The mace, still dripping blood into the dirt, was intimidating on its own, but that was nothing compared to its owner approaching close enough for Sorin to feel that he was rank 5. If the guy’s intentions weren’t friendly, Sorin was going to have a hell of a fight on his hands.

  “I’m actually in the middle of something,” Sorin said. “I don’t suppose this chat could wait until tomorrow, preferably at a place that isn’t full of monsters trying to ambush me.”

  “Tough guy like you? I’m sure you can manage this little farming operation and hold onto the thread of a conversation at the same time.”

  “The noise is going to attract more of them.”

  The man just kept smiling. “We’ll be fine. I promise, this’ll be quick.”

  Sorin had a strong suspicion the encounter was going to end in violence, and he didn’t like his odds. At rank 5, the man could conceivably have a D-ranked soulprint and a few F’s, but more likely had three or four E-ranks instead. He’d also have a significant advantage in how large his anima reserves were, even without factoring in how much Sorin had already used over the last few hours of farming nightmare bats.

  As if that wasn’t bad enough, that mace looked far stronger than simple steel and wood, and though the man appeared to be wearing a light jacket, Sorin wasn’t fooled. The way it moved—or rather, didn’t move—revealed that it was either reinforced with metal or with magic.

  Armed, armored, and with better, stronger magic. That’s not including the high chance of monsters interfering if it comes down to a fight. Not really an ideal situation for me here. God, it’s a bit galling that I have to play along with this.

  “As long as it is quick, I suppose it’ll be alright,” Sorin said, making some effort to hide the annoyance he felt.

  “Let’s start with introductions,” the man said. “My name is Jorn.”

  He said that like Sorin was supposed to recognize him. There was some sort of gleam in his eyes, almost making him appear eager, but whatever reaction he was hoping for, he didn’t get it. Sorin simply stared back at him and said, “Sorin, but I’m guessing you already knew that.”

  “I did, but it’s always nice to know I’ve found the right person when I have to come have these little chats.”

  “You do this often?”

  “Accost strangers when they’re out in the wilderness going about their business? That’s pretty rare. Usually, I find people at their homes or places of business when I need a minute of their time, but you’ve proven surprisingly difficult to track down.”

  “If I’d known someone wanted to talk to me, I would have made it more convenient to find me,” Sorin told him.

  He took a quick step to the side to dodge a nightmare bat coming down on him, then cracked it over the head with his sword. The bat flopped limply on the ground for a few seconds before stilling. A trickle of anima flowed in from it, confirming its death. Sorin sighed. Another small one.

  It figured the only decent-sized bat he’d seen all night had been killed by someone intruding on his hunt. The fact that it was far larger than normal just made it all the more aggravating. It was exactly what he needed, and he could only hope that when the ‘quick chat’ was over, he’d be able to claim the body and skin it.

  Jorn glanced down at the nightmare bat’s corpse, then shrugged. “Not a big deal.”

  The man seemed more amused than anything, which Sorin found himself faintly annoyed by. “So what did you want to talk about?”

  “You,” Jorn said. “Here’s the thing. My buddies and I, we did some asking around, and you don’t exist. No one knows who you are. No one knows anything about you. What district did you grow up in? What’d you do for work before you became a climber? Where’s your family? Where’d you learn to climb? It’s all very mysterious.

  “And that got me to thinking. You see, my crew has a pretty solid grip on what’s going on over in our corner of the city, and if we don’t know you, that means you aren’t from there. So my boss starts wondering if you’re not some noble shithead’s son. Kinda makes sense, you know? Training like you’ve obviously got doesn’t just come from nowhere.”

  “But if I was, why would I be standing out here in the dark using myself as bait to lure in a bunch of fucking bats? People with money don’t do that,” Sorin pointed out.

  Jorn nodded along. “Exactly! Real mysterious.”

  “So, what, you tracked me all the way out here just to clear up my mysterious past?”

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “To make sure you’re not a spy. Or, if you are, to find out who you’re spying for and what you’ve already told them.”

  “Spying on what? Poor people in the slums and climbers coming into the hubs to partake in the local economy so they can dodge the city taxes?”

  “If I knew what you were spying on, I wouldn’t be out here asking, now would I?” Jorn said.

  “You ever think the reason you can’t figure it out is because I’m not a spy? I don’t work for anybody, and I don’t report to anybody. I’m just a climber looking to work my way up the tower.”

  “Right, right,” Jorn said. “And it’s not that I don’t believe you, but you see, my boss is real risk-averse. And we’ve got our own guys checking up on you. We know about that street tussle you had with that group of nasty rank 1s. We know those guys haven’t been seen in a week. We know when you killed the Floor 0 portal guardian, and it’s damn impressive that you’re up here on Floor 2 already. Might be a record for how quick you chewed up Floor 1.”

  “Look, if you’re just trying to stroke my ego now, you can save your breath.”

  “No, nothing like that. It’s just that—” Jorn cut off for a second to whip his mace behind him in a wide arc. There was a pained squeak and the crunch of bones being crushed, and something that was probably a nightmare bat went flying out into the dark. “Just that the way it works with my crew, is you’re either working with us, or you’re working against us. And someone with your talent, we definitely want working with us.”

  “I think you mean ‘for us.’ Somehow, I doubt an equal partnership is on the table.”

  “Well, you gotta work your way up the ranks, of course. Don’t get me wrong, it’s impressive as all hell that you went from rank 0 to 2 in like a week, but at the end of the day, you’re still only rank 2.”

  “I’m not interested in your recruitment pitch,” Sorin told him. I also don’t believe you’re giving me a choice.

  “You sure? I’m not going to try to strong arm you into it, but like I said…”

  “I either work for you, or I’m a problem to be taken care of.”

  “Awful convenient finding you out here in the dark by yourself, miles from another climber,” Jorn said casually. He flicked his mace to throw some blood off it. “Or inconvenient, from your point of view.”

  Sorin took a moment to consider his options. It looked like the only way to avoid a fight was to let Jorn take him to wherever it was he wanted to go. That was probably some rickety old building on Floor 0, where there was every chance he’d end up strapped to a table and tortured to death while they tried to pry nonexistent loyalties out of him.

  Of course, there was also the possibility that the recruitment offer was genuine, but any gang operating out of Floor 0 was small time. Whatever marginal help they might offer him today would be utterly eclipsed by the burden of caring about their problems and wasting his time taking orders from their leadership.

  That idea didn’t appeal to Sorin. Besides, the heavy-handed approach and interruption of his farming session had rubbed him the wrong way. Jorn would have to compel his cooperation if he wanted it. The problem there was that there was a solid chance Jorn could do exactly that, or that he might just decide to skip cooperation and go straight to murder.

  Can I take this guy? He’s strong and he’s fast, but if he’s wasted space on two E-ranks just to bump up basic physicality to slightly beyond human levels, I’m guessing he won’t have more than one trick up his sleeve. If I assume he found me via a tracking soulprint, he might not even have that.

  It would be a tough fight, but Sorin thought he could win it. That assumed the monsters didn’t interfere, though, and just the sound of the conversation had already attracted more of them. The bats were still outside Sorin’s Blind Sense radius, but he could see the shadows overhead. Once the fight broke out, there’d probably be a whole colony coming down on their head.

  Maybe I can use that.

  It was a risky plan—not even really a plan so much as a spur-of-the-moment adaptation. If he focused on setting Jorn up to deal with the majority of the bats, he could probably burn through the rank 5’s anima reserves fairly quickly. Once those dried up, he’d be no stronger than any other human.

  “Well, I have business to finish here,” Sorin said. He gestured with his free hand to the pile of corpses he’d tossed to the side. “When I get back to the portal hub tomorrow, I’d be happy to have an extended conversation and assure whoever it is that’s so worried about me that I’m no threat to their business. I’m just a climber on my way up. Give me a year or so, and you’ll probably never see me again.”

  “You’re awfully confident, I’ll give you that,” Jorn said. The mace came up, and he dropped the head down heavily into his free hand. It hit with the dull smack of metal striking reinforced flesh, which Sorin took as confirmation of another soulprint. “But I’m afraid I’ll have to insist you cut this short. One way or another, you’re done playing around out here for the night.”

  “I decline.”

  Jorn’s casually pleasant tone vanished, and the hollow smile on his face turned into a vicious smirk. That expression, at least, Sorin believed to be real. The man enjoyed his work, but the fact that he was a rank 5 punching down on a fresh rank 2 told Sorin that he was a bully. Jorn probably didn’t fight a lot of battles on equal footing.

  Sorin was making some assumptions, but he already knew there were strength, speed, and durability soulprints in Jorn’s build. If they were all E-ranked, and there was also a tracking soulprint in there, then that meant Sorin had him more or less completely figured out. Any tricks would be from weak, F-ranked soulprints, and the thug probably wasn’t skilled enough to pull off anything more than the basic applications of his build.

  “I’m awful sorry to hear you say that,” Jorn said, but his voice was full of malicious glee.

  Here it comes.

  In less time than it took to blink, Jorn closed the ten feet between them. Like a flickering shadow in the fire light, one moment he was there, and the next, he was gone. Without Blind Sense, Sorin would have had to use bald guesswork to predict what direction the attack would come from, not that it was hard to figure out. Behind me, opposite my weapon hand so I have to waste time crossing my body to parry him.

  Parrying would be a foolish counter anyway. Warrior’s Vigilance was a very flexible soulprint with a lot of potential, but it lost out to more common soulprints that enhanced one specific aspect of the user’s body. He couldn’t hope to outmuscle Jorn in a contest of mean strength.

  The mace came down, right through where Sorin had been standing, and crashed into the ground. A simple, quick step to the side was enough to get him out of the way. Then he started to fight back.