He shot down a few small monsters by the time they found him, and they did not look happy.

“Micah!” Lisa called.

“Where the fuck is Payne?!” Kyle added. “And why the hell didn’t you two wait for us? We’ve been looking all over for you.”

Micah hung his head with another sigh and didn’t answer right away. He waited so he wouldn’t have to shout like he was holding a presentation and looked up to make sure they would actually listen if he spoke. Because if they didn’t, he didn’t know if he would speak at all.

Thankfully, they were paying attention. All eyes on him. The modicum of relief he got from that thought felt weird tied with his discomfort and guilt. You weren’t supposed to want attention.

“Ryan heard something,” he said, “and he ran off to go check it out. I chased after him and we found another group of climbers.”

“Wait, there’s another group here?” Lea asked. “Who?”

He shook his head before he remembered he was supposed to be ignoring her, but then it was too late. “They’re from another school.”

“Where’s Ryan now?”

“When I caught up, he ditched me again so when he found me with the others, I ditched him to go find you. He knows at least one of them from scout camp, Parker, so he’s being all chummy with them.”

Kyle’s angry expression gave way to something closer to worry. When he got close, he held an arm out and Micah pulled himself up with his thanks. It was easy, [Surging Strength] and all, but the moment he stood he had to lean on the guy for a second to find his bearings.

“You guys ditched each other?” he mumbled.

“Why didn’t you wait?” Lisa asked.

“Ryan ran off first, not me. I followed because— Well, I wasn’t going to let him go off on his own.”

“Okay, so why did he run off on his own?” She seemed just as upset as he was about the idea.

“I don’t know—” Micah started.

“You know him best.”

He paused, taking that in, and shoved his doubts aside. He tried to remember his face right before he’d left, the way he had shaken his head, and what they had been talking about.

“The first time … he seemed annoyed by us taking so long to deliberate? I don’t think he was confident he could convince us. It might have been a gut feeling. He gets those sometimes, like when—”

He ran off to save me. Right, he had run off without communicating back then, either, from what Micah had heard of the story.

The thought was somehow reassuring because it meant Ryan hadn’t changed after all and this was just … another hang-up, like how he sucked at remembering names or his shaky self-confidence.

He was impulsive when he acted on a gut feeling? That actually sounded heroic to him. Weren’t heroes in stories always running off to do something crazy? Maybe that was where he got it from.

But it was also somehow upsetting because he shouldn’t have any hang-ups at all and because he had saved Micah back then and now, here Micah was gossiping about him behind his back.

He needed to get his thoughts in order and stop acting so childish.

“Look, he was just in a hurry,” Micah said and rubbed his arm awkwardly. He looked at the others and bowed his head a fraction as he apologized, “I’m sorry. I should have made sure you knew where we were going, not wasted time and resources trying to keep up with a scout.”

“It would have been a good place to start,” Lisa said like that was only the start of the things they could have done better.

“I know, I’ve just … been in a bad mood lately. With the exam, these itching darts, the mud, and the long day, and having to do well for that party, and Lea, uhm— I really am sorry.”

Micah had heard the story, he knew Ryan best, he should have known what he would do. Ryan hadn’t screwed up, he had.

Lea scowled and stepped away.

“Well, it’s your evaluation that’s going to take a hit for this stunt, not ours,” Lisa said to cheer him up. He would lose at least one point over this since he’d broken the rules without question. “But it just means we know you won’t do it again, right? So we won’t have to worry about it.”

If they broke a rule once or twice, their scores took the hit for it. If they did it too often, the entire team did.

“Can we see this team you found, now?” Jason spoke up for the first time. He inched down the tunnel and gestured ahead.

Micah nearly jumped. “Oh, yeah. Of course.” He had to lead the way. He wished he could have shouted the directions from behind like Lisa, but then it was too late. He limped a few steps until his leg woke up.

“So what happened the second time?” Lisa asked as she joined him. “You said when he left you the first time, so there must have been a second time?”

“Oh, that.” He chuckled. “He probably heard something and ran off like a stupid dog into high grass. I must have missed his signal.” He was half-joking, but it had to be what had happened. Nothing else made sense.

“Are you okay?” Kyle asked.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m just tired, is all. I’m not injured.” At least, not any more than he had been before.

“No, I meant—” he scoffed and said, “Nevermind. I shouldn’t have asked. But scout camp. Seriously? Like where you bake cookies, and learn how to whittle, knot, and sing around the campfire in stupid uniforms?”

“What? No. It’s wilderness survival training. I think.”

“You think?”

“I’m not a [Scout]. I’ve never been. I only hear the stories. Ryan went last summer and it’s where he got his Class. He’s going again this time and hoping for [Ranger].”

He expected some kind of grunt or rebuttal but instead, Kyle only gave him another worried look.

Why? Was he walking too slow again? No, they were making good time. Micah was about to reassure him when Kyle shook his head and hung back.

When they turned the corner, more of Lisa’s lizards ran up along the walls and waited for her to collect them.

It wasn’t long before they found the other group again, and they had doubled in size. Aside from Silas and Parker, and Ryan sat on the ground, there was a guy with an ax and shield, one with shield and spear like Ryan, and another [Scout] by the looks of his bow.

Although, the ax dude also had an unstrung bow on his back, and … Wait, are they all [Scouts]?

“Great,” Kyle said, “he’s asleep. Because of course, he’s asleep so we can’t chew him out.”

The other group looked over and as they walked up, Micah realized their own team hadn’t greeted them yet and none of them were about to.

“Hey,” he called at the same time as Jason called, “Ho, comrades.” Neither of them were loud enough to speak over the other or cut each other off, but Micah still shut up and let him do the talking.

It freed him up to watch their reactions. Ryan sat with his legs crossed next to the Salamander, one hand on its burning scales. Despite his eyes being closed, he still ran it along its side to feel its texture and heat.

It didn’t seem to be doing so well itself, despite the absence of the poison cloud. Light leaked from countless small wounds and a few big ones. Over time, that was enough to wear it down.

Curiously, the guy with the axe was inspecting the glue and foam Micah had layered on it.

But the entire other team shifted and tensed ever so slightly when they called out, on guard. They were also in an exam, he remembered, and they could have been worried about any number of things, the least of which would be the hassle of recording their encounter on a report.

“Hey, comrades,” Silas answered and walked up to shake Jason’s hand. The two introduced themselves and he added, “Have you lost one of your own?”

“Yeah. I see he’s—”

Kyle kicked Ryan in the shoulder, lightly, surprising Jason and pushing the guy out of his meditation pose.

Micah resisted the urge to tackle him again.

It took Ryan another half-second where he tipped over before he came to and caught himself, then snapped up at him, “What the hell, Kyle?”

“You ran off on us! Now is not the time to reward you with a new Skill.”

“What? I wasn’t going to get a new Skill, idiot, I have to—“

“I don’t care—”

“—familiarize myself—”

“Shut up—”

“—with—”

“Shut it. Shush. Ah. Ah!”

Ryan stared at him for a second, then opened his mouth to say something, but Kyle jerked as if he was going to interrupt again, so he stopped and looked around. He seemed to catch on.

“I’m sorry.”

“That’s what we wanted to hear.”

“I’m sorry,” Ryan repeated with a sigh and pushed himself up. “I heard something and wasn’t sure what it was, but I thought it might be important to check out, as our [Scout]. We were already running short on time but trust me, it was a good thing I did.”

“Oh, you’re so full of shit,” Kyle said. “Why? So we can waste more time with chit-chat here?”

“No. Parker, can you tell them …?”

“Better,” he said, “we can show you.”

Micah thought of an ant hive, a bustling market, or just ‘camp’ because that was what it was.

The Kobolds had put the smaller piles of rocks their team had used to overfeed the slime into a giant mound, the drop-off point above it being the only one that was active, and they sifted through with dexterous claws.

They turned the rocks over, broke, or chiseled off the pieces they did not need and tossed them on another pile around one of the fencing pillars, likely to be used in traps. The smaller, more manageable cores were passed down in a chain to be placed in battered-up treasure chests.

A pair of Firescale Kobolds dragged one of those away to two pillars over where the pens were and tossed chunks at the Teacups.

Just one pair of pillars over, at least three true Salamanders lazed in piles of them to keep warm. There could have been more, but Micah couldn’t see behind the pillar from this angle.

Wrapped around the pillar, though, was a much larger specimen, easily half again the size it should have been, the size the last one they had fought had been.

Guardian.

Had it migrated? Over from the surface mine to the Summoner’s pit … If Guardians began to work together, that was a bad omen. The overprotective voices in the city were already scared for climber safety, especially children’s, because while the new first and second floors were actually supposed to be safer than the old first floor had been—Micah didn’t know for sure; he had never been—it was things like those that threw the evaluation off.

Sure, you could tell kids to stay near the entrance and avoid the golden screens, but they would also learn there were treasure and challenges that could help them level behind those screens. Would they listen?

And there were also Hidden, Floor, and Wandering Guardians that did not have those screens to warn people, like the Golem they had fought guarding the stairs up to the tenth floor.

Then there were true monstrosities, like Maria’s surviving kin, on that floor itself. They and monsters like them stonewalled climbers from climbing any higher despite nothing on the floors immediately above them being half as bad as they themselves.

He supposed they had been named Guardians for a reason. They were like warning signs, except they killed more climbers on their own than anything else.

Micah needed to kill one of them someday to feel good about himself again.

The image of the camp winked out for a second and the liquid in the bowl rippled a bit before the curtains lifted again—their spy had blinked.

Micah crowded a little closer.

It was hard to see not just because everyone else was crowded close, but because the chamber itself was dim. It should have been brighter than this. Micah remembered light, but it seemed like the many, many objects and moving bodies inside the space blotted the light out … which implied the seemingly sourceless light actually could be somehow blotted out.

The paved stone was barely recognizable underneath the layers of caked dirt, rubble, and the dried tracks of Kobolds who had walked through mud. Even the pillars were filthy as the thick dust in the stagnant, humid air clung to every surface. It was worse near the tunnels the Kobolds had added.

Only the center had been somewhat spared, where the ritual circle was drawn, but he got the sense it was less because they cleaned and more that the Summoner whacked those who tried to drag mud in.

To the left, crafting stations extended halfway into the chamber and halfway into the connecting tunnels but still took up a third of the space.

Sticks were whittled, sharpened, or fitted with stone tips; monster bones lain out on stones and smacked to break off shards for darts; ropes woven and tied; fur stripped off dead Cavern Prowlers and rolled into tiny balls; crystals cut from corpses, then sorted by type or fitted onto staves for mages; and poisons were harvested from captured insects or Teacup Salamanders.

Micah so badly wanted to stand over their shoulders and watch them work, then, but knew the entire camp would fall on him if he were anywhere close to it.

Firescale Kobolds showed up again and collected a few key crystals from the various piles and he wondered, Why those? He wasn’t even sure which ones they were because he was seeing a depiction of someone else’s sight through some kind of light spell and it was in the corner of its eyes.

Part of him wished someone could do that with him to show others a glimpse of what he saw.

Luckily, their spy liked to focus on the things that moved and caught on the Kobolds when they left and set the crystals down at key points within the circle. He could watch them do it.

They were mostly metallic and chitin crystals from the centipedes, but … there were also a few metallic ones with blue hues to their sheens in spots—tan Kobold crystals. They were in a pile just the same as the other ones, though, and there weren’t many of them so he didn’t think they ritually sacrificed their own. Maybe they just … didn’t waste the ones they found?

But when a Kobold moved to the upper end of the circle, so did their spy’s eyes, and the last area in the chamber fell into view.

Micah had seen it in the corner of the image before but it had been vague and distant. Now he could see it clearly.

There was a … throne. Sort of. It was less a high chair more a wooden platform that had been constructed against one of the pillars. The Summoner hadn’t sat on it yet that they could see—it seemed far too busy micro-managing everyone around it from its circle—but it was still there.

And behind and underneath it …

The only way Micah could think of it was ‘treasure hoard’. Because it was a treasure hoard.

It literally piled up: every single unused crystal, actual gemstone or ore they had mined, treasure chest, magic item, pouch, potion, and other curio the Kobolds had managed to find in a roughly ten-kilometer radius around their camp over the last few months.

More if they scouted and looted ahead of their diggers, which was likely, because that number was just their estimate on how far they had dug over that time.

When he saw and realized what it was, Micah felt … something. He hesitated to call it ‘greed’ because the word would never do the feeling justice.

He needed that treasure.

His hand almost jerked toward the bowl to reach into the liquid. His breathing picked up before he remembered [Controlled Breathing], but the others weren’t so lucky. Even Ryan and Lisa looked a little out of sorts. Jason slapped a hand on Kyle’s shoulder and he didn’t complain, he just nodded.

The other team noticed.

Thankfully, the ritual circle flashed, their spy’s attention snapped to it, and saved them for the moment.

The lines Ryan had noticed and traced during the last exam lit up with blue light and Micah’s pulse quickened for another reason.

Mana? No, they can only emulate mana, he reassured himself. That was what all the reports said.

“Your familiar can see magic?” Jason whispered, and Micah was glad for something else to focus on other than his gut.

Jean nodded. “It’s a Skill.”

“Cool.”

But rather than a slime appearing—there was no slime anywhere in the chamber—a few small items lay in the center of the circle. The Summoner raised its ornamental staff up over them, the light intensified, and the crystals and colors in the chamber smeared like paint before it all vanished.

The Kobold leaned on its staff for a second, but then caught itself and snapped mute orders.

The Firescale Kobolds rushed to the center of the circle, picked up the various items, and handed them out to a mix of others waiting at the edge. Most of the objects looked like stakes or … pitons?

Once they received theirs, the Kobolds scampered off into the tunnels but one ran to the crafting stations, grabbed a large rock, and began to scrape at it. The stone came away as easily as butter as it slowly hollowed it out: it was making another jug.

“They use those to shape stone?” Lisa asked.

“Yes,” Adrian, the spear guy, said. “They are ‘Pitons of Stone Shaping’ or some such. They have around … five of them. We’ve been trying to track the number, but we don’t know for sure.”

“We think they need mana to work, though,” Jean added and the image in the liquid went dark, “that all of the items they put in the circle do, which is interesting. They use the ritual to recharge them and run off to dig through blockages, then run back and do it all over again.”

“They work without rest that we’ve seen,” Silas said, “despite being at this for half a year.”

“You assume we know how long they’ve been at this,” Adrian said, arms crossed and leaning against the wall.

“You’ve seen how far their tunnels reach. They probably slowed down because of the distance involved that they have to run with the pitons.”

“Or just because of square-cube law on its own. I doubt they’ve had the pitons for all that long.”

“Why—”

“Uhm,” Micah spoke up, afraid to interrupt, but also afraid to ask in general, “how long do you think they have been at this?”

He shrugged. “Months? Ever since the beginning of the changes? A little while after, when the Kobold Summoner managed to make contact with the mining camp?”

“How do you figure?” Ryan asked him.

“You see,” Jean spoke up, “our Tower Studies teacher is obsessed with the changes, like everyone else, and she noticed a pattern. We were pretty ‘unhappy’ with the restrictions placed on students, so when she went off on another tangent in class and we happened to be listening—”

Silas cleared his throat.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Silas was listening,” he corrected himself, “he realized it could solve all our problems at once.”

“What pattern?”

“Haven’t you caught on yet?” Parker smirked. “Kobolds have been feeding Teacup Salamanders to make them grow bigger, some monsters have been seen bathing in water once a day as if they were going through the motions of drinking, some actually have been drinking and eating crystals, magic fruit, or other monsters they hunt down from other floors or areas.

Then there’s this—” He gestured around them at all the trapped tunnels the Kobolds had built and were still building.

“Are you,” Micah started but couldn’t really finish the thought at first, “are you saying we’re going to have to cull them?”

He nodded. “Expansion. Growth. It’s a new pattern people have been noticing. If left unattended, the new Tower grows on its own.”

“At least, we’re trying to gather evidence for that to earn bonus points with our Tower Studies teacher,” Silas said.

“And to shove in the city officials’ faces,” Adrian grumbled. “The longer they insist on restricting access to the Tower, the more dangerous it will become.”

“That’s awesome,” Jason said, the exact opposite of what Micah thought because he was still caught on his answer. “How did you guys even find this place, then?”

“We asked? One of our teachers is a guide. We asked him nicely if he could send us to the most deserted place he could sense.”

“Oh. Cool.”

“Dammit,” Lisa said, “why don’t we have something like that? We could be helping so much more with getting ourselves access.”

“It’s not like we knew,” Lea mumbled.

“Screw that,” she scoffed and paced back a few steps.

“It is a rather new idea,” Silas admitted, “we heard about it a few weeks ago. They’re still gathering evidence to publish initial essays, I think.”

They began to lose themselves in the discussion, and while it was exactly the type of thing Micah would have loved to join in on, to distract himself with—just thinking of the ramifications made his head spin—he wandered back instead and mumbled, “Lisa?”

Something about his voice must have tipped her off, because while she hesitated at first, clearly distracted herself, her attention snapped to him a second later.

It wasn’t like his voice was shaking or he had to keep it from cracking—aside from the few times it cracked on its own, embarrassingly enough, though it was thankfully happening less and less—but he might have been headed in that direction.

“Monsters aren’t alive, right?” He looked her in the eyes. “They can’t feel, they don’t have spirits, or functioning brains, or … or souls?”

She had looked worried at first, but the last bit cracked her up. “No, they definitely do not have souls, Micah. Not even every person has a soul—”

“What?”

She hesitated, looking awkward, and then said, “That may be one of those things I can never prove. It’s just something my uncle mentioned once, that there are only so many souls to go around. But nevermind that.” She shook her head. “They don’t have spirits, either. I can prove that. And they aren’t …” She sighed and seemed to struggle for the word for a moment. “They’re constructs, Micah. They exist in such a way that if ‘A’ thing happens, they do ‘B’. They could not stop to consider why they do ‘B’ and choose to do something else of their own free will.”

“Are you sure?”

He needed for her to be sure. Not because he wouldn’t fight them if she wasn’t. He was pretty sure he would kill monsters even if they were a little sapient if it meant he could protect his friends. Just, he would also look for alternatives.

She nodded. “For example, one reaction that exists in almost all of them is, ‘If you see a person, try to kill it.’ Have you ever seen a monster that didn’t try to kill you?”

It sounded like a rhetorical question. He considered. “Some of the bugs and smaller critters? Some that run away? Oh, or the rat that stole from us? The Kobolds that stole from us?”

She shoved him lightly. “Be serious. They’re just trying to kill you and be smart about it.”

He considered again and answered, “Maria?”

“Huh?”

“It wasn’t smart about it. It could have killed me with one slap. Literally. But it insisted on trying to drown me instead and only hurt Ryan when he tried to save me.” Again.

“Yeah. That. Some monsters are … weird. But in the end, all of them try to achieve the same thing because that’s how they’re built.”

“What about Sam?” he asked because he had to be sure. “It’s a construct and you’re trying to make it grow a spirit. Could the Kobold not have grown one?”

If ‘growth’ was a new theme of the Tower changes, then that sounded like it could be part of it.

She rolled her eyes. “Theoretically? Yes. But that is so much more complicated than you think—”

“Why?”

“Because not all spirits are the same, just like not all lifeforms are the same. Would you think grass makes something sapient?” She smiled.

“Well, no but …”

“Even if it had grown a spirit,” she went on, “it would not somehow elevate its status into sapience or make it holy.”

He frowned. “You always tell us to treat spirits with respect?”

“That’s different—”

“Why?”

“Because one needs a body to survive and the other can make a body of its own on a whim, one that can squash yours.”

He could … see the difference. It made him wonder, though. “Where are our spirits on that scale?”

She glanced at him and chose her words for a moment, which immediately told him she wouldn’t tell him the whole truth.

He sighed. “It’s fine. I’m just curious.” The word seemed to insufficient to him because at that moment he would have loved to do nothing more than sit down with her and ask ‘why’ over and over again forever.

“But uhm,” he said instead and scuffed the ground with his boot, awkward, “I know you grew tired of teaching me, and you want to teach me that other stuff first so I don’t hurt myself, but uhm … could you show me how to know whether something has a spirit or not? Not that I don’t trust you, just so … I can trust myself?”

It sounded like such a weird thing to say, a stupid thing to ask, but she smiled. She sighed, yes, but there was also a smile.

“Yes, I can do that.”

“Thank you, Lisa.”

“You are welcome.”

Small assurances. That was all he needed to put the questions to rest for now. And something else to distract him.

He turned to the others just as Kyle snapped his finger in their faces.

“Hey!”

He had complained when the [Witch] had poured that dark liquid into the bowl, shut up once the spell had taken hold, and been quiet since, but now it seemed like his patience had worn out.

“You said there were more traps closer in?” he cut to the point. They had met up to exchange information and grab Ryan, not much else.

It wasn’t like they would socialize much. Micah still found it weird to meet other people in the Tower.

Rather, he started to wonder what kind of information they could offer them to make it a fair trade. This was all going on a report after all, if in abbreviated form.

The others looked momentarily taken aback, and some of the other team frowned at them. Silas picked it back up, “Yeah, and more tunnels. Each is trapped and the traps are more deadly.”

“Deadly how?”

“‘Collapsing a whole tunnel on you’ deadly, using different venoms on their darts, pits full of spikes hidden beneath mud, or ‘pits full of tinder with a Kobold ready to pour fire potion on you’ deadly.”

“And you know this how?”

He shrugged. “We came in nearby. We’ve been circling their camp all day, scouting the area and picking off what we can, trying to win a war of attrition while looking for a way in with Myriad, or looking for a weakness we can exploit. We actually managed—”

“It’s been difficult,” the spear guy cut in before he could say what they’d managed and took a step forward.

Micah hesitated to think of Adrian as a spear fighter, though. He had met lots of dedicated spear fighters in school, the most ‘inexperienced’ of which was Ryan, and this guy didn’t fit the bill.

“Unlike the outer areas where Kobolds go on the offense with their traps, closer to the camp ‘defense’ has been the prerogative. Each trap is manned and ready to be used.”

And they had been about to run into it nearly blind. As well as at least four fed true Salamanders, pens full of larger Teacups, and whatever number of Kobolds were stationed there.

So the ones they had been dealing with weren’t the main fighting force but … hunting groups?

All of a sudden, Micah believed in their argument. This was far more dangerous than the floor had any right to be. Their team was overqualified and overcommitted, but they were only thirty or so kilometers in. What if a group of teenagers casually hiked this far on the weekend? This wasn’t even an unpopular floor. Luck could be the only reason nobody had taken this on before.

“So we have to either overrun them, take the camp by surprise, and defend against the retreating forces or …” Kyle said frowning.

“Have a very good plan,” Ryan said.

“Dammit. I know that’s the only other option, but it sounds like something that would take a lot of time.”

“It would definitely be worth the loot.”

Micah kept an eye on them in case things escalated like they tended to do between the two, but also noticed the shifting bodies of the other team.

The slight frowns they had harbored for Kyle—and some of them for him for being so young, he assumed—deepened, they checked with each other, stood, and squared their shoulders.

“I’m sorry, I believe there has been a misunderstanding,” Adrian said, “do you want to help plan an attack for our team?”

Micah caught on immediately. He didn’t know if the others did.

“Because if you are,” he went on, “that would be a kind way to attempt to repay the information we’ve given you, but we will have to decline. We are fully capable of planning on our own.”

“What the fuck are you on about?” Kyle asked. “Didn’t you hear us? We were just headed straight for their camp.”

“We’ve been here all day,” Silas said. “First come, first serve. We have claim to this area. I mean, I thought Parker was just being an ass earlier—”

“Hey.”

He turned to Micah. “—but do you really not know about climbing rules?”

Before Micah could response, Kyle snapped, “And can you prove that?”

Was he really playing that card?

“Yeah. We can. We have extensive maps of the entire area around their camp going over multiple floors, so at the very least, we’ve been here a few hours longer than you. Any teacher would think the same.”

Kyle still looked like he wanted to complain, but their entire team gave him a look so instead, he slowly turned on Jason and glared.

Micah could guess his thoughts, even if they were stupid. ‘If we hadn’t made those maps for hours on end, we might have been here early enough.’

He believed them when they said they had been here all day. They had a familiar on the ceiling of the enemy camp spying for them.

He wanted to hiss that at Kyle to prevent him from trying to pick a fight, but he also didn’t want to show division in their ranks.

“No, you were right,” Ryan spoke up and his tone made it clear he spoke for the team, “there was a misunderstanding. We’ve all been hit by itching darts on our way here and we were too focused on kicking their asses in return to pick up what you’ve been putting down, Kyle here especially.” He slapped a hand down on his neck and shook him from side to side with a grin. “He’s not very good at picking things up.”

“Oh go fuck yourself, asshole,” Kyle said as he wrenched himself free and tried to ram his knee at him.

Abdomen or groin, Ryan jumped back and chuckled before he could hit either.

“I was just trying to be nice?” Micah offered, hoping it might move the conversation along and distract the two. Because Ryan had laid the teasing tone on a little too thick and Kyle might take it poorly.

“If you were distracted by the true Salamander, I didn’t want something to bite you in the ass because I brought it to your doorstep. But you got the crystal, right!?” he rushed to add.

He wanted to salvage the mood. The barest hint of the alternative, especially with students from another school, would be absolutely damning on any report.

“You gave them a true Salamander crystal?” Lea asked.

He suppressed a grumble and said, “In exchange for borrowing their metal net? To capture the Salamander so Ryan can meditate on it? So he can further his Path?” Kind of the entire reason he became a climber, you know? he wanted to add that but again, division in their ranks.

She actually smiled a little. “That was kind of you.”

He frowned.

“Well,” Parker grabbed their attention again, “that may well be but you’re not getting a go at this camp, so you’ll have to find your revenge elsewhere. All we wanna’ know is if you have any other information you can offer us. We thought going first would be the kind way of going about things as you’re supposed to be polite to other climbers but …”

He trailed off.

“Maybe our kindness was misplaced,” Adrian finished for him.

Parker shrugged as if to reluctantly agree with him.

Ryan kept his distance from Kyle and took two steps forward. “You really want to do this on your own?”

He smiled. “Yeah, sure.”

“Hm.”

There was a pause in the conversation then. Micah was the one to break the silence with a giant sigh of relief as he looked up and let his body sag. “Yes!”

Parker blinked. “What?”

He grinned, then realized they were all looking at him with mixed expressions and blushed instead. “Sorry.” He ducked down. “I was just relieved, is all.”

Even without his backpack and armor on, he felt like there was a giant weight bearing down on him. Like if he walked forward without pulling himself up, his limbs would just pop off and he would fall to pieces.

They had been at it all day, close to twelve hours, at a pace that was almost as bad as the one from the last exam without stamina potions, and these last two hours through the trapped tunnels had been horrible.

Micah itched everywhere underneath his clothing, because one itch made his body think he was itching somewhere else, and the feeling spread because of the heat and grime from his sweat, the dirt, and mud. He wore multiple layers in forty-plus degrees and he had been hit multiple times.

Kyle turned on him. “You don’t want to take a shot at this?”

“Hell, no.”

He had felt this way ever since he had seen their camp, not just because he worried about their intelligence, but because he had seen their camp. Some of their tunnels looked like they were held up by twigs. Micah love-hated traps but he did not love-hate traps enough to want to go into a tunnel that was held up by twigs. Nobody would.

At least, not now.

But if they had taken a shot at this, their only two options would have been to rush it, but they were low on mana and all of them exhausted—and he would have insisted he be allowed to drench himself and they drink stamina potion to force themselves through it—or to methodologically take apart their camp in the morning, which would have taken half a day at least.

Both were bad options.

Yes, the giant pile of loot might make it worth it, but the loot was too worth it. It made them stupid with greed.

This, climbing etiquette taking the choice away from them, was the perfect way out in his eyes.

“We don’t have a choice.” He smiled at Kyle. “We already have a pretty solid plan thanks to you and the information they shared with us will be invaluable to save our scores so today wasn’t just a giant hole of wasted time.” He quickly turned to them. “Thank you for that, by the way. Uhm, you wanted information? We have maps and uhm, I don’t want to be rude again but I saw you inspecting the glue and foam earlier?” He headed for his backpack and asked Jean. “I could give you the recipe or some samples of my ammunition if you would like?”

He knew he was rushing this but some of that was intentional because he wanted to avoid their team discussing it for another ten minutes, wasting everyone’s time.

He was tired.

Luckily, Lisa joined in. “I have a summon in their camp,” she said, “but I’m guessing you don’t need to know where it is. I could still show you? Or show you our route?”

The other team looked surprised by the quick retreat from all things Kyle. It made him worry they’d really thought they were assholes who would somehow insist on having a claim here.

The front three glanced between each other as if to wordlessly confer, but Jean spoke up, “I would love a recipe? But how— What?”

He asked his teammate that. Micah didn’t see why because he’d bent down for his pack.

“Huh?”

Jean jerked his shoulder to get the spear guy to back off and stepped closer. “How do you ‘breathe’ it as a cloud anyway? The others described it that way. Do you have a spell or item?”

“Oh, no,” Micah said and then realized, “Oh, no.” He probably wouldn’t be able to make the most of the recipe after all. “Wait, you’re a [Witch] right? Does that mean you have [Dissettle]?”

“I have [Component Casting]?”

Damn.

Micah wrote him a copy of his recipe while the others shared information between the groups. Someone proposed the idea of making copies of each other’s maps and was quickly met with unsure winces, but they eventually caved and made copies of their most valuable ones.

He had to explain essences to Jean—sort of like affinities in practice, but something else in theory—and then what he meant with ‘waxing and waning’ on the recipe. “You know, like the moon?”

Jean squinted. “Are you sure you aren’t a [Witch]? Because your essences just sound like esoteric nature magic.”

“They’re not! They don’t— I’m [Alchemist], through and through. I mean, I don’t even have a familiar.”

“Mhm.”

“And uhm.” He leaned a little closer. “Is having dark hair sort of a requirement for the Class?”

The vast majority of witches he had seen around school had dark hair for whatever reason and he knew some of them dyed it because he had seen them making the dye in the workshop.

It smelled horrendous, like death in a bottle, and looked like boiling tar or essence sludge made physical.

And now Jean, from another school, also had dark hair poking out from underneath his helmet, plastered to his skin. Parts even looked slightly grey.

He smiled. “Nope, that’s just part of the initiation, though your hair is dark enough you could probably make a formal appeal to be exempted.”

“Ah?”

He chuckled. “I’m joking. It’s actually easy to become a [Witch]. You just don’t have to let yourself be tied down by one form of magic and stupid rules. Look at me, for example. I dabble in divination, got myself a familiar which is sort of like summoning blended with other things, learned some nature magic, some evocation spells, and a tiny bit of alchemy to top it all off and then I consolidated. Which was a lifesaver, by the way, because I had five Classes and now I have three.”

“Three?”

“[Witch], [Gardener], [Scout].”

“Cool.”

“The blending of things is the important bit. You? You could probably buy yourself a summoning crystal and tinker around with it for a few weeks and you’d get the Class. Easy.”

“‘Just buy a summoning crystal,’ you say, as if they’re that cheap.” Micah chuckled a bit and it was mostly out of politeness but also a bit of self-deprecation. He had just missed the chance to get a bunch of loot, too.

But then he remembered he had owned a summoning crystal once and what if he had summoned Sam back when he had been trapped in the Tower?

“Haha, ha, ha, hmm …”

There is no way I wouldn’t have used Sam as a meat shield and— No, no, no! he shook the thoughts off. I’m an [Alchemist], through and through. Sam is with Lisa now.

He flushed with a weird mix of embarrassment and guilt as if he’d somehow caught himself being unfaithful.

“So can you demonstrate this for me?” Jean asked holding up one of the shots he’d given him. “Maybe I can learn to copy it with a wind spell if I ever get [Dissettle] from a level up?”

“That’s a great idea.”

Micah was glad for the opportunity to show off his totally alchemy skills. With water, of course, because there was no way he was wasting shots on a demonstration.

The other team’s members still made comments about how they looked forward to all the awesome loot they would get and it came off as a little nettling, but it also made him all the more impatient to move on. He wanted them to find a treasure hoard of their own in the Fields.

But also, Micah was kind of happy for the other team. From what he could see, they had even less magical equipment than their own team, ignoring Lea, so this would definitely help them.

“Alright,” Ryan said when there was nothing more to share, “I guess that means bye, then.”

“Yep,” Parker said.

“Good luck with taking down the camp—”

“Oh, we won’t need luck.”

“Sure you won’t.” He smiled.

Parker gave him a strained smile back as if he were holding back another insult like when they’d first met up.

“See you in the scout camp, then?”

The rest of them also said goodbye even though they didn’t really know these people they had met. They were just being friendly. But they also really wanted to leave.

They knew they wouldn’t find anything in this area, they knew the Kobolds brought in their bundles of sticks from the west after all, and they had copied maps of the area thanks to the others, so they could save their resources and just head in a straight line in that direction as quickly as possible.

They waved as they turned the corner, then headed off. That had been … better than the last time they had met another person in the Tower, at least. They had both gained from it.

Micah smiled.

Three tunnels down, Kyle asked in a low tone, “Are they following us?”

“Give it another bend or two.”

“Huh?” His head snapped around to look at the two, but Ryan just held a finger to his lips in the universal sign to keep quiet.

Micah’s anxiety shot up. Had he missed something? Was he going to have to poison someone again today? Because he really wasn’t in the mood for it right now. Especially not Jean. He had seemed nice.

“Now,” Ryan said.

“What the fuck was that?!” Kyle demanded.

“Micah saved our asses is what it was,” Lisa said.

“Good thinking there,” Jason bent around to tell him with a smile, “you sounded so believable.”

“Huh?” he repeated, now sure that he had, in fact, missed something and had no idea what it was, but it didn’t sound murder-y so that was reassuring.

Ryan gave him a glance, turned ahead, and spoke as if thinking out loud, “They wanted us to stay and help them, actually.”

“No duh’,” Kyle said.

Huh? he thought to himself this time.

“Their equipment sucked and I’m betting they’re actually all five [Scouts], the lot of them. What kind of idiots stack up on the same main Class and only differ in the secondary Classes?”

“Jean’s a [Witch] first?” Micah said.

“And I’m pretty sure Adrian’s a [Druid],” Lea added. “Or something close like a [Green Mage].”

Lisa shot her a glare but unlike him, she didn’t do it whenever Lea spoke so she must have been about to say the same thing herself.

Micah lit up. “So that’s why he reminded me of Ryan. Was that a spellwood spear?”

“Yes.”

“It’s still not enough,” Kyle said. “They’re totally unsuited to dealing with that camp in a short time and we’re just better than them. They’ll probably be at it until tomorrow evening if we don’t help.”

“And they don’t want that,” Ryan said, “any more than we would.”

“So what’s the plan?” Kyle turned to him, Micah. “You got us out of there, did ya’ have something else in mind?”

“Uhm …”

Now, he had to play catch-up. The others had wanted them to help after all but hadn’t said so because … they had wanted them to ask for permission …? Which would’ve allowed them to set conditions because they had a claim! Like, that they would get more of the loot or first right on it.

Now that he knew what was going on, their behavior started to make more sense and the pieces fit together, but it still didn’t help him come up with a plan.

Ryan shot him another glance and this time, Lisa joined in. While the others might not have known him well enough to know Micah did not lie to others, because lying had nearly gotten him killed, driven him out of his home, and ruined his leg, they did. And whatever else, seeing his scout friend had woken him up a little.

Ryan came to his rescue. “They’re deliberating while two are keeping track of where we’re headed, but they aren’t close enough to hear our conversation.”

“How can you be sure?” Lea asked.

“Because I can barely hear what they’re saying. Besides, even if they know we know through some kind of [Scout] Skill, it doesn’t change anything. We’ll find a place without any traps and settle down for the night. They’ll drop by sometime this evening or in the morning and ask for our help. Then we’ll be on better ground to make demands for how we divide the loot.”

Micah smiled because of how confident he seemed, and he pushed his own doubts about him and what the he and Lisa might think of him for having not wanted to take the camp on aside for another moment.

Fifty-fifty or nothing, right? he wondered. Even if they were better than them, it was the only option that made sense.

“And if they don’t?” Jason asked.

But how would they divide magic items evenly without knowing their worth …

“Then Micah was right,” he said, “we follow the Kobolds that bring in wood west, and do what we came here for.”

Something about the tone of his voice and the pause that followed brought him out of his thoughts. Now that they weren’t acting, Micah got to see how the others really felt about that idea.

Once again, they did not look happy.

After a long day of feeling lost in his own head and making one mistake after another, Micah had wanted nothing more than to do the right thing and move on. But when he thought about it, he had never been good at doing the sensible thing instead of what he wanted, and it was no wonder he had ended up with these people as his teammates. Besides, that hoard had looked really big …

He said, “Let’s hope they show up then.”