They say that William Oh never learned how to read. He just glares at the book and it will tell him everything he wants to know.

- Icuras, level 12 Climber

***Written in a shaky hand with poor spelling.***

Dear Lord Zodiak. In this cofin rests the bodi of your dotter, Alishia, along with her effekts.  I can’t I am truli sorry for

Her deth was kwick, which is the most we can hope for in The Tower. I chooze to believe she dyed risking her life for somethin important to her, and I hope she is at rest.

My condolenses.

-          William Oh

P.S.

If yur the Lord who tried to have his Vasals feed me to yur wyrd secret arm-monster, better luck next time. If yur not…Were you aware another lord has wyrd arm-monster pets heer? on 2nd floor? Fud for thot.

***Post-postscript, hastily written in beautiful cursive.***

I apologize for my Party leader. It appears his education was rudimentary, at best. He is actually quite clever. We mean no disrespect, and I will personally see to a remedy for his oafishness.

We are truly sorry for your loss and hope that having Alicia returned provides some measure of closure to you and your family.

-          Loth the Luminary

“Fourteen nine, fifteen…thousand,” Loth said, sliding the last ivory coin across the counter.

“Thank you for paying the Corpse Fine,” the bruised priest said, bowing. “The Temple of Andover appreciates your business.” His face was still a bit swollen from where Will had bashed it with the back of his axe.

“I’m sure you do,” Loth said sourly. “You realize he’s standing right behind me, alive and well?”

“As far as I’m aware, your Party is the one that reported Steve Holland expired. Are you admitting to committing fraud?”

Steve giggled.

Will reached for his tomahawk, causing the Healer to flinch.

“Why haven’t you healed that bruise yet, Nate?” Steve asked. “Did the old man not give you permission to use your own powers?”

“Until my dailies exceed—”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re the FNG, I gotcha.” Steve waved off the young man and turned back to them. “So, whaddya wanna—”

Will and Loth were already heading out.

“Hey, wait!” Steve jolted before running after them. “What about me?”

“What about you?” Will asked.

“You are free of your debt to the church in its totality, and we all walked away with more wealth than we had before. You are still alive. Perhaps you should quit while you’re ahead,” Loth added.

“Look, Boss, I can see this Party is going somewhere, and I want in on it.”

Will eyed Steve up and down, the Charlatan holding his arms out, presenting himself in his entirety. “…No.”

“No?!” Steve demanded.

“You’re a level thirty-five, an extremely subpar one at that, such that a pair of level tens could cause you trouble. Your Class is ill-suited for battle, and your healing Ability is a secondary, which means it’ll grow incredibly slowly, if at all. You only have one debuff, also a secondary, no buffs, and no offensive abilities.

“You won’t gain any levels until we pass the 7th Floor, and by that point, you will have become extremely weak compared to the native monsters, the difference between us only growing with time.”

“Well…shit.” Steve deflated for a moment before he seemed to think of something and brighten.

“Listen, I’ve bounced around the first six floors as a rental for two decades. I know the places, I know the people. I’ve got experience.

“What if I write you a dossier on the next four floors, follow you to each floor and be your liaison in town while you’re out and about?”

Will narrowed his eyes with suspicion. “You’re making those words up.”

Loth cleared his throat, tugging on Will’s sleeve. “A collection of documents on a specific subject is called a ‘dossier,’ and a person who acts as a middleman between parties is a ‘liaison.’ He’s offering to handle logistics in town, buy and sell for us, bid on jobs, deflect suspicion, keep abreast of the news. Whatever we need done in town while we go Climbing,” he advised when Will turned to look at him.

Will frowned. That wasn’t…a bad offer. He understood object permanence. Things happened, and they, by default, continued happening even if they weren’t in town to see them happen. Information on the Floors was often valuable and difficult to come by, since anyone who found something new kept it to themselves in order to gain an advantage.

Their recent adventure to the ice caves was a case in point.

“Alright. You said one percent?”

“I did, indeed.”

They shook on it.

“Money for giving advice, staying in the safety of town and keeping my ears open? I could get used to that,” Steve said with a grin.

“We’ll formalize it at some point,” Will said, gesturing to his tomahawk. “But I don’t want to stack any more deals on you until the current ones expire.”

“Fair enough,” Steve said.

“Here. Down payment,” Will said, handing Steve some of the ivory coins. “It’ll help pay for your costs.”

“Costs? What costs?”

“Oh, supplies for writing guides to the next few levels, paying buses to bring you to higher floors. Food. Those come out of pocket.”

“You monster!” Steve said with a gasp.

“Eh.” Will shrugged.

“Fine. But you guys better strike it rich.”

“Richer than what we just did?” Will asked.

“It’ll be gone in a month. Things get real expensive the higher you go. I’m talkin’ ivory for a bed at an inn. Maybe there isn’t even an inn. In which case, you’re paying ivory for a tent you could’ve bought for a copper outside The Tower.”

“Any other advice?”

“It is going to be very important to find a way to deal with extreme heat on the Third Floor. If you can buy good fire resistance for yourself, do so, even if it cripples your Build.”

He turned to Loth. “Your insects are going to have to hole up in your barrel with a block of ice, unless you can find a way to give them all heat resistance.”

Loth rubbed his chin in thought.

“And you guys might want to consider hiring an actual Healer, Nuker, and Warrior. Balance your Party out, so you don’t run into something that you have no way of dealing with.

“And visit home before you tackle the Fourth Floor,” Steve said, clapping Will on the shoulder. “That’s where a lot of people die.”

Steve gave him a thumbs-up, then began walking away, muttering to himself. “Where in the Abyss am I supposed to find a stationary shop around here? Maybe it would be cheaper to go back down… I can solo the 2nd Floor anyway….”

“Well, now what?” Loth asked.

Will jingled their bag of ivory. After sending Ms. Zodiac back to her father, they still had a decent amount of cash to burn.

And why not? Better to be alive and tapped out than dead and rich.

“Now, we find some fire resistance equipment.”

They cruised the bazaar for hours, discovering that the equipment necessary to climb to the next level was permanently in short supply, for obvious reasons. Eventually, they found an amulet and a pair of boots that offered good resistance to fire. They weren’t great, especially compared to the loot they’d just retrieved from the ice caves, but more importantly, they weren’t going to get them in trouble.

Amulet of the Hearth-Keeper

+2 Focus

+12% resistance to fire

Boots of the Ash-Walker

+2 Resistance

+12% resistance to fire

Increased tread grip on ash, coal, lava, and to a lesser extent, sand and snow. Spreads the user’s weight.

Loth took the boots, and Will took the amulet.

Between the ring and the boots, Loth was up to 22.5% fire resistance—a respectable amount for 2nd Floor gear. They prioritized him because he had low Resistance. Will could probably skate by with just one item.

Now he had a decision to make: sacrifice the new amulet and re-slot it into the Phantom Hand, or sacrifice the Amulet of the Homefield Advantage?

Will inspected it, allowing The System to fill his mind with its details.

Amulet of the Homefield Advantage

+2 Resistance

+1 Focus

Active: 1 Charge.

Load a terrain into the Amulet for a Charge, Summon that terrain around the wearer for another. This does not consume the terrain. Only one terrain may be loaded into the amulet.

Will decided to sacrifice the new amulet. He would probably outgrow both of them, but he felt like the Amulet of the Homefield Advantage would outlast his need for fire damage resistance.

Into the Phantom Hand the item went.

Would you like to Sacrifice the Amulet of the Hearth-Keeper to gain its effect?

Yes.

The Sting Ring’s effect will be discarded. Do you still wish to Sacrifice the Amulet of the Hearth-Keeper?

Yes.

Will shuddered as a strange sensation ran through his body, as if he’d become suddenly hollow before something else took its place. “Bleh. I hate how…physical the Phantom Hand’s feedback is sometimes.”

He opened up his backpack and inspected the Sickle of Cold Harvest and the Gauntlets of Speed. He could’ve sold them for a healthy profit, but he’d decided to keep them around in case he found a way to use them with Phantom Hand.

Sooner or later.

Their Acclimation timer was long since expired, and they were a hair’s breadth from level 10. It was time to knuckle down and try their hand at clearing a Key Site and hitting Floor 3. They would have to pit their very lives against the worst The Tower had to offer and come out of it stronger than befo—

“MOVE ASIDE!” A steel palanquin marched down the road, carried by men in their forties.

Loth and Will watched the bus go by.

“You wanna just follow a bus?” Loth asked.

“Oh gods, yes,” Will groaned. “I need a break from nearly dying.”

“You jinxed it,” Loth said, shaking his head as the two of them began jogging along behind the bus, joining the dozen or so Climbers of the same level as them.

As it turned out, following in the wake of a bus wasn’t nearly as easy or safe as the common perception of simply hitching a ride to the next Floor.

The high-level porters didn’t bother to kill any monsters except those that were directly between themselves and their destination. Nor did they slow down, easily outpacing some of the slower level 10s over the course of several hours of running.

Those who got left behind were left by themselves to contend with all the pissed-off monsters that had been riled up by the nearly twenty Climbers sprinting through their domain.

Will personally witnessed two Climbers fall behind only to be buried under kaith and harpies.

Realizing if they fell behind they would die, Will picked Loth up and began running harder, seeking out the rough terrain beside the path, sprinting up the side of a switchback, taking shortcuts through impassable terrain to keep pace with the bus.

By the time they made it to the Key Site, Will was absolutely exhausted, bent over and heaving for breath.

Clang! The veterans set down the steel palanquin just outside the Key Site, their gazes lingering on Will a bit longer than the others.

Of the dozen who’d set out to follow the bus, only six remained, not including Will and Loth.

“Bit more cling-ons than usual,” one of the veterans said with a scowl. “Listen up, because I’m only gonna say this once! You will wait to engage the monsters until after we’ve secured our package’s contribution to the clear. After which, you’re welcome to assist with clearing…if you can.”

After his short speech, the veteran Climber opened the steel door on the side of the palanquin and gestured for its occupants to step outside.

A dozen young men and women, all in civilian dress and about Will’s age, stepped out of the bus, scanning their surroundings with wide eyes.

Cull the Down.

A wild down of Sky Hares has begun to reproduce in the area around the Key Site. Investigate, cull any showing aberrant behavior, and drive the rest away from the Key Site.

In the distance, Will could see the pillar of light indicating the Key Site, and their eventual target.

“Stay here,” the leader said, motioning to their passengers before turning to address the Climbers. “That goes for you too.”

A moment later, three quarters of the veterans began sprinting towards the gigantic stalagmite with a beam of light emerging from it, while the remaining ones took positions around the perimeter, watching for any trouble that might rear its head in the next few minutes.

No longer having to listen, Will went back to panting desperately to regain his stamina.

“…Are you okay?” a girl about Will’s age asked. She was fair-skinned, blue-eyed and black-haired, wearing a posy-covered dress. It was a riot of faded colors, something a poor mother might buy for her daughter’s birthday and then carefully patch and let out the seams as she grew. The hem was bit too high, suggesting she’d been much smaller when she first got it.

The dozens of faded stains it was covered in disappeared into the tumultuous flower design, which was the original intent of the fabric.

She was on her way to meet her new Lord, so it was likely the nicest thing she owned, and it couldn’t have cost more than a few silver.

“Me? Fine. I’m fine,” Will said, mastering his breathing and standing up straight in front of the girl.

“Why were you carrying a kobold?”

“’Cuz he’s got short legs, obviously,” Will said with a shrug.

“Why are you wearing a goat mask?”

“Because it’s got a good Ability.”

“Are you older?”

“No.” Will flipped up the mask to show her.

“My name’s Brianna. You can call me Bri, Brianna, or Anna,” she said, sticking out her hand, elbow fully extended in the awkward, going-to-force-you-to-shake-my-hand pose.

“…William. You can call me Will,” Will said, reluctantly shaking her hand. “So, what are you Climbing for?”

“I’m a Baker, and—”

“Really!?” Will asked, perhaps a bit too enthusiastically, causing Brianna to take a half-step back.

“Yes?”

“Sorry, go on.” Will motioned for her to continue.

“Well, I was granted the Sacrifices to get a Class that’s supposed to allow me to duplicate and modify bread. Put one bun in the oven, pull out two, make hardtack take on some of the characteristics of a soft potato bread while maintaining its shelf-stability. That sort of thing. I’m told the higher floors need exactly that kind of Ability to keep everyone fed.”

“What Class?” Will asked, drooling at the thought.

Brianna’s eyes widened and she winced. “Sorry, I’m not allowed to talk about it. I shouldn’t have even told you that. I can say that the work is going to give my family a leg up.”

“Ah well,” Will said with a shrug, dropping the subject of her Class.

“What about you? Why are you Climbing?” she asked.

“I’m gonna make it to the top,” Will said, pointing up.

Brianna’s expression changed, just slightly more closed off than it had been before. “Oh! You’re one of those people that’s going to die.”

“What?! No!” Will denied vehemently. “I have literally never done that before, and I’m not gonna start now.”

“Yeah…you’re gonna die. I’m sorry…” She patted him on the shoulder, expression consolatory. “I can’t be friends with someone who’s gonna die.”

“Bah, you’ll see. I’ll pull up on Floor…” Will frowned. “What Floor are you going to?”

“7th.”

“I’ll pull up on the 7th Floor, and I’ll be all like ‘Look at me, breathing and everything. Gimme some bread.’”

“And I…will charge you several ivory per loaf, because there will be no one else with bread on that Floor.”

“Dang. That’s cold,” Will muttered.

“That’s business,” Brianna said with a smirk and a shrug.

Will was about to respond when they were interrupted by the bussers.

“Look alive, brats!” one of the veterans shouted, pointing out his team returning with their hands full of near-dead hares.

“Alright, passengers, line up and each of you give one of these rodents a good stabbing,” the boss said, twirling a knife in his hands. “Cling-ons, you’ve got twenty seconds to do your thing before we’re wiping them out. Get to it.”

As one, Will and the other Climbers broke into a sprint towards the Key Site.

Out of the shrubbery, a wave of Sky Hares dashed, chasing the veterans with mindless fury, their mouths unnaturally…fang-y.

One jumped toward Will, but an arrow from a nearby Climber knocked it aside, sending it twitching to the ground.

“Sorry!” the archer said, giving him a mock salute before turning and running away.

Another one raced towards him, but an explosion flung it far over Will’s shoulder, killing that one and another half dozen as a Nuker let out a single blast that annihilated them.

“Sorry!” The Nuker shrugged, disengaging.

In the distance, he could see the passengers each squeamishly stabbing one of the subdued mutated hares, adding their ‘contribution,’ which would allow them to go up a floor.

Damnit, I’m not going to let them steal my ticket up. And that Nuker killing six of them! The nerve!

Will slipped his tomahawk back in his belt and pulled out the sling, whipping it around once, feeding a bullet from the sack on his belt into the cradle before releasing it.

The bullet whirred out and caught a white hare in the side of the head, creating a curtain of greenish fire hanging in midair.

“Watch it!” a nearby warrior said, diverting his course moments before he ran into the curtain of fire.

“Oh. Sorry!” Will said, taking his turn to mock-salute and leave.

That was when the white hare he’d nailed turned around and leapt at the warrior with a snarl, the side of its head smoking.

How is it still— Wait, is that the only white one? Will’s eyes widened as he noticed its coloration was different than the others. White instead of tan.

The warrior reached out to seize the hare in midair as it leapt for him.

The hare bounded off a wisp of cloud it created near its feet, changing course in midair before exhaling an arctic storm across the warrior’s side, lining the Climber’s body with hoarfrost before rebounding off the man’s head, causing it to shatter.

“Oh Gods! That’s the Boss!” Will shouted, more to himself than anyone else. Everyone knew it was the Boss.