The Fractured Tower

Samael regarded Sorin coldly. He had expected his fellow climber to be rational about this. There was no point in trying to deceive the man, but he’d clearly laid out the only ways their time in the proving ground could end. Sorin was still far too weak to challenge Samael. His only hope of survival was to find a way to make himself useful to Samael’s future plans.

Clearly, I’ve overestimated his intelligence if this is how he behaves. I’ll take this as a clear sign that he was never going to be useful to me.

Even if Samael had a solid use for Sorin already defined, it wouldn’t trump whatever Samael might find here. He’d stagnated for too long, trapped at rank 24. There were no more Antechambers, no more rewards from the tower, and what he already had wasn’t enough. He couldn’t climb higher, and he couldn’t leave the tower.

But even though Sorin was unwilling to work for Samael, he could still be manipulated. Hanging all his hopes on the tower was a foolish idea, and that was being generous. It was never good to have one single path to victory.

I won’t kill him, Samael decided as he drew his own sword. It was identical in design, but showed the green of the tower he’d already conquered as opposed to Sorin’s blue. I’ll just leave him wounded enough that he struggles to survive the proving ground.

There existed the possibility that Sorin would find some way to interfere if Samael kept him nearby, and that was intolerable. It was better to risk Sorin falling to the tower’s monsters. The fine line between too injured to cause problems and too injured to defend himself was there somewhere, and Samael was confident he could find it.

“I had thought you would see reason,” Samael said. “I see now that was a mistake.”

“The mistake was in thinking that I’d trust a man who engages in casual murder to advance his agenda. Maybe don’t try to kill my entire team in front of me, then turn around and ask me to help you out the next second.”

Disgust curled up within Samael. Oh, he’s one of those types.

“I simply cannot fathom how you could possibly have reached the top of your own tower. Tell me, does the blue tower end at Floor 20, because I know a real climber who reached the end would have had that kind of sentimental drivel burned out of them long before they got there.”

There was nothing left to say after that. Samael was not inclined to taunt his foes, not unless he thought it would do any good. The verbal probing strikes he’d delivered to Sorin hadn’t shaken the man, and thus, there was no point in continuing. The music of steel on steel would talk for them.

Sorin was good; there was no denying that. If they’d been on the same level, Samael might not have been able to win with muscle alone. Every strike was flawless. Every attack was followed by another one, a blistering combination that would have overwhelmed a real rank 10 in seconds. Sorin’s build was designed to support his prodigious skill, and it was easy to see how he’d defeated so many climbers of higher ranks than his own.

But Samael was not some amateur rank 10 who didn’t know how to properly wield his own power. He wasn’t even a rank 24 like he appeared to be, though admittedly his latest skirmishes with the void had sanded down the edges of his soul to a painful finish that prevented him from taking advantage of the full breadth of his abilities.

He met Sorin’s every strike with a counter, deflecting it and interrupting the flow of the blue tower’s champion. To his credit, Sorin took that counter-force in stride so well that a casual observer—one who could keep up with their speed, anyway—would think he’d planned it that way. Like two dancers playing the parts they’d choreographed, Samael and Sorin dueled under the afternoon sun.

They broke apart, perhaps five seconds and exactly thirty-two exchanges later. Neither had scored a hit on the other, though Samael hadn’t been particularly inclined to try. Wounding an enemy so precisely that they couldn’t interfere in the near future without leaving them as easy prey for the tower was no easy feat. Samael needed to know exactly how capable Sorin was before he struck the crippling blow.

He had the measure of the man’s physical prowess. Now he needed to see his magic and, more importantly, how well he could heal himself. For his plan to work, it would be best to drain Sorin of almost all his anima. It was a tricky little puzzle, like performing surgery on a man who hadn’t been sedated and was fighting for all he was worth.

Show me the next part, Samael thought, his eyes weighing and measuring. Show me where to cut and how deep to press the scalpel.

* * *

Even as obviously wounded as Samael was, he’d easily held his own against Sorin’s opening move. He’d made it look effortless, too. Sorin had fought better, but not at such a low rank. He could outduel one of those wind-singer salamanders back on Floor 46.

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Neither of them had resorted to tapping into their anima reserves yet, Sorin because he didn’t want to start a battle of attrition he knew he couldn’t win, and Samael because… Well, Sorin wasn’t entirely sure why, but there was definitely a reason. Figuring that out might just be the key to surviving, but he didn’t have a lot of time to puzzle it over.

The savanna stirred around him, perhaps attracted to the noise of their fight. Monsters that had been content to exist on the edge of Sorin’s perception were suddenly alert and looking his way. Some of them had started to move, and there were probably seconds at best before the tower’s monsters joined in the fray.

I know you can control them. You already showed me that once. Send these ones in to help me, Sorin told the tower. I’m not strong enough to beat him on my own, but I’m your investment. Samael will abandon you the first chance he gets. If you want that void cleared away, help me survive this.

The tower, as always, didn’t respond, but Sorin would have his answer soon enough. It was stupid to think the monsters would behave like anything but monsters. They’d just attack both men. Sorin wasn’t expecting anything else, not really.

He darted back in, sword leading as he furiously tried to break through Samael’s defenses. The raw power and speed his soulprints had given him made him superhumanly fast even without him actively accessing his anima, but it wasn’t enough. Most of his soulprints were rank D, with a few of the less important ones still sitting at E. Force Weaver was his only C-rank ability, and he needed to hold onto that for the opportune moment.

Samael, by contrast, appeared to be operating on at least a partial set of C-rank abilities. Certainly, his strength and agility were augmented far beyond base level. Measuring solely by terms of raw power, he was better than Sorin. There was a skill gap there, but it was too small to make up the difference.

Sorin’s fear was that when the battle inevitably shifted to magic, Samael would reveal how far he outclassed Sorin. Even weakened, his reserves were deeper, his options broader. This simply wasn’t a fight Sorin was ready to have, and he’d thought he’d stayed far enough out of the public eye to avoid drawing Samael to him.

The key was what had done it. Before the key, he simply hadn’t warranted Samael’s personal attention. Now, though, Samael was here, and since he was already out on an errand, there was no reason not to take care of Sorin at the same time.

The first of the monsters reached them, some sort of bug swarm that descended on them like a cloud of gnats. Sorin free cast a weak barrier, E-rank and something most monsters could overcome without even realizing it was there. It wouldn’t stop any single big attack, but it could hold back a thousand bug bites.

A similar barrier appeared around Samael. No, not similar, Sorin realized. It’s identical to mine. Is he mocking me? That seems out of character for him.

Their fight continued, the bugs ignored. There weren’t enough to create a visual barrier that either side could take advantage of, and thus they weren’t a factor. Back and forth, they pressed each other. One second, Sorin had Samael backpedaling to get outside the thrust range of Sorin’s blade. The next, he’d push right back in, using his own weapon to knock Sorin’s aside and complete a deadly lunge.

Iron Bulwark activated twice in quick succession, the reflexive portion of the soulprint creating additional layers of defense to protect him from Samael’s strikes. The anima drain wasn’t negligible, either. If Sorin let him, Samael would drain him dry without ever actually drawing a single drop of blood. That was still better than taking the hits, though, so Sorin couldn’t turn it off.

The measuring look on Samael’s face sharpened when Iron Bulwark triggered. He’d realized exactly what the soulprint meant, that it gave him a lever to press against Sorin’s reservoir. His swordwork became more aggressive, more willing to trade a blow for a blow. When Sorin finally made contact for the first time, he had no cause to celebrate. His sword left a shallow slice in Samael’s tunic. The skin beneath it was unmarred.

Some sort of ground rodent appeared at the edge of Living Earth’s range. It was moving quickly enough that there had to be magic propelling it along, and even as it rushed toward the fight, a few dozen more came flowing in its wake.

Sorin shifted his strategy, swinging to the left even though the rhythm of the fight called for him to go right. He could only hope Samael would think he was making a mistake and take the bait. The man’s body language was so absent that it was impossible to say for sure. Maybe he fell for it. Maybe he saw through the ruse and simply didn’t care. The end result was the same, either way.

The rodents erupted from the dirt, the whole pack of them leaping up at Samael’s back in a furry, dust-caked wave. At the same time, Sorin surged forward, both to lock Samael’s attention on him and to drive him backward into the monsters.

Samael’s lips twitched, just once. That was all the tell Sorin got, but it was enough that he frantically pushed anima into Speed Burst. That was the only reason he saw Samael zip away, the man flowing like water off to one side and leaving Sorin with twenty sets of gnashing teeth coming straight for his face.

Samael was thirty feet away in a blink, his own version of Speed Burst far, far faster than Sorin could hope to match. He merely stood there and watched, his sword held casually at his side as he waited to see what Sorin would do.

Speed Burst gave Sorin the time he needed to respond. Still Winter might have worked two seconds earlier, but now it was too late. With the triple requirements of halting incoming mass, hitting multiple targets, and being castable in under a third of a second, he only had one choice. Much as he hated to reveal it without even getting a chance to use it on Samael, Sorin reached for Force Weaver.

And then the rodents parted around him without ever touching him, a sea of fur giving way to the ship’s prow that was Sorin’s body. Sorin stood frozen, just for a moment, his mouth slightly open in a soft ‘O’ of surprise. Nearby, Samael wore an identical expression.

Like a school of fish, the rodents dove right back into the ground. Their passage didn’t so much as leave a ripple in the earth. They might never have been there at all, for all that Sorin could see. But he could still feel them, swimming around in a wide arc for Samael’s new position and utterly ignoring Sorin.

Holy hell. The tower listened? It has my back?

That changed everything. Sorin locked eyes with Samael, and for the first time, he saw a hint of something other than absolute confidence there.

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