You know why William Oh wears suspenders instead of a belt? It’s not because he only has one hand, it’s because he needs shoulder-straps to support his massive balls.

-          Garret Highland, level 23 Mason

Will sprinted forward and dove.

What if he’s heavier than you? Will thought to himself a moment after he’d already committed to the plan.

To the Abyss with it.

Gravity Charge

8/18 Charges remaining.

Will locked on the Nuker and began falling faster, tucking in his arms and legs.

Mason, for his part, shrieked in alarm as a goat-faced, one-armed man with massive glowing horns shot through the air towards him. Mason reflexively created a burning mote of light in his palm as Will approached.

Seriously? Is this how I die? Friendly fire?

Mason must’ve remembered who he was at the last second, because the glowing magic in his palm was sent off to the side an instant before Will slammed into him, and they began tumbling midair.

Through the wind and the whipping robes, Will desperately searched for the floating mountain above them, but all he saw was vapor.

Did we already go through a cloud?

Come to think of it, which way is down?

He was tumbling with Mason in a tangle of limbs, and since he was still using Gravity Charge, he couldn’t tell which way was up.

Cancel.

Something smoking whizzed past them, and as normal gravity reasserted itself, Will realized they’d been moving sideways.

Reorienting, Will looked up at the rock above them, focusing on the highest point he could see.

Gravity Charge

7/18 Charges remaining.

Mason grunted as Will’s inertia began to drag the opposite direction, causing him to roll towards the top, Mason downward. Mason’s eyes widened.

“Fire to the rear,” he said, words clipped with a sense of urgency.

A massive explosion sounded behind them and a smoking harpy tumbled through the air, falling past them.

That was what the first smoking thing flying past us was, Will thought.

“Any behind me?” Mason asked, scanning over Will’s shoulder.

“We’re clear.”

Will craned his neck to see above them. They were slowly regaining altitude.

“How are you lighter than an orphan raised on black bread and burnt stew?” Will asked. “Do you need more food? I’ve got some dried meat in my belt pouch you can have.”

“I’m still growing!” Mason shouted, turning red.

“Mhmm.”

Gravity Charge

6/18 Charges remaining.

When the time ran out on Gravity Charge, Will did it again, allowing them to continue floating upward until he spotted the silk rope descending towards them, squirming like a living thing as it approached.

The rope wound around them, knotted itself to cradle the two of them, and suddenly they were ascending much faster.

A minute later, Reggie was giving Mason a hand back up onto the stone side of the cavern system. Loth had wound a rope bridge between the two openings, linking the yeti ice cave to the kaith tunnels, and they had decided to use the better footing provided by the stone to haul them in.

Behind Reggie were a dozen or so Climbers that Will didn’t recognize, along with June.

“Thanks for the save,” Mason said, clapping his shoulder. “Gentlemen, this is—”

“They call me…Billy Goat,” Will said through his mask.

“…Riiight,” Mason said, brows furrowed. “Gentlemen, this is…Billy Goat. He’s helped me out before. Mr. Billy Goat, this is my Party, The Lanover Expedition.”

“What’s that you got over there?” one of the Climbers asked, peering into the darkness of the ice caves, where the corpse of Alicia Zodiac—a significant payday—lay.

“It’s the corpse of Alicia Zodiac, and tens of thousands of gold worth of loot!” Steve said, stepping forward. “And I’m telling you this, I’m telling you the truth, because there’s not a godsdamned thing you can do to take it from us, so stand there and bite your pillowcases in frustration, because it’s ours!”

“Tall words, old man,” one of the younger Climbers said, stepping forward.

“Gentlemen—” Mason said, trying to de-escalate.

“I’m level thirty-five, brat!” Steve bellowed. “I’ve got fuckin’ deca-dailies, and I’m the weakest member of my Party! Do you really want to know what level the Goat is? No, do you want to experience what level he is? Do you want to test yourselves against the traps of The Shadow?”

Loth looked down at his black scales and shrugged.

“You’re all still green behind the ears! The Goat is over level forty and with decades of experience slaughtering for fun and profit, and he’s only here on Lord Zodiac’s behalf, so by all means…try something. We might just make it back to Skyhold with a little more loot than we intended.”

Sensing a bluff, Will puffed himself up, looking as imposing as possible, while Mason glanced back and forth between them in total confusion.

Because Will was wearing a mask and Loth was a kobold, they had no way of determining the age and potential level of the people standing before them.

There was a tense moment before the young Climber scoffed and shook his head. “You’re not worth our time, old man,” he said, walking away, at least half the Climbers following him.

“Mercenaries,” Steve scoffed as soon as they were out of earshot. “Never interested in a hard fight—not if they can help it. Judging by their faces, they’re last year’s Aspirant washouts, capped at level ten and saving up their cash to tackle the Third Floor. We should get the Abyss outta here before their greed overwhelms their sense of self-preservation and they start testing us.”

“That’s Will, right?” Reggie whispered to Mason, pointing with his thumb. “He’s got the tomahawk and everything.”

Mason rubbed his temples. “He’s got something going on…I guess? Just leave ‘em be.”

“HOLD!” Will shouted, artificially deepening his voice, reaching the back of the retreating mercenaries.

They turned back, looking at him curiously.

“Our pack animals were lost by your Party leader’s incompetence.”

“What are you doing?” Steve whispered.

“We were only paid to retrieve three of the six corpses and their effects,” Will said, nudging Steve with his elbow.

Steve’s eye twitched as he caught Will’s intentions.

“…Yes!” Steve said, disdainfully throwing Alicia’s bow across the gap to Mason’s crew. “We were called down from the Sixth Floor to retrieve the bodies and effects of Alicia Zodiac, Mark Wyrd, and Ramone Flash.”

Will assumed these three were the ones with the richest parents.

“The other three had comparable equipment. Carry them, and receive a cut.”

“Dear gods!” The young man who’d caught the bow began sweating as he reviewed the stats.

“I-I’m in!” the kid said, passing it to the next person.

“What do you—ai!” The man reflexively tossed the bow to the next in line, as if gear of that quality might get him killed for holding it.

Which, to be fair…

It might.

One by one, the mercs ditched Mason and joined up with them.

“Um, Mr. Goat?” June said sourly, the Scout arriving beside Mason.

“Speak,” Will said, arms crossed in what he hoped was Supreme Confidence.

“We need those men to get back to the surface. We can’t cut our way through a quarter mile of kaith-infested tunnels with just three people.”

“Guess you’re coming with us, then,” Will said, turning and leading them into the ice caves.

“I know why you did it, but you’ve got some balls, kid,” Steve whispered as they led the way.

Will had done it to keep word of the ice caves from reaching the surface before they had what they wanted and were gone. Before word of a one-handed tomahawk wielder reached anyone. He mentioned being contracted to retrieve three corpses in order to have a pre-established claim on enough gear to pay the damned Corpse Fine for their priest, and string them along with the promise of another three, each bearing Relics of great value.

After this, I’m going to take a long damned nap.

Pretending to be level forty was exhausting, but Will was able to fake it, only fighting sparingly, Steve lending a hand with Confusion where necessary, making Will look agile and effortless where he might’ve otherwise struggled.

Mostly, they relied on Loth.

Saboteur was a rare Class for humans, who didn’t have the trap-lust that kobolds were born with. Thus, it was hard for them to judge exactly how powerful a Saboteur was.

So when they saw Loth set up half a dozen traps in the space of a few breaths, and those traps annihilated their intended targets, they shrugged and attributed it to Loth being higher level.

There were a few rumblings here and there when one of the mercs got nearly bisected, but after they found another half-eaten corpse dripping with wealth, those quieted down.

Plus, the half-bisected merc got a cool scar, so what was he complaining about?

While they cut the corpse out of the ice, Will inspected the rest of Alicia Zodiac’s kit.

Ring of Accuracy

+4 Strength

+4 Acuity

8 degrees of correction.

Rapid-Fire Ring

+4 Kinesthetics

+4 Focus

+30% load speed for ranged weapons.

Adds fire damage for each consecutive hit on the same target.

Boots of the High Ground

Ascend and descend terrain 30% faster.

Shooting from high ground inflicts Confusion on the target.

Leather* Pants of Tightness

+2 Strength

+4 Focus

These leather* pants lift and accentuate the lower body, drawing the attention of the opposite sex without forsaking comfort.

Charm archetypes benefit from 20% increased potency of their Abilities when used against those who enjoy the view.

…Alicia, you weren’t taking this seriously.

“Got some pants for you, Steve,” Will said, offering them to Steve.

“Screw you.”

I guess that’s a ‘no,’ Will thought, leaving the pants where they were.

Gloves of Thunderstrike

+4 Strength

+3 Focus

Ranged attacks gain thunder damage and minor knockback.

Amulet of Heart’s Desire

+2 Strength

+3 Resistance

Mark a target: 1 Charge.

A marked target will find the bearer more attractive for a week.

Shared dream: 1 Charge.

Enter a marked target’s dream. The user has no control over the dream, save for their own actions.

“Aliiiiiciiaaaa…” Will groaned. That might be amazing for someone with a Charm archetype, but going off-Build for secret nighttime liaisons or trying to get the attention of the boy/girl you liked…

…It would be unkind of me to say a girl in love deserved to die…but what a waste of dailies.

Unless she was a spy. It would be more interesting than a lovestruck rich girl that made bad choices and wound up dying because of it.

…That’s what I’m going to believe. She was seducing one of the other kids and entering their dreams, trying to uncover a secret behind their parent’s power, in order to advance her family’s agenda or uncover some kind of vicious scheme.

Because believing she got herself killed trying to impress a boy makes me sad.

Will’s resolution crumbled as one of the mercenaries held up a ring from the newly released corpse.

“This ring makes you better at sex!” he cried, holding the flesh-toned band high in the air.

“Whooo!” The surrounding mercs whooped.

“Oh come on, it’s like they wanted to die!” Will shouted to no one in particular.

“I told you they were treating it like a leisure walk,” Steve said with a shrug. “And I can’t lie to you.”

“Tell me that Alicia was at least doing some kind of power play,” Will said. He needed to believe that she hadn’t been completely stupid, now that he was invested in her story.

“You know, come to think of it, she was always hanging around that Mark Wyrd character. He was tall, handsome, and had curly hair, so I never thought twice about it, but their fathers aren’t exactly on the best terms. Not a blood feud, but not great either. I thought it was some kind of…forbidden-fruit thing, at the time…”

Steve stroked his chin a moment before he shrugged. “Who knows? None of them are alive to tell us what their drama was.”

“Who was that?” Will asked, pointing at the corpse their new porters had pulled out of the ice.

“Jason Bakton.”

“Lord Bakton’s son?” Will asked.

“Yep.”

“How are you not dead?” Will asked. Bakton was a demon with the blade, but sadly his Build wasn’t unique enough to get a mononym. Despite his Build being somewhat plain, there were plenty of stories about those who crossed him not living to regret it.

“The church interceded on my behalf,” Steve said.

“Why did one of the Lords not buy you, kill you, then pay the Corpse Fine? They could afford it, and the church doesn’t seem to care, long as they get paid,” Will asked.

Steve’s mouth opened, and a bead of sweat formed on his brow. “Because none of them thought of it?”

“I thought of it in five seconds.”

“I can only think that they deterred each other. If one came to the Second Floor to acquire me, another might seize their Demesne.”

“Not exactly friends, these people,” Will mused. “Then why did a group of their kids get together in the same Party, instead of each of them ‘leading’ their own Party, like Mason here?”

“Connections. Make friends with potential Lords. That’s usually the only reason the rich congregate. They build a safety net that prevents their children from failing too spectacularly. If one is horrible at Climbing and washes out early, at least they’ll have friends who go on to become Lords. These friends then drop lucrative breadcrumbs on these washouts whom they remember fondly.”

“I’d say this was a pretty spectacular failure,” Will said, motioning to the frozen corpse.

“Without a doubt,” Steve said.

“How are you still alive?” Will asked.

“I don’t KNOW! I should be dead a thousand times over, but someone or something swept it under the rug!” Steve said.

“Who had the power to do that, among the Lords represented here?”

“Well, only four Lords’ children were here; two just came from very rich families, like Lanover over there. Of the four Lords, only Wyrd had the sway to make the others drop the subject of a lost child. Zodiac was a close second.”

“Hmm…” Will mused, his brain picking at details and sorting things out. Something felt weird about the whole situation, but he didn’t have the whole story, and likely never would.

Will shelved it and continued on with the Ice Caves.

Several hours later, they had four of the six corpses on their list, and they headed back.

With Loth securing the route back, it was a fast and simple task to take the Ice Cave route back to the surface.

Mason and June, who had been anxious about the amount of Charge necessary to fight their way back to the surface, boggled at the smoothness of their departure, as most yetis they encountered on the way out were dead or severely injured.

Mason tried to scalp Loth again, at a higher price than before, but the kobold turned him down.

Once they reached the surface, they divvied up the loot, taking the two bodies that had been on Steve’s list and leaving the other two for Mason’s Party to distribute amongst themselves.

Mark Wyrd’s corpse was nowhere to be found.