A few hours of talking and catching up later, Adrian leaves the others to look for his party.

  The sky has started to darken, the yellow light from earlier is now replaced with a more orangey tone, mirroring the world outside. There is still no sun. But some stars do appear.

  How does the Tower add these floors anyway?

  That is a question of the millenia, with many people constantly searching for answers and yet never finding it. Eventually it is deemed that the floors are a manifestation of God’s dreams. One can only wonder if in that case, there will be an infinite number of floors as long as God continues to sleep? How many floors are there right now?

  The most he has heard from the clan is 15, the one their ancestor has been able to reach.

  Adrian sends a few of his avatars to look everywhere for his party members, mostly searching for inns on the giant trees. Now knowing that they can actually talk, he orders them to ask every inn for them while he sits on one of the branches, looking out at the scenery before him.

  From his height, he can finally look at the crown of the trees. All around him, trees extend outwards into the distant horizon like a never ending sea. He knows that there is a limit to the floor, and even with just his powers and low level, he can walk to the edge of the floor in a few hours.

  Then what about higher levels? Where they can move such distances in just a few minutes. Does the Tower expand with every floor to adjust to the size and power of the high-rankers?

  There is only one way to know that.

  After a few minutes, he feels a tug on his connection from the avatars he sent out. Following that connection, he reaches an inn named, “DropBy”.

  Is every inn here with a drop in their name? Is this a pun for dropbears?

  Walking inside, he is greeted by his avatar sitting under the glares of the rest of them. The avatar looks at him, as if pleading for release, and he gives it to him. The avatar dissolves into nothingness.

  So now they glare at him.

  “What happened?” Adrian asks.

  “What happened he asks,” Buren snorts, walking to the bar as he orders some drinks.

  Adrian looks at Matthew, but even the big guy avoids his eyes. He too joins Buren at the bar.

  Adrian stares at Leah, a little annoyed at their attitude, and asks, “What is it about actually?”

  “You seriously don’t know why we’d be mad at you? Not even a hint?”

  “I would’ve already apologized if I knew what this was about, Leah. I don’t know, so can you please tell me?”

  “Hahhh,” She sighs, and Matthew follows. Leah starts to talk, “Adrian, do you not have any sense of responsibility to your party? I know your mom forced you into this and that we haven’t talked to each other properly in a while, but do you really have to run away, gallivanting with your other friends, leaving us to look for accommodations on our own?”

  “What was I supposed to do? Hold your hands and show you around the place?” Adrian asks, getting increasingly annoyed.

  “I want you to take responsibility and stay with us!” Leah yelled. “I want you to stay with us when we need you. I want to know that I can trust you! To know that you won’t run away when we need you! Matthew was so tired that he could hardly walk today, Buren wasn’t any better. What if something had happened to us? You wouldn’t even know it, because you were already gone while I called for you!”

  The inn comes to a stop, everyone else pausing their own drinks to look at them. Some snicker, some cheer Leah on, and berate him. Adrian opens his mouth a few times but no words come out. Eventually annoyed at himself, he says lightly, “I wanna go to bed. We’ll talk about it tomorrow,”

  Leah keeps his gaze for a few moments before sighing, “303”

  Adrian nods, takes his stuff and goes to the room. Their stuff is already in there. Adrian picks one of the empty beds, throws his bag under it, and lays on the bed, thinking about what just happened.

  He had indeed left them earlier this afternoon. He trusted them to find a place and didn’t think his presence would be much required, and he still thinks the same, but perhaps that’s just another excuse he is making to himself?

  Why did I run away?

  Is it because of the suffocation and alienation he feels among them? This feeling of being chained by his family, his clan, not understood, and always living on tip-toes?

  Perhaps it is all of those things. Or perhaps it's just the fact that they sold Martin out.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  He doesn’t hate those who took the trial with him, and has been able to spend hours with them, talking and laughing, but his party depicts something more than the normal people who believe in the Tower.

  They depict his clan, their chain on him, his mother’s hold on him, and they depict Martin’s cold dried corpse.

  This is such a shit-show.

  Adrian stays lying on the bed, awake and fully aware when his party members come into the room and fall asleep. He does not get up to greet them, nor does he apologise. He stays there, eyes shut, breathing even, pretending to be asleep and yet aware of everything.

  It is around midnight–as informed by the clock on the wall–when he is sure that others are deep asleep that Adrian gets off bed, and takes his blade with him. Opening the window, he looks below where a long fall ends with one of the branch bridges.

  Can I make it?

  He creates an avatar–his mana count resets at midnight–and sends him down first. The avatar looks at him first, and then jumps down, easily landing on the bridge, as it sways a bit with his arrival.

  Are they getting smarter with my level ups? The one from earlier, and even this one seemed a bit more reactive.

  Adrian throws his blade to the avatar below, who catches it easily. Then he creates one more avatar to replace his sleeping figure, and jumps down. The air rushes past him, his shirt fluttering in the wind one moment, and then the next he’s rolling on the branch, breaking his momentum at the swaying bridge.

  Standing back up, he looks at the inn in the distance, and notes that no one peers in when he slipped away. That is good.

  With his avatar behind him, Adrian walks away.

  He could sleep, but there is something that he has been thinking about for a while. Initially he wanted to take things slow and do it in time, but ever since he has heard about the High Rankers and the Tower opposers earlier this morning, he feels an urge to move and to get shit done then sit there and wait for things to happen.

  Especially the Tower opposers. He could feel a certain memory tugging at him ever since he heard of them.

  It was during his last Special test. The guy he dealt with had said something about a ‘revolution’. Back then he had dismissed it as just a nonsensical babbling of a dying man, but what if there is even a morsel of truth to it?

  What if these are the exact people he belonged to?

  If they are, then should he join them? Should he be part of this dangerous group that the Tower itself is against?

  He is still unsure, and that’s why he needs more information. He needs to know more about what is happening. About the floor itself. To act before he is blindsided.

  Up above him the stars are visible, twinkling in all their magnificent glory.

  Adrian moves away from the clearing the settlement is based around. He wonders how they really keep this place safe, until he notices runes drawn on the ground by the edge of the clearing.

  He’s not the most knowledgeable man about enchanting and the runes they use, but he’s sure that these are alarm runes. Perhaps they only work when detecting a monster or magical creature, otherwise they’d be ringing all day.

  It will also be useful, should a monster try to enter the settlement, disguised as another human. Adrian can see that it has a presence to it, one that he finds hard to explain, but can say that it’s quite strong. Perhaps the presence keeps the monsters from crossing over as well?

  This has to be the work of some High Ranker. Why is this floor so important?

  This is a question he has been thinking about for a while, but why is there so much done on this floor? So much convenience, so much safety, so much of everything. What is the goal here?

  Walking through the forest, he does not run like in the morning, instead conserving his stamina. Adrian also creates a few more avatars just to be his lookout, and sends a few away to look for the thing he has come here for.

  “Look for the sound of a lake, and tell me when you find it.” Adrian orders, as they continue their trek forward.

  This is dangerous. Dangerous beyond doubt, and yet this is something that Adrian couldn’t skimp on. He can only be more careful, and try to not die in his mad scramble for control.

  A few moments later, he feels a tug from one of his avatars he sent on the lookout. He tugs the others who are away towards his direction and jogs toward the tug he felt earlier.

  Just a few moments later, he hears the sound of rushing water. He speeds up just a bit, his enhanced Kinesthetics and Mind allowing him to easily see in the night and move without tripping himself.

  As he reaches his avatar, he sees the lake too. Dark, violent and scary. Adrian notes how there’s a single spot in the lake where light from the stars are able to pierce through the canopy above it, congregating and looking like a broken moon.

  “Let’s move,” He starts walking by the length of the lake–still behind the cover of the trees–and notes how the starlight completely disappears from the lake, leaving behind an empty dark body of water.

  After a while, there is one more spot where the lights congregate, but this time much closer. Looking more like a full moon than the next one. Adrian picks his pace. We are near.

  A few minutes later, he finally finds what he’s after.

  He hears it first before seeing it. An indignant neigh of a horse echoes through the dead of the night. Adrian sinks deeper into the darkness, his avatars around him, their presence comforting him.

  In the distance, by the lake where a full moon made of stars is found, stands a malora. A headless horse with a bright yellow flame wrapped around its neck like a scarf.

  A malora is a lustful creature, only appearing in the middle of the night by the full moon, but since there is no moon on this floor, it comes here.

  This bit of knowledge is like the stories that climbers tell kids when they want to scare them to sleep.

  Adrian has been thinking about it for a while, ever since he got his avatar skill and he used it for the first time. There is a critical deficiency in this skill that he intends to remove using this, and one more creature he plans to catch tonight.

  It should be at least level 13. Its ability to control the emotions of its opponents should hopefully not work on my avatars. Only one way to test it.

  Adrian slips into his focus, and commands the avatars. Soon the fight begins.

  #