Chương 114: Arc 2 - Chapter 56

After a short rest, Fritz and his team stacked the non-charred sharks in a pile to be processed into flaky fillets. Then they got to cutting. It was bloody work, but a suitably satisfying task, there was a grim triumphant pleasure in carving the creatures. Toby, in particular, was a genius of gutting the beasts. His daggers darted, parting skin and extracting bones in a blur. It was repetitive, rote, almost hypnotic, the way he laid out the cleaned flesh in long strips on top of a flat stone.

The meat was wet, pink and shimmered like pearls when held to the light. The strips were soon added to Cal's simmering pan and the wonderful smell of frying fish filled the air. Fritz forgot himself, pausing his own cutting for a moment to savour the scent. His mouth watered and he could see Bert skulking near the cooking fire, holding a bowl and waiting to be first to try the monster meat. While watching, Fritz noticed something to Bert's side, out in the distance.

Without his incredible sight, he may have discounted the small, triangular shapes peeking above the sands as a heat haze, or would have if it weren't so cold. But he soon realised they were the fins of another pack of sharks, around nine of them if his eyes could be trusted. They would reach them within minutes, likely before they even got to have some lunch.

Fritz cursed under his breath, then scanned his surroundings, noting another pack of six heading their way from the other direction, swimming through the sands stealthily. He wondered what had caught the shark's attention, what had drawn them from the sea? Was it the blood? Was it the Spite? Or maybe the scent of their own kin dying and sizzling on the wind that had stirred them so? It didn't matter right now, Fritz stood quickly and called out to his team.

"More sharks incoming. Ready yourselves, turtle!" His team took only a second to follow his commands, and Fritz took his place in the protective circle. They gripped their weapons and waited for the assault. Luckily, the two packs didn't strike at the same time, instead, their separate attacks were staggered. Nine sharks sped in and were slain or repelled. Then six spilled over their formation only to suffer the same fate. Cut, slashed, hacked and burned the sharks fell to Fritz and his team.

When the last of the beasts fell to Quicksilver's shadowed edge, Fritz wiped his brow and searched the sea and shore again. There were no signs of any more packs approaching, so he signalled an all-clear. Shoulders sagged and many exhaled. They'd taken fewer wounds than the previous fight, but already Fritz could see his team's weariness build. That, and he knew that they were likely running low on mana after that latest clash.

Jane only reinforced this notion when said she could only heal one more bite when she finished healing a nasty cut down Toby's arm.

"Rest a bit," Fritz said.

"I'll keep an eye out."

"I see what you're doing. Anything to keep you from fish duty," Bert accused, pulling out a fang lodged in his calf.

"Speaking of fish," Fritz said, staring over the sands.

"Lauren, anything good on these sharks?" Lauren stood from where she had been sitting and set her lens to her eye, she searched the sharks for almost a minute before speaking.

"Their skin is magical. Likely the source of their Ability to swim through the sand," she theorised.

"Could be useful to a leather-worker."

"And here I thought we could just eat it," Bert said.

"I guess we can't if it might be worth something."

"It would have been like eating a grinding stone, with all the softness of boiled leather," Cal said.

"So we'd just need to chew carefully?" Bert asked with a grin.

"Let's just hang them to dry, they can be treated properly on the outside," Lauren said.

"As for now throw some of this preservation powder on them."

"Powder, where did you get that?" George asked.

"I always had it," Lauren stated primly.

"There was a small box of it behind the counter of my mother's shop. It's good to have a supply of it, in case the other local stalls and stores run out and some Climbers are in need of it."

"Ah, of course," George said. Fritz and Bert looked to each other, the same thought occurring to them. They hadn't prepared well for their Climb. Though considering they had gone from one Spire to another in such a short span of days maybe it was to be expected. Fritz could only shrug at his friend and resolve himself to plan better for the next Spire. The Rain Spire, if he could manage to secure enough badges.

George took the proffered fist-sized box of powder and set to work as he had little to do at the moment, what with the other tasks being taken up by the rest of the team.

"Does it work on meat?" Cal asked.

"No, and the powder itself is a poison," George said while he applied the powder sparingly to the shark skins. Cal shrugged and returned to his smoking pan, scowling at the blackened shark strips within, poking and prying the, now charcoal, off of the dull metal.

"Damn," Bert said looking over the man's shoulder.

"I take it lunch will be late?' Cal sighed.

"Yep."

"Boo," Bert complained, and Fritz agreed silently, he could really do with a meal. His arms ached, mostly in the elbows, and his legs were sore from all the dodging. Still, he didn't sheath his blade or relax any as he kept watch. Soon the sound of sizzling and the smell of frying suffused the air, and it was hard for him not to be distracted as the others received their lunch before him. They praised the food when they ate it, which just made his hunger worse.

He contemplated enacting a rule that declared that the Captain should be served first... at all meals. Fritz quickly abandoned the thought. They would label me a food tyrant and oppose me, Bert might even call a mutiny, he mused. In fifteen minutes it was his turn to eat and he had Rosie take over the watch for him. She was a guard after all, and her Awareness would make her the most likely to spot another attack.

When he bit into the succulent seared shark he found it was chewy and closer in taste to seagull than fish. It was also fairly flavourless, though hearty and heavy. The salt and pepper applied to the outside elevated the relatively bland meat to a passable meal. In the Spires, conjuring such a good dish was an achievement and should be thoroughly enjoyed. And so Fritz did, taking his time to savour his lunch. However, on his next Climb, Fritz decided he might invest in some proper herbs and spices.

After he had finished he congratulated Cal on another successful lunch.

"Wasn't hard, just fried them up is all," he replied modestly.

"Truthfully, I don't really know what I'm doing, could do with some learning once we're out."

"I thought you wanted to be a merchant," Fritz said.

"I can do both, can't I?" Cal asked.

"Of course, you can," Fritz stated.

"You could be a purveyor of monster meats and Spire spices."

"You think so?" Cal said hopefully.

"I think so," Lauren interjected.

"It's best that you know the quality of their goods and what their uses are. Knowledge of commodities and where and when they're wanted is all part of being a successful merchant." This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

"That, and running once you've cheated your customers," Bert said.

"What's a commodity?" Rosie asked.

"Anything that can be bought or sold," Lauren replied easily.

"So... everything?" Rosie hedged. Lauren merely smiled politely.

"Exactly."

"Not all things have a price," Fritz protested.

"Is that so?" Lauren asked raising an eyebrow.

"Could you name such a unique material?"

"Honour," Fritz proclaimed and she rolled her eyes, so he added.

"Love."

"A more tangible, real, example please," she said as if bored.

"Why, Lauren, I never took you for such a cynic!" Bert cried, then Fritz dramatically took over after him, "Didn't you come Climbing for such intangibles, like adventure, excitement and escape?" When she smiled and shook her head slightly he continued his performance.

"Not for all the gold in the world could one buy such precious things."

"Depends where you look. There's many a street down in the districts that sell a lot of uh... love," Rosie said.

"And honour is always able to be bought. Just need enough gold."

"Or leverage," Lauren agreed.

"That's not what I'm talking about and you know it," Fritz argued.

"I take your point, though it doesn't matter. What you're not willing to sell, someone else will," Lauren said.

"Especially when you're starving," Bert added. Fritz sighed, knowing the truth of the matter, intimately.

"I suppose you're right, we all do what we can to survive. And food isn't free. Such is the state of our drowning city."

"And that's a true shame," Lauren muttered to herself and Fritz found himself agreeing.

"So... you liked the seared shark?" Cal asked, changing the subject awkwardly.

"Great for the limited supplies and tools you are working with," Fritz said cheerily.

"Another serving, if you could be so good." Cal nodded and transferred some more strips into Fritz's outstretched bowl.

"What about the rest, can't fry it all, should we smoke it?" Toby suggested. Fritz's mouth was too full of food to reply, so Cal answered, "Do we have the time to do that?"

"I don't think so," Rosie said, squinting into the distance.

"I can see more coming," she added pointing off into the distance.

"Barely a moment's rest," Lauren bemoaned.

"Must be the spite," Jane said, standing quickly and preparing to either flee or fight. The rest of the team took her lead, packing their bowls away. Cal held the still-hot pan by its handle and was struggling to know what to do with it. It would likely burn the things in his pack, but he was obviously loath to leave it behind. With a conflicted expression, he ran to Bert who upon seeing the man's plight handed him his refilling flask.

"The water will cool it. Fritz, what are your orders?" Bert asked. Fritz barely had time to chew through the last of his second helping before Toby also called out a warning.

"More, coming from right below us!" He was staring at the ground, his eyes slowly moving, tracking the sharks through the sand with his Sanguine Sight. Not for the first time, Fritz wished he'd received such an Ability, though it didn't bear complaining about. Well, at least not at that moment. Fritz swallowed down what was left in his mouth and barked his orders, there was no use fleeing when the beasts were so close, so it would have to be another stand.

"Turtle formation, grab the skins, but leave the meat Cal," he yelled.

"We might be able to sate them with their kin's flesh." Rapidly the team took their places, though this time Fritz directed Toby to the centre to watch out for sharks submerged below the sands. Annoyingly, the monsters were not at all tempted by the flesh of their fellows, they ignored the strewn carcasses and swam doggedly towards Fritz and his team. The sleek creatures hit their formation and were met with steel, fists and fire.

This wasn't the kind of fight the monsters were made for, their pack tactics, surprising leaps and stealthy approaches were thwarted by superior Senses and the rapid responses of their team's Defenders. As such, the sharks were cut apart, skewered and speared as soon as they left the sand, their blood sprinkling over the shore in a red drizzle.

"Use as little mana and stamina as possible," Fritz ordered during a lull in the battle while the sharks circled ominously.

"We'll need to conserve our strength if more packs keep coming for us." As he finished his words, a shark leapt at him, while the other burst out in the centre and the last three all singled out a bloody Bert. The one coming right for Fritz sprung out of the sand as if it could fly, but he was already used to this kind of assault by now. He sidestepped easily and chopped down with Quicksilver, right between its spade-shaped skull and its body, rending a terrible gash in its side and ruining its gills.

Toby drove both his daggers into the other shark's underbelly, gutting it, while Bert's brutal punches and compact kicks sent the beasts that came for him tumbling away through the air or skipping off the sand like tossed stones. From there, the defence went as well as could be expected, and now another fifteen sharks were left bleeding and dying, around and in the circle of their formation. Panting, bloody and tired, they scanned the red splattered shore for more foes.

Finding none, Jane got to work healing the worst injuries. Rosie sat heavily as her various bite wounds were sewn shut by pale green threads. She grunted out a thanks that was waved off with a thank you in return.

"Did you notice they focus on Bert?" Toby asked Fritz as they both cleaned their blades.

"It's the blood," Bert grumbled.

"My Potent Blood must make me more tasty or something."

"I was going to ask about that, your veins and heart are much brighter than anyone else's," Toby said.

"Is it a Trait or something?" Bert nodded tiredly, then a pulse of yellow light washed over him from his amulet and he perked up.

"Do you think the whole floor will be like this?" Cal asked.

"Shark attacks, over and over."

"Yes," Fritz admitted.

"It has to be the spite," Toby stated.

"It's worse than we thought."

"About what I expected," Fritz said.

"Though I thought we would get more than thirty yards away from the entrance before the danger found us."

"The true danger will be the exhaustion, tripled by the need for constant vigilance," Lauren said.

"We've barely been here an hour and already we've had to slay so many sharks. We may have to re-adjust, the slow and steady plan could be impossible." A thoughtful silence fell over the team, punctured only by the scraping sounds of packing and the storing of equipment, shark skins and meat. Fritz used the time to consider a new strategy.

He didn't know if they could make it to the Stairway with any good speed, but if their rest was interrupted every time they lay down it would be a slow, grinding death by a thousand bites.

"Everyone, take your stamina remedies, and apply your healing grease," Fritz commanded.

"Lauren's right, we cannot take our time here as I had hoped. The sharks would wear us down before we found our way to the Well. Take what meat and skin we can from this pack and we'll get going. I don't want to have to stop once we've started, so we'll leave the corpses of the next sharks we encounter behind." The team nodded, there was some grumbling from Bert but the complaint was mostly about his wounds.

Though the madman could duck, dodge and weave around most of the bites, he couldn't abandon his position in the formation leaving him little room to maneuver, forcing him to take cuts he could have otherwise avoided. It was also something Fritz had struggled with, and he had to rely on his barrier once and his Umbral Phase twice to keep him from injury. And he alone of his team had remained completely unscathed. Danger Sense, Grace and his talent for evasion had mitigated the majority of the maws that came his way.

There was a rumbling below the sand and Fritz turned to Toby who was already staring hard around them. Subtly the shore shifted and the waves of the ocean grew taller by inches, the water crept closer to where they stood. With the small changes a sudden sense of vertigo assailed Fritz and he nearly lost his lunch in a brief bout of nausea. Thankfully, he was able to keep his roiling stomach under control and the sensation faded away in a couple of seconds.

Only one other of his team looked affected by the shifting of the floor, and surprisingly it was Rosie. Fritz quickly came to the conclusion that it must have been the Awareness Attribute they shared, which he theorised to mean the Spire, or rather, the spite, had done something to try and confuse them. It didn't take long to discover what had changed.

Their tracks, the blood and the footsteps, they had left in the sand had been covered and some of the sharks they had slain had simply sunk beneath the fine white grains. There was also a lingering dizziness and the oppressive feeling that he was lost and out of place. He turned to face the direction he thought the Stairway had been and noticed that the shoreline's shape had been altered and he wasn't quite sure if he stood in the same spot as before.

Incongruity warred in his mind until his dizziness subsided, the impression lasted less than a minute, but that was far longer than he had patience for. He tapped his foot on the sand and pulsed his Door Sense in time with it, for a moment there was no response but soon he felt a small, clouded resonance and knew he was facing the right direction, even if he was a little off.

"What was that?" Rosie asked.

"Tremor," Toby said.

"No not that, the spinny feeling," Rosie stated.

"What do you mean?" George asked.

"I didn't feel anything of the sort."

"The spite," Fritz said.

"It's trying to muddle us. So we walk the wrong way."

"How?" Toby asked, having looked up from the ground, obviously seeing no further sharks.

"Look around, the Floor's changed," Fritz said.

"And seemingly it was able to do so without alerting those without Awareness." The team all wore frowns as they looked over the area, their expressions quickly turned to scowls as they noticed all the changes.

"How did I not see that, even some of the sharks are gone," Cal said.

"And the ocean is closer," Lauren mused.

"Strange that I only felt the quake and didn't realise all the changes until you brought my attention to it."

"You would have noticed in time. I don't think the spite can hide things like that from your mind for very long," Fritz espoused, even though he wasn't quite sure of his theory.

"Though by then you might already be lost, maybe have to use another Door dowser. And if you ran out, well, you'd have to hope you're not on a survival, maze or navigation floor and had a clear way to the Well Room."

"Well, we are on one of those floors," Toby groused.

"And I'm down my last dowser."

"Don't worry we have a couple more, it shouldn't be too bad," Fritz said with a reassuring smile.

"And I didn't get turned around, thanks to this," he lied while pulling out and opening his compass. The needle still pointed north, just as it had before, it was right where he expected it to point, which was a relief as he had no way of being sure it hadn't changed. Coupled with his Door Sense though it reaffirmed his belief that he knew where to go.

"It works on this Floor?" Lauren asked mildly, though he could see her shoulders relax somewhat.

"It does indeed, perfectly, I might add," Fritz said continuing to smile confidently.

"The Stairway is to the west. So even if we run out of dowsers, if we have this, we can still find our way."

"And it's not shrouded?" Jane asked worriedly.

"Or being messed with by the spite?"

"I don't think so," Fritz said.

"Makes sense it wouldn't be," George stated.

"And why is that?" Fritz asked.

"Well, the spite can't shroud everything," he responded, though there was some doubt in his tone.

"Those meritocratic conditions you mentioned would forbid the floor from being impossible even with the spite on us? Right?"

"I think you're onto something," Fritz mused, there was a certain ring of truth to the words he couldn't quite identify. Like the statement spoke to some larger reason, some great purpose, that Fritz had neither the knowledge of nor the clarity to grasp anything but the edges of.

"Though we shouldn't be standing around trying to divine the Spires' secrets," he continued.

"Pack up and be ready to leave, we're getting out of here quick as may be." The team quickly finished up the last of the gutting and filleting, made all the easier by there being far fewer sharks lying around, and were soon ready to leave. He considered ordering them to wash their clothes and bodies of blood, so as not to leave as much of a scent behind, but he dismissed the thought immediately. The oceans cold water would suck the very warmth from them, leaving them shivering and weak.

Not at all the condition they would need for the long walk ahead. Fritz shouldered his own pack, checked his direction, and strode forth. He led the way and his team followed.

"You won't get us, spite. We've been through worse."