There was something weird about this ruin. It took Sorin a few minutes to figure out what exactly it was that was bothering him, but eventually he realized what the problem was. We know this place is occupied. Something chucked a damn spear at me. But there’s no sign of anything or anyone besides Rue in here. Even the animal tracks are sparse, probably because they learned that going in here means getting killed.

  When logic and reasoning failed, the answer was usually some sort of strange or unusual ability. He just hadn’t expected it on Floor 1. The lower floors were normally tame. They followed the standard rules of physics. They held monsters that could be beaten without the need for soulprints and environments that weren’t inherently deadly.

  Except he’d been shown repeatedly that it didn’t seem to be true in the red tower. Back in Sorin’s original life, that had been the case. It was time to throw those assumptions away and start treating this climb like it was at least a few floors higher in difficulty than it should be. Whether the red tower was just harder in general or he’d been cursed with the worst luck was irrelevant.

  So, ignore what I think should be happening here. What other possibilities could it be?

  The first thing that came to mind was the fact that none of them had anything to protect against mental intrusions. Things weren’t lining up right, and that could be a sign that something was fucking with their brains but not doing a very good job of it. If that was the case, then the best they could hope for was that they were being deceived with illusions.

  He glanced back at where he’d dodged the spear. The haft had broken into pieces, and the stone tip was still sitting half-buried in the moss. If it had been an illusion, the whole thing would have vanished. So that was real, at least. Maybe the ‘trapped in an illusion’ theory is wrong, but if that’s the case, then why are there no signs of anything living here?

  Sorin took a minute to scan the empty windows around them while he turned that idea over in his head. It was possible that they just hadn’t found whatever part of the ruin the monsters were living in yet, that they’d entered from a different direction than what was commonly used. Just walking for another few minutes could reveal all the signs of life Sorin hadn’t been able to find.

  No. I’d still have seen some sign of our attacker. I’m missing something.

  There was another flash of movement above. This time Sorin didn’t even bother spinning to face it; he just threw a blade of ice through the air to intercept the spear. It ripped through the weapon, which was aimed at Odric this time, snapping the flimsy wooden haft in two and sending the tip spinning away to bounce off a wall.

  His eyes snapped up to the window the spear had come from. Nothing. God damn it.

  This monster was either invisible or had some sort of short-range teleport. That had to be it. The attacks were real, but the attacker was nowhere to be found, and there were no signs of it. Invisibility and some sort of flight, or teleportation. Maybe telekinesis if it doesn’t actually have hands to hold those weapons.

  None of those were abilities he expected to see on a monster on Floor 1, but if it actually did have any of them, Sorin would dedicate the next six months of his life to farming this ruin until he got the soulprints for them. Flight was mandatory for exploration on higher floors, and telekinesis added a whole new dimension to fighting, one that climbers who lacked the soulprint for could barely even comprehend.

  Getting either of them before reaching rank 2 was enough to make Sorin consider ripping out a few of his current soulprints just to make room. But no, that would be dumb. It would be better to just kill the floor guardian to expand his soulspace, and honestly, that might not even be enough. A very limited version of telekinesis might be E-ranked, but there was no way flight was less than D.

  Which begs the question of how some monster down on Floor 1 could have either of them, Sorin mused. Maybe I’m completely wrong about what’s going on.

  Nemari pulled him out of his thoughts when she unleashed a series of firebolts through seemingly random open windows. If she hit anything, it didn’t make any sort of noise. “Any luck?” Sorin asked.

  She shook her head. “Either I missed it, or I didn’t hit it hard enough to kill it.”

  “Right. Well, no point in being quiet now. Something obviously already knows we’re here. Keep your eyes peeled for traps and ambushes. I don’t know if this thing can teleport or fly or turn invisible or something else completely, but it’s hitting us out of nowhere. Fuck, it might not even be just one.”

  The problem was they couldn’t take the time to sweep every single house. Even checking the ones they’d been attacked from could be a mistake if the insides were heavily trapped. A single glance through an open doorframe confirmed Sorin’s fears there. Whatever these monsters were, they weren’t subtle about their traps. Having a boost to his vision from his new soulprint probably helped spot the triplines, covered pits, and rigged ceilings as well.

  “It’s a death trap in there,” he reported. “Either those monsters have another way to escape, or they’re stuck in there waiting for someone to walk by. I’d bet on the former.”

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “Can you follow it back?” Nemari asked.

  “No. I don’t even know what they are. Actually, Odric, give me a boost, will you?”

  Working together to give Sorin some height, the pair managed to lift him high enough up the outside of the house for Sorin to scramble up to a window. He got his hands on the lip and pulled himself up, only to give a yelp of surprise and throw himself backward. Twisting as he fell, he managed to roll across the ground and avoid injury, but neither of his companions saw the feat of acrobatics. They were too distracted by the hail of small blades coming through the window.

  “Fuckers trapped that, too,” Sorin muttered as he climbed to his feet. “What the hell are we dealing with here?”

  If this place is so dangerous, why wasn’t there so much as a mention of it in the archives? Unless… has this place really killed every single person who’s stumbled across it? That would be impossible, right?

  The only way nobody would know is if whatever lived here killed anything and everything that got within sight of the ruin, which might explain why Rue had walked in. If it had lured her in somehow, then they were probably dealing with some sort of monster that could mind-fuck climbers. That would also explain why Sorin couldn’t get a look at the thing.

  But he knew ways to resist these kinds of attacks, even without a soulprint to back him up. It was partially a matter of simple discipline, of having the willpower to fight back, but another part was knowing that he was under attack in the first place. And he was pretty sure he was.

  Focus. Part of what you’re seeing isn’t real. Maybe all of it. You won’t break out of the illusion just by staring at it.

  He couldn’t trust his senses, and he couldn’t feel the anima of the magic around him. Rue would have been able to, which might just have been why she was targeted first, but he’d have to do it the hard way. If the illusion wasn’t entirely external, then that meant part of it was entering his body, and that part was vulnerable to being targeted.

  Taking a risk, he dove into his soulspace where he could feel his anima best. It took only a moment to see it threading its way through him, little tendrils creeping in through his eyes and ears. Sorin lacked the ability to repel that attack, but he could rip it out of him. More anima would come right back in, blinding him to the truth again.

  In that moment between destroying the foreign anima and the effect refreshing itself, he opened his eyes and saw a monkey-like creature perched on a roof a few houses away. It had gray fur and icy blue eyes so large it seemed like they should fall out of its head. Human-shaped hands with fingers far too long gripped the edge of the roof it was perched on while those unblinking eyes stared down at Sorin and his team, eyes that widened slightly when he looked at it.

  A new wave of anima rushed in to blind him again, but it was too late. Ice blades formed out of thin air, already speeding across the distance. Sorin threw six of them, three lined up with the monster, and the other three bracketing it above and to the sides in case it dodged.

  The ice blades slammed into something none of them could see. An instant later, the monkey-monster came into view, its body shredded from being hit by four of the blades. The one overhead and to its right had passed it by, but its attempt at dodging had put it directly in the path of the rest of them. That had been enough to take it down and break its magic.

  Nemari gaped up at the roof, having followed Sorin’s magic with her eyes. “What the hell is that?”

  “I’m not sure. Some sort of illusion-wielding monster. There could be more, so don’t let down your guard just yet. We need to find Rue and get the hell out of this place. If I’m right, there’s probably a whole colony of these things, and they’ve been killing everyone who finds the ruin. There’s no other way people wouldn’t know about it, not unless the Climber’s Union is deliberately hiding it.”

  Which it very well might be, probably because there’s something profitable here they don’t want to share with regular members. Is that worse than the local monsters being ludicrously effective at defending their territory?

  Without the monster interfering with his senses, the street looked far different. Where before it had been relatively empty and looked like a simple stone town reclaimed by nature, now he could see the truth. That was a carefully cultivated fa?ade meant to hide the inhabitants, who were smart enough to craft illusions that worked on humans. Those illusions were so powerful, that looking back, Sorin couldn’t find the route they’d taken to get this far.

  They manipulated our senses so thoroughly that we didn’t even realize we were being steered to this street. This must be where they send people to… not die, maybe, but soften them up?

  Ahead of them was a stretch of stone bracketed by houses, all filled with various traps. The monsters had managed to hide all but the first one, though that might have been done on purpose to lure them in if it knew they were looking for someone. It was a little late to ask the monster now. Sorin had felt the anima from its death enter his soulspace.

  “This is going to be slow,” he warned. “The only way for me to tell if I’m being affected by an illusion is to go into my soulspace and check. Every thirty seconds or so, I’ll go look again. I’m trusting you two to keep me safe while I’m in there. In between, we’ll navigate these traps and look for Rue. I have a suspicion that the monsters kept her alive.”

  “Why would they do that?” Nemari asked, ignoring the dirty look Odric gave her.

  “To make sure we try to rescue her. If we think she’s dead, we’ll leave. That means it’s harder for the monsters to grab the rest of us if we’re running. I think that’s why they showed us that trap with the fresh blood, to egg us on.”

  He left unsaid that there was every chance they’d killed her after luring her into that trap, or that the trap itself had done her in. He doubted that, though, if for no other reason than the overall lack of blood. There was enough for it to be an injury, but not enough for someone to have died.

  “Besides, look.” Sorin pointed down the street. “I can see scuff marks in the moss a few hundred feet that way, and I don’t think the monsters did it. I think Rue realized she was trapped and started trying to leave a trail to either find her way out or for us to follow.”

  Odric peered at the moss, but it was too far away for his unenhanced eyes to make out any details. Sorin watched him squint and take a few steps forward, then caught the man’s arm. “Don’t walk into any traps,” he said. “But let’s get moving. Chances are the rest of the monsters know we’re here. Stealth is out. It’s time for speed and overwhelming violence.”

  Together, they threaded their way through the gauntlet of traps laid out on the street and followed after the trail Rue had left for them.