Chapter 388: Enraged
"So people have visited Getava through the Tower."
"They have visited fragments associated with it. We do not know whether the Tower transported them to the original place, recreated sections of its history, or constructed replicas from stored information. Anyone claiming certainty is trying to sell something."
Kael thought of Vanitas and the other places where the Tower made ordinary explanations useless. "Is it like Vanitas?" he asked.
"No and yes."
"Which one is it, man?" Kael frowned at him.
The Guildmaster rubbed under his chin for a moment, thinking of the most appropriate answer to give. Then he said, "It’s bits of both, sometimes, you walk into a floor, and then you find part of it belonging to the floor you’re supposed to do, then a fragment of it belonging to Getava."
"I see. And how do you recognize that it’s a different region?"
The Guildmaster raised his hand up, "Big notification. Blue, saying that you entered a fragment of Getava..."
"Okay... So what do the fragments have in common?"
The Guildmaster dropped his hands.
"Most are wilderness regions, ruins, or underground environments with poor visibility and unusually aggressive creatures. Their suggested levels are unreliable, and the strongest monsters often appear without warning or exist outside the Floor’s main objective. Getava rewards Climbers who search beyond the obvious path, then punishes them for believing they were clever enough to do so safely."
"That explains the dan lizard. Motherfucker almost killed the whole damn floor alone."
The Guildmaster studied him. "The Black Basilisk of Getava isn’t something you’re supposed to be fighting at all."
"How did you know I fought it?" Kael said.
"You established the hidden record. Most Climbers never locate that boss, and fewer return after realizing what lives inside its territory."
"I found it before I knew enough to avoid it."
"But you could have avoided it."
"Yeah, not before knowing it was a Hidden Piece."
"That’s the thing with climbing, you can avoid danger, but danger looks far too tempting to do so that one thinks they have no choice.
"It’s all good if you win though."
"But that’s it, you don’t know if you would. Monsters from Getava do not respect level. You met a basilisk at the first floor, and a Dark beast on the sixth, you may as well start seeing dragons and divine beasts on the twentieth."
"Don’t curse it like that, knowing my luck, it might just happen."
"It’s fine, regardless, the tower remains reasonable. Still, not reasonable enough that it throws a damn Dark Beast of Getava at you, on the sixth floor. Something must have happened."
Kael nodded toward the egg. "Yeah, something did happen..." Kale thought for a moment and asked. "The Dark Beast... Have you fought one personally?"
The guildmaster’s fingers stopped near the edge of the table. "Once. I entered its territory with a party of six, all experienced enough to believe we could handle anything the Floor placed before us."
"How many returned?"
"Two."
The answer stripped the humor from the room.
The Guildmaster looked at the purple veins beneath the shell. "Dark Beasts are fast, territorial, and disturbingly adaptable. The one we fought changed its behavior every time we injured it. By the end, it was using our own formation to separate us."
"Mine became darkness imbued. Melted in shadows, and could grow stronger, bigger and faster."
"That ability appears in several records, although the method varies. Some strains adapt to damage. Others reconstruct themselves by consuming whatever energy surrounds them. We lack enough complete encounters to know whether those creatures belong to separate species."
"So each one is different?"
"We believe so, but we don’t have a large enough sample size. Still, shadow stepping is pretty insane. Must have been hard to fight it in a place that had shadows and some darkened corners."
"Whole damn cave was pitch black, and locked. Was basically in a large trap.
"Damn..." the Guildmaster looked at the egg. "The reward better be worth it since it’s a hatchling."
Kael studied the egg more carefully. "A mutated one at that... So it could be really strong."
"Mutated doesn’t always mean powerful...which leaves us with an impressive number of ways to be wrong."
That was more honest than reassuring.
The Guildmaster leaned back. "Encountering one Getavan creature would be unusual. You have found two within the lower Floors, defeated both, and received a familiar from the second."
Kael had already accumulated Vanitas invitations, hidden bosses, abnormal Trials, and outside interference. At this point, unusual events were beginning to look like the Tower’s preferred method of communicating with him.
"My luck has been discussed before."
"I would hesitate to call it luck. Patterns become dangerous once they are dismissed as coincidence."
The Guildmaster looked toward the status window. "You said the egg came from a hidden challenge. Did the encounter proceed normally?"
Kael took a moment before answering. The question brought him back to Torrac, Causality, and Ulsal. He still understood very little about any of them, and speaking their names felt different now that he had seen how carefully the Blue Rose protected certain information.
The Guildmaster noticed his hesitation. "Something changed during the challenge."
"Yes. I’ve been deciding how much of it I should tell you."
"That is sensible. If you choose to speak, this is the safest room I can offer. I will not promise absolute secrecy inside a structure controlled by the Tower, because anyone making that promise is either a liar or a fool."
It was not the assurance Kael wanted, but it was honest. The Guildmaster had protected his identity, warned him about movements among the larger factions, and offered information without demanding payment. Kael was unlikely to find a better person to ask.
"The hidden challenge changed after outside interference," Kael said.
The guildmaster’s attention sharpened. "Do you mean the System adjusted its difficulty after detecting an abnormality?"
"No. Someone deliberately interfered from outside the challenge and spent Causality to do it."
The old man became completely still. "Who explained that to you?"
"A System contractor."
"Torrac?"
Kael’s eyebrows rose. "How do you know his name?"
"Because contractors do not reveal themselves over minor errors. If Torrac spoke to you directly, the interference was serious. Tell me what happened."
Kael shifted back in his chair. "It happened again on Floor Eleven. I was fighting a Lesser Death Knight after the other Climbers surrendered. I intended to reset the challenge, but time stopped before I could."
"A Lesser Death Knight appeared on the eleventh Floor, and you were fighting it alone?"
"That is the part everyone keeps focusing on."
"It deserves attention."
"Torrac appeared and told me someone had spent Causality to change the rules. Surrender and retry were removed. My only choices were killing the Death Knight or dying inside the challenge."
The guildmaster’s expression tightened. "The interference was intended to trap you."
"Yes. The Tower responded by rebalancing what it could and promising compensation if I survived. I received a full recovery, adjusted contribution, additional rewards, the record, and the Epic chest."
Kael touched the amulet hidden beneath his coat. The Guildmaster followed the motion but kept his attention on the explanation.
"And you won."
"I’m sitting here."
"That is not the same thing as understanding what happened. Causality is not ordinary currency. Someone considered preventing your escape valuable enough to spend something far rarer than equipment, Floor access, or favors."
"I gathered that much."
The Guildmaster looked at the egg again. "You said the familiar came from an earlier hidden challenge. Was that challenge altered as well?"
"Yes. Torrac connected the interference to the same person, although he was vague about the details."
"Who?"
Kael hesitated once more. "Ulsal."
For a heartbeat, nothing changed. Then every trace of color left the Guildmaster’s face.
"Repeat that name."
"Ulsal. According to Torrac, he’s angry with me."
The Guildmaster leaned forward, his voice dropping. "What could you possibly have done to attract Ulsal’s attention?"
"I beat his Trial."
The old man stared at him.
"It was called the Trial of Labor, Burden of Greed" Kael continued. "The point was apparently to recognize that the reward wasn’t worth dying for and leave before greed killed me."
"What did you do?"
"I took the reward."
The Guildmaster waited, already certain that Kael had omitted something.
"Then a second reward appeared," Kael admitted. "So I took that one too."
"You understood the warning and continued anyway?"
"I survived."
"That does not answer the question."
"It usually does."
The Guildmaster sat in stunned silence while Kael continued. "Torrac also implied that Ulsal owned Anchor and Brokk’s Hammer. So, I still don’t know why winning the Trial mattered enough to make Ulsal spend Causality against me."
The Guildmaster’s chair scraped sharply against the floor as he pushed himself halfway upright. He caught the edge of the table, stared at Kael, and slowly lowered himself again.
When he spoke, his voice had fallen almost to a whisper.
"Did you just tell me that you entered Ulsal’s Trial, claimed both rewards, and walked away alive?"
Kael glanced at the egg between them. "That is the simplified version."
The Guildmaster leaned across the table.
"And you’re asking why a God is mad at you for taking his things?"