The Fractured Tower

Book 2, Chapter 51

The most expensive thing money could buy on Floor 0 was space. As the only place in the whole tower exempt from the rule of unattended objects disappearing, civilization could only grow there. That meant there was a sharp upper limit on just how many people could squeeze into those few square miles, and that no matter how tall the buildings rose, there was never enough room for everybody.

Despite all that, it did not come as a surprise to Sorin that the Telpike estate had a number of courtyards and open gardens scattered around the buildings. There was easily enough room for a hundred families to live there, but it was the prerogative of the rich to spend their money on the ultimate luxuries. The other three high families probably had very similarly sized estates.

“Now isn’t the time,” he told Rue when he saw the expression forming on her face.

“They just… all this wasted…” she said with harsh, quiet fury.

“You can do something about it when you’re rich and powerful. Today is about helping us get there.”

The others had definitely noticed, but were opting to pretend they hadn’t. Only Odric stepped closer and dropped a hand onto Rue’s shoulder. Sorin shot him a grateful look, then turned back to the estate itself.

A number of guards were collapsing on their location, though not in a hostile manner. Six of them bracketed the group, with their leader stepping forward to speak to Yoru. Explanations were quickly given, and the retired climbers—all at least rank 10—fell into position behind the group to escort them to the main building.

“It’s a bit of a compromise to allow for so many strangers walking through the manor fully armed,” Yoru said.

“That’s fine. Better than asking me to surrender my sword.”

“Oh, believe me, they tried to insist. If I wasn’t here, you’d have had to fight your way past them.”

“That would probably ruin any chance of negotiating a deal,” Sorin said dryly.

“Good thing I was here then,” Yoru shot back.

The interior was every bit as lavish as the grounds outside. Sorin took in the details without really seeing them, more interested in the wealth they represented than the broad sweep of polished marble tiles or gold filigree decorations. All it told him was that Morlin Telpike could easily fund Sorin’s advancement up to rank 20.

They were finally led into a reception hall, where the man himself waited for them. It was easy to see the family resemblance between him and his son, though Morlin was considerably thicker through the chest and shoulders, and his hair had gone to gray and was thinning near the front. A thick, aggressively styled beard jutted out from his chin.

The guards spread out along the walls, silent watchers who would only interfere if violence threatened to break out. Kashi disappeared somewhere along the trip in, his work apparently finished, and Vendis also slipped away soon after they arrived. By the time they got to the hall, it was just Yoru and Sorin’s team.

Morlin studied them in silence for a few moments, his dark eyes shifting from one person to the next. It took only seconds for them to see, catalog, and judge before moving on to the next person. They lingered longest on Sorin, no doubt because Morlin recognized him as a person of interest to Samael and because Yoru had already explained all of Sorin’s outlandish claims. After that, Nemari got the most obvious weighing of merit, though it was hard to say if Morlin was judging her on her current state or on the status of her family name.

Yoru walked forward, separating himself from Sorin’s team and standing at his father’s side. It couldn’t have been any clearer that he wasn’t planning to argue on Sorin’s behalf, but that was fine. All Sorin needed was for the younger Telpike to confirm that he’d seen proof of Sorin’s claims.

“Well,” Morlin said, dragging the word out as he broke the silence. “You don’t look like much.”

“Looks can be deceiving, as I’m sure a climber of your stature is aware,” Sorin responded.

“Indeed they can. Let’s see the proof, shall we?”

Sorin bit back a sigh and started to lay out all the things he’d already gone over with Yoru. Should have expected this.

* * *

It was the trip through liminal space that really convinced Morlin, which was pretty much what Sorin had expected. Just about anything else could be argued with, or was unprovable, but actually stepping outside the tower and onto that thin path cutting through the void had a way of shaking people.

“And that’s how Samael moves around so quickly,” Morlin said when they returned. “It’s like nothing we’ve ever seen before. There are no records of a soulprint that does that.”

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“You’re going to want to remove that symbol from your wall. Sometimes voidlings come through them,” Sorin said.

“That is a substantial drawback,” Morlin said, eyeing up the circle carved into the wood.

“Nothing comes free,” Sorin said with a shrug. “But I take it I’ve convinced you.”

“Let’s say that I provisionally agree with your story. There’s enough evidence here to support that something weird is going on, and I don’t have a better explanation than what you’ve presented me. There are still two points to resolve though.”

“Can I break the Void Wall, and can I get rid of Samael,” Sorin said.

“Precisely.”

“The answer is… no, not right now. With the Telpike family supporting us, probably within a year. Otherwise I think it’s highly likely that at some point, Samael will try to kill everyone working with me to isolate me so that he can use me to break the Void Wall, and that he’ll make sure I don’t live through the process.”

“What I’m hearing is that the Void Wall is going away, one way or another, even if I don’t lift a finger,” Morlin said.

“And then Samael will shoot up another twenty or thirty ranks in a few years. How well do you think you’ll be able to resist him when he’s backed by a few A- and B-rank soulprints?”

The worst part was that Sorin wasn’t exaggerating. Samael already had a stranglehold on Floor 0, and while the high families might function without giving way to him, that wouldn’t last once the Void Wall came down. The ability to rank up without clearing the requisite floor was so powerful that Samael was already untouchable. That would only get worse once he had access to more powerful soulprints to fill all that soulspace.

“And what assurances do we have that you won’t simply step into Samael’s place once you… depose him?” Morlin asked.

“I have no interest in ruling anything. I am a climber. I doubt you’ll ever see me again once that wall and Samael are gone. No offense to your people, but none of you can keep up with me.”

“Yes, I’ve heard of your remarkable prowess. Two rank 15s, a rank 11, and a pair of rank 8s, and they failed to so much as truly injure you. My advisors tell me that your rank 4 façade is hiding a rank 9 or 10 climber, but anytime one person beats five, it’s an achievement.”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but the Black Hellions tend to value quantity over quality. I suspect there’s a lot of carrying up the ranks going on there and not much training to understand how their soulprints work. That’s probably why there’s such a strong emphasis on passive increases and only one or two methods of attacking.”

“And how is what you’re proposing different?” Morlin asked. It wasn’t a hostile question, but one asked out of genuine curiosity for what Sorin’s plans were.

“The first difference is that we’re not going for cheap and easy with these builds. They’re meant for fighting void beasts or worse, and that requires some specific soulprints and training in how to use them. The second is that the tower itself seems to be trying to help. In my first Antechamber, I gained the Liminal Gateway. The second gave me a weapon that eats void. The third gave all of us resistance to the void itself.

“Just think what a dedicated team could look like by Floor 24, especially if the tower keeps giving us more and more weapons to use against the void. We could break the Void Wall easily. You have no idea what the resources on the other side could do for Floor 0.”

“Enlighten me, then.”

Sorin didn’t even have to think about it. “I’ve noticed a real shortage of healers able to do anything more than patch up cuts and broken bones. Way too many retired climbers who lost a limb or took a bad shot to the head. Right now, a healer with more than one or two C-rank soulprints is almost impossible to find. They definitely can’t keep up with the work load, not that anybody can afford their rates.

“You know how much edible meat you can get off a boar that’s thirty feet tall and weighs six tons? They’re out there, higher up. And that’s not even looking at how you personally could benefit from C-rank soulprints becoming common in your economy. How many do you have in your build? One, maybe? Imagine having five or six of them, and another fifteen D- and E-ranks. Gives you a lot of options, huh?”

He wasn’t overselling the benefits, either. If nothing else, opening up the rest of the tower would result in a general boost to the overall quality of life on Floor 0. Things wouldn’t change overnight, and the rank 0s would be as dependent on charity as ever, but it was much easier to give when a rank 50 could provide enough meat for the whole city in exchange for half an hour’s work. Then it became a logistics issue instead of a supply one.

Morlin was silent for a long while as he considered Sorin’s proposal. Finally, he said, “I’ll need a list of all the soulprints and gear you want and detailed explanations for what you’re going to do with it. You will be checking in after each floor so we can discuss what the tower gave you and how that might alter our plans.

“Both goals are equally important. You can’t kill Samael unless you can purge the void infestation on Floor 25. You can’t purge the void unless you can also kill Samael. That man is already enough of a monster without giving him unfettered access to another seventy-five floors’ worth of power.”

“I understand your concerns perfectly,” Sorin assured the head of the Telpike family.

“If you’re going to be building a team designed for battling the void, this may not be the best possible starting point,” Morlin said, eyeing up the rest of the team. “Voidlings can’t be hurt by magic, and you’ve got one member who doesn’t even have a weapon. The Sildfall girl is obviously a fire mage, as well. Just because she’s carrying a sword doesn’t mean she knows how to use it.”

“Weapons can be learned,” Sorin said smoothly.

“Better to start with someone who’s already been trained. Someone who’s had half a decade of practice is going to be leagues away from people you just started working with a few months ago.”

There was some truth to that. Sorin glanced back at his team. “They already have the Void Resistance gift the tower gave us,” he said. “There’s no guarantee it’ll do it again if I clear a different floor with different people.”

“There’s no guarantee it won’t, either,” Morlin argued.

“Well, I suppose there’s an easy way to start the selection process.” Turning fully to face the trio, Sorin asked, “Do you want to keep climbing with me, knowing it means being at odds with the Black Hellions and that we’ll be attempting to overcome an obstacle that has stopped this whole tower in its tracks for the better part of a decade?”