It’s weird that the corpses self-immolate, Sorin thought as he scowled down at the remains of the pack. Weird and annoying. How am I supposed to harvest that soulprint if it’s burning to ashes?

  His solution was to simply scoop sand onto the body in the hopes that the flames would be smothered. That actually kind of worked, but without the proper tools—namely, a shovel—he couldn’t get the job done fast enough. Resigning himself to letting all the other bodies burn, he focused his efforts on the one that he knew had a soulprint and even limited himself to just trying to preserve the front half where it was. His efforts were, at best, unsuccessful.

  “Ah, screw it,” he muttered before jabbing his sword into the flames and hacking through the meat. Worst case, I destroy it, and that was already going to happen anyway.

  A few more steady strokes of the blade parted the combusting meat, and with a sharp twist, he separated the rib cage. Frowning in concentration, he dug the tip of his sword around until it finally scraped against a hard, round stone. Normally, he’d cut it free from the surrounding tissue, but in this case, everything was on fire, and his Heat Resistance soulprint was a long way from protecting him from sticking his hand in an open flame.

  Reasoning that he could always clean it up later and that the primary goal was to free the soulprint before the burning corpse consumed it, Sorin opted to cut wide strokes through the tissue, then dug in with his blade to pry it loose. Meat tore free and plopped out into the sand with a wet, popping sound. Sorin quickly buried it to smother the rest of the flames, then dug it back out and hauled it away from the bodies.

  It was much easier to cut it free after that, though he retreated a few hundred feet from the burn pile so he wouldn’t have to smell it while he worked. Eventually, he peeled the last of the jackal to reveal what looked like a small rock that glowed with heat. That appearance was misleading, however, as it was cool to the touch.

  Heat Eater. Hmm. Could be useful, but it’s also highly situational.

  The soulprint allowed its bearer to cast a ward over a small area that would absorb all incoming heat until it reached capacity, then shatter and let the full thermal bloom through. A second ward could be built, provided the caster had the anima to power it.

  Sorin preferred the passive temperature reduction of Heat Resistance, especially because it was the first step on the path to true invulnerability, which was absolutely essential. But Heat Eater also had its uses, primarily to punch up against a stronger monster that used a lot of fire when the climber had time to prepare. It might also be useful for setting a trap against a climber from Nemari’s family, if it came down to it.

  Sorin stowed the rock away, did a quick scan to make sure the curling smoke drifting into the sky hadn’t drawn any undue attention to him, and started walking again.

  * * *

  The mountain had to be getting closer. He’d been marching toward it for going on three days now, and it was an excellent landmark. There was no chance he’d been walking in circles or gotten lost. For all that, Sorin couldn’t say it looked even the tiniest bit bigger now than it had when he started, and even though Floor 3 was way too soon to start expecting floor-wide optical illusions, he was suspicious of that possibility anyway.

  He was almost glad for the distraction when a plume of sand exploded into the sky a quarter mile or so to his right. Before he could even consider it, Sorin found himself veering to run up the side of a dune so he could get a better look at what was going on. Logically, it was the smart move. If an attack was imminent, he needed to know what he was up against.

  But he could admit to some curiosity driving him forward. The desert was wearing on him with its endless miles of nothing but barren, baked earth, pale, clean-scoured stone, and brown-yellow sand. There hadn’t even been a monster attack in the last half a day. Sorin could only hope things were livelier around the oases, else grinding the anima needed for the rest of his team to climb to Floor 4 was going to be a challenge.

  He was greeted by the sight of six climbers battling a giant scorpion, albeit one that was barely half the size of the one he’d killed earlier. Perhaps they knew something Sorin didn’t about scorpion psychology that kept it from burrowing into the sands, or maybe this one simply wasn’t as proficient at the technique.

  Or maybe it just doesn’t feel threatened.

  The climber closest to the scorpion was wearing no armor and carried no weapon, which generally wasn’t a good sign. The guy who actually had a bulky shield was forty feet farther away and scrambling to get in front of the monster while two women peppered its face with arrows. Their attempt at distracting it went completely ignored, and unless someone did something in the next two seconds, it looked like the mage of their group was about to get crushed inside pincers easily big enough to envelope the top half of his body.

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  The team’s frontliner almost made it in time—would have, in fact, except that halfway there, the stinger came down on top of him. He lifted his shield in time to parry, but the force of the impact drove him a foot deep into the sand. At the same time, the scorpion’s pincer extended, and the mage’s attempt to hurl a blast of cutting air scattered uselessly against its carapace.

  F-ranked Wind Slash. Way too weak for Floor 3 armored monsters. Heh. I wonder if it’s one of the ones we sold a few weeks ago.

  At the same time Sorin was analyzing the battle, he blurred forward into motion. Speed Burst gave him a bit under two seconds of accelerated speed, which wasn’t nearly enough to reach the scorpion in one go. But when he came out of it, he hurled the biggest, heaviest chunk of ice he could form on a moment’s notice. It flew the last few hundred feet, all the momentum he’d been carrying imparted to it.

  A hundred pounds of solid ice did what the mage’s wind magic failed to do. It jarred the scorpion’s arm to one side, so that when the pincers snapped closed a moment later, they caught nothing but air. The mage scrambled backward, nearly tripping over his own feet as he turned in the sand.

  But he did make it behind the front line, which probably saved his life a second later when the scorpion corrected its aim and tried again. The shield bearer got in the way and held the attack off, demonstrating more strength than Sorin thought he could bring to bear with his current soulprint build.

  The climbers quickly got things organized and under control over the next ten seconds while Sorin slowed to a stop and watched. Not wanting to interfere anymore and potentially steal a chunk of anima from them, he wasn’t going to jump in again unless he saw someone’s life in danger.

  They butchered the scorpion in short order, even managing to stop it from retreating back underground when it started to manipulate the sand beneath it. The shield bearer got beneath it, a reckless move in Sorin’s opinion, and used some sort of ability that threw it into the air. It only rose up a foot or so, but apparently breaking its contact with the ground was enough to stop it from escaping. The sand returned to normal, and when it landed again, the rest of the team blitzed it down.

  Satisfied, he turned to leave. It had only cost him a minute or two of his day, but he still had places to be and no desire to get into any sort of a fight with the climbers in case they weren’t appreciative of his efforts. They were alive; they could figure things out from here without him.

  “Wait!” the mage called out as he started scrambling toward Sorin’s position at the top of a nearby sand dune.

  Groaning internally, he stopped and glanced back over his shoulder. The mage was jogging his way now, a hip pouch flopping with every step. He was attempting to shift the staff he held from one hand to the other so he could pin it down, but coordination wasn’t one of his strengths, and he ended up almost tripping over the staff instead.

  God above, how did this guy get to Floor 3 in one piece?

  “Thanks for the save,” the mage said, panting as he finally caught up to Sorin. “I really thought I was a goner there.”

  “Not a problem,” Sorin told him. “Glad I was nearby. You guys handled that thing just fine after the first few seconds.”

  “Just you?” the mage asked, peering around Sorin. “Where’s your team?”

  “We got separated. I’m traveling to our meet up location now.”

  “That’s pretty dangerous. Maybe you should travel with us for a while. We’re on our way back to the portal hub.”

  Sorin smiled. “No, thank you. I appreciate the offer, but I’m in a bit of a hurry right now.”

  “Come on. It won’t matter how fast you move if you end up dead. I would not want to try fighting one of these scorpions on my own,” the mage told him. “I think that one might be the biggest one I’ve ever seen! Imagine that thing coming up under your feet and you having to try to escape.”

  “I’ll just have to risk it.”

  “No way. Tell me how I can convince you not to throw your life away. You’ve got to be smart here.”

  Sorin sighed. “Look, I’m flattered that you’re concerned for me, but I really don’t have time. My team’s entry onto this floor was a giant mess, and I need to find them so we can figure out what we’re dealing with.”

  “You don’t know about Floor 3?” the mage asked. “I can fill you in.”

  “You—What?”

  “Sure. We’ve been here for two months now. I know every monster you could hope to find here, where the water is, best hunting grounds, what soulprints are worth the effort to find and whether they sell better here or back down in the city.”

  “And… you would just tell me all of that?” Sorin asked.

  “Yep.” The mage held a hand out. “Name’s Calder. Nice to meet you.”

  “Hi,” Sorin said slowly. He shook the offered hand and said, “Call me Vanir.”

  “Nice to meet you. Come on back. I’ll answer all your questions, and, as soon as we’re done with the harvest, we can get walking.”

  While it was important to find his team as soon as possible, Sorin recognized the opportunity he had in front of him. He knew almost nothing about Floor 3 beyond the one major landmark and the floor guardian’s location, and he certainly wasn’t making another trip back to the Climber’s Union to see what they might have to say, not after the ambush the last time he’d gone there.

  On the other hand, there were risks. A hostile gang of powerful criminals was after him. These six people probably weren’t part of that gang, and even if they were, Sorin could easily defend himself from them. But they might talk about the stranger they’d met out in the desert, and that talk could make its way to the ears of the people looking for him.

  No, the advantage is too great to pass up. I’ll walk with them for a few hours, get what information I can, and then leave them behind by tomorrow. The team can hold their own for one extra day without me.

  I hope.