When the group made it back to the dining room it was rather empty, there were only a few groups sitting around and the kitchen didn’t seem to be running. Nick found it cool that even though natural lighting didn’t exist in here, people were still operating mostly in a normal time sense. There certainly were people still up and running through challenge rooms, Nick had seen as much during the walk back, but it seemed that most people went to bed around the same time.

The group stood around a bit and Nick realised that they weren’t planning on going out into the car park.

“I’ve gotta get back up to the 72nd floor. Thanks for the guide back.”

Rina looked at him with wide eyes and Paige just giggled.

“You’re going to walk through the car park, at night, alone?” Rina gawked.

“Uh yeah? I’ve done it before?”

Paige broke into a proper laugh and pulled on Rina’s shoulder. “Well we’ll be staying here for a few days. It would be nice to see you around, have fun out there, boy.”

The group began to walk off towards another door in the dining room, Nick assumed to lead towards some bedrooms or something. Nick shook his head and walked towards the door leading out. There were still militia folk guarding the door and they all gave him weird looks as he waved goodbye to them. Okay, Gareth had mentioned that it was easier traversing during the day, but it can’t be that bad right?

It was only a couple of minutes into his journey that Nick found the answer to his question. There was a group of militia folk fighting off a pair of creatures that looked awfully similar to the nightmare rhino. Nick watched for a moment before realising that the two forces seemed to be a stalemate, neither able to overpower the other. It seemed like the militia was just stalling and waiting for reinforcements or something.

Nick decided to be a good samaritan and help them out, these were the people who would be protecting his family soon. It wouldn’t hurt to give them a good impression. Nick put down the armour and weapons he was carrying and ran over to the fight. He was pretty tired from all his own brawling but he had the energy to help out.

“Hey! What can I do?” Nick called out the group.

“Can you deal damage?” One of the men called back.

“I can try.” Nick replied.

“Alright, we’ll keep this up, try and get some hits in.”

The militia continued to keep the two Brutes locked in a head-to-head clash. They were mainly focused on keeping the two monsters locked down and unable to start any sort of charge. Nick moved out to the flank of the group and thought about how he’d try and go about this.

He needed to land a solid combo to build damage up, he wasn’t sure how much damage a single one of his punches would do. Nick waited for an opening then pounced, he moved in and unleashed a flurry of punches into the side of the monster. The beast was enormous and offered plenty of surface for Nick to smash into, unfortunately the beast was covered in a thick scab-like layer that acted like armour. This layer was rough and jagged, causing Nick to cut his exposed figures on it. While the wraps protected his wrists and knuckles, his poor fingers were left to face the jagged scales.

Nick tried to angle his punches in a way to only land with his knuckles but the surface just wasn’t even enough. The beast roared in anger at Nick’s attack and tried to turn to face him, letting the militia now slam their own weapons into its other side. The beast now had to choose whether to let Nick attack it or the militia, it decided that the single target was less important and focused on defending from the group. This gave Nick free reign to attack the Brute, only having to dodge the occasional kick it threw his way.

Thankfully this Brute was far less armoured than the turtle and it didn’t take Nick too long to stack up enough damage to significantly weaken the beast. This weakness was pounced on by the militia and they swiftly finished it off. This let everyone then turn their focus to the remaining nightmare boar/rhino thing and quickly dispatch it. Once they were done Nick realised that the creatures out here in the car park didn’t disintegrate into dust like the ones from challenge rooms.

“What do you do with the bodies?” He asked.

“Just shove them off the edge. Thanks for the help by the way.” A man who appeared to be a leader of sorts replied.

Nick introduced himself to the man, shook hands with everyone, then continued on his way. Networking was an important skill. Nick encountered a number of groups clashing with monsters on his trip to the ramps, most of the time they looked to have everything under control but he helped out where he could. He made sure to make himself known to each group as he went. Each of the groups would have a light source, which Nick was very envious of, it was another tool he wanted to get his hands on.

He felt a bit like a moth, moving from one source of light to another. It was when he got to the ramps he suddenly realised he wouldn’t have much light when he got to the 72nd floor. The group guarding the ramp looked mighty concerned that he was just walking around without any form of light. Nick just played it off and saunted up the ramp and came face to face with the team on the 72nd floor.

It wasn’t Luciano or anyone from the group he’d seen so far. He recognised some of the faces but they were all strangers, who happened to be looking at him like he was some sort of monster himself.

“Hello there lads, and ladettes.” Nick waved at the group, noticing that there were a couple of females in the group.

“Hi, Nick, right?” One of them spoke up.

“That’s the name, or so I’m told.” Nick said with a smile.

“Tony’s waiting for you, seems a little mad. I’ve gotta let him know you’re here.”

Oh that’s going to be a bundle of fun. Nick was already feeling pretty exhausted from all the combat, let alone the fact he’d been lugging around a couple of swords and pieces of armour for a good few hours now. Nick kinda just wanted a shower and a good sleep. His hands had been left a little worse for wear from all the combat as well, he could use a heal from Maddy.

Nick watched as the person he was talking to pulled out a small stone and pressed into it, making it start glowing green.

“Woah, what’s that?”

“It’s a basic communication stone. It doesn’t take speech but it’ll make the stone Tony has glow green as well. He gave it to us to use when you got back.” They explained.

“Neat. I better get going then.”

The group simply nodded at him and Nick got ready for a run. He realised there were far, far more monsters out and about during the night, or at least they were more active. Without an active force keeping them controlled like on the other floors, moving around the 72nd floor at night was going to be a risky venture. Nick wasn’t one to turn down a challenge though. Potential death? Only if he was too slow!

Nick took off running towards the centre of the car park, the fort would act as a pretty nice pitstop for his run. Now, running while carrying a number of large items was quite the challenge, Nick found himself having to split his focus between juggling the items and watching that he wasn’t running into the open arms of some sort of monster.

Nick noticed quite the number of strange shapes and bodies lurking into the shadows and he did his best to avoid everything. He must have been lucky because it wasn’t long before he could see the light of the fort and increased his pace to ensure he was at least somewhat safer. He let out a breath once he was safely behind the walls, the half-asleep guards manning the walls did a great job of ensuring the decrease in his anxiety. Everyone in the fort was half asleep actually, they were quite shocked when he came charging in. More than one of them jumped to their feet and grabbed their weapons.

Nick calmed them all down and after they confirmed that he was in fact Nick, the man who had Tony’s knickers in a twist, they were quickly back to dozing off in their chairs. Nick was amazed that the men could be surrounded by a pervasive darkness that contained literal monsters and they were just dozing off. Humans really were the most adaptable creatures huh? Falling asleep on the job, no matter the circumstances. It made Nick incredibly proud to be a human, so proud it almost brought a tear to his eye.

Nick wiped his eyes and got ready for another sprint across the final stretch, he was almost back in the hotel. Nick took off and everything was going perfectly, until it wasn’t. It started with Nick’s arm suddenly getting too tired and he dropped one of the swords mid dash. It rattled across the floor with a deafening clank, Nick ground to a halt and even strongly considered just leaving it there. Though if Tony was up and waiting for him, he really wanted to turn up with as much loot as possible. Nick weighed up his options and decided to go and grab the sword, but he’d make it as quick as possible.

It was as he bent over to grab the sword that he felt something latch around his torso, then all of a sudden he was snatched up into the air, throwing all of the loot in his arms across the floor. He let out a yell as he was whisked up, whatever was wrapped around his waist began to constrict. It was then he realised it must have been one of the Tricksters that scuttled around the roof. Oh god. He began violently flailing around and trying to grab hold of something. Unfortunately, he didn’t manage to find a grasp on anything, but something found its grasp on him. He felt tendrils seize his arms and legs and begin to coil around him.

Oh god, oh no. He was getting anime girl’d. The tendrils then began to dig into his flesh, it felt like little teeth were ripping into him. With each of his flails they’d just shred his skin. Nick took a deep breath and tried to think of a plan, admittedly it was extremely difficult as he felt his limbs get accosted and the large tendril around his torso continued to contract. Nick reached into his internal space and begged the little bit of energy he had to try and do something. It was a desperate bargain but he had to try something.

He felt the energy expand out of him and against the tendrils of the creature. Much to his surprise, the creature froze for a moment and it gave Nick the chance to yank one of his arms free of the tendrils. It cost him a lot of skin but a free limb was a good limb. The creature was quickly back trying to wrap Nick up, but now Nick used his free arm to slam his elbow repeatedly back into what he felt was the body of the creature. From what he remembered, these Tricksters had a large flat body, with a gross amount of tendrils growing off it, with one of those tendrils being much larger than the others.

Nick hadn’t been able to see one of the Tricksters in action before this, but he felt like he was getting a pretty good practical lesson right now. It hadn’t taken too much to kill the other ones and he hoped that his internal damage passive would be enough to kill this one. Nick just kept slamming his elbow back, over and over. It was only when he felt his elbow getting tougher and it was taking more energy to throw it back that he realised his combo passive was working in tandem.

Nick was shocked and ecstatic. He had only been considering combos in terms of punches. His class was Brawler, not Boxer. Of course it didn’t just mean punches. Nick was once again feeling exhausted but adrenaline was a hell of a drug, his pace only increased. His entire life depended on his elbow right now.

Thankfully, it seemed that the damage was becoming too much for the creature. He felt its grip begin to weaken on his other limbs and he yanked them free. He then channelled his inner tantruming child and threw everything he had at the creature. Feet, elbows and his hips. Whatever he could move he’d try and slam it back into the creature’s body. In no time at all Nick felt it go limp, which presented him with a new problem, one rapidly approaching his face. That problem was the floor.

Nick’s face collided hard with the floor, and he was fairly sure he’d broken his nose. If the blood flow was anything to go by at least. Nick then grabbed the two swords, made sure he still had the sticker in his pocket, and chucked the chest piece on top. Nick then sprinted off towards the hotel, thank god for his map.

The last few hundred metres were hellish. His arms, legs and face were streaming with blood. He’d felt many stages of exhaustion over the last 12 hours, but he was fairly sure he was just literally dying at this point. He’d felt tingling across his body since the fight ended, but with each of the wounds that was healed over, his mad sprinting would rip them back open.

He was in a pretty dire state if he said so himself. He was overjoyed when he finally saw that familiar staircase, with a familiar man sitting on it.

Nick managed to get himself all the way to the base of the staircase and threw himself onto the bottom platform, hopefully showing Gareth that he wasn’t some sort of Trickster. He knew the man was a bit paranoid about that sort of thing.

He could hear shouting but wasn’t able to make anything out. His vision began to darken and he looked out into the void and watched it slowly begin to brighten up.

Oh, it must have been morning. Then everything went black.