Chapter 50: Road to Ashwick
The capital’s eastern gate was already bustling when Nathan arrived.
The city woke in its usual rhythm of commuters flooding sidewalks in neat, hurried streams, buses groaning through traffic, mana engines humming beneath combustion growls. Billboards flickered with ads for guild recruitment drives and the latest Tower-clearing gear. A news feed scrolled across a public display: TCA Announces New Safety Protocols for Outer Region Towers and Goldcrest Climber Reaches Floor 40 of Master Class Tower. The world moved, as always, indifferent to any single Climber’s journey.
Nathan’s party gathered near the guild transport depot. Elise arrived first, she was always first, with a pack slung over her shoulder. She distributed the contents within: four cloaks, lightweight and silver-grey, their fabric shimmering faintly with embedded enchantment. The material felt cool against Nathan’s fingers despite the morning warmth.
"Winterhart standard issue heat resistant cloaks," Elise said. "They’ll reflect ambient heat up to volcanic temperatures and keep the body cool. Don’t lose them. They’re worth more than our last mission payout."
Dillon examined his with an exaggerated care. "Does this come in black?"
"It comes in the color it comes in."
"Silver-grey washes me out."
"Then burn."
Garrett was already trying his on, grinning as the enchantment activated. "Whoa. It’s really cool, like a built-in AC. How does it do that?"
"Thermal redirection enchantment. Heat energy is absorbed and dispersed through the outer layer." Elise said it like she was reading from a textbook. Then, with the faintest twitch at the corner of her mouth: "Also magic, obviously"
"Magic AC," Garrett said reverently. "Best guild perk so far."
Helena arrived as they finished adjusting their gear. She wore her Celestial Peak uniform—deep blue with silver trim—and carried a small crystal embedded in a wrist-mounted communicator. The crystal pulsed with a faint blue light.
"This links to the guild hall," she said, tapping it. "I’ll monitor your progress from here. Valerie’s orders. If something goes wrong, I’ll know within seconds. But I won’t intervene unless it’s life or death. This is your first official climb as Celestial Peak Climbers. The guild needs to see what you can do without a safety net."
Nathan nodded. "Understood."
Helena’s gaze swept the party. Professional, but warm beneath it. "You’ve come a long way from the academy. All of you. Don’t forget that. And don’t die. It’s bad for guild morale."
"We’ll do our best not to traumatize the guild," Dillon said.
"See that you don’t."
Their transport pulled up, it was a rugged, mana-powered guild bus, its chassis reinforced for long-distance travel outside the capital’s paved roads. The Celestial Peak emblem was painted on its side, faded by years of service. The driver’s window rolled down to reveal an old man. He had the kind of face that had seen too many Towers and too few vacations.
"Old Marren," Helena said by way of introduction. "He’s been ferrying guild parties to outer Towers for thirty years. He doesn’t talk much."
Marren grunted. "Get in"
The party boarded. The bus was spacious enough for a full party plus gear, with seats arranged around a central table bolted to the floor. Tower maps and old mission briefs were pinned to a corkboard near the driver’s cabin. The windows were reinforced glass, scratched but sturdy.
As the bus pulled away and merged into morning traffic, Nathan watched the capital shrink behind them. The Towers still gleamed on the horizon—silver, obsidian, pale gold—but they looked different from this angle. Not just challenges to overcome. Markers of a world far larger than the city that had contained him for months.
The eastern gate passed overhead as the paved roads began to thin. The journey took five hours, and the world changed with every mile.
First, the suburbs, residential districts where some low-tier Climbers and civilians lived. Then the industrial outskirts, factories and processing plants that refined Tower materials. Then farmland, wide fields of genetically modified crops designed to thrive in mana-saturated soil.
Then the roads turned to dirt.
The bus rattled over uneven terrain. The comfortable silence of the early trip gave way to something heavier as the landscape grew wilder. Cultivated fields became grassland. Grassland became rocky outcroppings and sparse, stubborn trees. The outer regions weren’t abandoned though, Nathan saw villages, small clusters of houses, the occasional roadside gas stations. But they were thinner. Less protected. Less watched.
They passed through a village that was still rebuilding from a disaster.
The bus slowed as the road wound through what had once been a town square. Burned structures stood on either side. Makeshift shelters of tarp and salvaged wood clustered near the ruins. A communal grave had been dug near the village’s edge, its earth still fresh, a simple wooden marker at its head. Names had been carved into the wood, dozens of them, some so small they could only belong to children.
Old Marren slowed the bus almost to a stop. He didn’t speak for a long moment. Then, in a voice rougher than his usual grunt: "Tower Collapse. Six months ago. Mid-tier Tower about two miles east. Something destabilized it, TCA never figured out what. Flooded the valley with monsters before anyone could evacuate."
Garrett stared at the grave marker. "How often does that happen?"
"Often enough these days."
The bus accelerated, the village receded and the party sat in silence for a while.
Nathan found himself recalling Valerie’s briefing. This was the reality the people of the outer regions endured every single day. Out here, Towers weren’t distant landmarks or regulated challenges reserved for ambitious Climbers. They were looming, unpredictable neighbors, anomalies that could turn deadly without warning. Far from the constant scrutiny of the authorities, many of them existed with minimal oversight, their dangers left to fester until disaster struck.
The capital enjoyed towering walls, powerful wards, and the full might of the TCA standing guard against the unknown. But the settlements scattered across the frontier had no such luxury. Their safety often depended on whichever Climbers happened to be passing through at the time, men and women chasing their own ambitions rather than serving as protectors. And on days like these, Nathan was forced to confront an uncomfortable truth that Sometimes, even that wasn’t enough.
