There were bloodstains on the stone floor. In fact, more of the floor was stained red than not, which made Sorin wonder if the would-be climbers at the Meat Grinder knew what the word ‘spar’ even meant. There were no padded weapons to be seen, no leather training jerkins, no dummies or targets.

  This is literally just an empty room for people to fight in, which, apparently, they use their normal weapons to do. I know the place is a discount version of the Climber’s Union, but why even offer a space for this if they’re not going to put any money into equipment?

  “Not what you were expecting?” Nemari asked when she saw the look on Sorin’s face.

  “In that I was expecting there to be literally anything at all, no, not quite. I’ll have to be extra careful not to hurt you.”

  “I have a healing soulprint,” Odric said. “It’s only F-rank, but it’s good enough to patch up flesh wounds.”

  “Better than nothing,” Sorin muttered. He tossed the canvas scrap he was using for a sheath into the corner and walked to the center of the room. Holding the sword up with the point facing Nemari, he announced, “You may begin. We’ll stop once all three of you have surrendered.”

  “Same goes for you,” she said.

  The trio exchanged nods, then attacked. Nemari led with a small burst of flames shot from an outstretched hand. It looked like she had a Firebolt soulprint, the fire elemental equivalent to Sorin’s own Ice Dart. Nemari had obviously practiced with it to fire it off so quickly, but the bolt itself wasn’t fast enough that Sorin couldn’t dodge it. He smoothly stepped to the side, and it splashed harmlessly against the brick wall.

  That’s one point for the sparring room. If they’d built it of wood, someone would have burned it down already.

  Then Rue was in front of him, her two swords held in reversed grips as she slashed and spun in a circle. Sorin almost changed his mind about partnering with this group right there, but he reminded himself that they were young and could learn. He shuffled backwards a step to let the first blade whoosh past his chest, then surged forward, his own sword turned vertically to block the second attack. Rue’s blade smacked into it and rebounded, throwing off her momentum and staggering her.

  She probably would have recovered quickly enough, but Sorin kicked the side of her lead knee and sent her sprawling to the ground. Another firebolt streaked in, this one aimed at his chest. With no time to reset his stance from the kick, he couldn’t dodge, but he didn’t need to. A sliver of ice formed in the air in front of him and hurtled forward to meet the firebolt.

  The ice flashed into steam, and the fire sputtered out midair. At the same time, Rue’s leg swept out, her calf positioned to slam into Sorin’s ankle. He hopped the attempted trip and brought his heel down on her leg, sacrificing his balance for a moment to drive home the stomp. Rue squealed in pain and jerked back.

  Sorin let her go so that he could set himself to defend against Odric, who’d charged in the second Rue had gone down, bare knuckles up and leading. There were enough scars across the back of the big man’s hands to convince Sorin that he knew a thing or two about fist fighting, but unless the man had a soulprint to strengthen his flesh, fighting barehanded against a man with a sword was never a good idea.

  Sorin flicked his blade out, forcing Odric to either abort his charge or impale himself. Reacting quickly, the healer slapped the blade to one side with an open palm. A line of blood appeared across Odric’s hand, and Sorin felt a small surge of anima. He didn’t see the results, but he suspected that cut had closed just as quickly as it had opened.

  Then he was dodging a heavy punch aimed at his face and sidestepping to avoid being grabbed on the arm. Sorin’s blade flashed out and left a bright red line on Odric’s arm, one that caused the healer to flinch back and grab at the wound. More anima flowed out of him to close the cut back up.

  While Sorin was dealing with Odric, Nemari circled around to the side and unleashed two firebolts at once, one from each hand with her staff held in the crook of her elbow. She spread them wide enough that it was obvious she expected him to get hit by one while dodging the other, but Sorin once again sent out an ice dart to block the firebolt that would have hit him.

  “How the hell are you doing that?” she demanded, immediately conjuring another firebolt and shooting it his way.

  “Nobody said you have to use your hands,” Sorin told her as he magically parried the firebolt. He advanced on Odric with a series of jabs that had the big man backpedaling as fast as he could. He was so focused on avoiding being stabbed that he didn’t realize Sorin was steering him until his heel hit Rue’s leg. She was only just starting to pull herself back upright and was immediately buried under a few hundred pounds of flesh when he tripped over her.

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  With them both tied up for the moment, Sorin turned his full attention to Nemari. She’d maintained some distance, which helped protect her from his sword but also gave him time to react to her attacks. He darted forward, causing her to instinctively flinch back even as she sent another firebolt at him.

  Three ice darts emerged from his body with a flash of anima. One intercepted her attack, and the other two struck her on the shoulder and hip. Then Sorin was there, the tip of his secondhand sword under her chin.

  “I think it’s time to surrender,” he told her.

  “I… surrender,” she said with a grimace.

  “And you two?” Sorin called back to Rue and Odric. “Would you like to keep going?”

  “No, I think you’ve made your point,” Odric said. He clambered to his feet and held out a hand for his sister. As soon as she took it, anima flowed from him. Sorin watched closely as she tenderly shifted her weight on her injured leg, but he hadn’t done any lasting damage anyway, and with magical healing available, she’d be fine in a matter of minutes.

  Sorin waited in silence while Odric repaired the injuries the trio had suffered. He showed no indication of running low on anima, a good sign in Sorin’s mind. He’s got some practice at controlling how much of his reserves he uses so he’s not wasting any. That’s pretty good for a rank 1. The other two need some work, but as long as they’re willing to listen, they could do well.

  “What do you guys think?” Nemari said in a low voice while they were all grouped up. Sorin pretended not to hear them from across the room.

  “He knows how to use that sword. I don’t know what happened to him, but I wouldn’t believe he’s a rank 0 if I couldn’t feel how small his soulspace is,” Odric said.

  “It’s suspicious that he’s so good. I don’t want whatever trouble he’s in catching up with the rest of us,” Nemari said.

  “We don’t actually know what his deal is,” Rue pointed out.

  Odric nodded. “We could at least ask him before making a decision based on assumptions.”

  “I’ve had a lot of practice. I recently lost all my soulprints and had my soulspace constricted back down to rank 0,” Sorin volunteered.

  All three of them jumped at the interruption. “How the hell did you hear us from all the way over there?” Rue asked.

  “If you rely on soulprints to do everything for you, you’ll never make it to the higher floors. You need to learn how to survive without them, and that includes sharpening your senses.”

  Rue and Odric seemed to accept that explanation at face value, but Nemari was suspicious. “I’ve never heard of anyone’s soulspace being… constricted.”

  Sorin hadn’t either. As far as he knew, it was impossible. Obviously, that wasn’t the case, since it had happened to him. He just didn’t know how or why. Something had attacked his memories somehow, whether it was a monster, a trap, or something else. For all Sorin knew, he’d conquered the tower’s final floor, and his reward was nothing more than being sent back to do it again.

  But that’s insane. What kind of reward is that? This is a punishment. And besides, why wouldn’t I remember the culmination of forty years of climbing? Even if that was the case, where did the rest of my team go?

  He could only hope that gaining access to mind-enhancing soulprints would help him piece together the missing portions of his memories of Floor 100. Those weren’t common on the lower floors, and the one he was hoping to find wouldn’t even fit in a soulspace under rank 10 anyway. It might be a year or more before he could even get started in figuring out how he’d gotten himself stuck in this situation.

  “I’m not quite sure what happened to me, either,” he said.

  “We have no idea what kind of trouble might be following you around, then,” Nemari said.

  “I think you’re overreacting,” Odric said. “Come on, Nemari. This guy’s great in a fight. He’s friendly. We could all learn a thing or two from him. Why not give him a chance?”

  “Speak for yourself,” Rue objected. “No way I’d lose to him again. He just surprised me, that’s all. If some big oaf hadn’t landed on me, I’d have taken him out on the second pass.”

  Nemari and Odric gave her identical looks of incredulity while Sorin struggled to keep from laughing. Oh God, teenagers. She’s going to be a handful.

  “I would like to know more about how you were throwing those ice knives from every angle,” Nemari admitted. “You willing to show me that trick?”

  “Sure. It’s not hard to do.”

  “Then, I think we’ve got a deal. You’re still rank 0, right?”

  “I am, I guess,” Sorin said with a frown. Am I, though? I guess I should find a portal hub and see.

  “Good. So are we,” she said, gesturing to herself and Rue. “Odric’s filled us in on the portal guardian. We want to tackle it as soon as we can and get up to Floor 1. You got any plans this evening?”

  “Killing a portal guardian, apparently,” Sorin said.

  “That’s the spirit,” Odric said. “You know what the guardian is?”

  “It’s been a while since I fought on Floor 0,” Sorin admitted. He left unsaid that his Floor 0 portal guardian might not even be the same one they were going to fight here.

  “No problem. It’s a big old golem with a pike. It summons smaller golems to help it.”

  “Ah, right. I remember. The trick to the fight is to focus damage on the big one while someone keeps the smaller ones distracted.”

  “You got it,” the big healer said with a smile. “That’ll be your job while Rue and I keep the big one locked down and Nemari cooks it.”

  “Sounds easy enough,” Sorin said. “Before that, though… I need to find some food. I haven’t eaten all day.”

  That was a bit of a problem, because he was completely broke. He had an idea for that though. Turning to Nemari, he said, “Your treat.”

  “What?” she sputtered. “Why should I?”

  “Because I’ll let you pick my brain about any soulprint casting technique you want while we eat.”

  “Damn. Fine, but it’s not going to be anything expensive. We’re on a budget here.”

  Sorin had eaten raw monster meat to survive more than once. He was sure his stomach could handle whatever slum diner his new party ate at. “Sounds perfect,” he said. “Let me just get my sword wrapped up, and we can be on our way.”

  “Enjoy your date,” Rue said, slapping a hand onto Nemari’s shoulder.

  “My… what? Aren’t you two coming?”

  “No thanks,” Odric told Nemari. “Your idea of palatable food is… wrong.”

  Wrong? How bad could it be? Food is food.

  Sorin had the uncomfortable feeling he’d gotten the worse end of this deal.