Chapter 243: Lore and Reason
"Vanitas, or the domain of Vanity, is a randomized floor that appears throughout the Tower of the Dead. We don’t know which floor it will be, or when it will happen. Just know that randomly you’ll find yourself there, so always be careful when progressing from one floor to another."
The vendor didn’t sound like a salesman anymore.
The bored slouch in his shoulders was still there, sure, but his voice carried the practiced weight of someone who’d repeated this warning to people who later stopped coming back. He held the torch up like it was nothing, just cloth and wood, yet the way his fingers kept a firm grip on it told Kael he respected what it represented.
The night air around the Information Guild had that city-stale smell, stone, sweat, cheap oil, and too many bodies passing through the same street.
Kael could feel eyes on him even without looking. People always listened when the word "Vanitas" came up, even if they pretended they didn’t.
"So, it’s not just a one-time thing?" Kael asked.
He kept his tone casual, but his mind was already doing the math. Randomized floors meant probability.
Probability meant inevitability if you climbed long enough.
You could dodge it for ten floors. You could dodge it for fifty. But the tower didn’t run out of patience. It waited until you got comfortable.
"No," the merchant shook his head, "Some unlucky climbers had the unfortunate fate of going from one Vanitas floor to find themselves in another."
Kael let that sit in his head for a second. The idea of getting tossed from one nightmare hallway into another without even a breath in between made his stomach tighten. A loop of darkness. A loop of exhaustion. A loop of mistakes getting punished twice.
"And what’s so special about this floor?" Kael asked.
The vendor’s gaze drifted past Kael’s shoulder, over the crowd, over the mask stall, over the people who weren’t buying torches because they weren’t climbing. The kind of people who looked like they lived on this floor now. Like they’d accepted safety and stagnation as a lifestyle.
"Well... frankly speaking, it’s honestly much easier than the normal floors, at first that is. We don’t know the purpose of it, or why it exists. But all we know is, that it’s dark, extremely so, pitch black. And if you don’t have one of these torches, surviving is almost impossible." He said.
Kael almost scoffed at "easier," not because he doubted the man, but because the tower’s idea of "easy" tended to involve you bleeding in new and creative ways. Still, at first was the part that mattered. Everything in the tower that started "easy" was just bait.
"Not even night vision works?" Kael asked as he remembered he had that ability thanks to the Eyes of the Basilisk.
He didn’t say it like a brag. He didn’t brag about abilities anymore. Bragging was how you got tested. Or targeted. Or both.
"No, it’s not that the atmosphere is dark, but the space itself is filled with very hostile small creatures. And the only thing that we found that could chase them away is this torch. You need it to move through the floor. And it’s simple for the first few times you go there."
That answer made Kael’s brow twitch. Not atmosphere, space. That meant it wasn’t "darkness" the way a cave was dark. It was darkness as a condition. A rule. A thing that pushed back. His predatory sight might let him see in gloom, but if the gloom wasn’t the problem, then his eyes were just another tool that would fail when it mattered.
"What kind of creatures one finds?" Kael asked.
He leaned a little closer without meaning to, not because he trusted the vendor, but because the topic itself demanded attention. Creatures that only a torch could chase away sounded like a problem you didn’t solve with muscle.
"Well, you can find all the monsters that exist in the tower in a Vanitas floor; they’re just different, stronger, more powerful. But you don’t need to do a global quest or a great goal, just clearing a few rooms or some passageways, and you’ll be able to leave. It’s hard, don’t get me wrong, but it’s much easier than being here on the second floor."
Kael’s eyes slid off to the side, catching a glimpse of a masked man handing over coins at the mask stall.
A guild emblem flashed at the collar. A quiet exchange. No drama. No urgency. The second floor really did feel like a place people could rot comfortably.
Kael frowned, "That’s interesting, because what’s the difficulty here?" Kael asked.
He already knew the answer, but he wanted the vendor to say it. Sometimes hearing it out loud forced your brain to respect it.
"Ah, I forgot you just got here..." the merchant said, "But, this floor isn’t dangerous because it doesn’t have monsters, it’s dangerous because it doesn’t have monsters..."
Kael didn’t nod, but something in his face tightened, recognition more than surprise. A year ago, his first real lesson on this floor hadn’t been delivered by a beast. It had been delivered by people with smiles and knives behind their backs.
"I see... Give me a couple of torches, then, how long do they last?" Kael asked.
He didn’t hesitate. He’d learned what hesitation cost. If three different people told him the same thing, master, bartender, Andre, then buying torches wasn’t "paranoia." It was baseline intelligence.
"They’ll last you for as much as you need; they don’t burn. After all. So, one per floor, two is good, two is safe." If you ever need more, come find me."
Kael dug out the cores without making it a show. Four small clicks onto the vendor’s palm, and the man’s bored expression finally shifted into something like satisfaction. Not greed, just the relief of selling something useful.
Kael handed the man four cores and took the torches.
They looked almost insulting.
Very simple torches, a stick, and a wrapped cloth.
For something that "saved your life," it looked like a prop you’d hand a child to play adventurer.
Kael turned one over, inspecting the cloth wrap, the tight binding, the faintest shimmer in the fibers that made it feel slightly... wrong. Like the cloth wasn’t cloth at all.
Then the system confirmed it.
[Torch of Vanitas]
[Common consumable]
[Wards off the Dark Smog of the Floor of Vanitas.]
[Lasts 1 Floor duration]
Kael stored them immediately. The second torch followed the first into his inventory like a reflex. He didn’t want to be caught holding something people could mock him for.
He placed it in his inventory and headed away from the merchant, who was glad he made a deal today.
The laughter behind him faded as he walked. The adventurers who’d mocked him kept their tone loud, loud enough for their friends, not loud enough to start a fight. Coward-loud. Kael didn’t give them the satisfaction of a glance.
Following the pamphlet’s directions, he was taken to a location that was outside the city.
Kael moved out of the glow of street lamps and into the thin darkness beyond the outer roads. Wind picked up there, cold and dry, carrying sand and the distant scent of stone. The city behind him became a low hum of life, voices, footfalls, metal on stone, while the road ahead felt like a corridor leading into a mouth.
He had to walk through the night, and with his empowered eyes, he didn’t really care for lacking a light on him. The stars and the moons were not enough to light the way, but he was able to see as if it was daylight; after all, he was used to this with his master.
The darkness here wasn’t Vanitas-dark. It was a normal dark. Honest dark. The kind that didn’t lie to you. His vision cut through it cleanly, outlines and distance crisp enough that he could place his feet without thinking.
Soon, Kael arrived at a location that was quite similar to the newbie reception area. Walls and fortifications. A fortress built in the middle of nowhere.
It looked wrong out here. Too deliberate. Too expensive. Too engineered. A stone throat built to funnel people, not protect them. Torches burned along the walls in steady intervals, the flame too controlled, like it was maintained by routine rather than chance.
Several guards with torches stood at the gate and on the walls. Many of them wore guild emblems, and the majority had the Blue Lion emblem on their armor.
Kael slowed his pace as he approached. Not because he feared the guards, but because the wrong tone got you questioned longer than necessary.
Once Kael was at the door, one of them pointed a torch toward his face, "What’s with you coming this hour, man?"
Kael didn’t flinch from the light. He’d stared into worse.
"Going to the next floor," Kael replied.
The guard squinted at him, trying to read what he was under the grime and travel-wear. The torchlight caught the edge of Kael’s cheekbone, the outline of his jaw, the tired set of his posture.
"You’re with?" the man said as he didn’t see Kael’s emblem.
"Solo."
The guard’s brows rose. Not in respect, more like disbelief. Solo climbers were either idiots or problems, and guards didn’t like guessing which.
"Huh, you got the money? Pretty expensive for a solo..." he said.
"Favor," Kael said as he pulled out the slip that the bartender gave him.
He held it steady, making sure the man saw it clearly. The guard’s eyes tracked the plaque, the symbol, the authority behind it. His attitude shifted instantly, not friendly, but compliant.
The man looked at it and clicked his tongue. "Fine, go in, it’s straight down, a few others are waiting in line."
