Corvayne watched as the sky not dominated by the tower slowly faded to a burnished blue from the comfort of his spot at a table lit by lanterns strung along an awning. There were only a few clouds in the sky forming navy blue smudges on the sky, and stars were appearing though they would soon be overwhelmed by this floor's main feature. The castle-tower the town had formed around would light up once the sun had fully set with it's own magic lighting. For now, Corvayne could look far up and see bright orange spots miles up slowly going dark. He on a whim asked their waiter about it, and the man had told them that the shape of the floor was flat even though the 'sunset' suggested a curve like a planet.

Corvayne earmarked some extra silver for the tip, given that a brisk lesson in Tower floor cosmology was above and beyond expected.

He was seated with the whole party, and as the waiter left with his drink and dinner order, Mister I was discussing how the scrolls had a real path to cultivation as a system for him and how excited he was to meditate tonight.

Grunt made some motions with his hands, something about kicking someone out of bed, and Mister I nodded. "The nights on this Floor are pretty long, and after a day at the library I of course will need a warm bed!"

Grunt picked up a stone, pointed to a candle flame on a table for two behind them, pinched his fingers and made a questioning look by lifting his eyebrows and fluttering his eyelids: Oh so your going to get a hot stone for your bed... by paying for it."

Mister I scoffed. "Unlike you, who needs to pay for a sturdy enough bed and a warm... stone to boot, I will make do with my own powers. I am after all a monk, and have forsworn most forms of excess."

A pair of waiters put down four different steaming meat dishes in front of Mister I. "Most appreciated my good sirs." He pulled out a camo bib and looked between his dishes, then coughed and schooled his face to look innocent and wise. "What was I saying? Ah! Enlightenment. I believe I can form a core with what I know, and would like to see if I can bridge a new system on top of my current one. Much like Corvayne has his black crystal powers and the ability to manifest words as pacts."

Spears accepted a fruity looking drink in a simple glass cup with a tiny paper umbrella in it. Corvayne noticed the glass had initals engraved on it. Maybe something to consider when crafting, the aspect of others recognizing their work. He'd talk to Mosh about it. Either way, he could watch the teal fluid filter into Spears, and she saw him looking and winked.

The rest of the drinks and food started filtering in, and besides Mister I polishing off two of his dishes and Grunt destroying armadillo meat nachos, they spent a few minutes just eating with a bit of small talk about how nice the warm evening was after being in the library.

Spears finished her soup, something like miso chili from what Corvayne guessed, and after a satisfied sigh sat up and looked around. "Shall I wait until everyone else finishes?"

Corvayne shook his head, using a spoon to mix gravy and crust from the shepherds pie with mystery meat. "I think you can go ahead, we're listening. Right?"

Bell Hmmed then set her utensils down and wiped her mouth before saying "Of course, I will listen as I finish my meal."

Lady Blood Claw was sipping coffee, having gone with a sort of flatbread burger she was three fourths done with that smelled really good to Corvayne, and was probably what he should have ordered. She glanced to him then Spears and gave a thumbs up, then went back to clearly looking up at the titanic tower while listening. Corvayne followed her glance and saw lights starting to paint the white brick structure and it's dark windows with shadows, catching other colors for ivy and red tile further up.

Grunt grunted approval, then cut another large slab of the steak he had.

Spears smiled and jumped right into it. "So I wanted to look at powers, floors, the structure of the tower, and what they know about the Magus. Not much luck on the last one, as the Librarian had only a history book where there were 'refugees from the Magus' who settled in a low level floor."

Something they might actually want to look into. Spears didn't need prompting. "It's a long ways across the tower from here, and would be something to consider for another longer trip. The librarian said that the book was a history of a region far from us. That's something too, the travel accounts talk about floors. The basics are that floors 'size' is usually based on how large compartments of the floor are or sometimes by how far apart stairs and capital D Doors are."

Bell finished her bite and once more put her utensils down. "As in, the world crossing doors, and the span of that first floor that was a giant cube?"

"Yes. We've seen floors where there are suspended, marketplaces?"

Bell nodded. "I have modern memories mixed in, I know about malls first hand now."

"Okay, the strawberry pants came from a Mall floor where there was a huge grid of malls, and each mall was probably the 'instance size'. The book says that there are floors where the objects that make up each section are millions of miles with vast bridges and stairs through wide open space between them. It was very interesting! They talked about expeditions to try to see if floors like that had a point where they repeated. Some explorer guild used powers that would paint beacons they could use to mark a direction to home and let them move across open air very quickly, and tried to see if going multiple cubes over they could find a limit. The answer is sort of: if you go many many many millions of miles, sometimes a floor shifts what tags it has, but a beacon that cuts off going through a door or up or down stairs won't change. One of the images both books had was a map drawn by explorers of a massive 'heat map' so to speak of a floor, where they found huge 'dead areas' with lower magic, and a few spikes of different spots that were far more dangerous."

Corvayne swallowed and started stirring the remains of his dinner pie. "So they are really infinite, or close enough?"

"The explorers mentioned to the author plans to see if the same worked for a million million miles, but as far as the librarian knew, he never found a book about that quest and the one I read was something like two thousand years old."

Corvayne was pretty sure then that Librarians had a skill to preserve books. Or possibly made sure they got a subjob based on preserving things, which might explain why they needed an adventurer to help with some classes and jobs. He imagined getting a high tier butcher and woodworking class to combine might intersect to aim for a skill that preserved books as one would aim to preserve meat. Pure fantasy on his part, but he was starting to understand the system better even after a day.

"Five floors up. Also five floors down, but books had less info about the Dungeon or underworld as my tome called it." Spears tapped the table. "The theory is that there are two forces, one that wants to uplift Tower climbers, and one trying to stop anyone from getting deeper into the Dungeon."

Bell nodded at this, looking away from Corvayne to Spears. "That seems like what we saw rescuing Hylal. My daughter's prison was a sort of ocean hellscape."

"There is a religious bent to it, the idea that virtuous people climb the tower, and eventually the forces there drive out criminals and devils to dwell in unclean places of suffering."

Mister I stopped eating what looked like most of a cooked duck to raise a fork, and spoke with his mouth half full. “I would wager good jade the food is worse!”

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Grunt made the universal sex symbol then yawned: 'as I bet the company is as well'.

“Actually, supposedly one of the reasons to go into the Dungeon is because there is a succubus trainer past floor 10 bosses and lower who can improve ones performance. Possibly raise their charisma to the opposite sex forever.”

Grunt made a rainbow his hands and Spears shrugged. “I'm talking about the text. I guess assume the author means 'Target sex'.”

Grunt made a rainbow with his hands again. Spears sighed. “I guess you could min max like that, it sounds like the Tower permits it if you really want it. Either way, there are lots of possible 'pre boss' or 'post boss' special floors. Tower lets you get to them without a boss, Dungeon puts them after the fight. We visited the bad boys version of The Inn, and the Tower version is where we found all sorts of services and info. The fixer for thieves shows up in the Dungeon more frequently, so there's a whole thing about finding guides to cross 'Floor 0' which I guess to tower residents is a pain in the butt, probably because they know access to the 'Middle Floor' are usually heavily defended by the residents.”

Corvayne thought of a question. “What happens when they finish a set of 5 floors and exit if they don't have a real world... or I should say floor 0 destination?”

“It sends them to their 'home floor' in that case. User intent and property deeds and spells all influencing it, as does levels. Sometimes low levels need to find help climbing straight up when they have high level relatives power them through a boss they shouldn't be reasonably fighting and the Tower spits them out five levels under where they live. Anyway, Mister I will like this, supposedly there's a place that is a sort of meat exchange where they trade for perfect monster meat with the intent of improving stats.”

Mister I clapped his hands. “Today has been non stop treasures for my heart! I knew I was going to have good fortune! We should set off at once for this meat paradise.”

“It's like every other midpoint. There's usually a quest or request for whatever they have. The meat place needs lots of regular quality meat or 'Soul Fluid' of the creature you are bargaining for prime cuts of. On the flip side, if you have such perfect meat and are willing to part with it-”

“Never!” Mister I cried out. “Only a fool would do that!”

Grunt stood up and hugged Mister Icariii, both of them acting like Spears had just told a child that Hunter Claws wasn't real. Corvayne remembered he was pretty young when he learned it was just his dad leaving extra jerky under the claw totem.

Corvayne paused and blinked. His father, being nice? When did they live in a tent? He was younger...

He tried to think about some other detail of growing up, but it resumed being a swirling blank. He sighed, then tuned back into Spears laying out her learnings.

“But if this subjob thing the Librarian wants us to do doesn't work, we can find a specialist as low as floor 5 by willing it. We should also try to get to the Bazaar if we want to outfit ourselves for particular floors, though there's a passive tax on the floor that makes it generally more expensive even if it offers merchants essence in exchange for the funds it taxes.”

Lady Blood Claw scooted away from where Mister I was continuing to act upset about giving up meat. “That might be a good place to have Kirae go then. Though I suspect on the previous run she found it, as there was a point where she jumped a bunch of levels all at once.”

Corvayne reached for the dessert menu and found that Lady Blood Claw had already claimed it herself. He listened as Spears continued.

“There was also one for 'tuning' weapons, one that lets you discard your powers or levels, a temple with nearly endless altars, and several rooms that the author had no clue as to the function of.”

Bell tapped her cheek. “There's other things mentioned that the authors fail to explain after mentioning. Artifacts and Domain. They might be related to that.

Lady Blood Claw slid the Dessert menu to Corvayne. “There's almost certainly a function if the rooms appear frequently. Someone, somewhere, knows and won't share.”

Corvayne thought about it. “I suspect there are groups who developed investigators to high tiers and know far more then people trying to put together guides for low floors do.”

Spears nodded. “Per the book, there's more towns on lower floors, mostly isolated. In mid floors you have big cities that tend to be connected in fairly developed roads across a few floors and doors. There are rumors of high level cities far far far up, places where champions aim to attack the final floors, but few people advance beyond floor 50 and very few people have come back from floor 70.”

“Does it talk about the difficulty?” Corvayne asked. He'd like to know the risks.

“As you climb the Tower, floors are permitted to be more hostile and difficult to traverse, and monsters become smarter. It's also possible that groups get up high and have less reason to ever go down... or something happens at the top of the tower.”

Corvayne thought about the messages from the person who went into the source. “Or they change... somehow.”

Spears had a little laugh. “That was the last thing I wanted to talk about... the tower can do things like change the race of someone who dives into it.”

Lady Blood Claw nodded. “Items, classes, actions, quests, monsters you fight, the usual hundred different things that determine everything that happens.”

Mister I pointed with his fork. “Hidden stats.”

“The blurb said that, which is often what they say whenever they don't understand why something is the way it is.” Spears agreed. “That and 'the system favors XYZ'.”

Mister I put his fingers together. “Wick... or perhaps Anastasia I suppose, said she talked to the personification of the system itself.”

Corvayne ordered a slice of brownie pie and reviewed what he had learned about classes and tiers. It ended up frustrating Spears. “We need more info about what the paths are.”

“Shoulda brought an ID person with us.” Lady Blood claw sighed.

“I like our party.” Corvayne retorted. “We are not to the phase where we are experimenting on our own. There's still lots of info out there, and I suspect that there's a city on floor 35 or 40 where they know more about tier 4 then this place does tier 2.”

Grunt nodded while grunting, then got the waitress to get him two cakes, and with a wink probably lined up his plans for the evening.

“The solution is that we need to move upwards. Better info, and places we can spend the money we are making.” As if to back him up, a shard of black crystal formed in his hand which he picked out, using a towel he carried in his ring to clean it off. He was bleeding money.

Spears tapped the table. “Okay, I say we try to buy our way into the archives and get a copy of the book we need by seeing if there's another way to awaken the girl.”

Corvayne was full after desert and they split up again between hotels. Spending all day sitting in the library, he made an executive decision to take the girls out for a walk around town, visiting a night market set up to trade oddities. Bell picked up a mask with feathers, and Spears gave herself glass gems she placed in her hair. Corvayne didn't see anything he wanted but Bell bought him a collar with skulls on it, and Spears purchased a fang necklace that she placed under the collar. Corvayne made sure he could take them both off to ensure they were not cursed, then got into it and they spent some time finding masks for him and Spears, then a few cheesy accessories such as a pearl necklace for Spears and a frilly band that Corvayne put around Bell's leg. Spears got Bell a silly hat, and Bell bought a carved fishing bobber and put it on the crown of Spear's head, the two giggling. Corvayne figured out why they seemed especially free when he saw a bottle they had bought when he wasn't looking getting passed around. It smelled like engine de-greaser and tasted about as strong as he imagined the substance would.

The nice part about a compass power is that it worked equally well with a little booze in him.

He guessed they all slept like logs, as he woke refreshed in the dark. A mechanical clock in the room ticked away towards hour 32 of 44. He debated going down to have an early breakfast and chose instead to spent some time soaking in the attached bath. After letting a heating stone leech a little mana from him, he lowered himself into the tub and staring out the window at the physical tower of the floor. He could only see about 10 floors of windows, stark white from lights on it compared to the black sky, but he guessed the tower was at least fifty miles tall given how far away he saw it.

He must have dozed off, because he blinked and saw eyes full of stars on skin that was deep blue and glittered with a million diamonds, somehow vast and looking up at him.

“Have you grown tired?” The voice asked. “Do not fret. Rest. Find what is driving you forward. I've waited for you a long time. I will keep waiting.”

The woman pulled her arms around him, both fitting under his head and somehow at the same time titanic, dwarfing him. He saw a young girl, missing a tooth and smiling at him.

Then he inhaled water through his nose and shot out of the tub, coughing. Bell came to the bathroom door, only wearing the boa he had bought for her near the end of their stroll through the market.

“You shouldn't bathe if your that tired! Or at least make sure your head is outside the water!” She chided him, helping him from the bath mostly because he was thinking about stars like eyes, and the feeling he needed to be somewhere.

He accepted her help with a towel to clean him off and let her lead him back to bed. Spears was awake too, blanket pulled over her chest and watery hair going from perfect to disorderly with a touch of her hand. “If it happens again you're going to have to bathe in me from now on.”

Bell shot her a look, but Spears used a toe to get a robe then just slipped through the foot to reform inside it, then got one for Bell from her pack. “You look cold.”

Bell took the offered robe but didn't close it before she walked to the windows and shut them. She then realized Spears was looking at her and pulled the robe tight. “What were you thinking Corvayne?”

“I get odd dreams, some sort of oracle thing? A woman made of stars told me... to rest and she was waiting.”

Bell groaned. “As your lover made of normal living matter, I request you immediately list off any potential fiancees, childhood friends, star-crossed lovers you may share destiny with, tragic figures you lost, and so on.”

“I got dumped by Wick and Hari. Then mysterious star girl.”

There was a quiet knock on the door. Bell groaned but Spears shrugged and sashayed, over, moving her butt while shooting an eye back at them, straightening up in the last few steps to crack the door, then opening it to catch the person who had knocked. She pulled the Librarian girl in, and Bell started stomping forward.

“This is exactly what I was talking about.”

“Wait!” The girl cried. “I am here with a request.”

Corvayne mouthed to himself 'take me with you.' He looked up and saw Spears grin and mouth the same thing. No [[Unity]] required. Bell followed up. “If you request we take you away-”

“Yes! That's exactly it!”