Granesh found an idyllic pond in his divine realm, where a beautiful crimson fish of massive size swam back and forth from bank to bank. When none of his hooks were big enough, he cut the head off a magnificent ox with horns as sharp as blades. The god attached the head to a rope, carved barbs into the horns, and threw it into the pond, eager to catch this enormous crimson fish.

But it was no pond. That divine pool led to the sky of the Third Floor, where the crimson sun circles the world.

One day, Granesh succeeded, and the sun of the Third Floor simply stopped.

William Oh flew up to investigate, to find that the burning circle had been snagged by a massive hook made of horn. Even as he watched, the crimson ball of fire consumed the ox’s head, growing ever hotter as it did.

William Oh wrenched the sun away from the razor-sharp horns that the gods had callously carved barbs into, his left arm turning to char and his wings bursting into flames.

Having saved the sun, he fell from the sky and where he landed, the charwood nymphs of the ashlands gathered around, nursing their savior back to health.

Without William Oh, the sun would loom forever overhead, growing hotter and hotter until there was no life left on the Third Floor.

No life at all.

-          Jason Salazar

“Ah, this is the life,” Steve Holland said, relaxing in his bed, eating some Ashvine grapes, specially grown in the ash-covered vineyards that surrounded Coalton. Growing them was a major pain in the ass, but the flavor…

By all accounts, this is where he should be meeting Will’s Party.

He’d already made inroads on over a dozen lucrative contracts that he knew were within his team’s capabilities. He knew only one or two would pan out, but it was a good start.

William Oh’s name was starting to have brand value. There were only two downsides: first, the Lord he’d pissed off on the 2nd Floor who was probably looking for him, and second, the growing number of copycats.

The second problem actually made the first problem less worrisome, although it made it difficult to convince people that his team included the actual William Oh, or failing that, William Oh levels of quality.

Surprisingly, that second option is more popular. People liked getting high-quality knockoffs; they felt like they were getting a good deal.

A job where all he had to do was lounge around and talk to people? Perfect. He’d even been making good money on the side, healing Parties drifting through town.

Ah…but the job might be over before it even got started, Steve mused to himself.

He’d been here for several days, and it really didn’t take that long for people to travel from the nearby Key Site to Coalton, which was the closest city to where they’d arrived.

He’d picked up distressing rumors about buses getting attacked and Oilton going silent.

If Will got swept up in the middle of all that and had died out there on the Third Floor… Well, that would be a bummer.

End of the gravy train already in sight.

At least Will’s corpse would mummify in the heat, so the chances of it being brought in by scavengers and identified was pretty good.

Always good to have closure, Steve thought, popping another grape in his mouth.

CRASH!

The ceiling of Steve’s room at the inn collapsed inward as a figure covered in ash-caked blood fell through it.

“HEAL, NOW!” William Oh said, an ash-caked line across his chest and arm.

“Right!” Steve shouted, throwing the covers and debris off himself.

Candy shrieked and tugged the covers back, but Steve was already halfway across the room, his hands glowing with divine power as he reached toward Will.

“Not me, him!” Will said, unwrapping Loth from a cloth swaddling he’d wrapped around his chest.

The black kobold was wrecked, covered from head to toe in oozing burns, and likely holding on by a thread. If he wasn’t dead already. In a matter of hours, those wounds would get infected and things would get really bad.

It was way beyond what a simple health potion could do.

“On it,” Steve said, rolling up his sleeves and warming up the 20-Charge Full Heal.

Blessing of Andover: Full Heal

82/105 Charges remaining.

Loth’s body was suffused with Andover’s grace, and the burns across his entire body began to fade.

Still alive, then. Can’t heal a corpse.

“Oh, thank the gods,” Will said before he slumped down in the pile of ash-covered roof debris and fell asleep.

“I’m just gonna…go,” Candy said, wrapping the blanket around herself and tiptoeing out the door, which was currently lying on the floor.

“HEEEY! WHO’S GONNA PAY FOR THIS?!” the madame demanded, glaring through the empty doorway.

Well, there go my plans for the night, Steve thought sourly. I should’ve knocked on wood.

***William Oh***

Will woke up in a soft bed with minimal ash covering. He tried to sit up, but his entire body was stiff as the Abyss.

“Gah,” he groaned, rubbing the soreness out of his arm as best he could. There was the faintest hint of a scar, but it appeared that their Healer had fixed them up nicely.

Where’s Loth? Will wondered, his eyes adjusting to the dim candlelight.

As it turned out, Loth was sleeping beside him. Large patches of his scales had been burned away, leaving the dark skin underneath.

“Well, for only getting into one actual fight, we sure got wrecked,” Will mused.

You are now a level 11 Resourceful Climber!

William Oh

Resourceful Climber, Level 11

12 + 2 Strength

36 + 5 Resistance

33 Kinesthetics

34 Acuity

22 + 5 Focus

Charges: 9/23

Free Points: 6

Item Abilities: Acid Bolt, +greater acid damage, Homefield Advantage (ice), 20% fire resistance.

Primary Abilities: Aspect of the Goat, Phantom Hand

Ability Upgrade Available! (X2)

Secondary Ability Available!

All of Will’s gear, save for his amulet and rings, were missing.

Did that bastard…? No, there they are, Will thought, leaning back against the headboard with a sigh as he spotted his gear against the wall.

Got an extra level for fighting those bandits, Will thought. He’d hit the magical level 10 in Oilton, which gave him the option to select a Secondary Ability, as well as another Primary Ability upgrade slot.

Maybe I should get an Ability with direct damage? Will thought, thinking back to Loth’s attack that absolutely wrecked the Climber he’d been fighting.

No. It is impressive, but it’s part of a Build that Loth is trying to complete, and it’s well-suited for him. I shouldn’t just grab a direct damage Ability willy-nilly because I want one.

Oooh, look at this one! Will thought to himself as he perused the Secondary Ability options, momentarily forgetting about his resolve to be cool and calculating towards his next Ability.

Uru Breath (minor)

5 Charges: Unleash a blast of space-warping breath, the dimensional ripples cause temporary damage and nausea to those inside the cone. May cause objects to crack or joints to loosen.

Wait, ‘temporary damage’…nausea? Will frowned. It had a ‘minor’ tag, which was the universal sign that he could definitely upgrade it at level 20. But…did he really want to spend all of level 11-20 with what was essentially a debuff cone?

Well, there’s more choices to look at:

Stone Charge

Active: 1 Charge

20ft range.

Coats the user’s body in stone armor and/or propels them forward at lethal speeds.

Seen it.

Venom Strike

Active: 1 Charge

Add a poison effect to the next attack with a slashing or piercing weapon. Scales with Acuity.

That’s new, Will thought, inspecting the effect. It probably wouldn’t be anything he took, but it was interesting he was being offered it.

Does the Uru Drake have poison?

Mighty Leap

Active: 1 Charge

Your Jump distance is tripled for a single jump.

Seen it.

Prey’s Senses

Passive:

The User’s field of vision widens, as well as minor improvements to their hearing and smell. Scales with Acuity.

Seen it.

Molt

Active: 3 Charges

Minor self-heal. Stops bleeding and minor ongoing damage.

Very interesting.

Sourdough

Active: 1 Charge

The user may gain the full effect of a Consumable Relic only using 80% of the Relic. The remaining 20% may be reserved to ferment a new Consumable Relic, if provided powdered Relics, time, and additional Charges. Scales with Resistance.

Seen it. On the short list.

Titan’s Grasp

Passive:

Space and gravity subtly warp around objects the user tries to hold, allowing them to handle objects both larger and smaller than they might’ve otherwise been able to handle, whether that be from cumbersome size or weight.

Oooh.

Just from a cursory glance at its effects, Will figured it would allow him to wield two-handed weapons one-handed. Two-handed weapons had better stats and damage.

There were also edge-case uses, like did it synergize with Phantom Hand’s ability to touch magic, or did it offer a vastly expanded selection of improvised weapons?

Phantom Eye

Active: 1 Charge

Summon a Phantom Eye for (Acuity) Seconds. The Eye is invisible, goatlike, moves at the same speed as Phantom Hand, and has depth perception.

Good Ability for the Infiltrator part of my Build, Will thought, even though he was pretty sure he wouldn’t take it.

Progenitor Affinity

Passive:

Further enhances the natural affinity scaled creatures have towards you.

Eh? ‘Further enhances the natural affinity scaled creatures have towards you’? Was it implying there was some affinity there already? It said ‘progenitor,’ like the Progenitor Uru Drake. A fringe benefit, perhaps?

Interesting, but not important enough to spend one of my few secondary slots on.

Stubborn Ass

Passive:

User’s Inertia becomes more difficult to change through outside forces, adding force to their attacks and resisting shoves and strikes.

Oh, that’s cool, but I wonder if it would increase the damage I take in certain circumstances? Like if I got hit with a massive log wielded by a troll, would my body just stay in place and get crushed, rather than bounce off?

Serpent’s Tongue

Active: 1 Charge

With a vile word of Eternity, extend the duration of debuffs on the target for (Acu/10) Seconds.

…That’s an odd one. Debuffs, as defined by The Tower, included things like poison, burning, bleeding, mind control, fear, curses, and stat drains like the one Serpent Tomahawk did.

But did Will want to divert his entire Build towards debuff synergy? Not really.

If anything, Will gravitated towards two options: Sourdough and Titan’s Grasp.

The former because of the Relic synergies that were already at play with Phantom Hand, and that he was planning on improving once he got a Relic Worm Sacrifice, giving him a strong, unfair synergy that he might be able to loop Sourdough in on eventually, as the Ability specifically worked with Relics.

The latter attracted him because it partially offset his disability, and there were possible Sacrifices in the future he could possibly use to link Titan’s Grasp passive with Phantom Hand. Maybe even, one day, make it interact with the physical world.

If he could get his Ability to give him a left hand again…

Will took a deep breath and set aside the choices for now.

I’ll talk about it with Loth.

Will got out from under the silk covers and paused.

Silk covers?

He studied the expensive fabric, his gaze turning towards the oversized bed frame with opulent padding. The down pillows.

The soft mattress.

The rich rug that was heavenly smooth against his feet, which sank deep into the weave.

The red walls, and fake gold on every surface…

What kind of inn is this? Will thought as he slipped on his shirt and pants, looping the suspenders up over his shoulders.

The door creaked open and Steve ducked his head in.

Will thought he perceived a flash of someone running in the hall behind him, but he couldn’t process exactly what he was seeing.

“Oh good, you’re awake!” Steve said, steering a cart into the room with a wide grin. “I hope you don’t mind. I took some of the ivory you hid in your socks to pay for the damages to the ceiling.”

Will had squirreled some away as soon as he had a moment of time away from prying eyes, in case Travis double-crossed him. The young Master Decoy had not gotten the full amount back. Still, it hadn’t been explicitly stated that the whole amount was in the bag when Will offered it to him to lead the Wyrd away from the rest of them.

‘Explicitly.’ That’s a good word.

His paranoia had come in handy just now, it seemed.

At the mention of the money in his socks, Will idly thumbed his belt, checking that the coin in the band of his underwear was still there.

Still there.

“I brought you guys some meat, wine, cheeses,” Steve said. “Not many vegetables here. The Ashvine grapes are delicious, but they’re expensive and not exactly filling. No, you two will need plenty of meat, to help restore some of your reserves.”

“Isn’t magical healing…magical?” Will asked.

“Well, yes and no,” Steve said, reaching under the cart and pulling out a pitcher of wine and cups. “All healing drains the body’s resources to some extent, and this extent varies wildly based on the power of the Healer, their skill, the god, the extent of the damage, the Resistance of the person being healed.

“And I am not the most powerful or skilled Healer,” Steve said, shaking his head and chuckling. “Not by a long shot.”

“Should we find someone better?” Will asked.

“Tough talk for someone whose life I saved,” Steve said, taking a sip of his cup before offering it to Will.

Will eyed it suspiciously.

“It’s watered down,” Steve said with a shrug.

Will tried it, tasting the faintest hint of wine.

After the first sip, his body realized exactly how thirsty he was, and he knocked the entire thing back, devolving into a coughing spree near the end as he partially inhaled some of the wine-flavored water.

“Haven’t drunk anything except for melted ice crystals and tuber-juice for days,” Will gasped once he was done coughing.

“Sounds like a good way to get scurvy,” Steve said, pulling Will’s cup back down and refilling it, squeezing half a lime into it.

“Drink that.”

Watered-down lime wine was…an experience. Almost good. Tolerable, even.

“Here, have some stew,” Steve said, revealing two giant bowls of brown goop filled with massive chunks of meat. “Made with salt from the Second Floor and flammenwulf from this Floor. A regional specialty.”

“By the gods, I missed salt!” Will said, inhaling the stew. He’d gotten some when Brianna cooked her bread bowl stew, but—

“Where’s Brianna and Carrie?!” Will asked.

“They’re resting in an inn a few streets down,” Steve said. “They arrived a few hours after you did, asking around town for you and Loth,” Steve said, pointing at the kobold, who seemed to be rousing now that the noisy Healer had barged in.

“Smell food,” Loth growled, uncharacteristically blunt. He tried to get up, but made an inhuman whine and went limp, panting in pain as he stared at the ceiling.

“I can move my arm,” Loth said, waggling his right arm for emphasis. “Sit me up!”

Will went and sat Loth up against the headboard, and set the bowl in his lap.

Over the next handful of seconds, Loth downed the contents of the bowl, followed by the entire remainder of the pitcher.

Where is it all going? Will thought, studying the waist-high kobold. Surely his stomach had to be smaller than Will’s…surely.

Loth set down the pitcher and glanced between the two humans staring at him. “My apologies. That was rude of me. I was very hungry.”

“Oh, no problem! That was your food, so how you eat it is no concern of mine,” Steve said with a shrug. “I’ll go get another serving, in case she’s still hungry.”

“Who?” Will asked as Steve disappeared through the doorway.

Will glanced back at Loth, who drew the covers up over himself, watching him cautiously.

“Who was he…?”

Will cocked his head.

“But…

“You…

“But…

“You…never really said anything one way or another, huh?” Will said, rubbing his chin.

“No, I did not,” Loth said. “I don’t even bother to hide it. It might not surprise you to know that humans have a great deal of difficulty telling apart kobold sexes. I typically don’t bother to correct them. Being assigned male has social benefits.”

“…” Will looked around the room, eager to find some other topic of conversation.

“So! How about this inn? Weird, right?” Will asked. “Kinda fancy, but uses a lot of red and gold for some reason?”

“It’s a brothel, Will.”

“So! Level fifteen, huh?!” Will desperately shifted topics.

Loth laughed.