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Exploit and Extract
The Only Way Is Up

The Only Way Is Up

Morress jolted slightly as the cart hit another rock on the road, making is backside hurt, despite the attempts at padding it with some cloth.

The trip was quiet, as most of the people with him on the cart had talked enough with each other over the last day and night that they had nothing else to say to each other, the anticipation of the work, the motives for taking such a job, and their lives at home and elsewhere were each all shared on the trip, and now all that remains is the growing shape of Fawweld. The upside down city.

It was eerie. Tall spires of buildings were stretched higher than any building the port city Morress grew up in had, and they were all in shadow because of the second major feature of the city.

The island in the sky.

The disaster that changed Fawweld from a major city to a mysterious ruin filled with monsters and treasure had made things inside the limits of a dome of magic around the city fall up, and it was a busy city at the time. Hundreds of thousands of different people, animals, and objects fell upwards, before stopping at the peak of the dome of magic, bouncing up and down. And colliding with each other. There was now a massive island in the sky, floating because of the dome, and filled to the brim with buried items of value and corpses that had long decayed, been picked at, and slowly turned to dirt for the trees that grew on top.

It was ominous. Not helped with the slow traversal to the basecamp, just outside the dome, and with the occasional glimpses of the wildlife. inside, flying from spire to spire, upside down.

"It's beautiful," Ximen disagreed with Morress thoughts immediately, like the treacherous, cheating bastard he was. He stared at the city, awestruck.

Morress rolled his eyes. "It's tragic," he replied. "They said the old royal family was in the city at the time. They were inside, but they were trapped in the palace spire, and it took too long to get them out before the magical mutation and the starvation hit them."

Ximen was a local to the nearby kingdom, one that shared enough of a border that roughly one in ten of the people he knew were Kazexcans. The olive coloured skin on Ximen that was lighter than his fellow Kazexcans but brighter than the people of the River Kingdom, and the tattoo on his face in the shape of a snake reaching up to swallow his left eye make him... memorable.

That and the fact Morress knew he cheated at cards. Maybe.

He knew he was fuming at losing six Princeheads to the man. Immature? Yes. But he never lost at Red's Hand.

"Yeah, that does sound awful," Ximen said. He then gave a sly grin, and ruined it. "But I know what can cheer me up; the jingling sounds of all these coins I-"

"Quit it with the teasing asshole," Vevaria, another Kazexcan who sat beside Morress, snapped. She had also lost money to the bastard, but not as much, opting out early. "I don't need a rookie being annoying at me."

Ximen and Morress were rookies to this job, but this is Vevaria's third time working inside Fawweld. And she'd been in other places too, like Talltower,  out on the coast, and the Screaming Caverns in the north River Kingdom.

Ximen quietly put his coin away. "As you wish, my beautiful budget adventuress."

Moress snorted, then looked away when Vevaria glared at him and stuck him with a light elbow, which still hurt due to her having actual levels and experience.

"Ow."

"Fickle asshole. I thought you were mad at him."

"Is this why you've been moping?" Ximen cut in. "I didn't take you for a sore loser."

"I'll get those heads back," Morress sneered. "You can't win every round."

"Want to bet again? I think you have eighteen Princeheads left, right? How about two-"

Vevaria stomped on Ximen's foot, and then Morress's foot too, for good measure. "Quit gambling, you bickering idiots!"

"We could split the loot," Morress supplied.

Vevaria rolled her eyes and looked away. "Ugh."

The carts slowly stopped, and the driver at the front of theirs hopped off with the guy who sat next to him on their seats that had much better padding. Cheap bastards.

Vevaria at least said that this company didn't outright steal any loot picked up from an expedition. They just sold supplies at annoying prices and undervalued whatever trinkets and stuff was carried out.

"Bat!"

Just as his feet hit the ground, another of the passengers pointed up and called out the animal that was above the encampment. It was a massive, man-sized bat with wickedly sharp and large talons, that was overhead within the dome, coming right at them.

Everyone slightly scattered, as it swooped out of the dome, turned in the air to orient itself better from the new gravity, and dove down at them.

Only to take a solid spear through the abdomen, sending it off course and crashing to the ground in front of the group.

Everyone was some level of aghast at the thing, but i was dead on landing.

A large man in green armour walked over and pulled out the spear, then slammed the blunt end down on the ground.

"I guess this makes a very fine introduction, if any could," he announced. "I am Eghart, Scouting commander for this expedition into Fawweld. I am a level thirty Spearman, and I have fought and killed monsters for a living for ten years."

Vevaria frowned slightly, then when she saw Morress looking, shook her head.

"I'm going to escort you to the central city and up the peak spire, where you will assemble a ladder to the island. Our employer wishes to gather materials from there."

Morress stepped closer to her, and seeing that, so did Ximen.

"He doesn't know what he's talking about," Vevaria whispered.

"Really?"

She was still frowning. "Really. He didn't even hear me. Also, he said going up. Nobody says that about Fawweld. I think our bosses skimped out on the big guys this time."

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"He killed the bat," Ximon argued.

"Fawweld Bats are easy. You can kill 'em with a bow and arrow. Also, they don't often attack like that."

Between the big guy in the armour, and Vevaria, who doubts him, Morress had no clue. He'd never been to Fawweld, and there wasn't much information about it that he had a chance to read. Books were expensive.

The man eventually dismissed everyone, and they all queued at the tents to register, get supplies, and get assignments.

He knew he wanted to be on the front, alongside Ximen and Vevaria, so once he got in line, he saw there was a place on the job roster, and chose that.

"Dangerous job," the bearded guy behind the makeshift counter said. He still scribed his name down on the wax ledger. "Don't get knocked off the edge by the bats or clamberers." He handed him a token to get his provisions.

Next was the equipment. He went to the next tent, the quartermaster, and handed the wooden token to the woman at the table. Vevaria had skipped out on taking the basic spear and shield, as she had her own weapon from her adventures; a forward bending sword, in the Kazexcan gladiatorial style. She did however still take the other equipment required for a forward scout, even hough she had kit of her own, from the water bladder she held, and rope hooked to her thigh. "Better safe than dead," she said.

Morress and Ximon took the basic equipment, as they didn't have anything. Leather helmets and chestplates, spears and small shields, rations of food and water, backpacks, rope, and other supplies. Kitted out with cheap stuff that was useful.

"Fawweld will reset in five minutes," a camp administrator bellowed. "Be ready!"

That was time to look around. Vevaria was busy prepping up as she walked to a building at the edge of the dome; one that seemed to pass through it, while she tied her long hair into a bun as she walked.

Ximon grabbed Morress' shoulder. Morress jumped.

"Fuck! Don't do that."

Ximon smirked.

"Want to buy better supplies with me?" He pointed at a large tent that was marked as a store, who had people coming and going.

There were other places, like a hastily set up blacksmith, a herbalist, and even a place to eat and drink. Likely all expensive and designed to rip the expedition pay right out of one's hands.

"You want to waste my money on overpriced gear?"

"I'm wasting my money on a little edge. Besides Morress, it's a good chance to see what might be in there, before we dive in."

Morress was curious. But not just about the loot. Vevaria hadn't explained much, barring the fact she suspected that the man that was leading

Morress shrugged. "Alright. Lead the way."

The store was a tent with a bunch of massive trunks on carts in the back, and a shelf of stocked items of various kinds, from swords to clothing to even odder items, like a plate, a small anvil, and even a carriage wheel.

"What's with the spare wheel?"

The store clerk turned to glance at it, then turned back and shrugged. "A ton of magical stuff you get in dungeons and wherever tend to have magic that fits the dungeon. With Fawweld, it's mostly weight, wind, darkness, and the moon."

"The moon," Ximon repeated.

"Yup. Activated by moonlight, recharged by moonlight, improves with the four phases of the moon, that kinda stuff. That wheel? It rolls on it's own in the dark, and if you imbue with it, you can command it."

"Imbue with it?"

"I don't know the details myself, I'm not even level 1, but I think my boss said it's like, you lose a level to make an item fully 'yours'. Beyond just putting it on."

"I see. But things are fine without the imbue thing, right?"

"Yeah. You can use most things here without imbuing at all. Would you like something to buy?"

Ximon hummed. "Yeah, can I have any good boots?"

The man behind he counter smiled. "Good choice. There's a bunch of boots, the two most common are Skysteppers and Leapers. Skysteppers make it so you can make two steps across the open air, once an hour, and Leapers make it so you can jump very far every three minutes."

"How much for both?" Ximon asked.

"Four Kingsheads per pair. That'll be eight."

That was a robbery. It was three Princeheads for a Queenshead, and two Queensheads for a Kingshead. Morress had three Kings, and Ximon just had six from his winnings.

"Bastards," Morress muttered.

"I don't make the prices, my boss does."

Ximon frowned. There's also other amenities to consider.

"What's cheaper?"

"We have a few A rings of Silent Screaming. They're useless, really. Only good for attracting the damn bats."

"Really?" Morress asked, curious.

"They don't taste good, if you're thinking about that. But yeah. Some idiot left one near a mana crystal last week, and two of the fuckers swooped in from the city. Mauled some poor kid's face before they got shot down."

"Shit, that doesn't sound good. Why sell em?"

"Because they attract the bats. Good for just getting a fight over with instead of trying to make a bridge across spires with the fuckers flying around."

Morress and Ximon shared a look, thinking about the same man. Eventually, Morress decided on it. "I'll buy one."

"One king for one Ring."

Morress parted with the unfair amount of money, and then took the ring and put it on.

Ximon bought some Leapers, muttering that he'll make money later on and looking at Morress, obviously planning to rob him with another, round of gambling later, and once they were ready, several bells rung.

They watched Fawweld shift. The barrier grew opaque, and then solid black, before slowly adding back to invisible transparency gain, all within a minute.

There were more spires than last time.

"Those buildings fall over the course of the month," a man said from behind, shocking the pair out of their awe. "But we do have time to explore some of them, before they do."

Morress whirled around to see a bald, burly man with a thick black moustache and varied gear that made him look like the stereotype of a seasoned adventurer.

"We'd have to be fast," Ximon said. "And careful."

"And Explore and Exploit companies aren't careful, are they?" he challenged.

"Not always," Ximon answered.

The man stared him down. "Good answer. Knowing when people are the bigger threat than the monsters are will keep rookies like you two alive for longer than you'd expect." He patted both of them on the shoulders, before parting them with his strength and bulk.

Before he fully walked off though, he turned his head to still talk to them.

"I wouldn't want to have wasted coin funnelling you, only for you to die within the hour. There's profits to be made, monsters to slay, levels to earn, loot to plunder, and adventure to be had."

Then he set off to the building where Vevaria went to, and where others with the spears and shields also went.

That was their employer, Morress realized. He expected some rich noble guy to finance this, not a dude who looked like he'd done this for a living already.

"Hop to it!"

They ran after him, into the building.

A long stone tunnel, where at one end was people on the floor, and at the other, they stood on the ceiling. Vevaria was already on the other side, looking around. She waved from upside down as she caught a sight of Morress and Ximon, and she was also with another pair of rookies. Their employer simply leapt across the threshold, rolling into the fall with a thud, earning a polite clap from Eghart, who was already there, his larger spear on his back.

The bulky man ignored him.

Another rookie shoulder checked Ximon enough to send him over and almost past the barrier unprepared as he marched through the barrier himself, not even looking back and not even bending his knees as he landed and walked up to Eghart.

Asshole, Morress thought.

Ximon frowned.

"Remember to check your levels as soon as you enter," the big man running the expedition yelled. "You'll get offering personalized you you at first, and measly indeed, but they will improve as you level up."

"How do we do that?" somebody else asked.

"To see your levels? It's instinctive. Think about them, close your eyes, snap your fingers, do what you want. For levelling up? You survive, and then thrive. Kill monsters, earn loot."

"Win fights," the shoulder checker added.

The big man glared at him.

Morress took this moment to go through. He took a step through the barrier and felt the change instantly. His leg being pulled up to the ceiling. He pushed through the rest of it, and braced himself for the fall.

It still hurt. But not badly.

"Idiot," one woman hissed. "Roll with the drop, not suck it in."

The shoulder checker scoffed.

He ignored them. They were pouring out into Fawweld already, leaving the lagging behinders, like him, Ximon, those who haven't jumped, and Vevaria and the two she was with.

"Hey Morress, can you catch me?"

Morress nodded. Ximon carefully moved and jumped through the barrier in a way that the dual gravities would only slow his fall down, and Morress caught him easily.

"Thank you, my man."

He then offered to help the others. The rookies caught each other, heling each other get through the barrier, and some opted to jump and roll, or send their packs through first. Only one declined, leaving the building from a case of cold feet.

Wooden construction materials were passed through and moved into the tunnel, there to make bridges to other buildings of Fawweld, where there were none.

Morress, before he truly began his adventure, thought about his levels. And they came up.

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