The lobby of the Climber’s Guild was rather peaceful compared to the other times Micah had been inside it. By nature, climber’s working hours were erratic. You could go into the Tower and come back out whenever you pleased, after all.

Micah frowned.

Or could you? He wondered if the Guild was open at night.

Either way, he thought that human nature might have counteracted that a little. Human nature in large groups, that is.

Ryan had told him once they couldn’t go into the Tower in the early morning because of the massive stream of Gardeners besieging its guild and portals then. And afterward, you had the somewhat less large stream of climbers who collected monster crystals for a living. They were the ones who worked on routine, mostly part-time, and sold their crystals to the guild and people in the Bazaar equally. The third stream was that of the small companies and groups who sought to climb higher floors. The true Climbers, in Micah’s opinion. They collected fewer crystals than the second but sought out more treasures and challenges. They were more active in the Guild, and if they found a relic, they were the ones most likely to hand it over so a [Hoplite] could make use of its strength.

Then there were the ones seeking a few hours of excitement in their free time, usually in the afternoon or on the weekends. They mostly consisted of students and young adults seeking to level. The last was the smallest group, the people who went on expeditions for months on end, to explore the distance of the Gardens or even just trying to go into any one floor as far as possible before they were forced out.

They went in whenever they wanted to.

Everyone else was too weak for human nature. They came and went as they pleased.

Micah guessed he belonged to that group for now.

A lull between streams meant there was little going on in the lobby. The lines in front of the receptions weren’t long and the murmur was almost non-existent. Sunbeams streamed in through the skylights and windows. They lit up the marble floor. Shadows formed between windows and behind dividers full of posters. Everything was tinted in a dark yellow. It looked rather serene.

Micah enjoyed the peace.

He took a swig of water from the leather-wrapped bottle that Ryan had lent him—waterskins are old, he’d said—and wiped his chin before putting it back. Micah had already replaced the waterskins he lost, so he just used those to fill with Sewer water instead. They could hold more liquid anyway.

At least, the different container types would remind him which he could drink and which he probably shouldn’t. But if he did, and it upset his stomach, he could always eat some of the-

Ah!

Was that why the Sewer moss was there, so you could drink the water without upsetting your stomach?

Wouldn’t that make it glow, though?

Micah chuckled at the thought of his stomach glowing from the inside out.

If more things in the Tower fit like that, almost intentionally, it could help him a great deal with figuring out how to use ingredients. He’d have to ask Ryan about that, even though getting information out of his friend was such a chore.

Still, it gave him a plan moving forward from light potions— when he was done experimenting with Sewer moss, of course.

Micah had a spring in his step when he reached the far side of the guild. With this little going on, he’d assumed he would find Garen sleeping again, his legs up on his counter. Instead, a woman was standing there.

She wore a simple sundress despite the fickle weather and leaned over the counter to chat with him. The closer Micah got, though, the more he realized she seemed to be chatting at Garen rather than with him. The man didn’t really seem to be participating in the conversation.

Either way, she must have come all the way back here for a reason, and Micah hadn’t even put his shoes back on yet — he hadn’t wanted to stop traffic in front of the Tower — so he headed towards the couches to the give the two some privacy. Also, he wondered if the couches were comfortable.

He’d seen pitchers of water and citrus slices on the bottom on some reception counters and tables. Not this one, but he wondered what they tasted like. At home, they always made them with mint leaves or lemon balm and a little sugar. Or just as cold tea. Did lemon balm taste the same as the thing it was named after?

Was it sweeter? Sourer? Maybe spicy?

What would it be like, Micah wondered, to live so close to the Tower that you could hang out on the couches of its Guild and taste all sorts of exotic plants that came from its Garden?

He didn’t have a chance to find out.

Garen must have spotted him before Micah could reach the couches, because all the sudden the man was up and waving much more enthusiastically than he had been a moment before.

“Michel!” he called. “Michel, kid! Over here!”

Micah would have loved to have ignored him. Instead, he turned on him, annoyed.

“Micah!” he called back and immediately blushed.

The woman was staring at him now. She didn’t look like someone you wanted to interrupt.

He would have preferred waiting at the couches until she was done, but Garen kept on waving at him to come closer so Micah went up to the reception instead.

Garen wore a grin.

The woman didn’t.

“I’m sorry,” he said to both of them. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. I can wait until you’re finished.”

“Thank you-” she started, but Garen interrupted her again.

“No, no, no. You’re saving me. I want to get rid of her,” he said earnestly, pointing a thumb at her.

“Excuse me?” she asked, but Garen ignored her.

“Think of her like … yeah, like one of those saleswomen.”

“I’m not even selling anything, Garen.”

“Here’s something for your first lesson, kid. When you want to get rid of a saleswoman, you just have to turn to her-”

First lesson? Micah wondered.

Garen turned to her.

“Please. Don’t,” she said.

“-and say, No, I do not want your vacuum cleaner. Good day!” He shook his head dramatically and mimed slamming a door in her face.

“I’m surprised you even know what a vacuum cleaner is,” the woman replied.

Micah didn’t know. Was that something climbers had? He wanted to ask, but he also didn’t want to interrupt.

“Well, I’m not buying any of yours.” Garen smiled.

The woman somehow made rolling her eyes look fancy, and Micah felt like joining her. He didn’t. He stared at her eyebrows for a moment too long and then it was too late.

He was relieved, though. In some part of Micah’s head, he’d been worried about meeting Garen again, worried that the man would be mad at him like Linda was. He’d screwed up, after all. And he’d lied to him. But Garen seemed just as childish as he’d always been.

Maybe he didn’t know?

“Do you really have business with this kid,” the woman asked, “or is this just another excuse to get rid of me?”

Garen blinked.

“Oh, no. I really do have to talk with him.”

She sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose in defeat. Only now did Micah notice the bulky contraption on her left wrist. He stared at it, trying to figure out what it was.

… was that a wristwatch?

It seemed way bigger than the other ones Micah had seen before, but it was also made out of gleaming metals and fancy glass. Was it intentionally that big? Was it from the Tower or from overseas?

“Fine.”

She took a step away as if to leave, looked down at Micah and frowned. A tiny crease between her eyes vanished after just a second, but Micah was sure that he’d seen it. He’d been staring there on purpose, after all. Between her eyes, not at them. Between her eyes, he told himself. The expression quickly became that fake, friendly smile that adults reserved for children they didn’t know. The woman leaned over a little, one hand in between her knees and her other held out for him to shake.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Micah almost squinted at her. He was thirteen, almost fourteen soon, not eight.

“My name is Ameryth Denner,” she introduced herself with a brighter tone of voice. Again, fake. Again, reserved for children. “It’s a pleasure to meet you-”

This was the part where Micah was supposed to shake her hand and say his name. He managed to do the first of those two things. He didn’t quite have a long enough attention span to do the second.

He had squinted at her, after all. And when he did, he’d looked into her eyes.

Micah understood something then — this woman was red. Despite her fair skin and black hair, and despite her floral patterned sundress, despite the bulky watch on her wrist and her pink lips. Even if nothing else about her had been red, even if she wore nothing red, she would always be it.

Her eyes were glowing.

It was essence, he knew. Micah just didn’t know what kind of essence it was. It was far too corporeal to be real. Just like the hands of grass on Micah’s worst days, when he couldn’t distinguish between essence and truth, he couldn’t see her true eye color beneath that fake one. The essence became something real.

It was the color of autumn leaves just after the summer, and the color of the fireplace when you went home to escape the cold. It was the color of the glowing embers, just waiting to catch again. The color of a candle lit in the night, to the lead the way to the bathroom, or a fire lit on a stove to heat the kettle. It was the color of Valentine cards, and bursting fireworks, and paper decorations glowing from the inside. The color of blood spilled in hatred, in rage, in love, and simply in hard work. Blood, sweat, and tears, and inn’s burning down with people walking on by, and burning trees that were meant to be quenched, lest the whole forest caught fire. It was the color of two places Micah wanted to forget, but couldn’t.

It was the color of life. Of passion.

Micah thought he could have spent an eternity describing it, but in the end, it was just that — a color. Something every person had known and understood all their lives.

It was just red.

Red essence? He thought, as in, essence of the color red. He’d never seen it before. His mind made a sort of shrug, and his shoulders followed.

It was just red.

“Your eyes?” Micah asked out of curiosity. “Are they magic?” He forgot to say his name.

Her frown was back. This time when it turned into a smile, it wasn’t a fake one.

“I like this one,” Ameryth told Garen and let go of Micah’s hand. “Who’s he?”

“The one I almost got killed,” Garen grumbled.

What?

“The dead kid?” Her eyebrows shot up, and suddenly she was clasping Micah’s hands again and shaking them violently. She also stood a little straighter. “I’m a huge fan of your work.”

“My work?”

“Tell me, did you really fight a Kobold on the first floor?”

“Uhm, yes. Yes, ma’am?” Micah said slowly. How did she know about that? Dead kid? Hadn’t the guard called him that, too? Were there rumors about him, here in the Climber’s Guild? “H-how did you know about that?”

“Oh, I read your file.” She smiled as if it was obvious. It was not obvious, thank you very much.

“But a Kobold on the first floor;” she went on, “they usually only show up after the fourth, you know? And it happened on the same day as we found— Oh, but that’s no concern of yours.”

Micah didn’t even care what she was talking about.

“I have a file?” he asked.

She looked at him.

“You claimed to have brought down the Salamander’s Den,” she said with amusement rather than doubt in her voice. “And you lied your way into the Tower. Of course you have a file.”

“You’re standing in the heart of the Registry,” Garen said lamely from his desk. “Not much you can do about it, kid.”

Micah looked at both of them in turn.

“Oh.”

Did that mean anything? In the long run, he meant.

“By the way,” Ms. Denner went on, “that collapse, it must have killed hundreds of Salamanders. How many levels did you get from that?”

Micah frowned. He hadn’t even considered that. At all.

“Just two,” he said honestly. “And another when I left.”

They both seemed to consider that, but they didn’t seem impressed or excited. He wasn’t sure if they were disappointed, though, either. Either way, Micah rushed to explain. It made sense to him, after all.

“I’m an [Alchemist], Ma’am,” he said. “I don’t think we get levels from killing monsters accidentally.”

When he said that, she smiled down at him reassuringly. “Three’s plenty, even for an [Alchemist].”

Micah almost sighed in relief. He didn’t know why.

No, he did know why.

He would rather have also gotten levels in [Fighter] from killing those monsters.

“An [Alchemist] who gets his ingredients himself?” Garen asked. It made Micah looked up.

“I like it,” Ms. Denner finished the thought. Then she was busy with wiggling her eyebrows at Garen and nudging her head in Micah’s direction.

Garen noticed.

So did Micah, but unlike the man, he had no idea what she meant. He was also a little preoccupied with blushing at the compliment.

“Thank you,” he said, despite interrupting whatever silent conversation they were having. Garen barely seemed to notice.

“You said one,” he grumbled at Ms. Denner.

“And now I’m saying two. Past me’s not the boss of me,” she joked.

Micah assumed it was a joke because of her tone. Not that he understood what they were talking about. They were talking over him like friends liked to do around other people. Since they were also adults, Micah doubted he could get an answer out of them if he asked. She hadn’t answered his question about her eyes, after all.

“No,” Garen simply answered.

“Oh well. It is not like I can force you to … yet,” Ms. Denner winked at Garen and walked past Micah, away from the counter.

“It was nice meeting you, Dead Kid!” she called back a few steps later. “I can’t wait for you to sign up with the guild.”

They watched her leave, Micah thinking about colors and reputations. He had no idea what Garen was thinking about. Probably going back to sleep.

“So, ‘Dead Kid’?” Micah asked eventually. “Is that going to stick or ...? Do I have to, like, hand in a formal request for a different nickname?”

Garen chuckled.

“No, nicknames are there to stay. They’re like titles to the people of the Climber’s Guild,” he explained. “The only way to get rid of them is to get a different one. Trust me, I’ve tried to get rid of mine.”

“Yours?” Micah asked. “What’s your nickname?”

Garen looked at him funny.

“You know.”

“I know?”

“Yeah, you know ... ”

“Uhm.”

“... right?”

“‘Napping Receptionist’?” Micah tried.

Garen looked kind of disbelieving, even more so than when Micah had revealed his ignorance about the Tower and climbing in general. Why? Was Garen somehow famous … or maybe infamous?

“You don’t know,” he said eventually. Micah thought that was plenty obvious by now. “But when I asked you …Oh. Huh.” He seemed stumped. Then he switched tunes and sat down with a happy sigh.

“Well, if you don’t know, there’s no way I’m telling you,” he said and grinned.

Micah scowled, not only because of that but also because his own nickname was apparently going to stick. Dead Kid, he mulled it over. Flower Boy. Flowers. He wasn’t sure he liked any of them. If he had to pick, he’d take one of the last two. Mostly because Ryan called him one and he’d called himself the other. But really, Micah just had to figure out a way to get another title someday. A better one. Maybe something like Micah, the Conquerer or Micah, the Reaper.

He chuckled at his own joke.

Even just his last name Stranya would be nice.

“It’s good to see you, kid,” Garen said, pulling him from his fantasies. And then his voice was much less childish. “I’m glad you’re not dead.”

“Me, too,” Micah said honestly. He doubted there was any other way you could say it, although he did feel a little awkward.

“Listen, I wanted to apologize,” Garen started, and all the sudden Micah knew why Garen had called him here.

“Please don’t,” he cut the man off.

Garen pressed on anyway. “Listen. I have a Skill, [Sense Mettle]. It helps me a little with my work here, but also when fighting things … people. The moment I saw you, I knew you could handle the normal Tower on your own. Or I thought so. I read the report of your story. I’m sorry for what happened to you.”

Micah shook his head helplessly.

“I’m not. Kobold or not, I made a ton of mistakes in there, sir. Any one of them could have gotten me killed. Please, don’t try to excuse them.”

“I’m not doing that. I’m just saying I made one, too; a big one, letting you into the Tower like that. I should have done more. I want to make it up to you. Since you’re still coming here, I thought maybe you still want to become a Climber?”

Micah considered it.

“Sort of,” he said. Garen looked unconvinced, so he added, “I'm an [Alchemist], remember? I plan on still getting my ingredients myself.”

“Good. Then I can do now what I should have done back then.” The man grinned again. “I can get you an instructor. On climbing, I mean. It wouldn’t cost you anything, too, since it’d be a favor to both you and me. You see, I have this granddaughter of sorts who is looking for a … productive use of her time lately. Training you would be perfect, for you, and her, and most of all — me.”

Micah frowned.

A granddaughter? She would be like Ryan then, right? Not a real instructor, but a student teaching another student. Since Ryan didn’t have so much time for him anyway lately because of his own instructor hounding him …

“Uhm, sure? When would she be able to teach me?” he asked.

“How about tomorrow?” Garen offered. “Noon?”

That worked for Micah. He didn’t have much else better to do, so he could at least try it out.

Garen wrote something down on his pad of paper and ripped the page off, handing it to Micah.

“Come to this address. Just let yourself in through the gate.”

The address was for somewhere in Nistar, one of the districts that bordered on the Tower. It was in the direction of Ryan’s school but would probably take just as long to walk there as it would to the Guild.

Micah looked up to Garen.

“Thank you, sir,” he said.

“You’re welcome,” he said, and that was the last of his serious voice. Then he looked at Micah conspiratorially. “So, what do you have planned for now?”

Micah held the sack up a little so Garen could see, “I guess I’m brewing some light potions.”

First, he was going to put his shoes back on and lie down on one of those couches. He could drink citrus water another day.

“Cool,” Garen commented.

“Thank you,” Micah said, feeling a little proud of himself. He hoped more people would think the same, someday.

“Did I say ‘cool’? I meant to say boring,” Garen went on.

When he didn’t say anything for a moment afterward, Micah said, “I want to take my ‘thank you’ back.”

“Nope,” Garen said. “No backsies.”

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

The couches were comfortable, in the end.