Nick felt his anxiety spike, Tony was deep in thought and hadn’t responded. Nick started to doubt whether or not he’d approached it in the right way. Maybe he should have just waited, a better time to try could have come along. Nick’s thoughts were about to start spiralling when Tony cleared his throat.
“Prove it. I’ll give you one chance. You leave right now. If you don’t come back with something worthwhile you’re done.”
Boom. It was that easy folks. Nick never once doubted himself, definitely not. Nick kept his face straight, he didn’t need Tony realising this was exactly what he wanted. In the most solemn voice he could muster up he replied.
“Thank you Tony. You won’t regret this.”
“I better not.”
Nick didn’t give the man any time to reconsider and walked straight towards the lobby. His family and Maddy might be upset that he left without telling them, but this was his chance. He certainly wasn’t going to let himself fumble the bag at the finish line. He was going straight down to the 71st floor. Even if he didn’t manage to find any meaningful loot, he’d make sure to set up a plan with Doyle. That was going to be an interesting conversation all on its own, but that was a bridge he’d cross when he got there.
Nick entered the lobby and all of his momentum died. It was still a mess, blood and bodies littering the entire space. Though there was one more detail that gave him serious pause, there was a person in this room. They were standing with their back to Nick, mopping up blood in one of the corners. Nick watched in shock as they put down the mop and picked up a body effortlessly, they then deposited the entire body into a bin bag hanging from a little pushcart nearby. There was something off about the bin bag, the body dropped into it but the bag didn’t change shape or volume at all.
The figure then went back to mopping up the blood where the body had been. Nick tried to get a better look at their details but it felt like he was looking at something blurry. He tried rubbing his eyes but it didn’t change anything. He managed to gleem some details, like a pale blue uniform you’d expect from a cleaner. Slowly he began to notice the irregularities, like a third arm that was hanging limply from their torso and strange patches of hair growing from off coloured skin.
It was at that moment that Nick looked at his feet and walked straight towards the door to the car park. He didn’t stop at all, he skirted around bodies and avoided pools of blood. He was disgusted but didn’t stop. There was a cleaner here and Nick didn’t want to interrupt their work.
As soon as Nick made it through the door he let out a heavy breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding.
“Hey kid.”
Gareth was sitting on one of the steps, slumped against the wall.
“Hey Gareth, you doing alright?”
The man sighed and Nick could see that he was covered in some pretty nasty looking wounds.
“You sure you shouldn’t go get healed? At least get some rest?”
“Nah, someone’s gotta keep watch. Might as well be me. Where are you off to?”
“I convinced Tony to let me out alone. I’m going down to the 71st to set up a plan to get my family down there.”
The man whistled. “Quite the trip then.”
Nick sat down next to him. “Yeah, got any tips? An old man like you surely knows something helpful?”
Gareth scoffed. “Old? I’m pretty sure your dad is older than me.”
“Sure sure old man.”
Gareth went quiet for a bit. “There’s a level two button down on the 71st. It’d probably do you some good to use it.”
How the heck did Gareth know that?
“Well thanks, where is it? And didn’t you say I could only get another class after like a week?”
Nick then felt an aura push down on him, without thinking about it he willed the little bit of energy inside him to resist it, breaking the aura.
“I have no idea how you did it, kid, but you settled the class quicker than should have been possible. That just then, proved to me you’ve done something even more than that.”
Nick panicked, how had Gareth noticed? Could everyone see that he’d done something weird? Nick’s face must have given away his panic.
“Look at you, asking questions without even using words. You kids are so tiresome, at least your dad had the decency to just drink with me. I have a class, Leader, which lets me pick up interesting details about people close to me. When you came out I noticed your class had settled, which is unusual. So I gave you a little test.”
Nick didn’t say a word, this was the most Gareth had ever said to him. Nick didn’t want to interrupt whatever flow the man was entering. Nick saw that the man wasn’t looking at him anymore, but out into the bright empty space that surrounded the Complex.
“I had a team once, we had an Explorer, Jimmy. Cracking bloke he was, up until he got to level three. He was one of the first wave of Explorers, see when we first found the buttons droves of people took Explorer. Can’t say there are many more of those people left.” Gareth said with a sad laugh.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Nick was listening with rapt attention now, this was valuable information.
“Jimmy was good, real good, at exploring. With his help our team was miles ahead of everyone else. He found things that gave us immense advantages over the other teams, one of them was the level two button. We never told anyone, and I doubt anyone would have found it. Did you know there are fake bits of wall in the Hotel? Crazy really, only the Explorers can really find them.”
Nick knew what Gareth was talking about. The challenge room he’d found on the 75th felt like what he was describing. It didn’t look like a door, it just looked like an odd bit of wall. Considering how strange everything else was here, a strange bit of wall probably wasn’t too out of the norm.
Nick then realised that Gareth was looking at him.
“I see you found one of them yourself, is that what gave you the item or skill that gave you the start of an aura? Scratch that, I don’t care. Whatever it is, look after it. When you get down to the 71st, head to the left and just keep going. Your map will be helpful here, but there's a large room with some pillars in it. There’s a pillar in the corner, if you walk around it from the right it’ll lead to a hallway that shouldn’t be there. Your skill will show you the rest.”
“I assume a reckoning is finally coming for Tony, this war is going to change a lot around here. God knows the last one did. You’re doing the right thing kid. I recommend you get to the Parklands. Don’t stay in the PPM areas or the Exes, push through and meet up with a group like Samantha’s, she’s a good egg. At least she was, been a long while now. Anyway, enough of me talking, get going kid. It’ll only get harder for you when it gets dark. I’ll keep an eye on your folks.”
Nick didn’t understand the names Gareth was throwing out, but made sure to commit them to memory. Gareth was a good man, tragic hero or not, Nick trusted that anything he said was for good reason.
“Thanks Gareth, for everything.”
Gareth just smiled and gave him a pat on the back. Nick got up and moved off into the car park. It was time to get this show on the road.
Nick had his chest piece and wraps on, letting him feel a bit more comfortable moving through the darkness. What he was really missing though was the light crystals Tony and his team had used. Having to move through the darkness without a convenient magic light crystal kept him on edge. He kept his pace to a fast jog, he didn’t stop to investigate any of the strange shapes or shadows that lingered around walls or pillars. He was very happy when he finally made it to the fort in the centre of the floor. The large amount of light shining out from the crystal was greatly reassuring.
Nick had noticed that the light didn’t really work like any other light source he’d come across before he was dragged to this place. He hadn’t thought too heavily about it on the trip but the light was very similar to the light surrounding the complex. He could stare directly into the crystal without it hurting his eyes, and weirdly enough the light level was consistent in the entire area it was projected. The crystal just created a space of light around it, it wasn’t a beacon or a torch. It was very strange and surreal to actually see. Nick just chalked it up to magic.
Nick didn’t stop for long in the fort before running off towards the ramp. Nobody stopped him or talked to him, he did notice that he was getting some shady looks though. Nick wasn’t sure why, but he felt like he’d pissed them off. Nick wasn’t sure what it could have been and just continued on. Luckily, he didn’t encounter any monsters or obstacles on his way to the ramp, maybe his skill wasn’t working backwards.
As Nick pulled up to the ramp he noticed a familiar face. It was the man who had helped him up during the fight against the Horde monsters at the start of the trip. Nick noticed a large amount of bandages around the man’s torso, a bloodstain seeping through his back. It was a nasty looking wound.
Nick called out when he got close enough. “Hello there!”
The rest of the militia members went quiet when they saw him, a look of barely hidden hostility in their eyes. Okay, Nick certainly had pissed them off somehow. The only one who didn’t seem pissed was the large man who had helped him, the man got up and walked over towards Nick.
“Hey. Good to see you again.” The man said.
“You too, I never got to properly thank you for saving my ass back there. Name’s Nick.” Nick held out his hand.
The man shook it. “Luciano. Think nothing of it, simply helping a brother out.”
Nick gestured to Luciano’s side. “That’s a pretty nasty looking wound, did you get it from the invasion?”
Luciano smiled. “Yeah I got pretty unlucky. A guy managed to get behind our group, came up behind me and got me good with his short sword.”
Nick’s face dropped. No wonder everyone was so pissed at him.
“I-I’m so sorry. I-” Nick stammered out, guilt racking him.
Luciano held out a hand and stopped him.
“I don’t blame you brother, I’m a big guy, I’d rather I took it than someone else. I lived and that’s what’s important.”
Nick tried his best to meet the man’s eyes and saw sincerity in them. Nick believed that he didn’t blame him.
“You’re far too nice for this Luci.” One of the other guys grumbled in the background.
Luciano simply laughed. “Someone’s got to be nice in a place like this.”
Nick was then dragged over to the group and introduced to everyone. Luciano had a go at anyone being hostile to Nick and eventually everyone chilled out and started playing a card game. Luciano asked Nick what he was doing out here alone and Nick told him that he was going down to the 71st to try and get some loot for Tony and the militia. That statement brought the rest of the group into the conversation and they began discussing the invasion.
Nick found out that even the militia was pretty disgruntled with how Tony was running things on the floor. The group frequently talked with the guards on the other floors, considering they were stationed metres away from each other for most of the day. Nick peeked down the ramp and realised they were right, there was a group of much better equipped men down on the 71st floor. The difference in gear was a sore point for the group. Nick got to learn a bit about how the other floors were run.
Most floors had a couple of teams like the one Nick was on, the Roamers of each floor were just the strongest of that floor’s teams. The teams would spread out across the hotel floors and compete with each other to get the best look from rooms, bringing it back to their own floors. Most of the good gear was kept for the teams but anything else was given to the militias on each floor. Very few floors actually sold gear the way Tony did. The militia was very aware of the man’s practices, he’d take any gear the team couldn’t use and get Jacob to sell it to the other floors or Parklands. Tony would then use the profits to buy himself better gear.
Nick was amazed that the man could be so short sighted. Now that the invasion had happened Tony must have shat himself, leaving his militia so crippled gear wise was coming back to bite him on the ass. Nick realised Tony might not have had much choice other than to accept his deal. There was clear discontent brewing within the militia.
Nick thanked the group and said goodbye. It was time for him to head down to the 71st floor.
An Invasion, a coming war and now he had an inkling of a revolt brewing. The 72nd floor was the disaster that kept on giving.