Xavier called an end to the sparring match, much to Howard and Justin’s apparent relief.
“I guess we should find Adranial. See about the next floor,” Siobhan said.
Justin was panting. “Yeah,” he said between breaths. “I’m ready.” He placed a hand on the Staging Room’s wall. “I’ll race you to the tavern.” The young man straightened. Closed his eyes. Took a moment to compose himself. Suddenly, his breathing became normal. “I do wish the woman had told us what the next floor would be like already,” Justin muttered. He looked forlornly at the door to the next floor. “We could already be there by now.”
Xavier clapped a hand on Justin’s shoulder. “We’re already ahead of schedule, in so many ways, I think we’ll be all right.”
Though he did wonder if Justin had a point. Adranial could have given them more information. Could have told them about the next three, five, ten floors all at once.
She wants me to have to come back to her each time, doesn’t she?
They headed down to the tavern. Considering they hadn’t even been gone for half an hour, it felt like they’d barely left the place.
Sam was no longer idly cleaning things behind the bar. Now, he was serving a long line of Champions.
Xavier recognised a few of the faces, but there were also noticeable gaps. He wondered if those people were simply doing the Eleventh Floor already, or if perhaps they hadn’t made it back to the tower.
Some of them might be on other worlds after having surrendered on the tenth floor…
But more, he knew, would simply have died back on Earth.
Adranial and her party looked as though they were holding court. The woman sat at the head of a table with her back against the wall, speaking to the crowd that had gathered before her.
Xavier wondered if the woman had explained who she was, or how she’d ended up here. He was glad to see she was doing what she said she would—sharing the details of the next floor with the other Champions, so that they could spread the world.
Adranial frowned at Xavier as she spotted him.
She stood from her chair and excused herself from the crowd, whispering something to Domical. The horned man cleared his throat and continued on from where she’d left off. His expression was blank as he spoke, and it made Xavier wonder how the man felt about being here—and what he might have given up.
“What are you doing back here so soon?” Adranial asked. “I thought you went off to clear the Eleventh Floor?”
Xavier glanced at his party, then looked back at Adranial. “We’ve already cleared it.”
Adranial’s eyes widened. “What? But, it’s been like… half an hour?” She looked over at Sam—the bar was at least twenty feet away—and hollered at the man. “Double whiskey. Neat. Right here.” She slapped her hand down on a table and motioned for the others to sit there as she did. Then she summoned a device from her Storage Ring and placed it in the centre of the wooden table. She tapped a button at its top. The device made a buzzing sound. Instantly, some sort of transparent forcefield surrounded them.
“What—” Xavier started.
Adranial spoke with a wave of her hand. “Something that will give us privacy.” She stared at Xavier. “How did you clear the floor so quickly?”
Xavier thought about whether he should reply.
The last thing he wanted to do was give the solution they’d found to everyone in the Greater Universe. But this woman wasn’t everyone, she was Adranial. Xavier and his party would not have been able to clear the floor the way they had without the information she’d given them. He lowered his head in thought. Fortunately, his mind moved rapidly. The other members of his party were looking at him, following his lead on this.
She gave up a lot to be here. To help us. I might not fully trust her motives, and I know she didn’t want to come here, but I’m slowly starting to trust her.
“All right. I’ll tell you.” Xavier raised a finger. “But I have a condition.”
Adranial’s shoulders relaxed. “A contract,” she said.
“A contract,” Xavier replied.
It didn’t take long for them to figure out the particulars of the contract. Adranial wasn’t interested in giving out the information of how he’d completed the floor to anyone back on her own world, or to her ancestor. She also didn’t care if it went to other Champions from Earth. The only people she would share it with would be the members of her party. And even then, she would in turn restrict them with a contract.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Ah, contracts. They’re always even more helpful than I imagined they would be.
Xavier had wondered if he was being selfish, keeping this information even from his own people. But he realised it didn’t matter. Honestly, he didn’t want other Champions from Earth going after the record clears, and he doubted any of them would even be able to manage it. They would all be better off farming the waves before trying to clear the floor—even if that would cause a lot of casualties with the townsfolk.
I can’t save everyone in every universe. Best to try and stick to the one that I’m in, and the ones that I’m sent to.
“You… evacuated the town?” Adranial said after they’d signed the contract.
Xavier hadn’t spent long on the recap—there wasn’t really a lot to tell.
“We did,” Xavier said. “All the necromancer wanted was the land, so we gave it to them.” Sobhan gave him a slight side-eye. The way he was talking, he was making it out as though they’d gone down this route on purpose, instead of simply stumbling upon it by accident. Xavier wasn’t sure why he wanted Adranial to think that, but he did.
While they were sitting and talking, Xavier took the chance to split his mind. One part of his mind focused on the conversation in front of him, while the other part of his mind was using the Farscope.
The Farscope would be visible to the eye, making his right eye red as it did, and it would be obvious to anyone who knew what it was that he was wearing one.
He had to believe Adranial knew what a Farscope was, too. Though she hadn’t said anything about it.
His attention drifted around the room. In the privacy bubble, he couldn’t hear what was going on out there, only see it. Xavier wanted to hone this ability, to get used to the various stimuli, before he went to the next floor.
The sparring match he’d had with the other members of his party back in the Staging Room had gone a long way in helping him learn how to use the new ability, but he’d not had access to any of his other senses during that time. He needed to learn how to use them all in concert with one another. And though he was wary of splitting his mind for this purpose, it seemed like a decent first step.
Developing an ability like this only seemed like a good idea. If he went out there without some practice? He imagined it would get overwhelming fast. Even though he knew he could deal with anything the tower threw at him right now, that didn’t mean he wanted to be in any way vulnerable.
Adranial tapped the table with her fingers, rolling them on the wood from finger to thumb, making a slight drumming sound.
“Evacuate the town…” she muttered. “I’m not even sure how we would manage that.”
Xavier frowned. “Can’t you just use a portal? I’ve used one of those before on a floor.”
“Indeed,” Adranial said. “I remember.” She tapped her forehead with her index finger, glanced over at Howard. The man shifted in his char. “But you also had the ability to mind control the townsfolk into submission, and a mass teleportation spell. This idea you’ve had? It’s not the first time anyone has had it, you know?”
Xavier blinked. “I did not know.”
“You really think you’re some sort of super genius who managed to think of something billions of people hadn’t thought of before?”
“Uh…” Xavier trailed off. He resisted the urge to rub the back of his neck and look all sheepish. “Of course I didn’t think that.”
“People have tried evacuating the town in various ways. Stands to reason that if no one is there, then the objective—protect the townsfolk from the zombie horde—will be far easier to meet. The problem is, the townsfolk aren’t cooperative. Threatening them, hurting them, neither of those things have worked. It’s only made them more hostile. Throwing them one by one through a portal? That could work, but the people scatter, hide in the town. Even with their auras visible it can be tough to find them—some of their buildings are shielded from detection.”
“People have really thought this deeply on this plan?” Siobhan asked.
Adranial nodded. “According to the information I have, yeah, but no one’s managed to evacuate the town before the zombies arrive at the gates, at which point they would be fools if they didn’t turn their attention onto the zombies, or restart the floor.”
“Huh,” Xavier said, thinking about the combination of skills that had let them do what they’d wanted to do. “Wouldn’t a mass teleportation spell be enough?”
The woman shook her head. “No. It’s rare one would be strong enough to snatch up that many people at this stage of the tower, especially if those people are noncooperative. Teleporting that many people who don’t want to be moved? Not easy, even if they’re Level 1.”
Xavier looked over at Siobhan with new appreciation. The combination of him mind controlling everyone in the town and her teleporting them… he hadn’t realised such a skillset would be so unique.
“If people knew this plan was a viable option, they might reconfigure their parties to this end, maybe even train toward it from early on,” Adranial said. “But since no one’s ever achieved it…” She trailed off. “Well, at least, no one who’s actually spoken about it. For all I know there are orcs in the Blargal sector who use this tactic all the time, somehow managing to evacuate the townsfolk while fighting the zombie waves. I haven’t got access to every different way people combat this floor, just the elites in my sector and its neighbouring sector.” She waved a hand. “Anyway, none of the people on the record list have used this strategy. I should know. I’ve studied them, and they’re all from my sector.”
“The… Blargal sector?” Siobhan scrunched up her face. “Is that even a real place?”
Adranial sighed. “Does it matter?”
“Does any of this?” Justin said. “We’ve already completed the floor.” He leant forward, rubbed his hands together. “Tell us, what does the next floor have to offer?”
Xavier had noticed a strange phenomenon using his Farscope. When he looked at the privacy bubble from outside of it, whenever people spoke, their mouths were blurred. He took a sip of his drink—just coffee, something he’d ordered after Sam had brought Adranial her whiskey.
Must be to stop anyone from reading our lips.
“That’s a little rude, Justin. The least we can do is help her get through this floor,” Siobhan said. “Are you aiming for a top 100 title, too?”
Howard crossed his arms at his chest and looked away, clearly not caring about this conversation one bit.
Xavier didn’t blame him. He hadn’t come here to debate the best ways of completing a floor they’d already been through, either. Still, maybe garnering some good will with this woman wasn’t such a bad idea. She’d been ordered to come here.
Might as well make her feel like her time here was worth it.