumably building himself some sort of coterie of mutagenic climbers, but I can’t imagine what purpose something like that would serve. I guess, with enough careful planning, he could create climbers who hit well above their rank by virtue of having stacked up so many soulprints and then removed them. It would be easier and faster to just keep climbing so that their soulspaces grew rather than take this route, though.

Maybe they’re meant to be underestimated. Someone who feels like a rank 10 but has cycled through enough mutagenic soulprints to rival a rank 15 would be a deadly surprise to fight against. I’m just not sure who they’d be needed to confront though. Could it be some sort of political thing back on Floor 0 to help him maintain his alliance with the ruling factions and keep his stranglehold on the underworld?

At some point, Sorin was going to need to figure out what exactly Samael was doing in the red tower. He’d been here for a decade already, and in that time, Sorin would have expected to make it back up to the top of the tower. Instead, Samael was somewhere between rank 15 and rank 30, and nobody was quite sure exactly what he was.

“What does he need them for?” Sorin asked, going for off-handed curiosity with his tone and hoping Yoru wouldn’t read too much into it.

“I shouldn’t speculate,” Yoru said with some hesitation.

“Why? You afraid he’s going to pop up out of that bush if we talk about him?”

Yoru actually glanced over as if to reassure himself that the Black Hellion himself wasn’t lurking there, then let out an annoyed huff. “No, because speculation on his motives gets people killed when they try to act on their assumptions. It’s enough to know that he’s the strongest climber in the tower and to stay out of his way. I suppose it’s a bit too late for you, though.”

“Samael, the strongest in the tower? Please.” When Yoru didn’t laugh, Sorin paused. “Wait. You’re serious? What about all the rank 50s and up? Do they never come back to the lower floors?”

“Who knows if there are any still alive? It doesn’t matter, either way. They can’t get back.”

“What? Why wouldn’t they?”

Is this something everyone here knows about? It certainly explains why the ruling families haven’t called any of their heavies back home to deal with an upstart new climber taking over the city.

“Ah, this… This isn’t exactly common knowledge. I’m sure you’d discover it for yourself if not for your circumstances.” Yoru hesitated, like he was trying to work up the courage to do something, then nodded to himself. “I suppose you deserve to know. Samael could capture you easily if he wanted to come personally attend to the task.”

“I am aware,” Sorin said dryly.

“Right, but he’s not lazy. It’s not that he’s sitting in his manor sipping wine and gloating about how clever he is to the staff. He’s just busy manning the Wall on Floor 24.”

Oh, no. I do not like the sound of this.

“I have not heard of the Wall,” Sorin said delicately.

“It’s not spread around outside the high families. Normal climbers rarely make it past rank 10 anyway. It generally takes family backing or an unfair amount of luck to climb higher than that, so it’s not something anyone who isn’t going to the Wall needs to know about. Telling everyone would just cause problems.”

“It’s the void, isn’t it?”

Yoru nodded. “All of Floor 25. It spread downward, too. Floor 24 is basically a warzone of the most powerful climbers in the tower with specialized builds designed to combat voidlings.”

“That’s why you said Void Resistance would be so valuable,” Sorin realized. “It’ll slow down the attrition of your anima in a prolonged void contact situation.”

Sorin was no stranger to these types of infestations. He’d cleared out four or five of them himself back in his home tower. The real mystery was why nobody had done the same here, and how it had been allowed to spread so far that it had taken over an entire floor. Surely somebody from higher in the tower could have stopped it early.

But apparently, they hadn’t, and now there was a hard ceiling a quarter of the way up the tower. Nobody could grow past rank 24, and anyone who tried met certain death. That included Samael, though he was no doubt artificially more powerful. Farming Floor 24 monsters might get him to the equivalent of rank 30 over a few months, rank 35 over a few years, but he’d never reach the point where he was strong enough to solo an entire floor of void beasts.

And that’s why he wants me. I’m the only other person who can grow past this soft cap the red tower is suffering under. Together, we might break through the Wall, if not end the infestation entirely. The only problem is that involves trusting him, and I can’t see that happening. The moment we’re through to the other side, he’ll try to kill me.

“Exactly so. I’ve never heard of the tower rewarding anyone with Void Resistance, but I hope you’re right. Maybe this is the start of the tower itself helping us fight back. Breaking the Void Wall and clearing Floor 25 is the ultimate goal of a lot of climbers from the high families. It would be amazing to see that happen in my lifetime.”

“Yeah,” Sorin said softly. “You’ve given me a lot to think about. Thanks, Yoru.”

“You deserved to know. Whatever it is Samael wants with you, you’re tied up in all this now. But… Uh… If you do end up captured, you didn’t hear any of this from me.”

Sorin started laughing. “Alright. That’s fair. But hey, one step at a time. Let’s get you to the portal hub before anybody sees you with me and decides they need to question you.”

“A worthy goal,” Yoru said dryly.

You know, he was kind of an asshole when I first met him, but he’s a lot easier to work with than I thought he’d be.

The rain didn’t let up that day or that night, but the team kept walking anyway. They were attacked a few more times before they made camp for the night, but nothing as dangerous as a whole army of frogs. Once they were stationary, Sorin took the time to build a dome of ice to keep the rain off them. It required constant maintenance to stop it from melting, but between him forming the shelter and Nemari helping to dry everyone off, they finally got a few hours of relative comfort.

They woke up the next day to an impenetrable wall of fog. Sorin and Yoru stared at it together, neither able to even see the trees a hundred feet away. “You think that’ll be a problem navigating?” Sorin asked.

“Probably. We could try to wait it out, or just run blind and course correct once it lifts.”

“You’re that confident in your abilities?”

Yoru shrugged. “I know my limits.”

“Alright. Let’s do it. Everyone stays close together and on high alert. This fog won’t stop the monsters from trying to kill us.”