Chapter 7: Casualties

seaʀᴄh thё NôᴠelFirё.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality. Will thought, enjoying the heavenly soft feel of sturdy burlap cloth cinched around his waist, with suspenders over the roughspun shirt, keeping the whole outfit extra secure, adding support for its massive pockets. The fabric itself was focused primarily on sturdiness, but they were truly the first tailored clothes he’d ever had. Thick socks, real shoes, a belt with nice loops to carry weapons and tools, an itchy wool cloak that shed the heat of the sun and retained warmth at night. Will deeply suspected the aged seamstresses were giving him the ‘Random Teen Wandering Naked Through the Desert’ discount, but he wasn’t going to say anything while benefiting from it. It was too soon to fit him for a prosthesis, they said, since it hadn’t finished healing yet, but they gave him the name of a talented crafter who lived on the bottom floor near the base of the tower, servicing injured Climbers retiring from the life. Just a couple days’ walk from Will’s village, actually. The old women fussed over him and offered to take him as far as The Pit. They were passing by the way down to the bottom floor on their way up to a kingdom on the second floor, which didn’t have the land mass for agriculture. They’d trade bulk fabrics (including a few magical ones) in exchange for the second floor’s unique Sacrifices, salt, and other exports, before heading back to The Pit to change it all out for coin outside the Hunting Grounds, then going back to their farms on the first floor and doing it all over again. “You selling rope there too?” Will had asked, seeing an entire wagon full of the stuff. “The second floor is…difficult to navigate without a lot of good rope,” Tyson said, the guard leader pulling up the rope to reveal steel hooks and pulleys. “They’ve got their own infrastructure there, but you can never be totally sure. We may sell a bit, and for a good price, but not all of it.” Will gently refused the offer of a ride back to The Pit. He’d never heard of anyone coming back from their Trial the long way ‘round, but he was pretty confident he wouldn’t finish The Trial that way. Will thought, clapping his hand over his new pockets. Now that he could actually carry things, it was time to get to the looting. He climbed back up the hillside, the ground treating his new boots with much the same grace as they treated his bare feet. Will had been afraid he’d be stuck barefoot for the entirety of his career as a Climber solely based on his Aspect of the Goat ability, but it seemed to be more universal than that. Sure, it wouldn’t happen anytime soon, but such ridiculous feats were the staple of tales of Lords, and Will had no reason to doubt the possibility, especially since it was his Primary Ability. Meanwhile, Will was rocking 3 growth in no less than three stats. The future was looking up. Will thought, scanning the surroundings as the sun went down. Another fifteen minutes searching the boulder-strewn hillside, and Will came to a horrifying conclusion: The level he got could’ve easily been for the first maksu he killed during the raid, or after he nailed a few further down the hill. He’d been too pumped full of adrenaline to note the exact timing. The moment Will came to that conclusion, he dropped to the ground, getting his precious skull out of line of sight. Will surmised. The caravan was probably safe. The leader wouldn’t attack it again with troops. Will, on the other hand, was significantly less safe. The maksu leader had a massive lump on the back of his head that there had been a third party attending the caravan raid, and maksu were definitely clever enough to realize that the dead hunter back home hadn’t been an accident. The survivors would be waiting for him. Will made his hasty farewells to the old ladies and their retired Climber husbands, and started sprinting. The sun sank below the horizon and a weird pale sun rose in its place, significantly dimmer, casting the world in a pale shadow of its former appearance. Light became shadow and shadow became fathomless blackness. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Yet, no matter how fast Will ran, the ground never betrayed him. He fully expected to slip and fall or perhaps roll an ankle, but the ground felt as flat as the orphanage’s hard-packed earth floors. He made good time. Will ran by the light of the dimmer sun, following the edge of the canyon for a good hour before he began climbing back down into it, deliberately avoiding following the same path he and the maksu had taken on the way out. That seemed like an excellent way to get speared. Once he got to the bottom of the canyon, Will crossed the river and made it to the other side of the canyon, then climbed By the time the morning sun broke on the side of the horizon, Will overlooked the village from up high, opposite the trail the maksu had used to attack the caravan. Sure enough, that side of the canyon was crawling with the blue-skinned humanoids, watching the easy trail into the canyon, slings ready to unleash a hail of stones on Will’s face should he try to sneak back in that way. The vast majority of their warriors, including their reserve units, were up in the rough terrain on the opposite side of the river. The sun was coming from behind him, and his side of the canyon was cloaked in shadow, while the warriors were lit up. The village was still bathed in shadow and would be for another hour or so. There was no sign of movement. Will limbered up, then started sprinting down the cliffside, straight for the village. What might’ve been a suicidal freefall was slowed just enough to prevent broken bones as Will hurtled downhill, covering ground in the blink of an eye, the terrain morphing to conform to his feet as he ran. Will hit the ground with a spine-jarring slam and kept running, sprinting faster than he ever had in his life. He thought maybe one of the warriors on the opposite side had seen him by the time he hit the village proper, but it was already too late. Will arrived at the shrine built around his Trial’s exit portal and ducked to enter the undersized entrance as quietly as possible. A flicker of firelight on steel out of the corner of his eye was the only warning. A faintly glowing, straight-handled hatchet nicked his forearm as Will caught the wood shaft on his truncated wrist. The maksu leader lunged forward, fangs pointing outward as it attempted to chomp down on Will’s arm. He punched it in the snout, snapping one of the slender teeth off and propelling the maksu leader backwards even as Will sustained a gash along his knuckles. The maksu recovered in midair and bounced off the far wall like a child’s ball, bounding back at Will’s face, the tomahawk whipping forward. Will caught it with his good hand, and the maksu gave him a bloody grin as it raised its free hand and began summoning a sickly green energy, aiming directly at Will’s chest. Acting on instinct, Will slapped the burgeoning spell out of the maksu’s hand with his Phantom Hand, scattering it against the wall of the shrine. The wall began to smolder and pit. They both froze, stunned at what had transpired. Will recovered first, slamming the maksu leader with the elbow of his wounded arm while wrenching the tomahawk out of his opponent’s hand. The maksu reeled back in pain and glanced up just in time for the tomahawk to bury itself in the creature’s skull. The maksu leader collapsed to the ground, the hatchet slipping out of its skull with a wet seemingly reluctant to leave Will’s hand. Will could hear harsh maksu shouting and urgent footsteps outside the shrine. Will thought, diving through the glowing yellow portal. Will hit a strangely yielding surface as the world shifted around him. The temperature dropped, the humidity bumped up, and the smell of forest and rot assailed his senses. Will blinked, climbing to his feet as text obscured his vision, scrolling past nearly too quickly for him to process it. A spark of awareness came back to him, and Will crouched low, looking for any sign that Kyle’s party was waiting for him. There was a week-old-looking fire pit, some scuffs on the ground where they’d set up camp, but other than that…nothing. They were gone. Will took a cautious step, his foot coming down on something strangely soft. Directly underneath him was Ben’s corpse. Will thought, his face scrunching up as the smell of week-old Ben caught up with him. The boy’s skin was mottled like blue cheese, and the smell was beyond awful. Ben still wore all of his expensive gear. The chainmail sleeves were beginning to rust, and his satchel was soggy and strewn across the campsite, as if someone had dug through it furiously, looking for their promised payment. Ben’s pockets were also turned inside out, spilling their contents across the forest floor. Will thought, silently studying the ring on the bloated finger. The Climbers wouldn’t even bother to take the time to pluck a ring worth 20 silver off a corpse’s hand. Will thought sourly. “Well, Ben, this is gonna suck for both of us,” Will mused, slipping his new tomahawk in his belt loop before grabbing one of Ben’s less-soggy bandages and wrapping up his wounds. Once he was done, he stripped off Ben’s heavy armor and hauled Ben’s remains over his shoulder. Three points of strength was a flat fifteen percent boost to his actual strength. This was enough to make it possible to carry a limp corpse across his shoulders. If only just barely. Will caught a lot of looks from Aspirants just arriving from the outskirts as he marched down the road, but they didn’t question it. People died on The Hunt all the time. Will trudged all the way to Ben’s house, dropped the corpse on his father’s doorstep, and knocked on the door. He then proceeded to spend the night in jail, which wasn’t unexpected given the circumstances. Sleeping in an actual bed was fantastic. The following morning, the magistrate interviewed him, asking Will a lot of pointed questions about how he came by Ben’s body. Will gave him the truth. Turned out, the Climbers claimed the two had gone into their Trials and not returned. The easiest explanation without any need of proof. They had then spent three days in town before leaving abruptly. The magistrate seemed satisfied with Will’s story, and Will was released later that afternoon, as the town printer began putting up wanted posters. Will mused as he walked into Brenda’s Inn and ordered a full bowl of the stew, using some of the coppers he’d gotten from selling the maksu’s rusty dagger. “Have you heard of William Oh?” a voice asked as Jason Salazar slid into the seat across from him. Will smiled. “No, I honestly haven’t,” he said as he began eating his stew.