Chapter 35

“It’s the first floor,” Nyle’s voice was mocking as I came to. “We’ll be fine.” I opened my eyes to find myself, for the second time in as many days, in one of the beds in the Cathedral. The Resurrection Chamber, to be precise.

I shuddered as I remembered his death. But here he was, perfectly fine, wearing undamaged, pristine, Climber’s Regalia.

“Alright,” I sat up, realizing I was naked once again. Lyn smirked as my sheets fell, and I quickly thought of my Climber’s Regalia. The clothes instantly appeared, and just like Nyle’s, and Lyn’s for that matter, they were as pristine as when I’d first equipped them. “I was wrong.”

“No shit.” Nyle shook his head. “New rule of thumb. If Ash thinks it’s a good idea, we don’t do it.”

“Agreed,” Lyn confirmed.

“Oh, you’re one to talk,” I said accusingly. “Who was it that woke that creature again?”

“How was I supposed to know the chest would creak like that?” She countered. “And if you’d not insisted we go look around the corner, we never would have seen those chests.”

“I’m taking some of the blame,” I grumbled, “but not all of it.” I mentally pulled up my inventor, quickly scanning through my items. “Speaking of the chests though, what did you guys get?”

A heavy cloak appeared around Lyn’s shoulders. It was made of white and grey wolf fur and had a wolf-head as the hood. She picked up her foot and showed me a new pair of boots as well. They were leather and had fur lining the top of the boots.

“Grey wolf cloak and boots.” She said smiling. “Did you know the gear can increase our stats? If I have a third piece of grey wolf gear, I’ll get a boost to my dexterity and constitution.”

“All I got was a silver coin.” Nyle said with a shrug. My eyes bulged.

“A silver coin?” That was a hundred coppers. Our job for the day was only set to pay 15 coppers. “That’s a lot.”

Nyle made a look towards Lyn.

“Fair,” I relented. Between near gear that had the potential to boost stats, and coin, well, I’d take the gear too.

My eyes finished scrolling through my inventory as I settled on the only item that hadn’t been in my inventory before we headed into the cave system. It was a piece of paper. I focused on it, and the paper appeared in my hand.

Claw and Fang

Weapon Recipe

Type: Daggers

Requirements

10x wolf claws

4x iron bars

10x wolf fangs

2x aspen logs

I handed the paper to Nyle and Lyn, letting them read the list as well. “I think this is a crafting recipe.” Nyle handed it back to me.

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“You don’t say,” I replied dryly. I put it back into my inventory. I had the claws and fangs. After killing so many wolves, I would have been more surprised if I hadn’t. “Any idea what we’re supposed to do with it?”

“Give it to a craftsman? Probably a blacksmith, since they’re daggers?” Nyle smirked. “Though we can ask Ryker about it. I’m sure he’ll happily fill you in.”

Lyn looked at me expectantly. “If they count as grey wolf gear…” She trailed off.

“Maybe.” I answered. “We’ll have to hear what Ryker has to say about them. If we can only make them once, I don’t know if I’d want to give them away. Besides, you were using a bow the whole time. Would you really switch to daggers?”

“No,” she smirked. “But I’d at least equip them for the stat boosts.”

I groaned. How much did the gear even increase her stats by, if she had three pieces? Actually, was that a bonus, on top of what the gear was already doing for her? She was the only one of us to actually have gear that wasn’t the Climer’s Regalia. Which made me want even more to get gear of my own. Death at the, er, fangs of that massive wolf could be worth it again, if I got one of those cloaks.

“By the way,” Nyle added as I moved to get out of the bed. “Don’t forget to level up. Thanks to you, we lost half our essence. But still, should be enough for a few levels, right?”

Nyle was right. We’d had nineteen Tower Essence before we died. I looked at my stats and flinched. I remembered the death penalty. Dying cost half our unused Tower Essence. Something the Acolyte had failed to mention, however, was apparently rounded down. I now had nine Tower Essence. Still, that meant I could level up twice. From level three to four it cost me three essence, and from four to five it cost four. So seven of my current nine. Had we not died… I would have been able to reach level seven. Two levels worth of Tower Essence, gone.

Still, every little bit helped. I thought to myself, feeling a moment of panic as I confirmed the use of the Tower Essence. I was now level 5, and two more skill points to assign. But how should I assign them? What type of Climber do you wish to be?

I didn’t really know much about how the stats affected me. Other than the extra point in HP and MP, I didn’t feel any different. Would I really be stronger if I put a point into strength? Would I instantly be tougher if I put it into constitution? Hans had been crazy tough and strong, but who knew what his stats looked like?

Without much to go on, I figured there were two options that at the very least, wouldn’t be a waste. I put one stat into strength, and one stat into con. My HP jumped to 103. Now all of my stats, except for Holy, were at 2.

“Done,” I said as I focused back on my teammates. “What’d you guys choose? Actually, what levels are you now?’

“Five,” Lyn said with a smile. “I’ve been putting everything into dexterity so far. So it’s at a five, just like my level.”

“I split mine between Arcane and Holy,” Nyle said. “I definitely preferred using magic to fighting. Especially after that last battle.” He glanced at Lyn, and then me. “But unlike you two, I only had enough to reach level 4. I’m one freaking essence short of level 5.” He narrowed his eyes at me, even as he smirked. “Thanks for that buddy.”

“Hey, you’re the one that fell from a tree yesterday and died before you could gain any essence.” I said with a laugh. “I can only be blamed for one of your two deaths.”

We all laughed at that, as we headed out of the room. There were figures laying in some of the other beds. I didn’t recognize anyone, though I was impressed to see the range of ages of people who were apparently resurrecting. The younger faces were definitely more common, and yet, I saw one or two who looked to be at least in their thirties, maybe even forties. What had their deaths been like? What had they faced, that brought them down?

We exited out of the room and were immediately approached by an Acolyte. As was normal, their faces were hidden under their hood, revealing only shadows to us.

“Would you like to make a donation?” The figure asked in a raspy voice.

“They’ll do it later.” Another voice said. A lanky fellow with a bow strapped to his back pushed away from the wall. He eyed us up and down, a smirk on his face. He had dark hair, as well as a thin moustache which he’d twisted upwards on either end, and a sharp goatee. His black hair was slicked back with some sort of gel, making it shine slightly in the room. “They’ve got a job to get back to, and likely don’t have much to donate right now anyways.”

“Any donations to the Tower’s glory are welcome.” The man countered in his ethereal tone. “Just as the Tower freely gives and takes, so too does it freely receive any gifts from those it has blessed.”

“Yeah yeah, later man.” The mustached man made a beckoning motion towards us, as if hurrying us along. “Come on now you three. Ryker’s more than a little curious to hear how exactly you knuckle heads got yourself killed.” He paused as he looked at Lyn’s cloak. Then he let out a whistle, and a chuckle. “Scratch that,” his grin widened, “I’m sure he’s dying to hear this story.”