They talked about everything until their stomachs were full, and only cold bones remained on the plates. By the time they finished, Jelly was passed out next to her half-eaten piece of steak, having put herself in a food coma.

  Arcen managed to be careful with his words when he told Elena what she didn’t know. He was double-checking every sentence before saying anything out loud. Most of them were new information to Zuhara as well, and she was quite surprised at some points. He told them about Wells shooting him dead, waking up as a corpse eating flowers, meeting Gareth, and what happened with Morgav.

  Elena was totally livid when she learned Morgav was coming for her black egg. He didn’t tell her it was him who told Morgav about the egg. That would’ve led to an argument. He lied to her, telling her that the Nostrum team already knew about the egg.

  The focus of the conversation remained on his mysterious revivals.

  Zuhara quickly went through her half of the story and described what she saw when Arcen came back to life. She detailed the whole process, the amount of damage that he’d suffered, and how Gold filled all of his wounds and how he started breathing again.

  Arcen watched Elena closely for any hint of recognition on her face or any change of mannerisms. There was none. She had a puzzled expression throughout, and she never asked for any specifics. She looked just as confused as Zuhara. He pretended to be just as confused as them.

  “It can't be your contract, can it? The one you brought me back with?” Arcen asked Elena, misdirecting her right away.

  “Absolute Revival?” Elena tapped on her nose, thinking hard. “There’s no way.”

  “Was there anything in the description. Like a condition or whatever- can I see it?“

  “No, there wasn’t. And no, I don't even have it anymore.”

  “Wait, what happened to it?”

  “It was a single-use contract.”

  “Now that sounds expensive,” Zuhara raised an eyebrow. “Where did you get that from?”

  “I got it from-” Elena paused with a sigh. “Well, that's a whole other story.”

  “Wait, if it’s so valuable, why did you use it on me?” Arcen asked the obvious.

  “It didn't feel right to let you die, because-” She paused again. “Didn't I already tell you why?” She narrowed her eyes. Arcen took the hint. She didn't want to talk about it with Zuhara around.

  I don't remember talking about it, though.

  He remembered her saying things when he was a flesh pancake on the floor after their fight. He just didn't remember much of it.

  “I'm not like this Morgav asshole you met. I just wanted the egg. I didn’t want anyone to die.”

  Well, they did anyway.

  She had definitely done what she could, spending millions of Aura on that contract to bring him back. He would've reconsidered if he were in that situation. He still couldn’t forgive her, but he knew she definitely wasn’t evil. He had seen real evil. At the end of the day, this was a child, an overconfident one who caused a series of problems just to get what she wanted.

  He was still missing a piece with her. He couldn’t figure out why she wanted this egg so badly. He knew she wasn’t going to answer it even if he asked.

  “Anyway, is it true, El? This shortcut business?” Zuhara asked, bringing a topic back into the discussion. “You never told me you climbed with a shortcut.”

  Arcen looked at Elena, expecting her to confirm what he'd been saying all this time.

  “Oh, it's there alright,” Elena shot a sideways glance at Arcen. “It's not a normal capillary shaft. It's not always open, and it's really dangerous. You can get trapped in there if you make a mistake.”

  What the fuck is she doing!

  “So, you're telling me you're just that good?” Zuhara asked, narrowing her eyes. “Do you see how ridiculous that sounds coming from a twelve-year-old?” She asked Arcen with an indignant smile.

  “I'm just telling you. It takes a ton of Aura to get through it. I couldn't have done it without help the first time, and I had help the second time as well. This is ten million Aura right here.” Elena said, patting the black egg.

  Arcen opened his mouth, trying to interrupt Elena. She had simply lied to Zuhara's face about the shortcut. She didn't have 'help' when she was climbing with Norm. From what he could remember, she was the one who found the shortcut. She had already been through it by that point. The point about needing a ton of Aura didn't make sense either. Norm didn't have that much, nor did anyone from the Nostrum team.

  Elena clapped her oily hands.

  “Alright then. I have some stuff to do. I'm going back to the base camp. We can go together if that’s where you guys are heading,” She said, staring directly at Arcen.

  “Pass. I'm too full and too sleepy to go anywhere.” Zuhara groaned as she stood off the floor. She picked Jelly up, hugging her with one hand. Jelly yawned and stretched, mumbled some nonsense, and fell back asleep right away.

  “Rika would love to see you,” Elena said, before Zuhara turned to go.

  “Tell her to visit me here then. I'm the fucking patient, aren't I?” She said with a giggle. “Just kidding. I know she's busy.” She turned to Arcen. “You should go with El, you've never seen a tower frontier, have you?”

  “Ah, well,” Arcen mumbled, glancing at Elena shooting daggers at him. He didn't want to see the accursed frontier. He wanted to get the hell out of this tower. Elena clearly had something else that she needed to talk about with him. “Yeah. I think that's a good idea.”

  Zuhara swallowed a yawn. “Be careful out there, though. Everything above this floor sucks, and I really mean it.” She pointed at the fresh bandages on her wounded side.

  “Why did you lie to her?” Arcen asked, the first chance he got after Zuhara was out of earshot.

  “I'll explain later,” Elena whispered, a finger over her mouth.

  What is this about now?

  After cleaning their plates and handing them back to the grilled meat vendor, Elena turned around and walked into the doctor’s tent. Arcen followed her, puzzled about what she was doing here. She didn’t seem to have any injuries.

  He saw Zuhara and Jelly rolling onto a bed towards the far corner. They were sleeping as someone hit them over the head with a club.

  “What are we doing here?” Arcen asked, hurrying to match Elena’s surprisingly fast pace.

  “I have to meet someone in the morgue.”

  There is a morgue? Of course, there is a morgue.

  “A living one, hopefully?” He asked, with an uncomfortable scoff.

  ”Don’t tell me big baby’s scared of some corpses!” Elena laughed. They were approaching the doctor’s ghosts.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Standing before them, Elena touched her right temple with two fingers. Arcen felt a slight tingle in his ears, a faint whisper of a hum.

  “∵:.???∵?”

  One of the ghosts extended its long forefinger towards them. Elena extended her palm, and the creature drew a glowing white line on it. Elena nudged Arcen to do the same.

  “What the heck is that?” He asked as they walked away. The glowing line felt a little cold to the touch, but it wasn’t paint that could be rubbed off.

  “Can’t get to the morgue without permission.” She said, gesturing at a big door that he’d missed earlier. It was built into the thick tent fabric itself. It rolled up as they approached, revealing the rock wall of the chamber and a chamber veil glowing faintly in the dark.

  There was a chamber exit right here, all this time!

  “Morgue’s in a different chamber?” Arcen asked as the tent fabric rolled down behind them.

  “Yeah? Isn’t that how it usually works? You shouldn’t keep living patients next to dead ones.” She said, giggling at him.

  “Alright. That’s enough cheek from you.”

  Stepping through the veil, they entered a chamber that was entirely different from the well-lit, busy chamber they were in. This place was as cold and engulfed in darkness. The only source of light came from a small light hovering above a man sitting at a desk with another ghost creature standing next to him.

  The chamber was completely silent, only disturbed by the echoes of their feet clattering on the ground. Arcen couldn't see far enough, but he knew this chamber was completely empty. It had been stripped clean of all creatures, not just the dangerous ones.

  Elena walked up to the desk. The man sitting there wore a similar outfit to the man Arcen talked with earlier. This one wore a mask and a helmet. The visor was completely white with condensation, but it cleared up in a split second when Elena gently tapped on the desk.

  “Children aren’t allowed in here.” The man spoke; his voice came distorted through the mask.

  “…without accompanying adults. I have one right here.” Elena said, shoving her oily hand into Arcen’s.

  The man stared up at him for a couple of seconds, frozen in place. Arcen couldn’t tell when it was, but he felt like he’d seen this helmet before somewhere. It could’ve been in or outside of the tower.

  Was he working for Helviter? Shit. Did he recognize me?

  He remembered what Kenneth, the man with the cart, told him. His ‘friend’ had told him about seeing a Ceph on the ground floor. Suddenly, it clicked into place.

  “Hey there,” Arcen said, awkwardly. “She’s right. I’m the adult here.” He squeezed Elena’s oily hand. She had just grabbed his hand with the familiarity of a daughter. Elena squeezed his hand back harder, staring daggers at him as she did.

  “What are you here for?” The man asked, turning away from Arcen.

  “We’re here for the sample from 223.” She said, producing an oily zip-lock bag from her coat pocket. There was a neatly folded piece of paper with a message on it.

  The man read it in two seconds and tossed it into a drawer. He brushed the oily ziplock bag off the desk towards Elena.

  ”Package is ready on section seventeen. Follow Six, don’t touch anything other than your sample.” The man said, snapping his fingers at the ghost. It started moving right away, leaving a glowing trail of point lights behind it.

  Six, the ghost guided them through a strange array of structures that looked like a giant beehive made of gray wax-like material. There were rows and rows of these arranged in a grid pattern.

  Each ‘cell’ contained a dead body preserved in glowing orange fluid. The top layers were as clear as glass. The cells glowed brighter as the ghost passed between them, absorbing light from the trail that it left behind.

  Arcen almost tripped on his feet trying to peek at the dead bodies all around him. Some of these people had died in ways that made him dizzy even to consider. He passed one with just half of a head and two pieces of twisted limbs, looking like a banana that someone stepped on by accident.

  “Dear fucking god. What’s happened to all of these people!” He asked, trying to keep up with Elena, who paid little to no attention to her surroundings.

  “Most of them died on floor 457. This is what happens to a lot of the early birds when they gamble on speed.” She said, shrugging.

  “Gamble on speed?”

  “Some people just race up the newest tower as soon as it falls. They just screwed it up this time.”

  “Has that ever worked?” Arcen asked, gesturing widely at the bodies all around him.

  “Yeah. That’s why they keep trying. It’s all about luck.”

  Lunatics just getting squashed like bugs in towers for Gold. What a world.

  Section 17 was a row of cells with bodies of people who had died in similar circumstances. He felt nauseous just looking at 223, the one that they were taking a sample from.

  It was a woman, or what used to be a woman. She looked badly decomposed, her face stretched sideways, her body smeared all over the place like a wet painting. Thorns had burst from her eye sockets, nostrils, mouth, ear holes, and all the other orifices. The thorns had ripped her almost in half, growing out of a huge slash wound that had cut across her stomach, spilling all her guts.

  “…what the fuck…” Arcen hissed, covering his mouth. Elena had both her hands on her face, her back turned towards the corpse. “What are you doing?”

  “I threw up the last time I looked at this.” She said, her voice muffled by her palms.

  Arcen had all the reasons in the world to be snarky and mock her; it was right there. He could've easily done some variant of 'This is why towers aren't for children, you stupid child' with way funnier words. But he was too shocked by what he just saw. He would've needed years of therapy if he saw this at twelve years old.

  The ghost reached into the orange fluid with its long fingers. It drew a circle over her chest. It twirled its finger upwards, pulling a neatly cut cylinder of flesh off her body.

  Coming out of the viscous orange liquid, her flesh looked like a badly molded piece of bread, with shades of blue-green and red chunks clumping together. The ghost used its other hand to wrap this 'sample' with the same gray wax material that these cells were made out of. It placed the sealed package, which looked like a small drum of cheese, on the ground before them and gestured politely at it with its long fingers.

  Arcen nudged Elena. “It's ready.”

  She turned around, doing her best to keep her eyes away from the horrid corpse. She picked it up with no hesitation. Arcen cringed inside when she opened her coat and shoved the sample into an inner pocket.

  I wouldn't put it anywhere near me!

  The ghost gestured for them to head out the way they came, following the same trail of lights that it left behind. Arcen turned to go. Elena stopped him, grabbing his hand firmly.

  “What?” He asked, turning back around.

  “Do you want to see what happened to Zuhara?” She asked, pointing at a group of cells beyond the next row. “Not as bad as this one, but it's crazy she survived at all.”

  Arcen frowned. He was curious about it since the first time he saw Zuhara's wound. He nodded silently. He'd already seen the worst of it.

  The ghost extended a hand, preventing them from veering from the path. Elena turned to it with two fingers on her temple and whispered something that made the creature oblige immediately.

  Can she just control them?

  That didn't make any sense. These were doctors' creatures, powerful beings with a hundred million Aura capacities. This was like seeing a child playing with a cruise missile launcher.

  “Can you control these ghost things?”

  Arcen asked, as they tiptoed through a gap in the cells. There were no lights there. Elena used a small Radiate over the cells that they were heading towards.

  “Not really. I just talked with them.” She tapped her forehead.

  “What is that? some sort of skill?”

  “Wouldn't you like to know?” She said, putting her tongue out at him.

  brat.

  Zuhara's friends were sliced like pickles. There were four corpses with all sorts of wounds and damage, but the worst damage, the one that killed them, was a series of parallel cuts that sliced them. There was a young man with diagonal cuts across his torso. There was an old man with a burned, shriveled leg with a series of cuts on his head that nearly separated from the neck. There was a woman with long slices splitting her vertically in half. There was a boy.

  “Oh my fucking god. Whose kid is that!” Arcen almost yelled. He'd been sliced three times across the chest, all three cuts neatly separating his body into four pieces. He looked slightly older than Elena, but was a teenager nonetheless.

  “I knew everyone else here, not my friends, but I knew them,” Elena said, rubbing her cheek. “But I have never seen him before. If he got this far, he should've been really good at towers.”

  Well, he got chopped like a fucking potato. I don't know about 'really good' at towers.

  “Zuhara doesn't want to talk about any of this. Don't ask her anything unless she brings it up first, alright?”

  Arcen nodded, taking another look at the four pieces of the boy suspended in orange liquid.

  “We should get going.” She paused after a couple of steps. “Wait, before we go, I can get you some new clothes.”

  “They have a shop?”

  “No, there’s a tent with all the dead people’s stuff.”

  Oh hell no.

  Half an hour later, Arcen found himself fully dressed for the first time in a while. He didn’t like this thrift store of death, but upon being told there was no one selling clothes, he had to pick whatever he could fit into. He got a nice pair of boots, waterproof cargo pants, a jacket, and best of all, a camping lighter.

  Everything had to be paid in Gold, and since he had none, she elected to pay for him.

  There was another man at the desk. He was tall, wearing a military outfit identical to the masked man. This new man had thick scales on his jaws and sharp reptilian eyes. His face was scarred, and everything about him screamed ’seasoned climber‘.

  “El, been waiting for ya,” The man said with a slight smile.

  “Oh, I was on the way,” Elena said, stopping to talk with him.

  Arcen walked past them, not wanting to intrude on their conversation. It seemed to go on for longer than he thought it would, so he walked a bit further ahead, found an empty box to sit on, and lit himself a cigarette.

  As he smoked, he remembered something out of nowhere, a face that he’d forgotten. It was a very forgettable face, but the scars made it unique.

  That's weird. The scars kinda line up.

  He froze, forgot to exhale properly, and coughed a cloud of smoke. He turned around, hoping to catch another glimpse of that man’s face. Elena was right there behind him, and she jumped when he suddenly turned around.

  “What's wrong?” She asked, stepping back, looking all around her.

  “The guy you talked with. Is any part of his name Wells, by chance?” Arcen asked, his heart racing.

  Sometimes the early bird meets a worm the size of a cobra and you never hear from them again.

  What do you think is happening on 457?

  Next chapter on Wednesday.

  Regular reminder to rate/review if you’re enjoying the ride!

  Advance chapters on

  PS: We just got 0.5 rating bombed yesterday for the first time.

  Luckily it didn't sink the whole ship, although it knocked us some 2000 ranks down. Thanks very much to everyone that rated and reviewed so far!

  I would be grateful if more of you helped to shield against such artillery strikes from these horrid cryptids as we drift near the RS.