Words like ‘trapped forever’ and ‘dying of thirst’ were soon thrown around casually. Apparently Roan considered my situation more dire than he’d first led on.

He stared at the ring of stones as if some answer would magically jump out at him.

Having none of my own, I was forced to silently wait for his epiphany.

Hugo had no patience for that. He believed that we’d get to the solution through the process of elimination. He kept suggesting ideas that were hardly worth answering. Though Roan kept indulging him. Likely in the hope that the questions would soon stop.

No Hugo, we couldn’t just destroy the stones without risking an implosion that could kill me. No Hugo, there wasn’t a reset button on the back somewhere. And no, I couldn’t just bust out of there using my abilities.

On and on it went. With neither strategy getting us any closer to a solution.

I paced around the ring. Three steps left. Turn around. Then three steps right.

I thought the movement might calm me down, but I was growing more tense by the minute.

“Have you considered turning it off and back on again?” Hugo asked.

“It’s not a Wi-Fi modem,” I said.

I wanted to say more, but I had to stop. My breath was getting short. The anxiety must be getting to me.

I stopped pacing and tried to slow my breathing. It normally calmed me down, but this time it was only getting worse.

“My heart’s racing,” I muttered.

“It’s just a little hypoxia,” Roan said, like it was no big deal. “The evolution ring is malfunctioning. The barrier is up, but it’s not supplying you with oxygen.”

“What?!”

“Don’t worry. You won’t choke to death. You’ll pass out and gently drift away in your sleep. It’s actually quite a nice way to go, all things considered.”

“Can we focus?!” Hugo cried. “There has to be something we can do to stop this!”

Roan nodded. He bent down and tapped one of the rocks. All of the glowing blue symbols on them flickered for a moment and then returned to normal.

“What was that? What did you just do?” Hugo asked.

“I tried turning it off and on again,” he replied.

I’m going to die in here.

Since entering the Tower, I’d never really felt safe. There was always the possibility of some danger lurking in the background. But I’d never considered that my death might be so pointless and banal. Or that I’d be led to it by the ignorance of a god.

“This is your fault,” I accused Roan. “You stole the keys to this place, but you don’t know how any of it works. More to the point, you killed the only being who does, and now you’re surprised that he didn’t leave behind an instruction manual.”

“You should stop talking…”

“Hey!” Hugo yelled.

“To conserve your air,” Roan finished. “But you’re right. There are things about the Tower that I don’t understand. This however, shouldn’t be one of them. Hugo went through the process without any issues. It must be something about you that set it off.”

Blaming me for this wasn’t going to work. Not for me, and certainly not for Hugo. Good luck with sponsoring him after I’m dead. You can criticize the crow for a lot of things, but one thing he can’t be accused of is being disloyal.

“Or this thing is an ancient piece of junk that breaks down after the first use. What does your partner in crime think?” I asked, alluding to the being now in charge of officially running the Tower.

Roan’s eyes flickered to me before settling back on the stones. There was a hardness there. An anger that I’d do well not to press on. “Tanver Vhar is busy and is unable to help.”

The god clearly wasn’t used to being ignored.

“As for your other idea, the stones appear to be intact.”

“The hardware’s fine, which means it’s a software issue?” I asked. “People have said that my Class is rare…”

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Roan made a face and cursed. “Of course, I should have thought of it before. Your Class is on the restricted list. The stones reacted the way they did because to them, you technically shouldn’t exist.”

“Restricted list? That seems excessive,” Hugo said.

“It’s about what I could turn into,” I said quietly.

Roan nodded. “You’ve only seen a weak Scarlet Beast that consumed maybe two dozen people. Imagine what one that consumes worlds would look like.”

He wasn’t saying it out of altruism. The gods don’t want anyone who stands a chance of challenging their power. I know that they can be killed and there’s a way for others to take their place. How such things are achieved is still a mystery. One thing I did know is that Roan had survived longer than any of them.

“You don’t sound too worried about me turning bad,” I pointed out.

Roan grunted. “You have the brand that seals our contract with me as patron and you as—”

“Slave?” I asked.

The edge of his mouth twitched upward in amusement. “Actually, the original term translates more closely as protégé.”

I said nothing. I’ve seen the way he treated the other Climbers he’d sponsored like Hugo and Daisy. It wasn’t the compliment he thought it was.

“Uhh guys, the oxygen levels?” Hugo said.

Roan nodded and refocused his attention on the stones. “Right, sorry. Got sidetracked.”

That was odd. I hadn’t gotten worse while we were talking. I checked the blood cache in my bracer and sure enough, the amount I’d held in reserve was almost gone. During the conversation, I’d been unconsciously healing myself. Useful for keeping a clear head, but I’d wasted a lot of air by talking.

I sat down and crossed my legs. I had to avoid using what little healing blood I had left until the very last moment. Keeping myself low to the ground should make things a little easy.

It barely helped.

“Can you make Blood Reaver an approved Class?” asked Hugo.

My head felt faint, and I yawned. So tired. I was struggling to stay awake. Time was running out and yet I wasn’t afraid. The urge to sleep just overwhelmed everything else.

It was getting harder to convince myself not to lie down.

“Come on! Do something!” Hugo yelled.

“I already tried that!” snapped Roan. “Even though it opens up more people having access to the Class in the future, I did add it to the approved list. The stones still won’t recognize him.”

At some point, my head was resting on the floor. I could hear Hugo shouting at me and Roan explaining something that didn’t need explaining. Their voices were getting further and further away. My eyes were so heavy that they refused to stay open.

I could feel myself slipping away. I wasn’t sure how much time I had left. The blood cache was empty. There was nothing more that I could do.

Then Darkness took me.

*************

I awoke to a sharp pain in my hand. More irritated than hurt, I blindly lashed out and heard a startled yelp from Hugo as he hopped away.

I rubbed my eyes and sat up.

“He’s awake!” Hugo exclaimed.

“I told you he would,” Roan said.

Both of them were inside the stone ring, which meant that the barrier was gone. Somehow, they’d managed to solve the problem while I was unconscious.

I got up and nearly fell. My body was shaky and unstable. I wobbled over to one of the chairs. There was no way I was staying in that ring, fixed or not.

Roan handed me a drink.

“Is this more of your liquor?” I asked.

He snorted. “You couldn’t handle my stuff. Do you know how hard it is to get my hands on alcohol that could make me drunk? Anyway, this is just regular earth whiskey.”

I took the drink and gulped it down. A comforting warmth settled in my chest that was relaxing.

That was when I noticed that something was off. For one thing, Hugo hadn’t said anything to me yet, which was unusual for him. Another was that Roan was still close by, as if I might collapse at any moment. Both were apprehensive in their own way.

I sighed. “So what happened? How did you fix the problem?”

Hugo said nothing, so Roan took the lead. “Technically, we didn’t the fix it,” he said. “After you lost consciousness, I tried a variety of things, but none of them worked. I was about to give up when suddenly the barrier fell. We entered the ring, and that was when I realized what had happened.”

I could guess where this was going, but I was afraid of the answer all the same.

“You died,” he said.

It hit me harder than I expected. I’d come close to death many times since entering the Tower, but the fact that something in this place had actually succeeded made me shiver.

“How long?” I asked quietly.

“Only a few seconds,” Hugo said, trying to comfort me.

“It was closer to a minute,” Roan corrected him. “But you came back whole. I checked you over myself. Brain function is fine. Or at least as good as it ever was,” he joked.

I still couldn’t believe I’d died. It had happened so fast.

“How did I come back?” I asked.

“Roan had some special potion,” Hugo said.

“A special expensive and rare potion,” roan added. “I don’t have any of them lying around, so don’t think you can cheat death a second time by coming to me.”

“You make it sound like this is my fault!” I snapped. “You put me in this situation.”

He waved my concern away. “Don’t be such a baby. You’re fine, Hugo’s fine. Now stand up and get back in the ring.”

My stomach went cold.

“What?”

“For your evolution. We never got to yours because of the ring’s malfunction. It’ll work now, so hop in there,” he gestured with his thumb.

“I’m not going in that thing again,” I said.

Road gave Hugo a nod and said, “see I told you he would make this difficult.”

Hugo sighed. “Sorry about this, Lucas.”

“What do you mean?”

Tentacles shot out from behind. They wrapped themselves around my body and bound me to the chair. By Hugo’s command, Ostorox lifted me up and carried me back to the stone circle. I was dropped inside and as soon as the tentacles left, a new barrier formed.

“You could’ve given me a little more time,” I groused.

“We’ve wasted plenty already with Hugo,” Roan said. “So come on. Let’s see what’s available.”

Hugo at least looked a little apologetic, though he clearly agreed with Roan.

Fine.

Evolving had seemingly done a lot for Hugo. If the ring worked as intended, then I should have something valuable to gain from dying. But I didn’t like the fact that Roan was rushing me. It felt like more than just simple impatience. Was there something time sensitive on the next floor that we had to get to? Asking the question out loud would’ve been a waste of time since he refused to spoil any future events.

I sighed. Might as well get on with it.

I brought up the menu and my eyes widened. It went beyond my expectations.

Despite Roan’s best wishes, it looks like we could be here for a while.