Tower Climber

by Jakob Tanner

  “But at that point,” said Max. “Couldn’t they buy gold monster cores and other higher-ranked monster cores?”

  The man smiled. “True, except there’s one problem there. Gold monster cores are much rarer than copper or silver monster cores. Even more rare are ruby and diamond monster cores. Climbers who get their hands on such cores, rarely sell them to merchants like me. So, theoretically, I see your point, but in practice: only those actually powerful enough to slay gold-ranked monster cores HAVE gold-ranked monster cores.”

  Max nodded.

  “Alright, that’s enough questions,” said the merchant. “Scram.”

  Max thanked the man once more and turned back to the throng of the market.

  Everything the merchant had explained was fascinating to Max. It just hammered home just how powerful his trait was. All the rules in the tower-zone were set-up to make sure young climbers didn’t get too powerful too quickly. Perhaps, this was a safety precaution, he wasn’t sure. But his ability allowed him to sidestep so many of the buffers that were holding him back. He could wield abilities far more powerful than his, so he could slay more powerful monsters, or in the case of the last two weeks, weaker monsters but in far greater numbers than the average student climber could ever hope to achieve.

  Up until now, Max had been playing catch-up, but now he was close to taking the lead and getting ahead of everyone else.

  47

  He eventually passed a storefront that was carrying the merchandise he was hoping to find.

  The store looked like a jewelry shop with glass cases and specialty items placed over black velvet surfaces. But it wasn’t jewelry. The items on display were elemental stones like the one Samuel Archer had used against him in his preliminary test.

  “May I help you with anything?”

  A tall man with a twirly moustache in a suit stood behind the glass case.

  “I’m looking for a special type of elemental stone, one infused with light magic?”

  “Exquisite taste,” said the man. “I can sell you such a stone for 800 gold coins.”

  Max’s shoulders slumped. This market was sending him on an emotional roller coaster. One minute he was richer than he ever had been before, the next, he still couldn’t afford anything he wanted.

  “Ah,” said the man. “Out of your price range, I see. Well, we sell more than magically infused stones.”

  The man bent down and grabbed a new item to show Max.

  It was the last thing he was expecting to see in a place that looked like a jewelry shop.

  It was a cardboard box with six loose grenades inside.

  “These grenades have light-infused magic in them,” said the man. “I can sell you all six for, hmm, how does two gold sound?”

  “That’s a lot cheaper than the stone,” said Max.

  “Quite,” said the man. “But the stone is a priceless artifact that can be used an infinite amount of times whereas this is a mere six chances.”

  “You’re right,” said Max. “I’ll buy them for one gold.”

  “Then you can go somewhere else,” said the man. “And if you leave here and come back, the price will be double.”

  Max sighed. Two gold actually wasn’t that much in the scheme of things considering how much he now had.

  “Deal,” he said.

  They exchanged the goods and Max thanked the man and then left the shop.

  He then purchased a few more items of less value from the market: a basic knife and compass.

  After those purchases, he started to head home.

  He had everything he needed now to enact his plan.

  The next day Max woke up bright and early and headed straight for the climber’s guild.

  He was one of the first to arrive, passing through the gates and clearance, making his way to the tower.

  “Happy training,” said the final clerk.

  Max smiled and continued on his way, striding forward. He was determined more than ever. Today he was going to hit E-rank. He just knew it in his heart.

  He walked through the shadowy entrance of the tower, passed the fountain where people unlocked their profile, and headed for the teleporter.

  He stood in the bright illumination of the teleporter and thought to himself.

  Ascend to the next floor.

  Ten minutes after Max had passed through the final checkpoint, a group of five men materialized at the endless forest’s departure teleporter.

  They had arrived from many floors higher up in the tower.

  The five of them all wore red bomber jackets and aviator sunglasses.

  One of the defense climbers stationed in front of the teleporter pretended he didn’t recognize the five men, but they could all tell he knew who they were.

  The Reckless Brothers.

  They were five mercenary rogue climbers originally from Zestiris who’d been wanted by the authorities for years.

  The men ignored the two defense climbers upon their arrival.

  “It’s been a long time since I’ve been on a floor so close to the bottom,” said one of them. “Ain’t that right, big bro?”

  “Correct,” said the oldest of the five men and the clear leader of the group.

  The man’s name was Eli.

  “This should be a piece of cake then,” said Eli’s younger brother.

  “Just remember what we’re here to do,” said Eli. “The boss said to remove the kid by any means necessary.”

  A few of them chuckled.

  “In the confines of this floor,” said one of them. “That should be easy.”

  Then one of the brothers turned to the defense climbers. “What about these two? They might alert others.”

  “Agreed,” said Eli. “Do as you wish.”

  The two defense climbers were dead within seconds. One died in flames while another was ripped in half by a large pointed stone jutting out of the ground.

  “First stop is the arrival teleporter,” said Eli. “Let’s roll.”

  They found another pair of defense climbers at the arrival teleporter.

  “All done for the day?” greeted one of the defense climbers. He had a big nose this kid. His partner had freckles.

  Eli took in their metal pin badges. Copper with a big fat E etched into it. They were E-rankers, probably newly graduated defense climbers. Weaklings as far as Eli was concerned.

  “Did a red-headed kid come through here just now?” asked Eli. “You see which way he went?”

  Big Nose gulped. “It’s against protocol to answer that. Do you have any reason for needing to know which way he went?”

  “Yeah,” said Eli. “He’s in trouble. We’ve been sent to help him.”

  “Do you have an authorized letter of some kind,” said Freckles.

  Eli smiled and looked to his brothers.

  “Do you know who we are?”

  Both Freckles and Big Nose shook their heads.

  “Maybe you don’t know us by our faces,” said Eli. “But you probably know us by name. Does the name The Reckless Brothers mean anything to you?”

  Both Big Nose and Freckles instantly went pale.

  The Reckless Brothers were infamous.

  They were wanted across multiple floors by different powerful groups.

  Four of them were D-rank while the oldest brother, Eli, was C-rank.

  “Sorry,” said Big Nose. “You’ll need to get authorization still...”

  Eli’s brother Kendrick snapped his fingers and Big Nose’s colleague Frederick was suddenly covered in flames.

  Freckles screamed as he was burning alive.

  Soon enough, Freckles was a dead crisp on the ground.

  “Is that enough authorization to tell us now?” asked Eli.

  Big Nose shivered and trembled. Snot leaked out of his large nostrils. He lifted up his hand and pointed north.

  Huh? thought Eli. There was nothing but dead space up that way. No one went that way in the endless forest.

  “You promise me you�
�re telling the truth?” said Eli.

  The shivering defense climber nodded his head.

  “Because you know we’ll kill you like your friend, Freckles, here if it turns out you’ve been lying.”

  The defense climber nodded.

  “I’m not lying,” he said.

  “Good, I believe you,” smiled Eli.

  He then turned to his brother, Kendrick, and gave him the go ahead.

  Just like he had done before, Kendrick wielded his firebringer trait and set Big Nose aflame.

  “Well, I’m sure this will galvanize a whole new realm of bounty hunters coming after us,” said Patrick, the middle Reckless brother.

  The boy screamed as the flames blackened and roasted his skin.

  “Was this really necessary?”

  “Stop arguing,” said Eli. “We’ll make it look like the kid did it all once we’re done. C’mon. Let’s get moving.”

  With that, the Reckless Brothers headed north into the endless forest.

  48

  Max sprinted through the endless forest.

  He held up his compass in one hand and held a knife in the other.

  He was heading north in a direction he’d never gone before.

  He passed by a tree with a “Z” mark on it. The instructor at the academy had explained to them that this specific type of mark meant there were no more signs beyond that point. In other words, Max was entering unexplored territory.

  What Max had learned during his research in the library was that in the history of the endless forest, once climbers had found the departure teleporter, they pretty much stopped caring about the floor. The earliest tower climbers were more preoccupied with the pursuit of going higher and higher into the tower. The endless forest did not promise riches or adventure so it was quickly left behind, unexplored.

  Max was about to exploit that fact.

  As he rushed past the “Z” mark, he held out his knife, chipping away at the trees as he rushed by, leaving himself a trail on how to get back from where he was going.

  He kept an eye on his compass and sprinted forward.

  He was running fast, but after all of his training over the last two and a half months, he could keep the pace easily.

  The forest began to blur together.

  Words from his library research came back to him.

  “People mistake the endless forest for being monotonous, but it’s precisely those small breaks in the monotony that are the floor’s own natural signs of the changing landscape and unknown opportunities...”

  So far it all looked the same, but Max knew what he was looking for.

  He still had a while to go.

  He picked up his running pace.

  Eli and his brothers had been running north for at least twenty minutes.

  The forest all looked the same and they had been heading this way so far with no sign from the kid.

  “Stop,” shouted Patrick.

  They all came to a halt.

  Eli turned back to the middle brother, annoyed. “What is it?”

  “How do we know we’re going the right way?” he asked.

  They’d been running this way on the blind faith that Big Nose had been telling the truth, but what if he hadn’t?

  “How deep into the forest are we prepared to go?” asked the middle brother, raising a good point. “We don’t have food or supplies and if we get lost out here there’s the potential we never get back.” Kendrick laughed at that. “Can you imagine dying on floor-2? After all we’ve done, it would be a truly pathetic death. I rather die in the tower-zone at the hands of a traitless. Even that would be mildly less pathetic.”

  Eli looked around as his brothers bickered.

  He then spotted something.

  He held up his hand, a signal that his brothers knew meant to shut the heck up.

  He walked over to a tree and found a fresh cut in the tree by a knife.

  The kid was leaving a trail so he doesn’t get lost, Eli surmised. But where the heck was he going?

  Max rushed through the woods.

  He held his compass in one hand and slashed at the trees in another.

  He had to keep running until the monotony of the forest broke, then he would know he was getting close.

  The woodlands all looked the same and then suddenly they didn’t.

  Max slid to a halt.

  Just ahead of him the monotony of the forest came to an end.

  A large open cave stood in front of him.

  It was the first and only cave he’d ever seen during his time in the endless forest.

  None of his research had mentioned a cave.

  None of the climbers he’d spoken to had mentioned a cave.

  As far as he knew, he might be the first climber to have ever discovered this place.

  Which was exactly what he was hoping for.

  49

  Max took a hesitant step into the shadows of the cave.

  A fallen leaf crackled beneath his boots as he stepped deeper into the darkness.

  RUSTLE!

  Max’s shoulders jumped and he instantly took on a fighting stance.

  Here we go, he thought. Monsters.

  But then nothing happened.

  Nothing appeared out of the darkness.

  Max blinked and sighed with relief.

  What happened?

  He took another step forward and saw what had created the noise.

  A skull.

  It had rolled over.

  On the one hand, there was nothing to worry about. No immediate threat, thought Max. But then looked at another way: how many climbers had discovered this place and were unable to survive to let anyone know about it? And why exactly were they not able to survive?

  Starvation?

  Thirst?

  Or was it something that resided deeper inside this cave?

  Something that killed them?

  Max took another step into the darkness.

  He kept moving forward until the light from the forest outside was only a faint glimmer in the distance.

  “What’s this...a...visitor?” said a voice from deeper in the darkness. “It’s been...so long...since my...last kill. Thank you...young man...please...come...closer”

  Eli suddenly came to a halt.

  His brothers all quickly stopped behind him.

  “What the heck is that?” asked Patrick.

  Eli stared at the cave. It was very strange. As far as he knew there were no caves in the endless forest. Or, at least, he’d never heard of any.

  Fiery sparks flickered off of Kendrick’s fingers.

  “Shall we follow him in?” asked the brother, eagerly.

  Eli shook his head.

  “A unique monster must live in there,” said Eli. “It’s the only explanation why there’s a cave in this forest that’s supposed to be trees for all eternity.”

  “So what are you proposing?” said Patrick.

  “We’ll wait here for it to kill the foolish boy. If by some miracle he survives, we’ll take him out and steal his unique monster core when he returns weakened and exhausted.”

  50

  As Max stepped deeper into the darkness, he began to make out the shape of the creature that was speaking to him.

  The creature had glowing red eyes and a set of nightmarish teeth.

  “Yes...come...closer...” said the monster.

  Max wasn’t sure the exact details of what kind of monster it was, but his research at the library had led him to suspect there was some sort of shadow-based monster that lurked in the furthest outskirts of the endless forest. The information had been murky beyond that.

  He would have to make his move soon.

  Too bad the shadow monster didn’t waste any time.

  Black shadowy projectiles shot through the darkness towards Max.

  He leapt out of the way.

  He was pretty sure this monster was at D-rank strength with a silver monster core at its heart. It had the power to kill Max if he w
asn’t careful. In fact, it had the power to kill him even if he was careful.

  The shadow projectiles smashed into the side of the cave.

  Max quickly got back up to his feet.

  He looked around frantically and saw that the shadow monster had disappeared.

  Its face reappeared in the darkness at the other end of the cave.

  Max tensed.

  “I guess...I don’t have to kill you straight away...it is nice to have company...I suppose...”

  The monster flickered all around the cave.

  Max couldn’t keep up with the monster’s movements. It was moving too fast. It was teleporting through the darkness.

  The creature was purposely putting Max on edge. Toying with him, raising his level of panic and sense of alertness, but not in a good way. The panic, the rapid beating of his heart—those were all things putting pressure on his ability to think rationally in a stressful moment. The monster was trying to force Max into a mistake.

  He took a deep breath.

  He needed to be ready to dodge an attack, but otherwise he wasn’t going to let the monster’s manic movements get to him.

  He pulled out a grenade from his pouch.

  A quote from his research emerged in his head: “…There are legends of a shadowy monster that lurks in the fringes of this low-level floor, but no confirmed sighting exists outside of rumor and hearsay…”

  “You know,” said Max, speaking directly to the monster. “You’re pretty smug for a guy who is fighting an unknown opponent. Unlike you though, I came prepared.”

  He whipped one of the light infused grenades at the shadow demon.

  51

  The grenade exploded in the cave.

  A huge blast of light shot out.

  “You...damn...human!” hissed the shadow monster.