“You do?” the man asked. He peered at Sorin, but there was no light of recognition in his eyes. Shrugging, he examined the rest of the team.

  It wasn’t that unusual to run into other climbing teams, though having one show up to save them at the very last second was a bit suspicious. Sometimes, coincidences happened. Other times, they were manufactured. But in this case, Sorin couldn’t imagine what the other team would stand to gain that they couldn’t loot off the dead bodies of his fallen comrades.

  The man was tall, at least half a foot taller than Sorin. He was heavily muscled, with arms thicker than Sorin’s legs, and two long swords strapped to his back. With a shrug, he said, “Lots of people recognize me. It’s because I’m so tall and handsome.”

  “It was more the bouncers chasing you down to kick you out when you started swinging those swords around at the vendor’s stall that made you stand out in my mind,” Sorin said.

  “Ah.” The man’s face flushed. “That.”

  “Oh, what a surprise. Someone remembers you being an idiot,” came a nasally voice from the street. Another climber walked in, a sneer on his face and his hands on his hips as he surveyed the place. He had a handsome face and long, dark hair. A breast plate, vambraces, and greaves made up his armor, and he had a sword nearly identical to Sorin’s hanging from his belt. “God save you, but we got here just in time.”

  Much as it rankled Sorin to admit it, there was some truth to that statement. He was uninjured, despite how shredded his outfit was. Rue and Odric were in much worse shape, both of them bleeding from dozens of bite wounds. Nemari was practically ground meat, alive only because of Odric’s intervention.

  Jagged, blood-dyed scraps of cloth hung off her frame, all that was left of her outfit. The only saving grace was that she didn’t appear to be conscious anymore. With any luck, Odric would have her healed by the time she woke up. He was ignoring the newcomers for now, not that Sorin could blame him. It was debatable whether he had enough anima to heal injuries this severe.

  The sneering man lost some of his bluster when he saw Nemari. His eyes didn’t linger, but he snapped out, “Vendis, your talents are needed.”

  A third man hustled in, this one holding a staff that looked a lot like Nemari’s and dressed in an impractical, multi-layered robe that someone had tried to dye white once upon a time, but which was now stained from weeks or months of climbing. As soon as he laid eyes on Nemari, he rushed over and started casting his own healing spells.

  “Name’s Heldigar,” the big man said. “Who’re you?”

  “Sorin. This is Odric, Rue, and Nemari.” Sorin gestured to each member of his team as he named them.

  “The stuffy one is Yoru. Vendis is our healer, but I guess you probably figured that out already.”

  “Stuffy?” Yoru echoed, affecting outrage. “It’s called proper decorum, something you’d know nothing about.”

  “He’s right about that,” Heldigar said out of the corner of his mouth to Sorin. “No use for that kind of stuff on a climb, you know?”

  “I do,” Sorin said with a smile.

  Friendly, but dumb. Can’t complain though, not when he probably saved the rest of my team with that aura burst. Him and the stuck up guy are both rank 1, but it looks like they’ve got a rank 2 healer. Lucky for us. Nemari might not have made it otherwise.

  “You all here to clear this ruin out, too?” the big man asked.

  “What else would they be here for?” Yoru said scathingly.

  “We actually didn’t know this ruin existed. It wasn’t mentioned in the Floor 1 information I got,” Sorin admitted. “Those illusion-wielding monkeys ensnared our scout, and we had to come in after her.”

  “Oh, I see. You’re suicidally stupid. You deliberately walked into a ruin you knew nothing about and weren’t prepared to counter.”

  “To save their teammate’s life,” Heldigar said. “That’s not stupid. It’s noble.”

  “It can be both,” Yoru snapped.

  Sorin held up a hand to forestall the argument. “He’s not wrong. Coming in here was a risk, but we weren’t willing to let our scout die without attempting to save her.”

  “She’ll be alright,” the other team’s healer announced. “It’s going to hurt when she wakes up, and there will be scars, but she’s not in any danger of dying.”

  Odric started thanking the man, who, much to Sorin’s amusement, looked extremely uncomfortable all of a sudden. Rue was a little less exuberant in her praising of his abilities, but she still made sure to clap a hand on his shoulder as she moved past him. She was obviously in need of some healing herself, but she wasn’t complaining about not being tended to.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “What happens now?” Rue asked.

  “Well, there’s typically three outcomes to running into another team,” Sorin said. “The stupid ones forget they’re risking their lives and pick fights. I think we can safely eliminate that. That leaves collaboration or parting ways.”

  “We’re not interested in a team up,” Yoru said instantly. “You’re ill-prepared for this ruin, regardless. If you’re truly only here to recover your scout, then perhaps it’s time you make a hasty escape.”

  Arrogant little shit, aren’t you? But it’s hard to argue in favor of our competency when we’ve got two injured climbers and one who’d probably be dead without intervention.

  “I wouldn’t necessarily say you’re wrong, but there’s one problem with that,” Sorin told the man. “We already tried to leave once. The ruin wouldn’t let us.”

  “The wall got bigger,” Rue added. “When we got closer, it grew so we couldn’t escape.”

  The other climbers exchanged surprised glances, and Sorin thought he caught a bit of worry in there. For all their preparations, it seemed they hadn’t been aware that there was no turning back once they walked through that archway. That was a common enough trick of the tower on higher floors, but it wasn’t something anyone would expect to happen down on Floor 1.

  No. Stop thinking that way. You know things are different in this version of the tower. But then… Why are these climbers surprised to find out they can’t retreat? Maybe it’s not that this tower is harder. Maybe… It’s different for me? Is it related to the mosaic somehow? Does the tower know I’m not a normal rank 1?

  That was a disturbing thought that merited further investigation. It wouldn’t surprise Sorin at all to find out that his experiences in this new tower were far from typical, but there were too many possibilities to narrow the answer down to any one thing. Really, the only thing he could do was keep on moving forward and hoping that gaining another rank to his soulspace would reveal more of the mosaic. It was that or go back to that cave with that doorway etched onto the wall and try to figure out what it meant without accidentally committing suicide-by-voidling-summoning.

  “I’m not saying you’re lying,” Yoru said slowly, “but what you’re describing runs counter to my own knowledge of this ruin. There should be nothing stopping you from leaving at any point.”

  “Nothing besides the light warpers,” Heldigar muttered.

  “You’re not helping,” Yoru told the big man.

  “Not trying to help.”

  Sorin did not miss the smirk that briefly crossed Rue’s face when Heldigar said the exact same thing she often did when she was annoying her team leader.

  “Regardless, while we appreciate the assistance, feel free to proceed at your own pace,” Sorin said. “You don’t need to go any further out of your way for our sake.”

  “I don’t care for the idea of competing with you to loot the seed,” Yoru said bluntly. “We’re not here to farm the ruin for anima. I want whatever tower-forged artifacts I can pull out of this place.”

  “I’m not going to fight you for them,” Sorin said. “Look at my team. We’re not in any position to push deeper into the ruin. I’m going to find us a place to hole up near the wall, and as soon as you drain the seed, we’re retreating.”

  “What?” Rue’s head snapped around to Sorin. “You want to give up after everything we’ve lost to get this far?”

  “Yes. Know when you’ve bitten off more than you can chew. We weren’t ready for this place, and we’re lucky all of us are still alive. If their team wants to plunder the ruin, I say we take advantage of that and make our escape while we can.”

  Their team was also rank 1s and a rank 2, from what Sorin could tell, but there was a difference between climbers who’d chosen their build and equipment specifically to counter a ruin and a team who’d stumbled into trouble. If they had a competition to see who could destroy bark elementals the fastest, Sorin was sure his team would win, but here in the ruin, they had nothing like Heldigar’s aura burst to take out swarms of rats. They didn’t even know what other kinds of problems to expect deeper in.

  “Vendis,” Yoru said. “You’re sure their mage will survive?”

  “I am,” he said. “Unless they get attacked again, of course.”

  “There you go, then. We’ve done our duty to our fellow climbers. Come on, let’s be on our way before we lose the daylight and things get harder.”

  Yoru swept back out of the house without a further word, followed closely by his healer. Heldigar frowned at the two of them but sighed and said, “Don’t get yourself killed being reckless. I know how it sounds coming from someone like me, but we’re all in this together, yeah? I’d hate to find your bodies on our way back out.”

  “We’ll be safe,” Sorin told him. “Thanks for the assist. You saved a few lives today.”

  “But not yours, eh?” Heldigar laughed as he eyed Sorin up. “Not so much as a bruise on you.”

  “Iron Body,” Sorin explained.

  “That’s a good one! I considered it myself, but there wasn’t enough room in my soulspace. Next rank, though. I’ll be able to afford it, too. This job pays well. Yoru comes from a rich family.”

  “Heldigar!” Yoru called out. “You’re supposed to be in front of the group.”

  “But he’s high strung,” the climber said with a glum sigh. “Too high strung. Don’t know that I’ll do another job with him if he offers.”

  Then Heldigar was gone, leaving Sorin and Rue standing there while Odric knelt next to Nemari, who still hadn’t awakened. “Anything else nearby?” Sorin asked.

  “Nothing,” Rue said. “And Aura Sense ranked up to E during that fight, so it’s got even more range on it now, too. I’m good out to about a hundred feet now. It’s going to be a nightmare when we go back to Floor 0.”

  “Practice with it. Soulprints like that always have some way to adjust the sensitivity so you don’t overwhelm yourself with the feedback. But first, let’s do something about all these bites. I don’t think Odric’s going to have the anima to spare for healing you up for a while.”

  Rue winced at that. “Yeah. I was hoping their healer would do a bit of work on Od and me. Never got a chance to ask.”

  “I don’t think he would have. I know Yoru’s type. He stepped in to keep anyone from dying, but he wouldn’t do anything more. That would just be anima wasted that his own team might need. He’s probably cursing meeting us and having to spend resources on Nemari.”

  “If that’s how he feels, why help us at all?” Rue asked.

  “Climber’s code. You see a climber about to die, you save them. It’s us against the tower.”

  “That’s not a real thing.”

  “It is,” Sorin insisted. “Get a few more ranks. You’ll understand. People who act like that trio who tried to bait kill us don’t last very long. They either get themselves killed by the tower, or they run afoul of another climber who won’t tolerate that sort of behavior. Now, hand me Odric’s pack. I think he’s got some bandage rolls in there. We need to clean those wounds and get them tied off.”