Chapter 92: Cracked Immortal

Fighting William Oh is like fighting a tornado. A force of nature. I personally witnessed no less than fifty men violently tossed around and battered with furniture, all the while grasping at nothing but air. Then he came for me.

-Bill Brion, level 30 Bartender.

A wet cough erupted from Will as he limped along the pier, followed by a sharp pain through his chest that froze him in place until he remembered how to breathe.

Will gingerly poked his ribs, trying not to aggravate the many shallow cuts covering the majority of his body. They had just finished scabbing up.

I don’t think the rib’s busted, just…a little loose.

With that in mind, Will ran his tongue along a couple teeth that were wiggling a bit more than they should, spitting the coppery blood welling up into his sleeve.

Rule #1: don’t bleed into the ocean.

“You gonna live?” A reedy voice asked, prompting Will to glance up, Phantom Hand poised to take the man’s head off with a cannonball. A bar brawl is one thing, but following him into the dark of night…

Will relaxed when he recognized the emaciated, homeless fellow from before, rather than a Party leader with a grudge.

The men at The Bridge had actually all seemed in pretty good spirits when Will had left, lots of drinks and back-slaps and un-requested shots of liquor dumped over his wounds to ‘sanitize’ them.

Aside from that, and the horrible pain he was currently in, it really had been a great time. The single lesson he’d received from Bakton had opened his eyes to a flow that he hadn’t been able to perceive before and prepared him to deal with the vast majority of Climbers without too much trouble.

“Yeah, I’ll live.”

Will wobbled in place for a moment before using Phantom Hand as a cane, pressing back against his hand to stabilize himself.

“Here, let me,” the emaciate man said, putting Will’s truncated arm over his shoulder and tottering forward in lockstep.

“Thanks,” Will said as they resumed walking through the pre-dawn light. “…What do you want?”

“What?” The man scoffed. “Me? Want something? I’m just a humble- all right, fine. I do want something.”

“What’s that? Drinking money?”

“I wouldn’t say no to that, but I’m after something a little…harder to acquire.”

“And what’s that?”

The grey-eyed man glanced over at him, searching Will’s expression for a moment before pointing up. “On a certain Floor above us, is an object I really really want.”

“And what do you expect from me?”

“Well, you’re the guy.”

Will raised a brow.

“You know…the guy. The once-in-a-thousand-years legend. The one with the best shot of making it to the top. Did they not teach you this in school?”

The emaciated man frowned and mumbled to himself. “I thought they taught that in school? They taught my kids that. Was that a different coil? Shit, is Jacob dead? No, I just saw him the other day… is a day one revolution of the sun, or one winter, or one coil? No, it’s probably not a coil, that seems like a lot…”

Will frowned as the emaciated man began muttering, staring straight down with a vacant look in his eyes.

“…Who do you think I am?” He asked.

“Ummm…”

Will waited for a solid ten seconds before giving him the answer.

“William….”

‘William… The emaciated man repeated after him.

Oh.” Will finished.

“Right. Yes. I heard your larger-than-life legends and I knew you were destined for great things.”

“You’ve never heard of me before.” Will said.

“I’ve never heard of you before.” The emaciated man admitted.

This is an interesting conversation, Will thought. This man didn’t know Will, but he had known enough to know about the overblown legends.

Typically he might’ve fallen in the category of con men who simply praise every newcomer they meet as the ‘chosen one’ until they can take what they want and cut loose.

But he wasn’t slick enough to be a con-artist. If anything, he seemed like a dog that had been beaten too many times. Hunched over and self-blaming.

“What’s your name?” Will asked.

“Reese. Probably. Maybe.”

“And how did you wind up here?”

“Well, I got swept up with Mark Wyrd’s Party as they left Akul, and they cut me loose here a couple years ago.”

“A couple years ago?” will asked.

“Decades?” Reese said with a shrug. “I dunno, I just remember getting shanghaied by them on the Ocean Floor, meeting a girl, starting a family here and being an exotic fisherman and my granddaughter took over the family business when-ah, shit, different coil. It was days. I’ve only been here like a couple days. I think.”

Will asked the obvious question.

“What is a coil?”

“You know…when all human civilization gets wiped out and The Tower adds a floor and everyone starts over from scratch. You know. A Coil. Happens like every year. Don’t they teach that in school? I guess school gets destroyed too…”

Reese got a vacant expression on his face.

Will thought back to Baron Akul’s ominous observations on the gradually worsening situation in the Tower as Lords died faster than they could be replaced.

“…How old are you?”

Reese gave a small squeak and shrugged.

Will saw the morning light beginning to touch the tops of the surrounding ships, and he knew he was going to get an earful from Loth.

“I have a thousand questions for you, but right now, I only want the answer to two things:” Will said. “Number one: Tell me exactly what the item you want is. Number two: tell me exactly what you are going to pay for it.”

Reese took a deep breath.

“Okay. I want access to a System Administrator panel that will allow me to revoke my protections and finally shuffle off this mortal coil. I think we made some in the high-tech coil.”

 “And how I will pay for it: I have personally witnessed more Floors than anyone alive. I’ve studied the pattern. I’m betting that above the tenth Floor, information is limited about hazards and points of interest and such. I can help with that.”

Will decided to test him. First he’d ask about this floor and a few of the ones that came before to figure out what it looked like when Reese was telling the truth, then move on to the higher floors.

“Alright, what’s the major hazard on this floor?” Will asked, expecting something along the lines of ‘leviathan’ or ‘skyshark’

“Secret society of fish people.”

“What?” Will asked.

“What?” Reese asked with a frown.

“There are no fish people on this floor.” It was entirely environmental hazards like storms, and mindless monsters that tried to eat anything they could get their mouths around. At least according to Steve.

Steve doesn’t know everything.

“Shhhh….” Reese put a crusty finger to his lips, glancing around suspiciously before lowering his voice. “That’s what the fish people want you to think.  I only found out about them when I got blown off course while fishing yesterday and sailed into the wrong port under the cover of darkness. I saw the some of the local powers making deals with them. Horrifying deals.”

“You sure it was yesterday?” Will asked.

“…no.”

“…Okay, you can come with me for now.” Will said. There was something about the matter-of-fact way that Reese spoke that made Will stop and take notice. He wasn’t exaggerating, he was spilling what he perceived to be the absolute truth in the disjointed, stream-of-consciousness manner a person would if they were musing to themselves.

There was no sign of deception.

And that made Will’s hackles stand on end. Either this man was telling the truth, haphazardly spilling secrets that could shake The Tower to its core…or he was so Cracked that he needed adult supervision. Might as well keep him close until we know which one it is.

Will almost toppled over as Reese let go of his arm and turned to grovel in front of him.

“Oh, thank you! You won’t regret this, Mr. Gandr!”

“Oh.” Will said.

“Eh?”

“Mr. Oh.”

“s’wat I said.” Reese said, getting back under Will’s arm and helping him stagger towards the warehouse dock, where Shimmer was tied up.

In a matter of minutes, Will was back on the ship, being hosed down on the deck while the Bakers attended to his wounds.

Sadly, he couldn’t enjoy the proximity to multiple Anna’s doting on him simultaneously because he was also getting chewed out by Loth at the same time.

“I expected Travis to make trouble while he was out, not you!” Loth said, hands on her hips.

“Hey.” Travis grunted, glancing up from where he was eating blueberry ice. A specialty of the druids on the more central barges. Tasty and prevented heatstroke and scurvy.

Not that they had to worry about heatstroke this time of year.

“I didn’t make trouble,” Will said, wincing as Anna # 2 scrubbed his cuts with soap and boiled water. “I got jumped by half the bar because my name got out.”

“What?” Loth’s eyes narrowed.

“Don’t kill them.”

Loth clenched her jaw and glanced aside.

“Don’t do it.”

Loth heaved a sigh.

“Foo.”

“If anything I saved us a ton of trouble by getting all the Party Leader fights out of the way at the same time. I’m very solidly in the pecking order now. Near the top, too. They even said they were gonna have to change laws because of me. How cool is that?”

“You can’t possibly have won. The fights are to first blood, aren’t they? You’re a mess.” Loth gestured at him.

“You do look you went through a meatgrinder,” Anna#3 said, following behind her clone with salve to seal the wounds.

“I challenged the entire bar to a fight. If there are no neutral observers, then no one can objectively say who got cut when and by what. They only realized this after I’d already took out a few of them, took my first hit and kept fighting. It was technically a draw, but it was a 50-on-1 draw, so…they were impressed.”

“Alright, then what about him?” Loth asked, pointing at Reese, who was coiling some ropes, peering down at them with dissatisfaction.

“Experienced sailor and fisherman.” Will lied. “I figured we could use someone who actually knows the Floor.” Will tapped on Loth’s hand with Phantom Hand, indicating they would talk about it more later.

“I have been fishing longer than you’ve been alive.” Reese said. “Jason, can you help me seal the ends of these ropes? Whoever did it didn’t know what they were doing.”

Mason glanced around, realizing Reese was looking at him. “My name’s Mason.”

“Right. Right…Mason, would you mind helping me with a bit of sizzle?” he wiggled his fingers.

Loth glanced back at Will, a single scaly eyebrow cocked.

He knew the ruse was already shredded by Loth, so he’d have to clue her in, but the others could just assume he was a weird old man with poor memory for names and faces.

“Incidentally, I want to discuss our plans for the next outing.” Will said once Anna #3 finished sealing the last wound, standing and donning a fresh shirt.

Anna and Loth clicked their tongues.

“Loth, if you would.” Will motioned towards their offices.

“Of course.”

Together the two of them entered Loth’s office, pried open a hatch in the floor and then entered a pitch back crawlspace, sneaking their way to the back of the ship before they spoke.

“Why does he know Mason’s Ability and almost his name?” Loth whispered. “Did you tell him?”

“No. I honestly don’t know.” Will whispered. “I’m waffling between him being Cracked, and him being some kind of immortal. Some of the things he says…”

“What if it’s both?” Loth asked.

“Could be. He’s offered to give us critical insider information on each floor in exchange for taking him up with us until he finds a way to kill himself.”

“How do we know he’s not just lying?” Loth asked.

“Well, we could just kill him. If he dies… then it’s the former. Just doesn’t feel right, though. Reese mentioned something about a secret society of fish people pulling the strings of The Flotilla from the shadows. Sounds pretty crazy, but if it checks out…”

“Verify that, and he stays.” Loth surmised.

“For this floor anyway,” Will whispered back.

“You know…we haven’t gone out for a nighttime walk together since the Church of Granesh.” Loth said.

“Loth the Luminary. Are you asking me out on a date?” Will whispered in mock shock.

“If by ‘date’, you mean ‘reconnaissance mission’, then yes.”