From his perch in the Origin City trading quarters, a drunken man had a good view of the central bazaar. He took a long drink from an oddly crafted gourd, then slammed it on the table.
“Baarkeep!” he shouted, attracting the disapproving gazes of passersby. “Gimme anu’er’un!”
After throwing an Essence on the counter, he turned and took in his surroundings. His crystal-clear eyes caught even the tiniest movements within the crowd. It didn’t seem he’d been noticed. Grumbling, he snatched his now-full gourd up from the counter and swiveled to look at the stairs.
“I’m going to die bef—” His voice cut off as he saw a familiar figure walking along the street. On his right was the young man that had followed him down from the Second Floor… a friend, perhaps?
To his left was a beautiful young maiden, one that could likely only be found in fairy tales. The drunkard scowled. Some men had all the luck.
He focused on the trio while taking another swig. “Aurora. Rowan. Nathaniel. Hmm… Issa start.”
Once the group entered a tall building along the main street, he tipped his gourd to the sky and downed the contents a second time. Turning back to the bartender, he once again slammed it on the counter angrily.
“Whhyyy din’t you fill ’er up?!”
***
“Haaah… Haah…”
Kneeling in the woods with her head in her hands, a young woman breathed heavily and stared wide-eyed at the bloodied ground before her. Her white hair was stained red with the same blood that covered her arms.
“Haah…” She pressed her hands forcefully against the sides of her head, trying to remember what had happened. Ever since she’d reached the Second Floor, all of her time had been spent hunting in the woods.
After leaving the border town, she hadn’t run into a single person, though that was likely because she’d purposely taken the long way around the Floor’s outskirts. Wait… that wasn’t true.
“Haah… Th… There was a man, wasn’t there?” She looked down at her bloodied hands.
“What have I done?”
***
A subtle squelching noise sounded in the near-silent room, followed shortly after by another. Aldis looked down at the two freshly pressed wax seals and sighed.
“Veronica Gray”
“Jason Gray”
“Two…” he muttered.
The Grandhardts had found the corpse as soon as they’d quelled the flames… but it had still taken them two days to inform Aldis that his youngest child had died.
“Two…” He looked up slowly, gazing at the candle flickering on the edge of his desk. This was the second child they’d lost in this way.
According to the Grandhardt’s representative, their investigation had shown that Zachary had been hunting the Plagued Rodents which had been roaming the streets. He appeared to have found a nest in an abandoned factory, holding thousands of gallons of combustible liquid. Pieces of his corpse that survived the blaze were found scattered throughout the factory, along with the remains of hundreds of Rodents .
Aldis dragged his feet as he walked to the postbox at the front of the office. He looked down at the envelopes in his hand. Only two. He’d worked so diligently all these years to have something worth passing down to his children. But now…
“Only two…”
***
Looking down on the whole of Origin City from the tallest spire of the highest building, two silver eyes stared at the meandering pedestrians. He watched unsympathetically as a young man was dragged into an alley and beaten.
“Contemptible vermin.” He spat at the floor. Immediately, a servant ran forward to clean it. “These humans are a waste of space. Why are these people even here?”
“Master Wales, even the weak are necessary for supporting the economy,” a voice said with a laugh from behind him. “If it were only the powerful paying their tariffs, we would be doomed. There are more weak individuals than powerful, and their fees alone cover over ninety-five percent of the city’s explosive growth.”
Sighing, Macaiah Wales rubbed his temples with both hands and continued to stare at the man in the alley. The muggers had long vanished, yet he was still writhing like a worm on the ground.
“I wasn’t referring to the city, Horace.” Macaiah gritted his teeth. “What are they doing in the Tower ? What purpose do they serve?”
He jutted his chin toward the blubbering man in the street. “They have no idea what’s out there. How is it that anyone can be satisfied with this? Sitting idly on the Origin Floor, unable to fend for themselves.”
Horace moved to the immense window and swiftly located the source of his master’s irritation. The man closed his eyes for several seconds, apparently unmoved by the cries of pain that could be heard, even from this distance.
“It’s being dealt with.” Horace opened his eyes and bowed slightly. Before he’d even bent at the waist, four well-dressed men appeared in the alley. A scream replaced the weeping, and when Horace returned his gaze a moment later, not even the stains of the man’s blood were left on the pavement.
“The problem isn’t dealt with, Horace.” Massaging his temples, Macaiah moved to sit at his desk. “Now, wake up Thurman. I’d like to hear about this little… incident.”
“As you wish.” Horace walked around to the front of the desk, where his usually silent footsteps began to crinkle the large sheets of plastic spread across the floor. In the center sat a wooden chair, and on the chair, a man… If you could still call him that.
The lower half of the man’s face had been removed, and the half of his tongue still attached was visible through the hanging jaw. Blood ran freely from his missing fingers and toes. Macaiah stared patiently into the empty eye sockets as he waited for Horace to work his magic.
Horace stepped up to the man and placed a hand over his scalped head. Shimmering green energy flowed from his fingers, wrapping around the disfigured man. The torn flesh on the man’s skin began to writhe… and then it began to grow back. Slowly, the man became whole.
“Aarrggghhh!” the man screamed as his dangling jaw snapped back into place. His scream turned to sobbing once his tongue stretched to its original size. “P-please. Just… just let me die… Please!”
“Tell me what happened on the First Floor,” Macaiah said in a soothing voice.
Thurman’s wailing stopped. When he responded, his voice had lost all of its former angst. “I dealt with the guards, as instructed, and replaced them with the two men sent up with me. I had each of the chosen Descendants step into their rooms. Young Master Kanan performed his task first, then Miss York, and so on until I reached the O’Connels’ boy.”
“And then?” Macaiah prompted.
“The boy refused to participate, so I tore the heads off of the men myself,” he answered.
“So you decided it would be in your best interest to steal from the Families?” Macaiah questioned in a calm voice. “In an event that I myself orchestrated, no less. That is certainly bold.”
“I saw it as taking the unwanted scraps,” Thurman continued in the same dull, monotonous tone.
“Tell me, Thurman. What happened then?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?” Macaiah repeated.
“I received no special reward. When I arrived at the designated meeting place on the Second Floor, I was informed that only nine rewards were received by the chosen Descendants.”
Macaiah sat quietly for several minutes before releasing his hold on Thurman, whose face turned white when he realized what he’d said. Before he could beg for forgiveness, Horace placed a finger to the man’s temple, and he froze in place.
“Master. Do you wish for me to look into this matter?”
Macaiah shook his head. “No. Kanan wasn’t affected. We will let the others deal with their own problems.”
“As you wish.” Horace lowered his head in respect. “ ?”
“Slowly.”
***
“G-Grandpa…” a timid voice squeaked from the open doorway.
Turning slightly, Arthur O’Connel beamed proudly at his youngest progeny. “Come in, Carter.”
The ten-year-old boy shuffled forward, his eyes pointed downward. His shaggy, light-brown hair perfectly resembled how Arthur’s had looked centuries before. He tousled the boy’s hair with his gnarled hand.
“You’re not still moping about over that task, are ya, boy?” He laughed merrily and placed his finger under the boy’s chin, raising it until their gazes met. “I’ve told you: not wanting to take a life is nothing to be ashamed of.”
“But… the others… they—”
“Bah!” Arthur swiped at the air. “You ought not to worry what anyone else thinks of ya! You’re the best damn apothecary on this side of the Fiftieth Floor! Well… aside from me, o’ course,” he said with a wink.
Carter smiled a bit at that, his sullen mood taking a turn. Arthur noticed the change and stood, gesturing to the table littered with glass tubes, vials, and containers. Some were filled with different colored liquids while others housed odd-looking items.
“Ya showed up just in time.” He passed a dark purple root down to the boy. “How about helping this old man crush the bane roots ?”
“Okay!”
***
“Aaaagghhhhh!”
Two men screamed in unison as they ran through the forests of the Third Floor. Two normal sized ursidae and one massive one trailed closely behind, shaking the ground with their steps.
“Why did I let you talk me into this?!” one of the men yelled. His hair bounced around loosely as he ran. Tattered brown robes dragged the dirt behind him, and one of the ties on his cheap leather jerkin had snapped.
“Me?” Locke shouted back between breaths. “Ye… din’t even know… yer cousin… ‘ad went an’… opened a tavern… on the… Fifth Floor! ‘ow did ya… not know that… Nick?”
“He never… told me!” Nick responded while pulling up his dragging robe just as one of the bears nipped at it. “Stop complaining… and keep… running!”
Locke glanced back and picked up his pace. The smaller ursidae were a ways back now, but the big one was still keeping pace, despite Nick’s buffs. Oh ‘ell. I wish that fella Rowan was ‘ere. ‘e’d set these beasties straight.
***
“Damnit!”
“Ooof!”
There was a loud crash as an armored man slammed into the stone wall of the training grounds. He coughed up a bit of blood and lay still, clearly hoping the young man who’d put him there wouldn’t call on him again.
“I’m sorry, Seth, but we’ve yet to receive word from the Wales Family.” The middle-aged woman sighed heavily and shook her head. “Honestly, is it even that important?
“You watch your tone,” Seth barked. “It’s not about the damn Relic. Someone took what was meant to be mine, and I want to know who !”
Without looking, the young man swung his fist outward, stumbling as he hit nothing but air. His cheeks flushed with anger and embarrassment, and he snapped his head up to see the armored man still hunched over by the shattered wall.
“Oscar! Get over here!”
***
Leaning on the side of a magnificent winged beast, a man gazed off into the distance. He’d glimpsed this small, sleepy town as he and his party had passed overhead. For being as close to the stairs as it was, it had been difficult to spot.
His long, black hair whipped in the wind as he focused on the myriad mountains in the distance. Everywhere he looked, peaks jutted up amongst the purple clouds. With his Perception, he could see the island that harbored the stairs. It was packed with Wielders, all peering over the edge and wondering how they would proceed.
The Fifty-First Floor was the last stop for a lot of people. Humanity had been stuck here for centuries. Without the ability to fly, there was no way to cross from island to island.
There were stories, centuries old, of fearless men and women who’d attempted to scale down the side of the first mountain in search of the base. Most hadn’t returned, and when one finally had… the news hadn’t been well received.
These weren’t mountains—they were islands, hovering hundreds of miles above an expanse of nothing. That had been the story, anyway, but there actually was a bottom.
The man walked to the edge and peered over. Today, the clouds were too thick to see through , but when they cleared, Wielders with a high-enough Perception could see the millions of colossal tentacles snaking around in the abyss. He was one such Wielder.
Looking back toward the darkened sky, he let his pitch-black eyes flick back and forth between the clouds. There were others up there, Wielders who had been lucky enough to obtain a flying Summon or Spell. Only recently had the first group of Wielders pressed into the next Floor, but even now, with the location marked, there were a limited number of ways to cross between the islands.
“Zain! How many?”
Zain stroked the feathers of the white-and-brown Griffin that had served as his mount for the last few years. It nudged his side, trying to shove its beak into his pocket. He laughed and pulled out one of the fruits he’d found on a distant island, then tossed it in the beast’s open beak.
“There are three,” Zain called to the man in reply. “Unfortunately, they’re traveling in a small pack. I’ve been waiting hours for one to split off, but… no luck.”
The man sighed. “Well, come on, then , it’s time to rest. We’ll give it another go tomorrow.”
Their return to the obscure little town was uneventful. Zain let his Griffin run along the grass, nipping at leaves and any smaller Beasts that managed to cross their path.
When he reached the border, the creature vanished, transported into whatever strange world the Cards housed them in. Zain made a beeline for the local pub. Despite it being such a rural place , these people made the best liquor he’d ever tasted.
He paused with his hand on the front door. Stepping back, Zain poked his head around the side of the pub and examined a trio, who were drinking and laughing raucously at one of the tables. They were strangely dressed, wearing black suits with golden trim and matching purple pocket squares.
The strange attire wasn’t what caught Zain’s attention, however. One of the men, the only one facing him, looked vaguely familiar. Not wanting to stare,
. There had been a man… It was around ten years ago now. Zain had found him in the woods, being beaten by three cloaked men.
Before he could see their faces, they’d fled, but that didn’t keep him from recognizing that they were much too powerful to have been hunting on that Floor. What he’d witnessed wasn’t a mugging, but a hit.
Unfortunately, he’d been too late to save the man, but Zain had witnessed his dying words: an address and a request. He only asked that the remainder of his items be taken to his son, even going so far as to unequip the last of his Cards, killing himself before Zain could ask any questions.
He’d heeded the man’s request, delivering the items in person and telling the boy his father had been attacked by bandits. After finding out the kid’s mom was also gone, Zain hadn’t felt right leaving the child stranded with a large debt and no chance in hell. He pulled some strings to give the son a better future, then poured the last of his savings into paying up as much of that debt as he could afford.
“That kid should have graduated by now… I wonder how he’s getting on.”
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