I’d been hoping to hold onto the gold key, since it had been the one coded to the path I’d been taking so far. Still, I couldn’t in good conscience leave without trying it.
I tried the gold key.
It turned. The door to Vera’s cell vanished.
She blinked, hesitantly reaching a hand into the space outside.
A broad grin spread over her face as her hand exited the cell.
She stepped outside, grabbing me in a hug. “Ooh, yes! Freedom! Thanks, kid.”
I may have blushed.
I turned my head toward the masked man. I didn’t see him move. The space where he’d been blurred, and I heard the sound of metal ringing against stone.
A section of the wall of his chamber had been cut away, leaving nothing but a pile of cleanly-sliced rubble where it had once stood. Keras’ weapon was already sheathed again. I never saw it in his hand.
Holy goddess. What...?
There was no sign of triggering the wards Keras had mentioned. Had he been lying, or were the wards simply disabled because two of the doors were already open? I couldn’t be sure.
“We should leave.” Keras moved out of the cell with deliberate slowness.
He stepped over the trap that had killed my predecessor, moving to the child’s side and kneeling down. He looked at me. “Do you have water?”
I nodded, fumbling for my backpack, and withdrew a flask. I tossed it to him without a second thought. He caught it, of course.
Vera watched the whole exchange with narrowed eyes.
Keras uncapped the bottle, tilting the young boy’s head at an angle. Then, he opened the child’s mouth and poured water down his throat.
The boy coughed, but he swallowed some of the water. A good sign, I hoped. I was never very good at medicinal matters.
The masked man tossed the flask back toward me. I missed the catch, but Vera caught it.
“Mind if I take a swig?”
I shook my head.
She drank deeply from the flask, making a satisfied “ah!” sound, and then handed it back to me.
I replaced the flask in my bag, looking back to her. “There’s some water on the body, too. I didn’t take it.”
Vera knelt down next to the corpse, taking the bag that carried his food and water. “Thanks. This’ll be useful.”
She looked nervous. I felt the same way.
“Come.” Keras knelt down, picking up the unconscious child. He draped the kid over his shoulder and stood back up, leading the way out of the room. Vera and I carefully avoided the trapped spots on the floor, following him into the hallway.
He walked quickly, which let Vera and me deliberately fall a bit behind. I turned my head to her. “You know much about him?”
She lifted her hands and shrugged. “He was in there a lot longer than I was, from what I understand. I’ve only been here a few days, thank the goddess. Seen him do a few more magic tricks in his cell. Not sure what his attunement is. I’ve never seen anything like that sword trick, cutting stone.”
I thought on it. My best guess? He had multiple attunements. That was rare, but not unheard of. Maybe the Legionnaire attunement and something related to swords?
But that wouldn’t explain his speed.
Three attunements?
Practically unheard of, but I couldn’t think of a better explanation. I’d have to get more information first.
“He’s a delver, like you are?”
She shook her head. “Pretty sure he’s not. A climber, probably.”
I knew that term; it meant someone who was trying to reach the top of the tower. There were legends that anyone who reached the top of one of the six Shifting Spires would receive a blessing from Selys, and that someone who conquered all six towers would be lifted into the skies to reside with the visages.
Most people didn’t take the latter legend seriously, but there were plenty of people who claimed that they had reached the top of a tower and been given something by one of the visages: wealth; enchanted items; maybe even an additional attunement. The stories varied from person to person. It was likely there was something at the top.
The promise of a divine reward was a tremendous temptation. There were hundreds of climbers in each city, many of whom already had attunements. Climbers entered through different gates than the one used for Judgments, so they could go inside in groups.
Sane people kept their groups to a half dozen or so, though. The tower punished anything it saw as a threat, and everyone knew the stories about what had happened when it did.
The Kingdom of Feria had once tried to invade the fifth tower.
It was nothing but dust and ruins, now.
We continued walking down the hallway. In the limited time before we reached the next room, I’d have to gather as much information as I could.
“Do you think he’s a danger to us?”
Vera shrugged. “Of course. But we’re still better off following in his wake.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Why is that?”
She put a hand on the nearby wall. “Because we just broke out of a prison so, this is a threat to us, too. The tower doesn’t like it when you break the rules.”
I frowned. “You make it sound like the tower is sapient.”
“How else do you explain the constantly changing layout? The treasures that appear for one person who completes a challenge, but not another? Do you really think Selys is watching every room in every tower simultaneously, hand-picking who gets attunements and re-sculpting chambers?”
“I tend to lean toward Bermer’s spectral theory of tower design.”
“Oh, you’re a little scholar. How adorable! I haven’t read that one, so you’re going to have to fill me in.”
“Incorporeal minions, essentially. Dozens of them for each tower.”
Vera nodded, running a hand through her hair again. She looked disheveled, which was unsurprising if she’d been here for days. “Yeah, I could see that. Amounts to about the same thing as a thinking tower, though.”
“Sort of. If there are multiple entities, they might have to communicate with each other, which means some routes might be safer than others. And maybe they wouldn’t all be in agreement on how to handle us.”