The man sighed. “You’re really pressing this angle aren’t you. Heroism is all about sacrifice, all about putting yourself at risk so others do not have to. All about taking that punishment yourself.” He pointed at Spike, prodding his armor. “Isn’t that right, Martyr.”

Spike stepped back, rubbing his armor as if it might hurt. “That’s not… I just picked this.”

“Did you?” The man seemed amused. “The heroic divine knight, saving his allies from wounds by taking them on himself. Does this divine knight really believe that his heroism is not about that? Did you never take a burden on yourself so another did not.”

Spike gripped his staff and wrung his hands, trying to think. He couldn’t exactly argue, he’s done that more than a few times, but… “That’s not… that’s not the goal of heroism. It’s to save everyone. To come through.”

The man snarled at this, finally. “That’s not how things work. Perhaps in stories, but this is the real world. Beyond that,” he stepped back, composing himself. “The tower is, in a way, a place of sacrifice. Adventurers come up, they risk their lives and their well being for a reward at the top. Glory for most, but the special few that make it to the top ask for more.”

Spike suddenly smiled. "Asking for more is what heroes do." He pointed at the man. "Like asking we all make it, for instance. Like looking for that 'story' ending. That sounds pretty heroic to me. You call that unrealistic? Fine. Heroes do that."

The man let out a little sigh, but the touch of a smile was on his lips. "You will fail, but I will watch. I don't have a choice, really… I had many, before, but we're past that point. Maybe you are too? Let's find out."

Sandra's hand came down on Spike's shoulder. "Was he here?"

"Wha huh?" he looked to the others, all watching him. Apparently they'd noticed. "Yeah." Of course, he wasn't there anymore when looked for. "I… think I learned something, sort of."

"Can someone bring me up to speed?" asked Tabby, hiking a thumb. "Also let's get all this loot! Check for things we want to keep, and let's melt the rest of it."

They gathered their winnings, Smolder keeping one of the daggers. "Look at this thing!" It crackled with a combination of utter darkness and sparks of lightning in an intimidating blend. "So keeping this."

The rest, bound for their smith. They held out their hands, attuning to the teleport beyond the boss, the official point at which they knew they'd never have to run up those floors, unless they were grinding on purpose. Tabby pumped an arm in victory. "We can handle this. We've pushed up into the real game. There isn't a soul in the city that can tell us we're not amazing, because we are. Oh!"

She fished out her guild chain and plunged her hand, the chain dangling from it, into the teleporter stream. When she pulled it free, it had been stained purple and other colors like an oil spill. "There we go. That marks us as officially past 60. Not just to 60."

“Oh yeah,” Garble pushed his way in front, immediately plunging his hand in it. Pulling it out his guildchain was also stained with the same colors. “Hah, imagine how jealous chumps will be if I whip out this baby.” He chuckled to himself, admiring the pearlescent color change.

"It changes our rank too," noted Tabitha, looking quite satisfied with herself. "You can just forget those stones and metals, well, unless we're dealing with another set that's been this far, then that can break ties."

Garble looked closely at his guildchain. “Rank… what was our rank?”

“Oh… it goes up naturally, right?” Spike said, pulling up the guildchain’s menu to check.

“Well… no,” Tabitha replied. “You have to build it up by doing tasks, getting better classes, proving you have an upgraded forge and such, wait,” she turned her head slowly. “You lot did almost nothing for your forge… so your rank--”

“Here it is,” Spike said. “Rank quartz.”

Tabitha pinched the bridge of her nose. “That’s the lowest rank you need to enter the tower.”

Spike’s eyes wandered as he thought. “Yes, that’s probably the last time we did anything about rank, yes.”

Tabitha pulled up her own guildchain to check it. "Mine hasn't changed."

Smolder shrugged softly. "So we're all the lowest ranking badasses in the world?"

"Well, no. I didn't drop levels, but didn't get any either." She held up her chain for examination. There she was, three ranks above them, just as the guild had set them just before entering the tower. "We haven't been asking, and they didn't just give them either."

Tabby snickered softly. "You realize that makes me the highest ranked of you lot. You have to listen to me. Just kidding. I owe you all so much, and I didn't forget. Thank you for taking me with you. I can't believe I almost missed out on this. We're going to smash it."

Garble slapped Tabby's back, though his great swat rang out against her armor and she barely wavered. "I was ready to hit you one." He laughed, apparently finding the almost-violence to be amusing. "Alright, let's get out of here. I got an idea."

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

Spike looked skeptical, his arms crossing. "An idea, huh?" Garble ideas were not known to be the best ideas.

"Two." He thrust up two fingers. "One, we rub in our achievements at the guild. May not matter, but I want to see the looks on their faces when we show off all we did, and we earned those ranks!"

Smolder hopped up, hanging off Garble's right side. "With you so far. What's number two?"

"We party." He slammed his hands together. "We did what everyone else said not to even bother with. I think we earned that too."

----------------------------------------

The extremely unamused waiter raised his eyebrow. “And you want… what exactly?”

“We want the full spread," demanded Garble with such a satisfied smirk on his face. "And be sure to have the gem dust shakers fully loaded. We will be using them."

The waiter frowned at the three that appeared to be demi humans, even if they had two humans with them. Taking the female humans for a better target, he faced Sandra. "Madame, this is a high class eat--"

Tabitha thrust her guild chain between the waiter and Sandra. Garble's soon joined her, Smolder's coming a moment later. "Stop talking, start sitting us," she barked, looking almost as satisfied as the dragons. "Or do you want us spreading the word this is how you treat customers?"

All of their guild chains sparkled in that oily way that spoke of breaking the limits of the tower, true seekers, summit approachers, star touchers. Few were those who had such things. Their gems also shone, each higher than before. The dragons had sapphires. The humans, emeralds. They were close to the top, the humans higher, of course.

“Of-of course, ma’am.” The waiter put on a grimace of a smile and stepped back, welcoming them in with a flourish. “We wouldn’t want to… show bad service, would we?”

Smolder charged past him, hopping over the back of a chair and landing on the cushioned seat, her bladed tail swaying eagerly behind her. "Now we're talking. Everyone sit down, because we are enjoying ourselves tonight!"

Sandra sank down next to Smolder. "Let's have a nice round of drinks while they work on the food. Something to loosen things up. We… We earned this." She smiled, looking genuinely happy. "Thank you all, for coming this far, with me."

“Hell yeah,” Garble roared, eagerly waving over someone with drinks. “I’ve never beaten up this many chumps in my life. It’s been great.”

Smolder laughed in response. “It is pretty great.” She leaned herself back, smiling self satisfied. “The whole process is pretty awesome, beating up stuff just to earn stuff to beat up more stuff.”

“It’s ascending that tower!” Tabitha said. “Both in and out of the actual tower. Ascending to more and more heights.”

Spike looked towards Smolder, behind her really, to what was missing. "It isn't free, even if it feels that way sometimes."

"Hey, staring is rude." Smolder grabbed her tail to hide it from Spike's eyes. "Look, as soon as we get to the top, we're going home. I'm not making this like a lifelong thing, promise."

Their talk was interrupted with a rather fancy golden carafe loaded with deep burgundy red fluid poured carefully into each of their mugs that shone with studded jewelry. "I will leave this here," promised a new waiter, setting it down in easy reach. "They're working on your dinner."

Drinking the red drink, burning their throats as the liquid went down, the night continued in earnest, their minds eased, and the food began to come. Airy spread on light puffs, small portions of glazed charcuterie, fine soup, eventually melding into rich sauce covered meats.

The dragons stomachs were like endless pits. Devouring everything ahead of them and asking for more. The humans, more reserved, wanted to save room for the inevitable next course.

“How has your--” The waiter sniffed, maybe stifling a sneer. “--Meal been?”

Spike, despite being a dragon, erred a bit towards his human friends in his appetite. "It's really great. Nice blend on the gems."

Sandra perked at that. "Yeah! I didn't expect you guys would know what really tasted good."

Tabby peered at her strange dragon partners. "Wait, gems have a taste? Besides rock, I mean. I tried some of it, expensive, made me feel like a king for eating it, but it didn't really add anything to the food."

The waiter seemed surprised at the exchange. "Only true drag…" he trailed off.

Garble paused his eating, watching the waiter run aground. "True… what?"

"Excuse me! I should get your food." He hurried away in quite the rush.

Strangely, a different waiter, a female, came back with a tray of dessert-like puffs that she set in the center of the table with a smile. "Sorry about that. He was called away. I'll be your waiter for the rest of the meal." Lacking some of the innate sense of sneer that the first one had, she seemed genuinely happy for them. "You made it up that high?"

“That’s right!” The now wine-filled garble declared with a mix of satisfaction and smug gloating, “We are bona fide badasses.”

"Can I see your chains?" she asked, not in an accusing way, but more of an eager fangirl wanting to see something amazing. When Smolder's chain emerged first, her eyes were on it. "Wow…" Then out came Sandra and Tabitha's. "Are those emeralds?!"

“Damn straight,” Tabitha said. “It ain’t the highest, but getting up to floor 70 means a lot. And we were prepared. Setting up the forge, getting the connections ready, figuring out what classes to use. I’m surprised we aren’t a higher rank, even.”

“Yeah…” Sandra said, an obvious hint of doubt creeping in. “Like my parents…”

“Like people who get to the top,” Tabitha said, leaning in. “Which is what we’re doing, remember?”

The waitress made a little gasp. “You really think you can make it? So many adventurers have tried to get to the top but nobody has actually reached it!”

Sandra gave her a look.

“Well they haven’t, trust me--” she put her hand to her chest “--I would know. I’ve been looking at all the greats. Either they get turned away at the last second, or the tower eventually claims them on their way up.” She pulled up the wine carafe and put it on a plate. “Let me just refill this for you.”

Sandra looked back down, now being lost in her thoughts, talking aloud “If so many adventurers might have made it to the top… and the tower extracts a price. How many adventurers reached the top and lied about it? How many reached the top and never came back because the price involved them never leaving?”

“Woah,” Tabitha said, shaking her a bit. “Hang on, tonight isn’t about worrying about that.” She gave a smile. “Tonight’s about the celebration. We’re already doing things that a tiny fraction of adventurers have done. And if there’s more seriousness to come later, we’ll face that. But later.”

Spike smiled too, not having said anything and gave a clumsy hug to Sandra from their sitting positions. “That’s right, we won’t let anyone hurt you. We’re all coming back down from there, and everything will be alright then.”

“A, uh…” Tabitha stumbled on her words. “Not exactly what I was saying, but sure, we’re definitely going to all be the heroes, and that involves coming back.”

The dinner went on, the mood lifting back up from that dark point under a deluge of well-earned luxury food.