The Tower King

They had resumed their march, even slower than before. The sun, masked by the density of foliage, began to sink, drawing long and irregular shadows on the ground.

Sora felt his breath getting shorter. Every muscle in his body was screaming at a stop, but he refused to collapse. He felt Elwen behind him, silent but present, as exhausted as he was.

They ended up on a slightly different terrain, with a gentle slope, invaded by moss and creeping roots. The forest seemed to breathe more calmly here. Less trees, more air. And, at about thirty meters, a slight elevation: a modest hill, covered with ivy and bushes.

Sora stopped, narrowed his eyes. At the base of the slope, almost hidden by a vegetable curtain, a recess. He approached it, pushed back the leaves with a tired hand.

A cavity. Not very large, but enough for them to sit in or curl up. The ground was dry, covered with dust and a few stones. The air was cool, slightly humid, but not oppressive.

He turned to Elwen, who was observing him silently. "It's not a perfect shelter, but..."

"It's better than nothing," she cut him, already removing the leaves at the entrance.

They slipped inside, half crouched. Once sheltered, Sora almost collapsed against the rock face. He closed his eyes, his head knocked over against the cool stone.

The silence was only disturbed by the rubbing of the fabric against the rock, the breaths struck, and the slight crackling of branches that Elwen had brought back to create a kind of rough carpet.

They had nothing to eat. Barely anything to drink. But they had a stone roof, a semblance of security.

"We should stay here for the night," Sora whispered, his eyelids heavy.

"Yeah..." replied Elwen, slowly sitting against the opposite wall.

One moment passed, then another. Fatigue had caught up with them, but sleep did not come right away. Too much adrenaline again, too much pain.

Sora examined these numerous wounds and turned to Elwen. "I start by keeping watch, you can rest. I will wake you up in a few hours."

A silence stretched between them, suspended in the darkness.

Then Elwen breathed, in a softer voice, almost relieved. "I'm glad to hear you say it, I can't hold on anymore..."

Sora slightly turned his head towards her, with a half-smile, without answering.

She also sketched a slim smile in response to hers.

The minutes ticked away, slowly. Their breaths became calmer, deeper.

Elwen was the first to sink.

Sora, he remained awake, scanning the horizon with keen eyes. Heavy eyelids, thoughts scattered, but without giving in to fatigue.

And the night closed in on the cavity, like a hand that protects the wandering souls it shelters.

...

The air was drier here. Dusty.

A hot wind lifted volutes of red sand that striated the jagged rocks of the plateau. The sky, high and clear, offered no respite from the crushing sun.

Jarek stopped at the top of a ridge, his gaze narrowed towards the horizon. His figure stood out in the raw light, mantle raised by the wind, hand on hip. He was chewing something, a dry and bitter strand, torn from a wild grass.

Behind him, a metal splinter rang against the rock.

"Always as complicated to find you." Commented a deep, tired voice.

Raising an eyebrow, by surprise, Jarek blew slightly his nose when he saw the silhouette of Aden appear through the clouds of sand. "I didn't expect to see you anytime soon... You're in one piece, I can deduce that everything went well."

"Well past, well past... Speak for yourself." Replied a female voice that he recognized immediately.

Aria, arrived a few seconds after Aden, dressed in a light and elegant dress, mixing dark fabrics and silver patterns that remind of a starry sky.

Jarek looked at her for a few moments before resuming. "It would have surprised me if you hadn't come. Where are the other two?"

Closing in on Jarek, Aden sat on the ground. "They stayed with our mysterious killer."

Jarek remained frozen for a moment. A wrinkle formed between his eyebrows. "Any hottages?"

Aden nodded slowly. "You could say that, yes. He calls it a pact. A... 'gesture of trust'. They stay with him until we meet. If we keep our word, they stay alive. Otherwise...'

Jarek easily understood the end of the sentence, Aden didn't need to say it.

"I guess he then agreed to our deal if he kept them, which is already a good start. For the rest, do you have any other information about him?" Rajouta Jarek, playing with his strand in the mouth.

"Not really..." Aria replied calmly. "When we met him, he was alone, so we don't know how many they are, but still we managed to find his name: Hota Fagan."

Jarek briefly scratched his forehead, searching in his memory if this name seemed familiar to him. "Hota Fagan... It doesn't ring a bell to me at all. Is he from this floor?"

Aria shook her head, indicating she didn't know more about it.

"I don't think so. If that were the case, we would have heard about him long before." Aden replied without much conviction.

"So if that's the case, we need to find out which floor he comes from, and especially why he comes here to kill the top 10. If he does it just for fun, I'm sorry to tell him this but the joke has gone on long enough. I fully intend to kill this guy before he kills us."

Aden stared at Jarek in the white of his eyes, it's the first time since he knew him that he heard him speak like this. He who usually always remained very calm and kept his superior air, finally seemed to be serious and let appear a semblance of anger within him.

"I agree." Aria added, turning around. "But you will have to wait 2 months before you can settle his account... By the way, speaking of 2 months, I hope your little Obsidian is training well. I can't wait to see him after your training."

A slight smile appeared on Jarek's face. "Yeah, I hope he's not dead..."

Incredulous and not knowing if they had heard correctly, Aden and Aria both gave each other glances of misunderstanding.

"What do you mean, you hope he's not dead? You're not supposed to train him?" Aria asked, surprised.

Jarek looked at her with a disillusioned look. "I never said that I was training him, I just said that in 3 months he would surely be ready."

"So it implies that you are training him." She continued, not seeing what he was getting at.

"No. He trains all alone in the Brumenoire forest."

That time, even Aden could not suppress his astonishment. He had known Jarek for several years and knew that he could be a bit... special. But there he couldn't believe his ears. "Wait... You mean that you left an Obsidian rank alone in the Brumenal forest for 3 months? Even for a Silver rank, like Aria, it's a very risky thing. So for a beginner it would be a miracle that he survive only one night."

Keeping his smile on his face, Jarek didn't seem in the least worried about Sora's situation. "I know it's risky, but given that we don't have much time, this forest is the best possible place to become stronger in no time."

Aden placed his hand on his face, understanding what Jarek had done. "Basically you bet that he will come out unscathed."

"Exactly." Jarek slightly twisted his chest, proud of his choice. "Well, let's say rather that I bet he will come back alive, not necessarily unscathed or in one piece, but alive at least. Anyway he doesn't really have a choice, either he gets stronger and survives or he can't do it and dies. It's also simple."

A long sigh came out of Aria's mouth. "You really always do everything excessively... You amaze me that everyone takes you for a fool."

"I don't mind." Jarek replied, letting out a slight laugh.

The conversation being over, Aden and Aria moved away from Jarek and began to return.

"We will contact you again if we have any news about Hota and his group." Added Aden.

Jarek watched them go away without moving. "I would do the same if Nerris taught me more about them."

As they walked away without looking back, Jarek spat his stick on the ground. "Well, I think I will have to return to the Order of Mercenaries, I hope that Nerris has managed to find more information."

...

The harsh midday light filtered through the dusty windows of the Mercenary Order building. Grimpoint may have been a rough city, but the enclosure of the Order always remained in motion. Far from the tumult of the taverns and the dirty alleys, an earthen courtyard echoed with dry blows, chopped breaths and sharp steps.

Nerris was swiveling, blade in hand, with an almost dry grace. Her hair pulled up in a strict bun, she wore a simple but fitted training outfit, devoid of any frills. His opponent, a young man with a medium build and an uncertain look, chained the attacks under his orders, panting, each movement immediately corrected by a sharp remark.

"Lower. You strike as if you were afraid of getting hit."

The boy gritted his teeth and resumed his posture.

Sweat shone on his forehead, but he continued, under the increasingly precise indications of Nerris. She moved with authority, never brusque, but always firm. She interrupted him once again, grabbed her training blade from the guard and straightened it under the young man's nose.

"You must be master of your weapon. Not its prisoner. Do you see the difference?"

He timidly nodded, wiping his cheek with an awkward backhand.

In the shade, under the stone canopy that bordered the courtyard, a figure leaning against a pillar had been watching the scene for a while. Motionless, arms crossed, Jarek followed each movement without uttering a word. His gaze was neither mocking nor distracting: simply attentive. He absentmindedly munched on a twig, his hair a little more in a mess than usual.

Nerris finally noticed it, without stopping.

"Are you planning to stay there for a long time, or do you want a training session too?"

Jarek barely smiled, let the twig slip from his mouth and replied in a quiet voice: "I don't think there's much you can teach me unfortunately."

"On this point, I admit that you are right." she said, returning to her student to place his hands on the guard again.

He shrugged one shoulder, slowly lifting off the pillar. "So, did you find something?"

Nerris planted a half-curious, half-skeptical look in hers. Then she dismissed her exhausted student with a gesture, who fled without asking for his rest.

The silence fell briefly in the courtyard, only disturbed by a few whispers further away, in the adjacent dining hall.

Nerris crossed his arms. "Are you talking about him? From Hota Fagan?"

He nodded slowly. She stared at him for a moment, ghosting the seriousness in his eyes.

"Let's wait until we're inside to talk about it, I don't think it's a good idea to talk about it in front of everyone."

A few moments later, Nerris joined Jarek, sitting at a table away from the ambient tumult of the Order, he was playing with a pen that he had found on the way.

"So, you want to know what I found on this famous murderer?" She asked, sitting down in turn.

He detached his attention from his ephemeral toy and looked her in the eyes. "Tell me everything you know about him. Because I know almost nothing."

"To be honest, I didn't find much, his name doesn't appear in any register, except one." She said with a serious look in her eyes.

Jarek didn't have to think very long, the only register where his name could appear was: "The entrance register on floor -5."

She nodded. "Indeed, I managed to access it because I am a hostess of an Order, but even thanks to that it was not simple, if you had not given me his first name thanks to your letter, I would have been of no use to you. And so, you must have probably guessed it, but it does not come from this floor. He came down here for some reason I don't know and apparently is not part of any Order, not even the Assassins. Given what I knew, that's where I went to inquire directly, but you know them... It is always difficult to have any information about one of their members, however I still managed to access it, but no trace of his name."

"Which leaves only two possible choices." he continued, touching the feather with the pulp of his fingers. "Either he did not register there, or he registered there under a false name."

"That's what I thought as well, but the second option is not conceivable given that each host and hostess knows the first name of a person taking the Ushi test when registering in the Order."

Jarek stared at Nerris for a few moments and noticed that several looks were turned towards them. As if to try to understand what two people like them were doing sitting together discussing.

"As normal, it's true that it's impossible, but with an Ushi of mind control or at least something that resembles it, it becomes plausible."

The hostess seemed to think about it for a moment, before finally frowning. "Indeed, it is possible, but the mastery of such a spell is not conceivable for a being coming from this floor."

"Unless his whole group doesn't come from floor -5, but from a higher floor."

"Which would explain their power and total absence in the registers." Nerris continued, as if she knew where Jarek was going with it. "So are you planning to go to Ceston to pay them a little visit?"

A smile appeared on Jarek's face. "Indeed, I will go to the Order of Assassins, but I do not plan to meet them, I will go register with this Order and steal their registration records."