Corvayne was starting to get a sense that Tower folk, for all that he considered them people, were also sort of written in a certain way. Awakening might be a key to breaking them out, but the girl from the library, a Miss Dot Inkwell, seemed to have triggered a pretty standard story of longing to see the outside world, and spotting adventurers that looked as skilled as they did, now wanted them to go to a spot where she was sure her father had left a memento for her.

"I would have waited for morning, but heard my Grandfather, who as of late has become very material, speaking with my mother about trading my virginity to a brute in exchange for a rare book he had and undergoing a 'secret ritual' for a subjob. I worried that if I waited for morning, he'd force the subjob of Pleasure Mistress on me and I'd be stuck at his whims. I had once snuck to the romance section and read a tome regarding it, and I can tell you the exact steps and materials used so if you wished you could pinpoint and thwart the brute should he still have designs on me."

What Corvayne felt through [[Unity]] was that the girl was not, in fact, clumsily trying to tell him what to do to convert her into a besotted lover through the system. She really thought that the three of them, Corvayne especially, would protect her and prevent that from happening. Perhaps by watching over her every moment.

Bell was incandescent. She looked ready to throw something, probably a hapless maiden book tender, out a window. Spears at this point was clearly just amused, both at the girl being completely clueless to how she was in fact throwing herself at the very brute she had misunderstood was coming for her, and more likely that Bell was relapsing to spoiled princess.

Corvayne thought about it. “We will protect you from any brutes, preserve your chastity as our highest priority, and help you with your goals, but we are after a book from your grandfather's collection. I would appreciate you helping us get it if we can help you complete your quest to enter the tower and find the room your looking for.”

She stumbled forward and clasped his hands. Corvayne used [Juxtapose] to move her to clasping Spears, then ruffled the young woman's hair.

“We will need to assemble our team, but we accept.” Spears stepped forward while giving a thumbs up.

“I don't have combat experience, so please don't hesitate to tell me what to do to stay safe on our journey.”

“We have lots of experience with getting folks up to speed.” He glanced at Bell, who got slightly less angry. “I think we should try to do a subjob ritual, but instead of saucy mistress get you a class that will help you either work as a librarian, or help defend yourself if some sort of Brute comes along later.”

“Oh, I'm embarrassed, I left with just my coat and underclothes... can I use your bath?”

Spears rolled her eyes. “I'll loan you some clothes too, c'mon kiddo. Bell, stop glaring, this one is harmless. Corvayne has to be goaded to attack.”

Corvayne gave her a slight frown, which only made Spears twist her grin into an inhuman shape for a moment while making the rest of her face silly.

“Don't do that Spears. You're too pretty to do so.”

Miss Inkwell gushed. “Wow, I think he likes you!”

Spears acted like this was something to think about as she closed the door.

Corvayne looked at Bell. “She is an obstacle the tower is throwing at us, and like most of them I suspect we will get our goals if she reaches hers.”

“Or you end up with a peasant wrapped around you.” Bell folded her arms. “How would you feel about some boy being thrown at me?”

“I wouldn't be happy, but given the way the Tower operates it's possible that will happen sooner rather then later. It's design is clearly meant to entice people to explore, and stay in long periods of time while meeting their needs. Some of the towns clearly have an economic reason for existing, and a few don't.”

Bell sat on the bed and folded her arms, jutting her chin up. Corvayne tried to think about what Bell wanted. He sat next to her and pulled her into a hug.

“You and Spears are important to me. I wouldn't make Hylal sad either. At the same time, I also worry that letting her go will put her in harms way for someone with less scruples. I will ask Spears to take the lead on dealing with the girl. Do you trust her?”

Bell sighed and relaxed. “I'm still mad you made a decision without talking it over. With me or Spears or the rest of the party.”

Corvayne sat back. He hadn't thought anyone would say no to helping, but he hadn't though about Bell's anxiety about their still new relationship.

“Right. I made a mistake. This isn't an emergency.”

“Say you are sorry and kiss me.” Corvayne felt like most of her anger was gone, [[Unity]] hinting that Bell was mostly over being angry, and also a hint of her own embarrassment. Corvayne matched it with his feelings.

“Right. Sorry.”

Their timing was poor because it did not take long for the two to bathe and Corvayne had to extract himself from a very involved kiss with Bell when Spears cleared her throat.

“Lets wake the others up and get hunting. No reason to wait for daylight.”

Mister I was meditating and Grunt was reading the paper in the lobby of their hotel on couches. Two girls in what looked like wool dresses were sitting with them, the waitress with Grunt and someone Corvanye didn't recognize with Mister I. The waitress gave Grunt a peck on the cheek which made the big guy rub it embarrassed, then skipped off for home. The girl by Mister I walked over to the desk of the hotel to replace an annoyed looking friend. Even at what was likely an ungodly hour, lanterns were lit and the business was ready for adventurers to show up, as Corvayne saw a group of four fighters come in covered in monster blood.

They were far lower level, from what Corvayne's instincts told them. Spears was herding Dot Inkwell around, trying to explain to the librarian girl that no, Grunt was not in fact the brute and was a different brute.

Corvayne knocked on Lady Blood Claw's door and found she had snuck up on him from behind, taping him on the shoulder holding a steaming cider and breakfast pastry. He forgot sometimes she wore anything other then her jumpsuit. It never looked right to see the stern warrior in a sweatshirt and sweatpants, and her flushing blue when he looked her up and down meant that she probably thought so as well. A little later they were all in their armor and geared up, and were standing before a tower entrance.

Corvayne stepped into a gatehouse under a raised portcullis into a large room built from gray stones. Features in the room looked added later, the masonry using smaller stone to add what looked like a make shift barracks. There were guards both taking breaks at tables and rapt at tasks he associated with being a man at arms. Some were doing field repairs on their weapons, others were doing basic first aid for wounds or helping a magic healer with a more serious fracture. The guards with weapons in hand were facing inwards.

Corvayne saw as they moved past the first chamber to a second that more town guard and perhaps a few craftsmen in armor were repairing a wood and metal barrier, turning the octagonal entrance hall into a sort of gauntlet anyone or anything had to pass through to go in or out, with guards holding spears standing on elevated platforms behind the wall laden with spikes.

He addressed someone who was surveying the T shaped exit to the structure.

“Sorry to bother you, as a newcomer do we need to do anything to get back in the barricade?”

“Call out to us and show your not a mindless monster.” The guard said. “I appreciate it if you could also cull their numbers as you go rather then try to sneak or run by.”

Lady Blood Claw nodded. “We aim to give you a nice quiet day.”

The guard smirked. “Adventurers tend to do that, right up until the point they come running down the stairs with something they can't handle on their tail.”

“Before we leave, Dot I want you to stay near the back. Spears and Mister I will handle keeping you safe, but I want you to not panic if monsters are coming. We have a basic stave for you. If we don't have a monster tied down, don't try to help.”

The librarian Tower-Folk nodded. “Monsters tend to seek out heroes first before they ravage less worthy targets. I entrust my body to your hands.”

Spears jumped in with “Safety. You entrust your safety. Why don't you tell us about the subjob ritual?”

“Yes. There are monsters who roam the halls in the first basement. Knights that carry their skulls with them in one hand and fence with the other. Scoring an intact skull is part of it. One for each person doing the ritual. Second, there is a court of bugs in heraldry that reside on the third floor. A clean bib marked with a dragonfly is our goal, by stealth or by careful application of blunt force.”

Grunt cracked his knuckles, then straightened up and mimed sneaking with his fingers. Corvayne couldn't help but smile. As if he'd pass up batting bugs.

“Finally, the last object is a shield made of shell carried by Crab Knights on the fifth floor. Wisdom tells me that you might find an armory to handle the task, or simply defeat them. The shield need not be in excellent condition, but not every knight is issued one.”

Mister I rubbed his chin. “You also had your room... where would that be?”

“Twenty floors up, in a room where a white tree grows, it will be hanging off a branch, a simple loop made of steel.”

Corvayne nodded and started looking for the basement, but they had barely crossed the first door to the next circular room before the clank of metal feet announced monsters had found them.

The monsters were pale beings, armored in partial blue metal plates with hide straps, marching in pairs through a doorway. Corvayne didn't wait, dashing forward and hitting the throat of the leading guard then activating [Storm Thrust] to blast the body back, creating a tremendous clatter as he knocked half the row of monsters down.

Grunt was right next to him, flattening the knights with each swing of his bundle of bats. His huge hands easily fit five into them and he didn't even break a sweat as he worked a tempo with both hands, finishing with some sort of shockwave that knocked the last of the monster soldiers into the air. Lady Blood Claw jumped forward and cut them into burning pieces, her blade sometimes multiplying with each swing to catch extra monsters. A moment later the smell of burnt flesh and metal filled the room.

Corvayne used his cloak to cover his face and then pressed forward, looking at the entrances and exits and seeing that this floor at least seemed to be a series of octagon rooms with doors between them, forming a lattice. Corvayne held up a hand to wait and picked up a piece of metal that wasn't half melted and banged it on the ground. The sound of monster roars came from two directions, and Lady Blood Claw moved to take one tunnel, Grunt the other. Corvayne drew his gun, and he saw Bell do the same. Mister I reloaded, and moments later the monsters came from two directions, marching into Lady's merciless blade and Grunt's relentless maces. He couldn't just pop the line, but instead swung the bundles to knock monsters aside, taking measured steps back as he flung them this way and that.

Crunching sounds and slick noises as the guards rushing up stepped in puddles of blood were joined with odd discordant sounds as Lady Blood Claw unleashed a barrage of spells, summoning hands from the ground to grab at the monster's legs, heating a pair of their armors up and cooking the monsters before they could even reach her blazing blade.

Corvayne focused on hitting anything that looked like it was going to get past the two, and sometimes swinging to check their flanks and make sure Dot was standing still, which the librarian did perfectly by crouching and putting her hands over her ears. Corvayne moved to cover three doors, and spotted what looked like an archer and used [Drill Shot] to punch a large hole in the monster's chest. Corvayne lined up another shot and clipped a monster's leg, dropping it to a crawl then fired the last bullet into his clip into another archer's hand, causing his bow to snap back and knock him over. Bell followed up on the downed monsters to finish them off, and for a moment had a grenade out, but put it back.

He reloaded then used a hand to throw out a bouncing shadow claw. A black line raced from him to a group of monsters coming through a third door and bounced through six of them, causing them to stiffen and slump over dead as the dark magic hit their hearts. He admitted he wanted to see what the next step of the power was.

His area was clear, and Mister I was unmolested in taking pot shots, so he shifted a bit to help them pick off stragglers before the wave of monsters stopped.

Corvayne strode over to one of the bodies and used his foot to bring a spare spear up, then turned to Dot and strode over to present it to her. The Librarian took a gentle prod with his boot.

“Here. Do you know if there's some sort of special thing for killing a higher level monster as your first kill, or did you do that already?”

Dot took the spear and used it to stand. “It is a boon. The system likes it. It may raise stats.”

“Okay, then let's go up to floor 20, then work our way down.” Corvayne looked at the team and got agreement, so he moved to the central chamber, only stopping to pick up a sword.

Bell got what he was doing and picked up a spear. “Any tips?”

“Let them come to you. Move back and thrust to hit them.”

In the central chamber he found the stairs up. The second floor felt more like a normal castle floor, with square rooms placed between seemingly random hallways. Corvayne opened a door then gave Princess Bell room to stab as he used the blade he had picked up to fend off deformed hornet knights with human hands, half buzzing and half screaming as Corvayne hacked at them, blade deflecting their heavier arms to score cuts on their arms and sometimes torso. Bell ended up using her spear more to push whoever he was slicing up back. By the time they cleared the first room he had chipped his sword into being more or less useless, but there were two more blades, one of them a dull yellow blade that left a bubbly film when it was swung.

The room itself looked to be a hive made of stone, with hexagonal patterns for weapon storage and a ladder the wasp men could climb to reach their bunks. Corvayne scrambled up the ladder using gravity and found a hexagonal chest. It was made of Balsa wood, and contained mostly money in hexagonal leather bags. Corvayne took everything, figuring that the cases looked pretty neat and were well made. The only other items were flasks of colored honey and a coin made of burnished bronze with an array of weapons on it. It felt different, so he put it in it's own spot in his mental map of his storage.

Corvayne didn't force more fights but got them anyway, with brown lizard guards tromping at them in a group of ten. Grunt formed a wedge and split their line as they ran down the hall, using his bare hands to push their polearms aside then barrelled into them, knocking every soldier into the wall. Corvayne used his sword to push aside any that were still armed and cut throats. Bell followed as best she could, jabbing and stepping, careful to avoid the ones that had managed to hold onto their polearms. She still got a cut on her collarbone when a parry didn't push the weapon off course enough, but it was shallow.

It was about fifteen minutes of work to push through the monsters and reach the stairs up. Corvayne picked out a quarterstaff just as something to give to Dot, perhaps if she decided to sub a magic class. Also for his own use. It made him miss having a returning nearly invincible missile. It probably wasn't worth kicking a hornets nest to kill Argyle for his staff. When did he become so blood thirsty? Granted, he just killed scores of monsters, but it was just a nice weapon. He'd have to find another.

The insect floor was a banquet hall, as promised. They could skip it, but Corvayne decided to try to harvest the items they needed for rituals. He used his shadow hands as they didn't leave a mark on targets they killed. Mister I took out a mage at the start of the fight with a well placed shot, then was content to hit the two archers that mixed into the bugs. The monsters were a little hardier then ones on previous floors, sometimes taking a punch to the face after being hit with chain shadows. Corvayne shook his hand after hitting a grasshopper knight in the mouth. The satisfying cracking noise wasn't worth breaking his hand.

Corvayne stored seven of the tabards with a stitched green dragonfly on them. If some of them were considered dirty or damaged he was pretty sure there was another wing with another banquet hall they could raid. He checked the silverware and found two pieces that were dull yellow and stored them, as well as one wine cup that looked to be made of crystal and red wine. Pouring it on the ground, it filled up fairly quickly to the same level it had been before he dumped it. Neat! Into the ring.

Grunt lead the way through the fourth floor, which looked to be a sort of chapel floor with spell casters. He stayed back, letting Spears instead charge through the light blasts the animal priests were casting. She cringed every time she killed one that was a cute.

“Sorry Bunny!”

“Sorry Guinea Pig!”

“Sorry Snake!”

Bell started pulling the robes off the serpent, as they had resisted Spear's attacks once before she crumpled the mage. “It's a snake, they are not cute.”

“Are too! It's a shame they are insane. We could have been friends. Lizards can be very cute!”

Corvayne went over to a body and took their boots which seemed to be glowing. “They were snarling. Rabbits don't snarl.”

Mister I shrugged. “They do snarl. It's just precious to see.”

They pushed to floor 5, a sort of large pantry with wide halls encircling it. Corvayne picked off a few wandering crab guards, then turned a corner where most of the floor's Crab knights were waiting in formation, shields up and huge claw hands ready to snap. A commander in the back slammed a standard into the ground.

“Crab Knights! Pinch!”

The crabs cried out “OOO RAAH!” and surged forward, then were totally crushed by Grunt and Lady Blood Claw, who slammed and sliced their way though the armored figures. Seven shields in whatever condition they happened to be in went into Corvayne's ring, and that was that.

With those objectives complete, the group tightened it's focus on climbing. Some of the floors were taller then others, including a double height prison floor with big windows looking down on circular cells holding various monsters. They decided to kill a huge Minotaur locked into a cell with a chest, using [Cross Skill: Thresh] to draw lines of shadows on the ground and [Crescent Blade] to leave afterimages for the monster to charge through.

Corvayne hit the switch to open the cage and the Minotaur roared and charged for him, blazing through the shadows and twitching as the light images exploded. The monster's blood started bubbling, and Corvayne was worried it was some sort of regen ability. At least until Grunt caught the monster. Even though it was a head and shoulder taller then him, he locked his hands on it's horn and dug into the ground, cracking a stone but stopping it dead. Then the huge man twisted the horns. A moment later the monster was on the ground in an choke hold, Grunt grinning grimly. It bucked and he forced it's face into the ground with a crunch. The monster smelled awful up close and was flailing and screaming, but Grunt had it pinned.

“Dot, hit it's eye. Both hands, try to get the kill.”

Lady Blood Claw moved by the librarian, and cast something that made her movements seem more sure. The tower-folk gulped and gripped the spear, then thrust out, hitting the minotaur's cheek but missing the eye. She stumbled a little with the force, but Lady Blood Claw caught her before she could get too close to the monster, and the girl reset her stance and tried again, this time scoring a hit that jammed her weapon into the beast's skull. It took hitting the other eye before it bled out.

“I did it!”

Lady Blood Claw gave the girl a pat on the back. “Good job. That thing was probably a level 30. Possibly a special monster.”

Grunt stood up, took a whiff of his clothes, and made a face.

“We'll get you a bath tonight after we wrap this up. Let's head up to 20 and find her father's memento.”