If he’d still been in his fifties, there was no way Sorin would have woken up without some kind of back pain. Even being back in the prime of his life, he was still a bit sore from laying on what was essentially a thinly padded board for six hours.
Should have gone back last night. Too bad I have no idea where they camped out. Still might have been more comfortable sleeping on the ground.
After a brief detour to take care of his morning business, Sorin trudged directly into the archives, only to find the doors still closed and locked. Considering the sun was already up, he had to wonder why the union’s facilities, which he’d paid good money to have access to, were still unavailable. All around him, he could hear people starting their day, and he’d hoped to finalize some details on the route he was going to propose once he went back up to Floor 1 in a few hours.
His stomach rumbled, reminding him that he’d missed dinner last night. With only two danirs left in his pocket, he was sure his options were limited, but maybe he’d get lucky and someone would try to mug him. It had worked once; there was no reason he couldn’t get another cash infusion the same way.
Contrary to his expectations, Sorin found a street vendor selling skewers of questionable meat alternated with some sort of grilled mushroom for a danir a piece. She looked a bit young to be running a business on her own, but that wasn’t Sorin’s problem and, honestly, it didn’t taste half bad. He scarfed the meal down, dropped the used skewer into a bin next to the stall, and debated on spending his last danir on a second helping.
No, I’d rather have a nice drink—or at least as nice a drink as one danir buys me.
That proved to be a rather sour, warm beer that he regretted buying the moment he took the first sip. But it had cost him the last scrap of money he had, so he forced himself to drink it anyway, then slowly made his way back to the Climber’s Union, where he found the archives were still closed.
Twenty minutes later, Sorin was at the front of the line to speak to an attendant. There were two of them behind the desk, and he’d opted to stand in the noticeably longer line in order to speak to the redhead girl he’d met on his first day. The other option was the singularly unpleasant man who’d handled his registration, and Sorin didn’t think it was a coincidence that the girl’s line was three times longer.
“Well, well,” she said when Sorin came face to face with her again. “I remember you. Looks like your soulspace went up a rank!”
“It did,” Sorin agreed. “Thank you for the tip.”
“And you’re here to register with the union properly now?”
“Nope, already did that last night,” he told her as he placed the wooden disc down on the counter.
“My condolences,” she said in a loud whisper. “I know who was manning the desk last night.”
“What’s his problem, anyway?”
The girl just shook her head. “Depends on what day of the week it is. But enough of that.” She picked up Sorin’s union card and examined it. “What can I do for you today, Sorin? My name is Mendy, by the way.”
“Hello Mendy. Mostly I just have a question about the archives. Specifically, what time does it open up?”
“That… depends entirely on when Master Hevot decides he feels like getting out of bed. He’s the only one with a key to unlock the door.”
“Hevot would be that gangly looking fellow with the pock marks on his cheeks I met in the stacks last night?”
“That’d be him, yes. Sorry, I can’t give you a better answer.”
“No, I understand. It’s not your fault. Can you give me a guess when he normally shows up?”
“Probably not more than an hour, but I can’t promise that for sure. Master Hevot sets his own schedule. If someone was in the archives late last night, he’ll make up for the extra time by sleeping in late today.”
“God damn it,” Sorin muttered. “So, there’s no reason to stick around. Alright. Fine. I can work around this.”
Not only are these assholes charging me for everything, but they can’t even make the services I’ve already paid for available at a reasonable time. What a joke.
Mendy handed the union card back over and said, “I’m sorry I couldn’t be more helpful.”
“No, no. Like I said, none of this is your fault. I appreciate you answering my questions. I think I’m just going to head back to the portal hub and meet up with the rest of my team. Thank you, Mendy.”
Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.
“You’re certainly welcome. Please feel free to come back again if you need any more help.”
It wasn’t her fault, but that fake cheery voice was starting to get on Sorin’s nerves. He blamed it on a combination of not sleeping well, that piss-poor excuse for a beer, and having to deal with the sloppy management of an organization he’d paid through the nose to be allowed access into. All of that conspired together to push his patience to an all-time low.
It was an effort of will to keep from muttering darkly as he stalked out the door, but Sorin thought he did an admirable job of maintaining a professional demeanor. Judging by how fast a few people scrambled to get out of his way, he might have been wrong about that.
At least there’s no line of tax collectors waiting to fleece me on the way back to Floor 1, not that it’d matter at this point. I’ve got nothing but my sword and the clothes on my back.
Returning to Floor 1 was uneventful. Now that he’d properly attuned himself to the portal there, the Floor 0 portal wouldn’t just fling him into some random location like it had done when his team had stepped through a few days ago. He simply stepped through and let the portal’s magic pull him to the only available exit, then appeared in the middle of the portal hub.
They’d agreed to wait for each other near the courier’s station on the southeast trade square. Sorin wasn’t sure how long he’d have to wait, probably no more than an hour, but he was pleased to see Nemari standing there reading off a scroll when he walked up.
Whatever that scroll said, she obviously wasn’t happy about it. Just the expression on her face was enough to make Sorin reconsider his course. He had no money, but it might still be worth it to kill an hour browsing the market until Nemari cooled off. Before he could make good on that plan, she looked up and saw him approaching. Her lips compressed so hard they practically disappeared.
Oh, great. She’s pissed, possibly at me. What did I do this time?
“Sorin,” she said, a frostiness in her tone. “Perfect timing. Come back to camp with me. We need to talk.”
Fuck. No woman ever said, “We need to talk,” and it was anything good.
* * *
The rest of the team had laid out their campsite in much the same format climbers had been using since time immemorial. The firepit was in the center, ringed in stones scavenged from the fields. It was flanked by a pair of old, well-worn logs, with an empty space between them for a pair of tents. Their team didn’t actually own a tent, sadly. Maybe they’d made enough in profit to afford one, but if so, they hadn’t actually picked one up.
Odric and Rue were perched on the logs scooping some sort of stew up from wooden bowls. A quick glance at the pot showed none leftover for him. I guess they expected me to eat in the city.
“How’d it go?” Rue asked.
“Swindling bastards took every last danir from me,” Sorin told her. “You’d think they’d at least provide a meal with the lodgings, which were worse than sleeping on the ground.”
“I’m sensing you don’t have a lot of love for the Climber’s Union.”
“Less so now than ever.” He sighed, then added, “But I did get the information we needed for the next climb. So, in that sense, mission accomplished.”
Nemari took a seat next to Odric and said, “Speaking of the next climb, it’s time we cleared a few things up.”
Ah. This is the talk. So much for getting to rank 2 before this came up.
“What things are those?" Sorin asked. He considered taking the empty seat next to Rue but decided not to. It didn’t seem like they were about to have a friendly conversation.
“Your whole story about losing your ranks and soulprints is bullshit,” Nemari said bluntly. “I didn’t think it was possible, but I was willing to entertain it because it’s not like I know everything, and it was your business, anyway. Then some guys who wanted to kill you nearly got me instead. If Odric didn’t have a poison-removal soulprint, I’d be dead now.”
She brandished the message she’d been reading at the courier station. “Once your problems started catching up to the rest of us, I did some asking around to confirm what I already suspected. You’re not some higher rank whose soulspace collapsed or whatever. I don’t know why you’re lying about it, and honestly, I don’t really care. What I do care about is when the next set of climbers come after you and we get caught in the crossfire.”
“Was there a question in there?” Sorin asked coldly. “Or are you just looking for someone to listen to you complain?”
“My question is: who the hell are you? What kind of shit are you involved in? And why should we take you with us on our next climb when just being around you is dangerous?”
Sorin spent a few seconds considering his next words. As abrupt and aggressive as Nemari’s approach was, he’d expected something like this sooner or later. Good climbing teams needed to trust each other, and right now, that was in short supply in their camp. That was fine for a temporary thing, but if they were going to become a permanent group, he’d eventually need to tell them more.
Do I want this to be a permanent group? They’re nothing special, but I’ve seen worse groups of climbers. Nemari can be unpleasant, Rue is twitchy, and Odric’s maybe too relaxed about things, but they’re good enough for Floor 1, and there’s plenty of potential to improve.
He didn’t think anyone on his current team would be part of his long-term future. No, that involved finding the rest of his real team so they could figure out what the hell had happened to them on Floor 100. The more he thought about it, the more he was convinced he couldn't be the only one to have lost a chunk of memory. But his only clue right now was the mosaic in his soulspace, and the only way to reveal more of that was to increase his rank.
“We’ve only known each other for a few days, so no, I’m not going to be telling you everything there is to know about me,” Sorin said. “I can tell you that the only enemies I have are those three dead climbers. I suppose the Union archives master is probably annoyed with me for keeping him there so late, but I doubt he’s going to put out a contract for my head over that. I’ll swear it on anything you like that nobody from my past is coming for me.”
Kind of wish they would. Maybe they could answer some questions.
“Not good enough,” Nemari said. “Why lie about your soulspace’s rank? How do you know so much about what’s on the upper floors, but you’re completely clueless about stuff down here?”
“Sorry, I don’t have any good answers to share with you,” he said.
“Then I think we have a problem.”
