The Tower plaza was packed. Micah shielded his eyes against the reflected glare of the sun, but even if he couldn’t see the crowds, he could still hear their noise.

Men and women, workers and students—or new era dropouts—climbers, farmers, and more walked the argent paths between lawns to the loot tents, Guild, side gates, jogged laps, or, most of all, headed for the portal looming in the distance.

Hey, he greeted it in thought. How I missed you. Sure, they’d seen each other before and after the exam, but that had been brief. Two ships passing in the night. Now, he had the freedom to come visit whenever he wanted, day and night.

He barely managed to channel his excitement into a manly cheer and spun to walk backward ahead of the others.

They smiled. “Excited?” Anne asked.

“Aren’t you?”

“Of course!”

Finally, they were off the leash and could run. He would have run ahead if he’d been able to lead them to the sixth floor. As it was, he sped over the grass to spur them on.

His mouth opened to say words his brain hadn’t chosen yet when a shout made him, and the entire plaza, stumble.

A man staggered out of the Tower cursing like a sailor, riddled with arm-length spines from his glove and hip. His allies, guessing by how roughed-up they looked, rushed him to a field to administer first aid.

The world moved on. Conversations picked up again.

Micah was half a plaza away, a hundred people between them, but still took a hurried step forward until he saw what the spines were, the wispy roots of blue that tore out his skin with every one they plucked.

Axon Quills. From one of the Nervous Forests?

He recognized them from the workshop. They were new, valuable ingredients, but he wouldn’t be able to gather any himself for a while yet. The lowest Nervous Grove had been found on a twelfth floor, a hidden place where everything was interconnected, plants and monsters, and where everything could connect to you to make you sense things that weren’t real.

In this case: pain.

The man vented and bled, but he was in far worse a mood than he was in medical danger. As they treated their wounds, too, they cleaned them with hints of healing potion for the worst parts, then bandaged the rest with thin salves.

Smart. Assuming they went into the Tower twenty or so days out of a month and healed every injury with standard potions and without aiding Skills, they would get sick in a decade or so.

“What?” Anne asked. She leaned forward to be in his field of vision and followed his eyes toward all the other roughed-up teams tending to their wounds.

Climbers went into the Tower fully clad in armor and supplied for a day. Some carried more by way of Skills or summons. One team even walked alongside a horse-drawn cart. He didn’t know if it was real or not.

They came out battered and dirty with sacks, carcasses, and treasure chests. Those who hadn’t had the opportunity to patch themselves up before they left—as was polite—and those who wanted to check their work in the sun went to the fields closest to the Tower to do that.

The healthy ones headed either for the loot tents alongside the Tower or followed the main path to the Guild or Bazaar depending on their earnings and connections.

There weren’t even that many, but they left their mark. Near the Tower, the sunlight seemed to dim as the fumes of sweat, mud, and blood rose like a cloud of exhaustion and pride.

“Do you want to help them all?” Anne asked with a gentle smile, a bit of humor in her eyes. Not sarcasm. It sounded almost like a compliment.

But Micah could only be honest with her. “At first, yeah. If I’d had to. But they’re more a reminder that it’s not all fun and games and … that I can improve.”

“How so?”

“Oftentimes, I’ll get myself into situations where I have to splash a healing potion on a wound in-between attacking and defending—”

“Oh, I know those moments. We shouldn’t do that too often, though.”

He paused, surprised, and said, “Yeah! And sure, the smart solution would be not to get ourselves in those situations in the first place, but worst-case scenario, if I could, and I could still use my healing potions as wisely as they do—” He nodded in the direction of the teams.

One woman noticed him and scowled. He smiled awkwardly as an apology. Staring was still impolite.

”Potions are largely essences,” he mused. “Tower potions entirely. [Shape Water] can affect mud and with a Skill like [Lesser Dexterity] or [Lesser Acuity] … There are ways, I bet.”

If he trained his skills to prepare for the worst, he could use them for the best and nothing would surprise him.

“Mm. So you’re still thinking about work, huh?” Anne asked.

“… Yes?”

Was that a good thing?

“Ugh,” Navid spoke up. “Don’t be such a stick-in-the-mud. School’s out, exams are over, and contrary to our keepers’ beliefs, we can have fun without getting ourselves killed.”

Shala smiled. “All we need to be this day is intelligent enough not to die on the sixth floor, do we not?”

Micah hesitated. He wanted to give them a confident reply, but … “You’d be surprised how many things on the lower floors can kill you nowadays,” he said instead, thinking of all the messes he’d dragged himself and others into.

Navid rolled his eyes and placed a hand on his sword hilt. “I would very much like to meet these threats, then.”

Shala kicked him in the butt and gave him a quick shove. “Lead the way then!”

He chuckled and swept his arms as he stepped back through the portal. Without missing a beat, Shala and Anne followed.

Micah glanced back to make sure Lisa and Ryan were behind him and focused on where he wanted to go.

Wherever they lead, let me follow. Don’t separate me from them. It was a simple thought, almost like a prayer. Then he stepped through to elsewhere.

“So you came here for your midterm exam?”

“This general area,” Anne answered. “We defeated a Guardian and weren’t allowed to go any further.”

“Oh. Stupid rules.”

“Yeah.”

He looked away for a moment to smile at her, but the verdant ruins called him. The corridor was bright and shaded thanks to the open space ahead. Roots and vines threaded through the walls and ceiling until they smothered them and hid any number of traps, paths, treasure.

Lisa had already sent out a mass swarm of lizards, oddly muted against the green, to investigate.

In the meantime, they’d climbed the rocky path past the odd seedling growing out from the rubble, boulders tucked in by moss, and broken stone fences. And then, even if she did find something …

Micah’s heart was taken.

He stood a step away from a precipice. Ryan held onto a piece of rebar jutting out from a partially collapsed ceiling ahead of him. His armor flapped in a faint breeze.

A steep step well opened up in front of them; so corroded, the walls may as well have been sheer. Patterns and designs poked their heads out from gaps between the plants. They reminded him of the ninth floor golems’ designs, but the stone was darker here, the colors earthier, and the only water in sight was a shallow, muddy pond in one corner of the well.

With so much green, that water had to come from somewhere. Maybe they could invite Jason along next time to find out where?

No monsters, but insects and birds fanned their wings in the distance. Behind them, a blurry brown shape stretched into the sky—a massive root that scraped the clouds.

“Folly at the Root,” he mumbled. “Ruined structures built into the earth near the root of …?”

“A massive tree,” Navid said. “We presume. We don’t actually know, but rumor has it that if you follow it to its source, it will lead you to the Gardens. Or past them, at least, and then even higher.”

“Wow.”

“Keep in mind, roots grow smaller further afield from the base of their tree. This is the lowest floor we have spotted it on yet.”

“Wow. Yeah— Wow.” Micah felt like he was staring up at the Tower for the first time again.

“Of course, we haven’t been able to climb it.”

Ryan spoke up, “As soon as you get there, Morgana arrives?”

“Exactly. From this side, at least.”

Micah turned back, but it was Anne he asked, “What can she do?”

“Huh? Oh, she’s an enchantress. She uses minions and terrain to her advantage with buffs, traps, and stuff. You need to do lots of parkour to keep up with her.”

“Cool.”

“She appears to be weaker than many of her siblings on her own,” Navid said, “which is why the Guild think she may be easier to take down. They can hire climbers to combat her minions while our strongest take her on. A group effort.”

“And the other?” he asked, still looking around. Other tunnels connected to the well, some with designs chiseled into the stone that looked like blocky animals with gaping maws.

“Adrian.” Navid made a face. “He can turn invisible and appears in a sparse forest. He has this … sack he throws people into. It’s alive and it digests things. He is by far one of the most disgusting of the brood. That may factor into why some people want him dead—for revenge—but the terrain may offer many of our strongest the opportunity to truly let loose.”

“Oh.”

There was a painful moment of silence, and Micah regretted asking. He didn’t want to bring the mood down but it was good to know those things for the future.

Sometimes, he didn’t have a frame of reference to understand the things everyone talked about and felt like an ass no matter what he did.

He racked his brain for some way to pick the conversation back up again, something that wasn’t as lame as asking, ‘Soo … where do you want to go first?’

Did he have any insights himself? He was a [Scout] now. He searched for clues. If he led the way, would they think that was cool or would he end up embarrassing himself? They had been in this area of the Tower before and knew it better than him, but he didn’t only want to be asking questions. He wanted to look confident, too.

Ryan hopped off the edge.

He landed a meter below, twisted, and let himself skid down the side of the well by holding onto a vine, then a broken step, and pushed off to land on a large, ruined statue. It stood around five feet tall in the bushes. He crouched and leapt off, casually walking the fall off.

Navid whistled.

“Ryan Payne!” Micah hollered down. “Don’t you dare run off on your own again!” Seriously, he had just failed his final exam for that kind of behavior.

“I’m not!” he yelled back up, arms out in a ‘What do you want from me?’ pose. “What? Don’t tell me we’re not going to explore this basin.”

“Well yeah, but—”

“If Lisa finds something we can double back. Or split up. We don’t have to follow their stupid rules anymore, right?” He smiled.

Micah frowned. Was that the lesson he’d pulled from the exam? What about teamwork for safety’s sake or … to have fun?

“Ryan!” Anne waved. “You might want to know: monsters hide burrowed beneath the ground here!”

Just as she said it, a rodent-like creature, close to a meerkat or prairie dog, popped its head out of the earth a few steps away from him with a patch of lawn on its head.

Ryan frowned.

Its cheeks bulged like it had food in its mouth but it still managed to glare at him like a sour old man.

He moved—

It spat.

He whipped the butt of his spear around and it burst into smoke, but the damage had been done. A splash of mud clung to his face. Or rather, an inch just off his face to his ward. Momentum lost, some of it began to droop down and Ryan slapped it off with a grimace.

Three more rodents shot their heads out and turned on him with those same angry faces.

Someone snickered.

Two of them spat. One of the three screamed like a hoarse old man and immediately, a dozen more shot out of the earth all around them, even from the walls where plants had grown.

They glared at Ryan and the screaming hail of mud began.

The rest of them had a field day with it, safe in their tunnel. Well, ‘safe’. The rodents weren’t a threat, but their teammates laughed as Ryan dodged, ducked, and blocked the mud like a swimmer caught out in the hail.

Micah didn’t want to laugh. He wanted to tell the others to stop it but … it was kind of his fault for running off on his own. He chuckled a little.

Ryan stopped dead in his tracks, his boots cutting a grove in the soil, and glared. He flicked a [Firebolt] through a rodent.

Alright, sorry, Micah thought and drew his slingshot. He hesitated, faced with the sheer number of enemies, and considered his ammunition.

They really were nothing more than pests, like the rat swarms that had eaten their armor on the ninth floor or the Kobolds with itching darts—monsters meant to harass rather than pose a physical threat.

Killing one per shot literally wouldn’t be worth the price of ammunition.

“Uhm … Anne?” he asked instead and picked up a loose rock. “You wouldn’t happen to know how to get rid of them? I doubt we’ll get to explore much with mud raining down on us.”

“Huh? Oh, it’s fine,” she told him. “Wait for it. They’ll run away soon enough.”

He opened his mouth to ask why but caught himself, then trained his slingshot on one in the distance instead.

Trust her. Don’t be annoying.

He knew roughly, if he loosed the stone it had a chance of hitting his target halfway across the well. He wasn’t sure why. His aim was based on trial and error and if he missed, he might not know why, either. Maybe, he would figure it out. More likely, he’d learn by trying again.

Then he whispered, “[Aimed Shot],” and thoughts connected. His hands moved and a mental image of where the stone should hit shifted like a target on the world. He understood the causality of it better, too.

In one direction, when he shifted slightly, his aim shot off in a whole other direction he couldn’t see: wind and roots near the rodent; the stone might ricochet to some place unknown.

That much was a wonder. The Skills’ strength varied from person to person with experience, level, and other Skills.

He was level one, but he had [Essence Sight]. Unlike others who might have to figure it out, he could see the breeze clear as day.

He loosed the pebble and a half-visible rodent over forty meters away burst into smoke.

Micah broke into a grin. That was a useful Skill for once. It offered reliability.

Maria screamed in the distance.

He ducked down, ready to bolt as his fingers cramped up. Half the rodents turned in fear and burrowed back down or fled. Lawn caps with flowers growing from them swayed on their heads as they ran.

Navid snickered again and the primal terror ebbed, making room for a flush in his cheeks.

He looked up, and spotted a lithe creature with dark spotted fur slip into the well from above, leaping from ledge to ledge. It disappeared into one of the higher tunnels. More followed in other places behind the foliage and soon another scream echoed.

Wild cats. Of course, because their stupid cries could sound like dying women. He could have done without hearing those today.

But their presence made the rodents flee and the hail of mud stop. Their old shouts must have attracted the predators.

“See?” Anne asked. “Easy-peasy. They’re going to continue annoying us throughout the day, but you only need to watch out for the grasping vines they sometimes hide in their spit.”

He was beginning to recognize more and more of the features from reports and the workshop but he still asked, “Vines?” His tongue still felt a little dry.

There were lots of different monsters that used vines in Hadica’s Tower. Hundreds.

“Mm … hold on,” she said and searched the basin.

“There.” Shala pointed.

“Thanks. See that?” They pointed at a patch of mud on the ruined lawn. From it, thin vines probed around. “Those will try to entangle or choke you. Like hiding stones in a snowball?”

“Ohh. Thanks for the heads-up.”

“No problem. And while we’re at it …” she said and waved again. “Ryan! Can you see those patterns in the wall over there? Throw a [Firebolt] at them, please? Without getting close to the pond. There’s a Vine Sentinel hiding in there.”

She pointed at a ruined section of the well. Now that Micah knew what to look for, the stone did look different. Cracks ran through it around a more porous section of rock.

He focused and the light dragged in geometric lines as if the world was being drawn in by something. An unmade, partially hidden.

Ryan scowled at her from below amid grass and mud and yelled back up, “Why don’t you do it?”

“I didn’t bring a bow?”

“So ask Lisa first instead of me!”

“I can do it?” Micah offered up his slingshot. He hadn’t prepared any flame shots for today but if an arrow could work …?

“No, the Vine Sentinel will target the one who wakes it. That’s the point. You want to lure it into the well so your fighters can tank it while the casters attack from above. Well, with a guard.”

A guard for …? Oh, for the wild cats. They were probably circling around to ‘ambush’ them as they spoke.

Ryan turned and held an arm up. A ring of light rippled off his hand and crumbled into broken links as a vibrant flame shot off.

It impacted the stone and the wall shifted. Vines pulled in and rocks fell as a body lifted itself out of the facade: a giant chuck animated by a writhing mass of green.

It wasn’t a golem, per se. It was a plant that wore hollowed-out stone. A large plant, wearing large and heavy stone.

Its vines grouped up into the loose semblance of limbs. The Sentinel pushed off and slammed into the pond. A wave of mud crashed onto the field, turning a quarter of the soil into a mud pit.

Ryan dodged back.

A third of its size, Anne ran forward to meet it.

She jumped and unlike Ryan, only broke her fall once. She hit the large statue below, stumbled over it like a stepping stone, and landed hard on the grass.

A ripple of distorted light shot off from her pants like an echo of his spell, or a pebble hitting a pond.

Using the momentum, she shot right back up, ran a stretch, and dropped down to slip through the mud.

The Sentinel formed a dozen vines into a crude arm and reached out for Ryan. Fire exploded at its shoulder, rocking it back, and Micah pulled back from the heat of Lisa’s spell next to him, only now realizing she had joined the fight. Shala, too, was climbing down the rock.

Ryan circled around at the wall to reach its head.

He was the only one not moving.

The realization shook him out of his awe and he rushed to the ledge, but Shala had gotten there first and was taking the route Ryan had shown. He could risk falling on his ass and embarrassing himself or he could wait a moment.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Or …?

Other options.

He turned. Navid had drawn his sword and stood at the crossroads behind them. He looked … bored and Micah had honestly forgotten he was there for a moment.

It was a sobering sight, but he still wanted to do something.

“Don’t mind me,” he said. “I’m going to defend Lisa here.”

“Don’t use me as an excuse for your laziness, Madin.”

At least, he wouldn’t have to worry about her. “Uh, Lisa? Do y’know any quick ways down?”

“Go after Sion?”

Damn.

He leaned over the edge and waited until the guy reached the statue. The moment he sat, Anne reached the Sentinel and swung.

The shell cracked on impact. The entire creature rocked as if it had been punched by someone, or something, its own size, and Anne—

Dropped her mace. She slipped and almost fell as she turned and flailed to grab it out of the air, but she was too slow and it hit the mud, bounced, and skid away.

Micah still stared in awe and no small part of envy. [Lesser Might], [Lesser Strength], and [Bless] all working together, he knew. Stacking and amplifying each other.

But she didn’t have a grip Skill yet? Oh! What if they stopped for a moment so Ryan could include her in [Pack Aura] after this?

He dropped down and hounded Sion.

“I’m going, I’m going!” he said and fell into the grass.

Micah just jumped. “So that’s why you brought the mace!” he shouted as he caught up.

“I have a sword that can cut stone,” Anne admitted with a huff as she retreated, “but these things scale, you know? Better to get used to adapting now while we still have the chance.”

“Yeah.”

Shala cut through the odd vine whipping through the air as he charged past them at its limbs.

Ryan stood on its head and stabbed it with a burning spear. The living matter didn’t immediately catch, but it did sear and every little bit helped.

The Sentinel tried to shake him, but he would be fine either way. Micah headed for the wound Anne had inflicted. Her strike had bruised the soft matter within and it bled green and grey smoke.

He stepped into its shadow and the beast reached out. Not for him—he followed its arm as it passed overhead—but for a boulder near the pond, half-coated in mud. Its hand unfurled to lift it.

Another blast impacted it, half the size of a regular [Fireball], and the boulder slipped from its grasp.

No wonder she can handwave so many of her spells, Micah realized, though he had bigger concerns.

He was thankful for the help, but … the Sentinel stumbled and came dangerously close to toppling onto him when it leaned back against the force.

He pressed one hand against it to push it back—as if that would help—and to steady himself in the mud, and let his fingers run alongside it as he circled around. When he reached the wound, he pressed them into the shrapnel and smoking vines and made a fist.

He focused, took in a sharp breath, and pulled.

Like ripping stuffing from a teddy bear, the creature came partially undone. He hadn’t just torn out more of its essence, its blood, but part of its internal structure, the meat and bones of it.

Phantom green vines bloated in mid-air while their original counterparts blurred as if he were seeing double, or as if he’d partially pulled a ghost out of a vessel. Its artificial legs wobbled and sunk as it struggled to support its own weight.

Anne came to a slipping stop on its opposite side of it and stared. “Wow. Nice trick! How did you—” she started.

Shala pressed a hand against her neck and pushed her down, forcing her to duck as the creature’s limp arm, boulderless, swung over their heads.

The Sentinel spun like a training dummy and Micah hugged it to keep clear.

“Don’t chat during combat!” Shala shouted. When the spin came around, he raised his sword to deflect an arm as big as he was. And where blade met vines, miraculously, the vines gave.

Shala cut almost halfway through them.

Wow.

A Skill? Or was his sword enchanted, too?

“Nice trick!” Micah echoed and thought, Please don’t also have [Lesser Strength].

Oh, who am I kidding? He was probably the only guy in school who didn’t have that Skill.

The creature reared and pulled back, but more flames rolled overhead as Ryan continued his assault and it struck out at him. He must have been getting close to its core.

“Relax,” Anne said. “I was wrong. It’s just a Guard.”

“Like that matters!”

“A Guard?”

“You know how [Sentinel] is an upgrade from [Guard] as a Class?”

“Ohh.”

“Yeah, they’re using those as a naming scheme though … honestly, that’s a horrible idea because they’re already running out of options when we’ve barely explored the first ten floors.”

“Yeah.” He nodded along. “Why not call it something like a ‘Folly Guard’?” That was specific to this area.

“That’s what I said, too! Or Stone Tuber. But noo, publishers insist on using boring old ‘intuitive’ names.” She put her boot down, splashing mud.

Stone Tuber?

Micah couldn’t help but smile.

The Folly Guard lumbered. Its vines whipped sickles of mud around. They stepped aside with a grimace, despite already being covered in it, and he asked, “So this is a Guard because …?”

Shala threw his one free arm up as if to say, I give up, and stepped away to stab it.

“See how slow it’s moving?” Anne walked up to the damaged arm it was reforming to bludgeon them with and pointed.

“Yeah?” Micah crossed his arms—he hadn’t even drawn his knife yet—and casually leaned against the stone.

He tried to look casual, at least. He hoped the sinking feeling in his guts didn’t show on his face.

If it wanted to, the Guard could just ‘drop dead’ and squash him. But its arms were heavily damaged, courtesy of Shala and Lisa, and if it did, there was no way for it to get back up.

It wouldn’t toss its mobility away like that, right?

Pshh, no. He was sure. Mostly sure. Reasonably sure. If not, he was ready to book it the moment it started leaning on him, no matter how stupid he looked.

He eyed the porous rock for possible handholds, too. Maybe he could pull himself up …?

Anne didn’t seem concerned, and for now, he wanted to look cool for her.

“So there’s four-ish types. The smallest and quickest is the Vine Brigand, which sprints down tunnels to ambush people and sometimes steals stuff. It has this tiny stone core. Then there’s the Vine Hermit, like hermit crab, you know?”

“Yeah?”

“Average, pretty much. More common, too,” she spoke more quickly and clipped her sentences to get the information across. “Then Vine Guards like this. Slower, larger, more durable. They defend areas.” She gave it a pat.

“Mhm—?”

The Guard moved. Micah twisted his feet, heart pounding, a moment from sprinting off. He didn’t trust its shell; it could spin.

But another detonation pushed it back just as Shala cut its leg, making it twist back like a person about to fall.

Ryan yelled overhead, “Watch it!”

Lisa yelled something back.

He tried not to look too embarrassed when he straightened up again. Unlike him, she hadn’t flinched.

She didn’t tease him about it. “Lastly, there is the Vine Sentinel. It grows far-reaching vines which can detect and harass creatures ahead of time. It is large, durable, and fast and fights tooth and nail. It’s pretty nasty. We had to fight one for our exam and it gave us— well, half of our team a hard time. Which is still impressive considering it’s us!”

He smiled. He could look at this place and imagine a weaker team, or himself from half a year ago, struggling with the challenge. If they were surprised the initial assault or struggled with the terrain, if they didn’t have someone who could crack its shell, a [Mage] who could blow its arms away, swords and Skills to cut through dense vines, other ways to hurt it …

A single Folly Guard could entangle climbers, trip them up, crush them, and that was without considering the other predators around here.

But now, despite being humbled by the Tower time and time again, or maybe because of it, he was confident: They really were overqualified for the lower floors, weren’t they?

He could be on a team with Anne and not feel too self-conscious about himself, and it felt awesome.

“Do you think we can find another one today? Then you could have a rematch?”

“Sure!”

It’s a date, he thought to himself.

The Guard was on its deathbed. He would rather not be surprised if it lashed out so he turned from the conversation to help the others.

He really only had the one trick—or rather, it was the most effective one for this kind of enemy. But Anne had liked it? He gripped the smaller and wounded vines, twisted, and did like ripping weeds in the street.

Each time he pulled, he ripped a piece of the unmade’s internal structure out with his bare hands.

“We need to back off!” Sion yelled, hacking through its leg. “When it dies, that shell is going to crash and tumble. Bowling ball.”

Micah gave him a thumbs-up and they retreated. Ryan jumped off and clung to the wall.

The Guard didn’t really have any way to chase them. When they were out of reach, it struggled to move at all, gushing streams of smoke.

Like many monsters, it might turn feral in its last moments and try a last-ditch effort to kill them, but its only options were to leave its shell behind or—

It burst into smoke.

Micah covered his mouth against the deluge and winced when the shell cracked. As the smoke dispersed, he blinked and mumbled, “Oh.” He hadn’t expected it to die so easily.

Sixth floor, duh.

The others took it in stride. “Ryan!” Anne called. “Can you check its cave while you’re up there? There might be treasure.”

He gave her a look and rather than scale the wall sideways, dropped and waded in the mud.

“Or that. That works.”

Micah looked around for something glowing or green and, when he couldn’t find it, crawled on his hands and knees into the vacant shell to get its crystal. Clumps of dirt and plant matter stuck to the inside of it.

Just to be safe, he scraped some off and inspected the plant matter. A lot of gunk, but there were some vine samples among them. Bonafide monster parts?

After a few more moments of scraping, he crawled back out, stood, and winced when he hit his back on the exit.

“Ouch. You okay?”

He nodded frantically.

“You know, we could have just asked Lisa to do that.”

“What else am I going to do?” he chuckled. “I’m an [Alchemist]. What good am I if I can’t collect my own samples?”

He tucked the vines away and eyed the crystal but of course, he couldn’t find any emotion essences within it without his glasses.

Drat.

“I found some crystals!” Ryan shouted from the hole in the wall. “Nothing else. What now?”

“Um, search the walls for marble slots first,” Anne said. “Sometimes, you can find extra treasure, hidden passages, or other things. Often, they are hidden in iconography, near tunnels, or behind foliage.”

Micah took one look around the overgrown ruins, pictured how small the indents for marbles were, and faltered.

Hoo boy.

“Uhm, Anne?”

“Yes?”

He remembered something else. “Admittedly, I was distracted by the Root when we got here, but I didn’t glimpse any Tower essences. Uhm … I sometimes can before it hides from me?”

“Anne!” Navid called when he reached the ground. Lisa walked ahead of him. “Do you really want to waste time exploring the first area we come across?”

They deliberated. Anne wanted a minute to check for herself. She ran off to search the walls.

The others decided where to go. There were ruins all around so they needed to find a good place to climb and to settle on a direction.

“Root-ward!” Micah insisted.

“Root-ward also brings us closer to Morgana and her minions,” Shala said.

“So?”

He wasn’t going to avoid an entire area just because he might glimpse another one of the Brood there. Sure, he’d flinched earlier but he wasn’t afraid. It wasn’t like they would be in any danger … right?

He remembered a shadow, glowing organs, the clamor of endless legs striking stone to drag a massive body upward, the sound in his ears, the fear that Ryan might be skewered to shield him—

“Wait, Morgana doesn’t attack people on the lower floors, does she?” Micah blurted out.

“No, but she roams. As long as you get out of the way and don’t attack, she won’t retaliate, but she does manage the traps on the lower floors.”

“And her minions might,” Navid added. “Attack, that is.”

“Oh. Phew. Well then, yeah, let’s head Root-ward!” He pointed.

Shala gave him a curious look but didn’t disagree.

“I’ve got rope,” Ryan offered.

“Every climber has rope,” Navid said.

“I don’t,” Lisa said.

“Every climber worth their salt has rope.”

Ryan rolled his eyes and stepped away. “I can climb to the top, find a place to secure it, help you up.”

“Be my guest.”

He headed for the wall, but Shala stopped him, “Wait, where is your harness?”

“Harness? No, I have [Sure Grip].”

“As does every [Rock Climber] in history and there are still accidents. A fall from that height? You’ll break something if you’re lucky. You could hit your head and then comes darkness.”

“I have the raincoat. It can stop boulders, I’m told.”

“I’ll have to take your word for it, but that’s still an external force. Can it break your own fall? How does its enchantment work?”

Ryan paused, eyes up in consideration. Micah tried to remember the report they had gotten from the Guild, too.

“Will it shatter the ground or what?” Shala went on, but it was a rhetorical question. “Look, just use a harness and proper safety equipment. It’s the smart thing to do.”

“I didn’t bring a harness,” Ryan said. “I don’t own a climbing harness. Not everyone can afford to buy every little piece of equipment and it’s not like you gave us much prep time today.”

“Dude,” Navid said, holding a hand out, “don’t be like that. Don’t drag it there. He’s just saying.”

Micah didn’t want to get into a squabble among teammates but he appreciated the ‘we’ from Ryan. Lisa and he didn’t own any climbing gear, either.

“Where’s your harness?” he asked instead, hopefully with a friendlier tone.

Shala and Navid indicated places on their gear where straps ran along their limbs and almost seamlessly blended in with their belts and armor through their material and color scheme.

Shala pulled a carabiner out of a pocket.

“Oh.”

Stylish.

“Look, you’re a [Scout], are you not?” Navid asked and began to take his off. “I will let you borrow mine and teach you—”

“I know how,” Ryan hissed, “we learned how in school. I just don’t own any climbing gear. Fuck it. Give me your pitons and a hammer. I’ll clear a path for you pansies.”

They did as he said with their eyebrows up and mouths shut, then gave him space to work.

Lisa started to create an improvised air cushion near the ground to catch them, just in case.

“I don’t know [Featherfall],” she admitted.

Navid needled her about it.

Micah mulled the situation over for a moment but he had no idea what to say in the situation, or if there was even anything that needed saying.

He left with Shala to go help Anne instead. They found a marble from a rodent Ryan had killed and some plants he could use to make poison shots, but there were surprisingly few valuable plants in the overgrowth. Most of the ones he found could be replaced by any mundane weeds outside.

He did find some apple mint and washed it off, then shared its leaves with the others as a snack.

They made him eat it first to prove it wasn’t poison, though he got the sense it was in good fun. Anne said she liked the smell. He made a mental note of that.

When they got back, a rope hung from the cliffside and Navid was climbing.

Ryan stood high up on the cliff’s edge. “There’s a bunch of new monsters up here,” he called down in a dry tone. “Better hurry before they kill me.”

“Don’t joke about that!”

“I mean, before they notice and attack me.” He rolled his eyes. “I won’t be able to keep an eye on the rope then.”

“Maybe I should have gone first,” Shala mumbled as he got his equipment ready, one eye on his friend.

“It will be fine,” Anne reassured him and untangled a harness she had stuffed in her pack. “Navid can go ahead for once.”

He hummed. It sounded unhappy.

Micah eyed them curiously. Did he want to protect Navid? Or was it his Class?

It reminded him of Ryan, the need to go first. That move earlier, too. [Strike Down] was pretty similar—if that had been a Skill at all.

“Hey, are you a [Guardian] or [Knight] or something?” Micah asked. “That move you did earlier was awesome.”

“‘Move’ …? Oh, [Cleaving Deflection],” he said. “It’s a Skill. Rather new, too. Thank you. I am not a [Knight], no.”

“More like a [Babysitter],” Lisa said.

“Don’t be mean,” Anne told her.

“I can hear you!”

“And we’re stuck staring at your butt!” Lisa yelled. “So hurry up!”

“And so will the monsters soon,” Shala added, “so yes, hurry up!”

“There’s a rebuttal here,” Navid called down calmly, “if only I knew how to phrase it.”

“Pun intended?” Micah shouted up.

“Huh?”

Oh. Apparently not.

Shala was impatient to go second, but when he walked forward, he tripped over an invisible wall.

“There’s a cushion of air there, Sy,” Anne explained after they chuckled.

“About yea’ high?” Micah gave it a pat, and Anne and he left their hands on the air on either side of him to show where it was.

“Oh.” He awkwardly tried to climb onto it but the air wasn’t that dense. Wherever he put his weight, it stretched and sunk like a super soft mattress, much to Lisa’s annoyance, and their amusement. He crawled on his hands and knees until he reached the wall and got up.

Micah thought he could have offered Anne a steadying hand, but she simply sat on the air, spun her legs around, and stood, walking oddly hunched with high steps where her knees almost touched her torso.

Lisa and he followed.

The rodents and wild cats harassed them on the way, but a few shots and [Firebolts] kept them at bay. When they grew too bold, his team hunted down and killed a few to make the rest flee.

Cowards, Micah thought and accepted Ryan’s arm to pull himself up.

“Thanks!”

A small, unkempt valley opened in front of them that ringed most of the well. Hints of ruined steps and pavement lay buried beneath the dirt—a forest in the process of reclaiming the land.

It could have been a plaza or access point once, or maybe a meditation square near the air and water?

There were spots like that in Hadica. Few people used them. Or only certain cliques. He’d heard they were more popular in Trest or Lighthouse, where nature ironically had more to offer than their city.

Hadica was the City of the Gardens, of Flowers, and the Harvest. The Great River ran through it and brought them all the water and traffic they needed. Their cup spilled over. But Trest stood in and near the mountains and Lighthouse at the sea. The air was better there.

Looking at the ruins and imagining what they could have been if someone had been here to take care of this place, Micah understood the trend a little better. Not that he was a fan of meditation, but maybe for someone like Ryan or Lisa?

He would take care of this place for them.

The overgrowth wasn’t the only intruder. Northwest led to a thicketed forest through a cleft in the rock. A massive stag stared at them from the other side, its antlers a complex frill that curved back over its shoulders. Its eyes were long amber slits that curved around its head.

It took a step forward and thumped against the rock, and a thin shower of rocks rolled down.

“It can’t fit through the gap.”

Navid sounded almost relieved. If it had fit, it could have charged and rammed them off the edge.

Northwest led to more ruins and corridors. Above one entrance, a bundle of writhing vines hung poised and stared at them. A Vine Brigand or Hermit.

Other monsters moved and hid in the undergrowth but none of them attacked. Ryan and the others must have scared them off.

Anne headed for the ruins and in one fluid movement, the monster slipped inside.

It ran because it knew it was that outmatched? A Brigand, then?

The stag glared, but it just knocked its crown against the cliff once more and walked away.

“Aren’t we going to go hunt that thing?” Micah asked. “Is it too strong?”

“Rootward is this way.” Anne pointed.

Well, yeah. He could see that.

“It’s best not to get distracted,” Shala said. “Unless you’re an [Explorer] or [Fighter] seeking thorough challenges, clearing every last corner along the way consumes time and effort, and the lesser loot will bog us down. Better to fight at your destination.”

Micah eyed the half-hidden forest for a moment and groused a bit. “Someone should probably go check it though? In case a chest or something is hidden just around the corner? Scouting terrain is important.”

“Sure,” Navid said, “if you think you can do that and still have the stamina to keep up throughout the day. Uh, maybe one of you two [Scouts] then?”

Without a word, Ryan broke off and hiked in the forest’s direction. His pace picked up to jump up a small hill and didn’t slow back down.

“Oh, uhm, me too—” Micah stammered and joined him before anyone could protest.

“Hey, Ryan?” he asked when they were out of earshot. “Can I ask you something?”

Ryan glared at him, looked away, and sighed. “Sorry. I’m just in a bad mood because of the exam and stuff, I guess.”

“Huh? Oh, no. Not that—well I mean, yes that, sorry—but I wanted to ask, would it be okay to ask if you could include Anne in the [Pack Aura]?”

There was another pause, longer this time with his jaw clenched like he was working the idea over in his mind. And yet, when he answered, all he said was, “You just did.”

“No, I meant like, in front of her?” he tried to explain. He picked up a rock. Birds flew about overhead. Bugs chittered all around them.

“Why?”

“Because she’s already awesome, so she probably doesn’t need it, but I thought it might be fun to try stacking effects. I don’t know. I don’t want to like, be dismissive or insult her or anything.”

Ryan shifted his spear into a throwing grip and looked at him. “You’re overthinking it, Micah. People know, everything you do, you do with good intentions. If she doesn’t get that, that’s on her.”

“You think so?” He wasn’t sure he agreed … with any of those thoughts come to think of it.

He had a tendency to be thoughtless or overthink things, but thoughtlessness didn’t exactly allow for good intentions. It didn’t allow for any intentions at all.

“Yeah,” Ryan said, “and besides …” He paused, eying the underbrush. Micah took in a breath. “If I wanted to include her, I would—”

A wild cat jumped out with a snarl. It wasn’t alone. Ryan’s spear caught it under its leg and sunk through the side of its stomach. He drew his javelin and hit the next one.

A flock of birds swooped down. Micah managed to pick off one with a stone and blew a lung full of air that sent them careening around them. They regained their balance and turned.

“Switch!” He ducked behind Ryan’s protective armor and facing the other way, he still felt the heat and hear the tearing flames as he incinerated them.

“[Swathe of Flames].”

Barred from using his alchemical breath, the stupid cats were better opponents for him.

The first jumped. He shielded himself, but it still got its claws in his shirt. If it were Kiara, his parents’ cat, or any other cat, he might have panicked and tried to give her ground to stand on while he threaded her claws out, afraid of hurting her.

Here, he lobbed the beast’s toes off with his knife and kicked it in the stomach before its hind legs could fall on him and scratch up his midsection.

The ground rolled beneath his feet as a mound formed and something shot out at his feet.

He stumbled out of the way and almost fell on his ass, but the cat picked itself back up, so he twisted and kicked it into the brown body of a—

Was that a toothed mole?

Like every crazy cat, the thing began to thrash and yowl the moment it made contact, and the two monsters went at each others’ throats.

A fluttering mass of feathers rammed into him and by some miracle, Micah managed to catch the bird after two swipes. He flung it at one of the cats, which swatted it out of the air.

Ryan stepped in to stab it.

It was less a coordinated ambush and more a coinciding free for all, one they were all too happy to exploit, and soon enough, they were surrounded by colorful smoke.

He got away with a few scratches. Ryan was untouched.

The mole thing tried to burrow back underground when it realized it had lost, but he caught it with his javelin and it— bled.

Micah blinked.

Ryan hauled it out and tossed it like hay. It rolled to a stop, limp. “What the hell is that?”

Micah picked up a stick and poked it. It had multiple rows of teeth that he could have sworn had snapped independently of each other. Long claws. Suited to burrowing? Still, if it had a death spasm or was playing dead, he didn’t want to be anywhere near it.

It didn’t move. “It’s fully-formed, that’s what it is,” Micah answered and swung his bag around. “Score!”

“You don’t recognize it?”

“Nope.”

“Not even from workshop or …?”

“There are so many new ingredients. The Alchemist’s Guild is trying to figure out how to use them all. They filter stuff in their essays, the Guild filters stuff in their reports, and our teachers filter stuff for our lessons, so …” Micah shrugged. “I see as many new ingredients on the occasional trip through the Bazaar as I do in school. A lot of us collaborate to pick up the slack.”

“Huh.”

He winced as he moved the carcass.

“Are you hurt?”

“Just a few literal scratches,” he said as he shifted his belongings. “The cleft isn’t that far away. Sprint there and back while I take care of this?”

Ryan hesitated.

“No rules, remember?” he turned his argument back on him. “It’s fine to leave me for a minute and I doubt this thing is too common.” He pointed at the mole shark.

Ryan nodded and ran off.

Micah used a towel to wipe the carcass down as much as he could, like a dog that had rolled in the mud, then washed it and sprinkled some dried preservatives he had leftover from the exam over it. The school had approved of them, so the tents shouldn’t complain too much.

He kept one eye on his surroundings.

Finished, he cleaned his wounds. There was dirt in them from the animals’ claws and for a moment, he worried about poisons or disease but he couldn’t see either.

Dirt is bad enough.

Ryan got back as he finished up and shot a [Firebolt] at another murder bird watching from a tree. It cawed as it took off, probably insulting them.

Micah got excited. “And?”

“Nothing but forest as far as I can see. That giant stag is roaming through the trees. It’s honestly kind of creepy,” he said but his face looked more excited than afraid. “I’m pretty sure the gap leads to another area.”

“Oh.” So this had been a waste of time after all? He hoped the others wouldn’t say, ‘I told you so’.

But, Micah had split off for another reason, too. “And the Anne thing?”

Ryan sighed. “I was going to say, I would have to sit down to meditate. It might take a while. Maybe … if we take a short break later, you can bring it up?”

‘You’.

“Got it. Thank you, Ryan.”

He was aware the two might not get along so well, still—even if he didn’t understand why—so he was grateful he was willing to give it a try, but maybe it would be better for them both if he just let it drop.

There were enough other things to be happy about anyway.