Book 3, Chapter 53

“What are the high families doing about the Void Wall now that Samael’s gone and his victims aren’t being mind-controlled into acting as a sacrificial buffer to hold it back?” Sorin asked.

Galdred gave the question a surprising amount of thought. So far, he’d been pretty lax about everything, which Sorin found he appreciated. He’d had his fill of high-strung people lately. For this, though, the young scion shed his casual demeanor when he finally answered.

“I wish I could say we were united and taking decisive steps to address the problem. Replicating Samael’s tactics is impossible, the moral implications aside. I don’t think any of us liked what he was doing, but we all understood the necessity of it. There also wasn’t much we could do to stop him, so there’s that justification, for whatever it’s worth.

“We’re not united, though. Oh, we had the meetings. We sent representatives and messengers back and forth between the families and spent a fortune in enchanted items to recall important people who were out climbing. And in the end, it was mostly just a waste of time. You’ve got to understand that even in the high families, most of us don’t actually make it to rank 20. The tower doesn’t go easy on you just because of your last name, you know?”

“That sounds like the answer to my question is ‘nothing,’” Sorin noted.

“Not nothing,” Galdred said with a sigh, “But we don’t have an immediate solution. There’s a joint resolution to step up funding and recruitment, to sponsor climbers, but it was pretty much universally agreed that we were going to lose ground here. Our best projections are that the void advances a few floors over the next year or two, and we make our next stand on Floor 17, if we’re lucky.”

“That would make it even more difficult to hold once climbers can’t get any stronger than rank 17,” Sorin pointed out, but he saw the problem. There simply weren’t enough rank 24s or 25s among the high families to make a difference, and they weren’t willing to send the ones they had out on what was almost certainly a futile suicide mission. “Why weren’t you guys working on this? This has been a problem for close to a decade.”

“Because we all agreed the best we could do was hold it back. Samael himself couldn’t break the wall. No one thinks you will, either. And, well, the wall was already checked.”

“And it wasn’t costing you anything,” Sorin said. “Samael’s people. Samael’s resources. Samael’s time. The high families got to just go on profiting off the rest of the climbers with your taxes and your fees while you ignored the potential extinction event that was just far enough out of sight to pretend it doesn’t exist.”

Galdred at least had the grace to look embarrassed. “Yeah,” he mumbled. “Something like that.”

“I’m going to bet you don’t have a lot of company at rank 24 among the high families,” Sorin told him. “That’s probably deliberate. Most of them stop around 20, maybe 22. That puts them at elite status in the city, but then they get to say that they’re not helping because they can’t, not because they’re selfish or cowardly.”

“Yeah,” Galdred said again, but now he looked mad instead of embarrassed.

“And you don’t agree with that, do you?” Sorin asked him.

His answer was a tight, clipped, “No, I do not.”

“I knew I liked you,” Sorin said. “Here’s the million danir question: do you think you can gather some like-minded individuals who can actually access Floor 24 to do something about this?”

“I might know a few people who fit the bill,” Galdred said.

“I know what fighting void creatures means,” Sorin told him. “I know what I’m asking. If you do this, you’re going to hurt, and not just for a few minutes until your regeneration kicks in or your healer makes it to you. It’ll be months of suffering and recovery, and it probably won’t feel like it was worth the trade off.”

“I understand. We all do. Believe me.”

“Because you’ve been fighting, haven’t you?” Sorin realized. Once he thought to look for it, the damage was obvious in Galdred’s aura. He’d had an encounter with some sort of void creature within the last week or two.

“Not on Floor 24, but when we get reports of voidlings on the lower floors, we’re the ones who go take care of it.”

Sorin clapped a hand on the Galdyrin heir’s shoulder. “You’re a good man. I wish everyone was more like you.”

“Thanks. Don’t tell people, though. It’s not something we advertise. The people in charge want to keep us in pristine fighting condition just in case they decide to deploy us against their enemies.”

“It’s not just your family, then?” Sorin asked.

Taken from NovelPhoenix, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Galdred shook his head. “We’ve got someone from every high family, and a few people from the mid families, too. It’s nothing formal—more of a friend circle that keeps an ear out and occasionally has to go kick some ass.”

“How many climbers are rank 24?”

“Not enough to make a difference. We’re trying to bring up some of the weaker members of the group, but it’s like you said. Time is against us. By the time most of us hit rank 20, the Void Wall will probably be that far down.”

Better than nothing. I can work with this. Maybe split my team up to head six individual teams if we can fill the roster? Lanir’s got to have a few dozen Hellions left up there still, too. Some of them might even be the rank 25 veterans from before they got pushed back. I need to know more before I share anything sensitive with them, though.

“I wouldn’t mind meeting the rest of your top ranks,” Sorin said. “I am going to Floor 24, and having a few more allies to coordinate with would increase our chances. If you’re serious about breaking the wall, working together is our best chance.”

“I’ll talk to them. How can I contact you?”

“Leave a message at the house we met at,” Sorin told him. “We’re using that as a base on Floor 0 for now. I’ll check there regularly. Just make sure to include some way to meet up so I don’t have to go hunting for you all over the city, alright?”

Galdred smiled. “I can do that. It was good to meet you, Sorin. I still think you’re crazy, but I’ll take crazy people who are at least willing to try to make things better over selfish, rich cowards who only care about protecting their status and assets.”

“Likewise. I’m going to get going now. There’s still Floor 23 for me to get through before I can get started on the Void Wall, and it’s not like it’s getting any smaller.”

They parted ways, but Sorin didn’t return to Floor 0. He picked another floor at random, took the portal there, and then immediately stepped through Liminal Gateway to get back to the house directly. Though he’d been confident that they’d be fine, it was still good to see the place in one piece and its occupants unharmed. The Galdyrins had truly only been looking for Sorin, and once they’d found him, they’d had no reason to go after anyone else.

All that made sense on paper, but people were often irrational and vindictive, so Sorin had harbored some concerns. He’d only left with Galdred because he knew how fast Odric could recover now that he had the right magic to properly heal his injuries, and Sorin trusted that once he was back on his feet, he could fend for himself.

Odric stood in the middle of the bedroom and was stripped down to nothing but a pair of pants. Sweat poured off his body, so much so that it looked like someone had dumped a bucket of water over him, then refilled it and doused him again, just for good measure. But he was upright under his own power, and the color had returned to his skin, so it looked like they were back in business now.

Heldigar walked in through the front door with a bucket in either hand. “Oh, you’re back,” he said. “Looks like you won, huh?”

“Something like that,” Sorin said. “What are you doing?”

“This soulprint spikes body temperature when you use it, Sorin,” Odric said without opening his eyes. “Ideally, I’d be submerged in some ice water to handle the side effects, but this was what we came up with instead.”

Heldigar unceremoniously turned the bucket and poured its contents over Odric, who immediately started steaming. Oh, I guess that puddle isn’t all sweat, Sorin thought.

Odric took the second bucket and chugged far more of it than a reasonable person could expect, then poured the remainder over himself. “It’s not pleasant, but it works. I should be done in a few minutes.”

“Here,” Sorin said, channeling anima through Still Winter.

The frozen aura swept out to encompass Odric and Heldigar both. The healer just gave him a smile of thanks, but Heldigar yelped in surprise and scrambled to get out of the magic’s radius. “Fucking—Warn a man first, will you?!”

“Thought you were tougher than that,” Sorin told him with a grin.

“I’ll show you tougher!”

While Odric finished healing himself, Sorin settled up accounts with the mercenary. The majority of the payment was in raw danirs, but Heldigar also claimed a pair of D-rank soulprints from Sorin’s collection, one as part of their agreed-upon terms, and an extra for standing against the unexpected attack from the Galdyrin vassals.

“Pleasure doing business with you,” the giant man said. “I mean, except for that part at the end where you turned my nips into star-iron cutters. I swear, I was one deep breath away from poking holes in my armor.”

“You’re still going on about that?” Sorin teased. “You’d better get an upgrade to your Cold Resistance soulprint if you plan on climbing higher. That water on Floor 9 can freeze you to death if you go far enough down.”

“Not that cold,” Heldigar grumbled. He paused to think for a moment. “It doesn’t get that cold, right?”

“No,” Odric assured him. “Basic F-tier Cold Resistance will keep you alive, but not comfortable. Sorin’s magic could freeze anything you’d run into down there into a block of ice.”

Only if it’s not more monsters that were displaced from higher floors, Sorin thought, but he didn’t want to scare Heldigar with that. They’d found no evidence of other monsters on the wrong floors and no explanation for how the kraken and triton had gotten there. It was either tower fuckery or something Samael had done, as far as Sorin could tell.

“You need some time before we go?” Sorin asked Odric once they were alone.

“Just a few minutes to get my gear on,” he said. “I’ve been lying in bed long enough. I’m ready to do something.”

“Even if that something is killing more rot shamblers?”

“Even that,” Odric confirmed. “At least no one will notice how bad I need a shower there.”

There was something to that logic. Sorin’s nose wasn’t nearly as good as his eyes, but he couldn’t argue that Odric could use some time to attend to his personal needs. “You can take a few minutes. We’re in a hurry, but not so much that we can’t spare another half an hour,” Sorin told him.

Shrugging, Odric wiped himself down with his discarded shirt and said, “No real point if I’m going to the rot fields again, is there?”

“Anything to say to your parents before we leave?” Sorin tried.

Odric shuddered. “No. They were... uh... far more persistent than I expected them to be yesterday. I’ll save that for after we’re done with everything.”

Out of arguments and not really sure why he was pushing the issue anyway, Sorin gave up and helped Odric finish getting ready. Then he extended his hand, and the two of them walked through the darkness to where their friends waited for them higher up in the tower.