Bariton woke up to the familiar chirping of the birds. He doesn’t quite remember the events of last night, but the nice wake up message the system always gives is a sign that it wasn’t a dream.

  He cracks his neck, as he looks at the shabby camp that was set up.

  “Ah, right… Sornid didn’t get here in time- Wait, where is Sornid?”

  He looks around, and does a head count. Pallad makes one, sleeping in the open like always, Judine makes two, sleeping in a tent. Clara makes three, sleeping in a tree as though she was a bird. Shammus makes four, sleeping in a sleeping bag kinda close to Bariton’s own. And Bariton made five, so nobody’s missing.

  He suddenly notices, the facade breaking in a singular instant.

  “Oh shit,” his voice shifts in tone quickly to panic, he always wakes up earliest due to the sun only freshly rising, but unlike most times whereas he uses it to practice, this time he’s left to wake everyone up. “WAKE UP!”

  He yells out, and Pallad immediately gets up, the little system menu showing up and being slashed away as he drew his sword. Clara hops down from her perch afterwards, and Judine gets out of her tent. Shammus got up last.

  “What’s up?” Pallad offers first, but he still seems somewhat tired.

  “We’re missing someone.”

  “No we aren’t, there are five-” Judine counts the heads, but then notices there’s someone different, “Ah, right, Shammus joined.”

  “Exactly. Sornid’s gone.”

  Clara steps forward. Maybe to offer an explanation, but the way she’s shaking makes Bariton notice that this isn’t the same foggy memory of a night of drinking to celebrate. They hadn’t talked a single damn time since the 40th floor.

  “H-he’s gone…” Clara states, as if she were giving out funeral rites, “and it’s m-my fault…”

  “Woah, you have no reason to blame yourself.” Bariton quickly jumps to defend Clara against her self guilt.

  “B-but… The previous…” She’s struggling to find her words. She never was a wordsmith like Bariton, or a famous public speaker like Judine. And these times, it was a glaring weakness.

  “Yes, the previous floor had us all grouped up into twos, right?” Bariton continues on, trying to fill in the blanks for Clara. A typically rude thing, but Clara’s nod allows him to get the news out without forcing her to talk.

  “And I’d say you were the one paired with Sornid, the worst of the group in personality but still didn’t deserve death.” Bariton prattled on, knowing where this was going. “And now, that he’s dead, you think we’ll either not miss him, or we’ll shun you for failing to save him after you gained the revival spell?”

  Bariton always had a talent for reading people. It allowed him to narrowly avoid situations revolving around bad people back on their home plane. It’s only fair to assume the tower was no longer a part of that plane.

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  “But you’re wrong about that.” Bariton smiles lightly to Clara before resting his hand atop her shoulder. “We all understand you were probably up against something unfair, or some other bullshittery happened that stopped you from reviving him.”

  Bariton steps back from Clara, just sitting on a nearby log. The forest is always nice in how it constantly has props, but the agreeing nods from Pallad and Judine are probably what Clara needs.

  Maybe. Bariton shrugs once again, “You don’t need to tell us how he died until you’ve processed it. This is the tower, sometimes we get hours to think, sometimes we can’t, and I’d say we may be entering an area we can think. At least for a good portion of time.”

  Bariton knew he wasn’t good at comforting, but he knew Clara needed at least a little bit. And her small smile implied he at least helped a little. He walks over to Shammus who laid back down.

  “Hey, wake up.” He moved his foot under Shammus’s body, and quickly flipped him over once again. Shammus slowly stood up and glared at Bariton. Bariton only smiled back with his greedy grin.

  “If you’re going to join us, you must work with us!” Pallad steps forward towards Shammus, with a devilish grin, “And to work with us you must get up on time!”

  He grabs Shammus’s cloak and drags him physically up, and then gets to walking. Judine simply gives Shammus a singular glance that makes him wonder what the hell he’s gotten into.

  Shammus sighs, but out of what is unclear since it could be exasperation at the ridiculousness of this group, relief that they’re so close, or even just pure disappointment. He follows the group as Clara walks behind him.

  He feels a little uncomfortable, the sweat on the back of his neck feeling like it’s carving through his skin gently. But Shammus refuses to say a word, he’s a stranger and now he’s replacing someone who just died.

  Neither of which are optimal positions to fill, and when they’re together it feels like scrounging a dump looking for scraps. He had questions too, but he left those to be unanswered himself by refusing to ask them.

  Some of the questions flowing through his mind include, but are certainly not limited to; do these guys always wake up this early, where are we even headed, why are we just walking East, and why in the nine hells did we not talk about it?

  All of them are just forcibly removed from Shammus’s head as he notices that just about everyone is just kind of following Pallad. That raises more questions than answers, since it’s supposedly Bariton who can see the future, but at least it’s a tank in the front.

  And everyone keeps walking East. But now the forest ends with a fork in the road, North and South. And Pallad immediately began walking South and so does the party. Why are they so quiet?

  Shammus continually thinks about what’s happening during the walk. When he finds a ginormous fortress of black and gold he can’t help but stutter in his walking. Did they seriously just walk to the ending of the floor?

  “You have to be kidding me...”

  The line uttered from the lips of one of the subjects the Head Admin pulled in was a shocker to be certain. But he reacted quickly to this.

  “Now, I’m here to offer you power. Power to get back at… Ah yes, he’s known as Achilles to you!”

  The Head Admin cracks up as that got everyone’s attention real well.

  “You just have to take this…” He holds up a small shard of glass, brimming with energy. “And eat it! It’ll hurt though…”

  The way all of them did was fantastic, and the change in their hair color to white was even better. His smile grows greatly, maybe these guys could beat the very heroes he set up.