Hunger made for the best seasoning, but Sorin wasn’t hungry enough for this. They were sitting at a small, almost intimate, table for two on an outdoor patio deep into the slums. It was almost like a mockery of the fine dining establishments the rich and powerful frequented, all the pieces in place, but everything made out of trash and refuse.

  They hadn’t even ordered yet; he’d just seen what was on the plates of the three other people there, and he was almost positive that the only reason to eat at this café—not that it truly deserved the name—was if someone actually wanted stomach parasites.

  “Is this some kind of test?” he asked Nemari.

  “What? No! Why would I even—” she cut herself off. “Look, the food’s better than it looks. Just give it a chance, alright?”

  Sorin very deliberately didn’t glance over at the plate on the table next to theirs again. “Alright,” he agreed.

  Why does she look surprised? God, what am I getting myself into here?

  “Good. Let’s get down to business, then. You said it wasn’t hard to learn to cast soulprints out through any part of your body, not just your hands.”

  “I did say something like that,” Sorin agreed. “It’s a basic trick. Part of it is just a quirk of our brains wanting to direct things with our hands that you have to get over. Realizing that you can cast from anywhere on your body instead of your hands is the biggest block to that, but I suspect you’re already past that point.”

  “It’d be dumb of me not to believe it after I saw you do it.”

  “Exactly. You’ll need to practice a bit since it’s counterintuitive, but since you know you can do it, you’ll be able to. The other part is a bit harder to get the hang of.”

  A server crossed the almost-empty patio while Sorin was speaking and came to a stop next to their table. “Nemari,” she greeted warmly. “Who’s your new boyfriend?”

  Sorin’s eyebrows went up and Nemari’s face darkened. He looked back and forth between them, cataloging similarities until he decided there was a definite familial relation there. They probably weren’t siblings, but cousins, perhaps. The server was younger, thirteen or fourteen, and her hair was a darker shade of blonde, but they shared the same eyes and chin.

  “As if I’d bring a boyfriend around here,” Nemari said, scorn in her voice. “No, this is Sorin. He’s going to be our front-liner for now.”

  “Is he now?” the server asked. She gave Sorin a leisurely scan, her eyes tracing down his shoulders and arms, resting briefly on the battered sword wrapped in canvas at his hip, and taking the rest of him in at a glance. “You sure can pick them.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Nemari demanded.

  “Nothing at all,” the server told her. “It’s like my dad says. You’re a grown woman who can make her own choices.”

  “Doesn’t he usually add ‘no matter how wrong they might be’ to the end of that?”

  “I’m sure he’s just jealous of your talent. Or he will be, one day, once you actually make it to Floor 1.”

  “Uncle Nat is rank 7,” Nemari pointed out.

  “Your family are climbers?” Sorin asked.

  The server shook her head. “Just my dad and my older brother. Lost a leg years ago fighting a bladewind elemental and retired. He thinks Nem’s an idiot for trying to climb.”

  Sorin glanced at his new boss, who was unsuccessfully trying to hide a grimace. “And what do you think?”

  The server just sighed. “I think it’s none of my business, and I hope Nem doesn’t get hurt.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Nemari said. “If it’s not too much bother, how about some food? We’re going to challenge the portal guardian this evening.”

  “You really want to eat here right before you go into a fight?”

  Even the staff think the food is awful. Are we here because it’s a family-run business? Is she just cheap?

  “Why wouldn’t we?” Nemari sounded offended.

  “Nem, I love you, but the food here sucks. You’re going to give your boyfriend food poisoning.”

  “Not my boyfriend.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Riz, just go get us something to eat.”

  The server, Riz, apparently, rolled her eyes and said, “The usual?”

  “Yes,” Nemari answered.

  “Fine. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Riz walked off, and Nemari took a moment to compose herself. Then, like her cousin had never been there, she turned her attention back to Sorin and said, “You were telling me about the second part of casting without using your hands.”

  “Right. So, you know how your soulprint is full of anima, and how it flows in a specific pattern to make the effect materialize?”

  “Of course I do. Everyone knows that.”

  “But did you know that you can modify that pattern on the fly?”

  “That’s… not a thing,” Nemari said with a frown. “Nobody does that.”

  “Maybe not down here on Floor 0,” Sorin agreed. “But gaining active control over the anima flows in your soulprints is an essential skill once you start upgrading and merging them. You literally can’t change a soulprint until you learn how to do this.”

  “Assuming you’re not bullshitting me here, which you’d better not be or I’ll set your hair on fire, how the hell do you change how the anima flows through a soulprint? If we could do that on our own, we wouldn’t need them in the first place. We’d just be twisting anima to mimic whatever soulprint we wanted.”

  “Who said we don’t do that?” Sorin asked. “Soulprints are literally just templates to make it easy to use abilities quickly. If you had the anima, the knowledge, and the willpower, you could duplicate any soulprint in existence without actually having it in your soulspace.”

  It was a bit more complicated than that, of course, but Nemari was still a decade or two of consistent climbing away from reaching the point where she needed to start worrying about those kinds of problems. Even learning to nudge her anima as it flowed through the soulprints she already had was going to be a challenge at her level of skill. Sorin was legitimately worried she might decide he’d lied to her about how to do it after she failed to get the hang of it right away.

  “This isn’t secret, hidden knowledge,” he said, “but you do have to understand that the reason it isn’t commonly known at the low ranks is because most of them don’t have the experience and the skill with anima manipulation to actually do this stuff. I can try to help you figure it out, but don’t expect to have this mastered by tomorrow. It’ll probably take months of regular practice to get the hang of it.”

  “What rank were you before…” Nemari trailed off and gestured vaguely at him.

  “I’d rather not say. Ask me again when we know each other better.”

  He was saved from that line of thought by Riz arriving with two wide, shallow bowls full of what appeared to be gray ditch water with something tentacle-like squirming around in it. The pink flesh thrashed weakly, sending small ripples across the water every time it broke the surface. Something must have shown on Sorin’s face, because their server started laughing. “Yeah, you enjoy that.”

  “What is this?” he asked, picking up the provided fork and hesitantly poking at the chunk of squirming meat.

  “Drowner tendril,” Nemari said. “Is that a problem?”

  “Served in the water of its own lair, I take it?”

  “That’s the best way to retain the flavor.”

  An image of the slimy monster, known for lurking in dark water and using its strange ability to sense vibrations to hunt prey, came to mind. Drowners had twelve limbs, the largest of which could be up to ten feet long, and had killed many a climber simply by grabbing onto them and holding them underwater.

  I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone eating a drowner. Considering it’s being served in its own fish bowl full of dirty water, it’s no wonder. But it can’t possibly be worse than raw kastura spider. Can it?

  Sorin steeled his resolve and jabbed the fork into the muddy water.

  * * *

  “How was it?” Rue asked with a smirk.

  “You know how it was,” Sorin said darkly, trying not to think about it.

  “Shut it, both of you,” Nemari said.

  The four of them were gathered in a large square on the main avenue just south of the tower. This close to the center of Floor 0, the buildings were a lot nicer. Retired climbers returned here with wealth unfathomable to those who’d never climbed a single floor, and with them came a glut of raw materials not seen naturally.

  That resulted in a lot of three- and four-story homes made of polished stone and smooth, paved streets lined with gutters. And since the people with the money were climbers, and climbers cared more about the tower than anything else, of course the boroughs in the center of the city were where the wealth was concentrated.

  No one wanted to live on the outskirts of the city, after all. Danger lurked in the void beyond the walls, and sometimes it grew bold enough to claw its way past that threshold. Thugs and gangsters weren’t the only predators lurking at the edge of civilization, and they weren’t the scariest.

  “Are you in top form?” Nemari asked Odric.

  “I am, though I’m sure my healing soulprints won’t be necessary,” he said. “I have faith in Sorin’s ability to keep the rest of us safe.”

  “No pressure or anything,” Sorin joked.

  “Just keep on top of the helpers, and we’ll be fine,” Nemari said. “Rue’s quick enough to keep ahead of the guardian.”

  For a second, Sorin thought Rue was going to argue that point. She opened her mouth to say something but saw that Nemari wasn’t even looking in her direction. Whatever she was going to tell their team leader, she swallowed it and settled for shooting a nasty look at Nemari instead.

  Maybe she’s not as confident about her ability to go toe-to-toe with a monster as Nemari is. If this reality’s Floor 0 portal guardian is anything like mine, it probably won’t even come up. I can easily keep track of anything it summons while occupying the main monster’s attention.

  “Don’t worry,” Sorin told the young woman quietly. “Nothing’s going to go wrong.”

  “Like you’d know. You’re rank 0, whatever weird bullshit you’ve got going on.”

  Sorin pulled back, surprised by the vehemence in her voice. “Not your first attempt at this?” he asked.

  “None of your business,” she snapped.

  “Okay, sorry I asked. I won’t pry.”

  He took a step away from Rue, who was trying and failing to show that lazy confidence powerful climbers wore like a cloak whenever they descended to the lower floors. It was hard not to when they were essentially invincible to the weak threats they’d already conquered years ago, like gods walking around, smiting whatever had the misfortune to cross their paths.

  Nemari and Odric finished their gear checks. The big man had a huge pack slung over his shoulders, likely full of camping supplies and other necessities. Once they defeated the portal guardian, that would just grant them access to Floor 1. It could be anywhere from a few hours to a few days of travel to reach what passed for civilization up there.

  They set out as a group, with Sorin lengthening his stride to catch up to Nemari. “You should let me deal with the big guardian and the small ones,” he said. “Rue’s nervous about getting into melee with a floor guardian.”

  “She needs to get over it. Better now than later,” Nemari responded.

  “Maybe this isn’t the fight for that,” he insisted. “I don’t know what history she’s got with this particular portal guardian, but I’m betting it’s not good. There are easier fights for her to cut her teeth on once we get up to the next floor.”

  Nemari shook her head. “We stick to the plan. You keep it under control until it summons help, then switch to those.”

  Well, if that’s the way you want it, then fine. It won’t matter if I don’t hold back anyway.