I hate these damn soft-skin merchants. If you can’t handle a little cold weather, you have no right to be in a Tower. Garter thought this as he angrily made his way out of camp. I’ve had enough of their complaining. We’ve made it to the 37th floor! And in less than two months to boot. They should be counting their lucky stars, not bitching incessantly about the cold. There are much worse things in Draghiem than the unpleasant weather, he thought as he looked over his shoulder. Garter hated non-combatants. All they did was make his job harder and all he got in return was an earful. Well, that and a handsome fee for escorting this caravan up the Tower.

Garter is a member of the assault guild, adventurers that dedicated their lives to climbing Towers to fight the dangerous creatures that inhabit them. The group he is escorting just wanted to grab anything they could sell and aren't members of the guild. They made a request back at the guild’s public interactions office, and Garter’s team accepted. I woulda thought twice about it if I had known how annoying they are. They can look forward to a bad review when we get back.

Garter liked to walk when he was deep in thought, and tonight was no different. So he set out, thinking about their trip. Earlier that day, the group had decided to take a detour and went to check out one of the most amazing sights in all of Draghiem. Raigel’s Glacier, certain to be the most spectacular thing Garter had seen on this trip. The glacier was massive. The top of it almost reached the ceiling of the 37th floor, over a hundred meters up, and it was several kilometers wide, taking up nearly one-third of the entire floor. Quite a sight to behold.

Garter had never had the chance to check it out, but was glad they had. As a general rule, he steered clear of the place because of the Glacier Lions that frequented the area. Massive beasts, the size of a large horse. They were ice-blue, with fangs the size of a man’s arm. The “mane” ran from the top of its head to the base of the tail and was a darker shade of blue. Just one could cause a three man team some serious trouble. And they often ran in packs.

But Garter had close to thirty members of the guild with him on this escort mission, and the Glacier Lions’ fangs were precious. They possessed a rare mineral prominent in dangerous monsters in the Tower. With Garter’s team of five, plus several other teams of four to six members each, their little escort group made up quite the fierce fighting force. This was a first for Garter. He had worked with other teams before, but never this many. This group of merchants was serious about being well protected, and about getting their money’s worth too. They even sent Garter’s team, along with a few others, into a spawning den. Sure it was only the fifth floor, but that is not a place any of them wanted to be. Just thinking about it made him shiver, There was so much magic being flung around, half of us were out of commission with Ruha sickness, he thought, bitterly remembering the nausea and other symptoms of being exposed to too much concentrated Ruha. But, they did as they were told and raided one of the spawning dens of the fifth floor, and the rewards might have even been worth it. Spawning dens were always rich in valuable resources, not to mention gear from other members of the assault guild that hadn’t been as fortunate as Garter’s group.

After they finished hunting Glacier Lions it the leaders of the caravan decided that they try to reach the Labyrinth that led to floor 38 by sun down. They made it to the edge just as it was getting too dark to continue, so they set up camp against an outside wall of the Labyrinth. The spot they picked was somewhat far from the Labyrinth’s entrance. So far, in fact, that they could just start to see where the Tower’s massive wall met the floor.

As Garter walked away from the campsite, he made his way toward the Tower’s wall, deep in thought, Damn. This is the last time I accept an open-ended escort mission. Just when the hell can we go back? Certainly they have enough to make them rich upon their return. Garter scowled as he pulled his coat tighter against his body, stuffing his hands in the pits of his arms. As he walked he realized he had reached the Tower’s wall. Not noticing how far he had walked, he stood there looking up at the massive stone wall before him, rather shocked. As he looked up the wall he noticed a huge crack, some several meters above him. He followed the crack with his eyes as it stretched out towards the ground, narrowing as it went. He took several steps to get a closer look at this crack, certain he could see...something, as if there was a space behind this cracked stone wall.

Now I’m seeing things? Just great. Garter closed his eyes and shook his head, certain it was his imagination. As he regained his wits, Garter felt a slight pressure behind him. He could feel that someone, or something, was watching him. He tentatively reached for the hilt of his sword which lay near his waist. There was a sudden and violent increase in the pressure. As fast as he could, Garter gripped his sword and spun around, drawing the blade.

Just as he turned something large crashed into him. The force of the impact caught him off balance, and sent him and his attacker crashing into the wall that, just moments ago, he had been inspecting. There was a loud cracking noise when Garter realized the creature that had crashed into him wasn’t the only thing falling on top of him.

After several seconds Garter realized he was still alive, although he was in quite a bit of pain, and something warm and wet was flowing down his forehead, getting in his eye. He went to touch his head only to find his right arm immobile, stuck under something heavy and furry. This same furry something was lying on top of him. With his right eye blinded by what Garter now realized was blood, he opened his left eye to get a look at what sort of situation he had gotten himself into this time.

The first thing he saw was a large creature with ice blue fur lying on top of him. I’ll be damned. Is that a Glacier Lion? What the hell is it doing all the way out here? Don’t tell me this bastard had been following us ever since we left Raigel’s Glacier. Garter tried pushing the behemoth lion off, but it was obvious it wasn’t going anywhere. Ugh, it’s a big bastard too. Garter lay there, perplexed by his situation. Soon he realized his right arm and leg might be securely caught up under the lion, but the pressure on his left side was far less. Its head must be resting on something. Perhaps if I wiggle just the right way…. , as he thought this Garter pushed and pulled and contorted his body in every way imaginable until he could pull his right leg and , soon afterward, right arm free of the now obviously dead lion.

Once Garter had gotten himself free, he stood up to get a better look at the carnage. There were chunks of stone wall lying everywhere around him. Some the size of a carriage, Thank my lucky stars I didn’t wind up under one of them instead. As he looked around, Garter also took note of his own body and the condition it was in. Blood poured from his head, his right wrist was in awful pain, along with his right knee. He had a few other cuts, scrapes, and bruises. Overall, not bad. Not a lotta men can get jumped by a beast like this and walk away at all, let alone with mostly minor injuries. As he contemplated his good fortune, he turned to inspect the Glacier Lion that had gotten the jump on him, lying dead on the floor.

Where its head was supposed to be there was, instead, a pile of rather large stones, clearly part of the wall that had collapsed. I must have had quite the stockpile of good fortune saved up. Not only did those blasted stones miss me, they seemed to have saved me altogether. Garter smiled as he once again thanked whatever deity it was that had spared him a gruesome fate, twice-over in fact.

As he surveyed the scene a little closer Garter saw a red spot in the lion’s otherwise perfect, blue fur, and there was something that seemed to stick out of the lion. Upon closer inspection he realized it was the tip of his sword. It appeared that, as the lion had pounced on him, he had just managed to raise up the tip of his sword and impaled the lion as it crashed into him. Huh, it’s good to know I wasn’t saved entirely by luck. Although, I doubt that would have killed the damn thing.

Upon Garter’s inspection of the beast, he had realized it wasn’t just your ordinary, every day Glacier Lion. No, this was a pride leader. The biggest, baddest cat in the group. Garter whistled as he came to this realization. There are only three of these on the entire floor. They are smarter, faster, stronger, and overall much more dangerous than regular Glacier Lions. Damn, too bad that sword to the gut hadn’t killed it. Taking down one of these bad boys single handedly would have made me a legend for sure.

Garter figured he was no longer in any immediate danger, so he sat himself down on a rather large piece of rubble, not quite ready to start the long walk back to camp. After he sat down, he looked up and inspected the surrounding area. All this rubble had been from the wall after all, so he had been right before, there was a space behind the crack. Whooaa…., he thought, as he saw what had been lying behind the wall that had come crashing down on top of him.

There were hundreds upon hundreds of gears and cogs lining yet another massive wall. Some were the size of a gold coin, others were as big as a tavern. This must be the real wall, the other was like a shell, meant to protect this. He sat there mesmerized by the sight. He was inspecting the wall of gears when he realized many lay on the floor, either broken or knocked down by the force of the wall collapsing. Suddenly, Garter also noticed that none of these gears were moving. Why have such an intricate wall of gears if they don’t do anything? Then it dawned on him. They stopped moving when the wall collapsed. It was broken. Awwww man, he thought despairingly, I really hope that wasn’t important.