It took a few fights to fit Nemari back into the team now that the dynamic had shifted without her. Sorin and Odric were splitting front-line duties while Rue came at monsters from the side, and that made it a lot harder for Nemari to get a clear line of fire. The fact that gremlins were barely waist-tall didn’t help matters, but the team was quick to adapt.

  By the time they made it back to their original camp at the top of the cliff, past the fortress, they were once again working smoothly. The next few days helped refine their techniques even further, to the point where they felt comfortable splitting into two groups. Sorin and Odric formed a group, and Rue and Nemari formed the other. That way, both pairs had sensory and ranged soulprints.

  “It’s a bit more exciting with just the two of us,” Odric said, but ‘exciting’ wasn’t really what he meant.

  “Worried about the girls?” Sorin asked. He rarely had to use his sword, but the trade-off was that they worked a lot harder killing gremlins to keep the number stalking them reasonably low.

  “At this point? Always. This whole month has been cursed.”

  Sorin wanted to point out that Odric’s time frame included him joining, but he was unsure whether he could honestly argue that his presence had been more of a boon than a burden. He wouldn’t say it was the worst month of his career, but compared to how he’d started in the blue tower…

  Well, actually, that was a pretty rough month, too. Two near-total team wipes that resulted in eight people dying in just a few weeks. I must have been crazy to try climbing a third time.

  “I’m sure they’ll be fine,” he said. “It’s just a bunch of gremlins. They’re so weak that I’m killing them while I heal. If that’s not a sign that they’re not a threatening monster, what is?”

  “That kind of attitude worries me,” Odric rumbled. “All monsters are threats.”

  “True, but there are threats, and then there are threats. And these guys don’t really qualify, you know?”

  “What if there’s another ogre?”

  “Anything’s possible. What if a blood surger descends thirty floors and wipes out every living soul?”

  Odric stopped walking. “Have you seen such a monster?” he asked curiously.

  “My first blood surger killed two people before we realized it was there, and it took an over-charged C-ranked soulprint to put down. The guy who killed it crippled himself doing so. His soulspace basically cracked in half. He couldn’t hold anima anymore and had to retire.”

  “That’s horrifying,” Odric said.

  “Climbing isn’t for the faint of heart. Be smart, be careful, but understand that every day is a risk. There’s no such thing as true safety in the tower. So yes, the possibility that another ogre stumbling into the fortress kills the girls does exist, but it’s also pretty unlikely. You can’t plan for every eventuality, Odric.”

  “I understand that, but splitting up still seems foolish.”

  Sorin sighed. “It’s higher risk, but more efficient.”

  The simple truth of it was that the gremlins were opportunists, and going up from three to four people had drastically reduced the number of monsters they could find. The little bastards wouldn’t run once a fight started, but they were significantly more likely to slip away without ever being detected in the first place when faced with overwhelming opposition.

  There was no denying the proof, either. Sorin and Odric had killed five times as many gremlins in just the last hour than they had yesterday. As far as he was concerned, they could either split into smaller groups to bait the gremlins in, or they could just leave the fortress behind completely. It wasn’t worth the time if the whole team stuck together.

  But he’d explained his reasoning back at camp, and they’d all agreed to it then. He wasn’t going to argue about it when they were supposed to be farming gremlins. That distraction would make it more dangerous for them.

  “How’s your arm?” Odric asked, changing the subject.

  “Hurts. I’ll survive.”

  The burns were healing up quite nicely, and the lacerations were nothing more than scabs at this point. Sorin figured he needed another day at most before he was as healed as he was going to get. His left arm was usable, but it wasn’t something he wanted to test. At the moment, it was in a makeshift sling, though he could slip it out easily enough if he absolutely had to.

  That hadn’t come up yet, which was another reason he was content to fight gremlins for another day or two. Despite their numbers, it was trivially easy to win a fight with overwhelming aggression. And that was just fine. In fact, it continued to help Sorin heal even faster, though he was pretty sure he had at best a single day left before Minor Regeneration was completely maxed out on anima.

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  Whether to push it up to rank E was a decision he was struggling with. That would take up valuable soulspace, which he’d normally be fine with, but it wouldn’t be strong enough to fix his arm. He could do that himself with enough empty soulspace to twist his anima into a temporary spell, but the more soulprints he stuck in there, the higher his rank would need to go.

  “I think I’m ready to head back to Floor 0 after this run,” Sorin said.

  “You’re sure? Maybe it would be better if one of us took the portal.”

  “Too risky. They’re going to have someone watching it day and night. Unless I can figure out how to bring someone along through Liminal Gateway, I’ll have to do it alone.”

  Sorin wouldn’t be terribly surprised if the ability grew in that direction, but it wasn’t a true soulprint. After multiple failed attempts to pour anima into it, he suspected the only way to increase its power was to rank up. But that was new ground for him, and he’d just have to wait and see what happened. With any luck, he’d be able to influence how the pseudo-soulprint grew the same as any other one.

  “We’ve got enough supplies to hold off a while longer, and we can forage if we start to run out,” Odric pointed out.

  “It’s fine. You don’t need to come up with excuses for me to delay getting it done. The sooner we do it, the better. Besides, maybe I can feel out how much it’ll cost to get a healer to fix up my arm. It’d be nice to have a goal to work toward.”

  “If it’s less than a thousand danirs, I’ll be surprised.”

  Sorin let out a low whistle of surprise. Magical healing is expensive in the red tower. Makes sense, I guess. Their society is kind of shit here. Maybe it’s because the tower itself is so much rougher, or maybe they just had some powerful people use and abuse the masses at some point in their history.

  Their conversation was interrupted by the gathering gremlins hitting critical mass and charging out of the shadows and crevices they lurked in. Ice blades killed three of them before they even really got started, and by the time the rest of the pack closed the distance, Odric’s stone-covered fists were already descending on their heads.

  * * *

  Sorin was loaded up with all the money the team had and all the materials they’d harvested with the intent to sell or trade it all. Despite it being only a few days later, they’d added to the loot considerably by mixing up gremlin extermination with some foraging trips in the woods outside the fortress.

  That made everything a bit awkward to carry, and he stood out in a bad way. He was going to attract street gangs and muggers like shit attracted flies, but he’d weighed that against having to make multiple trips and decided quicker was better. The odds of someone ambushing him on a second or third trip were just too high to accept.

  Sorin emerged near the seven-tower sign warily, but the only person in sight was the same old man he’d met when he’d first woken up in the red tower. The man’s back was to him, so at least he hadn’t seen Sorin pop out of thin air, but he turned his head at the sound of Sorin’s boots on the street.

  “Hngh. Still alive, I see. Damn stupid to be walking around here with all that on your back though.”

  “Heya, old timer. Yep, still kicking. Just passing through again,” Sorin told him. “No time to stop and chat. I need to get this unloaded before trouble finds me.”

  The old man nodded. “Smart idea, but not as smart as not walking around through here with all that in the first place.”

  “Maybe you’re right. I’ll have to change up my route next time.”

  Specifically, Sorin wanted to place a sign near the Meat Grinder itself. Hauling hundreds of danirs worth of monster materials halfway across Floor 0 was not his idea of a good time, and he wanted his next trip to be both shorter and more discreet.

  Leaving the old man behind, Sorin marched out into the city. Unlike his first attempt, he didn’t come across any disasters in the making, and in less than an hour, he was standing inside the Meat Grinder—the Clubhouse, he reminded himself—looking for Bradford.

  It didn’t take long for the owner to come out of a back room once someone went to fetch him. He approached Sorin and eyed up the collection of packs and bags on the man’s back. “Looking for a seller’s permit?” he asked. “You can just talk to reception about that.”

  “Something a bit more complicated than that,” Sorin said. “Can we grab a private room and talk?”

  Bradford raised a single eyebrow and said, “I’m flattered, but my answer is either that ‘you’re a bit too young for me’ or ‘I don’t want any part in whatever trouble you’re bringing to my door.’”

  “Business arrangement,” Sorin clarified. “Seems the Black Hellions have become unduly interested in my whereabouts, and it’s making it difficult to live my life.”

  That was all it took to change the whole tone of the conversation. Bradford’s face fell into a ferocious scowl, and his whole body tensed up. With a single glance around the main floor to note who was paying more attention than they should be to the conversation, he nodded his head toward the back. “Grab your bags and let’s go. You can tell me what that little asshole did now once we’re out of earshot.”

  Bit of history there, I think. That’s not just anger at a gang as a whole. He’s personally involved somehow, or he was at some point.

  Sorin wasn’t sure if that made things better or worse for him. In an ideal tower, the Black Hellions wouldn’t know he existed, and he’d just spend the next year pushing up past rank 20 so their interest would be irrelevant. That portal had already closed, unfortunately, but that didn’t mean Sorin wanted to plant himself in the middle of whatever Bradford had going on with them.

  He’d only come to the Meatgri—to the Clubhouse because Rue had told him the Black Hellions couldn’t get past the front door. Now he was worried that Bradford would try to recruit him in carrying out some sort of vendetta, and worse, that he’d have no choice but to accept in order to secure the old man’s help. And they needed that help. Without a reliable fence and someone to do supply runs, the team’s momentum would quickly grind to a halt.

  Sorin followed Bradford into a meeting room, then waited while the retired rank 10 channeled some anima to create a barrier of stilled air around the table. It wasn’t foolproof, but it would protect them against anyone with an ear to the door. It had the unfortunate side effect of also limiting Blind Sense to the immediate area, meaning his reaction time to an ambush was drastically reduced.

  We need this, he reminded himself again.

  “Alright,” Bradford said, the scowl still in place. “Talk.”