Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Well, they did find a minecart.

It was on the North side of the surface mine, made of and standing on tracks of dark grey Tower stone. It was big enough for two people to sit in if they squeezed and three if they really squeezed.

He knew because they did just that. There was a freaking railroad inside the Tower, of course they did that.

Micah named it Chariot.

“C’mon, guys,” Alex nudged the three of them. “Get out. This is no place to be goofing off.”

Micah was reluctant for a second before he gave in. This was no place to be goofing off. It was just, despite a night of rough and often interrupted sleep and a bland breakfast, he was in a good mood. Yesterday had been great. If today and tomorrow were the same, they were set for their grade.

“Ow, ow, ooh, ahh,” Brent groaned when Micah moved away and he had nothing to lean on.

“Don’t sleep directly on the ground then, next time,” he told him.

He grumbled something under his breath.

Kyle kicked the side of the cart and it rocked a little. “How is that thing even standing? It looks like it was put together with pieces of rubble. It has holes in it.”

He dusted himself off and stretched as he looked over, but yeah, Chariot was not something you would want to fill with water instead of crystals, or whatever else the Kobolds had used it for.

They could put their treasure chest in it … if they followed the path?

“There’s a thicker panel, here,” Ryan mumbled as he slipped his own pack around, “with indents.”

“Indents?”

He’d barely asked when the guy put a marble in one.

Micah only caught a glimpse of the Tower essence when it came to accept their offering. Thin, silver lines threaded around and through the cart like unearthed roots of a bush. Nerves. And fingers and hands grew from them like fruits from the vine. One reached over to pluck something from the marble. An eyeball-ring on one finger noticed him and the vision disappeared.

The cart lurched as its wheels suddenly started turning. Chariot began to roll down the tracks.

“Argh!” Brent almost fell, halfway through climbing out.

Jason stood on his own inside and looked lost. “Guys?”

Chariot kept moving.

“Is it getting faster?” Alex asked in a worried voice, glancing at them. “I think it’s getting faster.”

Jason panicked and gripped one side with his hand. He looked hesitant to jump, for no good reason, glanced over the side, frowned, and looked back at them with an annoyed look.

The cart trickled on at a snail’s pace.

Micah chuckled.

“So marbles make it move, then?” Jason asked as he leaned over the back to see the panel Ryan had put it in. The marble wasn’t gone, unlike last time, but its red sash had thinned.

They took a single step to keep up.

Kyle kicked it again, this time from the back. Jason gripped the rim to steady himself and gave him a glare.

“‘Still don’t get how it’s whole.”

Micah did.

Tower essences are good at manipulating forces, he remembered Lisa say, once. Well, ‘claim’. It had been threaded all around the construction. Maybe it was keeping it together?

“That doesn’t mean you have to kick it? How many indents are there, anyway? Ooh, what if we fill all of them? I could stand in here with my slingshot and—” He mimed shooting enemies down one by one, then turned around for the next, and leaned right to try and get a glimpse at where the broader tunnel led.

“I’ll bet that thing only gets a little faster with each marble,” Brent said, “and if you put in all seven it’ll shoot off like a rocket.”

Jason swiveled around to stare at him. Not in fear, but with palpable longing in his eyes.

“Do we follow the railroad, then?” Alex asked.

“Might as well?”

They deliberated. Micah was happy to let them. They’d beheaded a Salamander yesterday, they had this.

His team settled on following the tracks and wanted to put in another marble to see how fast the Chariot could go—if Jason stepped out first—but they didn’t want to waste too many just because they were too lazy to carry the chest. It wasn’t safe. And even marbles were valuable. This was like inserting coins in the back to make it move.

If they needed to, they could push. They wouldn’t move at that quick a pace. They had only just woken up, eaten breakfast, and bathed before scouting out the mine. Their muscles were sore, Jason’s arm especially. Micah caught Ryan doing basic stretching exercises every now and then.

So starting slow was good. But this slow? Second marble was only a little faster than first. It sped up when Jason stepped out, thankfully. It was weight-dependant, then? That was good to know.

They waited before they put in a third. The speed seemed to fall off over time. They could regulate it that way.

They followed it deeper North. It took them a while to find the first enemy. There were too few to go around, so they made maps, a sketch of the cart, or tried to figure out what their loot did.

Micah manned the latter.

“Here, Ryan, put this on.” He jumped up and tried to slap the witch’s hat on his head. The guy kept it from falling with one hand. “Do you feel any different?”

He frowned. “Now, that you mention it …”

“Yeah?”

“No. It’s just a stupid hat.”

“Aw.”

The school would appraise their items after the exam, but if they guessed correctly beforehand, based on proper conjecture, it might look good for them. If they could guess, they could make use of the item right away after all. Like they had done with Clay or the healing potion.

If not, it wasn’t such a big deal.

Ryan shoved the hat back and Micah sped up until he walked in line with Alex, who was glancing into a side passage with his bow. “And you’re sure it’s a [Mage] hat?”

“‘Sure’ is a tricky word. No. But it looks like a [Witch] hat.”

“That’s classist.”

“The Towers are classist,” he said. “Stereotypes form and are reinforced by it, making them even harder to shake. You need a new one to replace them. If [Witches] don’t want hats like these, they should propagate a different image and until the Tower spits it out for them.”

Alex frowned and glanced back to where Jason was trying to convince Ryan to feed Chariot another marble. “But don’t tell Jason I said that, okay?”

Micah wasn’t really sure what he meant. “‘That your thesis for the Social Studies exam, then?”

He smiled. “I don’t know, but if you want to figure out what that hat does, focus on [Mages] and [Witches]. We probably won’t get much out of it.”

Micah nodded, grateful for the advice … until he realized he had no idea what [Witches] did. They were a mixture of [Summoners] and [Alchemists], right? Though they also had nature magic, and ritual magic, and component magic, and implement— He didn’t really know.

He asked.

“Everything,” Alex said. “They’re the jack-of-all-trades of magic users, as I understand it.”

“Wouldn’t that just be a [Mage]?”

He gave him an amused look. “[Mages] are mana manipulators, usually ones who are low level or undecided. [Witches] are magic manipulators. Your question is like asking if [Alchemists] are just [Chemists].”

“Of course, not,” Micah said, affronted by even the suggestion. “Alchemy is way better.”

That got a smile out of him.

He continued to fiddle around with the hat as they made their way deeper into the mines, but he didn’t figure out what it did. He switched to the fountain pen, then the lantern, and finally—

He found the scaled glove and looked at Kyle. Why wasn’t he wearing it? He had the hatchet, even if he hadn’t done anything with it. It was just the single one, too. It was perfect for him.

“Guys?” Brent called as he headed back. “There’s a branch up ahead.”

“A what?”

“A branch.”

They looked. Only a few steps brought them close enough to see. The tunnel split left and right, and the railroad along with it. A part in the middle looked movable to decide which way to go.

And Chariot slowly moved toward it.

What do?

They panicked. After a short discussion, Jason and Micah hopped into the cart to slow it down while the others ran ahead to scout out the area. It didn’t seem trapped. All the monsters they had fought today had been just as weak as yesterday, and only a little less scarce. They could stop the cart if they had to, but really, they just had to decide on a direction.

Left or right?

“Jason?” Micah asked.

“I don’t know. My Skills aren’t telling me anything we don’t already know. What were the directions we noted down yesterday?”

“West-West-South, North, and North-East-East,” Ryan said without checking. “We’re currently at North-North-East from the portal. We should take the left route. It might lead us to the second one.”

Alex bent down as if to move the part.

Micah called out, “Hold on. It would also lead us back to the maze-y mines we came from, right? The guardian’s room was to the East. Shouldn’t we take the other route to head further into the unknown? Or North-East-East? We have a higher chance of finding new stuff, there.”

Alex hesitated and glanced up.

Chariot continued on its burning warpath.

Ryan shook his head. “That’s a faulty argument. Sure, we saw the … maze-y mines to the West, but that doesn’t mean they continue on forever. We have just as high a chance— We have a better chance of finding a new challenge straight North than we do if we head North-East.”

“No,” Micah said, making a face. “Not always. Floors stretch North for a while. They have … depth versus breadth, you know? Areas? Haven’t you seen the maps?”

“What do you mean?”

He tried to find the right words, but all he could think of was eggs and soap bubbles. Parks on a map. His point was, “How much of the maze-y mines did we actually explore? We covered a small oval, got lost, stung, and overrun by monsters, and then headed directly East after you scouted out the river.”

“So? That’s another argument for me, right? If we haven’t fully explored an unknown floor, we should head back there to go get more information for the exam.”

“But that would mean going back to a weaker floor we gave up on. For a reason.” He glanced at Jason. “You sensed water on the second floor, right? Going North means we have to go down one floor.”

“Uh, my Skill—”

“Those ten meters between floors won’t make a difference in which direction he senses the water in—”

“Ten meters?”

“—and that one spot we found had water leaking out of the ceiling. There could be a lake above us for all we know.”

“Yeah, above.”

“My point stands. Besides, you don’t know if East is a weaker floor or not. This tunnel we’re in right after the guardian is pretty weak. This place seems deserted.”

“But we’re still warming up, right?”

Ryan seemed annoyed that he was fighting him this much. He looked like he was about to say something, shook his head, and just shifted the part to the left without asking him.

Micah blinked.

The cart lurched as it rolled over a tiny gap and shifted into the left lane. They would have run out of time to argue. The others just seemed relieved that they had chosen a path at all.

That he hadn’t let them finish was somehow more annoying than the embarrassment at having argued for too long. Ryan was always quiet about stuff. He faulted Micah for doing things on his own, but another reason why he hadn’t known he was moping around, that his mom was pregnant, and lots of other stuff, was because he didn’t tell Micah things.

Ryan never put words to the things he thought or did.

Hypocrite, he’d wanted to think.

Had.

But he had come running straight away when Hannah had been born and invited him to the hospital. What was Micah supposed to make of that?

He sighed, annoyed and confused. He was probably working himself up over nothing.

“You okay?” Ryan checked up on him. He seemed a little wary beneath the skin, and a little annoyed beneath that for some reason.

Micah couldn’t place the second one.

“Yeah, sure,” he told him. “I guess we can warm-up in the maze-y mines. At least, there will be something going on there.” He looked around at the deserted halls there were in.

They had given up on that floor for a reason, but he could go for fighting waves of Kobolds right about now. Their crystals were nice. He wasn’t so sure about making a map, though.

“The cart’s cool?” Ryan offered.

“The cart is awesome,” Jason breathed next to him. “And it would be even more awesome if we could speed it up a bit …?”

He looked at him, sighed, and glanced at the others. Brent and Alex shrugged. Kyle looked disinterested. He dug for his pouch. When he put another marble in, the cart lurched and sped up.

“Yes.” The other guy smiled and raised his slingshot, ready to shoot down monsters.

Micah climbed out to aid his fantasy. He had used too much of his ammunition already yesterday. The small ball bearings were easy to lose. Instead, he tagged out one of the others in scouting duty. There was something else he could do. What was the point in getting a new weapon if he couldn’t use it, right?

When a centipede charged, Micah drenched it with water from high above and cast [Kinetic Infusion]. Little happened. The water looked hazy and the centipede roughed-up. For the amount of mana he had put into that combination cast, he had gotten the equivalent of a scuff in the dirt.

It had worked better on the golems. Why? A structural difference?

He mulled it over while he evaded the insect and made glancing blows. The wisps of light escaping its wounded carapace gave him part of his answer and Micah cast the spells again.

This time, it worked.

The water visibly darkened as the light rushed out of the unmade and it writhed in fake pain, but it still didn’t burst into smoke. He frowned and did it again. And again. The fourth cast made it burst.

The more wounded they were, the less stable their form, the more damaging his combination would be. Just like with how he had to crush, mince, or crack ingredients in his recipes.

It still didn’t seem very effective. Hopefully, [Kinetic Dissolve] would fix that or he’d have to find another solution.

“Micah?” Ryan asked, poking around the corner. “What are you doing? Hurry up or we’ll lose line of sight.”

“Oh, shoot—” He scrambled to get the crystal and catch up. So much for the cart being slow.

As they headed further and mapped out the way, he practiced the combination cast on monsters. Some were quick and gave him a challenge. Others felt like a waste of mana. He kept it up until he ran low and remembered Mr. Sundberg’s warning. They had to have enough for a single emergency spellcast during the exam or they would get points deducted afterward.

They’d reached the end then, anyway.

A dead-end.

Micah looked at Ryan and said nothing.

He sighed.

“I mean, we’re here already,” Alex said, as if speaking between them, “might as well try to map out the … maze-y mines, right?”

They connected to their tunnel just a short distance back. Darker paths twisting up and down to the West. They really had traveled right back to where they had come from, just further in.

“Screw that,” Kyle said. “There’s no point in trying to map that shit out. It’s one big clusterfuck.”

“I agree.” Brent rubbed his eyebrow unconsciously, though the wound was already gone.

“We should push North and try to find something new. Anything new.”

“And if we don’t?” Micah asked.

He looked at him. “I’m getting sick of backtracking. I’d rather we picked one direction and stuck with it.”

“That’s part of the job. The tracks are a lead. And— And I’m sorry Jason,” he said and glanced at the other guy, “but can we leave the cart here if we do? I feel like it’s slowing us down.”

“Damn right, it is,” Kyle grumbled.

Jason looked disappointed, but he mumbled an agreement and climbed out. For a guy that tall, he was even more childish than Micah sometimes.

“The other railroad direction, then?”

“In the case of,” Ryan added.

“Yeah.”

Kyle seemed to mull it over for a bit before he grumbled, “Fine. In the case of, like Blondie said.”

Great. Micah went for the treasure chest. He was pushing here, he might as well carry it. Intact, valuable chests sold much better than ones in pieces, so they hadn’t had him cut it to pieces.

“Ryan?” Alex asked before Jason could take the other handle. “Can you take the center?”

Ryan frowned. “Uh, sure?”

He gripped the other side and Kyle and Alex took the lead. Ryan and Micah were stuck in the middle then, as they pushed North. It wasn’t long before the sounds of rocks tumbling echoed through the tunnels and Kobolds cried out. And it wasn’t long before the pressure picked up and they had to fight waves of monsters assaulting them.

Despite that, they didn’t have much to do. Ryan and Micah. They thwarted the occasional ambush, collected crystals, and moved the chest every now and then, helped their teammates, but they had time on their hands between each task. Between each wave of attack.

Micah used that time to do basic breathing exercises and try to clean his light-blob lungs.

A flame kindled alight over Ryan’s hand, illuminating the walls in a warm orange glow and flickering shadows. He seemed to fiddle with it, moved it around, and then fed it to grow larger.

“What are you doing?”

He shook the hand once and the flame went out with a ripple—barely any smoke. “Practicing.”

“What?”

“Fire spells. Like [Firebolt] or something similar.” He cast the same spell again and didn’t elaborate.

Micah waited a moment and asked, “Why?”

“We’re supposed to be watching their backs, right? I don’t trust myself to shoot an arrow near someone. And I wouldn’t want to throw my spear, either. I don’t want to lose it. Or break it.”

“Because it was expensive?”

He shook his head but offered no other response.

Micah sighed. He kept an eye out for dangers and mentally tried to gauge how much mana he had left. He wondered how much mana he had in total. He wondered how much Ryan had.

Were they fighting?

Ryan and he. He and Ryan. He wouldn’t know why. He just … Micah guessed he was in a bad mood? It was a gut feeling. Just because of that one argument earlier? That was stupid. No, it was something else. Something felt wrong.

It took him longer than he cared to admit. Then he was starting to think he was just stupid. Through all the loot, food, and their good moods, he had forgotten.

“We’ll find another Salamander,” he told him. It was one of the few things he knew for certain.

Ryan looked over. “Huh?”

“A true Salamander,” he said. “We’ll find another one, either during this exam or during the next. And then you’ll get to fight it as much as you want, or we’ll pin it down so you can study it, meditate at it, eat it—whatever you need, okay? Just in case you’re bummed out because you had to hold off the normal monsters with a bow and arrow instead of doing that.”

Ryan listened with half an eye and ear while he spoke, ever the vigilant, but looked at him by the end. He hesitated and then actually smiled. “I know, Micah. Thanks, for saying it, though.”

He smiled in relief. So had that been it, then?

A flicker of motion caught his eye. Ryan had already raised his spear to kill the spider sneaking up on them.

“Hold on,” Micah told him. “Blast it.”

“‘Blast’ it?”

“Yeah, with your fire.”

“I don’t know how.”

“C’mon, try?”

He mulled it over with a frown, but then fed flames in his left hand. The spider moved closer. When he pushed out, the flames poofed into the smallest fire breath attack Micah had ever seen.

He couldn’t help but laugh.

“Oh, you think this is easy, then?”

“No, but— I’ve seen you do better than that?” Micah asked. “When we were fighting the stairs’ golem?”

He skewered the Whip Spider and shook his head. “I just flooded it with fire mana and ignited it, and it barely made any sparks. I can’t do that here.”

Micah nodded, still smiling. “Oh?”

“Why don’t you try it if you’re so good at this, oh mighty [Mage]?”

“With—? I don’t know how to cast a fire spell, smart guy.”

Nor would he want to.

“Water. Offense water spells also exist, you know? And this is the perfect time to train.”

“Uhm …” Micah didn’t really have an argument against that. He gestured over his shoulder and said, “I did just train, actually. With my [Condense Water]-[Infusion] combo, you know? So—”

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Ryan gave him a look. “You can do that already. Not much need for training there, right?”

“But, like, I’m totally out of mana.”

He squinted and went up with his voice. “Really? Not even enough for a single try?”

Micah gave him an uncertain glance. “Okay.”

Fair play was fair play. He could do this. He just … readied the spell in his head and mentally twisted the whirlpool to face the tunnel. That was a good start, right? Now … how did he add the kinetic force to the spell again?

“I’m waiting.”

“Just a second!”

On a whim, he basked his hand with mana in a gauntlet shape of sorts. It probably looked more like a shopping bag wrapped around his fist than anything else, to anyone with mana sight. He tried to move it, make a fist, shook it out a little, and get the image of kinetic energy. He widened it into a plate and—

“[Condense Water]!” he called and punched the spell, expelling the hopefully kinetic mana in one go. Water splattered everywhere like a broken bubble and they both ended up doubling over in laughter.

He was so not a [Mage].

“Yeah,” Ryan said as if that just proved his point.

Micah called out to change topics. “Hey! If anyone wants to switch with us, we’d be more than happy to?”

“You guys just can’t stand being benched, huh?” Brent asked.

“Not true!”

“Five more minutes!” Jason called from the other end.

“It doesn’t matter!” Brent answered over their heads.

“Huh?”

Kyle stepped back into view and said, “We’re headed back. You were right. This floor sucks.”

“Yes!”

Micah and Jason said a tearful goodbye to Chariot. They followed the tracks at twice the pace back. The treasure chest was light enough with nothing in it and they knew the way, now.

Ryan stubbornly tried to draw a map of the mines anyway. Jason got the movable part from the railroad—either as a sample, souvenir, or in case they needed it. They took the right path and adopted the same aggressive pace they’d had yesterday.

They were warm enough.

That was until the tracks came to an end. At another dead-end.

Ryan looked at him.

“Y’know,” Micah said, scratching his cheek, “I’m beginning to think the mine might have been a collection point. Like, the endpoint? So all paths leading away from it …”

“Oh, freaking silver stones,” Alex said, “we’re idiots.” He sounded like he was blaming himself. He was pretty capable, even if he took a backseat during discussions. He reminded Micah of an advisor.

But they had all missed this.

He needed to wake up already. He took a deep breath, shook himself out, and drank a sip of water with a vitality gummy. He saw Ryan do stretches and copied him as best he could.

Kyle looked at them like they were flies who didn’t get how windows worked. “Let’s go.”

They spread out into a chain and did as they had. It wasn’t long before they found another railway in the middle of a tunnel with no minecart in sight.

North or South?

Micah and Ryan glanced at each other and took a step back. The others could handle this one.

“North,” Kyle grumbled and started walking, “obviously.”

“What if the south route leads to another big mine like the one we came from?” Jason asked.

He stopped in his tracks, groaned, and turned around.

It didn’t. They walked for fifteen minutes to find another dead-end and a broken-down minecart. There was a pile of rocks with crystalline veins inside it and a few assorted crystals in between. They happily dug those out, but they would have gotten more by sticking to the maze. And more valuable ones probably, too. Even scouting out the area didn’t turn anything up.

The path split again when they got back. This time, Ryan led them right. It split three more ways, and another two for two of them. All five led to dead-ends, some with treasure, some without. A single one led to a group of Kobolds with piles of crystals in a chamber and tamed monsters.

Micah thought he recognized them from the guardian fight, running away in the distance. But that was improbable. Not that they might have been runaways—maybe they were and this was part of the stash they had lost yesterday. But that he would recognize them?

At least, they got more crystals this time. They took the left path when they went back. Each time they did, it cost them time Kyle was all too happy to remind them of. And they themselves. The treasure chest felt heavier and heavier. Every time it bumped against his knee, he grit his teeth.

Micah worried. They were finding relatively little treasure and new information for the amount of time they put in. Even the maps of the railways wouldn’t be that valuable, in his opinion.

He wasn’t quite sure which floor they were on beyond this being the third, but it was better than the alternatives, right? The maze mines would have slowed them down too much and none of them would want to go back the second.

The Tower seemed to have other plans.

After backtracking to the branching point and taking a left, then scouting out two more splits and defeating a smaller camp of runaways, they finally found a path that led to a destination.

Down.

A slight incline turned into a steep hill. A cobblestone arch stood over the railroad in the wall leading into a cavern. There was no golden sheen, but it was clearly some kind of structure.

Micah was only a little disappointed, but it was better than nothing, right?

“That’s a long ways down,” Alex mumbled.

“Second floor?” Brent asked.

“I’m guessing.”

“Drat.”

“No, no,” Micah said. “This is great.”

Ryan whistled a tune to catch their attention, bow in hand. “Even if there is no guardian, we still have to scout out the area for alternative entrances and clear escape routes.”

Kyle opened his mouth to say something.

“And be quick about it,” he added. “Okay? Is anyone for declaring this little spot ‘camp’? Whoever stays here could take a break, prepare, and won’t have to carry the chest around.”

It might have been a good idea. Two pairs would have been quicker than all six of them. But none of them had the patience. They used the chain method to scout a circle and couldn’t find any other ways down. It seemed more like they were at the exit of a chamber leading up, to him.

They left half their belongings on the hill and snuck to the arch to see what they were up against—admittedly, something they should have done beforehand.

An open chamber about a third the size of the one they had slept in, but with many of the same features. Wooden furniture, broken. Small piles of crystals, overturned or cracked. Kobolds.

What probably had been Kobolds, once.

Micah wasn’t entirely sure if they were what he thought they were or just yellow sticks. He looked to Ryan and mouthed, Bones?

The guy mouthed right back, Human? Concern was written all over his face, along with other emotions.

He shook his head. Alex thankfully joined him. He might have been wrong, they might have been the bones of children, but they looked too short and the wrong shape. Why would children’s bones be out here, anyway?

Something had killed the Kobolds, then. Presumably, it was still inside and they would have to fight it. Micah thought of the other monsters and didn’t like the imagery that came to mind.

They took a few steps back and conferred. What did they do? Did they just head on in? Should Jason drink his other strength potion?

Micah advised him not to. There was no golden sheen. This seemed more like the room the large golem they had fought would be in. A single, strong monster protecting a treasure chest.

Emphasis on strong.

In the end, they simply ate fire resistance portions, ducked in, and looked around. The moment they turned left, they saw all they needed to.

In the corner of the ceiling, long feelers reached out of a hole like a missing chunk of stone. They were half his size and the hole dark until metallic black mandibles reached out. A giant centipede followed.

Alex shot a gleaming arrow before it even stepped into the light and pierced its carapace.

Micah frowned at him as he pulled back his own shot. “Are you enchanting those or what?”

“Really?” Alex asked as he nocked another. “You ask that now?”

He didn’t see the problem. That centipede was maybe twice the size of a Tree Rotter. It had nothing on Maria. The little black ones that trailed out after it might have been more of a problem. Its brood.

This close, none of them had troubles hitting. Even Brent and Kyle threw weapons, though the latter was the only one whose bounced off the hard shell. He scowled and spread out.

Why was it so shiny, though? Micah’s shots barely made any cracks. It was tough. That was good.

Ryan was the first to abandon his bow. He drew his spear in time to parry a sudden lunge, jumped to the side, and stabbed it with a burning tip. He didn’t have much more luck than them.

Micah maimed one of its brood before he stuck the slingshot in his belt and drew his sword.

The beast twisted to chase his friend into the corner—that wasn’t a problem. Ryan could get out if he had to. The problem was, they needed to find a way to hurt it. Their melee fighters got to hacking at its legs and found those more vulnerable. Almost every other strike took off a limb or maimed them. The bursting legs tore wounds into the carapace.

Far too soon, the beast had enough and lashed out, twisting its body like a ribbon. The effect was weakened by its missing limbs but it still caught Brent and Micah and threw them back.

Kyle had slammed a red hatchet into its side and held on. The twist dragged him along the floor on his feet. When it stopped, he simply yanked the weapon out and continued hacking.

The brood tried to defend their mother, but they were little more than the beasts they had fought these last few days. Micah cut or dissolved them in splashes of water.

After the first to burst that way, Brent called, “What the hell was that?”

“Alchemy!”

Ryan found himself in the middle of the beast’s coil, slapping pincers, bites, and legs aside. He blocked a slow monster half his size with ease. When it tried to constrict him, he thrust his spear into a wound and leveraged it to leap up. A crouch, skip, jump, and he was free.

He swiped the tip along its shell, tearing a burning glance into its back. When he landed, he spun and thrust along it, deepening the wound.

Micah targeted that.

“[Condense Water]. [Infusion].”

The water splashed onto its shell and ran down its sides, taking on a sheen of liquid metal like quicksilver, with the barest hint of a blue glow around the edges. He understood, then.

It had eaten Kobolds, but not the Firescales.

The metal-essence enhanced carapace might have put up a challenge for those who traveled this floor, but it wasn’t enough for them.

The beast recoiled. It tried to lash out and Kyle repeated his trick. Micah backed off, but the guy pulled himself up and started hacking into the wound they’d made, slowly severing the segment in half.

It climbed up the wall, tried to stretch back, and bite him. An arrow, iron ball, and a splash of water hit it in the face and Micah said, “[Infusion].”

Not even half a second later, Kyle whirled around and brought his hatchet across its maw. A trail of essence shot into the room like gaseous blood. He took the hatchet in both hands and brought it back the other way, cutting off one of its pincers. It hit its own carapace, tumbled to the ground, and burst.

I wouldn’t have needed the help, the maneuver said.

Micah didn’t care. He cut through legs, blocking those that tried to strike back. Brent had taken care of the brood and was doing the same, using his blades like machetes. It wasn’t long before they fled. Wounded and down far too many legs, the beast toppled to the ground.

A single strike to the neck from Kyle brought it to its end.

When the smoke cleared, Micah caught his breath with a hand covering his mouth and looked around.

Brent said what they were all thinking: “Well, that was disappointing.”

Seriously. One or two of them could have killed that thing on their own. It would have taken a little while longer, but still.

To the second floor they had come and it was the second floor that had challenged them.

Micah paced and collected loot, trying to wrap his head around it.

Why had it been so slow? A side-effect of the metal essence? Why even go through the trouble then, if its legs were left vulnerable? Had it been faster, it would have been far more dangerous. Like a snake. Micah was a climber, but he wouldn’t want to get anywhere near an ordinary snake. One bite, his leg might swell from poison. He’d be in the middle of nowhere without the ability to walk.

Size, he realized, isn’t doing most monsters any favors. Being unmade didn’t, either. They didn’t have “true” poison. They had essence that mimicked the effect. A simple wasp’s nest was probably more of a challenge to most climbers than many others. Even with a [Mage] who could cast [Firebolt], bees were fast. Their stingers stung, as stingers tended to do.

The Tower sucked. Everything sucked. Micah hated it.

Jason, their spelunker, was already climbing up the wall into the hole the beast had crawled out from.

“Guys!” he called. “Treasure!”

Micah tried not to smile when he heard that, or when he saw the dusty old chest he dragged from the rubble. He might have failed a little bit.

Jason passed it down to Ryan, who opened it up.

He rushed over. “And? What’s inside?”

“A cape,” Ryan said as he held it up. A charcoal cape was the only item in the chest. It gleamed a little as he moved it, like a blade in light.

Brent slapped Micah on the back firm enough to make him stumble. “And? Anything register on your weird sight?”

“Yeah.”

He did a double-take. “What, really?”

“That thing’s covered in metal essence.”

Ryan frowned and shook it out. “Still seems like a normal cape to me?”

Jason hopped down and dusted off his gloves. “Does that mean it has the properties of cloth and metal?” He still sounded excited, somehow.

“It’s probably some kind of durability enchantment,” Micah told him and frowned. He felt like he was forgetting something.

Alex stepped up with an armful of crystals and said, “Hey, [Alchemist]. Don’t you want those bones back there?”

“Bones?” He frowned and looked back. Why was he asking? Of course, he would want the—

“Bones!” He rushed over and started picking them up one by one, first in a bundle under his arm, then a pile against his chest. All the while, he gave them a curious once-over. Each of these could be a future ingredient. He wondered which potions he could use them in.

“Is that all there is to this place?” Brent asked. “A big crystal, six small ones, a cape, and some dusty old bones?”

“Don’t forget the chest itself,” Alex said.

They glanced at it. It didn’t look like it would be worth anything. Kyle brought his axe down.

“Everyone look around,” Ryan called over the noise, already heading toward the exit. “See if you can find anything else before we leave.”

Jason said there were still a few crystals in the centipede’s hidey-hole. He climbed back up, now with a cape pinned to his shoulders.

Well, that’s just ridiculous, Micah thought when he saw it flutter. Ridiculously impractical. He could get how it could be useful for comfort, but for fighting? It would billow when he ran, distract, get caught in arms, and not even protect like it’s enchantment implied it should.

“Maybe you can make a shirt out of it or something?” he suggested when they walked back up the hill. They hadn’t found anything, even after scouting the second floor, though they hadn’t gone far.

Jason gave him a confused look. “But I like it this way?”

“Oh?”

He was beginning to understand what Lisa had meant about [Adventurers]. And then he understood that he was the one in a bad mood. Capes were awesome. An enchanted one? That alone was worth the fight. It was a lucky find, the type of thing you could have for years and feel giddy about when you saw. So why was he digging at Jason so much, if only in his head?

Why didn’t he feel giddy?

Why hadn’t they found another guardian yet after waking up early and running around for seven hours in this ridiculous heat?

It wasn’t just impatience, Micah was getting anxious. How many guardians were they expected to find for a perfect grade? How many had their peers found already? What about Lisa and Annebeth? Had they wasted too much time today? Or yesterday? What if yesterday hadn’t been so great after all? What if they were actually really far behind? How would they know?

They needed to do their best. Anything less and the wouldn’t know for sure. But the stupid Tower wasn’t giving them any opportunities to.

A quick glance at his watch showed him it was early afternoon. The moment they rounded the hill’s corner, he took the lead and kept his eyes peeled for any golden sheens in the distance.

They only found more railroads, a minecart, and some camps of runaways. They were definitely the ones from the mine yesterday. He didn’t know how, but he was sure. They followed the ever longer-growing tracks to dead-ends, defeated the Kobolds, and plundered crystals.

Then they did it all over again.

After the third time, they started ignoring the tracks in the hopes that stepping off the beaten path would help. It didn’t. All they found were halls scarcely more populated than the floor they had climbed up from. He was beginning to think this was just the direct successor to it. Third floor Lost Mines, instead of something new.

It was middle of the afternoon when Alex and Brent slowed down and called for them to take a break.

“But we haven’t found anything yet,” Micah said.

“Yeah, but we’re hungry. You are, too. I’ve heard your stomach growl more times than I have mine. We have to eat.”

“I can eat a climbing cookie.”

“Brent needs to prepare more fire resistance packs. We need to boil water to top up our supplíes.”

“And some us kind of need a break,” Brent added. “I have [Lesser Constitution], but it’s no [Lesser Endurance] or weather resistance.”

So? Micah was … also tired. Exhausted, really. They had slowed and he hadn’t even noticed it for the longest while. The heat wore on him. But he didn’t have those Skills, either, and he could still go on. If they had to keep it up, so be it. Alex only had [Lesser Strength] and he looked fine. Kyle … Micah wasn’t sure what Kyle had. Like the rest of them, he was soaked in sweat, but he looked fine, too.

“A break would help,” Ryan said. “We could go at a faster pace afterward and we would be better equipped to deal with whatever is coming.”

Assuming something was coming.

“But— I just want to check out the area?” Micah pleaded. “Please?” He wanted to feel like he was doing something.

“I’ll go with him?” Kyle asked. He had a hand raised casually, leaning against the wall across from them.

Ryan looked over. “What?”

“I’ll go. I want to look around, too. Move my legs. We do vine-checks, but we might be walking by something one tunnel further down without even noticing.”

“We all need a break,” Alex reminded him.

That includes you two.

Kyle nodded. “Yeah. So we’ll be slow and careful and all that good stuff. Going from top to zero in a minute isn’t good for your … what was it? Circulation, you said?” He glanced at Ryan. “So we’ll just ‘walk it off’. It’ll take a while for you to boil the water anyway, right?”

He looked at Brent.

“Yeah?”

“I don’t think—” Ryan began.

“Relax,” Kyle said. “I’ll take good care of him.” He sounded sarcastic as always, but Micah would take what he could get.

“See?” he said. “Kyle is restless, too. We can just do a slow loop around the area and come back for food and water. And if we don’t find anything, we can take a break and catch our breath.”

“You want to go?” Ryan asked him.

Micah nodded. “We won’t be gone long. Ten, fifteen minutes?” He glanced at him for confirmation.

“Sure.” Kyle glanced at Ryan. “No harm, no foul, right?”

“Screw you.”

“So we declare this ‘camp’?” Alex already moved on.

“Yep,” Brent said. “But then we’re going to treat it as camp, too. Half an hour break, at least. I’ll make some food and water. Don’t you dare get yourself killed, okay?”

Micah smiled. “This floor couldn’t kill me even if it wanted to.”

Kyle pointed. “What he said.”

“Why would you even tempt that?”

Because he wanted what came after.

Micah left with a small smile and most of his things behind. The moment they were out of earshot, Kyle opened his mouth to say something. Micah shushed him quietly. He frowned but went along. The moment they were out of Ryan’s earshot, Micah sighed and said, “Thank you.”

“No problem? I figured you needed some time away from the missus.”

“The who?”

“The missus? You know, ‘cause you’ve looked like a dog ready to bite through its own leash all day.”

He sounded like he was making a joke.

“Uhm, thank you?” Micah asked. “I’m assuming that was a compliment. I have no idea what you’re talking about, though.”

Kyle rolled his eyes. “Sure you don’t. I mean Ryan.”

“Why not just say Ryan, then?” He called the others by their last names, too, Micah knew, which wasn’t as bad, but Kyle seemed weird about it. “What’s your problem with him anyway?”

He shrugged. “No problem. I just know his type.”

“His type?” Micah asked, thinking he was going to regret coming out here already.

“Relax,” Kyle said. “I’m talking about him being mommy and daddy’s little lower-class overachiever. Let me guess, he’s always tried to be perfect, never acted out in his life, never done anything that he wants to do?”

Micah had absolutely no freaking idea what he was on about. Of course, Ryan had done things he wanted to do. His parents wouldn’t have wanted him to become a climber, after all. And he bet he had acted out before, too. With friends like Finn and Lang, it was hard not to.

Right, he remembered. It suddenly made sense. Kyle’s an idiot. He shook his head and listened to him dig himself an early grave.

“And I bet they weren’t too happy about you, too, were they?” he went on.

Micah shrugged. Was that supposed to make sense?

“But if he makes a mistake, he immediately gets angry and tries to blame others?” He glanced at him. “No? Then he beats himself up over it. Oh, right, he would beat himself up over it.”

This time, he was having a little more troubles ignoring him. Ryan just … had high standards for himself, that was all. “What’s your point?”

“No point. And no offense meant, either. I’m just saying, I know his type and I don’t like that about him.”

“Well, you can stop? ‘Cause you’re wrong. And you’re making an ass out of you and him.”

“Am I now?”

“Yeah. Ryan could do whatever the hell he wanted to and his parents would be supportive,” Micah told him, starting out strong. “And theyloveme.” The last bit came out as a mumble, if anything at all.

Kyle cupped a hand to his ear. “Come again?”

“Screw you, [Lumberjack].”

He winced. “So close. I’m surprised, though. You think they really honestly like you?” He sounded curious.

“I know it,” Micah told him. He wasn’t going to let Kyle make him doubt that. “It’s my parents that don’t like him.”

“Ah.”

He brought his backpack around, got something out, and held the red glove out. If they were going to be asking questions, Micah had a few of his own. “Why don’t you wear this?”

He glanced over. “Not sure it will fit. Not sure what it does. Not sure how it’ll grip. Not sure if I’ll have the privacy to switch. Not sure if it’ll last. Not sure if it’ll sell as well if it doesn’t. Not sure if I’d get to keep it if it does, with this whole team business going on. Do you get my drift?”

He was already putting it away.

“Besides, I like my current one better. It has sentimental value.”

He could see that. It looked like it’d had that value for a while, now.

“So what’s under your glove anyway?”

“An ugly rash. It’s been bugging me for a while.”

“And the axe?” Of course, he wouldn’t get a straight answer. “Have you figured out what it does yet?”

“Nope.”

In the corner of his eye, he spotted a Teacup Salamander crawl into view. He drew a knife and slipped his grip to its edge. A quick glance and he impaled it. It didn’t die, but they were headed that way anyway.

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t know how.”

Micah almost missed a step. He blinked and changed tracks, “What do you mean, ‘you don’t know how’?”

“I figure most items need mana to work, yeah? Or there’s some other process of figuring out what they do? I don’t know either.”

“You don’t know … how to move mana?”

“Nope. Or barely. I’ve tried every now and then; mostly gives me headaches.”

“What—?”

He pushed his shoulders up. “I never learned.”

Right, Micah realized. He’d skipped bootcamp. “Didn’t they teach you how where you went before? Don’t you know any spells?”

“No and no.”

When he brought his shoulders back down, Kyle threw a second knife that killed the beast.

Micah furrowed his brows. “Don’t steal my kill. It’s poor form.” He headed over to pick up their knives.

“You would think that, wouldn’t you?”

He was getting really tired to this weird subtext thing Kyle was trying to do. Why couldn’t he just say what he meant? He groaned and asked, “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

Kyle gave him a look. This time, it seemed more serious. “Just what I said. It’s why I thought you might want to get away from the others. To let off some steam? You seemed frustrated.”

He sounded like he was accusing him of something.

“I am,” Micah said. “Frustrated. And I let off steam in the Tower just like everyone else does.”

He saw a Teacup Salamander crawling along the wall and decided to do just that. Kyle’s knife to bring it down from the wall. He hit it with the butt end, but that didn’t matter right now. Poor form for poor form. He walked up and knelt to finish it off.

“Do you, though?”

He sighed. “Kyle. Say what you want to say or I’ll give you your knife back. You won’t like the result.”

“You should be careful with promises you can’t keep. It’s exactly the kind of two-faced behavior I’m talking about.” Micah spun around and he quickly raised his hands. “Again, ‘not trying to get a rise out of you. I genuinely thought you might want to let off some steam. And I genuinely didn’t think you would be so stubborn.”

“How am I being stubborn? You’re the one talking in riddles.”

“And you’re the one who said he wanted to do sparring matches to build trust and then treated them like a game,” Kyle threw back.

Finally, Micah thought, something concrete. It still caught him off-guard. Treating them like a game? Micah had honestly been gauging how good the others were back then. He told Kyle as much.

“Yeah, but you didn’t let them gauge you. You were too busy keeping up your stupid act.”

“Act?”

“Being all nice, and friendly, and curious, like a kid, when we all know you aren’t that. I’ve seen you fight.”

“[Savagery],” Micah realized. “That’s what this is about.”

“Yeah.” He walked over. “First Skill from your Path? I may not have skipped two grades, but I can read books. It seemed ridiculous to me that you would be ashamed of that of all things. The only other explanation is that you’re hiding the Skill on purpose. To get an edge?”

“No.”

Kyle stopped walking. One word, an honest tone, and Micah had taken the wind out of his sails.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s idiotic.”

Was it?

[Savagery] had saved his life more times than Micah could count. It let him think when he hadn’t been able to. It helped him follow those thoughts, protect others, and get the job done.

And yet, why didn’t he want anyone to know about it?

“If you want to let loose away from the others—” Kyle offered.

Micah chuckled. ‘Let loose’. How old was he? Five?

“—you can,” he went on. “No judgment here. That’s all I wanted to say.”

Micah flipped the knife around and held it out to him. “It’s not an act. And thank you for the offer, but no thanks.”

He took it.

“But,” Micah added, “you could have just said that from the start, instead of insulting my— my best friend”—Ryan technically was, even if Lang was his—”his parents, and then me, like a freaking gossip.”

He didn’t get an apology. Kyle just rolled his eyes again and threw the knife down the tunnel, presumably at another enemy.

As he stalked after it, Micah considered something for a moment. He was pretty sure about what he said next, “You know if you want to be two-faced like that, Kyle, you can be. Nobody’s stopping you.”

The guy paused for a beat and moved on.

He raised his voice to make sure it would come across as a joke, “You could smile every once in a while! Not to mock others. Or … you could tell me why you always wear a glove?”

“To do this.”

Kyle flipped him off. With the glove. Because of course, he did.

Only Alex and Brent were at their camp when they got back, their [Cook] crouched near the fire and the [Guard] keeping watch.

“Where are the others?” Micah asked. “Ryan and Jason?”

“They went scouting,” Alex answered.

Of course, they did.

Micah practically collapsed against a wall a good distance away from the fire. He didn’t need the extra heat. The tunnels were warm enough. He looked up, closed his eyes, and cast [Condense Water] over himself to try and cool off.

He was exhausted. And that felt great. He shook his head and wiped his eyes to see with a smile.

The others were looking at him.

“What?”

“I could actually go for some of that,” Brent said.

Micah raised a hand in offer and he walked over. He did it again for him and the guy copied him with a smile.

“That’s cold.”

In comparison, probably.

“How long until the food is done? And did you boil any water yet?”

“Oh, so now you want food?”

“Yes, please.”

“Gimme’ a minute. And the water is done, but fair warning, it was pretty expensive. I think we’re headed out of humid territory.”

“Huh.”

He ate another vitality gummy. Those gave him life.

Food was the same as yesterday, grilled Teacup Salamander with spices, sauce, and whatever side dishes they had at hand. Time was limited, so they had to start without Ryan and Jason.

Micah fished out a somewhat bruised apple he had brought along and bit in. The sour taste matched the meat perfectly and he melted a little against the rough rocks in his damp clothes.

Maybe he had needed a break.

“Good?” Brent asked.

“Mhm.”

Jason practically tripped around the corner with wide eyes as he ran to them. At first, Micah thought it was because he had smelled the food. It had attracted its fair share of monsters Alex had to shoot down.

But then he saw that same longing shimmer in his eyes from earlier and Ryan jogged up behind him, looking excited himself.

Something was up.

“Guys!” Jason called, catching his breath as he steadied himself against his knees.

Micah chewed as quickly as he could.

“We found another guardian room!”

He almost choked on the food and thumped his chest to get it down. Kyle and he had found zilch. How had they?

“Where?” he asked with a hurting throat, already getting up.

“North-West, in a tunnel with a bunch of fancy engravings of scales and monsters, and all sorts of things. It’s really cool. We should definitely copy them. Do you think we’d have enough paper to do an indent copy?”

“It’s at the top of stairs,” Ryan clarified, thankfully staying on track, “leading up to the fourth floor.”

Micah remembered running up a flight of stairs with a river of flowers and water trailing behind him, Ryan wrenching his shield off at his side. His blood was racing. He forgot all about the break.

This was it. Their opportunity.