Cal stepped off the tram with his hand braced lightly over his ribs, as if holding them would prevent the pain he knew was waiting there.

  The ache flared anyway, sharp and immediate.

  The binder was gone—cut off two days ago at the clinic with blunt scissors and a warning look. Its phantom pressure lingered when the wind hit the wrong way. His skin still expected the squeeze. His lungs took cautious, shallow pulls, as if afraid to incur punishment.

  He stood at the curb, willing his balance to return. He gripped the ache, forcing calm. Keep it together, he told himself. Don’t let them see you falter.

  Jordan hovered to his left without hovering. His gaze flicked once to Cal’s posture.

  “You doing that thing where you pretend you’re fine by walking like a statue?” Jordan asked.

  “I’m walking normally,” Cal said.

  Jordan hummed. “Mm. Normal people don’t move like they’re trying not to wake a bear.”

  Cal didn’t dignify that with a response. He started forward.

  The Tower rose behind them—a pale wall of stone and aether that swallowed the sky. Below, the grounds churned with climbers moving between stalls, kiosks, and checkpoints. Some were armored and laughing, some limping, some wearing the blank look of people replaying regrets.

  The plaza had an unseen gravity. People moved around the Tower the way water parts around a massive stone—some were drawn closer, others diverted, but all were affected by its presence, whether they realized it or not.

  He shifted the battered shield’s strap higher on his shoulder. Tighter and cleaner, the strap Jordan had replaced yesterday bit less with its new buckle. The shield itself looked worse for wear every time Cal saw it. Patched edge. Spiderweb cracks. The faceplate scuffed down to dull gray.

  Jordan’s staff tapped lightly against the pavement as he fell into step.

  “So,” Jordan said, tone casual, as if they were heading to buy groceries instead of orbiting a building that tried to kill them for sport. “We’re not climbing. We’re not doing anything heroic. We are, according to your mom, ‘walking in a straight line like a person who values his organs.’”

  Cal’s glance was brief, testing. He needed to see if Jordan noticed the tremor in his composure.

  Jordan held up two fingers. “Those are direct quotes. She was very clear.”

  Cal’s mouth twitched. “I’m just here to find someone.”

  “Someone,” Jordan echoed. “Who lives in a swamp and yells at people.”

  “That’s your summary?”

  “That’s the parts you’ve repeated often enough that Sammy can recite them like scripture.” Jordan’s grin softened. “I’m not complaining. It’s just funny that your first post-near-death life decision is ‘I need a man who will scold me correctly.’”

  Cal exhaled sharply through his nose. The laughter caught, thin and edged, stuck between wariness and want. He couldn’t trust it yet.

  He started moving, keeping his pace measured.

  Every step jogged loose a memory: the emergency prompt’s flash, the world narrowing to white, the Guardian’s fist filling his vision.

  A sharp pulse gripped his chest. Instinct readied him for another blow, breath trapped somewhere between panic and memory.

  Don’t tense up, he told himself. It’s over.

  It wasn’t over.

  Not really.

  The Tower wasn’t a place of real endings. It was a place of resets, where everything began again.

  He made it across the first stretch of open plaza without stopping. The ache stayed an ache. His breath came quick, but it came.

  Jordan didn’t say anything about the way Cal’s shoulders had crept up. Dawnshelter wasn’t like a glowing barrier around him; it was simply the steadiness of someone who stayed calm when chaos threatened.

  Cal's pulse found a steadier rhythm, each beat pulling him out of the spiral.

  Somewhere inside the Tower’s pale mass, floors shifted, and monsters reset. Somewhere, a thousand people were buying chips, buying gear, buying chances.

  Somewhere on Floor Two—if the boards were right—a water caster with twin swords kept marching into a swamp and refusing to drown.

  Cal headed for the training yards.

  They sat off to the east side of the plaza, tucked between the gear market and a row of cheap hostels.

  From a distance, the yards looked like fenced-in rectangles of stone and shimmer. Up close, they formed their own little ecosystem. Reinforced plastic and metal framed each field. Transparent aether screens, faintly iridescent, boxed in the yards to keep stray spells from reaching spectators.

  Inside, teams and solos ran drills.

  Cal found an open spot along the nearest fence and leaned his forearms on the rail, careful of his ribs.

  A group of four ran a scenario in the first yard: three melee, one backliner. They moved through a field of conjured obstacles while hard-light dummies blinked in and out around them. A coach barked corrections from the sidelines.

  “Eyes up, Ryn! You see the marker, you call it—no, call it before it spawns!”

  Fire burst across the yard as one of the melee delvers lunged in too far. The dummy he’d targeted exploded in a burst of orange.

  The delver rolled from the blast, his armor smoking as he regained his feet.

  Cal flinched at the sight of the rolling body. His own muscles tightened. They’d learned the wrong lesson.

  “Fire,” he murmured. “Check.”

  Jordan’s voice came close to his ear, low enough that it wasn’t for anyone else.

  “Breathe,” he said. “You’re watching. Not taking hits.”

  Cal dragged air in, steady.

  Nearby, two Air-tuned climbers moved in eerie synchrony—sprinting, cutting. Their movements were too sharp and fast. Each step landed on a pressure cushion. Gusts snapped from kicks and elbows, blowing dummies off course.

  On the far side, a woman in light mail stood alone in her yard, arms raised, eyes closed. The air around her shimmered as illusory copies of herself bloomed and faded, flickering in and out of existence like a bad reception.

  “Glamours,” someone behind Cal said. “Cheap tricks until you can afford the good stuff.”

  Jordan made a soft sound of disagreement.

  Cal didn’t look back. He kept scanning.

  He wasn’t here for flame geysers or lightning arcs or fake triplicates.

  He was here for a specific sound.

  Water, speared so tight it turned hard.

  He’d felt Aqua Lance up close. He heard the crack it made as it punched through scale and joint. The sound crawled into his bones.

  In the fourth yard, two delvers tested a water shield—a bright disk spinning to deflect stones and bolts. Impressive, but not what he hunted.

  Close, Cal thought. Wrong flavor.

  Focus.

  It’s got to be precise.

  The Tower grounds seemed to breathe with life. Trainers shouted, spectators cheered at good hits, and a snack vendor wove through the crowd calling, “Fried coils, hot coils! Salt extra!”

  Cal moved to the next fence, then the one after that, scanning each new yard as he walked.

  Jordan stayed with him, hands in his jacket pockets like this was an afternoon out.

  “Two hours,” Jordan said eventually.

  Cal blinked. “What?”

  Jordan nodded toward the nearest clock display mounted high on a pole. “You’ve been doing the ‘predator stare’ at practice dummies for two hours.”

  A dull throb radiated under his ribs. His feet dragged, heaviness settling in; his stomach knotted, raw from neglect masked by focus.

  “I haven’t seen him,” Cal said.

  Jordan’s expression softened, then sharpened into something pragmatic.

  “Okay,” he said. “We adjust. Same as we would on a floor. Training yards didn’t pay out. We don’t brute force the same zone until you collapse.”

  Cal hated how reasonable that sounded.

  Jordan nudged his shoulder with his own. Gentle.

  “Bars,” Jordan said. “If the training yards are for improvement, the bars are for lies about it. And lies are where rumors live.”

  Cal didn’t want to go into a bar. Not with his ribs still complaining, not with the phantom squeeze still in his chest.

  But his mother had asked him to stop being a one-man army.

  Jordan was already moving, and Cal followed.

  They picked a place that looked like it would serve food without asking how many floors you’d cleared.

  The sign above the door read THE RESET in flickering blue letters. Someone had painted a cartoon Tower, its top half melting and drooping beside the name. The paint job gave the building an air of resignation, almost as if it were shrugging its shoulders.

  Inside, the light was low and the air thick with the smells of fried oil, cheap alcohol, and the faint metallic tang of too many aether tokens handled in one place.

  Screens lined the walls behind the bar, cycling through Tower stats, sponsor adverts, and highlight clips. Snatches of crowd noise and combat audio bled out when a run replayed. The volume dipped just low enough that the real conversations in the room always seemed more important.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Cal slid onto a corner stool.

  Jordan took the one beside him and immediately leaned back like he owned the room.

  “What can I get you?” the bartender asked.

  She was maybe ten years older than Cal, hair clipped close to her head, sleeves rolled up to reveal Corona scars that had long since faded to pale tracery.

  “Stew,” Cal said. “If it’s not a lie. And water.”

  “Stew’s real,” she said. “Water’s extra.”

  Jordan lifted a brow. “Imagine charging for water in a building full of people who sprint into death mazes.”

  The bartender stared at him.

  Jordan smiled, bright and harmless.

  She snorted and turned away. “You want to argue, buy a drink.”

  Cal slid a chip across the counter. The bartender raised an eyebrow at the quality, then shrugged and poured from the filtered tap instead of the cloudy jug.

  “You’re new,” she said as she worked.

  Cal’s instinct was to deny it. Jordan beat him to it.

  “He’s new enough to still feel shame,” Jordan said. “It’s very charming.”

  Cal shot him a look.

  The bartender’s eyes flicked to Cal’s shield and then to the way Cal held himself.

  “What floor chewed you up?” she asked.

  Cal could have lied.

  Jordan’s presence made lying feel pointless.

  “Five,” Cal said.

  Her gaze sharpened. “Group?” she asked.

  “Should’ve been,” Cal said. “Wasn’t.”

  She let out a low whistle. “You pulled the cord?”

  Cal tapped the pocket where the emergency card rested.

  “Good,” she said. “Stupid not to. Dead delvers don’t tip.”

  Jordan leaned an elbow on the bar. “He’s learning. Slowly. Painfully.”

  The bartender’s mouth twitched. “That’s the only way most of them learn.”

  She drifted away to take other orders. Cal wrapped his hands around the water glass and let the coolness soak into his fingers.

  Behind him, a pair of voices rose above the ambient hum.

  “—telling you, he took the whole pack solo,” one said. “Mire all around him, nothing but those little swords and that crack-crack water trick.”

  Cal didn’t turn.

  Jordan did.

  Not obviously. Not like a dog hearing its name. Jordan shifted in his seat just enough that his back was angled toward the voices, like he’d been distracted by a screen.

  Cal’s stew arrived—brown, thick, filled with something almost like meat. He ate without tasting, pretending not to listen.

  “Floor Two’s swamp?” the second voice asked. “You’re full of it.”

  “Swear on my sponsor’s ugly logo,” the first said. “We were running outer routes, right? Barely into the fog. Then the AI throws a reroute marker, tells us our previous path is compromised. We divert, come around this clearing, and there he is.”

  “Nuts deep in the mire with three Mirepack,” the second guessed.

  “Four,” the first corrected. “One already down, two thrashing, last one trying to drag him under. Kid’s standing on a rock the size of a dinner plate, bleeding from the leg, doesn’t look like he’s slept in a week.”

  Cal’s spoon stilled.

  “Then he snaps a hand out and—”

  The bartender turned the volume up on the screen just enough that the Tower feed’s crowd noise swallowed the next word.

  Cal kept eating. He chewed. He swallowed. He kept his face neutral.

  Jordan’s eyes stayed on the screen like he didn’t care.

  “—cracked straight through the joint,” the first voice finished when the noise dipped again. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Not sprays. Not shields. Just… lines. The water was mad about how tight it had to be.”

  “Too brave,” the second muttered. “Swamp eats that kind eventually.”

  Cal’s fingers tightened around the spoon.

  “You get a name?” the second asked.

  “Didn’t ask,” the first said. “He snapped at Drews for stepping on his routes, then vanished into the fog. Lanky. Dark hair. Twin blades. Couldn’t miss the way he moved.”

  Cal pushed his bowl away, appetite gone.

  Jordan took a slow drink of his own—he’d ordered something cheap and fizzy purely to have something in his hand—then set it down.

  “Okay,” Jordan said quietly.

  Cal looked at him.

  Jordan’s expression had shifted into that steel-hard calm. The humor was gone, like a switch had been flipped. “Rules,” Jordan reminded.

  Cal’s jaw clenched. “Jordan—”

  “Rules,” Jordan repeated, not louder. Just immovable.

  “Okay,” Cal said.

  Jordan nodded once. “We don’t chase into the Tower. We don’t go into Floor Two today. We talk to him on neutral ground. If your ribs spike, we leave. If you start doing that thing where you go quiet and stare through people like you’re back on the canyon floor, we leave.”

  Cal’s throat tightened.

  “And if he says no?” Cal asked.

  Jordan shrugged. “Then we adjust. But you don’t adjust by dying.”

  Cal didn’t laugh. He didn’t argue.

  “Fine,” he said.

  “Good,” Jordan said.

  When they left The Reset, the Tower district felt a little smaller.

  Rumor webs stretched between floors and bars and training yards, catching bits of people and turning them into stories.

  Elias was a story now.

  Cal wanted the man.

  The next morning, Cal hit the gear market first. Jordan came with him without being asked.

  Cal told himself it was because Jordan had the better eye for people. That was true.

  The other truth was simpler. Cal still didn’t like being alone near the Tower.

  Vendors filled every gap between the Tower’s outer ring and the buildings. Stalls leaned into each other, canvas awnings in clashing colors snapping in the breeze from the ventilation grates.

  The smells were a mix of oiled leather and metal polish. Incense meant to cover sweat. And the irresistible draw of something frying in too much grease.

  Cal saw racks of patched armor and tables full of knives—some real Tower drops, some obvious mass-produced junk. Trinket sellers hawked charms “guaranteed to sync your resonance” for whatever you had left.

  Jordan slowed at one booth full of cheap charms and made a face like he’d just bitten into sand.

  “Do you think if I buy three of those, my odds of not getting eaten go up?” Jordan asked the vendor.

  The vendor brightened. “Absolutely. Resonance luck is all about layering—”

  Jordan leaned in, smiling. “Cool. What’s the refund policy when it fails?”

  The vendor’s smile faltered.

  Cal kept them walking before Jordan could start a fight.

  They stopped at a stall full of straps and harnesses. A heavyset guy lounged behind it with the air of someone who’d seen it all twice and charged extra the third time.

  Cal stepped up, letting his shield catch the man’s eye.

  “Morning,” the vendor said. “Need a new rig? That strap’s seen better days.”

  “Already replaced,” Cal said, and tapped the buckle.

  The vendor’s eyes flicked to the clean strap, then to Jordan.

  “Friend upgrade?” the vendor asked.

  Jordan grinned. “Domestic support package.”

  Cal cleared his throat. “I’m trying to track someone down.”

  The vendor’s expression shuttered a fraction.

  “We’re not a message board,” he said. “Try the kiosks.”

  “I did,” Cal said, keeping his tone mild. “Looking for a water-tuned controller. Twin blades. Quiet. Treats the Floor Two swamp like it owes him rent.”

  The vendor’s eyes flicked up.

  “Friend?”

  “Saved my idiot life,” Cal said. Close enough to the truth. “I owe him a thank you and maybe a less suicidal team.”

  Jordan made a quiet sound that might have been a laugh or a sigh.

  The tension around the vendor’s mouth eased.

  “Water kid,” he said. “Yeah, I know him. Doesn’t talk much. Good eye for gear. Doesn’t waste money on gloss.”

  He jerked his chin toward a line of newer harnesses on the wall. “Picked one of those up last week. Paid full sticker.”

  “Didn’t haggle?” Cal asked.

  “Didn’t even look at the cheaper ones,” the vendor said. A hint of grudging respect slipped into his voice. “Came in with mud up to his knees, handed over his card, said ‘That one. Need it to hold.’”

  Jordan’s humor faded into something thoughtful.

  “Smart,” Jordan murmured.

  “Training yards,” the vendor continued. “Heard the crack before he got there. You’re late.”

  Of course I am, Cal thought.

  “Does he have a name?” Cal asked. “Handle? Team?”

  “Doesn’t give one,” the vendor said with a shrug. “Pays on a Tower card registered to Elias, but good luck getting more than that.

  “You want him, watch the 2. Kid lives in the swamp.”

  Cal thanked him.

  As they stepped away, Jordan fell into stride beside him.

  “Lives in the swamp,” Jordan repeated. “That’s either dedication or a cry for help.”

  Cal’s gaze stayed on the shifting crowd. “It’s probably both.”

  They stopped at the next account window.

  The clerk recognized Cal.

  Probably because most Tier Zero climbers didn’t show up twice in two weeks with medical flags and chip transfers.

  “You again,” she said, looking up from her display. “How’re the ribs?”

  “Mostly in the right places,” Cal said. “I’m not here to cash out.”

  “Then you’re my favorite kind of client,” she said dryly. “What do you need?”

  “Information,” Cal said, leaning his forearms on the counter, careful not to crowd the glass. “Water-tuned controller on Floor Two, keeps soloing swamp packs. Twin short blades. Name might be Elias.”

  Her eyes flicked to a side display.

  “Can’t give you his file,” she said. “Privacy. Liability. The usual.”

  “I’m not asking for his address,” Cal said. “Just… does he spend any time on the grounds that isn’t swamp-adjacent? Training yards, eating halls, anywhere I can accidentally-on-purpose run into him without needing the Tower to scrape me off a canyon floor again.”

  She watched him for a long moment.

  “You sound like a recruiter,” she said.

  “I sound like someone who nearly died on a group floor alone and took the hint,” Cal said. “I need a controller who knows how not to get eaten. He needs an anchor who doesn’t treat the emergency teleport like Plan C.”

  Her lips twitched.

  “Fair,” she allowed.

  Her fingers danced across the unseen interface.

  “He cashes out here sometimes,” she said. “Not often. Keeps most of his chips in-system. When he does pull physical, he doesn’t linger.

  “The only place I’ve seen him sit down is the north eating hall.”

  “Food?” Cal asked.

  “Food and a view,” she said. “Hall shares a wall with Training Block C. They cut in windows along the top of the practice lanes so people can watch between bites.

  “He takes a tray, claims the same corner table, and watches.”

  “Watches what?” Cal asked.

  “Everything,” she said. “Teams, solos, drills. Like he’s memorizing it.

  “He doesn’t bring anyone,” she added, and her gaze flicked to Jordan as if to underline the point.

  Jordan lifted his brows innocently.

  “If you’re looking for him, start there,” the clerk finished. “Early evenings. After runs. Before he goes back in.”

  “Thank you,” Cal said.

  “Buy something while you’re there,” she said. “The Tower likes its investments fed.”

  Jordan stepped back as Cal thanked her again.

  As they walked away from the window, Cal’s ribs began to throb in a steadier rhythm.

  Not sharp.

  Just persistent.

  Jordan noticed.

  He didn’t comment immediately.

  He waited until they were out of earshot and then said, “Sit.”

  Cal frowned. “I’m fine.”

  Jordan’s gaze cut to Cal’s chest.

  Cal’s denial died on his tongue.

  “Okay,” Cal said, and turned toward a low concrete planter along the edge of the market.

  He sat carefully, letting the cold stone seep through his jeans.

  Jordan crouched in front of him like a coach and a friend at once.

  “Pain number,” Jordan said.

  Cal hesitated. He hated the question.

  “Four,” he said.

  Jordan didn’t relax. “And if you keep standing?”

  Cal exhaled. “Six.”

  Jordan nodded, satisfied. “Then we sit until it goes back to four. That’s the rule.”

  Cal stared at him.

  Jordan’s mouth twitched, almost apologetic. “You told me you wanted structure. This is structure.”

  Cal’s throat tightened.

  He nodded once.

  When the ache eased, they headed for the north eating hall.

  It smelled like spices and hot oil and too many bodies in one place.

  Rows of metal tables filled the space, bolted to the floor in neat lines. A long counter along the back wall served up food that ranged from barely edible to acceptable if you were just about to eat.

  Above the tables, rectangular windows cut into the upper half of the far wall revealed slices of Training Block C.

  From the doorway, Cal could see the top halves of three practice lanes. Movement flickered past the windows: a flash of mail, the arc of a blade, the burst of light from a spell detonation.

  Sound bled through in muffled thumps and distant shouts, layered under the closer clatter of trays and conversation.

  Cal grabbed the cheapest bowl of noodles on offer and picked his way through the tables.

  Jordan followed with his own tray, already scanning corners like he expected trouble to walk in wearing a sponsor jacket.

  Cal claimed the corner table first, back to the wall, eyes on the windows.

  For a while, nothing happened.

  Training continued above. Someone ran a shield drill, their silhouette moving in steady patterns as practice bolts bounced off their defenses. A spellcaster tested area effects in a contained box, light flashing bright enough to make the hall dim by comparison.

  Down in the hall, climbers cycled in and out.

  Time stretched.

  Cal’s ribs complained about the hard bench. His leg twinged when he shifted. He picked at his noodles, more to have something in front of him than out of hunger.

  Restless energy crawled under his skin.

  He could have been in the training yards, practicing footwork. He could have been at home, helping Sammy with homework, making sure his mother didn’t overdo it on a good day.

  Instead, he was sitting in a noisy hall, waiting for a guy who might not show up.

  Jordan ate slowly, eyes flicking between Cal and the windows.

  “You’re doing the stare again,” Jordan said finally.

  Cal blinked. “I’m watching.”

  “You’re watching like you’re going to jump the table,” Jordan said. “Relax.”

  “I am relaxed.”

  Jordan’s look said, plainly, no.

  Cal exhaled through his nose.

  Patience, he told himself. Better irritation than another trauma summary.

  The clock ticked from early to late afternoon.

  The hall shifted with it. Morning climbers thinned. Freshly showered ones appeared, hair still damp, faces flushed from hot water instead of exertion.

  The door at the far side opened.

  Cal didn’t tense.

  He told himself he didn’t.

  A steady trickle of delvers came through. None of them were Elias.

  Cal’s jaw tightened.

  Jordan’s hand tapped once against his own tray. A quiet rhythm.

  Then the sound came.

  Not from the door.

  From above.

  A sharp, precise crack cut through the muffled training noise.

  Cal’s body reacted before his brain did. His spine straightened. His hand tightened on his spoon hard enough to bend it.

  The noise came again. Short. Focused. Like a pressure line venting in exactly the way it was supposed to.

  Aqua Lance.

  His heart thudded against his ribs.

  Conversation dipped around them as a few climbers glanced up at the windows.

  Jordan’s head tilted, listening.

  “That’s your sound,” Jordan said quietly.

  Cal stood, ignoring the way his chest protested.

  He turned toward the far wall.

  Through the nearest window, a training lane snapped into focus.

  A lean figure moved down its length, twin blades in hand.

  Water coiled around his arms in tight, glistening bands, then snapped forward in narrow lances, each one cracking against a practice dummy with surgical accuracy. Plates on the dummy’s joints exploded in bursts of stone dust and simulated gore.

  The controller moved with the same economy Cal remembered from the swamp: no wasted steps, no flourishes. Just the minimum motion required to put his body where it needed to be so the next shot would land.

  Elias.

  Cal’s breath caught.

  Jordan stood beside him, quiet.

  Cal reached for his tray, thought better of it, and left the half-finished noodles on the table.

  His legs were already moving.

  He headed for the door that led into Training Block C.

  Jordan fell into step behind him, and this time he didn’t pretend it was accidental.