Chapter Fifteen

As soon as the man got into hand-shaking distance, he thrust a heavy palm out towards Will. He was wearing a big metal gauntlet that looked rusted and worn, which meant it was definitely an Item. Anything that counted as Base Gear would be brand new, like Will’s own scimitar. Still, he was still giving Will a friendly smile, and the others had stopped a few steps back to regard the pair with inquisitive but not hostile eyes. Will grasped the man’s gauntlet in his own hand and felt both the weight and the man’s strength as he shook it. His own Strength wasn’t low, so it caused no real difficulty and he watched the man’s eyes widen slightly in respect.

“Hail Pioneer, my name is Brunjar. Have you come to the Tower in search of wealth, fame or adventure?”

Brunjar. That name rang a bell in Will’s mind, and he sent a silent thanks to the Coin that had sent him back for preserving his memories as the connections snapped into place. Brunjar had been a B Ranker he’d met a few times, a man affiliated with the Inexorable Advance Guild. They were a decent Clan, one of the 3 that made it to the end, and Brunjar had led a team that Will worked with a few times towards the later Floors. His name wasn’t actually Brunjar, but he was one of the people who’d greeted the Tower by taking on an “appropriately fantasy” aesthetic and name. There were a few like that, most notably Ragnar the Splitting Axe [A] who Brunjar had idolised.

“Good to meet you Brunjar! I’ve come to explore, so I suppose adventure. I must say, I wasn’t expecting a welcome party when I stepped onto this Floor!”

The man laughed and patted Will on the shoulder, turning and directing him to the others who had followed behind. Each of them waved their own greetings and he replied in kind.

“Well, there are some other new arrivals over there that we’ve been explaining things to, so you may as well come and join them. I’ll give you the basic version while we walk.”

Though Will knew enough about the mechanics of the Floor to make Brunjar’s head spin, the man’s basic explanation and the further details his group shared over the next hour or so did serve to give Will the best understanding of where the rest of the world was in terms of Tower exploration he could have hoped for. The man and his group had apparently been camped out around the Floor’s spawn for weeks, and they were a veritable font of names and details. He confirmed that nobody had figured out the trick to the Floor 3 Key yet, and that as expected there were rumours of a crazy female Climber who would appear from the darkness and murder with a blood-curdling scream.

That was why Will had to wait a week before heading back to Earth. Scream Queen Mira, one of the first “famous” Climbers and chronologically the first real enemy of Humanity that Will knew of.

“So, as you can see, there are plenty of safe havens for a weary traveller to rest, and the monsters in the surrounding area are weak enough that it is trivial enough to farm them for enough Coins to feed oneself if the desire to remain in place strikes thee! Myself and my companions have occupied that small section of the village, so to speak, and if during your time here you wish to share stories and play some cards then do not hesitate to seek us out!”

The inconsistent fantasyspeak from Brunjar was a little bit comical, but Will couldn’t deny the man’s charisma. He and the other dozen or so new arrivals were from all over the planet, with their own stories and generally a desire not to share too much with strangers, but Brunjar had taken it in stride and convinced them all to follow him on a tour of the area around the spawn platform, and was now offering them a game of cards with a sincere expression.

He might well be the most famous Climber on the Floor, at least internally, given how long he’d apparently been greeting new arrivals and giving them what information he had about the area outside of the safe village. Will and the others all made their excuses and gave thanks for the tour and drifted away in various directions, Will specifically making a point to shake Brunjar’s hand again and promise to see the man soon with some good stories. He would be a good friend to have.

Taking a seat in the comfortable armchair provided within one of the little safe houses and closing the door to engage its’ protections, he ran over his plan in more detail. It was one of thousands of little half-formed seeds of plans that he’d been obsessing over in any spare moment since the first breath he took in this new timeline, and much like the others now there was an opportunity to put it into action he started laying out the steps and what he knew.

He’d learned about the woman who later gained the nickname Scream Queen from Spiresidechats, the same website he’d got most of his early information from. It was common for rumours and legends of what anonymous posters claimed to have seen or done in the Tower to fill the forum, and a lot of Will’s time in the early months, before the Tower went public and more reliable information

channels emerged, had been filtering the bullshit from the nuggets of truth.

A few names and faces had popped up, more once things went public and a few people figured out ways to record images and video inside, most of which went nowhere in the long run. People stupid enough to publicise themselves online this early were usually not the type of people who went on to be S Rankers, it turned out. Still, the rumours of the Scream Queen had been consistent enough, and posted by accounts with enough credibility in the community, that he’d followed them keenly.

It was years later he learned the full story of the woman called Mira, a somewhat sad tale that unfortunately turned her into the first villain of far too many within Humanity’s first Climb. Sad enough that had he been able to, he would have attempted to intervene before now, but he knew that the die had been cast on Mira by this point in the timeline. She’d entered weeks ago, with her husband, and after his death had lost her sanity. Now, having somehow acquired a B Grade Spell that let her harness her rage and loss into a fatal sonic attack, along with a Subclass that let her hide and disappear like its’ namesake Shadow, she had become a budding serial killer. He might be too late to stop that, but he could stop her from completing the attack that had made her truly infamous enough that stories were still being told years after she died.

“Entrance to Zone 2, 28th December. That’s where she’ll be, and that’s where I’ll have to be.”

As Brunjar had graciously explained to Will, Floor 3 was divided into 5 pieces. The central safe village around the Spawn Platform was ringed with a tall wall of unbreakable stone that no Climber had ever managed to so much as dent or ding. The wall had fallen by the end, but that had been the Tower’s doing and not theirs. Passing the wall meant using one of the four gateways, which this early were not monopolised or controlled by any groups, and other than a few mild skirmishes Brunjar wasn’t aware of too much violence at the entrances usually. Outside, there were 4 Zones, each with its own monsters and environment. What Brunjar hadn’t known was that in each Zone there was a Hidden Boss who held a fourth of the 3rd Floor Key.

What he also hadn’t known, though he’d warned them of the rumours that related to the strange woman, was that Scream Queen Mira was currently in Zone 2 between kills, waiting to ambush a group that she had likely already spotted when they came out of the Zone to heal and rest.

He had 6 days before that happened, and before two full parties who’d had the potential to be fairly successful Climbers were brutally slain. It would be the first time Mira acted publicly, and she’d be hunted down by another group in a week or two, but if he could stop it then there’d be no need for all the death.

Mira might still have to die, if he couldn’t incapacitate her and find a better option, but her victims wouldn’t. Other than stopping her, he had no other pressing priorities that demanded his attention on the Floor, given that he still had at least two months before another group would successfully complete their copy of the Floor 3 Key and open the first Exit Portal.

With that in mind, he decided that he’d head into Zone 2 after a quick nap. He could grind Coins and complete the upgrades of Conditioning and Sharpen in that Zone as well as any others, and the sooner he dealt with her the less chance there was of other victims he didn’t know about suffering at her hands.

Will lay back on the simple wooden bed and closed his eyes. After a few hours restoring himself to peak physical condition with the benefit of his new E Rank body, he felt more than ready to get going. Enough Stat Points and sleep would become more of an optional thing unless he was badly wounded, something he looked forward to as someone who’d always hated being tired.

He checked his current Coin total – 2811 – and set the goal of doubling that by the time he reached the deadline for stopping Mira. Honestly, he thought he could probably do more and maybe even afford Whisper and Shout (which he’d confirmed were still available several times over the past day or so), but it was good to set goals you knew you could beat for the ego boost. Or so John had said. Even if he couldn’t Climb with the man this time round, he headed for the door to Zone 2 feeling as though the John’s spirit was giving him strength.

He nodded to a few other Climbers, including two men he’d briefly met in his initial group. The pair were sparring, both using thin rapier-like blades, and he immediately knew that they’d fallen into another of the Tower’s little traps. The Fencer Elite Class Guide was available in limited supply from the Store on this Floor, and it sounded like a great little evolution to the Duellist Subclass. If you could afford the Coins, it was a way of getting an Elite Class before most people even figured out what they were. In practice, it was fairly weak against multiple foes or against enemies that weren’t wielding swords themselves, and he winced as he watched the two men and wondered if he could have warned them off.

Probably not, given that he’d have had to explain his knowledge and they’d have been unlikely to listen, but it reminded him that he needed to start helping others and not just focusing on his own power progression. Turning away from their duel, he reached the huge gate to Zone 2 and placed his hand against it. Instead of swinging open, the door simply rippled and allowed him to step through into the thick jungle of the Zone.

“Does this count for the helmet, that’s the big question?” He pondered after he’d checked the initial area and made sure he was alone and safe. Checking his Sheet revealed the disappointing news that his helmet could in fact distinguish between a forest and a jungle. Still, he cracked his neck and fingers, drew his weapons and strode confidently into the lush growth. He knew exactly what monsters to expect here, thanks to this Floor’s utility as a low/mid-level training area for Clan recruits like himself in the first timeline, and so his vision was fixed in the treetops in watch for both panther-creatures and ape-beasts. That wasn’t their real names, but the FCA Captain who’d dropped him in the middle of a hoard of them as a training exercise called them that and it had always stuck in his mind. That guy had actually been somewhat nice, despite the high-risk training methods he preferred, which of course had led to him being brutally slain before Will’s eyes thanks to being under-supplied by the Clan HQ for a mission.

That thought, morbid as it was, made him pause his steps. The extra Mind Depth he’d picked up was likely responsible. Forcing him to reflect on the bad memories as well as the facts and the positive ones occasionally to keep him stable or something. He’d never looked too deeply into the research on how the Stats affected people internally, but he had been somewhat prepared to become a bit more introspective as he went for a magic build. As he took stock of his emotions, he realised that he wasn’t actually as upset to remember Captain Lewis’ death. Like the visions in the Third Eye Trial, he just felt resolve to change it. That thought lightened a weight he didn’t realise he was carrying, and allowed him to return to his trek through the jungle with renewed vigour.

It only took fifteen minutes or so, and hacking past a few dozen vines that threatened to trip or choke him, to find his first challenge of the Zone. Two Verdant Panthers, poisonous flowers blooming across their limbs and oozing toxic liquid across vicious claws, sat in a tiny clearing between overgrown trees and tangled roots sharing the corpse of some totally shredded smaller beast. As he stepped into their view, the low rumble in their throats set his hairs standing on end and he quickly activated his Spells. Time for a proper fight.