Two things happened when a portal guardian died. First, every climber involved in the fight—if they hadn’t already defeated that floor’s guardian—had their soulspace expanded, a sensation so subtle that it was easy to miss it even happening. They’d be able to hold more soulprints and produce more anima faster, a boon necessary to conquer the challenges of the next floor.
After that came the part that wasn’t subtle. Climbing the tower wasn’t a physical act, but a magical one. There were no stairs connecting the floors. Instead, there was a free-standing portal, one for each floor, and prospective climbers could pass through any of them to reach any other one, provided their soul had been granted access. Killing the portal guardian was how a climber gained access to the next floor.
Sorin wasn’t sure what was going to happen at this point. Either he’d gain Floor 1 attunement like Nemari and Rue were about to, or he wouldn’t like Odric, who already had it. Technically speaking, Sorin had an entire tower’s worth of floor attunements, but not this tower’s. Besides, his soulspace and soulprints had all been stripped from him, which made it likely that his floor attunements were also gone.
He felt the slow expansion of his soulspace, even without looking within, happen over the next minute or so while everyone was recovering. As much as he wanted to dive back in to see if the mosaic on the floor had grown with it, now wasn’t the time. When he had a few minutes of safety and privacy, he’d check then.
His own sword had taken a beating from the fight and was quickly becoming unreliable. If he had to fight anything with a decently thick hide in the near future, there was a solid chance the blade would break. At least he had a whetstone to keep it as sharp as possible, which would hopefully serve to keep the blade from bending or snapping before he was able to replace it. It was too bad the golem hadn’t had a weapon he could scavenge, the pike itself being both too large and too heavy for a human.
“I don’t feel like I did much to earn this win,” Nemari said, drawing Sorin out of his thoughts.
“Speak for yourself,” Rue panted. “I worked hard just trying to keep up.”
Before anyone could say anything else, the attunement hit. Unlike the soulspace expansion, Sorin could feel it sear him like a hot brand pressed against his flesh. Only, instead of leaving a wound, it marked his soulspace. Both women cried out in surprise and pain while Odric looked on with sympathy.
Sorin stood there silently, accepting it and knowing it would be over in a moment. Compared to what it had felt like to have attunement to Floor 100 burned into his soul two years ago, the pain was nothing. In fact, while the others were distracted, he took the opportunity to look over the golem’s remains. There was usually something valuable left over from killing a portal guardian, though valuable did not always mean immediately useful.
A soulprint would have been best, but they weren’t that lucky. Instead, amidst the pile of ivory rubble, he saw a small shard that glowed with the same pale white the golem itself had before being destroyed. It was only four inches long and a finger’s width wide, but if this new tower worked anything like the old one, it would be worth more than enough to buy a good weapon, even split four ways.
That assumed they could find a buyer, which he’d be relying on the rest of the group for. His contacts were from his old life, and he’d seen enough changes already to doubt they even existed in this new version of the tower. Besides, something like this was far, far below the quality of loot they normally fenced for him.
“Do you guys have any deals with a good fence?” he asked as he stood back up. He held the glowing shard of ivory out for them to see.
“Maybe if any of us had a union card,” Odric said. “Money’s been tight.”
“Money’s always tight,” Nemari grumbled. She rubbed one hand across her chest and added, “Does it always hurt that bad?”
“It gets worse with each floor,” Sorin said. “This one will feel like a tickle in a year or two.”
“Fuck me with a minotaur horn,” Rue swore. “How much worse could it get?”
“I guess we should hang onto this for now. It’d be nice to have a bit of money to upgrade some equipment though,” Sorin said. “Any thoughts on the best way to earn cash if we’re not part of the Climber’s Union?”
“Sell soulprints directly to climbers on Floor 1,” Odric offered. “There’s always a market on each floor for people who don’t want to pay portal taxes. We might find a buyer for whatever that thing you picked up is, too.”
What the hell is a portal tax?
He didn’t ask, though. The others already thought he was weird without giving away that his knowledge was patchy enough that he didn’t even know the basics of how society functioned in the red tower. If he was going to guess, he assumed it had something to do with anything brought down to Floor 0 to be sold, though he didn’t have a clue who was collecting the tax or what it was used for.
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“Do you think it’d be better to try to fence this ivory shard before we go up to Floor 1 then, even if we can’t get the best price for it?” Sorin asked.
“Not unless we’re in dire need of something to help us survive once we start climbing,” Nemari said with a pointed look at the canvas-wrapped blade hanging from Sorin’s belt.
“I could probably find a buyer at the Meat Grinder,” Rue offered.
“Bradford hates when people call it that,” Nemari told her.
“I know,” Rue replied with a grin. “That’s why I do it.”
“You’re terrible.”
They quickly agreed that the best use for the ivory was to trade it in for as many danirs as they could get. Sorin was the only one in need of better gear, but the rest could use the extra funds to get supplies and some camping luxuries. He got the impression that they hadn’t been expecting to actually succeed and get their Floor 1 attunements today, and now they weren’t quite sure what to do with themselves.
“How many attempts has your group made on the portal guardian?” he asked Odric while they walked. Rue and Nemari were racing ahead, their loot safely stored in Nemari’s coin purse. Though the way it was clinking as she ran after Rue, Sorin half expected a cutpurse to mark her to be relieved of her valuables.
“Today was the fourth attempt since Rue and I joined Nemari. I believe she made several runs at it with a prior group, but she doesn’t like to speak about it, and I haven’t asked.”
Either the rest of her old team died trying to defeat the weakest portal guardian in the entire tower, or they kicked her out and probably succeeded without her. No surprise she’d be bitter about that. I wonder which way it is.
“Noted. I’ll avoid bringing it up,” he said. “What are your plans now?”
The big man shrugged. “Whatever Nemari wants. I expect we’ll climb to Floor 1 tomorrow and test our fortunes.”
There was something in Odric’s voice that caught Sorin’s attention. “Worried?” he asked.
“How could I not be? I do not believe our group is ready for this. We succeeded today largely because of you, and I don’t mean to offend you, but you are an unknown with a very suspect past. You could disappear in the middle of a climb, or bring down enemies on us that we have no way to defend against. If something like that happened, I’m not sure we’d survive on our own.”
“Those are reasonable concerns,” Sorin said. “I can only give you my word that, to the best of my knowledge, I don’t have any enemies coming after me. And I don’t abandon a team during a climb.”
Odric studied him while they walked. “I believe you. Hopefully that trust isn’t misplaced,” he said severely. Then he broke into a grin and added, “Now come on. Rue and Nemari are so far ahead that I’ve lost track of them.”
Laughing, the pair rushed after the other half of their team.
* * *
The four of them met up the next morning in the portal square. Rue had gotten two hundred danirs for the ivory, and in an unexpected show of generosity, the team had decided to give half of it to Sorin, citing both his need for a better weapon and supplies, and his outsized contribution to the fight itself as their reasoning.
Finding himself unable to argue with that, he’d accepted the funds and spent another hour browsing weapons in the Meat Grinder before finally settling on a plain but functional steel sword, its blade straight, slender, and just over three feet in length. He also bought a hunting knife as a backup weapon and a basic climber’s kit—backpack, cooking equipment, sleeping roll, a bit of rope, flint and steel, waterskin, lantern, and oil flask.
With the leftover danirs, he’d filled his backpack with rations made mostly of dried meat and fruit, purchased a thin cloak colored a leafy green shade, and emptied out the dregs of the purse on a flask of fire whiskey. That was one vice he was happy to see he’d be able to indulge in here.
He hadn’t had enough left over to pay for a bunk anywhere, but sleeping in an alley was hardly any different than sleeping in a cave or under a tree, and the chances of getting eaten by a monster were significantly less on Floor 0.
Once he’d secured a hidden corner to sleep in, he’d taken a few minutes to dive into his soulspace and see what changes becoming rank 1 had wrought. As expected, the walls had expanded significantly, leaving him plenty of space to add three or four new soulprints. More importantly, the mosaic had stretched to fill the extra space. It now displayed more of the background behind the doorway in the center, the same basalt columns and obsidian tiles that had made up Floor 100’s architecture.
That only confirmed what he’d already known. Something had happened up there, but whether he’d completed the last floor or been caught in some trap still wasn’t a question he could answer.
If things went well, the mosaic would reveal more of the scene as his soulspace grew. He was broke again, but now he had the tools needed to climb. Even if things turned sour with his new team, he’d finish Floor 1 on his own.
He wasn’t the only one who’d spent some money. Nemari had a new wand holstered on a leg sheath strapped to her upper thigh, and Odric was sporting a pair of fingerless gloves that had the knuckles capped in steel points with a heavy layer of padding beneath them. The design was common among those who wanted to fight with their fists but had soulprints that required skin-to-skin contact to use.
If Rue had spent her share of the loot, Sorin couldn’t tell on what. She just gave the group a sour scowl and stifled a yawn while the other two ignored her. Not a morning person, he guessed.
“Everyone got everything they need?” Nemari asked.
“Everything but a cup of coffee,” Rue muttered.
“Better get used to it,” Odric said. “Not likely to find any of that on Floor 1.”
“Don’t remind me,” the girl whined.
“Alright, enough of that. Sorin, Odric, you’re ready?”
They both nodded, and Nemari led the group across the square to where an empty archway twenty feet across and fifteen feet high waited for them. She raised a hand, the same gesture Sorin had seen a thousand different climbers make at a portal hub before, and the portal unfolded. Instead of the soft, opaque blue disc he was used to, this one was red and swirling.
The others didn’t seem alarmed, and with a deep breath, Nemari plunged through it. Rue scampered in behind her, and Odric followed after that. Sorin grimaced and made a mental note to remind his new team that the front liner was supposed to go through first, then he crossed the threshold and stepped onto Floor 1.
