Tower Climber 3 (A LitRPG Adventure)

by Jakob Tanner

  Max had to do a double take as Casey was wearing a white summer dress and looked more gorgeous than normal.

  “Wow, you look—”

  “Shut up,” she said, grabbing his wrist and pulling him up the stairs. “You’re exactly on time.”

  “Isn’t that a good thing?” Max said.

  “Exactly on time is only a second away from being late,” she said.

  She let go of his wrist when they reached the top of the stairs.

  “Mom, dad,” she said, catching her breath and straightening her dress. “Max is here.”

  Casey’s dad grinned. “Ah, funny-looking boy, you’re joining us for dinner, eh?”

  Casey’s mom smiled and did a gentle bow. “Thank you so much for coming over.”

  “No problem,” said Max, he then materialized a box from his climber’s pouch. “I brought desert as a thank you.”

  “Ah, funny-looking boy has good manners,” said the father. “But what kind of cake is it?”

  “Chocolate,” smiled Max. “I think Casey told me once it was your favorite flavor. It’s where her love for chocolate covered crêpes comes from.”

  The father chuckled. “Funny-looking boy’s funny-looking ears work properly. Good good. Let’s eat!”

  Dinner ended up being very nice and relaxing.

  Max had been worried Casey’s parents weren’t going to like him, especially given the fact that ever since he came along, the frequency of life-or-death scenarios for their daughter had increased dramatically.

  “We were so worried for Casey when we found out she was going to be a climber,” the mother explained. “Climbers live such dangerous lives. We still can’t help but worry; but knowing she has a competent companion such as yourself, Max, gives us some solace.”

  “Yeah,” said the father, pointing at him with his fork. “When push comes to shove, you better be ready to act as a human shield for my little girl, got it?”

  Max nodded his head. “Got it, sir.”

  Casey’s mom stood up to clear the table and Max stood up to help her.

  “Sit down,” said the mother.

  “No, it’s okay,” said Max. “I’m happy to help. I actually used to do the dishes all the time back when I lived in the outer-rim.”

  A look of sadness filled the mother’s face then.

  Casey must have told them about how he had grown up as an orphan before coming to the tower-zone.

  Max had gotten used to such expressions of sadness over the years. People from normal loving families struggled to comprehend Max’s situation.

  But weirdly for him, it had always been his day-to-day reality.

  It’s strange to think, he considered to himself, but you get used to the hand you were dealt.

  “Sit down, mom,” said Casey, standing up and grabbing more plates. “Max and I will clean up.”

  A few minutes later, Max found himself scrubbing plates and passing them to Casey to rinse.

  “Can you scrub a bit faster, please?” she said. “I’m being underutilized here at my station!”

  Max laughed and scrubbed harder.

  It was funny because they were tackling the dishes with the same amount of enthusiasm and excitement as they did taking on monsters in the tower.

  They made a good team.

  Casey’s shoulders brushed against his and he felt a flurry of excitement.

  They were always so busy going from one adventure to the next that they rarely ever took a break to just enjoy each other’s company.

  When they finished cleaning up, Max turned and smiled to Casey.

  “I’m really happy you invited me over,” he said.

  “I’m happy you came,” she smiled.

  She looked up at him with her sparkling green eyes and Max felt a thumping in his chest.

  She didn’t want him to kiss her, did she?

  Here in the kitchen?

  With her parents in the other room?

  Before Max could do anything to embarrass himself, Casey looked down to her feet and bit her lip.

  It was super cute.

  “What’s up?”

  “What do you think of our next mission?” she said.

  “I guess I’m looking forward to it?” Max shrugged. “I’m not sure. I am a bit concerned about all that was unsaid at the meeting.”

  “Exactly,” said Casey. “What do you think happened at the previous tournament twenty years ago?”

  Max shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  Casey gulped. She turned to her parents to see they were watching the evening news in the living room.

  “Do you think this mission will be safe?”

  “As safe as all our other missions have been,” Max replied.

  “That doesn’t give me much comfort,” Casey smiled. “What about your sister? The Fallen Angels? A big event like this seems like the kind of thing they’d make an appearance at don’t you think?”

  Max sighed and shrugged once more.

  “I think the answers to a lot of our questions will be waiting for us on floor-30.”

  13

  The morning of Team Zestiris’ departure came quickly.

  Max found the rest of the team waiting for him at the entrance to the tower.

  “Hmph,” grunted the old man. “You’re quickly turning out to be the one who’s always last to show up. Tardiness is a bad habit, young man.”

  Max winced at Harold.

  Max had woken up an hour earlier and had actually arrived one minute early. He couldn’t help it that everyone else was pathologically obsessed with getting places early.

  They were a team now though. Max would be spending at least the next few months with these people, so it wouldn’t be good to get off to a bad start arguing with the highest-ranked member of their team and de facto leader.

  “Sorry,” said Max. “Won’t happen again.”

  Harold crossed his arms. “Good. Now, it’s come to my attention that only Blake and I have been to floor-30 before. Casey and Max you’ve been as high as floor-10, and Sarah, you’ve not even gone up to the Endless Forest yet.”

  His old childhood friend shook her head. Her face completely pale.

  Max couldn’t help wondering why Sarah had been chosen for this mission. She must have performed brilliantly in the challenges, but how come she was invited to take part in the first place? She was so clearly inexperienced. Sending her on a mission of this caliber seemed a bit intense.

  But, as Sakura had explained, the tournament on floor-30 required each tower-race to bring an E-rank climber with them on their team.

  Sarah just so happened to be that E-ranker.

  “So, here’s the plan,” said Harold. “Blake, Casey, and Max will form squad-A. You’ll take the departure teleporter up to floor-10. Sarah and I will form squad-B. We will meet you at the departure teleporter in New Elestria.”

  “Shouldn’t we wait for you at the arrival teleporter in Elestria?” said Casey. “Better to stick together, right?”

  Casey offered a comforting look to Sarah, who seemed a little flustered about going up a bunch of floors with less than half of their assigned mission team.

  “Ah,” grinned Harold. “Sorry, you misunderstand me. We’ll wait for each other in the former New Elestrian capital, but we’ll be racing to see who gets there first.”

  Blake shook his head, snickering. “You’re being a show-off, old man. Are you sure it’s right to be so confident after so many years in retirement?”

  “We’ll just have to wait and see then,” said Harold. “What’s a better team building exercise than a little friendly competition?”

  “Sounds good to me,” said Casey. “I’m in!”

  “Alright, Blake,” said Harold. “Go forth. Take your head start.”

  Blake gestured to Max and Casey and they strode off quickly in the direction of the tower.

  Sarah stood with the strange old man for five minutes in silence.

  A few keen climbers had pas
sed them on their way to their own missions in the giant magical tower.

  “Um,” said Sarah. “Are we not going to go after them? I thought you wanted to win the race.”

  They hadn’t even gone in the tower yet and already Sarah was feeling a bit overwhelmed. She had felt a lot less uneasy about the mission, knowing that Max was going to be there. But now she’d been left alone with this old guy who she knew nothing about.

  Well, she knew one thing.

  He was an A-ranker.

  So he was significantly stronger than Max. He was on the same level as the climber president. Who knows—depending on his trait—he might be even stronger.

  The old man stared out to the entrance of the tower.

  “Don’t worry,” he smiled. “I’m just giving ourselves a bit more of a handicap. I want our victory to be satisfying.”

  Sarah had no idea what he was talking about.

  The three who had left were starting a good six floors ahead of them. What more of a handicap could they give themselves?

  Harold let out a deep breath and turned to Sarah.

  “Okay, let’s go,” he said. “It’s time for you to see the real power of an A-ranker.”

  “Alright, no time to waste,” Blake declared when they stepped out from the grounds of the temple of arrival in Old Elestria.

  The guards had swooned over Max and Casey who were practically heavenly saints now in the eyes of most Elestrians after they had helped the floor out almost a month ago now.

  Blake was being a bit of a slave driver, and they didn't have a good excuse to slow him down.

  It turned out Queen Violet was away from the capital on business, so they couldn’t even take a moment to say hi to their old friend.

  “What’s the rush?” said Casey. “We’re a full six floors ahead of them.”

  “I don’t think you understand who we’re dealing with here,” said Blake. “Harold has given us a head start. We can’t waste that.”

  “You mean,” said Max, “they really have a chance at beating us?”

  “Oh yeah, they do,” said Blake.

  “Well,” grinned Casey. “As you said: let’s not waste our head start.”

  Casey materialized a giant paper crane from her climber’s pouch.

  “All aboard Casey Airlines,” she grinned.

  It took a few hours to fly across the Elestrian floor until they arrived at the New Elestrian capital.

  The city looked quite similar to Old Elestria with a large temple at the center of it, marking where the departure teleporter was held.

  Casey docked the paper crane right near the steps of the temple and let her two partners get off first.

  “That was very impressive,” said Blake. “You’ve come a long way from when you were a student at the climber academy.”

  “I hope you’re not fishing for a compliment on your teaching skills,” smirked Casey. “C’mon, let’s go. I can’t wait to see the look on that arrogant old-timer’s face when he sees that we—”

  Casey stopped at the foot of the stairwell.

  “What is—”

  Max didn’t even have time to finish his sentence as he stared up towards the top of the stone stairwell.

  Harold and Sarah were standing at the top, both with smug grins on their faces.

  “Took you long enough,” said Harold.

  Max looked at the man in awe.

  Was this really the same man who owned the dusty old antique shop in Hawker’s Alley?

  Max couldn’t believe it.

  He tried to figure out the math in his head. He had helped escort Sarah up to floor-10 in a matter of hours.

  It had taken Casey and him weeks to achieve the same feat and he had done it in less than a day.

  He stared at the old man.

  How powerful is this guy?

  14

  With the squad reunited, they continued forth up the tower, starting with floor-11.

  The eleventh floor was known as the Night Forest. The floor was a sprawling woodland of ancient giant trees with a starry night sky above.

  It took them a couple of nights to trek across the woodlands, slaying monsters and camping out after a day’s travel as they moved forward.

  The squad had agreed that all the copper and silver monster cores would go to help raising Sarah’s stats, while any gold cores would go to Max who they still needed to get up to C-rank.

  The group traveled with speed and efficiency. They had a month to climb twenty-floors. There was no time to waste goofing around.

  Harold led the way, knowing the fastest route across the floor.

  Casey had suggested using her paper crane, but it wouldn’t be able to carry all five of them, so they stuck to traveling by foot.

  The group soon found themselves ascending to floor-12.

  The floor above Night Forest was a lot less gentle, seeing that the majority of the landscape was composed entirely of lava.

  “Um,” said Casey. “How are we going to get through this?”

  “Relax,” said Blake. “What’s wrong with a little bit of heat?”

  Blake moved to the front of the squad and stretched his hands out.

  A safe and narrow passage opened up within the sea of lava.

  “A key component of our traveling together this month,” Harold explained as they walked between the passage with walls of lava, “is learning to work together. Many of the tournament challenges will be team-based. Keep your companions’ abilities in mind as we travel forward.”

  This lava floor certainly had made Max thankful they had a flamebringer on their team. He was impressed by how quickly they could move across the floors when they had a team full of talented individuals with their own special powers and unique attributes.

  Max was still thankful though when a few hours later they were able to ascend to floor-13.

  The Riverlands.

  The vast marshy floor was a welcome relief from the pressure cooker that the lava-filled floor-12 had been.

  “Stop looking around like tourists,” said Harold, moving forward. “There’s a shallow path this way.”

  After half a day’s travel across the Riverlands, Max noticed Harold had grown more tense as they moved.

  The old man kept glancing furtively around.

  What was he looking for?

  What was putting the man on edge?

  Max didn’t want to alarm the rest of the group, so he quietly triggered his mana sense.

  He tried to perceive any nearby threats, but there was nothing but the tiny innocent blobs of baby river snakes.

  But Max’s observation didn’t put him at ease.

  If the A-ranker was nervous about something that meant any significant nearby threats would be able to conceal themselves very effectively.

  Braden and his squad hid out in the Riverlands, cloaking themselves in the tall stalks of the weeds.

  He closed his eyes and triggered his mana sense, taking in the group of humans traveling across the floor.

  “Why are we acting so cautiously,” said Braden’s companion. “They’re human. They don’t know proper advanced mana manipulation.”

  Braden gave a stone cold glare to his companion. It was a non-verbal way of saying, shut-the-heck-up.

  Arrogance would get them killed.

  Powerful humans would know of the more advanced mana arts. They couldn’t take that for granted.

  The very fact had been proved when Braden triggered his mana sense.

  He’d perceived four people emitting mana in the distance.

  They were heading to floor-30 to take part in a tournament that demanded teams of five.

  There could only be one reason why he was only sensing four people then.

  The A-ranker on their team could not only conceal himself skillfully, he could sense Braden and his squad as well.

  “We’ll hold back for now,” said Braden. “We’ll get them when they least expect it.”

  Three days later, Max and his teammat
es were still traveling across the Riverlands.

  Harold led them through the shallow parts of the marshland. The highest the water ever went was just below their knees and that was only for one particularly arduous stretch.

  “I mean, would anyone have a problem if three of us flew to the next teleporter?” mused Casey.

  “No,” snapped Harold. “We need to stick together.”

  “Alright,” said Casey. “Just asking.”

  So far it looked like only Max had taken in Harold’s uneasiness. Casey and Sarah looked more tired and bored than fearful of any nearby threats. If Blake had caught on, he was doing a remarkable job of hiding that fact.

  Max understood why the old climber had snapped at Casey. If they were under threat, they needed to stick together. They needed to maximize both their defense and firepower.

  Max moved, ready for a battle to break out at any moment.

  In the end, though, they arrived at the departure teleporter without any hiccups.

  The threat had never emerged.

  “C’mon,” said Harold, casting his gaze across the marshland once more. “We have to keep moving.”

  They went through the teleporter one by one. Blake went first and Harold went last—the two most powerful climbers ready to defend on either floor.

  Teleporters were always a clinch point where other more devious climbers tried to set traps and ambushes.

  Yet when Max took in floor-14, he could see why no traps were waiting for him there.

  He blinked in disbelief at the realm in front of them.

  Then his stomach lurched and nausea took over.

  He was floating upside down in space.

  “Aghhhh!” yelled Casey.

  Toto had floated away from her in this anti-gravity floor and Casey was doing odd swimming motions to catch up with her pet.

  “Where are we?” asked Sarah.

  “Everyone relax,” said Blake. “Harold will be able to help us in a sec. There’s a special strategy to this floor.”

  “Why don’t we do it now then?” Max said, squirming.

  “I, um, forgot,” Blake admitted.