Ninth Chapter of Royal climber (Patreon)

Unedited

Sorry for posting them in the wrong order, but I though I could pin them in order. Turns out you can only pin one post at a time. Any who, I have one more chapter that I'll post later. I might keep writing on this story, but it will be very sporadic. DM chapters come first, then Sage, and if I have the time, maybe this one?

Chapter 9

Climbing the Tower

It was late in the night when Emily finally moved her stuff into her room. She had, Kat counted, seven large trunks of clothing, eighteen hat boxes, and two large baskets full of shoes. Kat knew noble women had a lot of clothing, but she hadn’t realized just how much the really had. She just shrugged and let the noble woman in every time she came back with her stuff. She took several naps as she waited for her new roommate to arrive.

Turning someone into a squire turned out to be simple. All Kat had to do was hold the normal looking stone as Emily dripped her blood on it. The stone, to Kat’s surprise, dissolved into her hand just like her power coins had when she picked them up. To release Emily from her service, apparently all she had to do was summon the rock again once she was in it and throw it away. The other way was that they could duel for it, and if Emily won, then the stone would be forced from her hand where it would destroy itself. Emily said she heard that it was painless, but Kat had her doubts.

Kat woke up early the next morning and started doing her morning exercises. It was something she hadn’t done since she entered the Tower. It was something her Father had shown her. It was, he had told her when she was very little, never good to let your body go without exercise even if you had a high body attribute. If you were climbing it was fine to skip them, but if you weren’t then you should do it every morning. She had grown up doing them, and in fact couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t done them.

When she was done, Emily was still not awake yet. Knowing it would be a while, Kat went back into her room and took another long bath. She stayed in the tube for a really long time until the water got annoyingly cold then she got out and dressed in her clothes. Once she was dressed again, she put her staff in its strap and slung it over her shoulder. Just like that she was ready.

To her annoyance, Emily was still not awake. Kat knocked on the door until Emily came to the door looking disheveled. “You have a half an hour before we go.” She told her new squire.

“Right.” Emily replied and disappeared behind her door again.

Kat sat on her couch and waited. Right on the dot thirty minutes later, Emily walked out of her room in her climbing gear. Kat smirked at what she saw. The noble woman had two flint locks that had the new design that incorporated mana crystals instead of black powder on her belt. She also wore a thin sword with a basket hilt. It could almost be called a rapier, but the blade was too wide and there was a cutting edge down its side. Lastly, the noble woman carried a small reinforced wooden shield that flickered colors that Kat took to mean it was magical on her left arm.

Clothes wise, the noble woman was dressed in loose brown pants that were being held up by a large belt that held her pistols. Her shirt was a light blue and she had a bandolier full of tiny alchemy bottles on it. The bandolier went from her right shoulder to the left side of her waist where Kat saw it was connected to her belt. She also wore her dull brown cloak that allowed her to hide over her left shoulder like she was a Kings Guard. Lastly, on her back was her big fat backpack.

“Here,...” Kat said, handing over her staff and the strap that went with it. “...hold this.”

The Noble Woman took the staff and slung the strap over her head and the staff ended up next to the fat backpack. Kat watched her adjust the staff so that it didn’t rise too far above her head which would interfere with the cloak if she had to hide. Once she was done, the noble woman raised her arms to the side in a what do you think pose. Kat chuckled and nodded her head.

There was no one waiting on them when Kat opened her door. Kat guessed that the word had gotten out that her squire position had been taken. Kat led the way to the gate while Emily followed her, her cloak still shifted to her side. Kat stepped up onto the pedicle first then looked back at the overburdened looking noble woman.

“Ready?” She asked her new squire/

“Oh, yes.” The noble woman said, excidily. Kat stepped into the blue gate and asked the Tower to send her to the tenth floor.

Kat found herself on a metal island that was moving. The Wind was blowing roughly from behind her, making her cool despite the hot sun. She looked down at her feet and frowned at how unstable she felt. Looking back up she saw the metal island was oddly very long, maybe two to three hundred yards in length, but it was very skinny. At a guess, she would say it was only a hundred or so feet wide. She was standing on a raised portion of the island looking down. In the distance there was some kind of fort that was roughly three stories high and had an unusually thick flag pole. The flag it was flying was black and had white things on it.

Between her and the fort was a bunch of tall colorful metal rectangles. They were colored in all sorts of colors from orange to light blue, but they were all a bit rusted. Some of them were more rusted than the others. The rectangles were stacked on each other three high, creating a maze in front of the fort. She absently traced the path she needed to reach the fort.

Without turning around she knew Emily was standing behind her and to her left. She turned around anyway, and looked to where she knew Emily was standing, but all she saw was an odd looking metal railing and the sea which now that she was looking at it seemed to be moving away from the island.

“I’m here.” Emily’s voice came out of nowhere calming Kat’s nerves. Nodding her head to let the noble woman understand, Kat turned back around to look out at the sea on either side of her. It took her a few seconds, but it clicked that the sea wasn’t moving, the island was. In fact, it wasn’t an island at all. She realized that she was standing on some kind of metal ship like an airship, but on the water instead.

Kat didn’t bother turning her sense of smell on, because the wind was blowing from the wrong direction. Instead she started walking towards the colored metal rectangles in an attempt to get closer to the fort or bridge now that she knew it was a ship. Still, she admitted to herself, it might be a fort of some kind. She didn’t know enough to prove otherwise. At least not yet.

She got about ten feet from them when three rat looking people stepped out from between two stacked rectangles that she had seemed to be the fastest way to the fort. The rats were dressed in people's clothing, or at least the top half of them were. One was wearing a red jacket and had a tricorn hat on. His jacket, thankfully, covered most of his privates except when he took a step forward. He was also carrying a saber with a yellow hilt that covered his fingers. On his waist, sticking out of a wide belt, she noted, was a knife with a black and yellow handle.

The second one who walked side by side to the first one wore a red bandana covering his head instead of a hat. His coat was blue and he also carried a saber like the first one. The third one stood slightly behind the other two. He wore a black tunic with a poorly painted skull; that had crossed bones behind it. What he was carrying scared Kat the most. He was carrying a musket rifle. It was currently pointing upwards, but even as she watched he dropped it to point towards her.

Kat reacted. She threw out two musket balls at the one with the gun. One hit him, but the other hit the one with the bandana on his head. She yanked both ribbons as the one with the gun fired. Kat dodged to the right away from where she knew Emily was standing. As she did, she saw the other two rats run at her. Then she landed on her shoulder and rolled to her feet. She mentally checked herself, but felt unhurt. Her vitality remained unchanged.

Stopping where she was, she took in what was happening in front of her. The two rats were running right at her waving their swords in the air, very amateurish. The one with the gun was trying his best to load his weapon with black powder but she noted that he seemed unfamily with how to do it. He was spilling a lot of it on the ground.

She only had time for a quick glance before the two rats were on her. They were moving slowly compared to her, and she easily moved out of their way. Dropping the ribbons in her hand, she grabbed the knife from the first rat. She used it to stab the rat in the side of his chest as she stepped past him.. She kept going, and towards the one with the gun. He looked up, with fear plainly on his face as he rushed to reload his gun. In his panic, he dropped a bunch of musket balls before he finally got one into the barrel of his gun. Before he could do anything else she was on him.

Leading with her foot, she turned sideways and kicked the gun just in front of the trigger. It sent the gun flying over the rats shoulder. It stood there looking at her for a split second before she burned her borrowed knife into its eye right to the hilt. Still moving, she stepped past it and grabbed the fallen gun. Not trusting the rat to properly load it, she picked it up by the barrel and spun to find both of the other two rats behind her.

She smashed the butt of the rifle across the rat she had stolen the knife from, face. It went down without a sound as the second one with the red bandanna swung his saber at Kat’s head. Ducking below the saber, she reached out and grabbed it by the throat sending a very overcharged Musket ball through her hand and into his neck. His neck exploded sending gore all over Kat as its head fell to the ground followed by the rest of his body.

Still moving, Kat spun around to find the last rat on the ground not moving. Just to be sure she sent a musket ball of vitality at it, and frowned when she got back a connection. She yanked on the ribbon, as she stood over him. He never moved as the moments fled and her connection ended with his death. Right after his death she felt the burn in her muscles that she recognized as an increase in her strength.

Her strength increase didn’t last all that long which made her frown. She didn’t understand why. She had raised her vitality nearly half of what it had been. She had assumed that the more vitality she had the more she could steal from her enemies, but it didn’t seem that simple now. The only thing she could think of was that the rats were that strong. She mentally shrugged and turned to make sure Emily was ok.

“That was amazing.” An invisible Emily said from where Kat knew she was standing. “You moved so fast….”

Kat nodded relieved to find the noble woman fine. “Stay at least twenty feet behind me. If you get hurt, yell out, I can heal you if it's needed.” She told the other woman before turning around and entering the metal box maze.

Kat spent the rest of the day moving through the maze killing rats dressed up in people clothing. They always came in threes and always had two with some kind of sword and one with a gun. About halfway through the day, and after killing about eight or so sets of rats, she stopped feeling the burn that foretold her increase in strength. She wondered about it, but was too busy to really think about it all that long.

As night fell, Emily spoke for the first time since they entered the maze. “Do you wish to stop for a meal? It won’t be much longer until we are out of this maze.”

“No, I’m fine.” Kat replied then remembered that Emily didn’t have the vitality she did to stave off hunger. “We can stop if you want to eat or rest.”

“I’m fine.” The noble woman returned. “I’ve been eating as we walked, and I have enough vitality in my jewelry that I won’t need to rest for a while.”

“That’s fine, just tell me when you are ready to take a break.” Kat told her then remembered just how much the other woman didn’t know of her abilities she spoke again. “Just so you know, that food is for you. I don’t have to eat, and I very rarely sleep.”

The noble woman was quiet for a few seconds then she spoke again. “Just how much vitality do you have in those clothes that you are able to forswear food and sleep?”

“None.” Kat replied and started walking again. The night fell, but a moon rose and shine some light down on them. Kat ignored the light and relied on her stolen night vision as they left the maze. She didn’t see any way to enter the fort from where she was, so she circled around it until she found a staircase that led all the way up to the top.

“Stay here until I reach the top.” Kat said before starting to climb upwards. She got about six or so steps before a trio of rats at the top of the stairs started down towards her. She was grateful that the stairs weren't bigger as the rats could only charge her one at a time. She threw two musket balls of vitality at the first rat and it died before it could get half way down the stairs. It also slowed the second rat for a bit as it struggled to step over his dead companion. It died a few steps from Kat from her vitality drain.

That left the one with the gun who was still standing at the top of the stairs. Now that his companions weren’t in the way, he fired his gun. Kat ducked to the right and felt something red hot flash past her hair. Since she felt no pain she assumed she hadn’t been hit. Cursing at the close call, she ran up the stairs trying to reach the rat before it got another shot off.

She was right in front of it when the rat dropped the barrel of the gun and fired. Kat felt something very hot hit her chest, and agonizing pain soon followed. Screaming in both pain and rage, Kat grabbed the gun from the rat. Not bothering to lift the rifle, she slammed the butt of the rifle into the rat's face. It went down, but Kat was still too angry to stop. Readjusting her grip on the barrel she slammed the butt down again and again until there was nothing left of the rat’s face but mush.

“I have a healing potion.” Emily’s voice came from behind her. “Here.”

Kat ignored the now visible noble woman and checked her vitality. It had gone down to a quarter of being full, but she felt no pain. Wiggling her shoulders, she found them back to normal. She opened her coat and looked in. She didn’t see any hole in her chest, nor did she see any holes in her Tower given white shirt. They had both healed before she could check. The inside of her coat was still bloody though. She knew from past experience that it would take a while for the self cleaning in her coat to kick in.

“I'm fine.” Kat told Emily and showed the Noble woman her chest and it’s lack of any wounds.

“What kind of skills do you have?” Emily asked, sounding like she was in awe.

Channeling her Uncle, Kat replied, “Immortality.”

“Really?” Emily asked in a high pitched voice.

“No.” Kat said, chuckling before kicking the dead rat off the stairs. It fell to the deck of the ship with a wet thump. “You know, you are very gullible for a noble.”

“I'm really not.” Emily replied, sweeping her cloak over herself again.

“You thought I was immortal.” Kat countered.

“You got shot nearly point blank in the chest, and you have no wounds. In your own words, you don't need food or rest. Plus, the Tower has given you the title of royal on your first ten set. I’ve seen what other royals can do. An immortality skill would not be out of the question.” Emily replied.

“Fair enough.” Kat replied as she continued on. “Can I ask you something? You seem to be surprised when I told the Duke what ten set I was on. He didn’t. I was just trying to understand why.”

“The Dukes old. He’s been to an academy in the old world where they train people to climb Towers. I’ve heard that they have a high mortality rate in the Towers, but once every century or so they produce someone like you.” Emily replied. “Or rather someone similar to you. I’m not sure if they ever produced anyone who had become a royal in their first ten set, but who knows, it might have happened years ago.”

The conversation ended as a squad of rats appeared and Kat moved in to fight them. It didn’t take long and she was off looking for a door. She found an odd looking metal door on the other side of the top of the fort. It had a wheel that she had to spin to open it. The door was oval instead of like a normal rectangle door, but once she was able to open it it led her deeper inside.

The odd door led her to a room with five rats in it. She backed out of the door and fought them off one by one as they were bottle necked at the doors entrance. Once they were all dead, she walked inside to what she assumed an airship’s bridge looked like. The front and sides of the bridge were covered in windows. It had a huge steering wheel in the center of the room, and a few contraptions that were littered all around the room that she assumed were navigational devices.

There was a door by where she had entered. It was another weird oval door with a wheel that you had to turn to open it. Just past the door was a short, but dark hallway. Kat had no trouble with the darkness as her stolen night vision allowed her to see like her normal vision did except that it was all in shades of grey and white. Emily didn’t say anything, but Kat could feel her following from behind. She just assumed that the noble woman had some kind of triket that allowed her to see in the dark.

After fighting off five more rats, Kat came to another door which led downwards to another floor where she had to clear out the clothing wearing rats to find the next ladder downwards. This happened several times until Kat was sure she was at the bottom of the ship but the corridors didn’t end there. She had to wander up and down the inside of the ship killing more and more rats as the time went on.

Finally, after what felt like days, Emily asked for a rest. Kat stood guard while the noble woman slept for a few hours. While she rested they were attacked by ten rats. Kat was able to head them off at the entrance of the floor they were on and kill them before they woke Emily up. A few hours later they continued on their journey.

It was at the front of the ship deep in its bowls that they finally found the exit to the floor. It was near what looked like the anchor chain of the ship. Kat had to wade through thirty rats, and was hit several times before she cleared the final room. It was a little rough, but her vitality never dropped below half even when she took a musket ball to her head. It made her dizzy for a second or two, but after that she was back fighting.

“The muskets are worthless, but I’ve been collecting the swords. They’re not worth much, but we can get a few notes from them.” Emily said as Kat rested after the fight. “If you escort me back, I can return to the palace and drop them off in your room. You don’t need to leave, just wait for me to return.”

“Be honest. Is it worth it?” Kat asked from where she was sitting on the floor.

“Maybe two pence per sword, and we can collect the ones that I couldn’t hold on to.” Emily said in a slightly higher tone of voice. “It would take some time, but we can make a few notes from it. If it was me, I would dump the swords. They’re not worth the time or effort. While we can make some money it would take days to collect them all, and transfer them to the city. It’s not worth it unless this is as far as we climb for now.”

“Dump the swords.” Kat said not wanting to waste the time to collect all the swords between them and the entrance gate. She had a huge stack of notes already stashed in her room, she didn’t think she would need much more for now. At least as long as she was able to clear floors without buying crafted items. So far she didn’t think she needed to even if that last fight had been a hard one, her life hadn’t really been in jeopardy.

Her opinion didn’t change on the next floor or any of the floors climbed her second ten set. In fact, sitting in the queen’s room of a huge ant colony she had to fight through in the nineteenth floor she was still sure. The fight with the queen had been a hard one, but in the end all she had to do was dodge the ant queen's legs and poison spit before she was able to suck off all of its vitality.

She was waiting on Emily who had been ferrying the ant eggs to the city. Since this was the nineteenth floor, she was able to go back to the city. Because she was Kat’s squire, she had to return to the floor where she was at. This meant that the noble woman could make several trips back and forth until all the eggs were gone. The eggs were huge, the size of Kat’s head, and even with a now empty backpack, it took Emily several trips to get all two hundred and eight of them to the city. Now Kat was trying to figure out a way to tell Emily that she wanted to keep going. The climb hadn’t been that hard, but at her best estimate it had taken them at least a month to do. She knew that the floors only got longer and longer the higher one traveled.

“We just made one hundred pounds off the eggs alone. A lot of wealthy people are going to be eating ant eggs in the future.” Emily said as she appeared through the blue gate. “That doesn’t include the breastplate nor that weird hat.In total we are looking at around another hundred pounds sterling. Maybe if they sell really well, twice that. We’ll see when the auction is finished.”

Kat thought about reminding the noble woman that technically she wasn’t entitled to any of that, but mentally shrugged. The noble woman turned out to be good company, and kept her sane during some of the more annoying floors, like the puzzle floor when Kat had no idea how to solve it. It took the noble woman all of an hour to figure it out. Kat wouldn't even know where to start if the noble woman hadn’t pointed out the tiny engravings among the cracks in the wall. Kat now realized that puzzle floors were her weakness. She would take a floor that all she had to do was kill things over puzzle floors.

“I want to continue.” Kat said, going with getting it out into the opening.

“Oh, thank the maker.” Emily said, sounding relieved. “I thought I was going to have to convince you to keep going.”

“That was easier than I thought it would be.” Kat said, smiling as she got up.

“Onward and upward.” Emily said, waving her hand at the gate. It took Kat a second to realise that she needed to go first. Emily was only able to enter the next floor with her. As a Tower granted peasant she could only enter the next ten set with at least a twenty person crew. Just like Tower granted commoners couldn’t enter their next ten set without at least their ten person crews and Lords without their five man crews. It was one of the few Tower rules written in stone.

It wasn’t just the floors that ended with zeros either. You had to enter the next floor after, the floors that ended with one, that with the right amount as well so you couldn’t lose anyone in the tens or you had to turn back. You could get a replacement, but then you would have to start the floor over again where you would be right back where you started. The good news was as long as someone from your crew was still on the floor you could do what Emily had done and ferry stuff back and forth to the city. The difference was that since Emily was a squire she could do that on the floors ending in nine as well whereas everyone else would be stuck in the city unable to return.

Kat stepped through the blue gate and asked the tower to place her on the next floor. After spending time between floor the tower gave her the rewards from clearing the nineteenth floor and a power coin for killing the boss so fast and without getting injured. It was her third power coin for the ten set. Kat thanked the Tower and asked for her reward to be placed in her vitality just like all the other rewards she had gotten so far.

Right after she felt her vitality grow she found herself standing in front of a huge city with a castle in the middle. She had her stolen sense of smell on so she immediately smelled rotting meat. Oddly enough, it didn’t smell bad. It just smelled like food.  Kat knew Emily arrived as she heard the noble woman vomit behind her.

“Undead.” Emily muttered between bouts of vomit.

Kat frowned in concern. This was the first time she faced the undead, and she wasn’t sure if she could suck vitality from something that was already dead. Worse, could her first talent steal from something that was already dead. It made Kat very worried as she saw the first rotting corpse stumble towards her.

Hoping for the best, she threw a musket of vitality at the wretch. To both her relief and surprise a connection was formed almost immediately and a turrent of vitality rushed through the ribbon between her and the corpse. Almost immediately the rotting corpse dropped lifelessly to the ground. Not a second later, Kat felt something she only felt when she got her rewards for clearing a floor or using a power coin. Her vitality stretched. It was the first time her first skill stole vitality from something she had killed. What was even better both her skills worked against the undead.

“Oh, we are staying on this floor until all the undead are dead.” She told her squire who was still recovering from her vomiting episodes.

Kat went through the city killing every undead she found. Both the walking corpses and the walking, and armed, skeletons gave her a boost of vitality. The black smoky that appeared randomly, gave her a boost in her magic which had been lagging behind her other attributes. She went everywhere looking for the undead. She broke into old abandoned homes, and even down the nasty sewer looking for them.

At first Emily didn’t act thrilled, but after the first time Kat killed a purple glowing skeleton without damaging its bones she went crazy. “Do you know how much we can get for a fully entacked skeleton that has magic infused in each and everyone of its bones?”

“No.” Kat replied looking down at the still glowing skeleton that had been carrying a huge long sword. It had been an odd sight seeing the skeleton which was shorter than her carrying something like that so easily. It died to her vitality musket, if one could call it that if one were already dead, as all the other undead did. Very fast.

“I don’t know either, but it has to be a lot.” Emily said excitedly. “Go find more of them, I’ll collect this one.”

Kat looked at her squire, but the noble woman was too busy snatching up the bones. With a smile on her face she went off to find more undead. It didn’t matter to her what kind since she was going to kill all of them before she left this floor. What made her ecstatic was that no matter how many undead she killed she still got their vitality. The ghosts on the other hand stopped giving her upgrades to her magic after the first week.

It was hard to tell how long they were on the floor, but Emily resorted to buying a cart so that she could collect all the bones. It was only after Kat spent four days looking for undead after completely circling the city several times and still not being able to find any, she knew it was time to assault the castle. If she had to guess, they had spent months killing the undead. Her vitality stomach had grown over five times its size when she started the floor. Even knowing she was being greedy, she still wished to stumble across a part of the city she had somehow missed just so she could kill more.

After they found their way into the castle through a sewer tunnel, Kat encountered a bunch of skeletons and ghosts in a room below the castle. It was there that she learned that she could drain the vitality from more than one target, now. She had just entered the room from the sewer below when the walls collapsed releasing too many skeletons for her to count. What made it worse was not long after that, ghosts started to drop in from the ceiling.

It was a trap that would have killed many crews no matter what tower given station they had. Even Kat had problems until she panicked and started tossing out musket balls of vitality at every target she saw. Normally one of the ribbons would disappear as soon as she formed a musket ball of vitality, but they didn’t this time. They stayed in place draining the undead as they tried to overwhelm her. After she realized what she could do, the undead died by the dozens.

When the last skeleton died, the floor was covered in knee deep green grass from all the vitality Kat had to dump to prevent from being overfull. Emily was oddly quiet as she went about collecting the bones. Kat couldn’t stop herself from laughing at what she had done. She didn’t know why she was laughing. Maybe it was because she survived when she should have died or maybe it was all that vitality that had flowed through her. Either way it took her a few minutes to calm down.

It took six trips, even with Emily's cart, going back and forth to the blue gate that led back to the city to ferry all the bones to the palace. Kat stayed on the floor while Emily dropped off the undamage purple glowing bones. Once the last of the bones were gone, Kat led the way deeper into the castle. They found more undead both the walking corpses and the skeleton with the occasional ghost appearing out of the walls or ceiling along the way. There wasn’t another avalanche of undead like the room by the sewer, so it wasn’t too hard to fight through.

After making two more trips to ferry the bones, they finally found the exit which was being guarded by a large skeleton. He fell just like all the rest. What made him different was the magic jewelry he had on. He had a golden circlet around his skull that increased Kat’s magic by quite a bit when she put it on. He also wore a ring on his boney toe. It also increased her magic when she tried it on. Not needing her magic attribute increased all that much, Kat decided to give both to Emily.

“You sure?” Emily asked, putting the circlet one.

“Oh, yes your majesty.” Kat said curtsying to her friend.

“Good,” Emily said, looking down her nose like she was the queen. “We are pleased. Now, if you would, the royal shoe will not come off on it’s own.” The noble woman said, wiggling her foot. Laughing, Kat took her friend's shoe off, but she drew the line at putting the ring on her toe. Emily did it with a lot of huffing and royal looks. It made Kat laugh even harder.

With her now huge vitality stomach, they breezed through the rest of the ten set with Kat easily killing everything in her path. While there wasn't any undead anymore left to fight, there were a lot of other creatures to fight. Kat also gained better hearing from an odd looking lizard with patches of fur between it’s scales on the twenty-fourth floor.

She also gained sharper eyesight from the huge birds on the twenty-seventh floor. It flew around them, and instead of seeking shelter in a small forest, which would have delayed them, Kat simply killed it. The monster on the twenty-ninth floor was a huge gray monster with a huge wide mouth and a fat body. It was surprisingly fast for its size, but Kat’s grace gave her far more speed than the monster could counter. That and all the muskets of vitality she was able hit it with ended the fight in a matter of minutes.

Emily took a few days of rest in the city after defeating the huge monster. While she did that, Kat wandered the twenty-ninth floor. She encountered a few smaller creatures that she ended up skilling for their grace. She even found a chest that had a magical knife that was enchanted to be extra sharp and never need sharpening. Kat replaced it with the knife she had taken from the rats who wore clothing. When Emily returned they continued on their journey.

Kat got five power coins for those floors. She got two for the twentieth floor. One for beating the boss fast and without getting injured, and the second for killing all the undead on the floor. She was happy to learn that she got them all, and didn’t lose out on gaining more vitality. She got the third for killing the bird on the twenty-seventh floor. The fourth coin she got she wished she could give it to Emly because it was she who could read the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics that gave them a step by step plan to beat the puzzle on the twenty-sixth floor. The last coin was for killing the big gray monster on the twenty-ninth floor fast and without injury.

After asking the Tower to add to her vitality, she found herself on the thirtieth floor, and for the next nine floors after it ,she found herself in a swamp. It wasn’t a bunch of swamps. It was a single swamp where they were moved from one area to another. The ten set took what seemed like forever to clear.

It was hard to tell the time as there was no sun. There was some diffused light from a fog above them that descended a few times on different floors. It was also very hot and humid all the time. It was fine for Kat for the first three floors then her coat lost its enchantment. One day it was fine, the next it started to fall apart. She had to abandon it and just wear her Tower given white clothes. She also lost a boot in some very deep mud and couldn’t find it after searching for over an hour. Her Tower given shoe stayed on her foot through all the mud, so she tossed her other crafted boot in favor of the Tower given one.

The place was filled with poisonous everything from snakes to bugs to even small fish with poisonous teeth. It was here that Kat learned how to heal. She didn’t need to heal herself once with her huge vitality, but Emily needed almost constant healing. She got poisoned almost on a daily basis. If it wasn’t a bug bite or her brushing up against a poisonous plant then it was the very air which was filled with some kind of deadly swamp gas.

On top of that their food spoiled on the Thirty-second floor. Kat learned how to give Emily a seed of Vitality for her to live off. It helped keep the noble woman fed as well as gave Kat time when the noble woman got poisoned by something fast acting to reach and heal her. She didn’t mean for the seed to work like that, but she was glad she did when a snake bit the noble woman and drained most of her vitality in seconds. The seed was completely gone even though Kat had placed it inside her chest hours before.

Even the boss on floor Thirty-nine was annoying. IT was a giant bog monster. Kat could suck the vitality out of it easily, but when she had to dump the vitality out of her body to keep from being overfilled, the damn monster healed itself. The Monster had its lair on a small island, so there was no room to avoid it there. It was only after she started swimming in snake infested waters around the island that she was able to start to kill it.

Emily was very hesitant to keep going. She said she needed time away from the floors. When Kat asked her how long, Emily told her at least a week. Kat agreed, so after going to the fortieth floor, Emily left for a week. Kat only got four power coins despite being on the floor for ages and killing all sorts of creatures. It was by far the worst ten sets Kat had been in since she entered the Tower. Even she thought about stopping her climb, but wanted to see what the next floor looked like. She was glad she stayed.

The fortieth floor was a single long canyon that had two slick rock walls and a small stream flowing down it . It was also full of three different kinds of giant black scorpions. Each kind had different colored tails. The largest one had a red tail, the middle sized one had a clear yellowish tail, and the smallest one had a green tail. They also spitted different fluids out of their tails. The red one spit what she assumed was related to magma somehow. It might have been some kind of special fire liquid that she couldn’t tell the difference between fire water and what amounted to basically be lava. The clear yellowish one spitted acid that ate deeply into the rocks around her, and green tailed ones spit liquid that gave off clouds of poisonous gasses. It was the last one that gave her the most problems as it ate through her vitality fast.

Still, she found the exit on the fourth day, but since Emily wasn’t there she kept on going down the canyon killing scorpions. Her skill stole grace from them so it wasn’t a waste. Emily returned on the eighth day, and threw a fit when she saw all the scorpions. They spent the next four days going back and cutting off the tails of all the scorpions and placing them in Emily’s cart to be ferried back to Massachuttes city. They only stopped when the tails they found were rotten.

Starting with the forty-fourth floor things got weird. The Forty-fourth floor had them walking up a mountain along a wide path. They were attacked by a rock monster that turned out to be a rock elemental. It ran the moment Kat started creating her musket balls of vitality. One moment there was a human shaped monster made up of rocks then the next there was just a pile of rocks. Kat threw her musket ball of vitality anyway, but it didn’t connect with anything. It just faded away. No other monster attacked them and about an hour later they found the exit to the floor without seeing or being attacked by anything else.

The next floor was a desert with fist size rocks everywhere. A tornado came out of nowhere and started throwing stones at them. It vanished as soon as Kat started using her second skill. Then it was a six hour walk to the exit without any troubles afterward. The floor after that was a rock in the middle of the ocean with nothing in sight but water. As soon as they appeared, Kat started building her musket ball of vitality. They were never attacked. Thirty minutes later the exit appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the rock.

The following floor Kat found herself in a burning forest. A snake made out of fire appeared out of one of the burning trees, but puffed away as soon as Kat used her second skill. Finding the exit was the hardest thing they had to do on that floor, but thankfully that fire didn’t give off any smoke, nor did it seem to burn the trees around them even though it was on fire. Kat did feel the heat but it was unbearable. The exit turned out to be behind them. They had to backtrack after walking straight for two days. Kat blamed Emily who told her that the exit had to be in front of them. She took great delight in teasing the other woman when they found the exit four days later.

It was the forty-ninth floor that Kat knew she needed a break. They appeared in a swamp once more. Unlike the mostly water with a bunch of islands swamp of the floors in the thirties, this was mostly a mud swamp with small thin rotting trees. Some of the rotting trees were small enough to hide in the mud, and sharp enough to piece their, most Kat’s, feet.

The big monster of the floor was a quad elemental monster who didn’t run away like the other elementals did. It took place in a thankfully hard packed clearing in between all a mostly circular forest of rotting trees. For the most part Kat had fun fighting the elemental. The only downside was for the first time Emily got hurt several times during the fight. The first time was to a stray bolder that broke the noble woman’s arm. Kat healed her with a tiny musket ball of vitality which she sent vitality down the ribbon instead of draining it. The second and third time Emily got caught by some small fire balls. It was when the elemental exploded, and Emily wasn’t the only one to get injured, but she didn’t have Kat’s enormous store of vitality.

Kat found herself leaning back to back against Emily after killing the elemental. She was left with a large dull blue sapphire that Emily had said was the elemental’s heart. According to Emily, the magi used it to enhance their spell power. Even though Emily told her it was worth thousands of notes, Kat still gave it to her. It was her way of apologizing to her for ending up in yet another swamp.

It also allowed the noble woman to finally use her skill. She was currently shooting small puffs of flames up into the air. They were flying about a foot from her hand before fading away, and it was just a puff of fire, and not the fireball that made the Magi famous. Still, Emily didn’t seem, at least to Kat, to be put off by it. She just seemed tired.

“So are we done for now?” Emily asked from behind Kat. She let the last fire puff fade away to nothing.

“We're done.” Kat confirmed. “I need a holiday.”

“I don’t think you are going to get it.” Emily replied. “As soon as you walk into the city the Duke is going to be all over you. Did you know it’s been two years since you last entered the city?”

“Two years?” Kat asked, shocked.

“We spent more than a year in that accursed swamp climbing the floors.” Emily said, leaning back into Kat. “I just want to thank you. For saving my life so many times that I can’t even begin to count. You were always there, even when you would have gone and left me behind, you didn’t. You never once complained as you dragged me kicking and screaming up the Tower. I just want you to know that I will always be here for you. I owe you everything. If I was a man, I would be proud to marry and carry your children”

“That’s nice.” Kat said with her eyes closed.

“That’s nice?” Emily said, turning around forcing Kat to hold herself up. “I tell you I would marry you if you were a man, and all you have to say is, that’s nice? Where is my response? You are supposed to say that if I was a man you would marry me as well. That is generally how it goes.”

“You are too needy and stuck up for my taste.” Kat said, keeping her eyes closed. “I like my men to be quieter, and less argumentative. Maybe one who can hit what they are aiming at when they shoot their pistols.”

“I too can hit what I shoot at.” Emily said in mock anger.

“Sometimes.” Corrected Kat.

“Sometimes.” Emily agreed.

“Are you ready to go home?” Kat asked, opening her eyes and looking at her friend over her shoulder.

“By the Maker, yes.” Emily said with feeling. Not waiting on Kat, she quickly stood up.

“After you.” The noble woman said, as Kat stood up. Chuckling, Kat walked into the waiting blue gate.