The Fractured Tower

It was a sad truth that the best Sorin could say for his cooking was that it was edible. That still put him ahead of everyone besides Odric, but with their healer on bedrest for the foreseeable future, they decided to outsource the meal prep whenever possible. That was going to mean a lot of cold food in the near future, but today, it meant a quick stop at a restaurant to collect enough food to feed ten people.

Sorin wanted to pick one that was empty on the basis that they’d be in and out quickly, but Yoru overruled that decision, citing that good quality food was worth the wait. As much as he personally disagreed, he knew everyone else would side with Yoru, so he capitulated and let his teammate take the lead.

And that was where I made the fatal mistake, he said to himself forty minutes later. Yoru had put in an order for ten portions of whatever the tavern was serving as soon as they’d arrived. It still wasn’t ready yet, which didn’t make a lot of sense to Sorin since it should have already been cooked. Apparently, the stuff sitting over the fire was already spoken for, since the bar maids kept carrying it out to customers seated at tables in the building.

“Are you good to wait this out on your own?” Sorin asked.

“I can. Why? Where are you going?”

“I thought I’d do some preliminary scouting for polar wyrms. I probably won’t find any, but any progress I make is that much less time wasted on travel in the future.”

Urd’s directions hadn’t exactly been precise, not that Sorin could blame him. Floors that contained shifting geography were impossible to fully map out. The best anyone could do was reference static landmarks and hope that they stayed static. On the lower floors, that generally held true. Up on the mid-levels, though, not even navigational soulprints could be fully trusted.

Strangely, the gateways Sorin had scattered during his trip through Floor 21 stayed anchored in position relative to each other, even if the landscape itself changed. He suspected they would have broken if he still needed to carve a physical sign into something, but he’d advanced beyond that. With any luck, that meant he could use his network as a shortcut to find a nesting ground.

“Are you coming back?” Yoru asked.

Sorin shrugged. “Eventually. Depends what I find.”

“Alright. Anything to pass on to the others?”

“I guess you should tell them what we found out and where I’m at. I’ll be back by morning, worst case. I do still need to get through Floor 23 as soon as possible, and the rest of you need to go back to the wither moth clearings to finish up Floor 22.”

“And won’t that just be fun with no healer,” Yoru said.

That was an entirely valid point, but they didn’t have a good fallback option. Sorin was the only one with the build to survive the ice labyrinth’s environment for an extended period of time, and the qualitative difference in anima from Floor 18 to 22 was incomparable. They might as well do nothing for a week if they were going to waste it down there. A few hours killing rot shamblers would be more valuable.

“You’ve all got plenty of practice. It’s unfortunate that Odric will be falling behind, but this is the best we can do in this situation.”

“I know, I know. It’s still dangerous.”

“Discuss it with the others,” Sorin advised. “Maybe you all can come up with something I missed.”

“Maybe. Alright, I suppose that’s our plan for today. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Sorin looked into the kitchen with Observer one last time and shook his head. “I don’t think they’re even working on your order. Good luck.”

“They’re not, huh?” Yoru said. A dangerous gleam entered his eyes as they settled on the tavern’s owner, who was stationed behind the bar pouring beers. “We’ll see about that.”

* * *

I can’t believe he just forgot to tell the cook! What kind of business is he running?

Yoru loved the food, but he’d never had to wait for it personally before. That was what the servants were paid for. He doubted they’d ever had to put up with this kind of service either, though. Wearing Telpike livery as good as announced who the order was for, after all.

Regardless, the cook was working on it now, and it was top priority. It would hopefully only be a few more minutes. Yoru had settled into a chair at the far side of the bar, right near the back door, and was idly watching the tavern’s patrons when he froze in place.

Is that... No, it couldn’t be.

But it was. There was no doubt about it. He could still remember bumping into them in the hallway back home when he was eleven. Even then, he could tell there was something off about the trio. All powerful climbers were cold-hearted and practical to an extent. The tower didn’t allow for anything else. But those men had been on another level.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

The way they’d stared at Yoru, like they’d been weighing how much his life was worth and were deciding whether or not to claim it, had stayed with him. He doubted he’d ever forget those lifeless eyes, and to this day, he wasn’t convinced he’d have survived the chance encounter if not for the fact that his father had followed them out into the hallway.

That had been enough to break the spell. The trio had put on the metaphorical masks that hit their true thoughts and thanked Father for the business. Then they’d swept past a still-frozen Yoru and disappeared.

They were older now, a bit more worn around the corners. There were new scars, more wrinkles. The coldness was better hidden; Yoru might not have seen it if he didn’t know. But Red Knife was his father’s preferred wet work group, and they’d been to the Telpike estate often enough that Yoru had no trouble recognizing them now.

The smallest one, Nezu, was the leader. He was barely five feet tall and probably didn’t weigh even a hundred pounds. It was easy to dismiss him as a threat, but that was a fatal mistake. He was the infiltrator, the one with a build that made it hard to notice him and harder to keep track of him.

Ogre was his opposite in every way—big, noisy, tough, and the perfect distraction. He wasn’t stupid either, despite his appearance. That was a cultivated lie meant to make his victims underestimate him. He was every bit as dangerous as Nezu, just in a different way.

Varint was the final member of their group. His specialty was information gathering, and he was so good at it that Yoru credited him the most for Red Knife’s success. He was the one who figured out the target’s weak spots for the other two to capitalize on them.

That was why Yoru wasn’t surprised to see Varint smiling back and making eye contact. He’d noticed Yoru first. Confronting me might be the whole reason they’re even here. Did they find out I’m looking for them, or did Father hire them to take care of me?

Yoru didn’t want to believe his father was capable of that, but more and more, he was forced to admit that he didn’t know the man half as well as he’d thought he had growing up. The only thing that was becoming clear lately was that Morlin Telpike was a massive hypocrite who didn’t care to hold himself to the standards he’d instilled in his son.

The other two looked over at Varint’s muttered prompting, and a wicked grin appeared on Ogre’s face. Nezu’s smile was a polite one, but in its own way, Yoru found it more unsettling. Whatever the reason for their appearance, it was no accident. They were here for what Nezu referred to as a ‘business meeting.’ The only question was the agenda.

Yoru wasn’t exactly afraid, not against a trio of what appeared to be rank 12s. It was more that he wasn’t at all convinced they were actually rank 12. They’d punched above their weight class enough that it couldn’t all be dirty tricks, and he doubted he knew a fraction of the jobs they’d pulled off. He suspected all three of them were concealing their true ranks somehow.

With a sigh and a wistful glance toward the kitchen where his food still hadn’t come out, he nodded his head toward the back door behind him. Nezu gave him the return nod, and the trio rose from the table they’d claimed.

What I wouldn’t give to have Observer right now, Yoru silently bemoaned. Who knows what traps they have prepared for me.

It was an extreme level of paranoia, but he knew better than to assume it was safe walking out that door. He also knew better than to lead Red Knife back to his friends. There were too many low-rank noncombatants in that house to protect them all.

The tavern’s backyard was a cramped little thing, nothing more than a small patch of grass surrounded by a token attempt at a fence. A goat was tethered to a water pump in the middle, where it chewed grass and ignored the noise of the city around it. Yoru blinked at the sight of it and spent a second trying to figure out if that was normal or something Red Knife had done. If it was part of their setup, he couldn’t begin to guess the purpose.

Ogre came through behind him, surprisingly fast for such a large man having to navigate the crowded tavern. Varint came out behind him, but Nezu didn’t show up. Of course not, because he actually came out at the same time Ogre did. I just didn’t see him do it.

Yoru didn’t have Observer, but that didn’t mean he was completely lacking in his own sensory suite. Losing access to the family armory had only been a setback, not the end of his build. Enhanced hearing and sight were the bare basics of what he was operating on now. There was also Tremor Sense, which let him feel vibrations through the ground, an ability that paired nicely with his earth magic.

But the real winner for this fight was Hunger of the Wolf, a powerful D-rank ability that felt out not any sort of physical sensation but the presence of bloodlust. It had started pushing against his awareness the moment he’d made eye contact with Varint, and it was only growing more insistent with each passing second.

“You know how we work,” Varint said, taking the lead. Yoru’s eyes snapped over to him against his will. “If you got business with us, you go through proper channels.”

Some sort of hypnotic ability to force me to focus on him?

He could barely even pay attention to Ogre, and that man’s whole build was designed to make him flashy, noticeable. It was strange then that Varint was who he was locked onto. It had to be some kind of trick.

Augmented Cognition was one of Yoru’s trump cards. He didn’t have a lot of C-rank soulprints, and he did his best to avoid using them unless he needed to, if for no other reason than this particular ability left him with a splitting headache once he turned it off. He needed it now, though, and he triggered it without hesitation.

Suddenly, everything made sense again. The attention redirection was coming from Ogre; it just wasn’t centered on him. It was a secondary layer of misdirection to distract Yoru and keep him focused on the wrong person. Worse than that, the effect was strong enough that it had to come from a C-rank soulprint, which was another strong point in favor of the hidden rank theory.

Varint was still speaking, each word a tiny little knife shoved behind Yoru’s eyeballs as the magic fought against Augmented Cognition to take control of his brain. But the true danger was clear and at the forefront of his thoughts once again.

Where the hell is Nezu? I need to find him before he sticks a knife in my back. With an effect this powerful active, they could kill me right here, and nobody in the tavern would ever notice. He’s got to be here somewhere. Is he invisible? No, that wouldn’t protect him from Tremor Sense, and I’m only sensing four bodies: me, Varint, Ogre, and the g—Shit!