To his surprise, the tower was safe. Apart from a few stones falling loose and a few boards snapping under the slightest pressure, the witch's tower that looked like it would collapse at any time was somewhat sturdy.

Shade had still led to prove it was safe. The skeleton had fallen down a few stairs and slipped on a ladder rung, but blamed it on Torban's distracting behavior.

Torban, the specter bag, had said nothing.

Owin was having an incredibly difficult time figuring out Torban. Unlike Shade who had arrived as loud and dramatic as ever, the bag had been shy or quiet and contemplative. It had burped and moaned, but otherwise hadn't said anything for weeks. Only after some time in the Desert did Torban start talking, and even that wasn't consistent.

Owin stopped outside the witch's door. If it hadn't reeked like old ham or had blood-stained handprints all over, he might not have assumed it was the witch's. From what he knew, both of those things signaled it was likely not a pleasant room beyond.

There was always a chance he was wrong, but . . . he probably wasn't.

"What kind of wizard? Do we know?" Owin kept his hand near Torban, waiting for a weapon. The bag had yet to supply one, and it didn't seem like it responded well to Owin demanding something to fight with.

"What do you know about different kinds of wizards?" Shade asked. He leaned close to the door, put his hand against one of the bloody handprints, then immediately pulled it away when his hand was about the same size. Whatever or whoever left the handprint had obviously had skin, so it wasn't as if Owin was about to assume Shade had somehow escaped and painted a witch's door.

"There's deficient, and there's fire." Owin held up two fingers. "There's another one."

The top of the stairs had opened into a small lobby, giving the three of them plenty of room to stand. Chorsay had stayed back, still not wanting to get in the way of Owin's poor attempts at leadership.

"Fire, electric, wind, arcane, light and illusion," Chorsay said, holding up all five fingers. "You're deficient and you're an electric focus."

"I have Smoke Cloud too."

"And when is the last time you used that? To make it look like you were a tough guy? To woo the ladies? Who am I kidding? I'm the only one here wooing the ladies." Shade sighed loudly. "I can't handle the ladies." He slumped against the wall.

Chorsay pulled the skeleton up and put an arm over his shoulder. "Shade."

"Oh! Wait. No, no. No comforting." He ducked under Chorsay's arm and threw his hands up. "I can't handle how many ladies are pining over me. I can handle them. Oh, trust me. I can handle them all. Ladies, men . . ." He turned to Owin. "Goblins."

"Shade," Chorsay said again.

"I'm talking too much. Understood. I don't need to be told twice." Shade walked back to the door and placed his hand over a bloody handprint. "I don't even need to be told once. Imagine having blood." He took a step back and kicked in the door.

A blast of wind hit Shade with enough force to throw him against the far wall before he plummeted to the bottom of the tower.

Owin could've leapt out to catch him.

His instincts pulled him that direction until the faintest sensation itched at the back of his mind. Shade thought it was funny to fall to his death. The connection disappeared when the skeleton hit the bottom and poofed into a cloud of gray dust.

Witch Zuxa stood in the back of the room behind a neatly organized desk. The plain light brown wood was sanded, oiled, and shining like a new piece of furniture in the flickering candlelight of an otherwise gore-covered room.

"She was interested in me saying I'm cursed because she's doing some kind of curse," Owin said.

"You don't even need me here," Chorsay said happily. He brought up an arm to shield his face as a powerful gust hit him. It didn't move the old man an inch.

"But I'm glad you're here."

"Ulp." Torban sounded like someone heaving as the Incandescent Blade of Captain Magnan pushed out of the bag's opening.

Owin pulled the sword free and immediately sent his mana through the handle, igniting the blade in brilliant flames.

Zuxa pointed, throwing bits of something sticky and red onto the already disgusting floor. Pieces of humans were pinned to the walls by long iron nails. Fingers, hands, full arms and legs, and even entrails decorated every inch of the circular room.

"Butcher!"

Her voice was a shrill scream of terror and anger.

"You just killed my friend." Owin stepped out of view and pressed himself against the wall. Razor sharp blasts of wind flew out of the door.

Chorsay weathered the attacks without the slightest flinch. He walked up like a wall, with heavy boots thumping on the wooden boards, and stood with just enough room for Owin to slip past.

"What type of witch?" he asked, covering his face as another blast hit him. Whatever spell it had been was enough to nearly knock Owin off his feet. Grooves formed in the boards around Chorsay's feet as winds whipped uncontrollably for a full second.

"Wind."

"Good. Don't slip."

Owin stepped in front of the old man and leapt for the pristine desk. The whole room looked somewhere between slippery and sticky, and if he could avoid it, he hoped to never find out.

Witch Zuxa was far from weak. Before he could reach her, Zuxa held up a long, leaking intestine. It twisted, knotting itself over and over in rapid succession.

Power 6.

Owin landed just as a bloody hand thrust out.

"Bristling Gale."

Midslash, the wind spell hit. Owin felt the world flip.

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He smashed into something solid as the wind whipped around him. Tiny cuts formed over his skin while deep grooves cut into the chitin. The spell kept him suspended, pressing against the unbreakable wall. It felt like a hammer hitting his chest over and over with growing force.

All at once, the spell vanished, but Owin didn't drop. He opened his eyes to find Chorsay cradling him in one arm. The old man had bleeding scratches all over his face, dripping even as he smiled.

"Not how I would have done it."

"I thought I hit a wall," Owin said.

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"Ulp."

Owin reached for Torban and pulled the health potion free. He held it up to Chorsay's lips. "Here."

Chorsay smiled and took the potion with his free hand. "I can feed myself. I'm not a baby bird."

"What's a bird have to do with it?"

Chorsay flicked the cork out and drank the potion. He looked more relaxed as the cuts along his face closed into small, almost invisible scars.

"Throw it," Torban said.

Chorsay looked at the bag. "Owin?"

"Bottle."

"Sure." Chorsay tossed the bottle over his shoulder.

"You can set me down too," Owin said.

Chorsay bent and carefully placed Owin on the ground. He fed the sword back to Torban and looked over the disgusting room without stepping back through the doorway. Zuxa's smoldering body lay propped against the wooden desk. Her head burned brightly with sizzling fluids leaking from the neck where it lay on the desk. The flames soon leapt from the burning hair and meat to the fresh wood.

"Should I loot her?" Owin asked.

Chorsay scratched his cheek, running fingernails over the fresh scars. "Are you fireproof?"

"Uh." Owin opened his index. "No. I'm a goblin."

"You needed your index to tell you that?" Chorsay walked from the door and looked down the tower where a pile of gray dust lay at the base of the stairs. "What was your plan?"

Without Shade there to complain or comment, Owin ran over to the wall and pressed a hand against it with excitement.

"Can you destroy this?"

"The wall? I can." He walked up slowly. "Why?"

"Trust me."

Chorsay planted his feet, pivoted, and punched. His fist easily shattered the stone and sent a spray out with enough speed and power that the debris was dangerous. Owin could have destroyed it himself, but then the opening would be low or too small. With the massive hole Chorsay made, his plan would be easier.

The winding, labyrinthine building spread out in all directions around the tower. Owin could see many lehboa going on as normal in the distance, and a dark smoke rising from the grounds outside the cathedral.

"Where's the warlock?"

Chorsay stomped to Owin's side and looked over the edge. There was a small section jutting out from the building that looked like a separate room with a single entrance, just off of one of the trapped hallways. "That should be it."

"Great." Owin crouched. "If the tower collapses, will you be fine?"

"I can survive a long fall." Chorsay shifted. "Why?"

Owin leapt with all his might, aiming for the top of the boundary wall. The force at which he jumped shattered the wood and sent shockwaves that nearly toppled Chorsay. Even though the giant man remained on his feet, the leap destroyed support of the tower. By the time Owin flipped and landed against the top of the floor. The tower sent up a plume of dust.

Owin spent no time wondering and pushed off once again. The landing was always a concern. Shade had just died from falling a simple height.

But Shade's defenses depended on his class.

Summon the Withered Shade

"Ah!" Shade flailed in the air. "Oh!"

Owin curled into a ball and shielded his head. Withered Shield appeared as he crashed into the warlock's room.

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0 Experience

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"Save me!" Shade flailed, falling much slower than Owin.

"What class are you?" Owin shouted.

"Oh!" A blue shield formed over the skeleton. It shattered as he hit the ruined remains of the warlock's room and bounced once before coming to a rest on his back. "Did you have to summon me in the air?"

"I don't have Shield."

Torban gagged, so Owin reached over and pulled out a potion. It was a blue shield potion.

"Oh. Thanks." Owin fed it back to the bag. "I guess I had a potion."

"You had me too. And you used me." Shade sat up. "Where's Chorsay?"

One massive piece of stone wall flew into the air and crashed loudly into another section of the building. A moment later, another piece flew through the air.

"I see him," Shade said. "Well, not see. I have no eyes, of course. But I know he's there because of the big strength. Big muscular man, you know?" Shade spun his head all the way around. "Where are we? Who did we kill? The warlock?"

"Yeah." Owin stood up, brushed dust from his chitin armor, and started picking through the ruins. The lehboa magus was crushed under a column and the other two appeared to have been doll mobs. He found a few potions, coins, and a weak apprentice level knife. Torban happily ate it all.

"A little more warning would have done me well," Chorsay said. He walked right up to Shade and pulled the skeleton to his feet. "Knowing your stories weren't an exaggeration fills me with joy."

Owin lifted the dead magus. "What was his role in this?"

"Evil magic. Curses. A plague." Chorsay gestured to the cathedral. "Remnants of the ancient war with humans."

Owin looked at the crushed face of the lehboa magus. "I didn't get any of that."

"You need to talk to mobs to get the story side of a floor." Chorsay brushed some dust from Shade. "Find anything good?"

"No. Is there a chest somewhere?"

Chorsay shrugged.

"Yeah, okay. Want to keep moving?"

"I don't want to be split up again." Shade wrapped an arm as far as he could around Chorsay. A bag of bricks smacked the skeleton in the face.

"Sorry." Chorsay moved the bag and gave the skeleton a side hug. "Reunited on the seventh for our fusions. We can take our time on the walk to the stairs."

Owin let himself be guided out of the rubble. Between the destroyed tower and the magus's quarters, there was little left standing of the odd labyrinthine complex they had entered.

Chorsay continued working dust and tiny pieces of rock and mortar from his hair and beard as they walked. Owin leaned against his other side and let the big, calloused hand rest on his helmet.

"Can you tell me the story?" Owin asked.

"About this floor? Long ago, before the towers, mobs and humans lived together. There is no evidence that says this is true, so you know. Our earliest records speak of the towers already existing and humans living outside until they discovered the portal circles." Chorsay stopped for a moment and looked around the city. "Kisisu isn't mentioned in any of those stories. It's only Amnopis that is mentioned anywhere in history, and that is only the siege. The same one your sword is supposedly from. The war and the slaughter of Amnopis split the lehboa into two factions. There were those that continued to fight and the ones who submitted to humanity as the stronger, dangerous heroes."

"The witch and the warlock submitted to humanity," Owin said.

"Yes. And according to this floor, a human army is a month away. They can be resistant to letting humans in if they arrive in too big of a group or are too aggressive at the start. That makes this whole floor a battlefield."

"Zuxa thought I was on her side because I said I was a cursed human."

Chorsay nodded. "The two were working together to create a plague to weaken the city for the human army's arrival. Lehboa may not look like much, but they resisted once and they would again. In time, those in the cathedral will heal. Until a reset."

Kisisu was a massive city, giving them time to walk and listen to Chorsay's stories. After talking about the floor, he moved into a story about a dive into the Ocean with Romoalt, back when they were both still adventuring. The early days of Void Nexus sounded a lot like the Nimble Hogs. Just a few heroes, mismatched and weird, spending days together in small quarters and adventuring for low fees.

Imagining Void Nexus now and the fear the name could put in just about any hero made Chorsay's story sound fake. Veph was a force on her own, so Owin could only imagine what kind of monster her grandfather had been.

Chorsay's story painted Romoalt as a jokester. Someone who only wanted to have fun and wouldn't even take fights seriously.

"A fight never went by without an attempted joke. Sometimes I wondered if he ever worried about his safety during a battle. I've met a few others who only seemed to seek fun, even in the most dangerous situations."

"Like me?" Shade asked.

"Sometimes."

Owin couldn't imagine that. Shade as a feared hero was an impossibility. The skeleton almost always found joy or humor. He had made a little sick lehboa smile. He wasn't scary.

Not like Veph.

Not like Owin.

He clenched his jaw until Chorsay pressed down on his head.

"Relax."

Owin did as he was told. "I was just thinking."

"It's best not to do that," Shade said.

"Not right now. Take it easy. Save your willpower for the fusion. Relax."

Owin reached up and laced his fingers together, resting both hands on top of Chorsay's. "Okay."

"A small boss and the stairs are right up here. Let me handle it. I need to stretch my legs." Chorsay turned them around a corner to a narrow alley that held a lehboa in tattered armor. It stood in a readied stance with a khopesh held to the side. The stairs led to a swirling doorway a dozen feet behind it with the exit door appearing to lead inside a building.

"Are you sure?" Owin asked.

Chorsay patted him on the head and drew the Winged Sword of the Swift Behemoth.

A Shard Hero has entered the floor

Five Shards Active

Owin's eyes widened. "What?"

Chorsay's hand pressed against Owin's helmet. "Run."

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