A frown wasn’t good. Nick didn’t like to see a frown. He held back the panicked words that were threatening to leap out of his throat and waited for the large-eared man to speak.

“They left on that second day, during the night. I heard they were heading to the 65th to try and get some four and five gems. They didn’t seem to have a plan much further than that,” Bissus said, still frowning.

Though now Nick was also frowning. They had left during the night when the damn car park was at its nastiest. Tony and Jacob clearly weren’t concerned about the safety of the children. Though there was good news, Nick now had a lead. He didn’t want to go to the 65th floor, but any sort of clue was a clue and he’d take it. There were definitely a lot more people on the 65th floor, so there would be someone who would have seen the odd group rock up. Nick needed to get something done first, he was currently far too weak to be encountering other people on these floors. Nick needed to at least gear up, he might not be lucky enough to score some class gems, but he needed some better armour at least. He also needed to start trying to find the better tier of stickers, for all the good they would do.

Any sort of boost to his power was going to be important, Nick had made a few enemies so far and his witty charm just wasn’t quite cutting it. Nick started formulating the next steps of a plan in his head. He needed to get stronger as quickly as possible, as soon as he got to level five he could use the level six gem and make a massive leap. It might not make him a true powerhouse, but from what he’d seen so far, the sheer aura power that a person got at level six would make him formidable. Especially if his aura continued to be as much of an outlier as it had so far. Nick realised he probably should focus on his aura a bit more, his was different than what people were expecting from him and it was his trump card.

Nick looked at Bissus, “say champ. You guys wouldn’t be selling a map for all the best challenge rooms, maybe even the location of a hub?”

Bissus grinned at him. “For the right price, we might be able to rustle something up for you.”

Nick reached into his magic bag and felt around, pulling out the only items he could hope would be worth enough. He placed a small pouch on the table between them and Bissus reached across and slide it towards himself. The man inspected the pouch but maintained a solid poker face. He did pause for a moment though and Nick knew it was likely unexpected.

Orange pills certainly wouldn’t be commonly seen around the 60s. Bissus put the pouch back down on the table and looked back up at Nick.

“These plus 100 white pills and you’ll have yourself a detailed map,” he said calmly.

Nick reached back into his magic bag without hesitating and took out his larger pouch. He counted out a hundred white pills and put them in a pill on the table, which looked pretty unprofessional. “Sorry, I don’t have any baggies big enough for 100 pills,” Nick awkwardly said.

Bissus didn’t seem to mind and just took out a plastic baggie from one of his pockets and scooped the pills into it. He then reached into one of his shirt pockets, pulled out a piece of paper, and place it on the table. He slide it towards Nick and when Nick touched it he was surprised by a prompt.

Integrate map?

yes/no

Nick was startled and mentally said yes without thinking too much. He then watched in horror as the piece of paper disintegrated into nothing right before his eyes. Bissus looked confused as well before saying, “no refunds.”

Nick frowned at the man but there wasn’t much he could do, he didn’t think he’d actually been stiffed by the man, just his class. Nick reluctantly opened up his map skill and found that he now had a much more detailed map of the 64th floor than he should have. The map now had detailed routes marked out on it, with rooms labelled along the way. Each of the challenge rooms was marked in a special way and the hub was even highlighted. Goddamn, Map was such a handy skill to have. That made the fact that it had such serious drawbacks even worse. Thinking about it did raise some serious questions about the Complex and the class system though. Why would the system give people skills that they couldn’t use properly?

Clearly, it pointed to the fact that the system wasn’t made for the Complex, or at least it looked that way to Nick. But that raised some questions of its own, like, who made the system and what happened to the Complex that messed everything up? Was it to do with the incident that led to people being able to enter car park the ten years ago or whatever it was? Nick didn’t have any of the answers so it was hard to even speculate. In the end, no matter the circumstances, Nick was still saddled with a skill that could knock him out if he looked at the wrong goddamn thing. Explanation or not, it was still a terrible situation to have.

Nick cleared his mind and refocused. He’d have to use the skill for now, but thankfully he didn’t need to look beyond the floor he was currently on. Nick was going to spend the next couple of days on the grind, gear up, maybe even get lucky with a class gem or two then head up to the 65th guns blazing. He was going to be kicking ass and taking names. He needed to try and stay ahead of Tony and Jacob strength wise or just finding them was going to be pointless. You could say a lot about Nick, but when he was fired up he wasn’t going to stop. He knew that there was a good chance he was going to get pretty banged up in this mad dash to power up, but he justified it in his mind.

Every bit of suffering he was going to go through was nothing compared to what Benny was, if his own suffering could reduce the amount his brother was going to suffer by even a fraction, it was entirely worth it. Nick would push himself as hard as he had to to ensure the safety of his brother. He had really dropped the ball over the last few days and he wasn’t going to cut himself any slack. Sure there had been mind-controlling Vampires involved, but Nick had still left Benny’s fate in their hands. He needed to do better, be better, for Benny.

Nick’s mental hype session was interrupted by hearty laughter from the stall over. Jamie seemed to be having a blast, so Nick decided to leave him at it for a while and get a lay of the land. He shook Bisuss’s hand and confirmed they’d be here for the next few hours at least, which was plenty of time for Nick. Nick sauntered off into the 64th floor, following his map towards the closest Brute challenge room. It was only a five-minute walk before he came to the marked door. The walk itself had been rather unsettling. Gone were the carpeted floors and cream walls, everything here was tiled. The uneasy stillness of the higher floors had been replaced with an even worse atmosphere. Every sound Nick made echoed along the long halls and the drips of water that landed on the back of his neck were never quite the same temperature as the last. It all culminated in a sensory experience that was honestly driving Nick mad.

How the hell were people staying down here? This was truly the worst hotel floor Nick had experienced so far. It made his heart ache to go back to the Parklands, god they had been so much nicer than this hellscape. Despite his whinging, Nick eventually made it to the challenge room and kicked his way inside. He was met with two depressing facts. The first was the room itself, it was a giant tiled boxed. Though it did have a lot of pipework running along its ceiling, which would be a great place to escape the Brute. If he could make it up there that was, the room was at least four metres tall. The next depressing fact was the Brute he found in the room. It was a giant turtle, easily two and a half metres tall and two metres wide. Easily the biggest of its kind Nick had encountered so far.

Its sheer size wasn’t the demoralising fact though. It was its species, each of his fights with the turtles had been the most boring he’d had. Of course, he should be glad that he wasn’t going to be almost torn limb-from-limb by a giant bear, or get gored by another nightmare boar, but he still reviled in the thrill of the fight. There wasn’t much of a thrill when fighting a giant turtle though. Nick sighed and readied himself, realising that his armour was practically useless, he almost decided to take it all off. He kept it on though, deciding that it could potentially help him and it didn’t really restrict his mobility much at all. The turtle finally stirred and its piercing red eyes made contact with his own.

Nick was surprised as it started shambling towards him at an unexpected speed, Nick diving out of its way. The turtle tucked its head into its shell during the charge and the shell slammed into the wall. Nick would have been cleaved in two if he hadn’t moved. Nick scrambled up to his feet and leapt on top of the Brute, sighing that the fight was going to be pretty boring from here on out. Nick tried to grab onto the shell but found it surprisingly difficult to get a grip on. He furred his brows at the inconvenience but got down to work anyway, punching down into the shell and resigning himself to the ensuing slog. Except the speed wasn’t the only surprise the giant turtle had in store for Nick.

The turtle had stopped moving when Nick had climbed on top of it, Nick had assumed that it was just getting defensive. What he hadn’t expected was for the turtle’s shell to start heating up, rapidly. Nick had only gotten a few punches in before he realised something was up, his hand that had been struggling to hold on got scolded and he lept off the creature. Nick eyed up his opponent as it unshelled and glared at him again. This was going to be a much tricker fight than he had expected, which was great. Nick felt his blood start pumping. The Brute readied itself for another charge and Nick grinned.

He ran towards the creature as well, as it tucked its head in he dropped and slide along the tiles. Nick was just barely able to fit between the creature and the floor. As the two crossed paths Nick reached out and grabbed onto the creature’s leg, spinning and digging his heels into the floor. Momentum working against it, the creature easily lifted up and Nick just helped redirect its force. Nick pushed hard and managed to topple the creature. He pounced and began unleashing a flurry of blows into the creature’s much less protected underside. The turtle wasn’t helpless though and was quickly able to slam itself back down, trying to crush Nick at the same time.

Nick had been able to read the signs though and was already clear. The two locked eyes again and thankfully the Brute wasn’t too intelligent and went for another charge. This time Nick slide with a different intention and he drove all of his force into the turtle’s front leg just as it made connect with the ground. A nasty crack rang out and then a growl rumbled out from within the Brute’s shell. Nick scrambled out of the way as the turtle’s head emerged from the shell, bringing fire and brimstone with it. Heat flooded out of the opening and filled the challenge room with dry heat. Nick panted, the air was now dry enough to bother his throat. The small pools of water that littered the room also began to evaporate, filling the room with steam.

Nick took the initiative and charged the creature, punching it square in its head. The head was far, far, softer than the shell and it was clearly damaged by the strike. Instead of retreating into its shell, the creature tried to bite at Nick, who in return activated Hasten, moved out of the way and hit the creature again. This seemed to infuriate the Brute even further. The brute tried to slam its shell forward in a wider attack, hoping to catch Nick with it. Nick simply lept back and came forward with a hard punch on the soft bit of shell that had covered the gap where its head should have been. Nick’s hand easy slammed through the softer shell and a torrent of steam came flooding out.

Nick had to dive out of the way of the scalding stuff, and the turtle let out a roar. Nick let out one of his own and remembered his ever-forgotten skill. “Come on slow-poke! Is that all you’ve got!”

The turtle charged toward Nick, its red eyes filled with hate. Nick had positioned himself in the corned and the Brute hadn’t realised its mistake. The turtle’s shell collided with the walls and gave Nick plenty of space to use to strike back. Without the soft shell to protect it, Nick was free to slam his fist into the exposed flesh of the creature, and that he did. Nick fired out a quick four-punch combination into the soft flesh and the creature screamed, scrambling backwards.

Nick pursued, using leg strength to drive more power into each of his blows. The turtle quickly found itself backed into the opposite corner and Nick gave it no mercy. With one final punch that Nick could feel sap the energy out of him, even past the effects of Endurance Sap, the turtle screamed its last scream and stopped moving.

Nick watched as the Brute became dust and the dust became a chest.

“Goddamn, it feels great to just hit the shit out of something.”