The Fractured Tower

Book 2, Chapter 32

It was only two sentences, but there was a lot to unpack there. Rue had barely finished processing the claimed rank 100, let alone the implication that Sorin—and Samael—had been ‘sent to’ the tower somehow when both Nemari and Yoru started speaking over each other.

Sorin raised a hand to cut them both off. “I know. I wouldn’t believe it either, not without some proof. I can’t tell you what happens at the very top of the tower because the truth is that I don’t remember. I know my team and I were on Floor 100. I remember locating the guardian’s arena. I don’t remember fighting it, and I don’t remember what came next.”

He drew his sword—an elegant thing he’d gotten from the Floor 2 Antechamber—and held it out for their inspection. “The tower I was born in, the one I climbed in, was blue. Blue portals. Blue Antechambers, blue exterior. This exact blue here on the pommel. Anywhere your tower is red, mine was blue.

“Samael told me during a brief conversation I had with his projection that he was originally from an orange tower. Someone told me that he has a sword matching mine, only green, which leads me to believe he lied to me about his point of origin. I’m not sure if it makes a difference, or if lying is just so ingrained into his every action that he can’t help himself.”

“It’s an interesting thought experiment, but I don’t believe it’s physically possible for someone your age to ascend to the top of the tower, this or any other,” Yoru said.

“That’s what you meant!” Rue said. “You told us you were fifty-five once, but you never explained it.”

Sorin nodded. “In my original tower, the common belief is that reaching the top grants you immortality and god-like power. I don’t know if this counts, but the day I woke up in your tower, I was in this younger version of my body. It took me forty years to climb to the top, and the tower gave me thirty of them back. Who knows what will happen when I make it back this time?”

“As I said, an interesting thought experiment. How will you prove it?”

“For the moment, I can only offer circumstantial evidence. I appear to be rank 4, however… Rue, what rank would you say I am?”

“7,” she said instantly.

“And why do you think that?”

“Aura Sense shows me the aura of a rank 7 climber. You’re the only person I’ve ever met whose aura doesn’t match their rank.”

Sorin raised a hand and pointed to his right. A blade of force appeared at his left shoulder and flew the opposite direction. “How many climbers do you know at rank 4 who could do that trick? I was doing it at rank 0 in this tower.”

“That’s true,” Nemari said. “One of the reasons I agreed to take him on as part of our team was that he said he’d teach me how to do it. I still didn’t manage it until I was rank 2. Even then, there were extenuating circumstances.”

Yoru looked back and forth at everyone, then sighed and shook his head. “This proves that something’s going on with you, but we all knew that already. It doesn’t prove that you’re from some alternate version of the tower, or that you climbed to the top, or that Samael has the same background.”

“Yes, like I said, it’s circumstantial. And I’ve kept this a secret until now because it’s very easy to imagine word getting out and some rank 50 or 60 deciding to come take me and hold me prisoner just to extract any sort of advantage out of me. I’m trusting that you’re telling me the truth about the Void Wall, and that the threats I might face if this becomes public aren’t unbeatable.”

“You’re not in any position to face even a rank 24,” Yoru pointed out.

“No, but I’m strong enough to run away.”

“That’s debatable, but I’ll grant you the point in theory. But whether or not any of this is true, what my father is going to want to know is simple. Can you actually get rid of Samael and check the advance of the Void Wall? That’s the gamble you’re asking my family to take. If we support you, will you be able to deliver on those promises?”

“Getting rid of Samael? Absolutely. That’s a matter of time and resources to close the gap. He’s been spending most of the last decade building up an organization instead of growing his personal power, probably because he hit the point of diminishing returns by the end of his first year. I think I can catch up to him fairly quickly.”

For the other part, though, Sorin was less confident. Fighting off voidlings was a war of attrition. It didn’t matter how skilled he was; every conflict was going to sap anima from him. Eventually, he’d be worn down to a nub. It made perfect sense to him why Samael had approached the problem by creating an organization, equipping them to fight voidlings specifically, and then throwing them to their deaths.

This text was taken from NovelBin. Help the author by reading the original version there.

It was exactly what Sorin would have done if he was a heartless bastard. Since he wasn’t, though, he’d take on a more decisive role in the process. The tower was building him up directly in response to threats just like this one, after all, and not just him, either. There were six people standing there who all had some measure of protection against voidlings.

“All of us are the start to addressing the problem with the void itself. I realize this sounds crazy to say it out loud, but look what the Antechamber gave us. We—”

“What you say it gave us,” Yoru cut him off. “We haven’t actually proven anything yet.”

“Okay, fair enough. It’s not like a voidling pops out of a hole in the ground every other day. But I’m confident that I’m right, here.”

The argument could have gone on all day. The simple fact of it was that while Sorin could prove there was a lot of weird stuff going on, none of it actually pointed to him being a rank 100 climber who’d been gifted with youth and placed in another tower. A sword that happened to be blue didn’t mean a blue tower existed, and he had one random person’s word on it that Samael had an identical green version.

Earth Warder told him there was a nice, half-ton boulder mostly buried not a hundred feet to his right. Perfect,

he thought to himself. Maybe a trip into liminal space will be enough to convince him.“Let me show you something,” Sorin said, leading the group over toward the boulder. Only a foot or so stuck out of the soft ground, but that was more than Sorin needed. He used his soulprint to carve the seven-tower sign into the exposed surface, then pointed Yoru’s attention toward it. “This is the key to entering liminal space. I don’t know why it works that way, but without this symbol, which has to be carved by someone who has the Liminal Gateway soulprint, there’s no connection.”

“You’re going to—” Rue started to ask, but she cut herself off. “You said it was too dangerous to keep using it.”

“It’s a risk,” Sorin agreed. “For all I know, Samael could be there right now. But I need you all to believe that I’m telling the truth, and this is the best way I can think of to make that happen.”

“And… what is all of this?” Yoru asked. “You didn’t mention that soulprint before.”

“This is how Samael smuggled everything back to Floor 0. I built this path myself, but last time I tried to use it, I discovered that he’d modified it. I’ve been avoiding it ever since.”

“It sounds like you’re asking me to do something quite dangerous,” Yoru said.

“Don’t make a sound when we get there,” Sorin warned him. “The void seems to… react to it. I’ve already had to fight off full-fledged void beasts there once.”

Yoru’s eyes widened in alarm. “Well now I definitely don’t want to do whatever this is.”

But Sorin just grabbed his shoulder, pushed his awareness down into his soulspace, and triggered Liminal Gateway.

* * *

“Where did they go?” Vendis demanded, whipping around to face Rue.

“He told you where,” Rue shot right back. “Kind of jealous, actually. I wanted to see it, too.”

This was not the way to go about negotiating, Sorin,

Nemari thought with a small sigh. You could have brought him around without kidnapping him. Well, maybe this is my fault. I doubted you so much about everything, it’s no wonder you’re leaping to extremes now. I guess that makes it my responsibility to try to smooth this over.“It’s alright, Vendis,” Nemari said. “They’ll be back in a minute.”

“How is it alright? He said there were void beasts in wherever it is they just went. He said a hostile rank 24 could be there, waiting for him. What tower are you living in that you think that’s alright?”

“I understand. You’re responsible for his safety, but I promise you, he’ll be back in a minute.”

Vendis shifted his glare from one person to the next until all three of them had a turn. “I promise you this: if Yoru Telpike doesn’t come back unharmed, none of you will leave this floor alive.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Rue told him.

“Rue!” Nemari said. “Let’s not antagonize anyone during an already stressful time, okay? Vendis has every right to be upset, but your needling is as unwelcome as his threats are.”

“I’m just saying, we all saw how fast that group of mercs put him down. I’m not afraid of him, and I don’t appreciate him talking to me like that.”

Odric reached out to put a hand on Rue’s shoulder. “He’s worried about his friend. Just let it pass by.”

Thank you, Nemari thought fervently as Rue allowed her brother to calm the situation. Odric really was the rock they’d built their group on, right up until Sorin had tipped her whole life on its head.

The glower on Vendis’s face didn’t relent, but he held his tongue after that. Rue turned her efforts toward watching for any type of monster that might approach through the fog, and the rest of them hunched near the rock, watching half-fearfully to see what happened.

The fear that Samael himself might pop out of that sign made Nemari want to destroy it immediately, but of course she couldn’t do that without preventing Sorin and Yoru from returning. Minutes dragged on, each one seeing Vendis grow visibly more upset.

Nemari spent her time mentally oscillating between trying to figure out a plan for damage control and disbelief that she somehow found herself accepting that Sorin was telling the truth. It was as much an explanation as anything else she’d ever considered, and just as unprovable. But she had a hard time recalling a time he’d outright lied about anything. Generally, if he hadn’t wanted to answer something, he’d just said that.

Are you sure you aren’t just buying into it because this whole situation has got you trapped in a ruin and he’s your only way out?

“What is that?” Vendis asked sharply, drawing her from her contemplations before she could find an answer.

Following his pointed finger, she saw what looked like ink beading up on the symbol Sorin had magically carved into the rock. It dribbled down the outside curve of the circle, then rolled down to touch the wet grass below. Another blob oozed up out of nowhere, followed swiftly by a third.

“Oh. Fuck,” Rue said. “Should we run?”

Vendis frowned. “Why would we run? They’re not back yet.”

“Because that is a voidling coming to life right in front of our eyes,” Rue told him. “And I’m not as confident as Sorin apparently is in our ability to kill it.”