The party walked up a flight of stairs to a common room, the lounge that was occasionally around the sixtieth floor. It was opulent, and in fact had a spread of food even, a clear reward for reaching so high, and Garble went straight for it, stuffing his mouth with thinly sliced meat on crackers. Sandra, though, went to the window, looking down upon the town below.

They were very high up. It had been a while since they were above the city and could see all of it, but by now the entire city and the surrounding area were completely visible, and Sandra stared over it. “Look at it all.”

“What?” Garble said, his mouth full. “It’s just a high view.” He swallowed. “You always make a big deal about it.”

Smolder rolled her eyes. “Well she can’t go out there all the time, or even have a mountain to look out from nearby like we do like, everywhere in Equestria or the Dragonlands.”

"Hey." Spike hopped up beside Sandra. "I only got my wings a little while ago. I know how you feel."

Sandra set her hand on his shoulder. "I see why Twilight likes you so much."

Spike grinned with pride, only to be prodded from behind. He turned with a scowl to see Smolder smirking at him with a wicked little smile.

"They like having a 'good boy' to make them feel better. I get it. I wouldn't mind a little someone to perk me up on command." She shrugged as a giggle escaped her in almost a guffaw.

Spike huffed with a little spurt of smoke. "I'm only telling the truth."

"I know you are." She shoved him lightly. "Messing with you. We're cool."

"We've come so far," breathed out Sandra. "And it's… inviting us to keep going." She gestured at the next set of stairs heading upwards. "Here, or near here, we will be hurt… a lot." She swallowed thickly. "The rules are changing."

"So tell us more and warn us less." Garble shoved a drumstick in her face as if that was the cure to her woes. "What are the new rules?"

She pushed away the meat, sticking out her tongue a little. "Once it starts, the biggest difference, you can get hurt, really hurt, to being dead hurt. Second, recalling, It's faster. Before you think that's a great thing, it's a trap. The tower wants you to be hurt, to give up." She swallowed thickly. "And if it goes wrong, well, you're dead… Oh! We can recall separately now, which is good, and bad."

Smolder raised a finger. "What's the bad part?"

"Three of us recall and leave the fourth behind who doesn't know it's happening," She counted on her fingers. "Or can't do it because they're knocked out." She put out another finger. "Or they're paralyzed, or anything. We leave, they're behind, and probably they die."

Spike grimaced, thinking back to those early fights where they were flailing and half knocked out and fleeing.

“We’re not what we once were,” Garble said, echoing Spike’s thoughts in a different way. “When was the last time we really had to flee. It’s been a while, and even if we did, we knew what we were doing and got out before everyone was destroyed.” He shifted his sword around, doing what he no doubt thought was a great pose. “We’ve gotten this far without any more, and I think we’re ready to go further.”

“Yeah… yeah!” Sandra said. “We’re going to take everything we knew and we’re gonna go further than this. Just… don’t be reckless, guys.”

“Psh.” Garble rolled his eyes. “When am I ever reckless?”

Smolder and Spike looked at each other warily. “She’s not joking, bro,” Smolder said. “We don’t know how soon things are going to get serious, so when we go forward, we gotta be careful.”

Garble pursed his lips and tried not to roll his eyes. “Sure, fine. Careful. I can do that.”

Sandra spent one more moment looking out over the city. “Alright… let’s go.”

“Yess,” Garble pumped his fist and resituated his sword on his shoulder, and the four of them headed to the door upward.

They stopped at the door upward, which was an unusually ornate door, with beautiful colored floral scrawls, and what seemed to be four necklaces ensconced in the walls, but as they approached, the four sconces closed off and instead in the center handles folded out.

“Yep… we’re definitely going up,” Sandra said.

“We knew we were,” Garble said, moving forward to the doors. “So let’s get going,” he said as he shoved the doors open, which both moved as one, slowly creeping open to the next floor.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

They came out into a small room with a hallway leading out, and at the end of the hallway, the floor going up. Spike leaned over and peered down it. “Is that… it?”

The hallway seemed only remarkable in that it was incredibly smooth. The stones were polished down and it was hard to tell where the seams between them are. Otherwise it was an unremarkable hallway, straight and simple.

“This is what they were talking about,” Sandra said. “The quick move upward, be carefulI.”

Garble did actually roll his eyes and stepped out, gripping his sword, ready to draw it whenever something happened, if something did happen. He stepped once, twice, three times, nothing so far, and stepped his fourth time, and felt his foot sink, just a little bit. He looked down, only in time for a splitting pain to his side as three spears hit him from the side, and he cried out.

Spike's staff was already lifted, a green glow diminishing the sting of the mistake. "Careful!" he whispered harshly to go with his soft magic. "I bet that's not the last one we'll see."

"About that." Smolder spun her daggers to face backwards. "I'm still, you know, what I started with, and we have an eye for traps. I think I should be in front for a bit."

Sandra stepped only where others had already put their feet down, careful to not be the one to trigger a trap. "That sounds like a great idea, go ahead."

Smolder stepped forward, creeping slowly on the balls of her feet, feeling forward, cautiously putting weight on her feet. In only a few more steps, another panel sunk down, and Smolder leapt back, only to curse as darts spat up from both in front of and behind the trap.

Smolder twisted her body, only getting grazed by a dart, still cursing. “Are you kidding?” she shouted. “What did it guess I’d dodge back?”

Spike sent a heal her way. “You were barely grazed, though, you got out of the way.”

Smolder sighed. “Yeah… yeah.”

They were moving forward slowly, Smolder detecting the traps, sometimes effectively, sometimes not, until they were nearly halfway there.

“This is the worst hallway I’ve ever been in,” Garble groused. “Dragons don’t need hallways, just big chambers to put our hoards, stupid ponies had to invent hallways and then invent darts and spears.”

Sandra softly laughed at that. "I don't think we can blame this on ponies." Far be it from her to deny the idea that alien magic horses were the source of the idea of hallways, but it seemed unlikely. "Pretty sure the first people who built things wanted to walk inside it."

"Fascinating." Smolder took a slow long step over a tile she didn't trust. "Keep your eyes on me. We're getting past this. It's slow, but this won't stop us."

She was not, ultimately, incorrect. The trapped hallway slowed them, and stung them, but none of its traps hit hard enough all at once that they couldn't get past, until it did. A little sound, barely audible, metal parting scales and flesh. Two blades had come together just behind Smolder and she went still.

Spike's magic was on her in an instant, but… "You alright?"

"No," she squeaked out. The initial pain was abating under Spike's treatment, but… "Tell me I'm imagining it. Tell me I'm not. Just… tell me. What happened?"

Garble drew a slow breath, even he was not quick to blurt at that moment. "On the bright side, sis, you still have a tail."

"Hirrah," she almost squeaked, daring to look over her shoulder. There was her tail, its tip, removed. She could see it, the tip laying on the ground, removed, dead. "Why isn't your healing fixing that?"

“I don’t… I don’t…” Spike bit his lip, focusing.

Her tail was healing over… but the tip wasn’t coming back. The tip wasn’t coming back. “What is this? What is this?!” She reached over, haltingly, failing to actually reach out and pick up the bit of her tail. It was her spade. Her spade. Her claw started to tremble.

Garble's hand came down with a loud slap on her shoulder. "Get it together. They warned us. I'm gonna tear them in half, but they warned us." His teeth were set, his eyes narrowed, his body trembling with fury. "Does it hurt?" he asked, a crack of sympathy, breaking through his bravado.

Spike lowered his staff. All the injuries that could be healed, already were. Smolder had all of her hit points. The tail's lack didn't count towards that, apparently. "This is my fault."

Smolder blinked, caught off guard. "I'm… not at 100% right now, but… what? How is this… your fault?" She turned towards Spike slowly, as if any movement could cause the rest of her tail to be removed. "What did you do?"

Spike forced a faint smile, though it died almost instantly. "Way back, I could have been a healer, just a straight healer… Maybe then I could have done something about this, maybe…" His hands flexed, grasping his staff. "I had to be a fighter, to not be a weakling…"

Sandra spoke up, “I don’t think that there is necessarily something a full healer can do. But if they can…” She stared down at the spade on the ground. “M-make sure to keep it,” she said, finally. “If something can be done, we might be able to find a healer for it. M-maybe.”

Seeing that Smolder wasn't rushing for it, Spike took the task of gingerly picking up the part and tucking it away. "The moment we get back."

"Which is now?" Smolder reached back to hold the remaining length of her tail. "We're going back now, right? We haven't gotten that far in." She pointed with one hand at the length of the hallway they'd made it through. "Just have to redo this part…"

Spike made an uneasy grimace. He hadn’t planned on stopping, they would have to redo this part…

“Yes,” Sandra said, with uncommon firmness. “We’re leaving now. We’ve been in here for a while. Time to go back. We’ve got things to do.”

Sandra held up her staff, stepping closer to Smolder and the recall magic enveloped herself, Spike, and Smolder, who were all close up, and it came very quickly, then disappearing. Garble’s eyes widened, and he cursed, now that he was alone in the evil hallway, quickly scrambling to fiddle with his guildchain, scrolling through his list of abilities, finally finding “Tower Recall” which he hit and shouted at the top of his lungs, the white magic enveloping him too, finally.

"It's official," noted Sandra as she moved to exit the tower. "The real test begins now. If we stopped, we'd be seen as competent and tested. We could get a job, easily, and never want for the rest of our lives." She glanced over at her draconic friends. "But this isn't the life you wanted to have."

"I mean, it was fun, don't get me wrong." Spike chuckled nervously. "But not where I want to stay, sorry. No offense…"

"Less talking, more get-a-healer, like, now!" Smolder hurried ahead, walking in rapid, if stiff, march towards the guild.

"That's dangerous." Garble had caught up with them, walking along. "We have to make a keyword for 'everyone get out!'. Something easy to hear…"