“Why did we visit Onacona first?” Travis asked as he and Will walked up the winding road.

“I didn’t want word to reach her that I might be coming. She values her privacy enough to kill anyone that crosses an imaginary line in the sand. We literally caught her with her pants down.” Will said. “And it was still a nasty fight just to disengage.”

“Hmm.” Travis mused.

“And you never wanna do the easy thing first. Do the hard thing first while you’ve still got the energy.” Will said.

“You sure this is gonna be easy?” Travis asked, glancing up the winding road, designed so that each switchback gave a new vantage of the castle of bone ahead of them. Allowing them to take in how much bigger it was getting.

“I gotta hunch.” Will said, “Did you see how big the signs were that Onacona placed threatening tresspassers?”

“Those were placed by other Climbers.” Travis said, shaking his head.

“Exactly. Now compare Onacona’s complete absence of a sign with THAT sign!” Will pointed at Mordaine’s castle in the distance, with the skull-turrets and the ominous storm randomly releasing a bolt of dramatic lightning.

KABOOM!

For an instant, the rows of skulls decorating the castle were brought into stark relief by the flash of light.

“Onacona relies on word of mouth and a 100% kill rate to be left alone. Mordaine communicates, like a puffed-up bird. It isn’t much but it’s leagues ahead of the huntress.”

“So why are we walking?” Travis asked.

“Different strokes to survive different faefolk,” Will said. “Oh wow, look at that,” Will said, pointing to the castle, where a previously hidden torrent of rain created a dark shadow that hung off the side of the castle in a visually pleasing, if ominous, way.

“I don’t get it.”

Will snagged Travis’s shoulder and brought his ear in close.

“The guy is obviously proud of his castle. Appreciate it, you bastard. He’s selling the experience.” Will whispered into Travis’s ear. “That’s why we’re walking.”

“oh. OH!” Travis said, dropping his fist into his palm.

Travis didn’t say anything for a few minutes, long enough to slowly pretend to get anxious, building believable tension the castle marched closer, until the tension started bubbling out his mouth.

“Will, are you sure about this? I think I saw…things moving in the windows.” Travis asked.

“I’m sure,” Will said, playing along and taking the role of the idiot leader too determined to know better. “I need Mordaine to hear what I have to say. It’s critical to the future of this Floor…Probably.”

“Man, I dunno, seems like a REAL bad idea to willingly approach a castle made of bones.” Travis said, laying it on thick. “I just want to get home to my girlfriend.”

Will cast him a curious glance.

Travis shrugged.

“You remember her right boss? Mabel?” Travis said with expectant eyes.

Screw you.

“…Yeah, I remember her. We’ve gotta make sure you get home safe so you two can ‘build a life’ together.” Will hoped Travis heard the air quotes in his tone.

“That’s why this job is giving me the creeps, Will. What if I never make it back to my dear, sweet Mabel? This castle feels like it’s just waiting to swallow us whole and use our flesh as binding agent to stick our bones to the wall. Can’t we just, I don’t know, send a letter or something?” Travis demaded.

“No, Mordaine deserves to hear this in person. Mabel…Isn’t that the girl with the dead tooth whose breath smells like a rotting skunk?”

“You’re thinking of some other girl. My Mabel smells like lilacs.”

“She smells like whatever you want,” Will muttered under his breath.

After about an hour of pretending to be afraid of the castle and taking shots at each other, Will and Travis arrived at the gate, which seemed to be wood carved and painted to match the bones studding the wall.

How many of the actual bones are fake, too? Will wondered, scanning the wall. Sadly, he didn’t have the experience with massive piles of sun-bleached bone to tell which were painted wood and which weren’t.

Will craned his neck to study the castle that seemed to loom over them like a man intimidating someone shorter than himself.

The angle of the wall, or just those eaves? Will wondered to himself.

A whipcrack was accompanied by a harsh cry of pain and the rattle of chains. A moment later, the gate began to rise.

A massive warrior in black armor with flaming red eyes rode a lovely black stallion nearly twice Will’s height at the shoulder.

That’s a workhorse. A pretty one, but still.

You saw them here and there outside the tower, where they were used for their ability to draw a plow, cart, or work a pump.

Mostly by people below level 15, who didn’t have enough Strength or Abilities to do the work themselves.

…Wonder where he got it? How does it deal with the Miasma? Does it have a Relic? A Class? Is it some kind of shapeshifter?

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

Honestly, I’m far more intrigued by the horse than I am it’s rider.

The lumbering rider with flaming eyes and spiky black armor unsheathed a thick, swooping sword with an odd handle, hefting it with menacing deliberation as the horse meandered towards them…Ominously.

I don’t think the horse could navigate those switchbacks, Will thought, glancing behind them. If they broke and ran now, they would scramble and run downhill, outmaneuvering the mass of muscle on the tight turns, arriving back at Bakton’s Keep with an exciting story of harrowing survival.

Everything about this place was designed to look scary, but it offered easy means of escape.

What a nice fellow.

“Mortal, what foolishness bids thee to cast your bones upon my lord’s whims?”

Ooh, double meaning. ‘Cast bones’ meaning roll the dice and the more literal interpretation of getting his bones stuck to the wall.

“I’d like to invite him to attend a little get-together between the great powers of the Floor tomorrow. May I come in and deliver this invitation in person?”

“…You’re kidding.”

“No?” Will said.

“In all the time I have been guarding this gate, none have offered such a ridiculous excuse for their presence, and none have passed me, The Black Gate Guardian!”

“The gate is white.” Will said.

“I am black,”

The fiery-eyed figure said, motioning to himself. “I have decided: My Lord’s throne will not be bothered by your trifles. You will be added to the wall!” The armored menace reached behind him and pulled out a charcoal-black pole, clicking it into the handle of the strange ‘sword’, making it into a polearm.

Oh, that’s cool.

The black armored menace kicked his heels into the horse’s side, and it leapt forward with predatory grace that reminded Will more of a wolf than a horse.

Then he saw its teeth.

Oh, right, those other fae had those meat-eating horse-monsters. This is a BIG one, though. No wonder I thought it was a draft horse. What is he feeding this thing!?

…Do I even wanna know?

Will dove out of the way of the horse’s teeth and the heard the polearm cutting through the air where he’d just been standing.

What is the ideal way to handle this? Will thought as he rolled. Unlike Onacona, Mordaine clearly favored form over function.

In order to appeal to the Fae lord’s sensibilities, Will would have to beat this threat…and look good doing it.

Onacona’s animalistic tooth-and-nail brawl wasn’t the language this one spoke.

Thanks Bakton, for revealing the deeper layers of how the Floor works.

Will rose to his feet in a flash and whipped out his tomahawk, spinning it around his finger once before letting go and continuing the spin with a Phantom Snake, whirling the axe around himself dramatically while he drew his off-hand weapon.

“This is too important to run here!” Will declared for their audience. “Let’s show this walking breadbox what we can do.”

Emphasis on the word ‘show’.

Travis seemed to catch Will’s meaning, because the very next thing he did was begin to growl, light emerging from his fist.

“Understood! KYAAAAA!” Travis gave a dramatic cry as he thrust the fist upward in a bloom of light, and three ‘demonic salamanders’ climbed out of summoning circles in the ground in front of him.

Illusions, obviously, but they looked damn cool, which was the point.

Over the next few minutes, Will discovered that the dark rider they faced did not have the capacity to turn into mist or shapeshift, which meant that at any point, Will probably could’ve torn him limb from limb or put a cannonball through him, but that wouldn’t have been dramatic enough.

Will wasn’t as strong as him, so he hammed it up by letting the rider toss him around a bit, getting a couple ‘close calls’ before getting a ‘lucky’ hit with his tomahawk that caught the rider through a chink in his armor.

Travis’s illusionary demons threw poorly-aimed fireballs that only served to break up their opponents concentration, never getting to close to avoid exposing their weak grasp on existence.

Will waited for the Psychic Venom to lower his opponent’s Strength, then dragged him off the horse and caught him in a really cool-looking blade-lock, where they were glaring daggers at each other past their weapons.

This was followed by a half dozen exchanges where Will slipped around the polearm, and eventually Will leveraged his superior speed and caught the rider with a swift strike to the neck, piercing the armor and forcing the rider to scramble backwards, his foot caught in the reins of his horse.

“You upstarts may have defeated me,” He gurgled, holding a hand over his bleeding neck. “But I am the least of the Four Gate Guardians! The others are far stronger! Pursuing this futile endeavor further will only end in death!”

The defeated rider gave a gurgling laugh as his horse bolted, the reins wrapped around his foot dragging him through the gate and into the gloom of the bone-laden castle.

Will and Travis caught each other’s eye.

‘three more?’ Travis mouthed with a pained expression.

Will shrugged.

Travis let out a quiet sigh.

‘Onacona was less annoying.’ He mouthed.

Will waggled his hand before straightening, squaring his shoulders like the ‘hero’ of the story…at least…this particular farce.

“Come now, Travis, no matter how powerful these gate guardians are, I know we can defeat them if we work together,” Will said, clenching a fist and staring heroically into the distance.

“Golly gee, I sure hope they don’t unexpectedly split us up and force me to fight the seductress,” Travis said as he followed Will through the gate. “…That would be aaawfulll.”

Will frowned as the darkness closed in around them, turning to Travis.

“What seductress?” Will asked as they walked further into the castle, the walls around them fading into the darkness, leaving them stranded in the Abyss.

“In stories, every group of four generals have a weak one, a gross one, a strong leader, and a token female who uses her feminine wiles to tempt the weak of will. Dibs on that last one, by the way.”

“That’s Stup-“

A woman’s voice came from everywhere at once, interrupting Will.

“Fu fu fu, it seems that some insects, attracted by the flame of my lord’s power, have thrown themselves into my demesne. Come to me now, you delicious-looking, strapping young men. I’ll show you pleasures to die for.”

“That’s the gross one,” Will called it, finger raised.

“What? That’s clearly-“

An inhuman shriek filled the air as black webs seemed to manifest around them out of the darkness itself.

An eight-eyed face reared up out of the darkness, arm-length fangs twitching with hunger below. The arms had little babies clinging to them, waiting to disengage and skitter everywhere.

“-A giant shadow-spider. Huh. Nice call. Pass.” Travis crossed his arms.

“Whaddya mean pass? You don’t get to pass!” Will shouted.

“Watch me-EEEEEEEE!” Travis shouted as a trap-door opened beneath him, dropping him into the Abyss below.

So if we’ve already fought the weak one, and the gross one is up here…

“I’ll save ya, buddy!” Will said, lunging forward with inhuman speed and diving in after Travis.

“No, don’t! Screw you!” Travis shouted, struggling as Will caught him, bunched his feet between them and launched Travis back out the trap door.

“Godsdamnit!” Travis’s voice faded as the trap door slammed shut with a click.

Will hit a stone floor with an ‘OOMPH’ as the wind was driven out of him.

Groaning, Will levered himself to his feet.

I wonder if I should fly up and break back into the upper floor, or would that be being a poor guest? Can Travis handle himself? Well, I suppose he survived getting his heart ripped out. At the very least, he should be able to run away if he has to.

His class has survivability as a core theme.

“That was quite the fall. Are you all right?” A young woman’s voice caught Will’s attention, dragging his gaze down from the tunnel above, to a young woman in a rather provocative nightgown, with black hair and black lipstick from the 3rd Floor.

The candle she held in her hand cast sinuous, flickering shadows across her form, the only visible pinprick of light in the room.

…I think I might’ve actually saved Travis’s life.No way he would’ve survived this, Will thought, eyes narrowed as he slipped the tomahawk out of his belt.

“My name is Cassandra, and I can’t tell you how relieved I am to…Wait, what are you-EEEEK!” the girl’s eyes widened an instant before she shrieked and tossed down the candle, sprinting away as Will started chasing her through the darkness, waving his axe and cackling maniacally.