Micah threw a chunk of rock at the wall, the golem burst free of the earth, and he started slinging insults.
Ryan ducked back behind the corner and gripped the baseball bat tight, a vein pulsing against his neck. Deep breaths. They had prepared for this, planned, practiced even. They had enough healing potion for a small wound, but they needed it to get out of here. This had to be perfect.
Why had he let Micah talk him into this again?
The golem stepped out of the dirt as if it were snow and stomped into the water. One foot. Two. On its third step, the water already sounded muddied.
Micah had a tremble in his voice as he baited for a moment longer. Ryan wanted to shout at him to just go. He could run. The golem would chase after, eventually. But he couldn’t risk losing his cover.
The stomps picked up speed and Micah finally ran past his tunnel, glancing in to check for toads. He went by without a word, so the coast had to be clear. Ryan raised his bat.
A moment later, the earth shook as the golem approached and Micah shouted, “Now!”
He exhaled. “[Surge].”
Ryan took a half-step around the corner, grit his teeth, and shoved a river of mana into the bat, knuckles white. He brought it in low and knocked the charging golem’s leg out from under it.
The construct flew shoulder-first into the far wall and broke the stone, reached out with its left hand to find a halt, and took a chunk out of the corner as well on its way down. It hit the water with a crash.
The baseball bat slipped from his grip and spun through the air in wild arcs. It clattered off the wall above him; ricocheted somewhere closer to where Micah had hopefully kept on running, and hit the ground.
Ryan flinched at the sound of it all and ducked back behind his shield. Stones pattered off the wood. His right wrist hurt. How the hell did higher-leveled climbers deal with recoil?
After a second, he called, “Micah?” If the other guy was fine, they could manage. The golem was down and the bat out of reach, but they could still fight it. One leg down, they had the advantage. They just had to press it.
“Got it!” Micah called.
Ryan frowned. “Got it?”
A tremor drew his attention. The golem had sunk its hand into the ledge and was trying to pull itself up. Its left leg no longer glowed, and a large dent just below the knee bent it almost the wrong way.
He couldn’t let it get up. Even a golem hopping around on one leg was a ridiculous danger.
There was his answer.
The baseball bat lay a meter off in the water and Micah slipped past it to pluck it off the ground. He threw it in the same motion. The golem turned after him, but he kept on running, out of its range.
Ryan caught the bat, flipped it the right way, and barely remembered to push mana into the weapon before he brought it down on the golem’s hand, cutting off its support. It lost the hand and crashed into the water once more.
Its right arm groped around, looking for a handhold. He shifted to stand over it and two more strikes against its shoulder and one against the nape of its neck kept it down. They moved forward and pulled. The golem set its single remaining limb in the ground and tried to push forward, but its control slipped and its neck was too damaged. They tore it away and reached inside its chest to rip out its crystal heart.
It slumped into the water with one final splash and lay dead.
Ryan sagged after it, heaving, and propped himself against the bat.
Micah cheered.
For a second, he glanced back in the hopes that they had found another treasure chest—part of the reason he had wanted to do this. But no, dirt spilled out of its hiding place and fell in chunks off the shelf of earth where it had stood, waiting. Micah just liked to cheer for the little things.
That was fine.
“That was awesome,” Micah seemingly corrected his thoughts.
Ryan agreed. He never wanted to do it again.
While the other guy kept an eye out, he got to leveraging out the golem’s veins and putting them into a jar with its heart, along with the other’s. Now, they had two. One they could sell and one Micah could experiment with, to collect experience for his next level up. That would be worth it.
Ryan could use the money, too. The carpenters still had some wood leftover from the Salamander chest, so maybe if he paid up, they could also make him a rocking chair like he had wanted to buy in the first place? Salamander wood was getting cheaper. He could maybe get his parents both things and say it was for the baby and her birthday.
He placed a larger cluster of veins into the jar and Micah glanced down, chewing his lip. “If we sell it,” he said, “I could buy that school jacket. You know, the one they show off in the showcase in the lobby?”
Ryan gave him a funny look. “A jacket? It’ll be Winter soon.” The school didn’t sell proper winter jackets, not that he knew.
“Yeah, but it looks cool,” Micah said. “I’ve always wanted to wear a school jacket.”
“Wait, you mean a letterman jacket?” Ryan asked. “I think those are only for clubs and advanced courses, Micah. You can’t buy them, you have to earn them. And they get tailored to the individual clubs and members.”
“Oh, what? Are they free, then?”
“No. You still have to pay, but …”
“I have to earn them? When? How?”
“Doing things. Doing well. And half a year, at least?”
“So spring? Aw. I wonder how the workshoppers’ ones will be adjusted. Will we have a group logo or something?” He didn’t seem to like the idea.
“Traditionally—” Ryan started, but broke off. “Never mind.” Traditionally, those are only for the athletes, he’d meant to say, but even the alchemists were athletes at this school, he supposed. And if not … Ryan wondered if Micah would join a club just to get his hands on one.
He squinted over at him. Probably.
“What about you?” Micah asked.
“Huh?”
“How are you going to get a letterman jacket? Oh, and we need one for Lisa, too. Do you think she’ll get hers from dueling?”
“I, uh— The archery club might get their own?” he asked, doubtful. He shook his head. It didn’t matter. Those jackets were exactly the type of thing Ryan didn’t want to have on his mind. He closed the jar and put it in Micah’s backpack.
The other guy snatched the golem’s severed hand from the rubble and stuffed it in before he closed it. When Ryan gave him a confused look, he shrugged and said, “As a souvenir.”
“You have to carry it.”
He stood up and stretched, then looked around and noticed the destruction the golem had caused in a single fight. Not even a proper fight. It was nothing compared to the broken walls caused by the larger golem, but still destructive.
They, on the other hand, were untouched. He grabbed the baseball bat from where it rested against the wall and ran his hands over the patches of stone and wood. It was whole. Sure, they had practiced against walls beforehand, but he’d nearly had a heart attack when it’d flipped out of his grip.
He swung it against a wall again; made another dent. There were two more from where it had clattered off the wall, but the wood held. “You know,” Ryan said slowly, “I do technically have dibs on the next magic item we find, remember? Because you got the ring last time?”
Micah looked over and his expression switched from confusion, to surprise, to absolute horror, to pleading, anxiety, and finally reluctant acceptance within a second, leaving Ryan wondering how someone could be so open with their emotions.
“Yeah, I know …” he sighed and shifted through the water, almost as if he wanted to kick a nonexistent rock. “You can have the bat. You’re pretty awesome with it anyway. Does your dad play, by the way?”
He did, sometimes. Not in an official club, but that was beside the point. Ryan nudged Micah and chuckled. “I’m just joking.” He weighed his head. “Well, sort of. We can share it? You get to use it when I can use my spear, but when we’re fighting golems like this …”
He trailed off.
Micah got the message. Ryan had been expecting some kind of resistance, but he just said, “Smart. Oh, does that mean we’ll fight another?”
“Mm—”
“Or maybe a boar?”
He shook his head. “No. Sorry. Not without more healing.” Ryan was glad he could put a little more money in his savings and he’d been excited at the prospect of finding another treasure chest. Even checking whether or not they could fight the golems with the bat had been important. But he was starting to feel weary.
His wrist hurt. So did his shoulders and right leg from their first fight in here. The tunnels behind them were covered in rubble. He felt even more awake than he did after drinking stamina potion. He didn’t want to fight another golem like that. It was testing their luck every time they did.
A golem heart wasn’t worth it, even if it sold well.
Micah looked disappointed, so he added, “Maybe once we find a portal out? As an escape route.”
He got a smile. “Deal.”
They searched north again and passed by the crossroads where they had fought the bat, then backtracked to scout out the entire area, going eight bends in every direction at a slow pace.
There were many more Sewer Rats and toads, which they had to be careful fighting. Those were the most likely to draw blood during a fight that would require healing. More and more tunnels seemed to be dominated by flora further in and one led to another miniature jungle.
Micah wanted to stick around just to see what was in there. Ryan dragged him away. They headed East and after doing a shorter area check as they had for north, they finally went South from the treasure room. They didn’t find a portal anywhere, but they did find a gate.
Through the golem’s room and down a left, he followed the scent of water along a darkening path. The grey stone walls gave way to the dark and rough of a more natural cavern complex. More natural. It still looked worked, manmade.
Another floor? Not good. They barely knew enough about the floor they were on already.
The gate was made of the same brittle stone as every other structure in the Tower, something Ryan had never understood, and locked into the wall. They could have broken through, but it didn’t seem wise. There was a lock, too, but Ryan was stuck on the spherical holes in the wall next to it. There seemed somehow familiar, just like the ones in the wall to the treasure room.
They knew what to do.
Micah got some marbles out for him to fit in. They tried ones that weren’t full first, but nothing happened. He selected a few from the treasure chest next. In case they came across another jar, those would be the least valuable as they were only filled with flesh. They rolled back into the wall as if there was nothing to hold them.
The gate eased open and Ryan stared. It was almost like there was a toll fee. What would have happened had they just broken through? A childish part of him thought of karma, of the Tower responding in kind. The thought reassured him that he had chosen the right thing.
“Uhm,” Micah said. “Do we just go on in?”
“I don’t …” Ryan trailed off. He didn’t know if he trusted this, still. The gate could swing shut behind them and lock them on the other side. But what if this path led to stairs or a portal out of here?
“Maybe she should throw a rock at it first?” Micah suggested.
That was a good idea. And Ryan had a follow-up. They went back into the tunnels and collected as many large rocks as they could before throwing one at the gate. It swung open and they quickly stacked a large pile against it so it couldn’t swing shut behind them. Exit secured.
At the end of the cavern lane, they found an underground lake lit up like daylight. In the center of the ceiling was a blinding white circle of actual daylight, fifteen or so meters up. No, not a lake then. A well.
When he realized that, he turned around and sought for a way to scale up, but the cavern was almost dome-like and jagged. Almost, because it was oval. They stood closer to the left side. Stone jutted over the beginnings of the lake, suggesting there had been a bridge here, once.
There wasn’t anymore.
A bank extended left and right for a few meters—longer to the right—before it met rough terrain or broke down. The water was so still, it was crystal clear. From the doorway, they could see the bottom beyond the ledge. It looked like it was just a few meters down. An optical illusion.
On the far wall, a dark hole gaped almost entirely submerged. The stone rim of a pipe-like structure extending over the surface. A drainage pipe? It was large enough to crawl through, he bet. Or swim. A gate hung overhead, ready to slide down, if needed. There was even a chain and what looked like a bar to secure it.
Ryan almost took another step forward in curiosity. Would there be another hole just below them; one they couldn’t see unless they bent over to look? The lake was deceptively empty. He stayed where he was and tried to search, but felt like his eyes were tricking him every few seconds. Like counting lines on a ceiling. He turned to Micah instead. “Do you see anything?”
He nodded. “There.”
Ryan followed his finger down to the water and searched, but couldn’t see it. “What?”
“Watch.”
He did, until the spot seemed to darken. Had the light shifted above? No, his eyes must have wandered. The spot right next to it was just as bright as it had been a second before.
He thought his eyes must have wandered two more times before he got the idea. There was something moving in the water, a tiny patch of bright. Another toad, maybe? Or a spirit?
“Not a toad,” Micah said with squinted eyes. He seemed unsure. “Maybe a spirit? I think— Fish? I see teeth. Hey, do we still have some of that meat leftover?”
“Uh, maybe a slice or tw—”
Micah didn’t wait for him to finish. He stepped around to go digging through Ryan’s backpack. They had wrapped their leftovers in the sandwich paper. He could hear Micah unwrapping them before putting the rest back. He stepped out and threw a piece into the lake.
The water thrashed as at least a dozen things swarmed it, tearing it to shreds. He could see flashes of icy blue, hints of scales, and nodded. That seemed about right. Invisible murder fish in the water.
“There’s fish with teeth in there,” Micah explained, face easing up now that he got a better look at them. “They’re made of ice. They look a lot like those angry fish you find elsewhere in the Tower. We talked about them in Tower Studies two weeks ago, remember? Uh, what’s their face—”
“Tower piranha?” Ryan guessed.
He pointed. “Yeah, those.”
His voice shifted to doubt. “Made out of ice?”
“Yep. Ice elementals, maybe?”
The water stilled as the monsters seemed to realize it wasn’t a thirsty climber they were devouring. Some had little bits of meat floating around in their stomachs, already frosting over. Others became invisible again as they swam away. The other shreds of meat drifted to the bottom of the lake.
“That’s an ugly trap.”
“Yeah, but …“ Micah said and frowned. “It’s not like you’d jump into a lake you found in the Tower anyway, right? That’s one of the first things we learned in school, to be wary of water in the Fields.”
Ryan shook his head in agreement. He looked up at the hole in the ceiling one last time before he sighed and turned around. “C’mon, let’s go.”
They could have tried to climb up there if the water was safe. The lake could have cushioned their fall. But climbing up a well was hard enough, not to mention an overhead dome without equipment or experience, and Ryan didn’t want to fall into there. It wasn’t worth climbing to a higher floor.
They would have to explore east further instead.
“Wait, what?” Micah asked. “But what about exploration? And there’s a way up if we can make it. Maybe with some rope, and … some of those rocks look stable? If we kill the fishies—”
“How?” Ryan interrupted him. “We have no way of fighting them except for spearfishing for a few hours, and there might be something hiding in that pipe, too. Sorry, but we can’t.”
“Yeah, we can,” Micah protested. “You know how to push mana out of your body without an item, right?”
“Yeah?”
“So I want to try something. We’ll stay on dry land. I promise?”
Ryan huffed out a breath and humored him. “Sure.” It wasn’t like they had a better plan yet. If portals weren’t even twenty or so bends from their starting point, then … where were they?
Suddenly, Ryan didn’t think it was such a good idea to be throwing away food after all.
They threw rocks in the water to check if the fish would attack, then used the baseball bat, and finally the shaft of his spear to swirl the lake. Micah cast [Infusion] on a passing fish and a hairline crack appeared in one of its scales. It lost a wisp of icy water, but that was it. It swam away.
He seemed happy with the results anyway. Ryan joined him in crouching near the edge and held his shield at the ready in case any of the fish decided to jump out after all. It wasn’t like they needed to breathe on dry land.
“Okay,” Micah told him, “so now, push as much fire mana into the lake as you can and kind of … move it around to heat up the water?”
Ryan frowned. “Wait, that’s your plan? I don’t think I can melt them, Micah. I’ve only had the fire affinity for a week and I haven’t studied any spells, let alone ones to boil water with, so I don’t—”
“No, no, no. I just—” Micah interrupted him and reiterated. “You have fire mana, right?”
He nodded.
“And you have a lot of it?”
He began to nod, but weighed his head instead. A lot of mana, especially for his age and without formal training, practice, or a spellcasting Class? Yeah. But a lot of fire mana?
“No.”
“Wait, what? But Lisa said you have a lot,” Micah told him.
“In total,” Ryan said. “But only a small part of that was tainted towards fire. It isn’t actually ‘fire mana’. That’s shorthand. It’s just … predisposed, you could say? Toward fire themes.”
“Oh. So how much can you do with what you have?”
“I don’t know. But …” He sighed and stretched a hand toward the water. He supposed he wouldn’t be using any fire spells to fight anyway. It was dangerous, since he wouldn’t know what he was doing. Best he stuck to what he knew. “I suppose we can find out. I only need to heat the water?”
“Yeah. Maybe not even. Your mana alone might be enough.”
“Okay?”
Ryan focused inward, on the well that surrounded his body like a second skin. It was easier to find if he thought of [Hot Skin] —a shell of heat that enveloped him. He pulled on that image and flooded it through his hand into the water, willing it to move before it left his influence.
He didn’t know if it worked, but Micah didn’t protest so Ryan kept it up, moving it in swirls at first before he moved those swirls up, thinking of boiling water and the vapor rising from hot baths.
He began to feel the strain of what he was doing when the other guy exclaimed, “Yes, it’s enough,” and threw another chunk of meat into the lake.
Ice cold droplets splashed up and the subsequent school of fish made more as they descended on the meat. The water hit Ryan’s skin and he shivered. Instinctively, he shoved up [Hot Skin] and huddle a little closer.
A part of him wished he could jump in, though, to wash the third skin of caked mud that surrounded him and his armor, and his mouth, clean up a little. He wished he could brush his teeth.
But was this the extent of Micah’s plan? Lure the fish into heated water and hope they melt? The other guy was still staring at the water expectantly, but Ryan doubted it would work. They would just swim—
“[Dissolve]!” Ice cracked and clinked together. “[Dissolve]!” The stunned fish seemed to shake themselves, but the second cast caught them before they could run. They floated and Micah picked up the pace.
“[Dissolve]! [Dissolve]! [Dis— Oh, can you keep it up?” He glanced over. “There’s not enough heat to work with anymore.”
Ryan’s eyes were wide. The thrashing had almost stilled as the fish melted away into pieces that drifted to the lake floor. Wisps of ice cold water flowed away and bubbles escaped, glowing in shades of blue. A marble sunk amidst it all. A few wounded were seizing the pause to swim away, made visible by the cracks in their bodies that caught the light, but others looked frozen.
How many had he killed just now? Six? How many had they attracted with that piece of meat?
“Ryan?”
Right. He held his arm out and tried pushing more fire mana into the water, but could only find a trickle in his body. Was he empty? Panicking, Ryan held the bit he had at the edge for a moment and poured pure mana instead, mixing the two together to try and taint the latter towards heat. His Skill was supposed to make it easier, but he didn’t know if he was doing something wrong. Was there a special process he didn’t know of? He directed the heavily stream toward the escaping fish.
Micah got one last [Dissolve] off before he heaved out a sigh and shook the hand he had used to funnel it. “Dammit, we didn’t get them all. And there’s more that weren’t even here. Do you think they will fall for it a second time?”
Ryan pushed up [Hot Skin] and tried not to shiver. Was the cold escaping the dead ice golems? He shrugged. “No idea. Either way, we have to wait for me to get some mana back before we can try. We could try spearfishing the wounded after all, in the meantime. How many did we get?”
“Eight … ish? Nine?” He peered over the lake. “I count three wounded that escaped and two that weren’t nearby at all, right now. They’re hiding in crevices and dark corners like— Uhm, nevermind. How long will you need?”
“I’m not sure.”
Micah stood up and got some rocks from the pile they had made near the gate. He started throwing them at the wounded. Two missed, but the third struck. The fish was pretty wounded. It looked like it would burst from those any second. Another down, then.
Ryan tried to think back to what they had learned in mana manipulation lessons. On average, people were supposed to regenerate twelve mana an hour at rest, but the number skewed closer to ten because people were rarely at rest.
He didn’t feel like he had a lot of fire mana. Less than a fifth, perhaps. And he didn’t know if he was at rest, so—
“Half an hour to an hour, maybe? I think I can work with less if I mix it with normal mana instead.”
“Normal mana?” Micah threw another rock. His aim was way off that time and he pursed his lips before bringing out his slingshot. Was that wise? “So like, you have two different Capacities, then?”
“Yeah. Sort of.”
He took aim. “What happens if you try to cast something like [Condense Water] with your fire mana?”
“It’s harder. Even in general, slightly. That’s the downside. Though there are workarounds. You can have both a fire and ice affinity, for example. You just need to find a way to balance them. Or you can cast ice spells with fire mana, you just need to figure out how.”
Micah raised his eyebrows in curiosity, signaling him to go on, but Ryan shrugged. He wasn’t an expert on the subject. He’d just been interested because he had [Lesser Vitality] and Micah wanted him to learn poison Skills.
On the other hand, he might get a healing affinity. That was something he looked forward to, finding a way to improve his Skill. Maybe if he fought and copied a stronger type of honey ant? It was something to aim for.
Not that he would want to head into the Tower right after getting out again. Today was Sunday already. It was hard to believe having been stuck in the Tower for a day. What would his parents think about him not coming home? He knew he wouldn’t have gone home every weekend, eventually, but would they feel hurt? Or maybe even be glad for the privacy or that he was busy?
Lisa was probably pissed, though. Ryan shuddered at the thought. “Give me twenty minutes,” he told Micah, “and we can try again. In the meantime, you keep watch. I’ll try throwing stones.”
“Guard-duty,” Micah grumbled and shot one last time before he slunk away. “Yay.”
By the time Ryan felt warm again, he had killed the remaining two wounded—the only ones he could actually see. But even so, Micah told him the others had hidden in cracks, dark corners, and the bottom of the lake. It would take a little extra something to lure them out.
That’s how he ended up dangling his legs in ice cold water to act as fish-bait for the invisible murder piranhas.
He kept on glancing at Micah to make sure the guy was keeping proper watch. He didn’t know if they could chew through his boots quicker than the rats around here, but he did not want to lose a toe finding out. Or something more important. He kept his legs together.
“They’re coming,” Micah whispered and Ryan started pushing mana into the water. He added pure mana, swirled it around himself, and sighed in relief when it got a little warmer. Still, it was cold. Still, they’re coming was just ominous enough to set him even more on edge.
He’d tried pushing mana out of his legs, too, but it was harder. He didn’t have the practice. He mostly kept an eye on the pipe instead, to see if something would come out of it. He thought he saw a hint of blue glow, though it might have been his imagination.
Micah kept on glancing, too. When he glanced back down at the lake, he suddenly shouted, “Get out!”
Ryan jumped back as quickly as he could, dragged water over the stone. He thought he had felt something nibble at his boot, but there wasn’t a scratch on the leather. Freaking hell, he hated not being able to see his opponent.
The other guy focussed on the water instead of casting his spell right away and Ryan was about to say something. He saw patches of brighter water that looked like they were about to leave. But then Micah spoke, “[Dissolve],” and those patches cracked like a window hit by an alleyball.
Ryan got his rocks and threw them at the drifting fish, Micah rubbing his temple with the butt of his hand next to him. What had he done? Whatever it was, he shook it off and quick-fire cast, “[Dissolve]. [Dissolve]. [Dissol— Dammit.”
He cursed, but it was already enough. The remaining fish melted. In a few short moments, the water was still again. One last marble drifted down the lake, to join the others where they couldn’t reach it.
“I think,” Micah said slowly and looked around. “I think we got them all.”
“Are you sure?”
He didn’t want to fall into the water just to be attacked by a swarm of fish he couldn’t even see.
“Yeah. Positive. I think we should bait again first, just to be safe, but … yeah, they’re gone.”
Ryan grit his teeth as he slipped his legs back into the ice-cold water. “That was easy.”
He shrugged. “It’s a trap, right? Those are only bad when you fall into them. That just leaves …” His eyes wandered over to the underwater pipe. “Maybe we’re supposed to swim through?”
“I doubt it,” Ryan told him. “The gate overhead looks like it supposed to be shut.”
“Yeah, but that could also be meant as a trap; cut off the entrance and force you to swim on into the next room? It might lead to a section with an exit, though.”
He frowned. That was possible. He didn’t like it, but it was. “Either way, we can close the gate,” Ryan told him. “I wouldn’t want to swim through an underwater tunnel to some unknown. I was thinking you had to get there as soon as possible to seal it before something comes out, instead.”
“Oh. Yeah, that seems possible,” Micah mulled it over and joked. “Either way, we have to go into the ice cold water. Yay.”
Ryan frowned. “We could scale along the walls around and then just tug the chain down. Easy.”
“Uhm, I don’t think that would work, Ryan. The walls are slick from moisture, right? And if you’re supposed to get there as soon as possible, and you fall somewhere either of the far walls, you’ll be further away from the pipe than if you had just swum straight across from the beginning. Plus, the cold water will shock you. You’ll have made the situation worse.”
Ryan followed his gestured explanation with furrowed brows long the rocks. He could see how that might be a trap. Something nagged him, though. “I thought you didn’t like to swim?”
Micah shifted, defensive, and shrugged. “It’s just the … waves I don’t like. Something flowing against me. It’s uncomfortable.”
Ryan frowned. Uncomfortable? He hesitated before he pushed on. “Doesn’t that suck?”
“What?”
“Not … liking to swim anymore?”
“Of course, it sucks,” Micah said with a fake smile and almost-laugh. It sounded sarcastic.
“No, I mean,” Ryan tried to find the right words for his thoughts, “you once said that you’re a good swimmer, right?”
“Uhm … yeah?”
He was clearly uncomfortable, but still, Ryan pushed. He just had to say this, put the idea out there, and then he would leave him alone. Someone had to. “So if you were good at it, you probably liked it, right?”
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“I— I mean, I guess.”
“Lang said so, too,” Ryan told him. “He apparently saw you swimming sometimes?” Ryan hadn’t. Micah had been pretty elusive, before. Now, he knew because he’d spent all the time in the forest or his room. Back then, he’d only gotten to see him in class.
“I wasn’t that good,” Micah scoffed. “I wasn’t the most athletic before I met you, you know?”
Ryan knew.
“But I could keep up with the others in the water, the few times I went. More often with my family and cousins. That was always a bit reassuring, you know? That I had … at least something. That I could do it.”
His fake smile slipped.
Ryan waited a moment and asked, “So, doesn’t it suck that you won’t do something you like anymore, just because something bad happened to you?”
Micah went silent and he elaborated, just to hammer it in, “Don’t you owe it to yourself to let your enjoyment be more important to you than …” How had Micah put it yesterday? “The ‘memories’?”
Apparently, it wasn’t the actual swimming Micah didn’t like. He did it in the baths enough. It was just the memories that came with them.
Ryan was aware that he was being a hypocrite and that it might not be so simple, but it had to be better than giving in.
Micah shrugged, barely noticeable, and looked lost. He gave him the space to think about it as the other guy frowned and wandered over to his pack. To drink something? Ryan glanced at the water, worried about fish.
When Micah came back, he was sifting through his bag. His voice was firmer. “Alright, here’s what I’m thinking.”
“What?”
“The pipe is large enough for one of us to swim through frog-style. Just barely. I think it might be easier to pull along the walls.”
“We’re not swimming through there.”
“Right. We’re not. But something else is. Whatever it is, it can’t be much bigger than us. Or broader than us, anyway.”
“Alligators aren’t much bigger than us,” Ryan countered. “They can still rip us to shreds.”
He frowned. “It would have to be a small alli— Wait, no. Why are there no frogs around here? Why are there no frogs around at night? The water is ice cold, so it can’t be a reptile or amphibian, I think. Those are cold-blooded. They would die.”
“Unless it’s an elemental beast, like the Candletails. You’d think a mouse with a burning tail would die, too, right?”
“Okay. So small, elemental alligator is worst-case. But the lake goes down a ways directly below the pipe, so it can’t be anything like a stone golem. Those would just sink and be useless. The pipe itself is submerged in water, but we don’t know how long it goes. There could be a pocket of air two meters in, so it doesn’t necessarily have to be able to survive underwater either.”
Ryan saw what he was doing and nodded. “There’s other types of golems, like we just saw. Ice. Or Ink golems.” He remembered the ink monster he had run away from during his Tower exam. He did not want to fight one of those in water.
“Right, but we can fight those just like we did the piranhas by casting [Dissettle] or [Dissolve] together,” Micah said.
Ryan’s thoughts caught on the last word. He wondered if what they had done counted as linked casting. Probably not. He spotted the bottle with three slimes in Micah’s pack and offered that as a suggestion. “It could also be a huge slime. I think those can move around in water.”
“A slime?” Micah frowned down at his bottle and opened it up. He scooped one out, threw it in the water, and swished it a little. The slime survived the motion, but not when he cast, “[Infusion].”
It broke apart. What happened to them being cute?
“Good,” Micah said. “We can hurt them. Otherwise, the bigger it is, the slower it will be, the better a chance we will have to get to the gate before it gets out. The only big creatures that can swim fast in water would have to be aquatic. That means whatever is in there is most likely either an aquatic, elemental beast, slime, or golem.”
Ryan nodded along and said the obvious, “So we don’t do it?”
When Micah gave him a confused look, he explained, “Is it really worth risking it? And for what? We can refill our water bottles here and wash up near the edge and nothing will come out of the pipe. We know that. So what more do we need from this lake?”
A bucket slapped into the water, interrupting their conversation, and they both looked over to stare at it. It hung from a rope in the middle of the lake and was slowly filling with water.
“What the—”
The rope pulled taut and dragged the bucket back up again, toward the well. Water spilled off the sides. Ryan strained his ears and listened. He thought he heard someone talking up there. That meant—
“People.”
Micah looked at him in surprise. They both stood up at the same time and started shouting at the top of their lungs. “HEY! DOWN HERE! IS SOMEBODY THERE?!”
The bucket kept on going, obvious to them.
“HEY!” Ryan shouted, but it didn’t stop. He realized, “They can’t hear us.”
Micah froze and looked over, panicked, “What? How can they not hear us?”
“We’re too far away, here. They must be distracted.” He glanced at the water. Maybe if they were directly underneath the well, they could shout up?
The bucket was about to disappear and Ryan panicked. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do. He could see Micah thinking as he eyed the things in his backpack and glanced at the lake, still.
“I am a damn good swimmer,” he whispered almost to himself. He grabbed the healing potion and one of the empty sacks in his bag, starting wrapped into around his arm and first.
“Micah, no—”
He lunged for his friend, but it was too late. Micah slipped past, ran across the ruined bridge, and dove with arms outstretched into the water.
Ryan stared for a half a second and cursed. No other choice. He shrugged off his own pack and grabbed the knife from his shield, eyed the bat for a moment. He glanced at the well—at the missing bucket. No. He wrenched his mind away, took a deep breath, and reached into his pocket. A shrill sound dominated the cavern as he whistled his lungs out and echoed into the distance.
He didn’t know if they heard. He didn’t care. He ran after Micah.
The water hit him like a thousand stinging needles. Bubbles surged around his face and his grip on his knife almost slipped. He pressed forward and shook his head free so he could see. Micah swam in the distance. Beyond him, a blue glow emerged from the darkness of the pipe.
He hurried with long strokes, the only way Ryan knew how, but his clothes slowed him down and even when he put in the effort, he wasn’t as good a swimmer as Finn or Lang. He rarely won a race, even when he didn’t throw it.
His entire body balked at the idea of being here, but he took all the minor complaints—the cold, the way the skin of his shoulders groaned each time he stretched, his cramping toes and his bruised leg, the uncomfortable feeling of swimming in armor—and shoved them to the very back of his mind where they could stay with the rest of what wasn’t wanted for.
Ahead, Micah climbed halfway out of the water to grip the chain of the gate. He pushed off to throw himself down and dragged it after. At the same time, something shot out of the hole. A serpent, body thick enough to swallow a person like a garden snake might swallow a mouse.
The falling grate cut its lunge short as the stone cracked into frozen scales that layered over its body, but the momentum was dampened by the water. Blue light glowed from the cracks and places where its scales overlapped, half an outline. Its skin was darker underneath, blue or green that looked black.
Micah was trying to drag the chain deeper, but swimming downward with baggage was learned. Ryan saw him set a foot against the pipe to stretch down instead. The serpent was trying to slither the rest of its body out and arced toward him. Ryan wouldn’t get there in time.
It coiled around Micah. Just when Ryan hoped it might be a constrictor, it opened its maw to snap at his head.
NO! The word came out distorted with a cloud of bubbles that surged up, partially blocking his vision.
When he saw again, Micah had his cloth-wrapped arm stuffed in the serpent’s mouth and the chain wrapped around its head. He yanked. It tried to let go, but he just shoved his arm deeper down its gullet. A lot like Ryan had once down. He pressed two legs into the serpent’s body to keep it away, from coiling around and strangling him.
The beast was quickly winning control.
Ryan dove up for air. He was just a short distance from the well now, but he didn’t swim for it. He sucked in as much as he could, shouted one more time for help, and dove back down. Once there, he didn’t know what to do. He tried slashing the serpent, but his knife slid off its frozen scales as if he were walking on a frozen lake. He almost cut Micah on accident.
The guy was wrenching his head up over and over again. Ryan got the meaning and used both arms to half-push, half-drag the cluster of them up to the surface while the coiling snake tried to twist them around and drag them under. They broke through and Micah sucked in lungfuls of air, teeth chattering. He grit them and pulled the chain tighter, choking it off.
Ryan found the scales Micah had cracked and stabbed it. It immediately started thrashing, a barely audible hiss escaping from its gagged mouth. The part of its body he’d stabbed slipped away along with his knife and it lashed him in the stomach, driving the wind out from him.
“Fire—” Micah gasped.
Ryan coughed and started shoving fire mana in his general direction. He spun it in circles and used his other hand to try and block the serpent from slapping him. In the distance, he thought he heard people shouting.
Micah shivered as he tried to say something, grit his teeth, and cast, “[Dissolve]!”
The serpent thrashed again as its scales melted off right in front of him. Micah used the movement to duck into the water. He surged up and shoved the beast against the wall, held it there with the chain. It pressed into its scales with hairline cracks, possessing a traction his hands didn’t.
The bottom two-thirds of the snake and parts where Ryan had been too close were unaffected, but he saw his knife almost slipping free.
“Ryan,” Micah gasped.
Its tail was lashing around beneath them. Ryan dove under to get his knife before it could sink, then surged up to gut the serpent. Blue light poured out like festival dye in the water, and he grunted as he forced the blade higher. He was almost to Micah’s waist when it burst into smoke.
Micah tumbled to the wall and held on to catch his breath. Ryan scrambled to point the knife any other way and hit the stone with his shoulder and face. He winced and wanted to say something, but Micah just told him, “Call them off!” before he dove away, one arm loosely pointing in the direction of the well.
The chain rattled before it sunk and pulled away. He assumed Micah was securing the gate. Ryan turned around and swam to the spot directly under the hole in the ceiling.
The shadowed shape of a person was rappelling down, but only a few meters in. The well itself looked like it was easily another fifteen meters long, made of brick stones. Their rope didn’t reach all the way to the bottom. It was a different one than the one they had used for the bucket.
A person. An actual person. Another climber who would have climbed down here to help them after he’d whistled. Ryan couldn’t help but smile, but shouted, “We killed it! We’re fine!”
The figure shifted as if trying to look down and a rough voice called, “You’re fine?”
“Yes, sir. I panicked. There was a serpent and— Nevermind. We killed it, you don’t need to come down.”
“Oh, silver freaking stones, kid. Thanks. I was not looking forward to that drop.”
“Sorry. But thank you for coming.”
“They’re fine?” Another voice called, a woman. Ryan saw two more heads poking over the rim of the well, shadowed by the light. “It’s just a kid.”
I’m almost sixteen, he feebly protested in his mind. He was glad she was speaking too quietly for Micah to hear, because he would have complained. Gate secured, the guy was swimming over to join him.
The man shifted around before he slowly started climbing up again and the woman called, “What are you doing down there?” Her voice echoed. It sounded hollow over the distance.
“We’re …” Ryan hesitated and called, “We’re lost! Can you tell us which floor we’re on!?”
The first man climbed out and the three of them conferred for a moment before he shouted. “As far as we can tell? Three.”
Ryan blinked. What?
Micah swam to land to close the other gate while Ryan stayed on the spot. He shouted a conversation up, telling them about their situation. Communication was hard, so he kept to the basics: how hey had ended up on the wrong floor, encountered the titanic centipede, and fled into the tunnels; how they hadn’t found an exit for over twenty bends, and so been forced to sleep in a treasure room for a night. They had been about to head off when their bucket fell.
“Told you getting water was a good idea,” someone called in the distance. “We would’ve missed them.”
Ryan squinted up and called, “Yeah.” He thought he could see the beginnings of a thin branch extending far over their heads. A forest floor?
The group offered reassurances. They were professional climbers, the four of them, and guild employed. Two were keeping watch. He spoke to Nessa and Walter who was senior in their group and over level thirty.
That was about where the reassurances ended.
They had been sent in to do a survey and find out what the hell had happened. The same as two hundred other teams that had been sent in this morning to help people find their way out.
It was a national emergency. The Towers had changed. As far as news went, it was all five of them. Almost everyone inside had been badgered with portals until they left or were forced out. And a few minutes to noon, words had burnt themselves into the silver stone of the Towers, right above, then around, and finally below its portals. It was signed elele o lafka.
Micah came back with a bottle of water and Ryan almost laughed, because they were swimming in drinking water. Well, maybe not directly around them. The dirt flaked off their clothes. And it was drinking water with a chance of an invisible piranha with every bucket drawn, but his mind found that funny anyway.
Better to find water funny than think about the ramifications of all five Towers changing over noon. What did this mean for the future?
“Elele o lafka?” Micah shouted up.
“It’s Dwarfish,” Nessa called. “The literal translation would be ‘the little girl with the beard’.”
Ryan drank while the other guy shouted, “Beard? Like the Dwarf?”
“Some think so. Others think it’s vandalism of the highest degree, but with the changes happening at the same time …”
“The entire Tower has changed?” He sounded worried. “What about the Salamanders?”
“Gone. It’s all gone, as far as we can tell. The problem is, we can’t tell. The guild sent people into the Tower, two hours after evacuation. Some had gone in beforehand, out of curiosity or because they didn’t know better—”
“We did!” Micah called. “I barely noticed and …” He trailed off.
“Right. Well, the first people to come back out was sixteen hours later. And … some of their group had died. They said they went to the fourth floor, but it was nothing like they knew. We’ve been getting reports ever since. Most teams were sent to the first or second floor to help people. The Salamanders’ Den is gone.”
Micah looked troubled and Ryan felt the same. Just, he was pretty sure Micah was troubled because of the Salamander’s Den being gone, not everything else, or the danger they were in.
But were they in danger? Of course, this floor was dangerous. But they had been able to handle most things by now with some luck and preparations. The obvious exception being the centipede. But if they had brought more healing potions along … Ryan’s head hurt. He didn’t know what to think.
“What was the message?” he called up, something he could latch onto. “Dwarfish.”
“A poem, we think. In Dwarfish is reads—” She began speaking in a heavily accented language that Ryan couldn’t decipher and he interrupted her immediately.
“Sorry? We don’t know Dwarfish yet.”
“Oh. Right. Well, the literal translation—” She hesitated and disappeared for a moment. When she popped back in, she had a paper in her hand. “Here. ‘You stand on a shore. Not given, given. Step forward. Destroy what stands in your way. Take what you need to; Climb’. Signed, the little girl with the beard.”
The voice was quiet over the distance, but Ryan thought he heard the other man say, “Worst poem ever.”
He chuckled.
“What?” Micah asked him, so he told.
“I don’t know,” he said. “It reads as a call to action. It reminds me of the Ungiven Rules.”
The woman said something, but Ryan frowned at him. “Huh?”
“You know. Do not settle. Do not take. Do not destroy. And the poem says move, destroy, take?”
“A lot of people are saying that,” the woman called down, more loudly this time. She must have heard. Why hadn’t she heard them earlier, then? “That would imply the Dwarf knows about our names for those rules.”
“You’re getting off-track,” the man next to her said and called down, “We need to know: Are you two fine? Are you wounded or in urgent need of medical attention. Have you eaten? Are you well-equipped?”
They had already assured them they weren’t wounded earlier, but that was another question. Ryan hesitated. Were they fine? “YES—” he shouted at the same time as Micah called, “NO!”
They looked at each other.
Micah looked at him while he called up, “We’re almost out of middle-grade healing potion, sir. And we have mean bruises.”
He conferred with his teammates. Ryan did the same. “Why do you think we aren’t fine?”
“We need an exit, right? And we don’t have any healing potion. Nothing about this seems fine.”
“Yeah, but we’ve been handling ourselves pretty well.”
Micah frowned. “You’re the one who’s always talking about safety and getting out of here.”
“I know. But if we’re not fine, they might take our loot. I thought you would be the one to protest about that. I just—” Ryan couldn’t put his thoughts into words. He still couldn’t believe this was supposed to be the third floor. “Nevermind.”
Micah glanced up to make sure he had time before he spoke, “Getting you to safety is more important than loot, Ryan.”
Getting him to safety? That wasn’t the way this was supposed to go.
“And we need an exit. What if we encounter the giant centipede again or … I mean, we have school tomorrow. We need to be back before evening or we’ll miss the last two days of bootcamp.”
“I wouldn’t be too worried about school!” the woman called down, interrupting. “The entire city is in a state of emergency right now. Your teachers will understand, considering the circumstances.”
Ryan frowned. “The city?”
“Nessa, don’t worry them,” a new voice said, too quiet for Micah to catch. Worry? What was there to worry about outside the Tower?
“The good news is, we have two bottles of middle-grade healing potion we can spare,” the gruff man changed the topic. “And a salve for bruises. Do you have bottles to divide them in case they break?”
Ryan was about to thank the man when his mind caught up the conversation they’d been having. Not once had the group above mentioned getting them out of here, despite swimming below them all this time and talking about other teams being sent to help people. They hadn’t thrown the rope down either.
“ARE YOU NOT GOING TO HELP US CLIMB UP?” he called, louder than he had intended.
The man winced and Ryan saw the shadow shake its head before he spoke. “No. It’s too dangerous up here.”
“It’s dangerous down here,” he complained, glancing at Micah. “We’d be safer with your group.”
The two whispered among each other some more when the third voice interrupted them and leaned over the well to speak, “What levels are you two? Classes?”
Ryan kicked Micah under the water, softly, and lied, “I’m a level ten [Fighter] and level five [Scout]. He’s a level … eight [Fighter] and level five [Alchemist].” He stumbled in the middle, thinking it would sound weird if they were both level ten. Especially since Micah was younger.
Micah gave him an incredulous look, but Ryan ignored him. If they bumped up their levels, the climbers might relent. They couldn’t just leave them here. Not when they could help.
The shadow shifted. A nod? “Right. Three of us are all in the mid-twenties, close to thirty, and one of us is over level thirty. We’re saying, it’s not safe—”
Ryan opened his mouth.
“For us,” he finished.
“What?”
“Geb—” the woman said, but he brushed her off.
“You go to a climbing school?” he called.
“Yes, sir.”
“So you’ve seen the statistics? Add these numbers. In the last twenty-eight hours, forty-seven climbers have been confirmed dead. At least five times the usual. It’s rising. We’ve very nearly died in the eight hours we’ve been here and haven’t seen a single exit. We have no idea what we’re up against. Your floor sounds safer. If anything, we might come down and join you.”
“Geb, you know we can’t—”
“I know. I’m just saying.”
Micah glanced at him and tapped his ears.
“Later,” Ryan mumbled.
“So we can give you potions. And help. But we can’t let you come up here. There’s—” His voice shifted to a teammate. “They might need to know about the monsters in here, okay? What if they come down or they find stairs up to us?”
Walter leaned over and shouted, “Avoid stairs up! Your floor really does sound much safer than ours. We were headed for the fourth floor Myconids. The ones here fight more like the Gardens Myconids. We don’t have the right antidotes for their poisons. If you see any paths that seem like they lead to forests, avoid them as well. Trust us on this one, as your seniors.”
Ryan frowned, but kept his mouth shut.
In a lighter tone, the woman called down, “I’m lowering the bucket with the healing supplies down now. Sorry that the jar is open. We’ve used a little already. Hey, maybe we can trade information?”
He hesitated before he nodded, then gave verbal confirmation because they couldn’t see a nod from up there.
What else was he supposed to do? If they said it wasn’t safe, then it wasn’t. He had to trust their judgment. And with two full bottles of middle-grade healing, their floor would suddenly become much better. They might even be able to fight some more golems to earn money after all.
Micah seemed to come to the same conclusion, because he smiled when he saw the bucket being lowered above.
Ryan supposed it would be nice to get rid of these bruises plaguing him. He looked up and called, “Is there anything you guys need?”
Information was in high demand, so Micah shouted up details about everything they had encountered. Ryan used the opportunity to slip away and treat his wounds at the shore without Micah seeing how bad they were. He laid his wet clothes out on the rocks and got to cleaning his armor.
Water and Nessa were interested in the marbles and bowls they had encountered, so Ryan got to pack those up and swim over with one hand extended up into the air so they wouldn’t get wet. They placed samples of everything in the bucket and the others raised them up to inspect them.
The leather in a jar was an instant hit, especially the camouflage one with their fourth member, but they were just as confused about the marbles as Micah and Ryan had been.
“And it catches what?” Nessa shouted down.
“Essen— Bits of the monsters,” he said. “Crystals in the form of the woven sashes inside them.”
“And you used them to open a gate, make the leather in these bowls, and”—she checked with her notes—”break down a wall?”
“To make the stone act like it was flesh,” Micah corrected her. “There were openings to place them in. Haven’t you encountered any of them or found any marbles yet? All the small monsters drop them.”
The group above conferred and Ryan was about to swim back when Micah noticed he was only wearing his underwear. He started taking off his own clothes and asked, “Oh, can you take mine with you?”
“The water is freezing, Micah.”
“Yeah, but I want them to dry. I think I know a way we could dry them quicker, but, uhm—” He tugged his shirt over his head, oblivious to the people watching above. So much for being bashful. “I don’t know if it will work.”
Ryan ferried his clothes over and laid them out, too, before going back to cleaning his armor.
“We inspected them,” Nessa called down. “You’re right. No, we haven’t encountered any, but we have someone with [Repel Lesser Pests] on our team and it seems he’s been keeping the monsters that would drop them away. Thanks, Geb! We’ve actually seen some of those holes in things that you talked about. I remember a tree. We thought they were markings.”
“Might be a treasure chest!” Micah called up, joking.
There was a pause before she answered in a serious tone, “Do you have more? Geb says there were twelve holes in total and we have five marbles here. I’m not sure how hard it is to find them ...”
“Oh, it’s easy … ish,” Micah assured her and looked over.
Ryan groaned. He grabbed the pouch they kept most their marbles in and was about to swim over when Micah asked him, “Can you bring the blue potion, too? Please?”
“The blue—? Oh.”
They placed them in the bucket—many more marbles than just twelve—and watched her drag them up.
“What’s this?”
“A potion we found. Can you appraise it for us, please? You can have all the marbles in exchange.”
Another pause and Nessa looked back down. “It’s a mana potion! You must have gotten lucky with that chest.”
“Should’ve freaking done the drop after all,” Walter grumbled and Ryan wasn’t sure if he was joking.
They seemed excited about the potion. Ryan was, too, but only because he knew he could sell it. They didn’t have use for it. Micah didn’t look that interested either. They looked at each other and had the same thought.
“You can keep it!” Micah called.
“What?” Nessa asked.
“I said, you can keep it! As thanks for the two healing potions and salve, ma’am. We’re not spellcasters.”
That was the least they could do. And depending on the quality of the healing potions, they were about the same worth, too.
There was a bit of hustle before the fourth member of their team showed up and called down, “Thank you, kiddos!”
“I’m fourteen!” Micah called. “He’s almost sixteen! We’re not ‘kiddos’.”
Yep. Ryan swam back.
They continued talking for a bit until Nessa caught on something in the notes she’d been making. “Wait, you mentioned a ‘sign’? What did it say?”
“No idea. It was foreign.”
Ryan glanced up, at the wet clothes laid out around him, and thought he knew where this was going. Sure enough, a minute later, she called. “We want to head back to the tree to test out these marbles. Could you get that sign for us, in the meantime? If you think it’s safe?”
“Uhm … I guess?” Micah called.
“Thank you, Micah. And Ryan. See you in twenty. Stay safe.”
Micah swam over with a smile on his face. He seemed in a better mood. Ryan was, too. He just wasn’t looking forward to putting on wet clothes and acting like a gopher for guild employees.
“Fire mana, please,” Micah said, holding up a wet shirt.
Ryan frowned and did as he said, saturating the area around it as best he could. Micah violently shook the shirt and cast, “[Dissettle].” A good portion of the wet rose off of the clothes as mist and he said, “Thank you.”
Ryan frowned, then smiled. “You’re welcome.”
They repeated the process with the rest of their things and even tried using [Condense Water] on some, but the clothes were still slightly damp when they put them back on. From there, it was a short trip back to the entrance to find the sign they had passed back then. The hardest part was moving the pile of stones away, in Ryan’s opinion. They still cleared the nearby tunnels in case the sign was trapped.
It wasn’t.
On the way back, Micah pointed out golem and Stone Boar patches and asked if they could fight them later on. Ryan nodded, now that they had healing. He kind of wished they had another one of those bats so they could both fight, if needed. Micah had his alchemy, but it was only so effective.
“We should name that thing,” he said, nodded at it.
“The bat?”
“Yeah. You wanted to name something as simple as a light wristband, so we should name the awesome bat.”
“Oh, good idea. Mm … What do we choose? How about ‘Golem’s Arm’,” he said it like the name sounded cool.
Ryan scratched his cheek with one finger. “Uhm …”
“Oh, or Gatebreaker.”
“Gatebreaker?”
“Yeah. Like the opposite of gatekeeper? What else. How about something rough, like Denter. Cause it dents walls?” He pointed at some of the dents they had made in passing and smiled.
“Please stop naming things,” Ryan said.
“What? You think you could find something better than Denter?”
That had to be a trick question. Ryan thought about it and tried, “What about Homerun or … Clay? Because it treats stone like clay?”
“Those aren’t better,” Micah grumbled, but frowned down at the bat he carried. “I do like Clay, though.”
When they got back, the others told them they had found a treasure chest. Or treasure trunk. There hadn’t been an actual chest in the tree, just a hollow space. The items they found were a moss and flower wreath, a bow one of their members had claimed, and a large healing potion.
“We’re thinking it might be the right kind of healing potion for the Myconids,” Nessa said. “Thanks, guys.”
“You’re welcome.”
“What does the wreath do?” Ryan asked, curious.
“It stretches,” she said. “If you pull, it gets bigger, flowers appearing out of nowhere like some cheap magician’s trick. Geb’s already made it into a cape and— Hey, don’t you dare break it! Put it back together Geb.”
There was a pause.
“What do you mean you don’t know how?!”
“It’s like toothpaste,” Micah whispered, joking.
Ryan chuckled and called up “If you don’t want it, we’ll take it.”
He’d meant it as a joke, but a few minutes later, they lowered a bucket stuffed to the brim with thin sheets of moss and flowers before them. “You can have it. It’s deadweight for us, now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look, we— We’re not one of the teams sent in to help people,” she said, sounding somewhat exasperated. “We’re here to gather information. We’re with on behalf of three different parties, the least of which is the Registry. An enchanted item isn’t worth giving up space for samples. And we have to stay light on our feet.”
Micah was holding up the cape of green. Something slipped and suddenly, his one hand stayed where it was but the moss bundled up over the rip of the bucket, having grown ten centimeters in a second.
“Micah,” Ryan hissed before calling up, “Thank you!”
“You’re welcome. Thank you for everything else. I really hope you find an exit soon and make it out safe.”
“That sounds like a goodbye,” Ryan asked.
“That’s because it is. I’m sorry, but we have to move on, Ryan. Is there anything else you need? Food, maybe? We found some apple trees.”
Ryan thought about it for a moment before he nodded. “Yes, please. And can we have the bucket, too? And maybe some firewood? Sticks and things you might find lying around?”
“Easy enough.”
Micah gave him a weird look.
He shrugged. “Just in case.” He couldn’t shake the feeling that they might not find an exit today and … Ryan didn’t exactly feel rushed to do so. The Towers had changed all the sudden. What did that mean for their cities, the nation, or even just their school? Would it be shut down?
He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
When he looked at Micah, he saw a hint of the same emotion in his smile as he played with the wreath.
“If we kill a dozen or so golems,” Ryan told him, “you could buy all the clothes in the school shop and have spare change to make some new potions.”
Suddenly, the emotion wasn’t just a hint.
The bucket rose and they held their bundle of moss over their heads. When it fell back down, it was filled with red apples. They ferried them all over and said goodbye before diving down to get the marbles and one crystal from the fish they had killed.
When they got dressed and left, they collected as many plant samples as they could, created as many jars of leather as they had bowls, and looked for treasure chests while they mapped the tunnels east in the search of an exit.
When they left, Ryan wanted to have enough loot to not have to worry.
Dinner was baked apples, rat meat with lemon balm and basil, and leftover fruit from yesterday, some of which Ryan had never even eaten before—some of which he didn’t even know how to eat. One was stuffed to the brim with blood red seeds. What was he supposed to eat there?
He drank some thin apple juice and put the fruit aside. Maybe Micah could find some use for it.
The guy had warmed water near the fire and was experimenting with the rest of the plants, on the other side and far away from the food. He tugged a chunk of meat off his skewer with a grin and inspected a leaf with the other.
Ryan didn’t even know what he was working on. His ingredients lay strewn out around him, carefully organized, and he was mumbling notes to himself. He’d kept on complaining about not having brought his journal along all day. They should have asked Nessa for paper.
Ryan leaned against the soft bedding of the once-wreath and relaxed, enjoying the heat of the fire and the sight of Micah sitting next to it. He was keeping watch, but when he glanced over, his eyes caught on the scene. That, and the yellow glow of the golem hearts laid out around him. They had eight in total before they had gotten too tired to fight anymore. A small fortune, for them.
It might not be, depending on how prices changed after yesterday, but it could only help.
When they’d gotten back to the treasure room, they’d found their wall of moss sagging and falling apart. The rat from yesterday had been … in a not good shape. Scavengers had taken a lot, some was beginning to rot, and insects had claimed the rest. They’d used one of the sticks Nessa had given them to push it far away and gotten to rebuilding and cleaning.
Light potions were made, poured into the water, and stacked near the entrance. They’d each grabbed two corners of the wreath—although it had more like seventeen corners—and stretched it long enough to cover both the wall and act as padding and a blanket for whoever kept watch. Ryan had it pulled around his shoulders, the only thing he liked about blankets, and found it surprisingly comfortable.
They’d made a fire with sticks and magic and dinner. Now, Ryan had no idea what Micah was doing while eating and called him out on it.
“I’m making a poison.” He smiled.
“Come again?”
“Remember how scavengers had eaten the rest of the rat we killed?”
“Hard to forget.”
“Yeah, well, I was thinking I could pour poison over the one we killed this time and then when they eat it … free crystals and breakfast when we wake up? Look, I found these red mushrooms that just scream death.”
“Uh, the crystals seem like a good idea,” Ryan said, uncertain, “but … wouldn’t anything that dies by poison be inedible?”
Micah blinked, glanced down at the bottle he’d been shaking, and squinted. “Oh, no. I can fix this. I can fix this. Comfort potion, maybe? No, not enough. Sleeping potion? I have these leaves. Maybe if I …”
Ryan let him work and glanced out into the darkness. It was cold out there, Micah told him. But in here, crystals, golem hearts, light potions, and the fire all shone and filled the room with warmth.
It was nice, here, aside from the lack of toothbrushes and peeing in corners. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to stay another day and let things blow over outside. Nessa and Walter’s group had promised to tell the school—and by extension, their parents—that they would be alright if they made it out of here first.
In the meantime, they could earn money. More importantly, they could earn experience. Prices might change, but Skills would always have their worth. Micah was making new things and Ryan was bound to get experience as a [Scout] for staying here. There was no rush.
He leaned over to grab himself another meat skewer and leaned into the moss with a smile.
----------------------------------------
They must have settled.
The illusion broke with Micah staring wide-eyed at him, one hand clamped down over his mouth and uncomfortably close. It took Ryan a moment to realize this wasn’t a dream. Micah had woken him up in the middle of the night and held a finger over his own lips in the universal sign for silence.
He wanted to sit up and ask what was wrong, but the moment he made a sound, the other guy pressed down harder and tapped his finger to his lips, insistent. There was a knife in his hand, save for the index finger. His grip almost hurt. Ryan realized he was trembling in fear.
And with that thought, he was wide awake.
He looked over Micah’s shoulder. The treasure room was dark around them. The light potions in the corner had been covered. Even the remains of the food and fire had sacks tossed over them. It took him a moment for his eyes to adjust. When he did, Micah slowly pulled away and mouthed something.
What?
He repeated it with larger movements this time and Ryan caught their meaning. There’s … something … out … there. He pointed at the wall of flowers and moss.
Ryan cocked his head and listened. For a second, he could only hear his own heartbeat in his ears and the quiet sounds Micah was making, but then he heard the sniffing. Something was smelling around outside like a dog. It must have been moving because it got more distant as time passed, but he couldn’t hear its steps. He couldn’t even hear its breath, or body, or the stones moving underneath it when it moved, only that sharp intake of breath through its nose.
What the hell?
Slowly, he got up into a crouch and prayed to anything that was listening that his joints wouldn’t pop. He shifted closer to the wall with Micah next to him and picked up his own knife, held it ready.
A tiny hole in the moss let him look out.
A thing walked around the dead rat Micah had laid out in the middle of the room. It moved on all fours, but had the body of a man. It sniffed at everything with a fervor. The way it moved seemed somehow wrong. More than just a man acting like an animal, its movements looked natural.
Long strides with its arms, its shoulder-bone sunk in and half its torso dipped down to move forward. It wasn’t stiff, its movements were fluid. A shorter step. It pressed its face closer to the dead rat and sniffed once, long, with closed eyes. Its face was too long to be human, its teeth too jagged. It moved closer to the rat and Ryan remembered Micah had poisoned it.
Eat it, he thought.
It moved another lazy circle, long claws tapping against the ground without a sound, but didn’t move its head away.
Eat it, please.
It turned up its nose and left. The outline around its midsection almost looked like it was wearing shorts. Clothing. Its skin looked harsh like leather and muscles rolled as it moved.
It was headed for the exit.
Or leave, Ryan thought. That was also good. He didn’t exactly know what that thing was. Some kind of rat person? Was it dangerous?
It paused just before the tunnel and sniffed once more.
Ryan realized Micah was clutching his shirt, but he didn’t understand why. What was so scary about it?
Its sniffing picked up speed. As if reacting to his thoughts, it swiveled around to look straight at their hiding place. Their eyes met and Ryan recoiled. Suddenly, he felt his heart sink in abject fear that reminded him of Micah’s father, made him think of an intimidation Skill. Only … it was so much worse.
He scrambled away from the wall and held his knife in the direction of the moss like an idiot. Suddenly, his back touched on something and he almost cried out before Micah shoved his hand over his mouth again, and shushed him to be quiet. It was just the wall at the end of the room.
They both sat with their backs to the stone as the sniffing picked up speed right in front of their wall of moss. It smelled them. It must have seen his eye. They were right next to it. It had to know they were here. It would come in and then—
Then what?
Could they beat it? Ryan asked himself that question and his mind screamed at him, No. Without a doubt, if he tried to fight that thing, it would kill him. And it would kill Micah, too. And it would kill anyone who tried to help. Suddenly, he understood the other guy’s fear. Why he trembled. They didn’t stand a chance.
The held their knives like they had never held knives before and tried not to make a sound as it sniffed two meters off from them. If it got in, they would have to run. Maybe they could surprise it and buy time. They just had to grab a light potion and the bat, then run down the nearest tunnel and hope that it wouldn’t come after them.
They could maybe make it, then. What if they tried throwing it off the—
No, his mind shouted again and Ryan knew that wasn’t an option. Throwing it off the cliff wouldn’t work.
Well then what could they do?
The sniffing stopped and Ryan thought his heart would stop with it. He waited and held his breath The seconds ticked on until he couldn’t hold it any longer and had to suck in gasping breaths. Loud.
It still didn’t come in.
Was it … even still there?
Ryan shifted and Micah clutched his arm so hard he thought it might bruise. He shook his head and picked up one of the heavy rocks of their campfire. A question. Ryan nodded and he threw.
The wall of moss came down around the impact and the space beyond it was empty. The entire room was. The dead rat was missing.
They scrambled to put the wall up again and packed their things in silence. They didn’t sleep that night. Stamina potion kept them away as they kept watch. They had their weapons ready in case it came back.
In the morning, they fled.