Tower climber 2 a litrpg.., p.2
Tower Climber 2 (A LitRPG Adventure), page 2
“You consider joining a clan yet?”
“No, I haven’t looked into—”
“How does instant riches and power sound to you? Sounds good, doesn’t it? We at the Hidden Viper Clan can provide all of that for you.”
Max didn’t want to be rude to this guy, but at the same time, he didn’t have time to discuss all of this. He had only three and a half minutes until his meeting started. He figured the best way to get out of this would to just be honest.
“Listen,” said Max. “Your offer sounds great and all, but my mind is elsewhere. See, I got a meeting in there. I’ll look into your clan later. Is that alright?”
The man smiled down at Max. There was something venomous about his grin. Menacing.
“Fair enough, my friend,” said the man. “But I’ll say one last thing: take our offer seriously and don’t spend too much time thinking it over. The clan is sensitive to insults and disrespectful behavior.”
The man then grabbed Max’s wrist and before Max could pull away a feeling of helplessness overwhelmed him.
What is this man doing to me?
Is this his trait?
Max tried to pull his arm away but could barely muster a tug. He felt his strength sapping away from him.
Was the man simply overpowering him with his own superior mana strength?
Max squirmed and tried to channel mana to the portion of his wrist where the man’s fingers were gripped.
The man snickered.
“Nice try,” said the man. “That won’t work.”
Max only had two more minutes until his meeting started.
He looked over his shoulder and saw a group of higher-ranked climbers heading towards the door.
“Surely it can’t be good for your clan’s reputation if I yell for help that you’re assaulting me? Surely if that happened, they wouldn’t let you continue to stand out here and harass people?”
The man scowled and then let go of Max. The man’s face quickly shifted from irritation to the fake friendly demeanor he had before.
“Harass!?” said the man. “That was the last thing I was trying to accomplish. I may have gotten a bit extra excited by trying to convince you of all the great favors my clan could do for someone such as yourself, but I won’t hold you up any longer. Just as I don’t expect you to hold us up with answering our invitation...”
Max shrugged at the man and continued towards the climber’s guild entrance.
His meeting started in one minute.
He entered the climber’s guild and scanned the halls looking for a group of young climbers. He spotted a group of fifteen people who he recognized from his class. Standing in front of them was the new climber president and his current roommate, Sakura Sato.
He hurried over towards them and saw Casey standing near the back. He went and stood beside her.
“Just in time,” she said. “That was close.”
Her gerbil, Toto, poked its head out from her pocket and shook his head at Max as if it were saying, “Tsk, tsk,” to him.
Max didn’t mind. He was just happy he hadn’t been late.
Sakura smiled at him from across the group.
“Now that you’re all here,” she said. “Let me welcome and congratulate you on making it to your first day as official tower climbers.”
2
Everyone’s shoulders straightened as Sakura began speaking.
“This morning I’m going to go over everything you’re expected to do as new tower climbers,” she explained.
One student immediately raised her hand.
Sakura looked slightly irritated by the interruption, but nodded her head, inviting the girl to speak.
“Most of us didn’t even fight in the final exam though,” said the girl. “How did you evaluate us in the end?”
The climber academy’s final exam had been a fighting tournament open to the public. Unfortunately, after the second match, Samuel Archer had unleashed his coup attempt and attacked the city with his own monster-wave.
There hadn’t been a make-up exam since then.
Lots of people murmured with frustration at the girl’s question mainly because being a tower climber was a coveted position in the city and why question their good fortune?
“Let’s just be happy we all did graduate,” muttered Casey under her breath.
“Good question,” said Sakura. “All of you were evaluated based on your performance during the attack on the tower-zone. You all performed admirably and were therefore granted a passing grade.”
Everyone nodded and seemed satisfied with this answer.
“Moving on,” said Sakura. “If you thought the academy was tough, you’re about to enter an even more cutthroat world. Part of being a member of the climber’s guild is to help each other and work together for the betterment of all humanity. From here on out, as tower climbers, you’ll be asked to complete missions. Some are mandatory and others you’re expected to complete in your own independent time.”
Everyone nodded along.
Max felt his heart beat with excitement.
It was really happening. He had become a tower climber. He was about to start receiving assigned missions. He was determined to grow in strength and power so that he could help humanity trapped at the bottom of the tower and, more personally, find his long lost sister, Elle.
“I’ll explain how missions work in a moment,” said Sakura, as she materialized a cardboard box from her pouch. “As official tower climbers, you guys are all provided with a small equipment upgrade.”
She handed out sleek black pouches and silver flip phones that looked a lot like old-school cellphones from the early 2000s.
“Your new pouches can hold up to 100,000 monster cores and just as much weight in equipment and other treasures you might discover in your travels,” said Sakura. “It’s a top of the line pouch. The guild only gives these to the tower climber branch, so don’t brag about them in front of your defense and city climber friends, got it?”
“What about this phone?” asked another new climber.
“These phones are on the cutting edge of manatechnology,” Sakura explained. “Those phones will allow the guild to send climbers messages between the floors. All the kinks haven’t been worked out perfectly yet and it works less effectively the higher up you are in the tower, but, it’s better than no communication at all.”
Max looked down at his new equipment with excitement. He swapped his pouches and dematerialized his old pouch inside of his new one along with his new phone.
“If you’d follow me, please,” said Sakura.
The climber president led the group towards a large bulletin board full of paper slips.
“As tower climbers, prepare to spend a long time looking at this board here,” said Sakura. “This is the mission board. Outside of mandatory missions, all of your work starts and ends here.”
Everyone nodded and Sakura pointed to the slips of paper. “Each of these slips is a mission. They are categorized by rank and you can only take missions for your associated rank. So, as E-rank climbers, don’t even think about trying a D-rank mission. It’s illegal to do so and the clerks won’t sign off on it.”
Damn, thought Max. Taking higher-level missions would be a good way to gain strength and rewards in the fastest possible way. But if it’s restricted, there’s nothing I can do about it.
“Missions are issued by governments, merchants, guilds, and wealthy individuals. Some come from anonymous sources that many believe are generated by the tower itself. Some believe those missions are a part of the inner workings of the tower, while others believe they are created by the tower gods themselves. If you care to know more, there’s a whole section in the library theorizing on this very subject.
“These mission boards can be found in most guild halls and outposts on the different floors of the tower. All of these boards will follow the same basic rank chart, but different boards might feature different missions. For instance, here in the Zestiris climber’s guild hall, you won’t see many missions beyond upper D-rank because the issuer of the mission wants only the best candidates for the job and a C-rank mission would only be suitable for those who have made it up to floor-51. Are you guys all following so far?”
Everyone nodded, except for Max. He raised his hand and then asked a question.
“How does the guild receive these mission slips though?”
“Great question,” said Sakura.
She pointed to the clerks sitting in a row across a long lobby like a group of bank tellers.
“Behind the clerks are special manatech devices that are able to teleport items up and down the tower. Most things that come through those teleporters are mission slips and mission rewards. Obviously it’s not cheap to use this network so someone issuing a mission request might limit which outposts they issue the mission to. This is another reason why mission boards will differ in other locations. A mission client might not wish to spend too much so they will only request the mission on certain floors to certain guilds.”
Everyone nodded.
Sakura continued: “Once you have chosen a mission, take it over to the clerk and you’ll be assigned that mission in the books.”
Max could feel the rising energy amongst the group of young tower climbers. Everyone was eager to get started. Max was already wondering what his first mission was going to be. He’d read once a long time ago that sometimes people struggled on their first day at a new job, but so far, he was absolutely pumped up.
“Lastly,” said Sakura, “as an official tower climber, part of your mission earnings will be taxed as well as a percentage of the coin and monster core values discovered while in the tower.”
“There’s always a rub,” muttered Casey beside Max.
“And for those thinking about cheating the system,” said Sakura, glancing to Casey. “Those brilliant new pouches I just gave you track your inventory and can be checked and logged upon entering a Zestiris climber outpost—so you won’t be able to avoid paying your share.”
Casey turned to Max. “I don’t know why she looked at me when she said that.”
Max quickly recalled numerous times Casey had behaved mischievously, like the time she stole the files for the mid-term exams, but he knew better than to answer her question. It would also be seen as interrupting Sakura and then he’d be dealing with two very fiery women at once, so he kept his mouth shut.
“Let me remind you all. As tower climbers you are the front lines for all of Zestiris. No—for all of humanity. It is your work in the tower—even the smallest work of gathering monster cores—that provides the bedrock of resources for all our survival. You are all doing an incredible service and I thank you.”
Everyone cheered and began to break up before Sakura called everyone back.
“Oh one last thing I forgot to mention,” she said, scratching the back of her head nervously. “Some missions will be challenging enough to warrant forming teams and I absolutely encourage you to do so, however, I warn you now about signing up with any clans. You might have been approached by some already. They offer resources and equipment that seem out of reach right now, but will ultimately hold you back later. Again—every climber pursues their ascension through the tower differently, so it’s your own choice in the matter. I just figured it was worth giving you that small note of caution. Anyways, good luck!”
Sakura walked away, heading towards the elevator that would take her to her office.
As soon as the climber president was gone, the group of young climbers rushed towards the mission board, checking out what assignments were available to do right then.
Max let everyone rush ahead of him.
There was something on his mind.
He turned to the lobby of clerks and focused his eyes on the special devices behind them that delivered the mission slips.
Underneath a large glass tube purple energy flickered and a white note appeared with information scrawled on it.
A mission slip.
One guild clerk retrieved the slip from the glass tube and started walking towards the mission board to place it for public offering.
Fascinating, thought Max. A piece of paper that appears out of nowhere.
His heart started beating rapidly and he felt a rush of excitement ripple through his whole body.
He turned away from the mission board and started heading towards the guild building’s exit.
“Where are you going, Max?” hollered Casey. “I thought we were going to do some missions together!?”
Max just kept moving forward. He was too excited about his revelation to feel bad. He’d make it up to Casey later.
At that moment, he could only think of one thing.
His letter from Elle.
What if there was more to it than originally met the eye?
3
Max marched out of the climber’s guild and headed straight for Hawker’s Alley.
The stalls of rare goods and weaponry were all set up by the time he arrived. Visitors to the market walked up and down the stalls while the merchants eyed them greedily.
While it was true that Hawker’s Alley was the main market street for all climber related goods, many of the merchants’ main sources of income came from non-climbers’ desire to purchase a small piece of tower magic they could call their own. Such a desire might lead the right customer to even purchase a copper monster core far above its market value.
Max, however, knew enough to avoid such deceitful behavior.
He headed through the market stalls until eventually he reached the end of the street, where on the corner was a shop he’d always been intrigued by.
Harold’s Antique and Curiosity Emporium.
The storefront was old. The black paint on the exterior was peeling and chipped off. The windows were covered with dust. If it weren’t for the soft orange glow from inside, Max would have thought the place had been shut down for months, maybe even years.
He pulled the door open and stepped into the shop.
The door slammed behind him and instantly Max felt cramped inside the building. There was stuff everywhere. Stacks of old books, an ancient set of medieval armor, junk piled onto leather ottomans, and a taxidermy bear that looked like it might magically come alive and tear everything part at any moment.
Max peered around the endless pile of antiques looking for some kind of shop owner, but the only sentient person in the shop seemed to be him—and maybe the giant bear. Max still wasn’t entirely convinced it wasn’t just a very clever bear pretending to be fake.
Then appearing from behind a mountainous pile of old leather-bound books was a gray-haired man with small half-moon spectacles and stubble on his face.
He had a pile of books in his hand that he was searching to put down somewhere.
Perhaps he’s embarking on the impossible task of tidying this place up, thought Max.
Regardless of what the man was doing, he didn’t even look up to acknowledge Max’s presence.
“Hello,” Max said, trying to be polite. “Lovely store you have here. I was wondering if you might take a look at something I own. I think it might be a rare magical artifact.”
The old man didn’t respond. He now had his back to Max.
“Should I take that as a no?” asked Max.
“Yes,” said the man. “As in, I mean no, not yes. Are we clear?”
“I think so,” said Max. “But why can’t you help me?”
“I’m busy.”
Max looked around the empty shop and struggled to believe him.
“I’m willing to pay,” said Max.
The man sighed as if Max was the most irritating and tedious customer he’d ever had. Max even wondered how long it had been since anyone else had come in here.
“I’ll save you the trouble,” said the man. “Your item is worthless.”
At first Max felt a shocking sense of disappointment. Maybe Elle’s letter was nothing more than just a note with some scribbled words on it. But his disappointment was quickly followed by a slight twinge of anger.
How did this guy know whether the letter was worthless!?
“I’m sorry to be rude,” said Max. “But how do you know the item’s worthless without seeing it?”
The man continued with whatever strange organization project he was working on, readjusting the untidy piles of junk into different sized slightly alternate untidy piles of junk.
“I saw you in the tournament last month,” said the man. “You’re a new climber. Talented as you may be, I highly doubt you’ve found anything worth looking at.”
Max was taken aback by the man’s recognition of him. Perhaps the old timer was less senile than he looked.
“I didn’t find it,” said Max. “Someone sent it to me. From inside the tower to the outer-rim.”
The man paused and turned around. His interest had suddenly been piqued.
“Say that again, boy?”
Max repeated himself.
“Alright,” sighed the man. “Come with me.”
The man walked over to a bookshelf and pulled on the spine of a green book and the shelf swung open.
Max followed through the opening behind the old man, amazed to see a much more orderly craftsman workshop behind the hidden bookshelf door.
The man hobbled over to a workstation where there was a mounted magnifying glass and other tools for inspecting artifacts.
The man sat down and reached out his hands greedily. “C’mon now, boy, are you going to show me this magic item or what?”
Max’s heart thumped.
Part of him wondered why he had never thought to do this before, while another part of him was scared to even part with the letter for a second.
He remembered the last time he thought he’d lost the letter forever.
It felt like a long time ago now, but it had only been seven months. Only seven months ago, he had been a disabled teenaged orphan living in the outer-rim with no prospects for a bright future. Only seven months ago, did bullies beat the crap out of him while he was unable to fight back.
He still remembered the last and final time his tormentor Seth had beaten him up. Seth had tried to steal his wallet but that was the one thing Max wouldn’t let him do because that wallet contained the mysterious letter from Elle. The only thing in his life that gave him hope.
