Voidlings weren’t monsters, or at least there were enough differences between them and normal monsters that climbers had agreed to classify them as something else. There were a few common traits they all shared despite coming in a seemingly infinite variety of sizes and shapes. First, voidlings had no other colors besides black. Each and every one of them appeared to be made of liquid darkness that had coalesced into physical form. Second, they were unfailingly aggressive against everything else, even other voidlings.

  Those traits by themselves weren’t enough to earn them their own classification. No, the thing that set voidlings apart wasn’t their appearance or their territorial behavior. It was what they ate.

  Nothing else in the tower, not monster or trap or the strangest environmental hazard, ate anima. Voidlings, however, drank it up. Any magic used on them instantly broke down and was consumed. Getting too close would drain a climber’s anima reserves even if they weren’t actively using them. If they got a big enough bite out of a person, they could cause irrevocable soul damage or even rip out soulprints whole.

  This particular voidling was small, barely coming up to Sorin’s knee. Despite that, it was every bit as vicious as its larger kin. It barreled across the cave, completely ignoring the blood and guts all over the ground, and lunged at Sorin. He easily stepped to one side and dragged his sword through the creature’s face.

  Its maw split even wider than normal as sharpened steel cut it open, but if it was hurt, it gave no sign of it. No voidling ever did. Attacking it was like chopping a globule of water thrown out of a bucket. Technically, Sorin had succeeded. But in practice, the inky blackness just splashed against the ground and oozed back together to reform again.

  That wasn’t to say the things were invincible. They weren’t. They were just extremely durable. In the more powerful varieties, that could be downright lethal. In this particular case, it was more wearisome and annoying than anything else. This voidling was small and slow. As long as Sorin didn’t make a mistake, he’d eventually break it apart.

  Each time it came back together from a hit, there was just a little bit less of it. Every cut shaved away a tiny fraction of its body, unnoticeable at first as its shifting form constantly filled in the slashes and rearranged itself. It was only after a few dozen such injuries that Sorin could see that it was getting smaller.

  Where the pieces of its body he carved away were going, Sorin couldn’t say. It didn’t leave splashes of ink on the ground like blood. No black murk hung in the air. The voidling simply shrunk a little bit, slowly collapsing on itself in a death of a thousand cuts.

  That did not mean it was an easy fight, of course. Voidlings were absolutely deadly, and this one was the quickest thing Sorin had seen yet in this new red tower. It struck with a speed that put the manticore’s tail strikes to shame. Only decades of experience and the unflinching vitality of Sorin’s new soulprint kept him ahead of its attacks.

  If there’d been two of them, they’d tear me to pieces, he thought. Assuming one of them didn’t eat the other one first.

  For all his bad luck in running into a voidling on Floor 1, he was at least fortunate enough that it was small and alone. On the higher floors, it wasn’t uncommon to get caught in the path of roaming void zones, pockets of space with no land to stand on, no air to breathe, and no heat to keep warm. Without the appropriate utility soulprints, anyone caught in one was guaranteed to die. Even with them, escaping the voidlings that lurked inside, nigh-invisible against the dark backdrops, was a difficult endeavor.

  But to find one down here. Or… did I summon it somehow? It only came out of that carving when I pushed anima through it. I dangled some bait. Of course it showed up to take a bite.

  The voidling lunged at him again, now little more than a tentacled blob of darkness. Sorin’s soulspace ached from the anima he’d lost just from being close to the thing, but it was nothing compared to the pain of losing a piece of a soulprint. Having to remove the leftover fragment of one of those from his soulspace was agony, the kind that could kill a climber outright if the soulprint was strong enough.

  What the voidling was giving him was more akin to a sunburn for the soul. It was annoying, mildly painful, but ultimately harmless enough as long as it was stopped now. With the voidling shrinking, Sorin picked up his pace and went on the offensive. He pushed in close, repeatedly hacking and cleaving the creature while dodging its flailing tendrils.

  The whole fight was silent except for the sound of Sorin’s steady breathing, his measured footsteps, and his sword cutting through the air. His opponent made no noise, not even the sloshing liquid splashes it seemed like a creature made of liquid darkness should make. It lived in silence, and it died the same way.

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  When it was gone, there was no rewarding influx of anima like he would have gained from a monster. That was yet another way voidlings were different. They lived in the vast darkness beyond the tower but sometimes invaded. It was a good thing they were blessedly rare on the lower floors, enough so that rumors about them rarely reached Floor 0. If those who refused to climb knew what was lurking in the darkness beyond the wall, what occasionally crossed over to seek prey, every last one of them would climb to Floor 1 or die trying.

  Should I deface that symbol etched into the stone? Would it do anything if I did? What if I ended up knocking some hole in reality and let even more voidlings through?

  The last thing a bunch of rank 1 climbers needed was a swarm of voidlings crawling across the landscape looking for anima to eat. He doubted anyone on this floor was prepared to handle a fight like that. Certainly, nobody on his team could survive even the tiny voidling he’d just fought. Nemari’s only method of attacking was worthless against them. Odric didn’t even have a weapon thanks to his foolish monk build that he lacked most of the soulprints for.

  Maybe Rue could do it, but Sorin doubted she had the patience or the skill to whittle a voidling down to nothing. It only took a single mistake for things to spiral out of control. Still, she was probably the best suited for voidling killing. Speed and precision were the necessary factors. Armor did nothing; voidlings went right through it to attack the anima held in the person wearing it.

  Sorin finished gathering up the supplies he was taking from the three dead men while he considered what to do. In the end, he was reasonably certain that it was unlikely anyone would even notice the mark on the wall, and if they did, they probably wouldn’t have any reason to examine it as closely as he did. After all, nobody else had a mosaic with the same symbol in their soulspace. Or if they did, it hadn’t come up in casual conversation.

  Is it some weird red tower thing? Maybe everyone has them here, and there’s just no need to talk about it. It could be some sort of cultural taboo, or just so ubiquitous that it’s like saying the sky is blue. Shit, maybe I do need to tell the team after all.

  One thing the encounter was forcing him to reconsider was his own circumstances. It was impossible to take so much anima out of him without killing him. Sorin knew that was true. And yet, that was exactly what had happened to him. He could easily picture a massive voidling giving him a savage mauling that consumed every one of his soulprints, but he couldn’t see himself surviving it.

  More than that, a voidling couldn’t shrink his soulspace’s size, nor could it remove all of the floors he’d been keyed into. And it certainly couldn’t transport him to another tower entirely and give him thirty years of his life back. The only part of his circumstances a voidling encounter explained was how he’d lost his soulprints.

  Maybe that’s it, though. I could lose one soulprint and survive it. What if one of them showed up on Floor 100 and took a bite out of me. It could have gotten Clarity of Mind. That would leave me vulnerable to something that could affect my mind. Maybe I really am trapped in some kind of illusion. But if so, what’s the point? Why not just kill me and get it over with?

  That theory was only marginally better than his original one, and even if it was true, it didn’t explain what had happened to everyone else. Sorin hadn’t given them a lot of thought so far. He knew his team. They were all tough, all capable of taking care of themselves. They’d survived everything the tower had to offer. They’d survive this, too.

  Sure would be nice to have just one of them here with me, though. Zellick would be nice. He always knew how to cut the tension with a good joke. Plus he’s a hell of a cook, which is something you learn not to take for granted after a few years of eating your own shitty cooking.

  Lost in his thoughts, Sorin made his way back to the members of his new team. He found Rue first, or rather, she found him. She’d been hiding in a tree and probably spotted him with her aura sense. His hour away had given her plenty of time to recover from the manticore attack, though she still looked pale.

  It was nothing compared to Nemari, who’d taken a full salvo of poisoned tail spikes to the chest. She’d need far more than an hour to get back on her feet, even with Odric’s help. Honestly, Sorin was impressed she’d survived at all. That kind of damage could easily kill a rookie climber, especially one without any body enhancing soulprints.

  “Where’d you go?” Rue asked when she got a look at all the gear he was carrying. “Shopping trip?”

  “Not exactly,” he said. “I found the source of our problems. It was a group of thugs who tried to pressgang me into muling for them a little while ago. Looks like they were trying to get revenge on me for kicking their asses, and you all got caught up as collateral damage.”

  Nemari cracked open an eye and struggled to sit upright while Odric supported her. She let out a wheezing cough and eyed Sorin weakly. “You kill them?”

  “Yes. They won’t be leading any more monsters to us or anybody else.”

  “Good. Fuck ‘em. We don’t need climbers like that running around.”

  With that said, she sagged back down and passed out. Sorin shot Odric a questioning look, but the big man just shook his head and said, “I’m completely drained. We’ll have to rest here until I can recover some anima and finish healing her.”

  “Here’s not great,” Sorin said. “Do you think she can handle being carried?”

  “If it’s only for a little bit, probably. Why? Do you have somewhere better to camp?”

  “Not yet. I’ll try to find something defensible and nearby. In the meantime, could you see about sorting out these supplies? See what’s useful and what’s worth selling. Oh, and Rue, I pulled these off one of them.” Sorin held out the magic boots. “My best guess is a sound-muffling enchantment. You could walk across a field of dry leaves without making a sound wearing these things.”

  Her eyes sparkled with greed as she snatched the boots out of his hands. “You know, you’re alright, Sorin.”

  “Thanks,” he said dryly. “I’m glad you approve.”