The Scout began to slow down around the 68th floor. No longer charging down the ramps with great haste, they had taken to a more cautious approach. Nick was forced to slow down as well, the Scout would scan the darkness intently before giving the okay to move off the ramps. Nick was getting restless and antsy, he wanted to charge forward, to find Benny. With each floor that they went down the more stressed Nick felt, he knew that the monsters got worse the deeper you went. Benny had no class, he was just a normal kid, he had no way to defend himself.

Then the Scout stopped. It was on the 64th floor when he said that Tony and Jacob had finally stopped descending. They had run off into the car park with the children. Nick had to ask a question he wasn’t sure he wanted the answer to.

“How strong are the monsters on this level?”

“You’d need to be a level 5 team at minimum to make it through here safely.” The Scout answered.

Well damn. Tony and Jacob were both 2-2s, from what Nick knew, they weren’t strong enough to guarantee their own damn safety, let alone the safety of three children. Nick had to push his anger down, it would only get him killed here. He wasn’t sure how strong the Scout was but they seemed pretty confident in themselves. That’s when the Scout turned to Nick.

“It’s time for you to leave.”

“No I-” Nick was stopped by the Scout raising a hand.

“If you want me to find your brother, I cannot effectively do that if I’m protecting you. I can navigate this floor easily, but not if I’m protecting someone so weak.”

The cold reality of what the Scout was saying hit like a truck. Nick really just wasn’t strong enough to protect Benny. Nick slumped, feeling like he’d failed his little brother. Wasn’t that his duty? As the older brother, was he not supposed to always be there for Benny? To look after him? The Scout put a hand on his shoulder.

“I’ll find him.”

It was a very simple three words, but they meant a lot to Nick. Nick steeled himself and looked into the man’s eyes. The man’s gaze was steady and confident, so Nick gave him a nod.

“Thank you.”

Nick then turned and headed back up the ramp. Nick didn’t have much of a choice but to leave the Scout to do his work. He desperately wanted to charge through the car park and rescue Benny, but he had to accept his own limitations. Nick had almost died running solo through the 72nd floor’s car park; he didn’t stand much of a chance down here on the 64th. So Nick had to leave the rescuing of his brother to a stranger who seemed much more qualified than himself. Nick started ascent cautiously, still remembering the event that had split the family up when they had first climbed the ramps.

The floors went by and Nick kept climbing. The unnerving darkness was the only company Nick had for a while, until about the 68th floor, that’s when Nick bumped into a group. They were coming from the car park, their bright light peeling back the darkness. Nick was awkwardly caught in the spotlight, moving between the ramps and unsure of how to respond to the group. Anyone roaming this deep would be miles stronger than Nick, he doubted he could run.

“Well ello there. What’s a 2-2 running around these floors for?” One of the men in the group called out.

Well, they were talking instead of just beating him up, that was a good sign.

“I was uh, chasing this guy. He kidnapped my brother.” Nick said while rubbing the back of his head.

The man who previously called out frowned. Nick inspected the group and found a pretty standard four stack group. The man looked like a Scout or something similar, a bow in hand and dagger on his hip. The other three members of the group were a female in very solid looking armour with a equally as sturdy shield, a male holding a large staff, and another woman wielding two short swords. All of their gear looked well used but solid. Nick wasn’t quite sure what to make of them.

“Kidnapped your brother? Sounds like a bit of an ass.” The man replied. “Where’s he now?”

“Down on the 64th. Too deep for me. Got another guy down there chasing him down though.”

“Well we’re heading back to the 70th, wanna roll with us?”

So that’s what Nick did. The group was pretty laid back and friendly, he found out they were all a mix of level 3 and 4 classes. They were down on the 60s trying to get their level four class gems, before moving deeper to tackle the level fives. They talked about it so casually that it surprised Nick. It was just a matter of course for them, they acted as if it was a very easy and casual topic. It was worlds apart from what he was used to back on the 72nd. Though, Nick realised the 72nd wasn’t going to be the same as he’d known it so far. Tony was gone, the Parklands People’s Militia would be running the shop now. How would things change? Though it wasn’t going to affect Nick too much, he wasn’t going to be staying there any longer.

Thinking about it, he realised that he had just potentially avoided the war. If the 72nd floor was going to be the staging branch for the PPM’s further invasion of the hotel, then Nick had managed to steer clear. The fighting would all be taking place above Nick, now that he and his family had moved to the 71st. Now all he needed was for the PPM Scout to get Benny back and everything would be alright. It was looking up, no Tony, no war, smooth sailing.

The group made it back to the 70th floor and went their separate ways, though the team said that Nick should look for them if he was ever on the floor. They seemed like a pretty decent bunch. Nick then headed up to the 71st and made his way towards the hotel, he had a lot of questions for Doyle. He was certainly a bit upset that he hadn’t told Nick about the full scale invasion that was going to take place. He also wanted to grill Paige about her involvement and why she didn’t say anything. While neither of them really had a reason to tell him anything, especially Paige, Nick couldn’t help but be mad.

If Nick had known he could have planned better, then Benny wouldn’t have been kidnapped. He could have done something differently, nobody had expected such a one sided defeat of the hotel’s forces. Nick could have gotten away with just sitting in his room with his family, or he could have tried. Nick was fuming, the more he thought about the more he stewed. He was incredibly upset that Benny had been kidnapped, that his own brother was being put through such a distressing ordeal and he couldn’t do anything about it.

Nick took a deep breath. It was out of his hands right now. There was someone trying to rescue Benny right now and there was nothing else he could personally do. He focused on his breathing as he walked. Then his attention moved to the energy inside him, as always it was just floating about. Nick found himself calming down, watching the energy always seemed to help him. He wasn’t sure what his next play was, but grouping back up with his family was definitely the place to start. He hurried his pace and made it through the car park.

The hotel was bustling with activity, there were groups hurrying around the place or just sitting around chatting. Nick noticed a far larger amount of people wearing distinctly Parklands clothing around the place. Nick pushed his way through the crowds and into the kitchen, which was just as busy. He found his family sitting around a table with Maddy, weirdly enough Abigail was nowhere to be seen. When they saw him approach alone they weren’t happy.

“No luck?” Henry asked.

“Sadly the skill is temperamental at best.” Nick joked.

His joke earned some smiles, but nobody was in the mood for a laugh.

“We tracked them down to the 64th floor. The Scout told me to leave because it was too dangerous. It’s all in his hands now.” Nick said with a sigh.

“The 64th? That crazy bastard.” Maddy cursed.

“How’s Abigail?” Nick asked, remembering Jacob had said he’d attacked the girl.

Maddy sighed. “She’s okay physically. She’s not doing well otherwise. She’s locked herself in a room and covered it in strange wards and traps. She wants to go to the Parklands, so I’ll probably be taking her over there sometime soon.”

Nick just gave the woman a hug. It had been a pretty terrible couple hours for all of them. Nick didn’t let his thoughts turn to anger, it was a struggle but he kept the boiling emotions at bay. His new friend and his family needed support right now, not to watch him lash out. He sat with the group for a while and they just talked about nothing topics, just filling the empty space. Then Doyle approached the group.

“I’m sorry guys. I heard about how things played out, this wasn’t how I expected things to go at all.”

“A heads up would have been nice.” Nick snapped.

“It wasn’t that easy. I had a deal with the PPM, I couldn’t risk it getting out.” Doyle replied.

Logically it was a reasonable way for Doyle to have acted. Nick didn’t care though, it was his brother missing. It was Abigail that had been assaulted. Nick didn’t care about some huge war taking place, it didn’t have a meaning to him. What did have meaning were the people around him that had been directly affected. Doyle couldn’t do anything about that though.

“I’m sorry for how things played out. We’ve got your rooms ready if you want to spend some time alone?”

The family didn’t have much else to do so they followed Doyle into a different room, one that connected to the back of the kitchen. After a couple of long and narrow hallways they entered into a large open space, similar to the Quarters of the 72nd floor. Doyle led them to a door and opened it up, revealing a large suite not too dissimilar to the one the family had been staying in on the 72nd floor. After showing them the room Doyle went back to the kitchen, leaving the family and Maddy alone.

“My room is the one next to you guys.” Maddy said, gesturing to a door. “Though I’d be very careful trying to get in.”

The door had strange symbols drawn across it with a string cord wrapped around the handle. It gave the door a very distinct appearance, a very unwelcoming one at that. Now Nick didn’t know if the door was boobytrapped, but he certainly knew he wasn’t going to be testing it any time soon.

“Won’t that annoy the cleaners?” Lily asked.

“It certainly will, but I don’t think Abigail cares too much about that.” Maddy said with a smile.

That raised a line of thought in Nick’s head. Did people try to kill the cleaners? Did you get anything from killing them? Would a new cleaner come and take their place? Nick thought back to the few times he’d seen the odd creatures, they were certainly creepy but they didn’t seem to have any obvious combat strength. Though he’d only heard them referred to in quite fearful terms, so there had to at least be stories of people who’d tried and something had gone terribly wrong, right? Nick kinda wanted to hear those stories.

The family moved into the room and took up seats in the lounge around, Maddy joined them.

“So what happened with Jacob?” Nick asked.

“Well.” Henry started with a sigh. “We heard screams from the wider room so I told the kids to stay in the room and poked my head out. When I did, I saw that Maddy’s door was open and the screams were coming from in the room. I ran over to see if I could help at all and I found Jacob trying to drag Abigail out. The plants in the room were going crazy, they were whipping about and digging into his flesh, it was a disgusting sight.” The man then cleared his throat. “I tried to step in. I tried to get him off Abigail, he just turned around and threw a knife at me. It got stuck in my shoulder but I managed to wrestle him off the girl. Then Abigail threw a stone at the man and it exploded. She then shoved him out of the door and slammed it close. She wouldn’t open it until Maddy came back.” Henry deflated.

Then Lily started talking. “It was just Benny and I when Jacob came to our room. He hit me away and dragged Benny out of the room. I couldn’t do anything.” She spoke softly.

Nick’s body began to shake, all of the burning emotions he’d been trying to keep down came right up to the surface. Tears began to stream down his face, not from sadness, but from anger and frustration. His family had been attacked, they’d been hit and stabbed and there was nothing he could do about it.

His brother had been kidnapped, his father stabbed, and his sister assaulted. All Nick could do was clench his jaw as the tears ran down his face.