Fifty-three cores rested in my thoughts, heavy and solid, a foundation and a promise. The Aether-step Greaves whispered around my ankles with every shift in weight, a weight I only felt when I stopped moving. Every step forward felt light, though my bones felt heavy.

  I was past halfway now, just a bit, but the last climb had almost shredded me. Glory leads to death, isn't that how the saying goes? No thanks. I swallowed hard and forced myself to move, but it was hard. Klericho’s face still hovered at the edges of my memory, depicting righteous fury, hammer raised, like some divine punishment in chainmail. I couldn't kick the memory. It was stuck in my head a way nothing had been since coming here. But I wasn’t going to let it win.

  The Bazaar opened up around me like a wound that was still healing. It was familiar, yet tighter and more layered. The chaos remained, matured and hardened. I scanned the passageways as I walked, noting the guards. These were different guards, than my first time through. The shoddy plates were replaced by stronger, glassy material. Their armor pulsed faintly with warding runes,

  The merchants were also a different breed, confident where their predecessors were twitchy. Their stalls practically gleamed with enchanted trinkets, salvaged weapons, and overpriced potions of uncertain efficacy. They stood openly now. The economy had shifted after my conflict with the Guard Captain had thwarted his power. Weird how everything was better without him. I had an idle thought about the weird behavior of things, but I dropped the thought as soon as I spied them.

  They still huddled near the busted fountain, where water wheezed out in a trickle too sickly to drink. They wore the same gear, perhaps worse, with the same haunted eyes and twitchy hands. One woman, sharp-shouldered and sunken-eyed, traded a strip of jerky resembling bark for a dull dagger. Another man stood near the a bulletin board I had never seen before, mumbling to himself like it owed him a debt.

  The board was covered in a bunch of different parchments almost identical to the ones elizabeth and Aurentum created out of thin air.

  “We just need one clean run,” he rasped. “Just one…” Poor bastard. The floor’s changed, I thought with a curl of my lip, but it remained the same for them. They were still solo-clearing, still grinding with broken weapons and broken minds, perhaps accepting their state.

  Then, like clockwork, the smug voice wormed its way in.

  {Welcome back to paradise, my Prince of Profits.} Aurentum, always watching, always whispering as if he thought himself clever. {Come to admire your handiwork? Or perhaps to do a little… reinvesting?}

  I answered silently, knowing he could read my thoughts if he wanted. I’m here to act.

  Aurentum’s laughter slithered through my mind, dry and rustling, like dead leaves scraping across bone. {Naturally. You’re here to mine the desperate. Efficiently, I hope. Such a delightful little ecosystem you’ve got planned.}

  They’re stuck, I snapped back, thought sharp as a blade’s edge. There was a difference, a crucial one, if my plan had any chance of working. Trapped Penitents breed desperate value. {Mmm. A semantic distinction, perhaps. One you’ll profit from either way, I imagine.}

  I shut him out, though Aurentum’s whispers lingered like persistent smoke.

  My boots carried me toward the cluster of Penitents by the cracked fountain, steps slow and deliberate. The Aether-step Greaves made my own navigation of the treacherous, debris-strewn floor easier, but I knew tackling all forty-seven remaining Aerlyntium solo would drain my resets. I had to partner with these desperate Penitents.

  I observed them silently. The desperation hung thick in the air around them, as visible as the grime on their armor, characterized by frayed gear, hollow eyes, and nervous twitches anytime someone moved too fast. This was what failure looked like when it was drawn out.

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  My boots carried me toward the cluster of Penitents by the cracked fountain, steps slow and deliberate. I observed them silently, a grim familiarity settling in. These were the same faces I'd pulled from the Guard Captain's grasp, the same souls I'd offered a fleeting chance. Had it made any difference?

  Halver Crane stood near the fountain’s rim, as unmoving as the stone he resembled. I recognized him instantly, more mountain than man, pale grey skin, unflinching. He offered a barely perceptible nod as I approached, his gaze fixed on the trickling water, a silent sentinel returned to his vigil.

  Syla Varn didn’t miss a beat, her daggers still hissing against the whetstone. Her eyes, sharp as her blades, flicked up, a flicker of something – recognition, perhaps a residual wariness – before returning to her task. She’d been grateful, in her own guarded way, but Penance didn't breed lasting trust.

  Tovin Markell was a familiar knot of frustration, hunched in the same doorway. The unstable energy still crackled around his hands, perhaps even more erratically now, as if the taste of freedom had only made his confinement more bitter. He cursed under his breath, more at himself than any spell, the magic still a raw, untamed thing within him.

  And then Jessel. Her face lit up with a fragile, almost desperate hope when she saw me, a stark contrast to the hardened cynicism of the others. She was speaking softly to Fen, who looked as scarred and unyielding as the day I'd intervened.

  “You’re still trying to clear the floor?” I asked, voice hoarse with fatigue. No judgment. No hope. Just a fact in a place where fantasy got people killed.

  Jessel nodded. Fen didn’t.

  “We can’t do it,” Syla said, still sharpening, not looking up. “And it’s not like you’re going to help.”

  Her words weren’t bitter. Just resigned. Like she’d already tallied the odds, the losses, the silence that had followed my last departure.

  They didn’t ask why I’d come back.

  They already knew.

  I let the silence stretch. Let them stew in it. Then: “I’m not here to make friends.”

  “No danger of that,” Tovin muttered, the sparks at his fingertips jumping higher.

  “I’m here because the floor needs clearing,” I said. “And because I don’t plan on dying in this Bazaar while my cores rot.”

  Fen snorted. “So it’s about your score.”

  I shook my head slowly. “Penance only cares that someone clears. Lead the run. Complete the core objectives. That’s what triggers the door to the next floor. You only need to kill the king.” I let the truth hang in the air a second longer, then drove it home. “You could’ve been rotating party leads, pooling resources, forcing resets together this whole time, sharing the burden and the risk. I’m here because I don't wanna waste my resets, and you are going to help me.”

  A silence dropped over the group, then fractured under a wave of muttered reactions, including Syla’s scoff of disbelief, Tovin’s crackling curse, and Jessel’s sharp intake of breath, followed by a sound of deep impact: bitter and belated recognition. Fen crossed her arms tighter, her mouth a thin, inscrutable line, and even Halver shifted slightly, stone loosening around a buried opinion.

  Hessa Nalune, still hovering near the edge of the fountain, clutched her satchel tighter as the contents, herbs, charms, and a few cracked prayer icons, clinked together with a hollow warning. Her eyes fluttered shut, and a whispered prayer escaped her lips, perhaps for the wasted runs, for the trust they had all withheld, or just for clarity in a place that consumed it.

  They seemed unprepared, yet they were all I had. Watching them now, wary, worn, but still standing, I saw it clearly. Their need was for information, training, and a plan. That made them cost-effective.

  I turned and walked, slow and deliberate, toward a shuttered relic stall at the courtyard’s edge, its grimy canvas sagging like skin stretched over old bone. The alcove beneath it was narrow and dim, private enough to stage a deal while keeping listening ears in the Bazaar away. My focus was forward, my need to look back absent, as the shuffle of footsteps followed. Some were hesitant, some reluctant, some mechanical: Syla moved like a shadow, Tovin grumbled with every step, and Jessel followed too quickly, while Fen hung back until the last possible moment. Halver came last, slow as ever, his footsteps landing like falling slabs of stone.

  I waited until they gathered, then unslung my pouch and dropped it onto the crate beside me. The rickety wood groaned beneath the weight. Gold hit with a muffled clatter, perhaps louder than expected, yet that was acceptable.

  Bait the hook.

  “Two hundred gold each,” I said, keeping my voice sharp and level. “Half now. Half after one successful run through Floor Two.” I watched their eyes widen slightly. Two hundred gold felt like a miracle, enough to eat, to breathe, to finally stop watching the ceiling at night wondering if Penance would take them in their sleep. I had them hook, line, and sinker.

  by SneakyFrog

  David died, broken in more than one way.

  Hailed as a monster, he seeks the power to protect what matters.

  Intense, character-driven, with a deep magic system.