Breathing slowly, calmly, Fritz gazed around the Well room while his team chose their new Abilities. This time he carefully scanned and took in all the things he had missed before.
While the circular stone room was filled with tents, wooden chairs and tables, there was also a two-storied structure of white stone and wood beams with an orange tiled roof. It didn't belong and was incongruent in the extreme. He wondered for a moment how he had missed it in his first search of the area. But he soon realised why. Fritz didn't want to see it or acknowledge its presence, due to the familiar black and yellow banners hanging over its door and from its windows that marked it as a part of the Guides Guild.
It likely held a store, replete with information and potions, know-notes or other Treasures and useful items for sale. Maybe it was the strangeness of seeing a well-built house in a Well room or maybe it was just Fritz's own bitter grudge, but somehow this outpost felt even more wrong than the landing floor shop. He wanted to tear it down brick by brick, then break those white bricks with a hammer. Pry away that revolting wooden door-frame, and burn it. Purge the parasitic demesne.
He tore his eyes away from the open door, pushed away that sudden surge of hatred and continued his assessment of the rest of the room.
This whole place had something of the air a tavern's common room might have late in the night, if a little more guarded and a little less raucous. Though it was also a market of sorts, most voices were kept at a low volume, loud guffaws or outbursts being glared upon by the other Climbers or the Guides Guildsmen. It seemed that making trouble was frowned upon.
And thinking of trouble, he wondered why everyone had stood away from them as they made their way to the Well. Something to ask someone. He didn't have to look too long to find that someone, in fact, he didn't have to look at all.
"All recovered," the man in the black-scale coat asked. He looked to be in his thirties, rough thirties and had a short brown beard and hair parted with a few long scars.
"Almost," Fritz said, displaying his scored and slashed forearms.
The man grimaced. "Must've been something nasty, not many monsters in the Mer Spire should leave you so wounded after healing. Unless you were bothering some poisonous eels," he added, gauging Fritz's response to his subtle probing.
"Nothing of the sort," Bert interrupted. "Sure, we did bother some eels, but they were clearblood eels."
"Clearblood, a lucky find," the man said, impressed and obviously a little jealous. His face then fell into a scowl, obviously chiding himself for his actions so far.
He held out a hand. "Where are my manners? Must've left them on the last Floor. The name is Dayn."
Bert took it and shook it, and Fritz followed each giving their names in return.
"New to the Mer Spire?" he Dayn asked.
They nodded.
"Done well for a first time, without a Guide and all," he casually continued.
"We're lucky," Bert said grinning.
The man grunted and nodded.
"Good. Looks like you guys know not to blab about everything you find to the first person you meet."
"Not without a few drinks at least," Bert said, getting a chuckle out of the man.
"Just warning you before the Guides cheat you. Knowledge is gold, and the Guides guard both, we should too. And we Rainfolk should work together," he said grimly.
Fritz and Bert nodded.
"Speaking of knowledge. Was there a reason everyone stood back from us as we entered?" Fritz asked.
"Mhm." Dayn cleared his throat. "Yeah. If you get in the way of someone claiming the Power of the Well, that they rightfully earned, then it will be seen as an attack by the Spire. It'll throw you out and chuck the spite on you for good measure. And if that happens you're better off Climbing a new Spire until the next Tolling."
"Next Tolling?" Bert asked. "Why then?"
"Well, it's like a big reset for all the Spires, all at once," he explained.
"Is it the same at the other Wells?" Fritz asked, knowing fully well the answer was no, but pretending to be ignorant to keep the man's suspicions at bay.
"Nah. I heard of many a Climbing team being ambushed or robbed in a Well room, it's just the sixths Floors, and the Precipice, that's different."
"Sixths Floors? Like multiples of six? Twelfth and eighteenth and so on?" Bert asked, flabbergasting Fritz with the mention of multiples. He hid his surprise well and Dayn nodded, confirming Bert's question.
"And precipices are also different?" Fritz said.
"Mhm. Each one is separate, no need to worry about others or intruders. Though I have heard that the king-" Dayn cut his words short as he saw a Guide, decked out in his yellow reversible coat, step out from the building and glare directly at them. There was a burning fury in those keen eyes aimed at Dayn. A not-so-subtle warning to shut up. He shuffled, then rolled his shoulders, turning his back on the Guide. He looked disgruntled but afraid, or at least unwilling, to cross the Guides Guild.
"Anyway, I didn't mean to bother you for too long. If you got anything good to trade, which it looks like you do, come see my team. We'll be far fairer than the foreigners or the nobles," Dayn said, then added in a low whisper. "Or those gouging Guide bastards."
"Thanks for the help," Fritz said with a genuine smile.
"One last thing," Dayn said. "Guard your things. If it's not on your person it doesn't count as yours and it won't count as an attack if someone tries to steal or destroy it."
"Destroy?" Bert said.
"It happens. Piss off a petty Climber and you might end up with a ripped tent or bags. You might want to be careful."
"I don't think we'll be at risk of that. We don't seek to make enemies here," Fritz claimed.
"Sometimes, the enemies seek you," Dayn said, meaningfully glancing around the Well room.
On those ominous words, they shook hands again before the man left to report to his own team.
Fritz shivered, the warning resonating in his chest. He scanned the area, his sight alighting on the Guide still watching them. As they locked eyes, the Guide disappeared. The yellow vanished in the blink, leaving behind only an empty doorway. Was it actually empty? Something tried to tell him it both was and wasn't and he felt a burst of vertigo. Fritz looked away.
"Not a bad sort," Fritz stated, picking up where he and Bert had let off, pretending not to be perturbed.
"I agree. I liked him," Bert said, noticing, but not commenting on, Fritz's discomfort.
One by one his team came up from their Sanctums, and when they had all surfaced to the real world Fritz announced, "We should set up somewhere to camp here, we can spend a day to relax and get some knowledge on the Doors, or trade Treasures and valuables."
They agreed, and wanting to be as far away from both the red and gold Empire silk pavilion and the Guide house, they picked a small area between both where they could place their things.
"Why don't we have tents?" Cal groused.
"Because we're poor. And I didn't want to carry them, or force you to, Cal," Fritz said offhandedly. "Be thankful, you've had to haul far less than you ought. I've basically spoiled you."
Cal frowned and Fritz smirked.
"What do you even want a tent for? Don't you love sleeping in the open air?" Bert joined in.
"No, I want some privacy, and some quiet," Cal groused, though Fritz could see he wasn't truly frustrated as he had been on the last Floor.
"Privacy!?" Bert blurted. "What so you can have some romance like your sister craves!?"
"Gods! Don't say sister and craves in the same breath," Cal groaned.
"As much as it pains me to say, I have to agree with Cal on this one, Bert," Fritz said, his face scrunching as though he had taken a bite out of a lime.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
"Can you three cease your bickering," Lauren said, glancing around and seemingly embarrassed at the stares and smiles of the others within earshot.
Fritz soon realised that they had been causing quite the ruckus.
One of the men in the small group of young nobles loitering outside the Empire pavilion stared on bemusedly. He was blonde, pale blonde, his hair cut in one of the sorter styles that was currently in fashion. The man was of average, maybe athletic, build and had a clean-shaven face and steely grey eyes. His clothes marked him out as wealthy and high-born, fine silk in blues and silvers. Apparently, he was forgoing armour whilst in the safety of the Well room, opting for comfort instead.
He was the picture of peerage and privilege, handsome, smirking and arrogant. The only thing he was missing was the tell-tale signs of the Merfolk strain. Likely that was why he and the other nobles were here, climbing the Mer Spire to gain that boon at the precipice, since he had obviously not been offered it at the third Well. It must've been a great frustration to this man, or perhaps that lurking resentment was aimed at something else. Either way, Fritz could see a deep bitterness bubbling beneath his bearing and an entrenched self-entitlement etched behind his eyes.
Fritz took an instant disliking to the man and his false sense of superiority.
The noble's eyes drifted to Quicksilver's hilt then to Fritz's face, meeting his gaze and holding it. Fritz had the distinct impression he had met the man before, though in another time, another place, when they were both children, at one extravagant event or another. Apparently, the other man felt the same as a ripple of remote recognition flew over his features and a slight frown alighted on his brow.
He said a few words to his companions, and strode toward where Fritz was standing. The man kept his sure smile, the one all nobility wore, so certain in their excellence and exalted power. Fritz mirrored the smile, though he forged his one sharper, more jagged, just like the edge of Quicksilver.
"Have we met? You look familiar," the nobleman asked.
"Unlikely, lord," Fritz said, still figuring out how to navigate this particular encounter. This must be the son of some one fairly important by the way he carried himself. Though that wasn't saying much, every one was important compared to Fritz and his team.
"Please, the lord is my father. You may address me as Lloyd."
Fritz was somewhat confused at the man's approach and immediate, affable familiarity. Though he would never dare show it.
"Of course, Lloyd," Fritz said with a smile and a small bow.
Lloyd frowned, obviously not impressed with the slight amount of deference Fritz afforded him. Clearly he wanted more.
"Lloyd Whiteship," he stated as if Fritz should already know who he was.
Oh. A duke's son.
Then the realisation hit him like a falling rafter.
The duke that I burgled. Who's heraldry is still stitched into my undergarments.
Fritz almost burst out into laughter, but covered it with a cough and a deeper bow.
"I'm terribly sorry, I didn't recognise you," Fritz said.
They stood in silence for a moment before Lloyd said, "And you are?"
"Oh, right," Fritz sputtered, feigning flusterment. "I'm-"
Before he could give out a false name and house, another of the nobles had joined them and interrupted.
"By the sorry look of him, he's one of the Hightides," the new man said. "Likely the eldest. There are two of them. I believe he has a brother, though he'd still be too young to Climb if my recollection serves me well."
This new noble was shorter and stockier than both Fritz and Lloyd. His hair was dark blond and he had keen brown eyes. He had the beginnings of a second chin, and underneath it a thick golden necklace with a gaudy ruby pendant that shimmered with an inner glow.
"And here I thought I knew all the noblefolk of Rain City," Lloyd said. "It seems I was mistaken, I've never heard of any prominent Hightides."
"That's because there are none," the new noble explained dismissively. "They're a defunct House, most of their holdings have been parcelled out a decade ago, in recompense for the damages they have sown. And what little is left is held in trust."
"Damages? Pray do tell, Charles," Lloyd asked, seemingly interested, but watching Fritz like a hawk for any reaction.
"Oh, you know the debacle. It was quite the uproar, though it was before our time," the other noble, Charles, drawled. "The Hightide Guide, who disappeared with both a scion of the royal family and the heir to house Wavesreach. Leaving the other six of his team to fend for themselves, only two of which made it out of the Rain Spire alive."
Was that actually what had happened? Fritz had been young, too young, when that tragedy struck, and then there was the pillaging of his his estate, and subsequent brutal orphaning of himself and his siblings. A terrible death after a tragic disappearance. Fritz had only heard rumours and even then they didn't say nearly as much about the original disaster.
"Oh my!" Lloyd exclaimed, breaking Fritz from his stunned, stewing silence. "I have indeed heard of that. I believe the princess lost her dear older brother to that incident."
"You are correct, it was an incredibly embarrassing catastrophe. For both the King and the Guides," Charles intoned scathingly, his lips turning up in disgust and looking upon Fritz as if he were a skulg. "Honestly, I'm surprised one of you Hightides would have the gall to show your wretched faces before us."
Fritz's stomach roiled with fury, and it took all of his control not to draw Quicksilver and gut the pompous man. He clenched his fists and jaw, sealing away his words and anger. Were they trying to bait him into attacking them or was this the classic social posturing the nobles engaged in? He couldn't tell but he hated them nonetheless.
"Gall?" Bert asked slipping into the conversation. "If it's one thing Fritz has its gall. More than one of them! You've got a lot of galls. That's what they say to him."
The nobles' sharp eyes turned to Bert, weighed him, then dismissed him as a commoner and therefore inconsequential.
"Your servant is awfully rude. And dreadfully dull. You should take care of that. Perhaps get a new one that's less ugly and has more sense," Charles said. "Though really, it's probably the best help you can get. What can we really expect from a house that has sunk so low?"
"Come now, Charles," Lloyd said affably, his eyes glittering with amusement. "We're all Climbers here. You know. Equals."
The way Lloyd smirked and said that last word made it entirely too obvious he didn't mean it. That he was mocking them and they couldn't do a thing about it.
"Equals is it?" Fritz said, affecting disinterest. "I suppose we are equally unworthy of the Empire's grace. That is why you loiter outside that branded tent, no? Not allowed inside? Unwanted? Unneeded?"
Charles's smirking expression fell into a calculating blandness. Lloyd's friendly facade flickered for only a moment, but Fritz could see a spark of fury in his grey eyes.
"Like muddy hounds not allowed in the house," Bert added, casting his own fuel to the flame.
That curdled Lloyd's smile, while Charles's face reddened. It seemed they had struck a sore spot. Though before they could begin to trade insults in earnest, a well-dressed, strikingly lovely lady stepped out from the silk pavilion. She got caught up in its door flap for a moment before extricating herself, stepping forward and stumbling a little. She steadied herself, smoothed her exquisite, form-flattering dress of shimmering green, and scanned the area.
The lady came forward, and pushing a lock of gold hair from her flushed face, called out, "Charlie. I mean Sir Seavine! The Prince requests another bottle of your family's esteemed wine."
"He's not a real Prince. So what if he's the great nephew of the Emperor," Charles growled under his breath, before turning and greeting the lady with a genial smile.
"Lady Alice Blackbridge. It would be my pleasure to provide the Prince with more wine. Shall I present it myself?" He asked eagerly.
"No, that's quite alright. He's very... content with our company. And he doesn't want it to get too crowded," she answered smiling slyly and holding out her hand as if the man had a bottle on him.
Charles's smile was strained, but he obliged, retrieving a dark bottle from a too-small pouch attached to his belt and handing it to her with a small bow.
She took it and sauntered off, back into the tent, where the faint sound of talk, the clinking of glasses and giggling emanated, before being cut off when the door flap closed again.
"Wow, she was lovely," someone whispered from behind Fritz, to his slight surprise it was Lauren.
He raised an eyebrow at her and she shrugged, giving him a small smile. "I like her dress."
"And who is this fine lady," Lloyd said, noticing her for the first time. His eyes lit up with something greedy, unnerving, as he took in her obvious beauty.
"I'm Lauren Nearshore, lord," she said, bowing deeply.
"That's not a house I'm familiar with," Charles interjected, looking her over with a discerning, lascivious gaze. "Though I'm sure I have heard it before."
"I'm not of the peerage, lord, merely a humble merchant's daughter," Lauren professed.
"Merchant's daughter? Nearshore. That's right, you must be my betrothed's sister!" He exclaimed happily. "I see it now. Under that ugly bruise, you two look quite similar. You're both great beauties. In fact, you could be twins, and you will have to be careful, lest I mistake you for her," he chuckled.
Lauren's face was frozen in that polite, radiant smile, but her eyes flickered with embers.
"And you will have to be careful, lest I mistake you for a hog and roast you," she replied prettily.
The man was gobsmacked, then Lauren realised what she had said and horror entered her own eyes.
Bert burst into laughter as did Cal and Rosie, who watched on. The noble didn't take well to being mocked by commoners, especially those as rough as those three. Fritz had thought Charles's face red before, but he had been wrong, now it was red, like the shell of a boiled lobster. His hand went to the extravagant gold hilt at his side before Lloyd caught his arm by the crook of his elbow and hissed, "Stop, sixth Well."
Charles shook off his companion's grip. Apparently, the Spire counted neither of the actions as attacks, and Fritz absently wondered what the criteria was to be thrown out. It obviously had something to do with intent, similar to how the Spires recognised teams as separate from each other.
"That common whore called me a hog," Charles growled back. "My honour demands-"
"Your honour demands that you escort the 'Prince' as we were 'allowed' to by the king," Lloyd said quietly. "You cannot do that if you've been ejected. Would you saddle the rest of us with the spite? Then the derision of the court for failing such a simple task?"
The low, whispered words sank into Charles and his anger receded, or rather, was caged deep within. Hatred stirred in his glare as he levied it at Lauren.
"I didn't know the Nearshores were so vulgar. Maybe I should ask my father to reconsider our families' arrangements for marriage," he said, tone dripping with venom. "Your sister will be devastated. I'm sure."
Lauren, it seemed, had had enough. She straightened out of her bow and the fear left her eyes, replaced by a ring of orange light around her yellow-green irises. Lauren met his gaze with blank-faced fury.
"Let her be devastated. I care not. Better that than being bound to a fiance as blind and as rude as a base-born, gutter-scraping beggar," she said.
The noble was shocked at the swift change in her demeanour, Fritz himself was somewhat surprised as well. Though he wasn't offended like the pampered man was. No, he took heart-deep delight that she was standing up to these spoilt men and getting her own sharp words in. Dusksong chimed giddily.
"Good one!" Bert said, grinning. "Call him a squid-sucking, scab-eater next."
Charles grasped at the air beside his sword, opening and closing his fist as he shook with barely contained rage.
Fritz stepped sideways and stood between the bickering.
"You'll have to forgive my team," he said. "We've had a hard Climb."
"I have to do no such thing!" Charles roared. "You cannot demand such from me! You cur of a broken house. Who's disgrace is only equalled by your poverty."
Fritz's smile twitched and he had the distinct desire to run the noble through with Quicksilver, again.
"A rich statement for someone so esteemed, yet must marry lowly merchants," Fritz said in a tone as polite as he could manage. "Are things so dire for your own house?"
"Stop this this instant. You shame yourselves!" Lloyd ordered Fritz and his team.
"Shame? I doubt they can even feel shame, one needs honour first. In which they are completely lacking," Charles said, regaining some of his composure as he reigned in his emotions.
"Ah. Yes, the great honour of being the Empire Prince's hound-hogs," Fritz said with a smirk. "I'm sure he much appreciates your protections. Matched only by the appreciation for your absence while he's entertained by the esteemed ladies."
Both nobles froze, their anger, which had been roiling and flickering like invisible flame, became something far colder and controlled. They looked away as if dismissing Fritz and his team from their minds.
"Nevertheless, it is unbecoming to argue with the rabble," Lloyd said coolly.
"You're right, merely being in the presence of such scum is beneath me," Charles said turning and striding away.
As the two walked away Fritz heard Lloyd's low voice, pitched so no one could hear.
"We can settle outside the Spire."
Fritz relished the idea, he could absolutely humiliate them in a duel or some other confrontation. Dusksong crawled over him eagerly at the prospect. Then his stomach clenched and his blood ran cold when Charles spoke next.
"Yes, we can. They have families."
This would not do. Fritz clutched his fury before it took him. Pushing the screaming flame down, he reassured himself that it was idle words from idle men. That when the nobles finished their Climb and celebrated with the required balls and parties, they would forget all about the insults offered by him and his team.
He doubted it. But he hoped all the same. And if they came for him and his family, he would pay them back three-fold, and be the ruination of their luxuriantly lived lives.
"Well," Lauren said suddenly deflated. "That could have gone better."
"Unlikely," Fritz said. "Nobles."
"Think it'll come back to bite us?" George asked, startling the team with his solid presence after having been silent the entire time.
"Not in the Spire," Fritz said. "Though, outside, we should watch our backs."
"Sounds like something to worry about later," Bert proclaimed. "For now, let's check out the shop and see what we can sell for a drink or two. I could kill for a beer, if they have any. Oh, and don't leave your stuff lying around, it could get stolen."
George, Rosie and Cal nodded in agreement, and while Fritz didn't want to have anything to do with the Guild he acquiesced to the idea. It wouldn't do to avoid the Guides entirely, that was just suspicious behaviour.
"A glass of wine wouldn't go amiss," Lauren sighed.
"Alas, I left my Merlot in my stash outside," Fritz bemoaned.
"A pity," she replied.