Chapter 17

“What do you think?” Nyle asked. He was currently sitting in a chair in my room. Apparently, Climber’s didn’t have to share rooms within Climber’s Rest. Every single one of us had been assigned a room of our own, though all on the same floor. The Ninth Floor, to be exact, though according to Alexandra the building itself had a grand total of twenty. The door marked with the Dawn symbol had led to a massive staircase for climbing the floors. The Dusk door, she informed us, was for descending the floors. A distinction, she’d added, that was important to keep everything orderly.

“I think we’ll have to check out the job board and find something that works for us.” I said with a shrug. Originally I’d been wanting to give climbing another try, in order to reach the fifth floor as fast as possible. I still wanted to progress past that point, so I could begin acquiring gear that was worthwhile. But the whole ranking system Alexandra had mentioned, and the jobs, made me second guess that. Were those goals too selfish? Was that the wrong thing to do?

She’d made a good point. Without the people risking their lives in the tower, their only life, in the tower, the city would be nothing. Considering a Climber could die over and over within the tower and not lose a thing, minus Tower Essence we hadn’t spent yet, it made sense we were expected to keep the others safe.

“What types of rewards do you think we’ll get?” Nyle asked. He was holding his Climber’s ID in his hand, flipping it back and forth, catching the faint light of the room on its surface. The cards fit in our hands and held the same information on them that had been visibly summoned by the Acolyte previously. The information that internally we could access by focusing the magic of our Mark on our Status.

Additionally, in a big, golden letter, was the rank we’d been assigned by Alexandra. All of us, even Jaxon, had been listed as an F. The lowest of the low. Which made sense, considering we’d just completed the Reaping. As she’d said, we needed to prove ourselves, before we’d be trusted with more difficult tasks. Though I had to wonder, what were F tier jobs like? What was the difference between them and E tier jobs? More than that, what was a SSS rank job?

“Hopefully gold,” I offered up. “If not that, some form of currency. I know Alexandra mentioned we’d get free food here, and our living quarters are free, but I’d like to have money of my own.”

“To purchase good gear.” Nyle said with a knowing smile. He knew me so well. Sometimes even better than I knew myself, it felt like.

“Yes, and no. I’m not solely focused on gear.” I lied.

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“Uh huh, and I didn’t die from falling out a tree.” Nyle countered. We shared a laugh, and he made his card disappear. He may have underperformed during the Reaping, but he seemed to really have picked up on the magic of his Mark.

“What type of Climber do I want to be?” He pondered aloud. “Have you got any idea what you want to be?”

I leaned back on the bed, pressing my shoulders against the wall. Through the thin silk of my Climber’s Regalia, I could feel the cool hardness of the rock. It was comforting.

“I’m not sure.” I said slowly. “The number of times I’ve heard that phrase today though,” I shook my head, “it feels important. But I don’t know what they mean by it.”

Nyle nodded. “They’ve really left it all up to us, huh?” He held his hand out, and summoned a fireball. “They trained us in everything. Taught us every weapon known to them, trained us in every possible fighting style possible.” He held his hand over the fire, letting the flesh burn. His eyes teared up as the flesh turned red, before he undid the spell. Then his hand glowed golden, with the Tower’s own light, as he cast heal, washing away the injury instantly. “And taught us the basics of magic. Yet, now, with all these tools before us,” he laughed, a sad, dark sound. “They offer us no guidance, on what to do with them.”

“It’s strange, isn’t it?” I pulled my knees onto the bed, wrapping my arms around my legs as I watched him. He’d always been more of a thinker than I. I threw myself into training, pushed myself, always chasing my dream. I wanted to climb, wanted to chase good gear, wanted to explore the glories of the Tower. But Nyle, he questioned things. He analyzed them. He made me think about things in ways I never would have.

“Our whole lives,” I continued, spurred by his questions, “we’ve been told what to do. Down to our sleep schedule, everything was dictated for us. Everything was so certain, so…”

“dictated?” he offered. I smiled.

“I was going to say regimented.”

“Big word for you Ash.” He said with a laugh. I threw him a look, but my laughter broke through anyways.

“But now,” I began again, “for the first time in our lives, everything we do, our path before us. It’s our own to pick and choose.”

“The Tower’s Blessing,” Nyle said, doing his best to impersonate the Tower Speaker, spreading his arms wide in a grandiose manner as he spoke, “is a gift of infinite potential.”

We shared a laugh, but as the sound died down, his eyes grew dark once again. The same darkness I’d noted in him from before.

“What if we mess it up?” He said sullenly. “What if we make the wrong choices? What happens then?”

I looked at him and opened my mouth to respond but stayed quiet. I didn’t know. And honestly, that thought scared me. After listening to orders for so long, finally being able to make decisions for myself, was daunting. And now, with the permanency of the Tower’s Blessing, the finality of each decision as we leveled, the weight of it all seemed to amplify tenfold. After a lifetime of direction, the concept of free will, of choosing for ourselves, was more terrifying than the idea of death.

“I think I’m going to call it a night.” Nyle said as the silence in the air hung. He stood and offered me a smile, though it didn’t reach the shadow in his eyes. “Tomorrow we’ll make our first choice,” he tried to sound cheery, but failed. “Let’s make it a good one.”

And with that he left, leaving me in silence, though not alone. The weight of his words, the dark specter of doubt and fear, kept me company. It was a long while before I slept.