After their twentieth kill, they decided to relocate rather than continue to haul the bodies out of the way. The smell was starting to get to all of them at that point, except for maybe Sorin. Rue couldn’t tell. Nothing seemed to actually bother the man, but maybe he was just so good at hiding his thoughts that it only appeared that way.

  Sorin was actually pretty fucking scary in a way that the other two didn’t fully appreciate. Rue’s soulprint was called Aura Sense, and it let her feel out anima around her in a radius of about twenty feet. That wasn’t a lot, but it would grow, had in fact already grown a foot or two just today since they’d started getting anima from their kills to empower their soulprints.

  Being able to feel anima made her realize immediately that Sorin wasn’t like anyone else she’d ever seen. Nemari’s anima was a boiling pot, always in motion, just waiting for her to release it so it could come roaring out. Odric’s was more like the surface of a pond, smooth and still until he needed to pour it out to wash away an injury.

  Sorin was a block of ice-cold steel, or maybe something even stronger than that. He never lost control of his anima, not even for an instant. When he used his soulprint, the lines of anima were so crisp and sharp that she felt like her eyeballs should start bleeding just from witnessing it. Even if he threw out three or four ice darts at the same time, the anima was always crystalline-perfect.

  That was impressive, even inspiring, in a way. Rue had better anima control than Nemari or Odric, but she could only hope to someday match Sorin. It was possible, if she worked hard at it and maybe got him to give her some tips. She was sure he would if she asked. There was no way he’d developed control like that without actively working on it, which meant he could guide her in doing it too.

  The scary part wasn’t his control. It was just how much anima she sensed in him. Whatever he was hiding, it was obvious something had happened to his soulspace. She’d seen climbers at rank 3 or 4 with less anima in their souls than Sorin had, and that was back before he’d torn apart the Floor 0 portal guardian. Once he’d grown to rank 1, his soulspace had to have doubled from its already insanely large size.

  She’d gained a third more space, and that was being generous. Nemari had gotten slightly more, but that was to be expected. She had two soulprints that synergized together and one of them was her primary method of attacking. Rue’s single soulprint was massive and hardly used any anima at all.

  The sting of humiliation at having her ass handed to her in a three-on-one fight against Sorin still hadn’t left her, but Rue was smart enough to leverage the fact that he was willing to work with them for her own gain. The man was freakishly good with that sword, and she’d already started making adjustments to her own style to mimic his footwork.

  She was just afraid that once he got whatever it was he was after, he’d turn on them. If that happened, they were dead. Aura Sense wasn’t going to save her, he could perfectly counter Nemari’s firebolts, and Odric’s soulprints needed to merge or upgrade to a higher rank before they became useful in combat. Sorin would tear them apart if it came down to it.

  They’d already discussed all of this last night without him. Nemari was aware of the risks, but she was determined to exploit Sorin for all she could get. Her position was that as long as they didn’t try to fuck him over, he’d deal fairly with them, so that was what they were going to do.

  “Got one!” Sorin crowed, jarring Rue from her internal musings.

  He’d killed that particular harpy. She hadn’t failed to notice he took one in every four for himself, perfectly split to give them all a bit of anima. Well, not Od. That’s his own fault, though. I told him to get a real weapon instead of trying to follow that stupid punching build, but nooooo, he just had to do it.

  Sorin brandished one of the harpy’s talons. The monsters were ugly, twisted things, around five feet tall and maybe seventy or eighty pounds. Their legs from the knees on up were covered in gray or yellow plumage to match their wings, which connected to their sides in place of arms. Only their torsos and faces were bare skin, but it was discolored, wrinkled, and saggy, especially in the tit area. Their faces were even worse, with beak-like mouths full of misshapen teeth below a pair of intense, black eyes and capped with a crown of even more feathers.

  She could feel the anima settling into the soulprint, hardening into a pattern that someone else could take into their own soulspace to gain access to a new ability. Unfortunately, nobody on their team could properly identify a soulprint on their own, but she wouldn’t be surprised if—

  “Looks like Pierce,” he said.

  Yep. Of course he can do that, too. Is there anything this guy can’t do? God, he’s fucking creepy.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Without a moment’s hesitation, he tossed the severed talon to Rue. Surprised, she barely managed to shift her arm around to catch it without dropping one of her swords. “Your style uses enough stabbing attacks that you’ll benefit from this,” he said.

  “Shouldn’t we sell it?” Nemari objected.

  Sorin shook his head. “We all need to get a few more soulprints to round out our kits. Rue doesn’t have anything for offense right now. Pierce is a passive that will help her with coordination and penetrating power. She’ll benefit the most from it.”

  Pretty sure you do a lot more stabbing than I do. Is this your way of saying I need magic just to try to keep up with you? Fuck, you’re not wrong, though. And how the hell do you know what soulprint I have, anyway?

  “It’s a good idea,” Od said.

  “How are we going to split the loot if we’re absorbing the soulprints?” Nemari asked with a frown. She was still worried about keeping things fair, worried about what Sorin might do if they didn’t have a way to divide the loot to give him his cut.

  “Not every climb is going to divide up equally,” he said. “Sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes you get nothing. That’s just how it is. This is a good soulprint for Rue. The sooner she absorbs it, the sooner she can adjust to it.”

  “Can’t argue with that logic,” Rue said.

  “Hopefully we get a few more soulprints,” Nemari grumbled, defeated. “Go ahead.”

  With an eager grin, Rue turned her focus to the talon and pulled it into her soulspace with her. Its physical shell dissolved into nothing but fine gray sand, but she only knew that because it vanished from her senses. A duplicate of it appeared inside the trophy case that held her soulprints, right next to the umbral goat eye that she’d gained Aura Sense from a year ago.

  The case had extended in length when she’d reached rank 1, but it still seemed pitifully small to her. There was enough empty space left to hold one E-ranked soulprint or maybe two F’s, if they were simple enough.

  She took a moment for herself and studied the harpy talon. Now that it was in her trophy case, she could see that Sorin was right. It was another passive, which meant it was weaker than an active ability, but also cheaper and always on. That was just fine by her. She’d want a few actives soon, too, but both types of soulprints were needed for any build.

  Once she was sure it was properly incorporated into her soulspace, Rue stepped back into the real world. Unlike Od or Nemari, Aura Sense let her ‘see’ what was going on around her while she was in her soulspace, so she wasn’t as paranoid about being attacked as either of them. I wonder if Sorin can do that, too. It’s supposed to be impossible without some sort of soulprint, and I’m almost positive he’s only got the ice one, but nothing he does surprises me at this point.

  “All set,” she said. “Bring on the next harpy so I can try it out.”

  * * *

  Who could have guessed that risking your life would get boring after a few hours?

  But it was true. Sorin’s kill box idea was obviously an excellent strategy. They’d taken out well over a hundred harpies, and with Pierce added to Rue’s arsenal, it was laughably easy to stab through their muscles to reach the delicate internal organs. The soulprint almost made things too easy.

  “Maybe we should take a break,” she said. “I feel like I’m starting to lose focus.”

  “Good idea,” Sorin said.

  “We only got one other soulprint,” Nemari objected.

  “Sure, but we got some other stuff to sell, too,” he said.

  They’d gotten a Wind Slash soulprint off a harpy, the only other thing to come out of all their kills. Sorin had seemed disappointed about the haul, but two soulprints in a single day was amazing. That wasn’t even counting that Od had spotted a patch of herbs while they were moving their kill box, or the fact that they’d harvested enough anima that she suspected she could push Aura Sense up to E-rank in a few days.

  Well, maybe a full week, since I’ve got two soulprints to feed now instead of one.

  No one wanted the second soulprint, so it got tossed into the war chest along with the herbs. Rue wasn’t an expert appraiser, but she was betting they’d get at least one useful soulprint for what they’d picked up today. And this was only the first day on Floor 1.

  “It’s getting late,” Od said. “Might be time to secure a camp.”

  “There’s a tight grouping of trees a quarter mile west we can set up in,” Sorin said. “Six hours of sleep each, two hour rotating watches.”

  “Yeah, what he said,” Nemari said dryly.

  If Rue hadn’t been watching, she might not have caught Sorin’s flinch. “Sorry. Old habit.”

  “It’s fine.” Nemari looked over at Od. “Any thoughts on what kinds of monsters we should be on the lookout for here that we haven’t already seen?”

  “This area, specifically? No. Goblins are common in forests. Giant spiders, too.”

  “Wood hags. Bone snappers near water. Blinding blights,” Sorin added.

  “What the hell is a blinding blight?” Rue asked.

  “Nasty little bastards. Two feet tall, looks like a bundle of rotting twigs, leaps like a cricket. They love going for the faces, and they leave wounds that cause infections. Guess what the infections do?”

  “I’d rather not,” Nemari said. “Is that something we need to worry about around here?”

  Sorin looked over at Od. “Have you heard of them on Floor 1?”

  Od shook his head. “But I’m not an expert. I’ve only been up here a few times.”

  “I think we’ll be fine. They’re more common around bogs and swamps,” Sorin said.

  “Let’s go find this place, then. I want to get a look around and make sure we’re not camping on another pack of hounds,” Nemari ordered.

  “You got it, boss lady,” Rue said. She glanced back at the pile of harpy corpses. “We’re sure a quarter mile is going to be enough distance? This is a pretty big bait pile.”

  “Probably. If not, that’s why we keep watch,” Sorin said.

  He always had an answer ready and delivered with confidence. There was just no way a guy in his mid-twenties had that kind of experience with climbing but didn’t even have a union card or the danirs to get one. Where had the knowledge come from? Who’d taught him to fight? Why hadn’t she ever heard of him before?

  Fuck, I hope we’re not making a mistake trusting him.