It was weird seeing the scouts in their school uniforms instead of armor. They looked like any other guy who might kick a ball around Westhill instead of ones who trained to fight monsters.

It was even weirder to see their loot lain out so neatly on a few large tables ahead of them, but if he imagined the hustle and bustle of the Bazaar and loot tents just outside, that helped.

The guild worker led them into the room and handed out papers as he explained the proceedings. Micah tore his eyes away for a moment to sidle up to Silas and Jean and greet them properly instead of just nodding at them from a distance.

Their teammates still glared over his head at Ryan.

Oh, boy.

“So, how’s it going? How did the rest of your exam go?” Silas whispered. “Level up?”

“Better. I’m a [Scout] now.” Micah whispered back and grinned, despite his misgivings about the Class. Mason was right. It could help with his perception abilities.

“No shit.”

“And you? Did the Kobolds—”

“Micah,” Mr. Sundberg interrupted him, “respect this man’s and all our time and listen. You can socialize in a moment or when this is over. We’re here for a reason.”

He flinched. “Sorry, sir.”

“I was mostly done anyway,” the worker said. “In a moment, you can inspect your loot and all the non-magical objects you recovered during your exam and we can open the room to the discussion. Unless there are any questions?”

Eleven teenagers stared at him. Micah had no doubt there would be questions, but they would only think of those along the way. He hadn’t really been listening, too.

“No,” Mr. Sundberg answered for them and glanced at his colleague.

“No,” she said.

“Good—”

“Before we begin, however,” he went on, “one of my students has something to say to yours. Ryan?”

A hush swept through the room and the rest of their team gave him space as he stepped forward. Micah took a step to the side so he could address the entire other team. Or step in if necessary.

It still pained him to watch.

“I wanted to apologize for abandoning the plan I helped make and running off on my own,” Ryan said. His words only sounded slightly rehearsed. “My actions put you, my team, and myself at risk and jeopardized the success of our mission. My behavior was selfish, inexcusable, and … I hope it doesn’t reflect badly on the rest of my team, who knew nothing of it.”

The other teacher was the only one who looked pleased about the apology. A few of her students looked smug, but that wasn’t a positive thing. Nick didn’t seem to care.

Others looked pained instead, like they were cringing at the necessity of the apology or how exhausted Ryan looked, and that Micah could empathize with.

“Ryan failed his exam,” Mr. Sundberg went on, “he was reprimanded, and his team had the full amount deducted for poor behavior. Unless there is anything else you would like to say, he will wait outside until this meeting is over. His claim to any specific item today is forfeit.”

The scouts seemed surprised by that, at least. For a moment, the only glares that remained came from their own team. The other three hadn’t exactly been happy about the news, not even Jason.

It still seemed like too much. So what if he had run off on his own for a bit? Ryan knew what he was doing … Micah wanted to think but objectively, he knew what he’d done was bad.

It was just a shitty situation.

The scouts shifted like they had no idea what to do. They jostled each other, Nick, Jean, and Adrian took a step back and nudged the other two forward, and Parker hissed at Silas.

Finally, someone answered. “We appreciate the apology, Ryan,” he said, “but uh … don’t sweat it too much? I mean, yeah, it sucked what you did, but everything turned out alright and that’s what matters, right? So just … don’t do it again.”

“I won’t.”

Silas nodded and awkwardly smiled. “Great. So …?”

They looked to Mr. Sundberg and the man gestured toward the door.

Ryan sighed and walked away. “See you later, then, I guess.”

“We’ll hurry,” Micah assured him, “and tell you all about it afterward.”

“Yeah. We’ll really rub it in,” Lisa joked.

His lips quirked up a bit as he left. Their teacher reminded him, “Don’t go anywhere.” Ryan nodded and closed the door on his way out.

“Alright, then!” the guild worker said and brought his hands together. He probably had no idea what that had been about. “Now that that’s settled, take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with the loot. You have your inventory lists and the cards offer more information; a piece of advice: go around the tables in order and don’t just wander about. It’s quicker that way.”

He said it, there was a brief pause, and then the students scattered like kids at a buffet. One line went to each of the outer tables and two more around either side of the inner one.

Micah saw the potions in the far corner, the ‘junk’ in the opposite one, and was interested, but he would probably spend a lot of time considering those. He’d save them for last.

He scrambled to cut in line at the start of what were the [Mage] items, apparently, beginning with a ‘Rod of Light Imaging’.

Rod, not wand? It looked like a wand, a little longer than his hand.

Ooh, what’s that do?

“Micah,” Lea complained when he hogged the description card.

He waved her off and read. Apparently, all it did was send out a directional pulse that lit up outlines in passing. Three uses with a quick recharge rate. The Guild had even provided an estimate on its value. Three silver pennies, though he didn’t know if that was their offer or what they thought it would sell for. It was less than the cost of two good healing potions.

Why so cheap? Was it useless?

“No divination abilities or spell support?” he asked.

“Not if its card doesn’t say so,” the man intoned with a slightly musical note like he was talking to a younger child. “Those would have to come from you.”

Micah didn’t know if the tone was because of him, the man, or because he was used to dealing with older climbers instead of school students. Their school had asked to arrange this after all.

Either way, it was just a magical stick with a very situational ability. He moved on to the next shiny thing.

‘Wand; generalized spellcasting focus.’

So it could help a little with any spell, assuming the spell was unrefined enough, but only if you could cast the spell through the wand.

Useful for beginners. A bit constricting, since you had to hold it. Fragile. Expensive at three silver coins.

Micah wasn’t a spellcaster anyway.

Kyle had cut in line, so Micah had to stand on his tiptoes and lean into him to read the next card.

He tried to turn away, Micah grabbed onto him, and the guy pushed his face away, so he grabbed his wrist to pull it off and complained, “Kyle. Play nice.”

Micah had barely spoken to him this morning, but Kyle still looked at him like he was done with his bullshit.

“What?”

“Hypocrite.”

“Ohh.” He pointed. “I’m hurrying because want to get to the potions as soon as possible. I’m not a spellcaster. I don’t want to slow the others down.”

“You already are,” Lisa said.

“Kyle, let him read the card,” Jason added.

“And I am a spellcaster?” he grumbled and flipped the card over. With the movement, it took him a moment to catch the letters.

‘Thunder Twig’. When broken, creates a localized noise like a thunderclap. Single-use. Do Not Test.

Huh. Why was it that things that resembled wands weren’t always wands but for some reason, a random bone from a Kobold was a wand of protection?

He flicked a hand at Kyle’s face. The card flapped in his hand and his hair shifted in a sudden breeze.

“Didn’t use mana to do that, did I?” he asked and ducked around to move on to the next item.

“Wasn’t really a spell, was it?”

“Tomato, tomato. I’m proving a point: Magic’s magic.”

“Damn right!” Jean called.

Micah shot him a smile and when he looked up, noticed the scouts rushing from item to item on the other side of the room.

Lea scribbled something on her list when she saw the wand, Jason cut ahead of him and glanced at the card in his hand, Lisa stared. He really was holding up the line.

Just a second and he felt something was wrong. He wasn’t just contradicting himself in his thoughts and words, he realized, but also his emotions.

Micah stepped aside and gestured for the others to move on. Their curiosity would get them through this quicker than his would which was … supremely weird.

“It’s fine,” Lisa said, “I didn’t mean to kick you out.”

“No, go ahead. I’ll catch up.”

“Okay?”

He fiddled with the wand while he waited and recognized the smoke ring ahead. He glanced back at the rod and wondered if they could be used together, but even that wouldn’t be worth it.

It only took a moment for the table to clear up and Micah inspected the jewelry that came next. Most of them were apparently enchanted to shine a little or have a gleam in their gems. Their estimated value wasn’t even that expensive.

Is it because it’s seen as tacky in the rest of the city? he wondered.

There was also a pendant of [Fireflies]. So … if he were to buy a gift for a girl someday, would it be better to buy the pretty bracelet and earrings or the pendant that could be used in a fight?

Neither? Should he go to a proper jeweler and not give away random loot he’d found in the Tower?

He remembered another bracelet from the pile and looked around, searching for it, but it was nowhere to be found. It had to be in the unenchanted pile, then.

He’d liked it. It had looked sturdy, but he guessed if it wasn’t enchanted at all and it was random loot, it definitely wouldn’t be good enough as a present.

He moved on to the next table and found a shock-absorbent helmet, which he was genuinely interested in. Micah rushed to try it on and … it slipped around on his head. He would need extra padding and better straps to wear it.

Damn.

He put it back, turned, and froze.

Lisa was holding the pickaxe they’d found with one hand and her other palm up next to it.

Jason watched her.

He needed a second to glimpse a distortion and caught on. “[Lens: Affinity Sight].”

She held a sickly ball of mana up next to the pick. Muted patches of blue and red surfaced from within and seemed to strain against the confines of the orb for some reason.

Looking at it made him feel queasy, like looking at mold.

She pushed and it was enough. The mana tipped over an invisible edge. A gout of flames flared toward the ceiling.

Micah pulled back. Everyone looked. Someone cursed in surprise and fumbled with an item they had been holding.

Surprisingly, Mr. Sundberg didn’t snap at her. He spoke like he was making a public service announcement, “Please, be careful when testing the items. Do not damage Guild property.”

“Yes,” the worker said, “as I mentioned before, we have testing areas if you need them.”

Yeah, if I wasn’t listening, Micah thought, there’s no way Lisa was or cares enough to follow the rules.

“Sorry,” she said and handed the pickaxe to Jason. “It’s good. Strong enough to stop mundane combustion and spells around [Firebolt] range or a little higher.”

“Higher? Tier two?” he asked.

“Yeah, sure,” she scoffed. “Maybe three, whatever that means. I bet it can trip most [Mages] at our level up and some of the lesser monsters we fight, but once they notice, all it takes is a push to break through. It’s probably best used for its intended purpose, but if you want to take a risk against something like a true Salamander, test it first, Jason.”

“Got it,” he smiled. “Thank you, Lisa.”

Micah could infer but he still snatched up its card. Apparently, its head suppressed combustion near it to prevent sparks when mining.

Jason wanted it?

He had been interested in it himself when he’d thought it was an anti-magic pickaxe and now that he knew … but no. He already had a fire resistance item and there were other options like that glove over there.

What would he even do with it? Break off its head and strap it to his arm? It’d hurt his allies more than his enemies.

It was fine.

As he moved on, the others already started their second run through when he wasn’t done with his first.

For once in his life, he realized, Micah was less excited about something he normally would have loved than everyone else around him. It wasn’t for any bad reason either, like not being able to afford the items—he could go climbing in five days, was going to earn money from this exam, and had that chance at a sponsorship coming up. Nor was it that the items wouldn’t be a perfect fit for him and the cost, cheap though they were, seemed wasteful. It was just … he had better things to look forward to.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

Mentally, he compared it to people being snobbish about food or clothes and felt a bit ashamed by his behavior, a bit proud, and a lot happy.

He buzzed on the spot as he read the description cards of items he had no interest in buying.

Lisa appeared beside him. “See anything you like?”

“Uhm … not really, no.”

“Really?”

“I mean, the helmet is cool but it’s too big for me.”

“You could get it adjusted.”

“I think a lot of the others are interested in it,” he said. Like Lea, many of them would look at items and then make notes on their lists, probably because they wanted to claim it later on.

Micah wouldn’t want to start another dispute between their teams, let alone within his own.

“Okay, so is there anything else you like?”

“Mmm, no.”

“Really? Nothing at all?”

“I don’t know. I mean, I want to save my money for other stuff; items that really suit me, you know?” He shrugged and shuffled away to the next table.

Lisa ducked around to remain in his field of vision. “Yeah, okay, but if you had to pick an item today, what would you be most interested in?”

He squinted at her suspiciously. “Why …?”

She shrugged. “No reason.”

He thought of the calendar and sighed. “I guess if I had to pick something …”

He did a proper second take and wandered over to the potions after all, checking the cards for something. He picked out the cheapest stamina potion they had and held it up for her to see.

“This.”

“You really like your stamina potions, huh?”

“I can use it in recipes.”

“That … sounds like using an already cooked meal to cook another meal.”

“Hey, if it works. Like, haven’t you ever fried leftover noodles with some eggs to make them taste fresh?”

“Yeah. I get it. Tower potions are different anyway. They’re like liquid crystals, aren’t they?”

He smiled and put the bottle back. “Exactly.”

“I guess I thought you might have a hang-up about using them. Pride.”

“Nope. I have pride in my craft, not my ingredients, and I’ll use any shortcut I can find to get better.”

She ruffled his hair like Ryan used to do and said, “You keep on doing that.”

“I will.” He began to walk away when he noticed Lisa pick up another bottle. He knew that bottle. It was the most expensive one here.

She went to make a note on her list and he snatched it out of her hand.

“Hey!” she snapped. “Give that back.”

Micah stepped back and shielded the list with his body. “No. Why? What are you doing?”

“I’m … buying this stamina potion.”

“Why? You’ve never drunk stamina potion before.”

She hesitated. “Micah. You know what I’m doing.”

“Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t. You know what? Maybe I am interested in buying this one after all.”

“No, you just said you weren’t interested in any of this, that you wanted to buy other things.”

“Yeah, but … I still owe you a bunch of mana rings,” he remembered, “and a whole lot of favors for everything you’ve done for me. Especially recently.”

“That’s not something you owe me for. C’mon, Micah. Just … act like you don’t know, please? Don’t be a spoilsport.”

He hesitated.

His birthday was coming up very soon.

“I want that potion.” He pointed.

She glanced over and shrugged. “So? Buy it.”

“Lisa.”

“Micah.”

“Fine!” He shoved her list at her and mumbled, “Just … don’t make a big deal out of it, please?”

She snatched it away. “I won’t. You kind of are, right now.”

Really? Oh, he was doing it again. Last year, and now this year. At least, she had warned him about it …

He sighed and said, “Thank you.”

She smiled. “Don’t say that yet. Isn’t it bad luck? Wait, why am I the one telling you what you consider bad luck?”

She chuckled and Micah realized, she was joking about being a foreigner.

He awkwardly rubbed his arm and didn’t know how to respond. “For everything else, then,” he said, falling back on what he knew. “Thank you.”

She paused. “You’re welcome. So … hey, not making a big deal of it or anything, but did you have anything planned already? You know, some people might have to clear their calenders if you invite them and you’re not giving them a lot of time.”

“Oh … Oh! I, uhm— I mean, I wouldn’t have to do anything on the day. When I think about what I would want to do, it’s what I want to do during the entire summer break anyway: hang out with friends. Whether that be in the city or Tower, just something casual and fun?”

“Sounds nice. So who did you have in mind?”

“Everyone …? Whoever I can convince. Whoever has time, I mean. We’ll have a lot of days to go climbing, it doesn’t always have to be the same people.”

“Then you should probably get on doing that sometime before the end of the week, maybe? Not everyone is going to hang out at school over the summer.”

“Right … Oh, and I can start right now! I can ask Jason, and Kyle, and the scouts before they leave—” He turned to tap Kyle on the shoulder, who stood at the table opposite them.

Before his finger even touched him, Kyle said, “No.”

“Hey, don’t eavesdrop!”

“We’re in a closed room. Other people can hear you. If you don’t like it, speak quicker or hey, shut up?”

“Nuh-nuh-nuh,” he aped him. “C’mon, you leveled. Don’t you want to hang out with us during the summer sometime?”

Kyle looked up at him, at Lisa, hesitated, and said, “No.”

----------------------------------------

An unfamiliar face opened the door when he knocked. Micah froze halfway into the residence with his leg up to fling his shoe off and stared.

Ryan crowded him, one hand on the doorframe, and was about to say something when he stopped, too.

“Oh, hello. You’re not Mave.”

“I’m DeeDee,” the woman said. “I’m one of Maverick’s new replacements?”

She looked to be in her early fifties, broad, wizened, sunburnt and calloused, with greying black hair tied into a bun. She wore a shirt with her sleeves rolled up and landscaper’s overalls. Her friendly voice sounded far younger than she looked; friendly.

Micah still frowned.

“Where’d he go?” Ryan asked.

“Off to greener pastures. I was told he was a combat butler of some sort? The Tower lured him away with all its new excitements.” She waved as if to make a tiny rainbow.

“Oh.”

Ryan sounded disappointed, too, when he echoed him, “Oh.”

Damn.

Micah had gotten the sense something had kept Mave here. He was high level for his age and brimmed of potential. He didn’t know what that might have been—he suspected he was a [Dragonslayer] fan like Ryan or that there was some other story behind his employment—but whatever it was, it must not have been able to compete with history in motion.

It was kind of sad. Micah knew he wouldn’t be gone forever, but was used to seeing the guy’s apathetic face around here.

The grounds themselves felt different too, now that he knew. More open. Abandoned. He wondered if that was any missing Skills or if it was just his mind playing tricks on him.

Probably both.

“But it’s nice to meet you!” he rushed to say and thrust his hand out. “I’m Micah and this is—”

“Ryan. It is nice to meet you,” he said.

She shook his hand and returned the sentiment.

“We’re classmates of Lisa’s,” Micah said and leaned left to peek past her. “Could you ask her if we can come in, please …?”

“Oh, I was already told to you expect you two. Lisa and your other classmates are in the living room.”

“Other classmates …?” He wandered inside with a frown.

Voices echoed down the hall.

“Our ‘old team’,” Ryan mumbled with a hint of bitterness, “Anne, Navid, and Sion are here.”

Lisa’s face shot around the corner, saw them, and waved them inside. “Hey! You two got here just in time to break a tie on our vote.”

Ryan grunted.

Micah elbowed him lightly in the side and the guy folded up on himself. “Be nice,” he said and tried to give Lisa the benefit of the doubt.

Not that he knew if he should be happy about this either. Sure, they’d talked about inviting people to hang out, but she’d said they could talk this morning.

Unless, she wanted to fill the others in, too …?

She ducked back into the living room and he took his shoes off to follow her. He immediately felt awkward about the decision as his gait shifted subtly. He had seen people with their shoes on inside her house before. He could’ve kept his on.

Too late. Micah leaned into it to seem casual and when he turned the corner, a lively scene greeted him.

“Sy!” Anne laughed, leaning back over the armrest on the couch, her arm stretched out as far as she could so the guy couldn’t reach a booklet in her hand.

“There’s no way I’m going to marching through a foot of mud, Anne!” he said and jumped at her arm.

She kicked him away. “It’s a great floor!”

“No!”

“Yes!”

“Noo—oh. Hi, Micah. Ryan.” He saw them and sat up. The couch cushions were a mess.

Anne let her head fall back and looked at him upside-down. Her hair flowed toward the floor and she said, “Hi.”

“Hi.” He plucked the report out of her hand and turned it around to read the chapter title.

“‘Second Rain’?” According to the report synopsis, it was a forest floor plagued by near-constant rain, winds, and the resultant rivers and mud. He thought he’d heard of it before. “Cool.”

Anne shot up and pointed. “Told you so!”

“It won’t be so cool when there is mud in your underwear after half an hour of wading through monster-infested floods,” Shala told him.

Micah stepped around, dropped his backpack, and himself down into the armchair at the head of the table closest to them. More books, brochures, and reports lay scattered on the wood.

“C’mon, where’s your sense of adventure?” Anne asked.

“Dead and buried.” Shala nodded to himself with a grave voice. “The murderer was common sense.”

“Then we must lock him away and honor adventure’s memory!”

He stared at her for a moment and sounded unsure as he retorted, “You do not have jurisdiction in my head …?”

Anne’s brief laugh lit up the room for a moment and Micah almost forgot about his misgivings, but then he spotted Lisa leaning against the armrest of the chair opposite him and Ryan on the other couch next to Navid, and he remembered again.

Would it be rude to ask if they could excuse themselves for a moment?

“You said you wanted us to break a tie?” Ryan reminded her.

“Yeah,” Lisa said. “Basically, Anne wants to go to this rain floor of hers—”

So it’s settled, then, Micah thought, That’s where we’re going?

“—but Navid and Sion here have a pretty solid plan for another floor.” She gestured at him.

“It’s two floors, actually,” he said, “I chose the one that suits me, personally, but as a team, we could choose the other. The decision is between Folly at the Root and the Twisted Steppe.”

He picked up one of the reports. It was of the more expensive kind with an illustration depicting twisted fields of golden grass and a few hyena-like monsters in the bottom right corner.

Lisa chuckled to herself and shook her head. “Who comes up with these names?”

“Guild workers and publishers,” Navid answered her as if he hadn’t seen the smile.

“I’d work in the Guild for a summer if it meant I got to name a brand new floor,” Ryan mumbled.

“Yeah, and with everyone else going on they have got to be leveling like crazy,” Anne added with a smile. “More than climbers.”

Ryan looked at her and gave her an awkward smile, lips pressed together and with a strain in his eyes.

“That was a rhetorical question, by the way,” Lisa said.

With more enthusiasm, Sion pointed, “But that’s a great idea because it’ll help us in the future.”

“What will?” Garen asked and Micah spun in his seat. The elderly man stood in the doorway behind them and leaned in to squint. “Twisted Steppe. Leading up to the Delta? Oh, I think I see where this is going.”

Navid eyed him with a bit of wariness and a poker face that could have hidden any number of things but turned to them to explain, “The Guild wants to kill the Nymph’s Brood—”

“Everyone does,” Garen commented and raised his voice with fake vigor. “Treasure and glory!”

“Shut up, old man,” Lisa called.

“Sorry, sorry, kiddo. Go on.”

“Well, Guest Enon and … you two slew Maria,” he said to Ryan and him, hesitating as if he found it odd to say, “and she has not since reappeared, making her valley one of the easiest ways of reaching the eleventh floor, but that’s just one floor out of many. We have reached the Gardens with Enon’s help but most of the Tower under it is still left unexplored because we cut a straight line up and skipped many steps. The Guild wants to open up other paths and explore those gaps, but initial assaults have proven … fatal. Even with help from some of the best. Even for some of the best.”

The mood sunk for a second. It seemed worse for everyone else. They recognized the people who had died, famous climbers and arena fighters they’d heard about growing up. Micah didn’t.

But it was still bad. People are dying, he thought, because of what happened, because they want to return some sense of normalcy to the city. In a way, they’re dying for us.

Almost unanimously, the six of them turned to look at the man behind them, said ‘one of the best’, the [Dragonslayer].

Micah couldn’t speak for the others but he looked at him with concern rather than any expectations. Please, don’t die, Garen.

He winced and rubbed the back of his neck.

“Have you fought any?” Anne asked.

“One. And it kicked my butt.”

“Really? How?”

“They’re nifty. They use the terrain, their lairs, to their advantage and they can take a beating. Worst-case scenario, they just run and hide for a few days to recuperate. You have to trap them to finish the deed. And you know what they say about animals pushed into a corner. The one I fought—Laura’s her name, I think?—didn’t have to run. She just buried our team under a mountain of plant matter and Aishah had to cut us out. It sucked. I got so many splinters.”

He scratched his butt.

Somehow, Micah found that hard to believe. The Rat Hermit had slain Maria just by throwing her around a bit and ripping her head off. The most she’d done to use her ‘lair’ was trying to drown them with her bare hands.

Not that it hadn’t been an impossible battle that haunted his every nightmare—a man throwing around a titan like it was nothing and … all the other stuff that had happened—but still.

What was he missing?

“Are they stronger than dragons?” Micah asked.

Everyone stared at him, including Garen.

Immediately, he realized that might have been a horrible faux pas.

“No,” Lisa insisted.

“Different circumstances,” Ryan tried to explain, though he had to be guessing.

“Yeah, very different circumstances,” Garen barked out a laugh. “Not all enemies are easy to compare, kid. If our team had consisted of six Aishahs, they would have had a better chance. But that’s the thing about these new Guardians, all of them: they test you, they force you to adapt.”

“Oh. I mean, thank you, sir. I’m sorry. It just sort of slipped out—”

“It’s fine. Go on then, Madin.”

“Right,” Navid said. “From what I’ve heard, the Guild has singled Guardians they believe would be easier to defeat. Morgana and Adrian are among those, hence these two floors, but it is only a matter of time before someone slays one and the floodgates open up again. I do not want to miss another opportunity like that because of school. If we climb to the ninth floor now, we’ll be ready in time to explore the eleventh floor whenever that happens, whether that be late this summer or during any of the shorter school breaks next year.”

Huh. There was a pause after he finished his explanation and Micah … had agreed with Lisa. That was a solid plan, but …

He turned to look at Anne. “And you want to go to the Second Rain because …?”

She smiled. “It sounds like fun!”

He suppressed a whimper in the back of his throat, torn between the two options: getting to see what Anne thought was fun or doing something for his future.

He dodged the question entirely because he’d noticed something else, “By the way, Laura, Adrian, Morgana, Maria …? Where do these names even come from?”

The nature mage from the scouts’ group was called Adrian. It had to suck to share a name with these abominations. Why not call them something else?

“There’s artwork depicting them all over the lower floors,” Shala explained. “With their names and some titles.”

“So why not call them by their titles?”

“Some people can also just … sense the names of the things,” Anne added, “you can get Skills for the same effect, too.”

“We don’t really have to choose between the two, do we?” Ryan brought them back on topic. “We’ll have lots of time to explore both floors and reach the ninth floor.”

“We still have to decide for today,” Shala said.

“Then—”

“How about you two do that, decide with your team in mind,” Garen spoke over them while pointing at both Shala and Navid on opposite sides of the table, then gestured at the rest of them, “and I’ll borrow Anne, Lisa, Ryan, and Micah for a moment?”

Micah perked up and almost asked, Why? But that was a stupid question. He knew why. It also explained why Anne, at least, was here.

He was more surprised by Navid just nodding and saying, “Of course, sir. Take all the time you need.”

He wasn’t even going to ask? Of course, they were more used to a certain kind of behavior in polite company.

Lisa stood and Anne jumped up. “We’ll hurry,” she promised them. Ryan and he followed their lead and Micah collected his backpack on the way out. His list was inside.

Garen led them up the stairs, onto the walkway, and toward his office. Lisa sped up to walk by his side, conveying something to him with a look, and Anne slowed down to walk by his side instead. Ryan fell behind.

“So,” she mumbled. “She told you.”

Micah nodded.

“She must trust you two a lot then.”

“The same way we trust her,” Micah mumbled back. He knew it was the right thing to say because Anne looked at him and smiled.

Somehow, that made things lighter. He felt bad, having to lie for Lisa. Even for Lisa. It made him feel off and weighed down, but knowing the two of them could share this secret together …?

He walked a little closer to her.

Garen held the door open for them. Lisa was already in the room and Micah let Anne go first before he followed them inside.

There, Allison Reed stood leaning against Garen’s desk with a letter opener she twirled against her thumb and glared at them.

Without so much as a greeting, she said, “So you wanted to talk.”