Ryan didn’t come to school on Monday, but Micah dropped by his place to hang out with him anyway. After he picked up a salve with a ridiculously complicated-looking pattern from Janet, of course. He could barely begin to understand it because he didn’t recognize any of the larger patterns inside.

Ryan and he stared at the jar lying between them dubiously as they sat on the floor in his room.

“Is it safe?” Ryan asked.

“Iunno,” said Micah.

“How can you not know?” he asked. “You’re an Alchemist.”

“Do you know everything about punching?”

Ryan rolled his shoulder a little. “Well …”

Micah chuckled. He guessed he'd walked right into that one. He should have asked if Ryan knew everything about Salamanders instead.

For now, he pointed and asked, “See that?”

“No.”

“Oh. Right. Well, there’s a little bit of pattern there from that first salve I used to heal Billy with, remember?”

“Ah, you said it’s good against, uhm, redness?” He scratched his nose a little. “Huh, it is almost the same tan.”

Micah nodded a little. Almost. It looked like someone had mixed in a little bit of orange.

“Wait, tan? Do you think it could be made from flesh crystals?”

“Uhm …I wasn’t thinking about that, but it’s possible. Maybe? It’s one shade off from their essence and the way some of them move reminds me of icy water, so it could be. Flesh to heal skin?”

Did that mean Janet was using Tower ingredients?

“Move?” Ryan asked, taking another look at the salve.

Of course to him, it wouldn’t be moving. Probably. But to Micah, most things always were. Even now, the bark-patterned sheen on the floor was shifting beneath them, curls of wind essence were drifting in through the open window, tiny rings were forming around some corners where Ryan apparently didn’t like to dust, and Micah caught a wisp of heat essence rolling off from his ears every now and then.

When had he ever gotten used to all this motion?

“It could be flesh crystals, but the hue reminds me of that high-grade healing potion I found in the Tower.”

“The orange one?”

“Exactly.”

“I thought Tower potions don’t have patterns?”

“They still have something. And since I found it in the Salamanders’ Den, I thought it might have been specifically against burns? Does loot adjust to the floor you find it in?”

“Definitely.” Ryan grinned. “So it’s against redness and burns. Sounds great.”

He reached for the jar, probably eager to treat his sunburn again now that he didn’t have any of that cactus salve left, but Micah quickly snatched it out of his reach anyway. Well, figuratively speaking. Ryan could have just leaned over and snatched it back if he wanted to.

By the way his arm twitched, it looked like he did.

“I wasn’t done,” Micah cautioned him. ”That’s just the teeny bit I recognize and half of it is a guess. I don’t know anything else. It’s got layers, Ryan. Even my most complicated potion only has three of those and this has, like, nine.”

An unlucky number. That didn’t exactly help. At least now, Micah knew why. Both their third king and the church had ruled for nine years, apparently.

Micah’s books said the church unofficially came into power three years before then, during the restoration process, but Ryan told him he would have to list only the official number on a test unless it specifically asked for more.

Either way, it didn’t exactly help Micah’s confidence about the salve. Not that he was superstitious, but … yeah, he was totally a little superstitious.

“Yeah, but … “ Ryan said looking impatient. “Are we not going to use it?”

Micah mulled it over for a bit before he dragged one finger through the salve. He took Ryan’s arm and put a dot on it, and then another, and another, smiling a bit. When he tried to put on the fourth, Ryan scowled and pulled his arm free. He wiped a finger through the salve himself and smeared it on Micah’s face.

“Hey,” he said wiping it off. “What if it makes my skin fall off?”

“Oh, but you put three on my arm?”

“Yeah, cause there we can check if it’s good or not.”

“Same with your face.”

“But I like my face.”

Ryan grinned and said, “Lisa’s been rubbing off on you. And you on her. You’re bad influences for each other.”

We are?

Ryan was frowning at his own arm by the end of his sentence and nodded a little.

Micah had a different question. “What’s she like around you? Lisa?”

“Huh?” Ryan seemed confused by the question, but he did shift his lips about a bit while he considered.

“Nice,” he said. “Humble.”

Yeah, that definitely didn’t sound like the Lisa Micah knew. Then again, he was probably three years younger than her and she his “instructor.” Of course, she would behave differently towards him than she would towards Ryan.

Micah guessed it wasn’t too important.

He glanced at Ryan’s arm again to make sure the salve’s pattern wasn’t doing anything suspicious and then all they could do was wait.

So they waited.

It felt weird hanging out at Ryan’s house, Micah thought, but only because he wasn’t used to it yet. The older boy’s room was smaller than his, his bed narrower. It stood near the window, probably because Ryan liked the cold. The only other furniture was a half-high shelf with various books and trinkets, one of which was an old alleyball, a large desk with little on it, and a closet large enough to hide in. Like for when you played hide and seek.

Not that Micah would play that anymore.

Ryan’s family shared the building with another and their garden with two whole other houses. There was a swing and old tree in the center. Another, smaller tree with lots of thin branches reached over the fence from the garden of the fourth building. It was filled with birds that echoed Ryan whenever he chirped something. No wonder why he had gotten that Skill.

They didn’t really do anything, though. Micah sat on the floor against Ryan’s bed and studied fervently for next week’s exams. Ryan meditated above him and quizzed him from time to time. Then he showed Micah some of the exercises he was supposed to do “every day” now.

Micah had his hands full. He thought it wouldn’t be too bad if he “forgot” to do them sometimes. More likely, he was actually going to forget. He was busy catching up with the topics for next week’s exams and studying Lisa’s practice ones.

The historic example rarely found today for question 1.3 were the combat [Priests], Micah learned, because institutionalized religion was illegal in all Tower cities but Lighthouse. Overseas people were to blame for that. They found not having religious freedom barbaric. They did have religious freedom, though. Just so long you didn’t make an official paying job out of it … or talk too loudly about it in public … or it wasn’t the wrong type of religion. At least, that was the way it was in Westhill.

Of course, the [Priest] Class or any of its cousins couldn’t represent Trest’s Tower then. Its replacement was elected six years later, in 74, two years after a powerful [Gravedigger] brought back a relic from deep in the Underworld. The Class got so popular they basically forced their city to pick it.

Micah had to learn the climber’s name, his Path, Classes, the details of the relic, and the date and place where the new Class was chosen for one of the practice questions, even though Ryan told him they would ask more general ones during the entrance exam.

The symbolic “key” of Trest changed from a plus sign to a shovel a year later.

He also learned about the other “keys” to the Tower cities. Anevos had a literal key-shaped one for the locked doors of its Tower. Ryan told him [Lockpick] was a popular choice for question 1.4 because they were so good at dismantling mechanical Golems. Ostfeld had a wavy thing that looked like a flag but was supposed to be a cloak, Lighthouse had a fancy circle that was supposed to be a compass, and Hadica had a leaf—their “leaf from the olive branch of Hadica.”

Micah thought he’d seen that somewhere recently, but he wasn’t sure where. Maybe on the street? The “keys” were meant to be worn as accessories after all, so people who had them were bound to show them off. Apparently, you got them for doing a great deed for the city.

Ryan said if you found someone with the old plus sign on an accessory nowadays, they were definitely a supporter of the Church of the True Towers.

Micah said that was an abuse of symbolism.

Well, his exact words were, “Poor plus sign.”

When Ryan’s arm didn’t fall off after half an hour, Micah put another dot of the stuff on his cheek. Ryan said it actually felt nice. Another half hour later, they smeared the rest of it on his face.

Micah left before he could see any visible results, but Ryan assured them that it “felt like it’s working.” He waved the Payne family goodbye as he headed off. All three of them, standing in the doorway. That was … weird. Hopefully, they wouldn’t always be so formal when he visited. No, that wasn’t quite the right word. They were just aware of him, Micah thought. He wasn’t used to it.

He was sort of glad Ryan snuck in whenever they hung out at his place.

On Tuesday, Ryan’s sunburn was miraculously gone. In exchange, he had a tanned face in contrast to his much lighter neck. He looked more like Micah’s natural skin color now. Still, Micah laughed at the weird look and Ryan returned the favor by going running with him for the first time.

“Evenings,” Micah said then, bracing himself against the wall of the classroom. He was sweating and wanted nothing but water. Some of his classmates looked strangely at him as they passed by.

“Maybe,” Ryan just said.

Micah was beginning to suspect Ryan was evil.

He went to Lisa’s after classroom and she had him do basic motion exercises in his armor. Raising his knees, running, doing jumping jacks and somersaults to get him used to it. Then she even showed him a simple twenty-two-movement form specifically for daggers. She walked it perfectly herself, as far as Micah could see. Apparently, it was only prolonged dexterity Lisa had troubles with. She said it gave her headaches. How could moving your body give you a headache?

Lisa was weird. Micah didn’t ask.

They switched to alchemy after that and broke the cracked crystals he’d brought with him with hammers and then mortars, then filled those into jars where Micah could keep his monster ingredients.

Lisa told him that the crystal dust itself wouldn’t last forever. Some of its essence was lost when you broke the crystals apart after all, and with such an unstable form they’d decay into essence themselves over time.

Micah hadn’t even known crystals were essence. Yeah, they dissolved in his potions, but he thought that was because they were like sugar or something. Wouldn’t that mean they had to be really, really dense? The essence he infused when he used them wasn’t nearly that much, though. A lot, but not enough that Micah thought you could form a crystal out of it. Maybe … the crystals themselves were somehow enchanted?

No, that didn’t fit either. They wouldn’t be pure and Alchemists would have noticed something over the years. He didn’t want to ask Lisa in case it might give him a Skill—if this was the way he could further his Path without meditating, Micah wanted to do that—but the questions nagged at him.

Eventually, he just blurted them out.

“Are all rocks diamonds?” Lisa just asked him back.

That … didn’t help.

The nagging thoughts at the back of Micah’s head didn’t disappear and he decided to ask someone else about diamonds later. They were made from coal, right? Micah thought. Did Lisa mean essence crystals were somehow like coal?

For now, he just wondered why they were breaking the crystals apart when that would just make them decay. But apparently, that leakage of essence was exactly what kept the monster parts preserved … somehow.

Essence was also supposed to reinforce itself, which meant it lasted longer in larger amounts.

That reminded him of the alchemic Law of Cohesion that described how twice the quantity of something distilled as one would have a higher quality concentration than two things distilled separately brought together.

Only two of the fire crystals had been damaged, but they broke two more to both follow the spirit of that law and just get more volume into the jar. That left Micah with six fire crystals to sell.

The Rat tail was also going to expire soon, he knew, so he considered selling it as well. He consulted his recipe book first and found out most potions that used it needed other things, like the [Dissolve] Skill, and/or other parts from the Sewer Rats. Their feet, for example.

Ew. Ew. Ew.

Knowing that monster parts were made in part of glowing magic-stuff helped a little in managing his distaste, and Micah was beginning to suspect that it might actually be essence itself. First mana and now possibly parts of the Tower monsters. Was saying “essence” maybe the same as saying “chemicals” in that there are lots and lots of different types? And if mana was also essence, was saying “magic” synonymous to it? Was “spell” synonymous to “pattern”?

Maybe he really had only scratched the surface on this one ...

He didn’t ask Lisa. He thought he could figure it out for himself.

In the meantime, if Micah wanted to make a potion with the Rat tail and [Infusion], he would need two more of them. The “Potion of Lesser Agility” required four along with a bunch of different stuff, but Lisa said it would be less valuable to him because he already had the Skill.

Micah thought he could just make it for Ryan instead. He wanted to make a [Hot Skin] potion for himself, too, after all. It would only be fair to let Ryan see what it was like to be Micah. Well … if he really wanted to do that, though, he would have to make an [Essence Sight] potion instead.

Micah put it on his bucket list.

Another simple potion was supposed to enhance your sense of balance, but was said to be “unnamed.” From the context, Micah gathered that meant the potion was less valuable, but he couldn’t find an explanation for the term anywhere in his book. He gave up after a cursory search. The potion didn’t seem all too interesting anyway.

Lisa, meanwhile, was having fun breaking the rest of their agreed-upon number of flesh crystals apart. She looked like a madwoman while she did it. She’d summoned Sam for some reason before Micah had arrived—did she always have him summoned? Micah thought those were supposed to be temporary—and it licked up the rest of the crystal dust after they finished.

“Huh. There’s a snack,” Lisa mumbled.

When Micah got home that day, he found Ryan meditating in his room. Or sleeping sitting upright. It really was hard to tell with Ryan’s busy schedule. Had he climbed in through Micah’s window again? Or was he chummy enough with Micah’s parents that they had let him in?

So much for sneaking in ...

Micah considered playing some kind of prank on him, but he was too tired. Plus, he’d get enough chances to do that in the future.

He organized his belongings while he waited.

“Cooldown run,” Ryan said when he woke up.

Micah was pretty sure you were supposed to do those directly after training. There was nothing “cooling” about the following five laps around the block.

His father looked amused when Micah came home for the second time. He waved at Ryan as he headed on home.

Micah scowled at that. He should have played a prank on him after all.

By Saturday, Micah’s whole body ached and his mind felt like he couldn’t remember a single thing that he had learned, even though he miraculously did whenever Ryan asked him a practice question. It was almost automatic. He’d woken up before the clock that he’d dragged upstairs and waited for him outside. Then they made their way to Lisa’s.

Ryan was staring at him awkwardly when he put on his armor in her yard.

Micah realized he was just as well equipped as him now, relatively speaking. Ryan had his limb guards, his sword, and his shield. Micah had his chain mesh equipment and a dagger.

“And you bought these before … uhm, Sunday?” Ryan asked.

“Yeah,” Micah said, suppressing a yawn.

They were up much too early, but Lisa and Ryan wanted to get in during a small lull between two different streams of climbers. Micah agreed with that much, at least. He didn’t like the large crowds.

“You could have said something.”

“I didn’t wear them against the Prowlers, though,” Micah offered, admitting his own mistakes to make his friend feel better. Weird.

“Right.” Ryan nodded a little. “Well, at least it’ll help keep you safe.”

“But it might just chafe!” Lisa threw in from the peanut gallery, which was the shadowed part of her yard.

“I’m glad you invested the money,” Ryan went on, ignoring her. “It shows you’re not as careless—”

“But in exchange he’s hairless!” she interrupted him anyway.

They frowned and spun on her.

Micah ran a self-conscious hand over his head. It really wasn’t that short anymore.

“What are you doing?” Ryan asked.

“Rhyming stuff,” Lisa said.

She, on the other hand, had her wooden quarterstaff in her one hand and was hugging Sam to her side with the other. She also seemed … fidgety, restless. She kept on swaying around a bit. Her clothes looked like she was ready to go riding instead of off into the Tower. Her hair looked like she had just been riding.

But then again, Micah had worn shorts into the Tower. Lisa was the most experienced among them. If she thought this was the right equipment, he wasn’t going to doubt her.

“Can we go?” she asked.

“Sure.”

“One last thing,” Ryan said.

He slipped his own bag over one shoulder and brought out two clunky helmets that looked like they were better suited for sports than combat. They even had straps on them to fasten them against your chin.

“Here,” he said, handing Micah one.

He wondered why Ryan had brought them this time but not the others, but he knew that Ryan liked to be safe, so he didn’t question it. Even so, Micah stared at the helmet dubiously. Would this even fit him? He tried it on. Surprisingly, it did.

“Helmets are generally a good idea,” Ryan said. “But since we’re going into the Ant Hive, they’ll be mandatory. As well as gloves.”

Micah was already wearing his half-gloves but accepted the pair that Ryan handed him.

“Why?” he asked as he tried them on.

For some reason, both of his companions smiled at him like they were hiding something.

“You’ll see,” Ryan said.

“It’s a surprise!” Lisa added.

Scowling, Micah put the helmet in his bag where it could join the rest of the things he had brought: Four different healing items—two “cuts”, one “symptoms”, and one of three jars of healing salve for each of them respectively. Just in case. He also still had his bandages from last time, his rope, two waterskins, his slingshot, a pocket full of stones, a spare shirt, and two small towels.

Ryan had a smaller bag with more water, food, and bandages.

Lisa also had a smaller bag, but Micah didn’t know what was in it aside from her helmet and his healing salve. Mage-y things, he supposed. Ah, no. When they headed out, Lisa slipped Sam inside.

“Stay hidden,” she told it.

“And don’t eat my salve!” Micah threw after.

Lisa spun around so she walked backward and said, “Stop giving it commands.” Her voice sounded like a child complaining to their parent. “It makes its head fuzzy.”

Micah frowned at her antics, but he was mostly glad that she wasn’t being condescending, since he was the youngest in their little group. Or at least, she wasn’t yet. Micah would just have to endeavor to carry his own weight, then it wouldn't ever come to that.

“Are you excited?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered. “Wait, no.”

“Same,” Ryan commented.

“Well, I’m excited,” Micah admitted and took the lead. “This is the first time we’re going climbing together!”

That, they seemed to agree with at least.

In the hallway towards the Tower, the [Guards] didn’t even stop them, even though Micah had his ban. Apparently, they didn’t always stop you. They just picked people out of the crowd.

Lisa even waved to one she knew. The woman waved back. Technically a noble. Micah scoffed.

Then they stood in front of the portal and stopped dead in their tracks.

“Uhm, Lisa?” Ryan asked. “Do you want to do the honors?”

“Mmmmm,” she said, dragging it out for an eternity. She even put a finger to her lips in the typical thinker’s fashion. What was up with her today? “Nope.”

“I’m not sure I can get us into the Hive,” Ryan said. “I’ve only been there a handful of times and one time I … uh, nevermind.”

Micah tried to raise a single eyebrow and failed. Something embarrassing?

“It’s alright,” he said anyway because it seemed like the thing to say. “Just try your best.”

“Yeah, try your best!” Lisa added.

Okay, something was definitely off about her but Micah couldn’t ask. Ryan took their hands, closed his eyes, and dragged them on through the portal.

Then they were elsewhere.

By the wet smell and slushing at their feet, Micah knew it wasn’t the Ant Hive. They were in the Sewers.

He needed a moment to adjust his eyes. There was no portal behind them.

Ryan groaned and said, “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

Micah honestly didn’t mind.

Lisa just sighed deeply and said, “Oh, well.”

She wasn’t fidgeting anymore as she pulled her hand free of Ryan’s. Sam climbed out of her bag, up her shoulder, and spiraled down her arm like a snake. She didn’t even waver as it did.

It jumped off and splashed into the water.

For a second, Micah thought its dim glow might have been pink where it met Lisa’s skin instead of red, but then it wasn’t.

“Time to kill our way up two floors.”

In the low light, Micah swore that was the fourth scariest thing he’d seen in the Tower so far. But unlike her fidgety behavior, that didn’t intimidate him at all. He just grit his teeth and agreed with her.

“Yeah, let’s."

“What about checking the tunnels for the closest enemy?” Micah asked as they made their way into the third bend. For some reason, Ryan had taken the paths that didn’t have Rats, listening with his [Enhanced Senses] to know which were which. He led them along at a brisk pace.

His calves were splashed with Sewer water already as he walked in the middle of their group. Lisa was in the back. Sam was walking on the wall to his right for some reason. He’d left a confetti-like trail of glowing moss veins in the beginning, where water dripped down from him and onto the plants. But now most of that had evaporated already and he was left with his own dim light.

Ryan shook his head without looking.

“That’s for beginners wanting to train on the first floor,” he said. “For people who actually want to stay here and fight safely. If you want to find a specific floor, you have to take a more direct route to save time.”

“Danger scales with distance,” Lisa added. “Up or in, it doesn’t matter. And reward scales with danger. Get deep enough into the first floor? Any first floor? It’s more dangerous than the Dark.”

“Where’s this Dark you keep on mentioning?” Micah asked, feeling a little weary.

He appreciated the information—didn’t that mean you could pick any single floor and spend your life trying to conquer it?—but unfortunately, Lisa was still acting off.

“Up,” she said, pointing with a single finger. “Up, up, up.”

That, Micah thought. Exactly that kind of behavior that was unnerving. The helmet on his head was actually a little reassuring with her behind him.

“Six and up,” Ryan explained, glancing at her. “There is no light there. The monsters eat it. You have to learn to rely on other senses, Skills, spells, that sort of thing.”

“They eat it?”

“Rat!” Lisa shouted, pointing.

Micah drew his slingshot and fired in that direction. He missed, of course. He hadn’t even looked properly, just acted out of reflex. He should probably have taken a moment to aim. He would, next time.

The rat sprinted towards them, but Ryan just slashed it with his sword. And even though he drew a long glowing cut into its side, it didn’t burst. It just ran on past him.

What the—?

It was headed straight for Micah, but he didn’t react in time.

Thankfully, Sam did. The Salamander jumped down from its spot on the wall beside them and intercepted the beast, biting it right in its midsection around the wound. It landed in the water and chomped once—the rat squeaked—twice, and a cloud of smoke burst out from its mouth.

Then it calmly walked up to Micah and offered him up the crystal that was still there.

“Uhm,” he said as he took it. Another flesh crystal. One-third the ingredient for his weakest healing potion. Two pennies. A dead rat. It was wet. “Thank you?”

“Micah,” Ryan said softly.

“Huh?”

“Breathe.”

“Oh, right.” Micah did, calming down a bit. Then he scratched Sam’s head with his free hand.

Ryan frowned at him.

“You don’t need that,” he said, gesturing at Micah’s slingshot. “The rats are too weak to be worth the limited ammunition you have and we’ve got Lisa for ranged support.”

“Actually,” Lisa said. “You don’t.”

Ryan frowned at her. “What?”

Sam started walking back to her, leaving Micah to stand alone. She pulled out a tiny pane of tan-colored crystal from her pocket and tossed it to it. The Salamander caught it in its mouth and started chewing.

Monsters didn’t eat at all. What was it doing with flesh essence then? It couldn’t help its digestion since it had no digestion. It didn’t eat. It didn’t grow— Wait, no. Ryan had said unmade “grew” into fully-formed monsters. How did they do that? And this was a summon made of mana. Did it behave differently?

What were unmade even made of?

The questions gave Micah a headache again and he pushed them aside. Now was not the time. He could theorize tomorrow during lessons.

Sam made a sound like a waterdrop falling while Lisa scratched its head and said, “Good Sam.” Then to Ryan, “I’m spending all my mana on keeping this little thing alive, so I’m down to cantrips.”

Ryan frowned and immediately stomped his way back to them. He was almost as tall as Lisa now, Micah noticed, when he walked up to face her.

“A simple patterned crystal doesn’t need that much mana, especially not for a [Summoner],” he said. It was a question. Or rather, a challenge.

Micah kept an eye on the tunnel behind him, but he didn’t see any rats there. He readied another stone anyway.

“I’ve got low mana Capacity, remember?” Lisa asked. “And I’m level one.”

“You’re a level ten Mage, though.”

She shook her head. “Doesn’t matter.”

“Then dismiss him.” He gestured at Sam.

Lisa looked horrified.

“No.”

Sam climbed up the wall and she plucked it off, hugging the Salamander to her chest again.

“You can always summon him again later,” Ryan said, but Lisa turned Sam away.

She even held one hand against its head. To shield it from hearing Ryan’s words? How intelligent were summoned monsters?

… or was this just more of Lisa’s strange behavior?

“How about I dismiss and summon you again later?” she asked.

Ryan scrunched up his face as if to say, What does that even mean?

“So you’re telling me our strongest member and only Mage has handicapped herself down to cantrips so she can keep a weaker-than-unmade Tea-cup Salamander alive while we’re trying to climb two floors in one day?”

When he said it like that, it did sound kind of ridiculous.

“Yes!” Lisa answered.

Oh.

Ryan groaned and turned to Micah for … support, probably.

Micah didn’t know what to do so he just shrugged.

“What can that thing even do?” Ryan asked, pointing at it with his sword.

Lisa took a step back.

“It’s got your [Hot Skin] Skill,” she said. “But it’s better, because it’s a Tower Salamander. It can handle more heat. I bet it could singe an unmade, although unmade don’t singe … I think they melt? No, they don’t melt but it would definitely make them more malleable ...”

“Lisa,” Ryan said. “Stop rambling. Does it have any other Skills?”

Lisa opened her mouth, closed it again, frowned, and said, “It’s not weaker than a regular unmade. I’ve been feeding it fire and meat essence all week. It’s tougher than them. More durable.”

“So that’s what you fed it just now?” Micah asked. The question seemed insufficient. He would rather ask why she had fed it.

“Yeah, a treat for a job well done,” she said and spun back to Ryan. “Aha! It’s protective like you. It just protected Micah. And it’s perceptive of threats. And it likes to fetch stuff for me. And it can walk on walls.”

“...what about ceilings?” Ryan asked, sounding like he was considering something.

Micah imagined the Salamander jumping on a Rat from above, but it seemed impractical. Why did he want to know that?

Lisa looked away. “Not ceilings. It doesn’t have [Enhanced Traction] yet. And it doesn’t understand how mirrors work …”

Micah frowned. “If you have crystal shards with you, can’t you use their essence to cast spells?”

“That’s sort of what I’m doing, using them for cantrips ...” Lisa mumbled.

Ryan groaned in frustration.

“Whatever,” he said. “We can still do this. There’s three of us—”

“Four,” Lisa interrupted him.

And an infinite Tower of them, Micah added.

Thankfully, a group of Rats shrieked and came down the tunnel just then so Ryan couldn’t finish that thought.

Micah launched another stone despite him. Then he chucked the slingshot after. It was durable enough, he knew, and the rats were too quick for him to fetch a second stone out of his pocket. Normally, chucking a slingshot at a monster wouldn’t do much, but he threw it at a different rat than the first. The first flinched as the stone hit it and it shook it off, the second slowed down as it failed to dodge the slingshot, and the last just kept on running.

He’d separated them, if only by a single step. Perfect.

Micah drew his dagger in the same motion and crouched, ready this time. That Rat before had just been a warm-up.

Breathe.

The first to arrive lept for his face while the second went for his right leg.

Micah twisted out of the way of the one in the air, letting Ryan and Lisa deal with it, and found himself with his back against the brick wall of the Sewers. When the second Rat came up to him, it was illuminated more clearly by the blue light there.

He kicked water at it with his left leg and tried to skewer it, using the distraction, but it slipped away. He barely grazed it. And yet, it was still there, so Micah just turned the knife sideways and followed up. It took a second of digging the dagger around inside the beast before it burst into smoke.

The third—

Micah couldn’t see it.

He put his back to the wall again and looked to where Ryan was flicking his opponent off the bottom of his shield with his blade. A cloud of smoke was rising around Lisa. That accounted for all of them.

Ryan caught the falling rat with his foot, flinging it against the wall like alleyball. Another stomp while it was still rolling down and it burst. At Ryan’s feet, something else burst then, too. The Rats’ feet? He must have severed them with his sword when he cut it down.

Were they linked somehow?

Micah shook his head. Not now.

The beast’s crystal rolled down the bricks and fell into the water. Sam went to fetch it for Lisa.

“Good Sam,” she said and tossed him another treat.

Ryan watched them, rolled his eyes, and took the lead again, muttering something about Mages under his breath. Micah followed after him in solidarity and picked up his wet slingshot along the way.

At the end of the tunnel, Sam passed him on the wall—Micah jumped and almost smacked it—and walked up to Ryan.

It offered him a flesh crystal.

A symbolic gesture? Micah remembered the angry man say.

Ryan checked both bends of the tunnel before he frowned at the Salamander, sighed, and took the crystal saying, “Thank you.”

Micah smiled.

It’s the thought that counts.

Then they stepped into the fourth bend and Micah halted. There were large grooves in the walls here that formed out of cracks he’d barely noticed before. They were at about head height for Micah and shoulder height for his companions. A small but thick layer of dust, rubble, and dead moss filled them. In the distance, they evened out into flatter surfaces.

When Micah pointed them out, Ryan said, “Rats can crawl along them. It makes them easier to get on you. Adds another point of attack, basically. Although some of them climb the walls either way.”

So not only was it dark and they had to slush through stinking water that slowed them down and made their eyes flinch when it sprayed too high, now the Rats would also climb along the walls like Salamanders? Their flesh crystals had the least value out of all the first floor monsters and the least use for regular people, too.

Micah was beginning to suspect the Sewers weren’t very popular, although he kind of liked them himself. They seemed … adventurous. Somehow. They had a lot more going on than just earthy caverns filled with monsters.

Maybe it was just the human aspect because of the brick walls.

Sam slipped into the right-side groove to walk there.

“About twelve tunnels in,” Lisa said, “the grooves often also have traps or holes in them where Rats will pour out from. Or muddy water will stream out of if you’re unlucky. You’ll see more of that in the Ant Hive.”

Twelve?

“Where are we even going?”

Ryan shrugged. “I don’t know the way. I’ve seen the maps people make of the Sewers in class and some say there are patterns there, but … I never saw any. Did you, Lisa?”

“Mmmmm,” she said, dragging it out again. Micah expected her to say, Nope again. Instead, she stopped and pointed back the way they came and said, “We should probably go the other way.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yeah. I’m really good with patterns. That way has a higher chance of getting us to a tunnel.”

Ryan frowned. “What about stairs? I prefer stairs. Higher chance of treasure chests, too.”

“That’s untrue. Treasure chests in the sewers are often hidden—”

“Behind fake walls,” Micah quickly said, because he knew this one, “and moss curtains, waterfalls, and grates. And of course, treasure rooms.”

Ryan gave him a brief smile.

Lisa went on. “—But I have no idea where stairs are anyway, so it’s a moot point.”

Ryan mulled it over for a bit before he shrugged and walked back the way they came.

Sam had larger troubles turning around in his groove in the wall. He had to squirm out, walk along the wall a bit, and then climb back in again.

Micah didn’t like how long that took.

“Walk along the wall,” he commanded it.

Sam walked along the wall.

Then he asked, “How do you know where the tunnel is, Lisa?”

“There really are patterns,” she explained and looked sideways a little, “... but also, look at your feet.”

Micah did. There was a thin wisp of something dark in the water beneath them. Was that … mud? The floor was even and rough, its water mostly clean. Where was the mud flowing from then?

As they reached the bend from which they’d come, they walked right towards what would have been an ambush if they were any other group of beginning climbers.

Micah noticed the light essence in the water shift towards them instead of away, despite them heading that way.

Lisa slowed down a little without either of them saying anything.

Ryan was basically omniscient, Micah suspected.

“Ambush,” he said and stopped. “Five of them. Right around the corner. One of them is clinging to the wall immediately to our left somewhere around your arm’s height, Lisa. But it might move. I only heard something at that spot.”

Micah stared at him.

“Cantrip time,” Lisa whispered with an excited smile and pulled a fire crystal out of her pocket. For a spell? Micah frowned at the crystal, but not out of immediate fear. There was something he was forgetting here.

Lisa paused, glanced at Micah, and said, “You’ll probably want to take a few steps back.”

Micah took a few steps back. Then he glanced at the crystal again and took a few steps more. He checked to make sure they wouldn’t be ambushed twice-over and gave Lisa a weak thumbs-up.

She chucked the fire crystal around the bend. There was a clink as it bounced off the wall and then plop as it landed in the water. Some of the rats made surprised squeaks.

A burst of flames sprayed droplets into their tunnel and lit it up, and the rats came rushing out in a fearful frenzy, screeching as they tried to run past them.

“You call that a cantrip?” Ryan shouted, cutting one down that was too shocked to dodge.

Micah impaled another as it ran past the both of them, his heart pounding in his chest. A third slipped past him.

Lisa was laughing for some reason, holding her stomach, and Sam was engaged in a fierce deathmatch with the fourth rat, which mostly consisted of the rat trying to run around it and Sam dodging left and right to keep it at bay.

The fifth rat must have run the other way.

Micah checked his back, but the third wasn’t coming back.

When Lisa stopped laughing and noticed the rat finally attacking her Salamander, she smacked it away with her staff. The motion seemed so callous. It hit the wall and burst into smoke.

Sam went to go collect its crystal.

“What the hell was that?” Micah asked, still breathing a little heavy.

Lisa shrugged. “It was harmless, really. It’s just a lot of fire essence escaping at once. That makes a split second burst of flames. Probably wouldn’t hurt you, but it’s enough to spook the Rats.”

Not just the Rats.

“Yeah, no, please don’t do that again,” Micah said, trying to make it sound like a joke while he walked back to them.

Ryan glanced at Micah, put a hand on Lisa’s shoulder, and said, “Really. Don’t.”

She nodded.

Micah tried to ignore the exchange, especially when Ryan looked at him again with a face that wondered, Is everything alright?

Yes! It was.

Thankfully, Ryan didn’t push the issue.

“Wait a second … “ Micah said, catching up to something as they headed on. “Where did you even get that fire crystal? And you said you’ve been feeding Sam fire essence all week.”

Lisa looked like she’d been caught in a lie.

“Oops?”

“Thief!” he called, pointing.

“I prefer ‘resourceful teammate’,” Lisa said.

“How many more did you take? Give them back.”

“Four,” she admitted. “I only have the one left anyway.”

She pulled it out of her pocket and Micah snatched it.

Only one?

Thankfully, it was still intact.

“What am I going to feed Sam now?” she asked as Micah followed Ryan’s lead.

“Flesh crystals!” he yelled back.

“Aww, but it likes the fire ones more.”

The loose earth in the water got more common as they neared another “T” intersection, the right path of which led right into a circular room after only a few steps. The left side split another two. They kept a wary eye on those as they headed in. It just reeked of ambush.

Ryan and Lisa seemed fine with it, so Micah didn’t say anything.

Inside the dome-like room, there were no Sewer Rats at all. Thick blankets of moss covered the walls and here and there a piece or two drifted through the water like underwater lanterns.

On the other side of their entrance was a dark hole in the brick wall that led upwards into an earthy cavern. Chunks of bricks lay in the water. It looked like something large had broken its way through the wall and into the Sewers. The tunnel was also the source of the mud as two thin streams of brown water flowed down its sides.

There were no other exits.

“Behold,” Lisa whispered to him. “A tunnel up.”

Ryan made a face as he took the lead. “I hate Spiders.”

Micah checked their rear one last time before he followed. Just then, Ryan reached the middle of the room and Lisa yelled, “Ryan, above! Dodge!”

The stone grate in the opening of the ceiling had dislodged itself and fell towards him.

Ryan looked up in surprise and took a step to flee, but he must have been too slow. He raised his shield just in time to block his head. The stone smacked halfway against the wood and Ryan grunted as he fell to one knee. After the grate, a large discharge of muddy water poured onto him from the opening in the ceiling. And along with it, half a dozen Sewer Rats.

They flowed down with the water and started swarming Ryan at the same time as Micah and Lisa charged after him. From the entrance behind them, Micah heard more slushing through the water.

Because of course, it was an ambush.

Even as the Rats attacked him, Ryan heaved the stone grate to the side. It crushed a rat at his foot. Then he started swiping in frantic, but sluggish motions, retreating towards them. He had his left arm cradled against his side and wasn’t moving it at all.

Rats climbed up his legs and weighed him down. He stumbled over two of them and fell back. One was on his shoulder already.

Micah got there in time and ripped it off with both hands. It squirmed in his grip as he held it over his head, then flung it to the far side of the room as hard as he could. With it out of the way, he started punched and kicking at Rats wherever he saw them, too afraid to stab any that were near Ryan because he was right there.

Ryan trapped one between his knees as it tried to climb onto him, Lisa was squashing them with her staff, and Sam had wrapped himself around Ryan’s shoulder like a scarf. It hissed and bit any Rats coming close.

What followed was ten minutes of biting and flailing and shouting—general chaos— as they fought. More than one of them tried and failed to bite Micah through his chainmesh armor, but that didn’t stop two of them from hanging on his arm and nagging away.

He ignored them for now, infinitely happy that he had bought the armor, and used his other arm to smack another rat away from where it was climbing up his leg. It managed to scratch him through his pants along the way.

Then he shook his arm in an attempt to get the other two off. He’d dropped his dagger sometime during the beginning of the fight and searched the water for it. The first of the two rats finally gave up and crawled further up his arm, headed for Micah’s neck. He smacked that one, making it slip and almost lose its grip, found his knife with his knee, and stabbed the other with it.

The smoke got into his eyes and mouth and made him cough. But without the added weight, he managed to flail until he found the first one, hold into the water, and stomp on it to keep it there. It screeched and burst just as he was about to follow up with a stab.

Stomach, Micah reminded himself. No structure to protect them. It’s a weak spot.

Either way, he just stabbed another rat that was attacking Sam. And behind him, Ryan did the same for him.

In the end, they were just lying there in the water and heaving. Micah felt like he had just finished a morning run, even though he’d hardly moved a few steps during the whole fight.

He was soaked from head to toe.

Ryan started laughing first.

Lisa joined him and finally, Micah did, too, even if he only did it out of bewilderment and exhaustion. Why were they laughing?

“What the fuck was that?!” Ryan asked, gesturing at the ceiling with his right arm. There was real mirth in his voice though. He wasn’t asking anyone in particular, or if he was, only himself.

“Oh man, that was horrible,” Lisa added. “Did you see Micah fling that rat? He practically ran you over to get it off your shoulder. Then he just held it behind his head and chucked it, like ‘So long, sucker!’”

She guffawed.

Micah blushed. He didn’t remember it happening quite like that.

“I trapped one between my knees and punched it!” Ryan said. “It was headed for my crotch. What the hell was I supposed to do? It actually looked dazed afterward so I punched it again. I cut myself somehow doing it. Mm.”

He’d pulled off his glove and suckled on his fist at the end of that.

“I slipped on a rat and fell,” Lisa admitted. “I think I fell on a rat then, too. Worst seat cushion ever.”

Micah felt lost. He checked the two entrances and the hole in the ceiling for more enemies, but they seemed to be safe.

Did you always do this after an ambush? Lie around in the water and joke about how ridiculous the fight was?

Eventually, Micah asked, “Is anyone hurt?”

“Yeah,” Ryan said and groaned as he pushed himself up. Because of course he was hurt. Only then did Micah realize that Ryan was also bleeding everywhere. He cursed and rushed over.

“We need to bandage you,” he said as he pulled off his backpack. “How bad is it? Do you know where it’s worst?”

“Relax, Micah,” Ryan said and put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s fine. Really, it’s nothing bad.”

“Clean it, then use the symptoms potion, then the paste on a bandage,” Lisa directed him with one finger whipping around in the air above her. She frowned for a bit, “And give him a sip for the pain.”

Micah glanced at her but didn’t question the instructions.

He just grabbed Ryan’s arm, winced along with him because it was his shield arm and moving it that quickly had hurt him, and started treating the first injury he could find. He took off his armguard, cleaned the wound with a waterskin, dabbed it, then applied a little bit of his symptoms healing potion. The blood came off easily during the process and Micah realized it had mixed with the water. That was why Ryan look so bloody everywhere. The wounds themselves were much smaller than that.

Ryan smiled at him all the while he did, so Micah eventually did relax while he worked.

“How’s your shoulder?”

“Better,” Ryan said after he’d taken a swig of poton. He grimaced afterward and frowned at Micah afterward. Did it really taste that bad? Either way, Ryan took another swig. “It was just the initial pain of it. Nothing’s broken or anything like that … I think. Pretty sure.”

Good.

Finally, Micah thought he might understand what it was like to worry about another person. The last bits of anger he still harbored for Ryan from their fight disappeared and he was just glad the other boy was alright.

A freaking stone grate had almost fallen on his head. What the hell, Tower?

“We’re so unprepared,” Ryan said over his shoulder to Lisa while Micah bandaged the next wound on his upper arm. It was nothing more than a scrape. Ryan must have gotten the Rat off before it could sink its teeth in properly.

Lisa was still lying in the water behind them. She was getting herself soaked like that. Well, more soaked.

Ryan and Micah were also wet, but they were only sitting in the water. He probably should have brought spare pants. Most of the things in his backpack had fared alright. Apparently, the one Garen had chosen for him was water resistant.

“No,” Lisa said and shook her head. “We are prepared. I just … I haven’t slept properly in two days. I’m sorry.”

Ryan frowned, but the gesture didn’t look angry for once, despite Lisa’s admission.

“I didn’t sleep well last night, either,” he admitted. “We should probably be telling each other things like that, to be more considerate of each other’s strengths and weaknesses, right?”

Lisa shifted her head a little in a weak nod.

“I thought that went well?” Micah asked while he was finishing up on the third shallow wound. Ryan had two on his arms, one on his shoulder, one on his leg, and one on his hip. Most of them were scratches rather than bites, but they really had swarmed him.

Micah wondered if he could buy Ryan some armor with the rest of the money he had left.

The others chuckled at what he’d said, but Micah meant it. For a trap and an ambush, they’d gotten out with only Ryan being wounded. And he had triggered the trap. Lisa was apparently fine despite her lack of armor.

Micah had read that traps were supposed to only weaken you, so the monsters could finish you off. He hadn’t realized the monsters would be right there as a part of it. If Ryan hadn’t had his helmet and his shield, that stone grate could have killed him … right? Head injuries were supposed to be serious and it had easily fallen a good meter and a half before it hit him.

Micah really needed to figure out how to make middle-grade healing potions soon.

“Sam?” Lisa asked eventually. “Where are you? Come here, little thingie.”

Sam had been sneaking around, collecting crystals for them and placing them nearby, since Lisa wasn’t getting up and Micah was too busy bandaging Ryan.

As it walked towards Lisa, though, Micah realized why it was “sneaking.” It was crawling more than walking because it was covered in wounds.

Lisa sat up and stared at it. “Oh, no.”

Micah glanced at her. “Can you heal it?”

Ryan shook his head. “He’s first floor, right? They need to be resummoned to heal wounds.”

“So do that?”

“She doesn’t want to,” Ryan said.

“Why?”

“Why do you think she hasn’t slept in two days?” Ryan asked back.

How about I dismiss and summon you again later?

Lisa, meanwhile, was searching the water for a flesh crystal. She found one, cracked it against the grate like an egg, and held it to Sam’s wound. Flesh essence flowed out of the crack and into his body. It tried to form … something, but it failed and dispersed. It wouldn’t stick.

The crystal fell apart and disappeared.

Micah saw something there but pushed it aside.

Lisa cursed and tried again. Again, the essence dissipated.

Sam didn’t even seem to be in pain. It had his tongue out a little bit and was looking at them, then checked the entrances like Micah had done. Its owner, on the other hand, acted like it was about to die.

In a way, it was. But it was just a construct, right? “Sam” was actually the crystal, so why was Lisa acting like this?

“Lisa,” Ryan said.

“I won’t,” she answered, cracking a third one against the grate. Micah already knew the outcome. “I don’t want to.”

“He can’t feel,” Ryan explained to her.

“That only makes it worse!”

Then she pulled off her backpack and searched for something. Something mage-y? Micah hoped. She got out his jar of healing salve instead put some of that on the wound. Micah wouldn’t have even thought of that, but Lisa squinted at the wound after she smeared it on and shook her head in frustration.

There were specialized healing potions for horses and other animals, Micah knew, but Sam was a mana construct. Even those wouldn’t work on him. Could he make one, though someday?

Now, Lisa was hugging her Salamander and rested her forehead against its. She would have to dismiss it, but she was obviously struggling with the idea.

At the back of Micah’s mind, a part of him wanted to stab the thing for looking like that. Another part wanted to stab it to take away the burden from its owner. If he just—

Ryan acted before he could finish getting up. He walked over and put one hand against a wound on the Salamander’s back and the other on Lisa’s shoulder. It was leaking essence from half a dozen bites all over, but that one was larger than the others. It looked like it had torn and was fraying essence into the air.

Essence.

Ryan pushed his hand into the wound and groped around for a moment, grimacing in either pain or discomfort.

Micah gaped in surprise and Lisa gasped, said, “Wait—” But then he’d already yanked its crystal out and her arms collapsed around a cloud of smoke. She fumbled for the stone in Ryan’s open palm and took it, seeming unbelieving. Micah thought she might hit Ryan or shout at him. Instead, she let out a deep breath that shook her whole body and smiled sadly, as if she’d just let go of a great burden.

“Lisa … “ Ryan started, sounding nervous after the act. “I—”

“Don’t,” she said, shaking her head. She rested Sam’s crystal against her forehead. “I know. I do. Thank you.”

Ryan smiled weakly and Micah sheathed his dagger, feeling relieved and a little more than ashamed. Ryan had just done what he had wanted to, only he had done it the right way, and Micah would have …

He tried not to think of that and let himself fall back into the cool water instead. It'd only been five days and he was exhausted.