The only thing that had changed was gaining Void Strider. That had to be what had caused Sorin’s soul to suddenly remember all the old portals he’d unlocked. Unfortunately, at the moment they were nothing but a taunting reminder of what he’d lost. Try as he might, he couldn’t actually connect to one of them, not even the blue tower’s Floor 0.
But it was a step in the right direction. Void Strider couldn’t take him home yet. It couldn’t help him find his real team yet. Someday, though, that would change. He just needed to keep doing what he’d always done: climbing and growing stronger.
In the meantime, he had a much simpler and easier goal to accomplish. Stepping through the portal and emerging back into the sun and sand of Floor 9, Sorin took in a deep, satisfied breath of fresh sea air.
Unlike many of the other floors, Floor 9 boasted a genuinely pleasant environment, so it was no surprise that the portal hub was well-developed. It wasn’t crowded by any means, rank 9 being out of the reach of so many climbers, but there were enough people there that Sorin counted well over twenty permanent buildings at casual glance. Hammocks strung up between deliberately pruned trees held climbers napping in the shade, and dozens more were swimming in the shallows near the beach.
There were ten monitors standing at evenly spaced intervals, their very presence discouraging the tower from trying to reclaim the infrastructure climbers had constructed around the portal. They doubled as guards, and unlike the climbers there to relax, they were fully armed and vigilant.
A thin woman with dark, tanned skin and long, blonde hair done up in some sort of bun with gold needles piercing it approached him. “Welcome to the resort,” she said. “Will you be staying with us?”
“No, sorry, I’m just passing through.”
“In that case, please just stay on the gravel path leading out. If you change your mind, it’s only a hundred danirs a day.”
“Thanks,” Sorin said. If he weren’t so pressed to keep climbing as fast as possible, he might have considered at least a single day, but he could enjoy the atmosphere anywhere on the floor without paying for monitors to watch over him. “Oh, sorry, but have you heard anything about weird monsters being spotted on the floor?”
“Weird how?” the woman asked, her smile slipping a bit.
Sorin shook his head. “Just a rumor, but you never know who’s telling the truth and who’s just drunk, right?”
“Climbers do love their stories,” the woman agreed.
“That we do. Alright, let me get out of your way.”
The portal hub was always the place for gossip and news, and a kraken was definitely something people would talk about. If nothing else, regular sightings would serve as a warning to climbers to avoid the monster’s hunting grounds. No one was going out into the deep sea, though. Sorin could only assume that meant any other krakens on the floor were keeping well away from human-occupied areas.
We’ll be out of here in a day or two, and we’ll pass the info back once we’re gone. Let Yoru’s father spread it from an anonymous source. Hopefully, we already killed the one and only kraken here, and these climbers can just laugh into their cups about another tall tale with no basis in reality.
Sorin strode down a path made of crushed white gravel, so bright that the light bouncing off it would have hurt if not for Clear Eyes protecting him. Whoever had designed that aesthetic obviously hadn’t cared for the practical implications, or else they’d simply assumed anyone who’d made it to Floor 9 would have soulprints to protect them.
“Vanir?” a voice called from the side.
Blind Sense showed him a woman sitting up from one of the hammocks and looking his way. Sorin froze, one foot a few inches off the ground, and slowly turned his head. Gawking, he could only sputter out, “Lorvaine?”
“Already up to rank 9?” she asked, climbing out of the hammock and approaching him. She was dressed in an outfit that could best be described as ‘barely there,’ being more wisp and gauze than solid cloth, and she wore it well. It was so distracting that it actually took him a moment to realize she’d spoken, and he had to mentally review the last few seconds so he could respond.
“Just today,” he told her, finally letting his foot fall down the rest of the way.
“Oof, yes, it looks like it. You need a bath. You smell like you were dunked into the sea in full kit and didn’t bother to dry anything out properly.”
“Er… Yeah.”
Laughing, Lorvaine asked, “Is that what happened?”
“More or less.”
“Hmm. I suppose you’ve had a busy day, then. Are you staying at the resort?”
“I wasn’t going to,” Sorin said. “But I’m starting to reconsider the idea now.”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“Oh, you should. It’s no good working yourself to the bone. Climbers need to take the time to rest and recuperate, or they’ll make sloppy mistakes and get themselves killed.”
“There’s some truth to that,” he admitted.
But he was still a wanted fugitive, and the monitors were there to guard against monster incursions, not teams of bounty hunters. Sorin couldn’t imagine himself stripping down to his smallclothes—or less, he noted, as his eyes were once again drawn to Lorvaine’s figure—without so much as a weapon at hand.
“Come now,” she said, a finger reaching out to tap his chin and draw his gaze back up. “Stay for a day. We’ll have some fun. I’ll even pay for it.”
“I didn’t take you for a generous soul,” he said with a laugh.
“Vanir, you wound me,” she mock-gasped, her hand going to her chest. “I’ll have you know that I recently entered into a very, very lucrative contract and have more danirs than I know what to do with these days.”
“How’s that any different than the last time we talked?” he deadpanned.
“Because this time, there exists the strong possibility of seeing you wearing… hmm… Let’s just say very little.”
Wait, a lucrative contract?
“You wouldn’t happen to be supplying some rare and expensive soulprints to the Telpike family, would you?”
“Along with some enchanted gear, yes. Why, how did you know?”
“Because my team is the recipient,” he told her wryly. “I’m climbing with the scion of the family.”
“And his daddy is sparing no expense for the whole team? That’s…” Lorvaine trailed off and eyed Sorin speculatively for a moment. “Generous of him.”
“Something like that.”
“I didn’t think you were the kind of man who let himself be saddled with someone else’s desires,” she said. “If you’d told me earlier, we could have cut out the middle man.”
“Oh, keep it in your pants.”
“But I’m not wearing any.”
“At least save it for when we’ve got less of an audience,” he admonished her, but he couldn’t keep a straight face while he did it.
“You love it, and you know it,” she said.
“If you’re gonna fuck, go off and do it already,” some other climber called from his hammock. “Trying to take a bloody nap over here.”
“I need to go catch up with my team anyway,” Sorin told Lorvaine, ignoring the irate climber. “Maybe everyone else will want to come back for a day. We’ll see. In the meantime, since you’re filling that contract, can you see about acquiring an umbral goat eye for me? I’ve been trying to get one for a month, but Morlin’s people can’t seem to find it.”
“Oh, that? I’ve had it since day one,” she said. Sorin gave her a sharp glance, but she just nodded at him. “Stingy old man keeps trying to drop low offers onto my table, like I’d just take a loss on it because he wants it.”
Sudden anger swelled in Sorin’s chest. “Is that a fact?” he asked through gritted teeth. “I’ll be sure to have a chat with him about ripping his suppliers off. I might have to break his God-damn nose this time.”
“That might not end well for you,” Lorvaine told him. “In fact, it’s probably a bad idea to assault your benefactor even when he isn’t more than twice your rank.”
“I’ve done worse,” Sorin said darkly, his mind drifting back to Morlin’s abuse of the enchanter’s cabinet.
“I’ll tell you what,” she said. “You can have the eye. I’ll bill it to him at the rate he last offered it. If I’d known it was going to you, I’d have been willing to cut him a deal.”
“No, fuck that. You get full price for it. He’s being a cheapskate. It’s not like he can’t afford to pay a reasonable rate.”
“And it’s not like I’m short on funds,” she countered. “Take the damn thing. I’d rather know that you have it and it’s helping to keep you safe.”
Lorvaine reached into whatever spatial pocket she had and pulled out a glass jar with an eyeball floating in preserving liquids. It was completely black but for a yellow line slashed through the middle of one side. Without hesitation, she shoved it into his hands.
“You’ll get your asking price for it,” he promised. “I’ll make sure of it.”
“Just don’t blow your sponsorship fighting with him over it,” she said. Standing on her toes, she pulled him in close and brushed her lips across his cheek. “But if you do lay that asshole out, I want to hear all about it. You are going to spend a day at this resort with me, you hear?”
“A small price to pay,” he said. “Sadly, it won’t be today.”
Unscrewing the jar, Sorin dipped his fingers into the fluid and pulled out the eyeball. He absorbed the soulprint immediately, then flicked away the ash and closed the lid back up. Lorvaine accepted it back and returned it to the same space she’d fetched it from.
“I think you should know,” Sorin said, leaning close to whisper into her ear, “that my real name is Sorin, not Vanir.”
Lorvaine’s mouth formed a small ‘O’ of surprise, one that Sorin assumed meant she recognized the name from the bounties. “Be careful out there. Remember, you owe me, so don’t go dying before I get a chance to collect.”
Sauntering back over to her hammock, Lorvaine paused just once to toss a smirk over her shoulder. Undoubtedly, she’d known exactly where Sorin’s eyes were lingering. Damn you, Samael, Sorin cursed. If not for you, I could be having a very, very different evening tonight.
* * *
It turned out he’d been right about not needing to carve the physical sign anymore. Designating a node was a simple mental effort now, and stepping through it was as easy as it had always been. From there, it had been a simple thirty-second walk across the silver trail to return to the rest of his team.
“Good news,” he said when he appeared. “The plan worked.”
“Uh… Okay,” Rue said. “So, is that why you’re wearing that goofy smile?”
“What? No! I ran into a friend and spent a few minutes catching up.”
Rue turned to Nemari and loudly whispered, “Do you think ‘catching up’ means something else where he comes from?”
“Oh, shush,” Nemari said, but everyone was laughing now.
“Don’t make me leave your asses here,” Sorin threatened. “Thirty-second walk, or three days of Speed Bursting across the water. Your choice.”
“Ahem,” Yoru said, clearing his throat and struggling not to keep chortling. “I don’t think that’ll be necessary. Let’s be on our way.”
“Right. Oh, by the way, Yoru, it turns out your asshole father has been lying about the availability of certain rare soulprints we need because he’s too cheap to pay market rates for them, and the vendors weren’t willing to take the loss when he tried to lean on them.”
With a pained sigh, Yoru pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes, that sounds like something he’d do. ‘You don’t get rich by spending money’ ought to be our family motto for as often as he says it. If only some of the honorable climbing practices our family is known for could leak over to his business dealings…
“I’d prefer if you’d let me confront him over that. If we have to keep remodeling whole rooms every time you two have an argument, there won’t be any money left for me to inherit.”
“Sure. You can tell him that I don’t need him to worry about Aura Sense anymore. I already got it directly from the source and put it on his tab.”
Yoru just sighed again.
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