“So, don’t leave me in suspense,” Rue prodded. “What’s the last one?”

  “I… don’t know,” Sorin said slowly.

  “Really, because the look on your face makes it seem like you recognized it.”

  “I do, but… I’ve seen this symbol before. I just don’t know what it means.”

  “Okay, but what does it actually do?”

  That was a good question, one Sorin should have asked himself already. Knowing the function of the tower-forged item could be the first step in figuring out what the symbol itself meant. It probably wouldn’t be enough on its own, but anything was better than what he knew right now, which was absolutely nothing.

  “It looks like… a key, maybe?”

  The more Sorin tried to feel out the anima in it, the surer he was that he was right. The tower did stuff like this occasionally, blocking off areas and creating keys that required climbers to go well out of their way to find them. The problem was that they were rarely ever in the seed caches, since those weren’t generally accessed until the ruin had been conquered.

  “There could be a sort of extra area in the ruin that it opens up,” Sorin said. “It might have more loot, and it would definitely be stuffed full of stronger monsters.”

  “Like a challenge run?” Rue asked.

  “Something like that. The thing is, normally the key would have some sort of clue on it to point you in the right direction of where to use it. The tower doesn’t just make these things randomly. It wants them to be used.”

  “That’s got to be what this circle with the rainbow going across it is.”

  “A rainbow? The lines aren’t curved, but I guess I can see it.”

  He’d been thinking of it more like a musical score with no notes on it, but he supposed her interpretation was just as valid. Without any sort of coloring to it, it was impossible to really say one way or another.

  She shrugged. “Does that help us figure out what it unlocks?”

  “No, and I don’t think it has anything to do with the ruin anyway,” Sorin said. “I saw the symbol at the cave where those three climbers who baited that manticore on us were hiding. There’s no connection between this place and that one, not that I’m aware of, so it’s got to be part of something else.”

  Rue was still leading the way while they talked, though she didn’t seem to be going anywhere in particular other than away from the center of the ruin. They took streets almost at random, heading in a general meandering course toward the outer wall by means of whichever street looked the easiest to navigate.

  It might have been faster to go in a straight line, but Sorin suspected Rue might not actually know how to get back to where Odric and Nemari were holed up at and was just looking for familiar landmarks. He was building his own map of the area in his head while they talked, mostly with the goal of knowing what areas they’d already cleared out and which ones were likely to still have monsters in them.

  Eventually, they reached the wall and turned left. A few blocks later, Rue seemed to recognize the area and picked up speed. Soon, they were standing in front of a single-story house with rubble piled up against one wall. A few strategically placed chunks blocked the majority of the doorway, with obvious scuff marks from having been dragged over, indicating they were recently relocated. “Here we are,” Rue said. “Let’s get the others and bail on this place before that prick Yoru realizes we beat him to the loot.”

  She shoved a rock aside, then hopped back when a few more tumbled down with it. A moment later, Sorin heard movement inside the building. “Rue? That you?” Odric’s voice came through the doorway.

  “Yeah. Found Sorin. Killed a giant turtle. Stole all the loot before the other climbers got it. Time to get going,” she said.

  Sorin had his doubts that they’d be moving quickly. It would probably be another day or two before Nemari was back to full strength, and he wouldn’t be surprised if she couldn’t walk yet. Odric would be burning through his anima as quickly as it came back healing her.

  To his surprise, Nemari was on her feet. She was leaning heavily on her staff to stay upright, but she was there. With Odric hovering around her, she hobbled out onto the street and peered at Sorin. “You’re alive,” she said. “Good. Can we get over the wall yet?”

  “Even better,” Rue said before Sorin had a chance to respond. “The ruin’s dead, and we can just walk through the gates now.”

  “How far is it?” Odric asked, obviously concerned about Nemari’s ability to actually travel. She was proud enough that Sorin wasn’t sure she’d let herself be carried, but limiting themselves to her speed would make it difficult to get away from the ruin in a timely manner.

  Sorin very much wanted to put the ruin behind him. There were plenty of monsters still lurking about, and his team was in rough shape. Dealing with Yoru was also pretty low on his list of activities he wanted to participate in, so there was a lot of value in disappearing into the wilderness before the other team realized what had happened and came after them.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  “How’s your anima?” he asked Odric.

  The big man grimaced. “Low.”

  “I’d like to put at least a mile or two between us and this ruin, then we can make camp for a day or two and get everybody back into top shape.”

  “A few more miles than that,” Nemari said. “Believe me, no one wants out of this ruin more than me.”

  Sorin nodded unhappily. “Let’s get everything gathered up and go, then. You set the pace. Rest when you need it. Don’t be stubborn about it.”

  Nemari just rolled her eyes. “Shut up and walk.”

  * * *

  Sorin was impressed with the woman’s sheer grit. Every step had to hurt, but she never faltered. They proceeded at something close to a normal walking pace, with Rue taking point to scout for trouble and Sorin lurking behind Odric and Nemari to guard the rear. He didn’t let himself get too far away, not wanting to risk an attack on either flank coming in uncontested.

  They got back out into the forest without being attacked, a small miracle after everything else that had gone wrong over the last few hours. The trip back to their camp was agonizingly slow and included no less than eight bark elementals and some sort of stinging insect longer than Sorin’s finger, none of which would have been an issue if Nemari had been in good shape. She wasn’t, however, so Sorin and Rue ended up taking care of them the hard way.

  They finally made camp a mile away from the ruin. All of them agreed that getting farther away would have been ideal, but that wasn’t the reality of their situation. Nemari was injured so badly that she shouldn’t have been walking at all. Odric was exhausted from burning all his anima up repeatedly trying to keep Nemari alive. Sorin was drained from a long, tiring day of life-or-death struggles, and Rue…

  Actually, she’s doing just fine. It’s kind of surprising how well she’s thriving on the lifestyle. I expected her brush with mortality to take a bit of shine off her, but the lure of power and treasure was too strong.

  Her swords were mismatched now, the tower-forged one replacing her original main-hand weapon. She kept reaching down to pat the hilt, almost like she was reassuring herself that it was there. Odric and Nemari had been so concerned with their own issues that neither had even noticed the upgrade yet, but once they got settled down to rest, that quickly changed.

  “Where’d you get that?” Odric asked once they’d settled into their new camp and gotten a fire going.

  “Oh, right! The loot! Sorin, we have to do the loot,” Rue said. “We got some stuff I think you’re going to like out of the ruin, Od.”

  “Yeah?”

  Rue dug into her pack eagerly and produced the glove and finger claw. “Sorin says the glove does a sort of Iron Body thing but only for your hand. Good for punching stuff. And this… ring… thing infects anyone you scratch with it, slowing their natural recovery and making it easier to inflict sickness on them.”

  “You think they’ll pair well with that Venom Strike soulprint,” Odric said, easily following her reasoning. He wouldn’t be able to absorb it until rank 2, which meant the little claw was of limited use at the moment, but the potential was there.

  “They’re more valuable as a set,” Sorin said. “Even if you decide you don’t want it, we’ll make good money selling them both to one buyer.”

  “I’ll definitely use the glove if everyone is okay with it. Too bad there’s only the one, though.”

  “The rest isn’t so useful,” Sorin said. “An eye ointment that’s situationally useful for seeing through smoke or fog, a glowing necklace that could serve as a backup light source in a pinch, but which you wouldn’t want to wear full time, and a piece of slate that’s probably a key to somewhere on Floor 1, but we don’t know exactly where.”

  That wasn’t exactly a lie. Sorin did believe it was some sort of key. He just wasn’t planning on mentioning the tile mosaic in the floor of his soulspace that had the same symbol on it. Whatever the key was, it was somehow connected to him. Hopefully, it would unlock some answers.

  “And the sword,” Rue added. “Just my style and enchanted to be light as a feather.”

  “To feel light as a feather to its wielder,” Sorin corrected, glad for the timely change of topic. “Trust me, anything you hit with it will still feel the full weight of the impact.”

  “Nothing useful for me,” Nemari said with a small, pain-filled sigh. “Just my luck.”

  “We got out alive, got a few useful pieces of tower-forged equipment, and Rue got a very powerful new soulprint. We can sell the stuff we don’t need and maybe get you a solid caster’s tool,” Sorin said. “Today didn’t go according to plan, but we’re all alive.”

  “That’s… fair,” Nemari said. “Sorry, I’m just grumpy. I’ll feel better once I get some rest.”

  “We all could use a bit of that,” Odric added. “Why don’t we get some food in us and settle on a watch rotation? We can discuss tomorrow when it gets here.”

  * * *

  Heldigar was doing his best not to start laughing, but it was a struggle. When they’d finally finished cutting their way through a sewer labyrinth that all of them were sure was actually moving its tunnels around while they were inside of it, they’d reached the ruin seed, only to find it already broken and looted.

  Yoru was taking that about as well as could be expected, although Heldigar had learned that his aristocratic boss knew an impressive selection of words climbers ought not to say in polite company. Vendis watched him rant as he paced back and forth passively, only occasionally shooting Heldigar a warning glance when he started losing his struggle to contain his laughter.

  “We should have left them to die,” Yoru snarled. “Should have fucking killed that bastard myself. We had his whole goat-ass-licking team dead to rights. But no, I try to be generous. I commit resources better spent on my team to keeping them alive, and this is how they repay us?”

  The rich boy spun on his heel suddenly, jabbing a finger at Heldigar. “You! You knew their leader. What was his name?”

  “Sorin,” Heldigar dutifully supplied. Sorry, but you did jump Yoru’s claim.

  “Sorin,” Yoru muttered, as if tasting the word on his tongue. “I won’t forget about him.”

  Heldigar wasn’t sure who he felt sorrier for, Sorin for earning the ire of a scion of a rich family, or Yoru for thinking he actually had a chance of beating the other climber. Heldigar knew talent when he saw it. Yoru wasn’t bad—pretty decent by all measures, honestly—but Sorin was far and away the most skilled fighter Heldigar had ever seen. It was like the man didn’t know how to make mistakes.

  “There’s no point in staying here. Let’s go,” Yoru snapped. With a final, disgusted glance back at the broken tower seed, he stalked off. His two hirelings dutifully fell into place around him, Heldigar in front to blunt the rush of any unseen monsters and Vendis just behind Yoru in case any ranged or magical attacks struck their boss.

  Good thing I opted for a flat rate on this job. Still getting enough danirs for my last soulprint no matter what, Heldigar thought smugly to himself.