Chapter 106: Blitz

You better watch out,

You better not cry,

You better get out.

Ya better run now…I’m telling you why

William oh is coming…to town.

-        Jason Salazar

What do you think he means by that?

Start packing.

Who’s that knocking?

It couldn’t be…

The Aluum offensive was blunted by Mason using Phase Shift to turn his Conflagration acidic. Rather than wasting a charge by increasing the heat of the surrounding ocean by a degree, a vibrant yellow acid manifested in the midst of the fish-people, eroding the gills of the approaching underwater army as they breathed it in. Hundreds of murky figures writhed in pain before going still.

“That one,” Will saw Alicia point out a slightly bigger shadow in the water. It was difficult to tell, with the way the water thrashed and boiled, but for Alicia to point it out, it was likely an Aberrant.

Will felt Alicia consume a Charge and the underwater figure began to writhe as it died. A moment later, a narrow spear erupted from the water, streaking directly towards Mason.

Reggie stepped in front of the attack and caught the spear on his shield, causing . It looked like the quill of some enormous creature that had been carved down to make it easier to throw.

All the while, June loosed one arrow after another with languid smoothness, aiming at the stragglers that were diverting their path around the boiling pool of acid slowly dispersing in the ocean water, picking them off one at a time.

Her arrows flashed blue as they streaked through the air, delivering outsized damage to her targets.

“Do they even need us anymore?” Will mused as the rest of his party annihilated the monsters over the course of several minutes.

Travis created a decoy and it dove into the water, causing the fishmen to turn towards it. Will could see their higher thinking reflected in the way they hesitated and then quickly reversed directions an instant before the water turned yellow as Mason dropped another Phase Shifted Conflagration directly on Travis’s decoy, catching only a few more than he might’ve otherwise.

Travis frowned, and put his jaw harp in his mouth and began making the annoying twanging noises that made Will want to punch him. The noises themselves were kind of fun, so the desire to attack Travis was more likely an Ability from the harp.

No wait, the harp just directs things attention to a certain point. The desire to punch him is a result of his personality.

True enough, the underwater enemies had a harder time turning away from his second decoy, and Mason was able to nuke a larger portion of them.

“…They do not.” Loth said with a smile as the tide of Aluum seemed to shake themselves out of their collective frenzy and scatter, every fishman for themselves, leaving only  a few aberrations still interested in pursuing the fight.

Alicia naturally acted as their guide, pointing out a target that she couldn’t kill to June.

It was some kind of aberrant fishman, with dull scales and a portion of it’s ribcage missing, internal organs naturally pickling in the briny water, revealing itself as it leapt up onto the ship, covering nearly half the distance before grabbing onto the smooth surface with hands that were growing suckers and unnervingly long black talons.

  The fishman zombie was only above-water for a second before a blazing magic arrow cut a four-in diameter hole through its midsection.

Another aberrant flashed out of the water, bypassing the side of the ship entirely, streaking through the air towards Mason’s face.

Will tensed for an instant before Reggie stepped forward and deflected the fishman’s attack.

This particular fishman was a warrior, no doubt about it. He seemed just as comfortable on land as in the water, bouncing off Reggie’s tower shield and leaping up into the sails, aiming to rain down attacks on them.

Alicia looked up at the warrior and frowned for a moment.

The warrior slumped over, dangling from a sail as it died instantly.

“What happens when Alicia doesn’t have the Charge to do that?” Will asked. “They need a close combat specialist.”

“Which is what Brianna is for,” Loth said.

Will glanced down at Rai and Bee, watching from a distance, where they had given them the fight off to rest their minds.

“With her on their team, they form a fully functioning Party.”

“To be fair, Brianna, is a fully functioning party.” Will joked.

“Brianna is going to be your first Vassal, and will bind together your many Strongholds as you make your way to the top.”

Will’s eyes widened.

“They can communicate with each other.” Will said, gathering Loth’s intent.

“Indeed. All of Brianna’s clones share information with each other. We could utilize her as both a strong Warrior archetype and as a network for instantaneous information transfer. Right now it’s just basic things like location, health and a vague sense of mood, but if we get her to level 35 and beyond we may be able to tweak her Build to communicate precise information between each other, allowing you to communicate between Strongholds and build a kingdom without limits.”

Loth scoffed. “And Frederick Wyrd could only see a weapon. How narrow-minded.”

Will Directed the Phantom Eye high above the battlefield and watched from above as the Aluum scattered.

So many corpses were floating out there in the water, decomposing to nothing in seconds, dropping any Loot they might have into the depths of the ocean.

Will’s eyes widened as he realized that with Phantom Hand and Phantom Eye, he could easily identify and snatch up Loot as it was released from underwater monsters, even scour the ocean floor if was so inclined.

Assuming I find a way to get light down there, I suppose.

It was a brilliant idea, but he’d have to save it for next time they passed through the 6th Floor.

It was time to head back down.

Thank you for clearing the Key Site. You may ascend or descend at your discretion.

+ 2000XP

In a matter of minutes, Reggie was carrying a squirming Saint Jairus through a portal to the Fifth Floor.

Will quelched his discomfort and headed through the portal, the chill, wet wind replaced by the sunny warmth of the 5th Floor in an instant.

Welcome to the 5th Floor!

Miasma Acclimation: ??? days.

It is not advised to Ascend or Descend before the Miasma acclimation period has elapsed. Side effects of doing so include fever, bulging bloodshot eyes, coughing, pustules, necrosis of the extremities, paraphilia, parasitic twin growths, and Death.

Will glanced up and around to make sure they weren’t about to get stepped on by a kaiju, before they regrouped and headed for Akul.

Having been through the Floor before, they didn’t waste any time sightseeing and went straight to the Church of Granesh. After a short exchange and some veiled threats, Will was able to deliver the ‘rescued’ saint back to his church for a small commission, which went to Travis for getting the priest to talk.

While Loth went out and bought supplies for their visit outside The Tower, Will and Bee hid in the rooftops surrounding the church, chatting about life in general and revenge specifically while they waited for the courier.

“Feels weird knowing I’ll never get to smash the face of the guy who did this to us.” Bee mused as they waited for a courier to emerge from the church.

“Life happens like that sometimes.” Will said, thinking back to Frederick Wyrd’s ignoble demise. Ignoble was a good word.

“I mean I want to smash your face in, but Anna likes you too much.”

That got Will’s complete attention.

“Why is your situation my fault?” Will asked.

“Because if you hadn’t given Jean the ring, we would be dead.”

“And you’d rather be dead?” Will asked.

“Nnnooo…” Bee said, her eyes darting to the side. “But still your fault. C’mere, just a little smack is all I need to get it out of my system.” She shuffled towards him across the roof tiles, keeping her head down so as not to reveal themselves to the church below.

The tiny black-haired girl raised her hand, eyes shining with murderous intent as she approached.

“I’d rather keep my jaw intact,” Will whispered, shuffling away.

“Wait.” Bee said, freezing in place with a vacant expression, prompting Will to stop as well.

“Church courier over there,” She said, pointing to the west side of the city, where more of her copies had been forming a cordon. “He came out of an underground tunnel, and is booking it to the northwest.”

“To be continued.” Will said, leaping to his feet. “Have a nice vacation.”

Will signalled to Loth and sent his Phantom Eye high up in the air above the city, locating the messenger cutting across rooftops nearly a quarter-mile distant and gaining.

Oh crap. Will broke into a sprint, joining Loth and tossing her over his shoulders. He’d never had to race against a mobility-focused Climber with a headstart, and it wasn’t looking good for him.

It didn’t matter that Will’s footsteps were as solid and secure as a packed gravel road, the messenger’s body seemed to slide forward through space at a speed that didn’t match his footsteps.

Some kind of passive speed boost.

Will slipped his Uru Drake mask down over his face and triggered Malleable Space, targeting the edge of the city nearly two miles distant.

2->1 Charges remaining.

Part of Loth’s plan for them to remove all their Miasma and skip the acclimation period was to empty out their Charge. All he had was what he’d gained since the start of the day. That decision was starting to feel like a mistake.

Due to the sheer distance between the two points, the space-warping effect was significantly less powerful, but it did give Will a speed boost over the whole distance, allowing him to at least keep pace with the messenger’s speed.

Will kept the messenger in sight with Phantom Eye, keeping his real body out of sight, and watching for any sign that the messenger knew he was being followed.

If he did know, he didn’t show it. They reached the edge of the city only a minute later, and the messenger took a well-travelled road that was dotted with merchant caravans.

“He’s going to The Hole.” Loth surmised. “Bussing through a Key Point is likely a less efficient way of going down a floor when the spawn rate of Kaiju is as low as it is.”

Will had never been to The Hole, the series of massive holes in Floors 1-5 that the merchant caravans travelled between.

First Time for everything, Will thought as they began sprinting along the main thoroughfare, whipping past one caravan after another.

Merchants shook their fists at Will and Loth as they glided past. Will was pretty sure he heard some people yell about ‘Damn Climbers’, and he felt a grin cross his face as he was finally beginning to feel like a real Climber.

The messenger hit the hole several minutes before they did. The last thing Will saw before Phantom eye expired was the messenger heading straight towards a massive hole in the ground.

Will and Loth arrived a few minutes later, and paused in awe.

The Hole was an abyssal crater seemingly melted into the ground by some incomprehensible force. It was the width of Will’s old village, lined with thick rope and steel scaffolding, supporting elevators that seemed to emerge from the black abyss below with massive wagons loaded with raw materials in high demand in the bread basket of The Tower.

“So he went down here?” Will said, glancing across the edge of the pit, scanning the surrounding crowd, man of whom were resting chatting with each other while they re-packed or waited for their turn on the elevator.

In the distance he spotted a man-made staircase for Climbers without much in the way of luggage who wanted to make their way down a floor with maximum haste.

Will didn’t see their messenger anywhere, implying he’d already descended past the point of visual confirmation. They were losing him.

“Let’s save some time,” Will said.

“What do you MEAAAAAN!?” Loth yelped as Will took a running headstart and jumped out into the pitch-black center of The Hole.

Will’s stomach rose into his chest as they began falling straight down, the surrounding merchants yelling warnings as their voices quickly faded to nothing.

The only light available to them was the dim light of the lamps attached to the twisting staircases that navigated the twisted path of The Hole.

Loth frantically fumbled through her robes and pulled out half a dozen glowbugs. With a word, they flared to life, providing the equivalent of strong lamplight to illuminate their descent.

Loth threw the bugs straight down, revealing an approaching boulder composed of pitted steel and stone that jutted out of the darkness like a mountain peak.

Will nudged them to the left with Phantom Hand, avoiding splattering on the floating mountain that whistled past them.

Meanwhile, Loth pulled out her reflective disc of polished steel and put one of her glowbugs in the center, creating a beam of light pointed directed below them, revealing a labyrinthine maze of pitted steel and jagged grey stone.

Will thought he might’ve seen their courier jogging down the manmade switchbacks, glancing up at the two suicidal Climbers taking the shortcut to the Abyss.

It was a wild ride, falling for nearly an hour before the darkness gave way to light, as they fell through the sky of the Fourth Floor.

Will and Loth dodged the massive ropes and scaffolding jutting out of the swamp and anchoring into the inside of The Hole.

Will turned and glanced up as they passed the last obstacle, marveling at the gaping void in what was otherwise a clear sky.

Welcome to the 4th Floor!

Miasma Acclimation: ??? days.

It is not advised to Ascend or Descend before the Miasma acclimation period has elapsed. Side effects of doing so include fever, bulging bloodshot eyes, coughing, pustules, necrosis of the extremities, paraphilia, parasitic twin growths, and Death.

There is a Stronghold to your North, and a Key Point in need of clearing to your North.

Again, it is not advised to Ascend or Descend before the Acclimation period has elapsed.

Will put the Phantom Hand under his foot and used it to slow himself down until he hit the swampy ground with a plop, landing beside a caravan of merchants waiting for their turn on the elevator.

A man with the weathered face frowned at Will, as if not quite understanding where Will had come from, since the footpath was on the opposite end of the manmade clearing below The Hole.

The merchant craned his neck to look up, seemingly tracing Will’s trajectory backwards with a frown.

“Can you fly, son?” the merchant asked with a reedy voice.

“Sort of,” Will admitted.

“Stronghold’s North,” Loth said, tugging on Will’s sleeve. “We’ve got a headstart on him, let’s not squander it.”

They set out, aiming for Way Station.

There was a Relay Station for couriers in that solitary Stronghold. Their courier would have to hand off the letter and spend the next four days putting up his heels before he could relay another message to the fifth Floor.

They didn’t know his timing, but they knew exactly where he was going.

It took several hours to make it to Way Station, sprinting through mosquito-infested swamps.

They were running too fast for anything to launch itself out of the water and try to ambush them. Will saw a couple swamp vamps who, instead of rearing up to attack, pressed themselves deeper into the muck.

The courier passed them in the last mile or so, his passives boosts outweighing Will’s more generalist abilities.

Phantom Eye

1 -> 0 Charges remaining.

Will sent the Phantom Eye ahead, the construct easily keeping pace with the courier until he reached his final destination less than a minute later, taking out a single letter with the seal of the church and Jairus’s name written on the outside, handing it off to another courier.

Bingo, Will thought, memorizing the letter’s appearance.

The next courier took the letter and set off at a much more sedate pace, heading for a connecting bussing company to catch a ride down. They likely had a deal cut with the courier company, since they weren’t directly competing, and more people in a bus meant it would be that much safer.

This delay gave Will and Loth the opportunity to catch up, panting desperately as they arrived, only a few minutes before the bus loaded up half a dozen civilians from where they were bunking at the only inn in The Waystation.

They followed the bus, joining the pack of Climbers that followed in it’s wake, blending in with the rest of the desperate youth aiming to make their way up.

Matter of fact…one desperate youth seems familiar.

“Heath, Heath!” Will shouted, flagging him down out of the flow of Bus-chasers.

The young man with the extra foot of height Will so desperately wanted, and the squinty, confused expression that he so loathed, turned at the sound of his name, locking in on the two of them.

“Hey Will, how’s it hanging?” The Ashwood’s infamous bully asked as they ran, carrying a man-sized sword over his shoulder.

“It’s been good. Lost my hand,” Will said, showing off his wrist. “But other than that, it’s been good. Found a great Party, just coming back down from the fifth floor.”

“No way your scrawny ass got to the Fifth Floor before I did, but I am proud of you for getting this far. Ashwoods represent!”

Will caught the high-five mid-stride.

He seems strangely nice, Will thought as he sprinted behind the bus shoulder-to-shoulder with his former bully.

“Any reason you’re not tripping me or anything?”

“Focus helps me think a little cleaner, and I’ve seen a lot of friends die. You’re the best of what’s left, twerp.”

“Sucks,” Will spat for emphasis. He didn’t care to think of how many of those friends were young men and women he knew from last year’s Aspirants.

“It surely does.” Heath agreed.

The rest of the run passed in silence, and together, the crowd slaughtered the aberrations around the Key Point with ease.

Will said his goodbyes to the town bully and followed the courier down to the 3rd Floor.

Welcome to the 3rd Floor!

Miasma Acclimation: ??? days.

It is not advised to Ascend or Descend before the Miasma acclimation period has elapsed. Side effects of doing so include fever, bulging bloodshot eyes, coughing, pustules, necrosis of the extremities, paraphilia, parasitic twin growths, and Death.

There is a Stronghold to your West, and a Key Site in need of clearing to your South.

Again, it is not advised to Ascend or Descend before the Acclimation period has elapsed.

The third, second and first floor followed a similar pattern: Follow the courier to the Relay station, join their bus and ride it to the next floor down.

Since the courier switched off on every Floor, none of them bothered to ask if Will and Loth had been following them since the 5th Floor.

That would be ridiculous. They were just regular travellers busing in the same direction.

The couriers got a bit slower on every Floor, due to their decreasing level, eventually allowing Will and Loth to pace them rather easily, especially in the last two floor.

When they got to the Hunting Grounds, Will and Loth were finally able to take off the thick overcoats lined with miasma-draining bugs.

“Gah, never again,” Will said with a shudder as he stepped through the Door and tossed the miasma-draining jacket aside, the inside literally squirming with legs and pulsing with concentrated blue miasma.

When they arrived at the mail sorting center, sixteen couriers with sixteen bags full of mail concentrated from the entire Tower sprinted away in every direction.

Phantom Eye.

3->2 Charges remaining.

Will used the one of the Charges he’d regenerated over the course of the day and used Phantom Eye to peek into the bag of each courier until he spotted the letter he was interested in, heading northeast.

Here we go.

Will and loth took off running.

In a matter of hours, they were overlooking a little monastery in the middle of nowhere, the courier taking a familiar letter out of his satchel and putting it into a mailbox before sprinting off to his next delivery.

“Well, I guess this is the place.” Will said with a nod, waiting for the courier to leave before heading up to the front door and listening.

Will’s outlandish Acuity cut through the sound of forks clinking on wooden plates, idle chatter, and the soft flipping of pages, making out a familiar voice speaking much deeper in the building, barely audible to his ears.

“You better watch out,

You better not cry,

You better get out.

Ya better run now…I’m telling you why!

William oh is coming…to town.”

“What do you think he means by that?” a youngish voice asked, equally distant.

Are they underground? Will asked, trying to pintpoint their location.

“Start packing.” An older voice responded.

Will raised his fist and knocked on the door. Loud enough for them to hear.

BANG. BANG. BANG.

“Who’s that knocking?”

“It couldn’t be…”

“Oh, but IT IS!” Will shouted, kicking the door off its hinges, revealing a hive full of kidnapping monks, some of them reading, some of them eating lunch, some working on transcribing letters.

All of them guilty.

For a sect of Graneshian believers that formed the backbone of the church’s information gathering ability, they sure looked silly when you caught them with their pants down.

A well-aimed cannonball ripped through three monks before they even stood up.

Will leapt forward, sliding through the monestary with a ripple of stone preceding him. One monk tried to block his face, but the ripple in the floor caused the monk to lose his balance and lower his guard.

Will dispatched him with a blade to the neck, sprinting past to where he estimated the faint voices had been emanating from, leaving the rest of the room to Loth.

Will paused at a section of the floor that was a bit cleaner than the rest.

A cannonball through the false floor revealed the ruins of a secret stairway.

Will dropped down into it, warding off a butter knife as the younger monk tried to ambush him, kicking the monk’s kneecap backward, causing him to fall straight down before dispatching him with the stone floor itself erupting upward, crushing the monk’s skull between stone and Will’s foot.

The older monk scrambled backwards, eyes bulging as Will approached.

Oh good, Will thought when he spotted Jason. I thought I might be overreacting.

Jason Salazar, son of a con-artist, second-oldest boy at the orphanage, and William Oh’s Hype Man, was sitting at a table, a long chain running from his feet to the post of his bed.

He looked emaciated, his cheekbones prominent, his skinny frame nearly slipping out of his oddly fine clothes, revealing bruises that seemed to cris-cross his body.

“Hey. You got my message. ‘Bout time.” Jason said wearily, struggling to lift his hand to point at Will.

“Sorry it took so long,” Will said before turning his attention to the older monk.

He walked up to the monk and squatted down in front of him, staring into the man’s eyes.

“I don’t like killing people. I really don’t,” Will said. “A good fight? Sure. But slaughtering people like this?” Will paused to allow the sound of Loth purging the upstairs to punctuate his sentence. “It turns my stomach.”

“You are-“

“Shhhh…” Will silenced the monk. “I’m not even doing this for Jason. Sure, I’m mad, but the only reason I’m killing your people is because your organization has, in no uncertain terms, laid out that they will take any opportunity they can to kill me.”

“We cannot both exist,” Will said, gesturing between the two of them.

Was it selfish to kill thousands so that one could live? Probably, but they had forced the choice in the first place.

Will’s stomach churned as he dispatched the monk before fishing through his pocket for the keys to Jason’s chains. A moment later Jason was free.

“Come on, let’s go,” Will said, ushering Jason up the shattered flight of steps.

The twelve-year old boy trembled like a leaf as he struggled to climb, taking Loth’s hand a moment before she heaved him up.

“Oh hey, I remember you,” Loth said.