Sorin sat up with the last watch change. Ostelle was just settling down nearby, with the more muscular of the two sisters taking a spot opposite her, when he climbed to his feet. She glanced up at him with a soft smile and softly asked, “Couldn’t sleep?”

  “I’ve got augmented endurance,” he told her. “A few hours is more than enough.”

  “Handy,” she said. “Enare has something similar.”

  “And she’s on last watch?” Sorin asked.

  Ostelle laughed. “We rotate to keep things fair.”

  The hours of traveling with this team hadn’t been wasted, but now that he’d learned what Calder had to share about Floor 3, Sorin was itching to get back to moving at his own pace. He’d intended to confirm his heading and then head out before the sun rose, but Ostelle seemed chatty. He could be rude and brush her off, but that seemed unnecessary when it would only cost him a few minutes.

  “Too many people underestimate the importance of keeping a team functioning smoothly, especially a long-term one,” he said. His own troubles with the team he’d worked with for Floors 1 and 2 were the perfect example, there. As soon as he managed to grab a true healing soulprint and a stealth soulprint, he was planning on going solo. That would probably be on Floor 4 or maybe 5, if Bradford took a while to find what he needed.

  “It can be a full-time job some days,” she agreed. “Worth it, though.”

  “For the right people. This seems like a good group.”

  “I can only assume the rest of your team is the same, since you’re about to walk off into the desert at night by yourself just to get to them a little bit faster.”

  Sorin didn’t bother trying to deny it. “My time is extremely limited at the moment. Outside circumstances have forced my hand.”

  “Ah,” she said, somewhat delicately. “I won’t ask.”

  Good, because telling you would only make you a target.

  They sat in silence for a few seconds, only the sound of Calder’s snoring breaking the peace. He’d been on the middle watch shift, and it was mildly impressive that he was already asleep barely minutes after the switch. Sorin supposed the mage had had a rather exhausting day.

  “Is there anything we can do to help?” Ostelle asked.

  “You’ve already done more than enough.”

  “Compared to saving Calder’s life? I think that’s worth a bit more than what you could have found out with a few hours of studying.”

  The real value there lay in the fact that Sorin could not, in fact, find out information just by dropping by the Climber’s Union archives. It might be available to everyone else, but going there was a good way to offer himself up to his fellow tower transplant. At the moment, Samael was still three or four times higher ranked than Sorin, having been given probably a decade’s headstart.

  Sorin suspected even that might not be accurate. He knew how far he could climb in a decade, and knowing that he could do it solo since he was no longer bound by the tower’s laws about rank ups only happening after defeating a portal guardian, he was suspicious about Samael’s real rank. The man was almost certainly hiding it, which meant that Sorin’s estimate might be woefully low.

  Better to be prepared to fight someone at rank 50 than think he’s only rank 20 and get crushed when I’m wrong.

  But the truth was that Sorin didn’t have a lot of control over that fight. It would happen whenever Samael finally caught up to him, and he just had to hope he was ready. And God save anyone who was nearby when it happened, because Sorin knew exactly what climber fights at that level did to the environment. There was a reason the floors in the top half of the tower spanned tens of thousands of miles from side to side.

  “I think I’m good,” Sorin told her. It wasn’t hard to picture the little camp as nothing more than a crater shrouded in a sandstorm whipped up by a duel fueled by B-ranked soulprints. Even C-ranks used by a skilled climber would be enough to obliterate the landscape. “The only thing I really need is more time than I have, and I don’t think you can help with that.”

  “I can’t give you time directly, but I could save you a trip down to Floor 0 to resupply,” she offered.

  “No, no. I appreciate it, but I’m good.” Sorin paused and looked around. “But actually, maybe I have something you might like. You’re a support specialist, right? Do you have Heat Eater?”

  “You have a spare soulprint?” Ostelle asked, her eyes widening with visible excitement. “That’s actually what we were out here looking for!”

  “No kidding? It’s about time I had a lucky coincidence instead of the other way around.”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “But are you sure you want to sell it?” she asked, her mood wilting. “It’s practically mandatory to beat the floor guardian. All the strategies revolve around using it to deal with its fire magic.”

  “I think I’ll be alright. I’ve only been on the floor for a few days. There’s plenty of time to find another one.”

  “If you’re sure… Alright, let me see what we’ve got for liquid funds. Or maybe you’d be interested in swapping soulprints?”

  “I wouldn’t say no,” Sorin told her, “depending on what you’ve got.”

  Ostelle went rooting through a bag sitting next to her bedroll. A soft glow above her illuminated the bag so she could see, which caught the other woman’s attention from across the camp. She wandered over casually and asked, “What’s up?”

  “He’s got the soulprint we were looking for, and he’s willing to trade it,” Ostelle said.

  “No shit? Lucky find.” The archer peered at Sorin, perhaps impressed but definitely a bit suspicious. “You took down a pack of flamewreath jackals on your own, Vanir?”

  “Small pack,” Sorin said. “Like you said, it was a lucky find.”

  “I guess so. Huh. Well, what are we trading for it?”

  Ostelle held up what looked like a piece of shell. “Here’s one you might like. We actually got it on Floor 2. Giev was going to add it to his build once we rank up again, but we can always go down and get another one. It’s called Hard Edge. It reflects a portion of any damage you take back at whatever hurt you.”

  “Not my style to let myself get hit,” Sorin said immediately.

  She nodded along. “Don’t want it for your front line, either? No? Alright. How about this? We got it from a giant frog at an oasis. It lets you breathe underwater for a limited time.”

  “Aqua Lung?” Sorin asked.

  She nodded. “You know it then? Good. Interested?”

  “Maybe,” he said. “Any other options?”

  Water breathing was mandatory, but there were a lot of ways to get there, and an F-ranked soulprint that didn’t do anything else was far from the best method to accomplish that feat. Sorin could take it and use it as a foundation to build on, but he didn’t need the ability quite yet, and there were better options. Besides, the soulprint was housed in a piece of lung tissue, which wouldn’t last long even with proper preservation.

  “Hmm. Tough customer,” the archer said. “What about that thing from the bat?”

  “That thing? I don’t think that would be useful,” Ostelle said.

  “Hey! Will you keep it down! Some of us are still trying to sleep,” the other archer snapped at them before rolling over to put her back to the group.

  “Whoops,” her sister whispered, sounding entirely unapologetic.

  Ostelle went digging into another pack and came up with an entire wing. “Honestly, we’re not entirely sure what it does. I think it lets you blend in with shadows. The bat we killed attacked us a few weeks ago near the Kiln Ravines. It harassed us for almost two days before we got lucky.”

  “What luck? That shot was pure skill,” the archer girl said.

  “Enare, your sister told me you made it blind because you were pissed off. You weren’t even trying to hit it.”

  “She… She did, huh? Well, Shara’s a fucking liar.”

  “Am not,” a muffled voice said from across the camp.

  “Can I see it?” Sorin asked. “Maybe I can figure it out.”

  He accepted the folded up leather gently, not bothering to stretch it out. They’d cut the entire wing off, bones and all, drained the blood, and stowed it away, but the soulprint itself was only in the leathery membrane. He couldn’t help but notice the inefficiency of carrying probably an extra ten pounds of weight, but it was a footnote compared to the soulprint itself.

  How the hell… a D-ranked soulprint on Floor 3? And a good one, at that. I’d put this in my build.

  “This is Shadow Illusion,” he said. “D-ranked. It’s probably worth ten times as much as either of your other two, more to the right person. I’m sure your scout is going to love having this in his build in a few floors once he’s got room for it.”

  “What does it do?” Enare asked.

  “Let’s you mask yourself in an illusion, but only in the dark. Effectively, you’re invisible at night or underground while you’re using this. It’s anima-intensive to hold and won’t protect against any other forms of detection besides sight, but still… this is a solid backbone to a powerful stealth soulprint.”

  “That does sound useful, but on the other hand, D-rank is a long way off,” Ostelle mused. “It would sell well, maybe well enough to get Heat Eater on the open market.”

  “They’re that expensive?” Sorin asked, somewhat surprised.

  Both women nodded, and Ostelle said, “I told you it’s considered an essential soulprint to fight the portal guardian. That drives the price up a lot.”

  Calder had explained about the guardian’s flame attacks, but Sorin wasn’t convinced Heat Eater was necessary. A strong, concentrated offense would overpower the monster before it could turn the heat up too high. He wasn’t sure he could solo it, but he was confident a decent team could kill it fast enough.

  “I’m willing to trade for it,” Sorin said, “but if you want to keep it to sell, I’ll understand. It’s a lopsided trade.”

  “Deal,” Ostelle told him. Enare shot her a surprised look, and she added, “Shadow Illusion and saving the life of our wind mage for Heat Eater seems like a fair trade to me.”

  “You don’t owe me anything for that,” Sorin protested.

  “Oh, shut up and take it,” Enare said.

  Sorin would have to wait a few weeks to rank up before he used the soulprint, but it would do an excellent job covering one of his remaining weaknesses. It would also pair nicely with the Bent Light soulprint Rue had gotten from that ruin. He made a mental note to see if Bradford could find another one for him to use. Weaving those two together would be the next best thing to true invisibility.

  He took a few minutes to get out his harvesting tools and trim the membrane down. After discarding the unneeded material into the sands outside of camp, he rolled the leather up and stored it, then stood and exchanged a nod with Ostelle.

  “Be careful out there, Mr. Solo,” she told him. “I’d hate to find your body a few hours ahead of us.”

  “I’ll do my best. Can’t let myself get killed when I’ve got such an excellent soulprint to look forward to absorbing in the future.”

  “Sure you don’t want to stay for breakfast?” Enare asked. “Sun’ll be up in half an hour anyway.”

  “No, but thank you for the offer. It was nice meeting you all. Good luck challenging the portal guardian when you get there.”

  “Thanks, you too,” Ostelle said. “When you find your team and you’re ready to do that fight, feel free to leave me a message at the Union. I’ll come back down and help if you haven’t found another Heat Eater by then.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind, Ostelle. Thanks.”

  Sorin left the camp, jogging away at a decent clip. It was hard to remember the last time he’d gotten on so well with other climbers, but it was a stark reminder that there were people besides the Black Hellions, various gangs, uppity nobles, and suspicious teammates in the tower. He could only hope that these ones survived long enough to run into them again.