A man rushed down the infirmary aisle and for a moment, Micah thought it might be his father. He looked driven and held little regard for the people he passed, only dodging out of way when they didn’t move fast enough. And yet, he stopped walking all the same a yard off from Ryan’s hospital bed.
David.
Micah never wanted to have seen him like this.
“Dad,” Ryan said.
“I already asked, but— Can I hug you without breaking you?” He had a slight smile in his voice. Micah wasn’t sure he was joking.
Ryan sat one bed over, covered in bandages beneath his hospital gown. Nothing broken, thankfully. But plenty bruised and hurt. Too much.
His father didn’t wait for a reply and hugged him. His son grimaced and he let up a little, but didn’t let go.
Slowly, Ryan raised his arms to hug him back, looking lost. He patted him once, then seemed to think better of it, and said, “I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.” David eased back a little and ran a hand over his hair. “You had us worried there, Ryan. We thought the worst after we’d heard the news of … the others. We’re glad you’re safe.”
Forty-seven, Micah remembered. He wondered how high that number had risen in the fifty hours since Nessa’s group had gotten it. Had they even made it out? And what about the people who had known them?
“We?” Ryan asked. “Is mom also here?”
“She’s on the way.”
He sounded confused. “You didn’t come together?”
David shook his head. “I— She thought it was best if I went ahead. I could run. Make sure everything was alright.”
“Oh.”
“She took a carriage. I half expected her to get here before me. I learned I don’t have as much stamina as I used to.” He smiled. “Maybe I should take up running like you do.”
“It’s healthy?” Ryan offered. There was an awkward pause before he mumbled, “Dad, you can let go now. I’m fine. Really. Plus, you’re, ah, kind of embarrassing me.” His eyes flickered over to Micah.
His dad chuckled, bringing a little more relief to his exhaustion. “You would be worried about that at your age. But there’s nobody around, so—” He looked around as he spoke and only then seemed to notice Micah existed at all. His eyes flickered over his hand to his leg and frowned.
Micah was little worse off than Ryan.
He must have seen something on his face though, because he put on a smile again and finished, “—and I doubt Micah minds.”
“I don’t,” Micah lay back and smiled, thinking, And thank you for not mentioning anything.
It was a lie, though, because a part of him did mind. Not the show of affection itself, the envy he felt when he saw it. He wished his dad were here right now. Or that David had noticed him from the start. But it was just another consequence of the choices he’d made, one he would have to live with.
Of course, two to one, the rest of him wished his father wouldn’t show up and see him like this, covered in bandages from head to toe, in a hospital bed, two fingers in a cast—weak.
His right leg was in a freaking splint.
He’d heard the doctors mention surgery and couldn’t understand it. Surgery? For a broken bone?
Fracture, they had said. Wasn’t that like a lesser version of a true break? Micah wasn’t sure. Just because it was his femur, what was so special about that? They should just put it in a cast, give him a crutch, and let him heal like anyone else. They had done it with his fingers after setting them after all.
He couldn't bear the thought of his parents telling him, We told you so. How long would he need to recover?
“Are you alright?” David asked him.
Micah nodded and echoed his son, “I’m fine.”
They had given him medication to help with the pain, and only treated his more superficial wounds with the weakest of healing salves. Anything more and it might harm the quality of his recovery. Nevermind that Micah insisted he wasn’t in pain. At least, as long as he didn’t move his fingers or leg, or put any weight on them. They’d said he would want it once the shock wore off.
What shock?
His body felt mute and lightheaded. When he moved, he had to remind himself to keep his head up or it would loll. That could have been the exhaustion too, though. He would prefer it actually. Better that than something messing with his mind.
He just waited for the fallout to pass and the doctors to get back to him so he could finally get some sleep.
“What happened?” David asked.
Micah glanced at Ryan. He had been glad to explain the ratman to the guards before being hauled off—Ryan still had been a little out of it and some of them had immediately realized it was a person, making it easier. But he didn’t feel like he should be talking right now.
“The Tower,” Ryan said. “It … changed. Completely.”
“I know. Everyone knows. All five cities— Things are a bit intense right now,” David said. He seemed to realize he wasn’t helping, because he quickly added, “but I’m sure it’ll ease up soon. People are just surprised, is all.”
Ryan looked uncertain but nodded, and even Micah had the mind to wonder: What did this mean, for everyone?
“I’m sorry, dad, for making you worry,” Ryan said. “Both you and mom. I didn’t mean to.”
“Of course you didn’t,” he scoffed, taking a chair. “Why are you apologizing? None of this is your fault.”
“But … we might have been able to get out a day earlier if we had done things differently. If I had done things differently.”
Micah frowned. Would they have? “Do you think Maria would have killed us without the man?”
He asked it before he could stop to think and the surprise on David’s face made him regret it. He reminded himself once more to shut up. Besides, Ryan could have gotten away without him.
“Maria?” David asked. “Who? What happened in there?”
“We … were attacked,” Ryan said. “By another climber.” He nodded over at him. “It did that to Micah’s leg.”
David followed his look and one of his hands curled into a fist. “Maria, you said? Where is this woman now?”
Ryan shook his head, “No, it— I mean, he; he was this man. He looked like a Northerner, dad. Like a rat. We didn’t get his name, but Micah poisoned him so they took him away to be treated. I don’t know where he is now. They told me to stay in bed until the doctor got back and Micah can’t walk. I wanted to ask, but I wouldn’t know where to start. Dad, do you—”
“Of course,” David said. “No, don’t you worry. I’ll look into it.” It sounded almost like a threat.
Micah was reminded of how similar Ryan and his father were. If Ryan was as overprotective about a simple friend as his son was with him, what would his father be like with family?
Come to think of it, what would Ryan be like?
His poor sibling. Micah shuddered at the thought.
“I just wanted to ask if you knew who we had to talk to,” Ryan said. “What we had to do in a situation like this.”
“No. Rest. I’ll handle it,” his dad insisted. “Tell me what happened on your end.”
He hesitated, but David’s voice sounded like he wouldn’t accept no for an answer. “We were headed for the Open Sewers—”
He nodded. “I know. I read your note.”
“My—? You were at the school?”
“We thought you might just want some time with your friends on Saturday, but on Sunday the news hit the city and I spoke with your principal. You weren’t the only ones who were missing. Your friend, Lisa, actually came up with a plan to help you, along with a dozen other [Summoners], I hear. And more and more after that. I don’t know if it worked …?”
“The lizards?” Micah asked.
Ryan frowned at him. “Lizards? I heard you calling for Lisa and explosions, but—was she actually there?”
“No,” David said, “the guild sent hundreds of tiny summons bound to mana rings into the Tower to find people who had been lost. Your friend and some of their employees had the idea and got the ball rolling. Volunteers stepped up in droves afterward.”
“Lisa did?”
He nodded. “But I’m sure she’ll want to tell you all about it? Now tell me, what happened?”
Ryan frowned and thought for a moment. ”We did land in something like the Open Sewers, dad, but it was different. They were man-made tunnels guiding water down to a chasm right next to us. Massive plants grew on its walls. We looked over into its depths and an even larger centipede showed up.”
Slowly, Ryan began to tell his dad what had happened in the last few days, about the fight with the golem, their careful exploration, the lack of exits, and them trying to interact with some of the things.
It was quickly clear he wanted to tell the entire story and his dad cut him off, “I’m sorry, but—just the bit with the man who attacked you for now, Ryan? Your mom is going to get here any moment and I want to spare her the details.”
He frowned. “You don’t want me to tell her?”
“No.”
“But, I mean, she will want to know as well? Knowing her, she’ll ask, I mean.”
David nodded. “And then she’ll take matters into her own hand, confront the man who attacked you, speak to the guards, the guild, the judges, try to call in any favors she can get and— Look, she’s stressed enough. With the pregnancy, and her job, and these last few days.”
“Her job?”
“The man, Ryan. I’m sorry to do this, but we can talk more later, alright?” He sounded tired himself, like he regretted doing this already. For a moment, Micah thought he might change his mind, say they could talk about it later when his mom wasn’t around, but Ryan was quicker.
“We made camp in a hidden treasure room and kept watch in shifts,” he spoke. “The man crawled past it at night, sniffing around. We mistook him for a monster. He knew we were in the room, he made eye contact with both of us, but he left us alone. The next morning, we found a trail of destruction leading deeper into the tunnels, which he’d made. I noticed he was stalking us—I could hear him, and he scared off most the monsters—so we baited a horde to get him off our trail. We escaped.”
Ryan frowned and his voice grew more agitated. “When he caught up, he attacked Micah and started asking questions, using words in another language. He broke an enchanted weapon we’d found that could hurt golems. We’d just defeated one guarding stairs and fled up them into a forest valley. And there—”
He broke off.
“Maria,” Micah said.
“A named monster?” David asked. “A spirit?”
Ryan glanced at Micah and took it back up. “No. Yes. I don’t know, dad. That’s just what the ratman called her and he wasn’t … It was this thing. A centipede five meters wide and at least a hundred meters long, with the head and arms of a woman. It tried to drown Micah in a river and broke his fingers. The ratman killed it, but only because it stood between him and us, you know?”
David looked troubled. “I know. It’s alright. I— I just— You’re sure he didn’t attack you because of the horde?”
They both needed a moment to catch up to what he’d said and Ryan asked, “What?”
The horde?
“They might say he attacked you because you lured a horde onto him, you know? Everything else could be interpreted as it helping you.”
“Helping us?” Micah demanded. He shook his head. “That’s not what happened. He knew we were there, sir. He was following us. He wrote words with blood on the walls. He sicced his aura on us. He—”
David cut him off. “I know, Micah. It’s alright. I’m not saying it, I just need to be sure because they might.”
He stared back for a long moment but then nodded. Sure. He was just getting his facts straight. But what would the ratman say? What could he even say? Like Ryan had said, he hadn’t seemed all … there.
Could a person like that even make a defense?
“I’m sorry for pushing right now, but just to get it over with,” David went on. “What happened then?”
“He was wounded,” Micah said. He knew this part best. “I still thought he was a monster. I gave him poison and told him it was healing potion. He … reacted.” He glanced at his leg and shut his eyes. Choices and consequences. Always his freaking choices and consequences. He wished he could stop making them.
“Ryan showed up and wanted to finish the job when I realized it was a person. I warned him. We bound him and brought him out of the Tower with us, so he wouldn’t be able to attack anyone else.”
David frowned. “With your broken leg?”
Micah nodded.
The man frowned, opened his mouth as if to say something, but closed it again with a small shake of his head. Thankfully, because Ryan was under enough guilt as it was. “We can talk about this later. But thank you for telling me so soon. Sorry, again.”
His voice had a bit of bite to it, directed at himself, the same bite Ryan had when he made a mistake, just better hidden.
“Thank you,” Micah said. “For helping with this.”
David glanced at him in surprise and nodded. He took a deep breath and looked up. When he exhaled, he got up in one motion. “I should go find your mother.”
“Huh?”
“Yeah, you two need your rest. Is there anything else you need? Food? Water? Maybe clothes or—”
“Toothbrush,” Ryan spoke up. “Uhm, I mean … if you can find one, please? Or two.”
“Toothbrush it is. Micah?”
He shook his head. Sleep, but he couldn’t get that just yet.
“I’ll be back in a second. Hang tight. And tell any doctors to wait for me, okay?”
“Got it, dad.”
“Love you.”
Ryan hesitated. “Uh, love you, too.”
Suddenly, he and Micah were left alone again. Other patients were being doted on by nurses in the beds around them, but they had been seen to an hour ago and were waiting for the results.
Micah looked around and tried to relax, but he couldn’t find peace and quiet anywhere he looked, not even in his mind. “I wish it were tomorrow,” he blurted out, feeling childish.
Ryan huffed out a tired breath. “Yeah.”
He didn’t seem to mind, so Micah went on. “Or yesterday.”
He frowned at that one. “What?”
“Uhm …” He shrugged. “Yesterday was fun. I mean, it was horrifying, what they told us in that lake, but it was still fun. The day. Fighting golems. Collecting loot. Before everything went wrong.”
He glanced down at the soggy mess of what remained of his backpack—and of the loot that had been inside. He’d lost a lot in the river, including most of the jars with the golem hearts.
His armor and clothes were worse for wear. He’d lost his knife in the butterfly. He’d lost the flower wreath on the stairs. They had nothing left from the treasure chest, except for a few of the preservation shells. He’d lost the others along with the screw-cap bottles they’d been inside.
Ryan had lost one of his growing boots. His shield was a shard of wood, from which his knife sheath and one of the leather bands hung off of in tatters. His armor was pretty bad off, too.
His rope was gone. Two of his water bottles were gone. His bandages were filthy and soaked.
Clay was gone.
All they had were three golem hearts, a soggy box with the leftover plants he hadn’t used, one and a half jars of leather, a few crystals and marbles, a few of the preservation shells, the bottle with the slimes, and a golem’s hand.
Junk.
Oh, and the rain jacket they’d found next to the ratman after the battle, but that only glowed when it was wet.
It definitely wasn’t worth one broken leg and two fingers.
“We made it out alive,” Ryan said. “That’s what matters, right?”
Micah shrugged. He stared at the ceiling for a while and watched the sun set through the high windows. It wasn’t even eight o’clock yet and the sun was setting. Just how early they had gone to bed in the Tower? And just how late they had woken up if daylight was delayed?
It hadn’t felt like they had been waking up at nine and going to sleep at six, or whatever else the actual times had been. The alternative would be that days were longer in the Tower, but that would be weird. Because there was only one sun, right?
He looked over at Ryan. “Right?”
“Huh?”
“Ryan!” his mom called as she rushed through the sparse crowd. In a moment, she had reached him and leaned down to envelope him in a hug.
Behind her, Micah’s parents trailed in arguing with a man in a doctor’s coat. His sister walked around them and strolled up to his bed. She gave him a sad smile and said, “Hey there, little brother. You have to stop doing this.”
He couldn’t help but smile. He held his one arm up for a hug and she went easy on him as he whispered, “Sorry,” into her hair.
“I’m just glad you’re safe.” She pulled back and saw his cast and splint, the many bandages that riddled his body. One made a practical chin-guard from where he’d his chin scraped along the ground. Prisha scowled. “I would have preferred if you were whole as well, though. A broken thigh bone?”
“I got off lucky, trust me.”
“I don’t want to.”
Before Micah could decipher that, his parents were upon him. His mom gave him a brief hug while the others crowded around his bed and gave him a pitiful look, saying, “Micah. Look at you.”
“Really, mom?” The curt response made her pause and he seized the moment, “Before you say anything else, please make sure you aren’t being disrespectful to the forty-seven people who have died.”
Her mouth slipped into a thin line.
“Eight-two, actually,” his father commented morbidly behind her. “The last time I checked.”
The number shut Micah up in turn.
The last time I checked? He spoke as if it were something to keep track of. Eight-two people had died in just three days. How many would it be by tomorrow? His father was naturally silent, his sister out-of-depth. They said nothing for a second while Noelle and Ryan spoke one bed over.
Dr. Sayem picked it up with a handshake, “Mr. Stranya. It’s good to see you’re still awake and doing well. The medication must be working?”
“Yes. The medication,” he grumbled, wishing he had [Purge] so he could spit it in the man’s face to show him what he thought of the medication. He frowned. Didn’t someone he knew have [Purge]?
“I was just speaking with your parents about the subject of your treatment and wanted to consult you because ultimately, it is your decision to make. You don’t have to make it immediately, but you should have made one as soon as possible. Do you understand?”
He nodded. “I’m assuming I have different choices?” Please no surgery, please no surgery, please no surgery.
“Five, though they all come with their ups and downs. It boils down to this: surgery or no surgery.”
No surgery!
“I wanted to give you a brief overview over your options with a few of my personal thoughts, but I’ll have a nurse bring over some information in just a moment for you to pour over, if that’s alright?”
Micah had already made his decision, but this man was a doctor. It wasn’t like he could deny him, so he nodded. “Yes, please. And thank you, sir.”
He nodded and slipped over to sit on his bedside. “As always, I will, of course, first inform you of what most patients ask about when they have injuries with risk of long-term ailments: high-grade healing potions.
I must regretfully inform you that the waiting lists for those are long, and the emergency stock is saved for just that—emergencies. We can put you on the list if you like, but I doubt you’d get a chance of treatment before you naturally recover. Especially with the Tower being what it is right now.”
Behind him, his mother snorted—this was exactly the situation she had always preached about—and Micah shot her a glare. Not now. She could gloat to others, the politicians and their friends at home.
She raised her eyebrows a little, almost a shrug.
“However, if you have the means to privately acquire a high-grade healing potion, I would highly encourage you to do so,” Dr. Sayem went on and waited a moment, tilting his face slightly back to his parents.
Micah shook his head. His parents definitely didn’t know how to get something like that. He wouldn’t even know where to start.
“Moving on, you have four different options of surgery. Now, the benefits of surgery are generally security. We have higher control over your recovery with a hands-on approach, at the cost of an extended recovery time in some cases and the risks that always exist during medical procedures”—he held a hand out toward him and gestured back and forth between them—”If you have any questions, feel free to interrupt and ask, by the way. This is entirely for your benefit.”
Micah nodded.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
“Good. Well, your first option is the oldest and most reliable of the four; a very common procedure. We would affix a metal rod to your bone to hold it in place and ensure it heals properly.”
Micah’s heart picked up when he heard that. “Like, on the inside?”
“Yes. With screws. In most cases, most of these materials would be removed after the healing process, of course—”
“Most?”
“Yes, most.”
His father spoke up, “Some people live with metal supports inside their bodies for the rest of their lives, Micah. You even know some who do, like Mr. Rusin across the street?”
“Oh.” He had metal supports inside his body? Where? Wouldn’t those bulge and be awkward?
He quickly turned to his doctor. “And the others?”
“The second surgery, I believe, you will have more of an affinity toward. It involves gluing the bone back together with an alchemical adhesive.”
Micah did like the sound of that, though he wasn’t keen on the idea of someone playing arts and crafts with his insides.
“However, due to the nature of the adhesive, there are problems that can come up with Skills and spells. Many [Mages] cannot undergo this procedure, for example, as they have resistances or passive spells that would interfere. Looking at your chart, it would seem like that isn’t the case … yet.” He folded a page up and let it drop back down. “So you would simply not be allowed to use any kind of mana during the healing process and for a little while afterward.”
“Wait, no mana? So I wouldn’t be able to practice alchemy?”
“Nothing that would require you to move mana in any way. You could still study or make spell-less alchemicals, I believe.”
Micah immediately liked that idea a lot less.
“The surgery is usually more complex. This method is usually used for more complicated breaks, but yours is rather simple. I simply wanted to inform you of your options.”
Micah nodded, but didn’t think he would take it. “How long would the healing process be, by the way?”
“Depending on the treatment and how well you respond to it? Anywhere between three weeks and three months.”
That was a wide cleft. What gives? And three months?
“But to give you all your options, there is a second form of this adhesive that would encourage the healing process and is tailor-made to the patient. The consequence would be that it requires bone marrow as an ingredient, which would have to be extracted from your hip.”
His parents grimaced and Micah frowned. That sounded a lot like blood alchemy. Hadn’t Mr. Jung said that was unreliable?
“Last but not least, another surgery option would be spell-assisted recovery, that comes with the same complications of using an adhesive. It would also require daily visits to a mage specialized in this.”
“How would that work?”
“Very similar to the adhesive, we would perform an incision and reconstruct your bone, then have a mage cast a spell on it to keep it in place, reinforce it, and encourage the healing process. You would have to have the mage who cast the spell refresh it every day until the bone is entirely healed. Again, you would not be able to use mana during this time as it could interfere, and certain Skills and Classes report a very high rate of interference, either way.
We mostly recommend the traditional procedure or the bone marrow assisted adhesive, as the first is the most reliable and the second has shown great results in the years since its inception. It also serves for a swifter recovery.”
“Closer to the three weeks than the months?” Micah asked.
He smiled. “Exactly. And your final option would be no surgery. We would give you a cast, medication, and Skill-support to make sure the bone heals as well as it naturally can, but there you wouldn’t have the security of us controlling that recovery to the same degree. This is the preferred option in many cases and might be good for your simple break, but it’s not necessarily the best option, I hope you understand.”
Micah nodded. Nothing screamed human perfectionism more than screwing a metal bar to a broken bone to force it to heal just the way they wanted them to. It was similar with the glue. He wasn’t sure he wouldn’t screw it up on accident, though, by casting a spell without thinking.
Was there any way of preventing that? Maybe by restriction his mana manipulation entirely or something?
On that note, he frowned. “What about spells?”
“How do you mean?”
“Are there any spells that can fix—” He waved down at his broken leg. “Healing spells?”
Dr. Sayem shook his head gravely. “No. We do not do that in this clinic, nor do we recommend any that do. It is an incredibly foolhardy thing to force the bone to heal itself rather than support it while it does. If you wanted to pursue such an avenue, you would have to speak with a Heswaren.”
A Heswaren? Micah bit his lip, thinking about it. Could he speak to Garen or Anne, maybe? Or maybe the better question was, Could he even do such a thing? Beg them for a favor after everything else Garen and Lisa had done for him already?
Plus, there was no way he wanted Anne to see him like this.
He shook his head, if only for himself. No.
“You don’t have to make a decision right away. Read the information we’ll provide, Mr. Stranya, speak with your parents about it, consult a second opinion for advice—you can tell us soon enough. Until then, I can only recommend rest.”
He seemed to direct the last comment at his parents just as much as him before he bid them farewell and headed off, promising to send a nurse around to check on him in a moment.
Then Micah was left staring at his family.
“Surgery,” his father said.
Micah wanted to be angry at him, but he didn’t have the energy for it. He wasn’t saying anything Micah hadn’t thought himself already.
He sighed. “Yeah.”
“Your sister never got herself injured like this,” he added and Micah had the eerie feeling his dad was making a joke.
But that couldn’t be, right?
“That you know of,” Prisha added.
Whatever humor might have been on his face vanished and he looked at Micah’s leg.
Three weeks to three months. He was going to fall so far behind in school. How was he supposed to keep up like this?
Or more importantly: Was there even anything to keep up with? What would happen now that the Towers had suddenly changed so much? Now that so many people had died, it would be more than enough of a reason for the city to say climbing was too dangerous for teenagers.
Would they even be allowed in?
No, of course they would. That was a basic right of every citizen, even if the school might forbid it during school days. But more importantly: Would the school even remain open?
He wanted to ask someone, but there wasn’t anyone around that he could ask and get a good answer from. He didn’t want to put any ideas in his parents’ heads and nobody else knew better.
He would have to ask Ms. Denner tomorrow … if the doctors let him leave and she had the time to see him. Could he even walk like this? Or was the bed-bound until he recovered?
So many questions and nobody to give him any answers. He hated this. He felt just as helpless as he had three hours ago, when he’d been at the mercy of those others’ whims.
He looked up and around, but his bed was crowded and there was nowhere he could run to, no privacy to be found. He tried not to show, but he wished they would just leave. Pull the curtain around his bed and let him be. Please.
But he couldn’t ask that, either, could he?
“Micah?” his mom asked, voice as curt as ever. He wanted to glare at her and found himself in a sudden hug.
“Huh?”
“There’s so much I want to say to you now, but I’ll settle for this: I’m glad you’re safe, son.”
He hugged her back and said nothing.
The bone marrow one. He would choose that if it gave him the quickest recovery time. He needed to be stronger. He never wanted to be trapped, not in a corner, river, or hospital bed again.
“Is there anything you need?” Prisha asked when his mother let go. “Food? Clothes? Toothbrush?”
Micah smiled. “David already offered to get one for me. He headed off a little while ago, so he should be back any moment—” He glanced down the hallway and saw him. “Now.”
His parents followed his glance and frowned. “Did he not bring any toothpaste?”
“Uhm …”
David still looked slightly disheveled, but he only had two toothbrushes in hand. Nothing else.
“He must still be distracted,” Micah mumbled, awkward, “dealing with the guards and everything.”
“Guards?” his father asked.
“Yeah, because of the guy who attacked—” He broke off, suddenly realizing what he was saying.
Both his parents swiveled around to stare at him. “What?”
Shit.
There was something oddly reassuring about seeing his parents go on the warpath. For a moment, Micah wasn’t sure why he had wanted to hide it from them. It hadn’t even been a conscious decision. He was just so used to lying to them and wanting to do things on his own that it hadn’t occurred to him to ask them for help.
Not in this case, then.
They took David aside and asked him a few curt questions before heading out again. David stayed and Prisha offered to go find some toothpaste, heading for the nurses instead of wherever he had gone to get the toothbrushes.
A nurse came around and gave him some papers with information on the various treatments and surgeries.
Micah thanked him and tried to read some of it, but no matter how long he stared at the papers, he couldn’t remember any of the words he read. He was too tired. He put them aside on his small hospital nightstand and let his head rest on his oversized pillow, suppressing a groan at how comfortable it was.
He hadn’t wanted to, but he must have fallen asleep. He’d only closed his eyes for a moment when he picked up on something in the muttered conversation one bed over. It had to be a dream, because it wasn’t something David would normally say.
“Ryan, your mother and I talked about it, and we want you to quit climbing.”
----------------------------------------
“What?”
Ryan stared at his dad for a moment but he seemed earnest, even as he almost slipped out of his seat in exhaustion. He glanced over at his mother for support and found her glaring at her husband.
They wanted him to quit? Why? And since when?
“David—” his mom started.
“What? We—”
“Not now,” she hissed at him.
“When else? We wanted to tell him. The sooner the better.”
“No. Not the sooner the better. We haven’t had the chance to talk about this,” she snapped.
“We have talked about this.”
She raised a finger and shoved at him. “Once. We talked about it once when we thought—” She broke off and glanced at Ryan in concern, then redoubled her glare against him, as if blaming him for not being able to say what she wanted to say, because Ryan was around.
His father sat up, but was still somewhat hunched and gestured as she spoke, “And we agreed that we’d get him out of there if he made it.”
“Yeah, and when you’re hungover you agree to never drink again.”
His dad’s voice was incredulous. “What’s that supposed to mean? I thought you were on-board with this.”
“I am. I just— Nobody knows anything. Nobody even knows where the Gardens are. It’s been three days. Even if I was on-board, couldn’t you have waited for the right moment to tell him? And talked to me beforehand? You always do this.”
“Do what?”
“Always run off to do what you think needs doing, without waiting for others. You can’t even fix the freaking latch on the window that I told you about months ago. There’s a draft every morning and—”
“I’ll fix the damn window when we get home.”
I bet I can fix a window, Ryan thought, watching helplessly as his parents fought—fought because of him. They both looked so tired. Just how worried had they been while he was gone?
He should have freaking come home a day earlier. Giant monster centipede or not. It wasn’t like he had known about it when he’d decided to hide away from his problems, just like he always freaking did.
Why was he such a coward? He wished he could take it back. Or apologize. He wanted to say something, but he doubted they would hear him.
“—but no,” his mom pushed on, “you rushed off and dropped something like that on him right after he gets out of a horrifying event.”
“I just want to be honest with him. Eighty people are dead, Noelle. You think it might be time to listen to Westhill? I am not sending my son into that death trap for no good reason. Don’t tell me you want to.”
“I want what’s best for my child,” she snapped and placed her hands on her stomach. “For my children.”
His father scowled and gestured around himself, at Ryan, Micah, as he spoke, “And how is this—”
Ryan looked over in sudden worry, but found Micah sleeping. Thankfully. He wouldn’t have wanted them to see this. Then he grit his teeth and turned back, snapping in a hushed tone, “Shut up!” He couldn’t take it anymore. “Stop fighting because of me. Please. What the hell is going on?”
They looked surprised by his outburst. Because he had cursed at them?
He rushed to explain, worried, “Just tell me. I can handle it.”
His mother rubbed her forehead in annoyance and snapped at her husband, “Tell him. Didn’t you want to? Might as well be now.”
His dad met her glare for a moment before he broke away to look at Ryan. He took a deep breath and told him, “Your mother and I are moving away from Hadica in the late Spring.”
Ryan went very still.
“We had wanted to wait until you settled in at school,” he went on, “and maybe until after the baby was born, before we told you, but this changes things. We talked about what we’d do if you made it back safely yesterday and …”
He sighed and hung his head a little.
Ryan blinked twice and tried not to do it again, not too often. Or else they would notice.
They hadn’t wanted him to come with?
“You mother is right. I shouldn’t have dropped this on you like this. I’m sorry. None of us have any idea how this will turn out, but whatever way it goes, I would be more comfortable if you came with us.”
He nodded, finding a bit of comfort in that, and swallowed the lump in his throat before asking, “Where are you going? Why are you going?”
Why were they leaving him? He had known it would be the other way around, eventually. It was inevitable that he had to move out. But this?
Then again, he had known that too, hadn’t he? Deep down.
He was unwanted.
“A small city north of here,” his dad said, “called Cairn. Do you know of it?”
Ryan nodded. “I— Yeah.” He had heard of it before. He’d needed to know its name for some of his tests. It was almost in the middle between Hadica, Trest, and Anevos, next to the great river. A small hub for trade between the three of them. Not a city city, not a Tower city, but ... a city, he guessed.
It was weird to think there were cities that weren’t built around Towers, but of course there were.
“Your mother and I both got job offers there. You know how they’re rebuilding the railroad between Lighthouse and here? Well, they want to extend it up to Cairn for easier trade and travel and, uh, they’re hiring extra people because of it. An old friend contacted me and your mom quickly found something, too, and … well, we haven’t been leveling in a while, and with the baby coming—”
“We’d wanted to see if you settled in at school first,” his mom repeated, taking his hand on the bed. It was warm enough for him to even feel. “We weren’t just going to leave. And we would have wanted you to come with during the break. To help us move in and get to know the place, you know?”
Ryan nodded. They were moving on.
“And when the railroad is done,” his dad said, “you could have come visit every weekend, you know? Or we could have come back for city trips during the festivals and stay at the old inn. I think it’d just be an hour trip? A little over?” He looked at his wife and she nodded.
“I’d heard it planned as an hour and a half, but thereabouts.”
“Trains are fast,” Ryan mumbled senselessly. He remembered the days they had spent trekking to the campsite during the scout trip. How quickly would they have gotten there with a train?
“And once we’ve settled down a little, we could even buy our own house, Ryan,” his dad said with a wild smile. “Or help build one of our own. We have a little saved up for it. You could have come visit us for vacations with your friends, in between expeditions, you know? Enjoy the countryside.”
Ryan nodded again and smiled a little, getting caught up in the picture. It didn’t sound that bad.
His dad sighed. “But then this happened.”
That broke it. He was still here, not there, and he wasn’t sure he’d ever be. “How long until they finish? The railroad, I mean. So people can use it?”
“Construction will begin in the Spring,” his dad said, scratching the side of his neck. “From there, they have sixteen months planned. Maybe another month after that. So Fall 111?”
He shrugged.
So two years. The minimum time for school.
Ryan stared at his lap for a moment and thought it over, but his thoughts didn’t go anywhere. They just sunk in.
It didn’t matter if he went with them or not, they would go. Leave. Things would change again and so much of it was happening at once. The Tower, his little brother or sister being born, his parents moving away—everything. And he was helpless to do anything about it. He had no control.
His mom tightened her grip on his hand and whispered, “Ryan. Everything’s alright, okay?”
He swallowed the lump in his throat again and shook his head, but didn’t cry. He hadn’t cried in years, he wouldn’t start now.
Instead, he gripped her hand back and hoped she didn’t mind.
He noticed his mom glaring at his dad again and took deep breaths before looking up. He was fine. He had to be.
“I’m hungry,” his dad said all the sudden. “Are you hungry? I’m hungry. I think I should get us some food.”
“The solution isn’t always food, David,” his mom said.
“But it can’t hurt, right? ‘You hungry Ryan?”
He shrugged.
“What did you guys even eat in there?”
“Fruit. Grilled rats. Stamina potion,” he counted.
His mom grimaced and her face eased up a bit, as if she were suddenly open to the idea of food.
“Micah, are you—” His dad turned around and only then realized the other guy was fast asleep. He looked so peaceful all the sudden, where he had constantly looked like he was still fighting before.
His dad was quieter. “Oh.”
That peacefulness didn’t extend to the reality of his wounds, though, Ryan noticed. He was covered in bandages like a second skin, patches of them bulging outward on his chin, his head, places on his shoulders. His leg was in a splint and half his matching hand oversized in a cast for his broken fingers.
Ryan never should have brought him into the Tower again. It was his fault he was even a [Fighter].
“I can’t,” he mumbled.
“What?” His dad turned on him.
“I can’t go. I can’t leave him— them. Micah, Lisa. We’re a team. And what about everyone else? I know I don’t have much of it, but my whole life is here, dad. I’m a climber. I can’t leave.”
His dad stared at him for a long moment before he said, “But you could become something else. [Fighter] is almost like [Worker]. You have so many stats from it and I bet we can find something to subsume it in. And you’re only a level one [Scout]. Everyone has some clutter Classes at low levels, so I doubt anybody would mind. And your Path is virtually limitless—”
Ryan shook his head. “It isn’t. And I’m level two, dad.”
“Two?” He blinked. “Oh. Right. But your Path—”
“No. I’ve been learning about it here at school. I’ve gotten a new Skill, [Lesser Fire Affinity], you know? On Monday. Because the Skills I paint with [Mimic Beast] cost purity. I need new things I paint to match the old or me in some way. I’m not even sure, but that’s why I’m going to school—”
“You could go to school there, too,” he said. “You think schools only exist in Tower cities?”
“No, but … I just can’t leave, okay? I can’t leave them.”
His dad looked helpless for a moment before he blurted out, “Micah could come with us.”
“David.”
Ryan looked up. “What?”
“Think about it. He’s a level ten [Alchemist] and he isn’t even fifteen years old yet. He’d find an apprenticeship like that.” He snapped his fingers. “They need them. Less to make things themselves, but to inspect things coming through. He could find an apprenticeship and his own place. Or we could find something for you and you two could bunk it.”
His own place?
“Like what?” Ryan wasn’t even sure he’d wanted to be a [Fighter]. What else was he suddenly supposed to do? What job was out there that would fit him? He wasn’t sure he wanted to work with animals.
“David, stop. Please,” his mom said and glanced at Ryan. “The both of you. Can’t you wait a damn week until we know more about the situation? You can’t just … You’re practically offering to adopt the boy. And what about his parents, or Lisa?”
His dad looked pained as he glanced at Ryan, and shrugged helplessly, “I— I mean—”
His mom’s face darkened. “No.”
Ryan ignored them, lost in his own thought. But no matter how he looked at it, there was no way Micah would leave the city. He would become a climber, one way or another. He had fought for it over and over again in the last seven months and with this? A whole new Tower to explore and more?
“He won’t leave, dad,” Ryan said. “There’s no way.”
And even if he would have agreed to leave with his parents, would Ryan have gone? He wasn’t sure.
His father took it at face value and eased back into his seat. He took a deep breath and jumped up all the sudden.
“I’d better get that food and give you some time to rest. You want to come with?” He asked his wife as he turned around, but paused. “Looks like you got a visitor. Do you want us to send her away?”
Ryan looked.
Lisa was headed down the hallway, looking straight ahead and dodging past people without looking at them. She wasn’t looking at him or Micah either, but she was clearly headed for their beds.
He shook his head. “No. I want to say hi. She saved my life, remember?”
His mom glanced at Lisa and took one last look at him before she got up as well and joined his father, “We’ll leave. Give you two some privacy. We’ll be back with food in a bit, okay?”
“Okay. Thank you, mom. For everything.”
She smiled. They greeted Lisa in passing, but gestured at Ryan when she asked them something and shook their heads at something else. Then Lisa had one hand on one of the seats and was going to sit.
“Hey there, Ryan.”
Ryan spread his arms up and leaned forward for a hug instead. She was awkward as she hugged him back, and warm, and strangely firm. But it was nice. “Thank you for saving us.”
She pulled back. “It worked then?”
He nodded. “Yes. I mean, I think so. I heard explosions and Micah calling your name, but I didn’t see it. He said something about lizards?”
“Summons. I sent them in with a loose copy of Sam’s pattern,” she said as she took a chair and scooted up to his bed. “Find, obey, protect. I was thinking of the Open Sewers when I sent them in, because of your note, but I wasn’t sure it would work, that they would even find you.”
“Well, at least three of them did,” he told her. “My dad mentioned mana rings?”
“Yeah, we needed something to handle the cost and—”
“How many?” he interrupted her.
She blinked at him and said, “It was nothing.”
“How many, Lisa?”
She mulled it over for a moment before saying, “You’re going to be insistent about this, aren’t you? Alright, fine. All of them.”
He frowned, not liking where this was going. “And how much is that?”
“Eight. And two more for each of you from the school supplies, but I did that for every student who was unaccounted for.”
Twelve mana rings, on the off-chance that they might survive long enough to find and help them. Ryan glanced down at his and Micah’s soggy backpacks and thought it over. He couldn’t right now, but—
“I’ll pay you back,” he promised her. “Someday.”
She shook her head.
“You saved our lives.”
“It was nothing. We’re teammates.”
“No, really. Thank you.”
“I wanted to head in, you know? Find you myself. But the f—reaking Guild sealed off the Tower,” she said, with more than a hint of anger. “This was literally the least I could do to help.”
“It was enough? Can’t you just accept my damn gratitude?”
She sighed. “Yeah, sure, you’re welcome. Just don’t go all Allison on me, okay? Be a little less like Micah about it. He wasn’t too annoying. And you’re kind of putting me on the spot here.”
Allison? Ryan frowned, remembering how insistent Micah had been on thanking people after he’d gotten back. Had he ever gotten around to thanking Barry and Mark? Ryan had forgotten to ask them during the scout trip.
“Wait, like Allison Reed?” he asked now.
Lisa scratched the back of her neck awkwardly. “Yeah, I, uh … we kind of sort of saved her life, too, when I first met her. Garen and me. And she was really weird about it afterward.”
Ryan thought about it for a second. He wasn’t really interested in that right now, but he shrugged. “Can you tell me? It sounds like a cool story. The Dragonslayer saving someone.”
She scowled at that comment and he smiled. A story to lighten the mood.
“I guess …” She glanced over at where Micah slept. “If it’ll help? It’s really not much of a story. We were on the road to Hadica from Trest and some guy attacked her. We scared him off and she thanked us.”
“Some guy? I thought she was a hoplite?”
Who could threaten a hoplite so much they needed saving from a climber? They were … uniquely specialized in fighting people with finalized results, unlike climbers who fought monsters for a living.
“Yeah, but she was injured,” Lisa told him, “she retired because of it. Garen did most of the scaring, really. Like I said—not much of a story.”
“Oh.” Ryan thought it over and asked, “It wouldn’t have happened in Cairn, right?”
“Cairn? Oh, no. We met her in a caravanserai on the way from Trest and passed through there, though. Why?”
“Because my parents are moving there next year.”
She looked surprised. “Oh.”
“And I’m probably not moving with,” he added, saying everything that needed saying about that. The rest could be put away or left behind. “Can you tell me about it? What’s it like?”
“Uhm, it’s a town more than a city, really,” she said. “It’s really spaced out though. It’s not as cramped? So they build wide instead of high. The streets are wider, too. There are rolling fields all around with crops—wheat, and flowers, and canola, and a bit of purple fissle. There’s a river next to it, a channel through, and a lake with a bunch of geese. The buildings are nice. Nicer than here, in some respects. But that’s … about it. I didn’t see much of it, sorry.”
Ryan shook his head. “No, it’s alright. That actually sounds nice.”
“I hope your parents will like it.”
He smiled. “Me, too.” He really did.
Lisa glanced at Micah again and then at his bandages and frowned. “I’m not sure if I should ask …”
He shook his head. “I’ll tell you later, okay? Just not now.”
“You’re fine? You seem fine, relatively speaking. But what about Micah?”
“He’s … hurt. Two broken fingers and a thigh bone. He’ll probably need surgery and a slow recovery.”
Lisa’s eyes went wide. “Shit.”
“Yeah. Tell me about things here?”
“Not so good, either. I mean, at least there were no riots today, but it doesn’t look so good for tomorrow—”
“Wait, riots?” Ryan demanded, craning his head up to look out the windows again. The trail of smoke …?
“Yeah. Riots? You didn’t know?”
He shook his head. Nobody had told him or even mentioned something like that since he got back. They should have, though. He’d known the city was in a panic, but that? That was a whole other level.
“Why?”
Lisa scowled, showing that anger again. “The Guild closed down and sealed off the Tower, for the people’s ‘own protection,’ calling it a crisis situation. And people are understandably not happy about it. They have to work. Or want to explore, ever since word got out about the changes.”
“The guild sealed off the Tower?”
“Yeah.”
“For how long?”
“Until they know more? I’m not sure. However long they need to regain control of the situation, I bet.” She glanced around, as if scowling at the building they were in. “There were a bunch of protests at all of their branches, and I and even a some of our classmates joined, because I’m pretty sure a case could be made that this is literally illegal, you know?
But things escalated at two of the places. Something about a brawl breaking out and the city guard responding. Apparently, some people got really hurt and there’s even rumors of someone having died.”
Ryan’s face sunk in dismay. What the hell?
“And after they said they were keeping the Tower sealed off for the foreseeable future, things escalated yesterday.”
“Fff—“
—uck, Ryan thought and glanced at her. “Don’t get caught up in any riots, though, okay? Those are dangerous.”
She actually looked reluctant or even a little disappointed by the comment, but shrugged. “Okay. But Hadica and Lighthouse are the only two cities that sealed their Tower off, you know? It’s stupid.”
Ryan didn’t know about that, but he didn’t want to pick a side. He wondered, if Lisa knew what had happened to Micah and him in there, would she still be so eager to let the entire city in?
He didn’t say anything. Instead, he took a deep breath and let his head fall back on the ridiculously large hospital pillow, watched the ceiling. Everything had gone to shit in just three days. How long would it take for them to get better?
Lisa was silent next to him and glanced at Micah every now and then. He closed his eyes a little and thought about what he would do tomorrow. Have to do. And suddenly, he was dreaming and couldn’t wake up.
His body woke him early in the morning like it was used to, when everything was dark. The seats next to his bed were gone and everything quiet as the infirmary’s patients slept.
Except for one thing.
[Fighter level 9!]
[Scout level 3!]
[Skill — Sure Grip obtained!]
It wasn’t worth it.