The Fractured Tower

Book 2, Chapter 48

There were old stone walls littered throughout the desert. Sometimes, multiple walls connected together. Rarely, there was something resembling a roof. Everyone knew they were part of the floor’s landscape, not something built by humans. The simple proof was that if the climbers knocked one of the old ruins down, it would reappear later.

That wasn’t to say they were unchanging. The tower would put something back in that spot, but it did tend to jumble things up. What might have been a north-south oriented wall a week ago could stretch from east to west now. A span of stonework with windows in it could be bare and solid the next time anyone saw it.

They were somewhat famously a hotspot for conflict, usually between climbers and monsters. Shade, and thus some measure of relief from the incessant heat of the floor, was in short supply, making the ruins attractive to just about anyone traveling the desert. Even having soulprints like Heat Resistance didn’t eliminate the unpleasant effects of the climate.

So, climbers stopped there to rest. That in turn attracted monsters seeking a meal, which made the broken-down stone buildings somewhat of a natural trap. Since it was inevitable that a fight would release a ton of anima, tracking became difficult.

Kashi followed the trail across four ruins. Each time, it took him upward of half an hour to confirm he was still on the right trail before they set off again. They were making progress, but it was hard to say if they were actually catching up to the rest of the team.

“Aw, hell,” the tracker said, stopping in place. “I think I know where they went.”

“The Shiaru Oasis. Makes sense,” Yoru said.

“The thing is, I’m pretty sure they didn’t go there alone. There’s another set of echoes intermingling with them. No violence, at least, but…”

“Could simply be a climbing team they bumped into on the way,” Sorin said. “One way to find out.”

The group picked up its pace, all of them eager to reach the end of their journey. Kashi kept them on the right track, but the closer they got to the oasis, the clearer it became that their initial guess was accurate.

There were no less than four groups sitting around the oasis, their camps set up in the shade of palm trees near the water’s edge. No monsters troubled the climbers, at least not at the moment. The tower might create new ones, but it rarely did so directly on top of people.

The oasis sat in the middle of open desert, a tiny spot of green amidst a sea of dead, brown land. There were no hills, no stone walls, no rocky crags or lone buttes. It was just a smattering of trees, a pond, and twenty or so people resting there.

Sorin’s eyes skimmed past the other teams and came to rest on Rue and Odric sitting on a downed log in the scant shade. Nemari was laying nearby, her head propped up on a folded cloak and her eyes closed.

“Finally,” he breathed out softly. “They sure didn’t make it easy for us.”

There was no way the climbers resting at the oasis hadn’t seen Sorin’s group closing in on them, but none of them appeared that concerned. He idly wondered if that would have changed if they could see Sorin’s true rank, or even just feel Kashi’s from farther away.

They circled around the outside edge to avoid approaching any of the other groups while Rue and Odric watched them silently. It wasn’t until they got close that Rue stood up, her hand clamped around the hilt of one of her swords.

“Yoru,” she said coldly.

He stared back silently, either unsure of what to say in the face of Rue’s hostility or perhaps simply uncaring. Her expression slowly darkened, but before she could say anything, Odric stood up next to her.

“I’m glad you caught up to us,” he said as politely as possible.

“Something I should know about?” Sorin asked.

“Nemari explained how Yoru and Vendis abandoned her on this floor,” Odric told him.

Ah. And of course she’s taking it personally, and she’s pissed off about it.

“I had other business to attend to,” Yoru said simply. “Nemari was invited to come along.”

“You knew damn well that she couldn’t!” Rue snapped.

With a groan, Nemari’s eyes flickered open, and she sat up. Despite Odric’s work, it was obvious she still wasn’t fully recovered from the beating her family had given her. That was somewhat worrying, because she’d had more than enough time to get back to perfect health. It likely meant there was something wrong with her beyond Odric’s ability to fix.

That’ll be an issue. I thought we had her sorted out when I left last time.

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Suddenly, Rue’s anger made more sense. She wasn’t upset so much that Yoru had left Nemari behind as she was that Nemari had been seriously hurt, and so badly that she probably thought there was no fixing her.

“That’s hardly my fault. Nor is it my problem.”

“Enough,” Sorin cut in. “As amusing as the drama might be to watch unfold, Nemari is not Yoru’s responsibility. He’s right, Rue.”

“You—”

“I ran into more of Nemari’s family, including that uncle of hers with the peg leg.” Sorin paused and looked past Rue to where Nemari was sitting up. “I would venture to guess that there probably aren’t too many climbers left in the Sildfall family at this point.”

Nemari’s face paled, and she struggled to sit up. “You… killed them?” she asked, her eyes dull and her words starting to slur.

“It was six against one. They weren’t interested in a peaceful resolution, and incapacitation was too dangerous to attempt.”

That was a lie, of a sort. Sorin probably could have dealt non-lethal wounds and still come out on top, but he’d already done that once. Nemari’s family had proven they’d just come back if he was merciful. So he hadn’t been. He didn’t regret it.

“More impressed by those Hellion hunters you took out,” Kashi muttered. “Two fucking rank 15s. Nobody would ever believe me if I told them, let alone if I mentioned the other three.”

“Not important right now,” Sorin said firmly. He turned his full attention to Nemari. “What’s wrong here? I thought we had you on the road to recovery.”

“We did,” Odric said. “She was poisoned by some bug monster a few days ago. I’ve done my best to cleanse it, but it’s strong. Every day, she gets more delirious. It’s all I can do to slow the progress.”

That was a relief, in a way. It meant she probably didn’t have brain damage that would take a C-rank healing soulprint to address. Odric’s Cleanse was still F-ranked, as far as Sorin knew. It would be relatively ineffective against a powerful poison from Floor 3.

Crossing the distance to Nemari in a few swift steps, Sorin kneeled down next to her. “Don’t you worry. We’ll get this taken care of.”

The desert heat probably wasn’t helping matters, but he could tell she was burning up without even touching her. Her skin was flushed red, and her pupils had basically swallowed her irises. The puncture wound wasn’t visible—Odric had probably healed that easily enough—but Sorin could see hints of black veins in her arms and up the side of her neck.

It took him a few seconds to put together Purification. The D-ranked soulprint was useful for diseases, infections, poison, and basically any other non-magical malady that could befall a climber. It even worked to clean harmful parasites and bacteria out of water or meat to make it safe for consumption, making it an ideal utility soulprint for any climber under rank 25.

The magic flooded into Nemari. Instantly, her breathing evened out, and some of the faint, black coloring under her skin started to fade away. It would be a few more minutes before her fever subsided, but that was more a result of their environment than anything.

Both Odric and Vendis were staring at Sorin intently, but he ignored them for the moment. It was only natural that they’d have a professional interest in his ability as a healer, after all. The paranoid part of his brain tried to insist that it was something more, that they were evaluating him as competition and wondering if they needed to take steps to get rid of him.

That was a laughable thought, easily dismissed both because it had almost no chance of being true and because even if it was, neither of them could hope to do anything to Sorin. Almost certainly, it was simply a healer’s interest in an injured climber that they couldn’t have healed themselves.

“Give her some water and ten minutes of rest, then we can drop some healing spells on her to make her more comfortable. She’ll probably need a few hours before she’s actually ready to leave,” Sorin said.

“What did you do?” Odric asked.

“A more powerful version of Cleanse,” Sorin explained.

“Purification, I believe,” Vendis said.

Sorin nodded to the other healer. It wasn’t as powerful as the C-ranked Remedy, but it did have a broader range of applications. He was a bit surprised Vendis recognized it, but the man did work as a healer for the heir of a high family. If there was anyone who was going to identify an ability just by the effects it had on the patient, it was Vendis.

Seeing Nemari well on her way to recovery seemed to cool Rue’s temper, too. She stopped glaring at Yoru, at least, and rushed over to Nemari’s side to help her sit up and lean against the log. “You alright?” she asked softly.

“Better,” Nemari said in an equally low tone. “Give me a few minutes. I still might puke my guts out before it’s all said and done.”

“Now,” Sorin announced, pulling everyone’s attention back to him, “we’re still working out the details, but for the moment, the plan is that all of us will be enjoying Yoru’s family’s hospitality for an afternoon while we hash out a deal with his father. Before that can happen, we need to hike back to the portal hub and figure out exactly how we’re getting across the city on Floor 0 without giving the Black Hellions the opportunity to try to kill us.

“I am open to ideas. Our previous entry method is obviously not going to work. Given what happened last time we tried it, I’m not even interested in attempting it. So, that’s something for you to think about.” Sorin paused. “Also… This is the point of no return. If you want out, I wouldn’t blame you, but once we enter into this alliance, we’ll have obligations to meet.

“The tower gave you something rare. That doesn’t mean you have to use it to push back the void. Take some time to decide for yourselves if this is what you want to do. I won’t think any less of you if you walk away.”

The speech was delivered with soft words designed not to carry, but he could see the other climbers watching his group through Blind Sense anyway. Some of them probably had sensory soulprints that allowed them to pick up what he was saying, which was one reason he’d been vague on certain details.

He wanted to say that it didn’t matter, that nothing anyone might have overheard here could beat them back to Floor 0, but it was impossible to be certain. Somebody could have a recall stone that took them back to the portal hub, much like Sorin himself was carrying. He’d never bothered to use it and was starting to think it would be better in the hands of someone else on his team, especially if he could get enough for all of them.

There were plenty of other ways for news to travel over long distances quickly, but very few available to people climbing Floor 3. Still, he kept an eye on the other climbers. He wanted to see if any of them would leave or if there might be a few Hellions in disguise nearby.

Nobody did anything of the sort though, and eventually Sorin dismissed his suspicions as just more paranoia. It was a hard way to live, but he’d long ago decided it was better to be overprepared and wrong nine times out of ten, so long as he was ready when that tenth time came around.