For the first time since the end of the big battle, Ray felt properly happy. It wasn’t just a low relief that he had come out victorious, the near-everyday sense of satisfaction that was all that had come out of his triumph against his enemies.

This time, after tricking the Fleshcrafter, he was bubbly. Cheerful. Fucking bombastic, if he was being completely honest.

“You actually made him think his own Tower Node was the one he wanted?” Gritty was asking. Her face reflected the grin Ray felt on his own. “With just Mimic Mana?”

“Well, not just Mimic Mana. I wish my Mimic Mana was strong enough for that. But no. I still needed the Tower Node of the Augmenter. It’s what allowed the Imitators to act like actual people.”

“You mean it’s what amplifies the Mimic Mana to fool even the System, which is why fooling a Paragon was a piece of cake.”

Ray’s grin felt like it was splitting his cheeks a bit too much. He liked it. “Exactly.”

They laughed together. It was especially delightful because the Paragon couldn’t do a thing about it. So long as Ray didn’t use the Fleshcrafter Tower Nodes again. That was a loss, no doubt. But he admitted he couldn’t win at all things. The exchange had more than benefitted him in the end.

After all, the Fleshcrafter had kept his promise. The Flesh Plague had been taken away. All the Infected were returning to their usual selves.

“Strange to think that one of your Tower Nodes was important enough to offer taking away the plague on everybody in exchange for it,” Gritty said contemplatively.

Ray hummed. “Makes sense to me.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. He wanted the Tower Node of the Marauder. As far as I know, the Marauder is the only other Paragon who actually has a vested interest in the Tower of Forging.”

“So he wants to take out the competition.”

“Basically. He wants to take out the only Paragon who could stop his plans.”

They sat in companionable silence on the hillside. With the withdrawal of the Flesh Plague, Ray now had almost all his Objectives completely done. There were still a few monster related ones left, but he wasn’t worried about those.

The more important decision was who to give the Tower Node of the Adjudicator to.

The death of the Floor Lord meant that there needed to be a new Floor Lord. At least, someone who could use the Tower Node of the Adjudicator to grant qualified Denizens passage higher up the Tower. Just like how on the First Floor they had all settled on Maya fulfilling that role.

Here, though, Ray wasn’t certain who he was supposed to trust with it. Nobody had come up with a sensible suggestion yet.

None of the Denizens wanted it, nor would Ray have willingly given it to them. They were ascenders. Climbers. Not exactly the best judge of others of their kind. The surviving Sylvans weren’t interested in it either. Kredevel and his companions wanted to climb higher up too. That left the Everstead, but Ray didn’t trust them in the slightest. No way.

For the time being, they decided to put off the decision. After all, Ray hadn’t attained his second class evolution yet, so there was still some time.

He supposed he was kind of holding advancement up to higher floors hostage, since he alone possessed and controlled the Adjudicator Tower Node. Nobody could go to the Third Floor without it, even if their Objectives had been completed. Kind of selfish of him, admittedly, but hey, it wasn’t like a sensible judge had popped up yet.

That was, until they finally unearthed the last of the people from within the Spirespine’s carcass.

Kredevel: The Holdstar trio and the icy one. We found them both.

Ray had been a little taken aback by the suddenness of the message, but he had quickly made his way over to the location of the former royal palace. Kredevel was right. They really had found Ram, Bam, Lam, and even Mary Felds finally.

“They were… together?” Ray found himself asking.

“It would appear so,” Kredevel said. “We will need to ask the Holdstar themselves for any further answers.”

That wasn’t going to be a problem. Because Mary had preserved both herself and the Holdstar in an encasing of prismatic ice. A hollow encasing. Ray had personally experienced just how strong and durable that prism was, so it was no surprise that they both appeared fine.

Ray melted it in short order with his Molten Mana. “Hey there. Been a while, Ram, Bam, Lam. I see you’ve got an interesting guest with you.”

The Holdstar trio had a somewhat apologetic look about them. They shivered as they stood.

“How good to see you again, Ray,” Ram said.

“You survived,” Bam said, failing to hide his incredulity. “Again. I will admit I had little faith.”

It was Lam’s turn to add, “For good reason. You were facing incredible odds. That you and yours managed to persevere through them is nothing short of a miracle.”

Ray smiled. He looked past the three Holdstar to where Mary still lay on the ground. “Oh, you guys don’t even know the half of it. Forget your little Floor Lords and traitorous kings. I had to deal with a fucking Paragon to end this plague. And I’m still alive to tell the tale.”

All three of them gibbered excitedly at that, but it was Mary’s reaction Ray had been looking forward to the most. She wasn’t dead. Her chest was slowly rising and falling, and none of the wounds Ray saw looked actually life-threatening.

At the mention of a Paragon, of dealing with the Paragon and his plague, her closed eyes twitched.

Ray smiled. He turned back to Ram, Bam, and Lam. “I’m guessing you want some space and time to refresh yourselves. We’ll take you somewhere that’s… a little less fleshy. I’ve got something really important I’d like to discuss.”

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

“Oh?” Ram said. “You’re not curious about what we discovered?”

“Of course. You’ll have my ears. But I’m just saying—we’ve been facing a small problem that I think you’ve got the perfect solution for.”

“Really?” Bam asked, somewhat sceptically.

“Pray tell,” Lam said. “What exactly is this problem?”

“How would you like to be the Floor Lord?”

***

“Are you sure you want us to do this?” Ram asked.

“I’m positive,” Ray said.

They had moved off to a more private location. Near the hillside that Ray had been finding himself on the last couple of days. The grass swayed gently in the light breeze.

“Here,” Ray said.

He called out the Tower Node of the Adjudicator and shoved it towards the Holdstar trio. The relinquishing came easy. When Ray moved back, the Tower Node remained close to Ram, Bam, Lam.

“Incredible,” Lam said. “To not only behold a Tower Node with our very own eyes, but to actually possess one. We are blessed on this day indeed.”

“Do you wish for us to begin operating it now?” Ram asked.

Ray shook his head. “I still have things I want to accomplish on the Second Floor, but once I’m done, I’ll be ready. If anyone else arrives, feel free to help them climb higher.”

“That is one thing I was concerned about…”

Bam hissed. “Do we really need to concern ourselves over such a thing?”

“Well, yes,” Ram said. “After all, we are in the same boat now.”

Ray looked between the Holdstar. “I’m not sure what you mean. Mind explaining the full context?”

All three of the Holdstar looked squarely at Ray. Then they began the story of everything they had found out.

The Floor Lord was the one who had created the Everstead in the first place. She was faced with a conundrum. On the one hand, she had to serve the Paragon and cause a Flesh Plague in a large number of sapient creatures. On the other hand, she couldn’t blatantly stop the progress of the Denizens up the Tower.

She could have attempted to use some sort of twisted guile like the Lord of the First Floor had done. But that was when she discovered a new method.

Namely, the Tower Node of the Augmenter.

With Amplification Mana now in her hand, she had a brilliant idea. If she couldn’t take over subjects for the plague, she could simply create them.

This led to her finding the most powerful Imitators on the entire Floor and getting in touch with them. Ram, Bam, Lam weren't clear about that stage, as there were likely more Tower Nodes or other hidden mechanisms involved, but the Floor Lord was able to talk with the most powerful Imitators and convince them to conform to her plan.

From the very beginning, the very first Imitators who had gained sentience were all in on the plan to infect most of their race with the Flesh Plague. The thought made Ray’s mouth go dry.

Somehow, Fyrlea the Floor Lord was able to get a hold of a person who could serve as a template for the Imitators to “ascend”. With the help of the Amplification Mana she provided, the Imitators not only mimicked the human’s shape, but were also able to mimic everything internal that made a human a person. Thoughts, feelings, memories. Everything.

The power of Amplification Mana was quite intense.

The Floor Lord and the first Imitators decided to play a layered trick. First was to convince the newer Imitators that they had to pretend to be this civilization of Everstead, while in truth, they were all being primed as sacrifices for the Fleshcrafter’s plague.

Second was the trick that they would all play on the real Denizens. That the Floor Lord was gone and the Everstead, this seemingly primitive civilization, were running the Second Floor.

For their service, the Everstead would all be elevated to the Third Floor. They really believed it.

Ray could almost see the stupid Everstead king laughing.

“You found all that out from Mary?” Ray asked. “Is that why you sought her out inside the palace?”

“Partly, yes. I discovered some of this on my own while I was investigating. As I said, the numbers of what was allocated did not add up, but it began to make sense when I understood that the only numbers that mattered were that of the Mana shards. Their supply wasn’t limited, you see.”

“What do you mean? They have a way to make Mana shards?”

It reminded Ray of the experiments that the Lord of the First Floor had been determined to try out. A way to convert and create Mana. Ray could do that now, though he had no way of condensing said Mana into shards or crystals or anything of the sort.

“Not exactly,” Ram said.

“They were sending down more!” Bam yelled. “We were told a big, fat lie. There was never a need to account how much the Floor Lord was or wasn’t spending. Her entire expenditure was fully approved from the beginning, and they were always going to finance her, even if she needed more shards and crystals than was originally assumed.”

Ray’s next breath came in sharp. “So your whole investigation was…”

“Pointless,” Lam said bitterly. “A farce. I cannot believe it took us this long to discover it.”

“But back to Mary Felds,” Ram said. “Yes, we wanted the rest of the truth from a source that wasn’t the Everstead or the Sylvans, And she was willing to divulge all that she had discovered, for she was an investigator from the Everstead side.”

Ray had a hard trouble believing that. Mary being cooperative? But he listened patiently as Ram continued.

It turned out Mary had been hired on a farce as well. The leaders of the Everstead obviously didn’t want her to do anything about it. Of course, they couldn’t outright kill a Denizen either, even after she found out things she probably wasn’t supposed to. Their attempts to orchestrate her death all failed.

In the end, they made a deal with her. If she acted as their liaison, they would allow her to discover the exact location of the Floor Lord, which was one of her main Objectives.

“That’s how she was able to make her way to the Third Floor,” Ray said.

Ram made a noise of agreement in this throat. “Yes. She agreed to assist the Everstead, even after she found out their deceptive truth.”

Ray recalled what he had heard from Mary herself. Like him, she had been determined to climb higher up the Tower too. But unlike Ray, she wasn’t that focused on her own growth. She didn’t need to be. Not if she could handle her obstacles the way she had handled the Everstead.

“What will happen to her now?” Ram asked.

“We do not wish for her to die,” Bam said. “She has been rather helpful, not someone we would see dead, if we can help it.”

Lam swayed his head from side to side. “Yes, even if she has tried to kill you and yours.”

Ray closed his eyes for a second, trying to sort through his feelings. “She chose her side and she suffered the consequences for her choice. I don’t care if she’s alive or dead. So long as she doesn’t get in my way again, she can do whatever she wants. The problem is that she could still be serving her side.”

“With the Everstead broken, more or less, you must mean the Sylvans,” Ram said.

Ray nodded. “Yep. But that also means she could potentially be a fount of information.” He glanced meaningfully at his friend. “To you, if not to anyone else.”

“Hmm, you may be right.”

“So, there. Just tell her to stay out of my way and get something useful from her about the Third Floor, and we’re good.”

Ray understood that sounded cruel. Keeping someone alive in part because she could be of use to him was a ruthless decision. But he wasn’t inclined to forget Mary had thrown in her towel with his enemies. Worse, she herself had come to kill him and his friends as well.

In all honesty, he was being fucking merciful.

“What about you yourself, Ram, Bam, Lam?” Ray asked. “How are you feeling about all this? Do you want to be the Floor Lord?”

All three Holdstar looked thoughtful for a while, exchanging rapid glances among themselves.

“We will remain here for now, yes,” Ram finally said. “But at some point, we will need to move on. I was hired by the Everstead mostly because I’m a wandering expert with few ties. And I would like to continue wandering. Plus, I will need to settle some personal affairs eventually.”

“Right, right. What I’m asking is how you felt about the fact that everything you did was just part of a sham.”

“Ah, I was—”

“We are furious!” Lam said. “If it was in our power, we would be giving the Tower Lord a piece of our mind. In fact, once we leave, the very first thing we shall accomplish is leaving a strong complaint at the Hiring Federation. To think that they would approve such fraudulent jobs. Pathetic.”

Ray was taken aback for a second, before he laughed outright. “I suppose that about sums it up.” He got a hold of his mirth, before smiling genuinely at his friends. “All the same, I’m grateful you accepted. There’s no one else who fits, and no one else I’d really trust. So thank you. Really.”

All three of the Holdstar smiled back at him.

“We are glad to be able to help,” Ram said.

“Yes!” Bam agreed with vigorous twirl of his head. “Anything that helps you will no doubt hinder our accursed former employers. So we will contribute!”