Floor 4 hit him the moment he stepped through the gate, a wall of swamp stink so thick he could taste it on his tongue.
The Mire, they called it, a sprawling swampland filled with murky water and twisted trees and creatures that had evolved specifically to kill anything stupid enough to walk through their territory. The air was thick with vapor that burned the lungs and the ground shifted constantly underfoot, ready to swallow anyone who stepped wrong.
[Floor 4: The Mire]
[Objective: Reach the exit gate]
[Hazards: Toxic atmosphere, unstable terrain, aquatic predators]
[Time limit: None]
"This is disgusting." Ravenna yanked her foot out of ankle-deep mud with a wet sucking sound and scraped the brown sludge off her boot with a stick. "How does anyone survive this?"
"Most don't." He kept his eyes on the path ahead while picking routes he remembered from years ago. "Floor 4 has the second-highest attrition rate after Floor 1, and the poison in the air kills anyone who doesn't find the right herbs within the first few days."
"And you know which herbs those are?" She tossed the stick aside and slogged after him.
"I know where they grow." He pointed toward a cluster of pale mushrooms on a distant tree. "We'll get some before nightfall."
She didn't question it anymore because somewhere over the past few floors she had stopped asking how he knew things and simply accepted that he did, which made traveling together easier even if it added another layer of weight to the secrets he was already carrying.
They moved through the swamp in a pattern he had memorized through brutal experience: high ground when possible, shallow water when necessary, never the deep pools where things waited to drag you under. Ravenna's demon blood helped her resist the toxic atmosphere better than he expected, her natural corruption providing a degree of immunity that pure humans didn't have.
'At least something about her heritage works in her favor.'
They made camp on a raised island of solid ground as the light faded to something that passed for evening in the swamp, and he set up a basic perimeter while Ravenna started a fire using techniques he had taught her over the past weeks.
"Other climbers have been talking about you." She fed a branch into the flames and didn't look up. "A lot of them."
"What are they saying?" He stopped tying the alarm cord and turned to face her.
"That there's a green-eyed climber who moves through the floors like he's done it before, efficient and ruthless, takes what he needs and doesn't stay with groups." She watched the branch catch and curl. "They're calling you the Ghost."
'Shit, that's not great because nicknames mean people are paying attention and talking and spreading information that could eventually reach ears I don't want it reaching.'
"What else?" He went back to the alarm cord but kept listening.
"That you travel with a demon girl who should have died on Floor 1." She finally looked up at him with those mismatched eyes. "That you killed four people to save her and didn't even blink."
"They weren't people, they were a mob that wanted to burn a girl alive for something she couldn't control." He finished the knot and sat down across from her. "I'd do it again."
"I know." She leaned back against a fallen log and stretched her legs toward the fire. "But they don't understand that, they just see someone dangerous travelling with someone scary and they make up stories to fill the gaps."
"Does that bother you?" He grabbed a ration from his pack. "The stories?"
"No." She pulled her cloak tighter against the damp. "It means they're afraid of us, and people who are afraid don't pick fights."
'Too smart for someone who spent her life being hunted, but I'm not complaining.'
---
Adrian found them on the third day, and he heard him coming before he saw him because the man moved well but not well enough to hide the splash of boots in shallow water.
He signaled Ravenna to keep acting normal while he cataloged Adrian's approach and the two others travelling with him, and a few moments later Adrian pushed through the hanging moss with his hands up and visible.
"Fancy meeting you here." Adrian walked into their camp with mud caked up to his knees and a grin like they were old friends instead of strangers who had fought a monster together once. "We've been tracking your route for the past day, the navigation is impressive."
'Of course you have, you've been watching me since Floor 1 and taking notes and trying to figure out what I am and how you can use me.'
"Shorter paths exist when you know where to look." He didn't stand or reach for his weapon. "What do you want?"
"My group's down to five and the swamp isn't getting any friendlier." Adrian crouched at the edge of their fire without waiting for an invitation. "Thought we might pool resources and share intel, you seem to know things the rest of us don't."
"I've been lucky." He shrugged and picked up his knife to sharpen.
"Luck." Adrian laughed once, short and flat. "Right, that's definitely what it is, the way you fought the Lurker and the way you navigate these floors like you've walked them before, all just incredible luck."
He looked up from his knife and stared at Adrian without blinking. "What are you really asking?"
"I'm asking if you've done this before." Adrian stopped grinning and leaned forward. "Climbed the Tower, I mean, because you move like someone who knows exactly what's coming and you fight like someone who's been trained for years not weeks, and you look at me like..."
"Like what?" He kept sharpening the knife.
"Like you're waiting for me to do something." Adrian's jaw tightened. "Care to tell me what?"
'Like I'm waiting for you to betray everyone around you so I can finally cut your throat.'
"I don't know what you're talking about." He tested the edge of the blade against his thumb and drew a thin line of blood.
Adrian watched him suck the blood off his thumb and then stood up and brushed off his knees. "Of course you don't, well the offer stands since we're heading for the exit gate same as you, feel free to follow if you want backup."
Adrian walked back into the swamp with his two companions trailing behind him, and he watched them disappear into the mist while his grip tightened on the knife because the time wasn't right yet but it would be soon enough.
"He suspects something." Ravenna spoke once Adrian was out of earshot. "The way he was looking at you, he knows you're hiding something."
"Let him suspect." He stood and kicked dirt over the fire. "As long as he doesn't have proof it doesn't matter."
"And when he gets proof?" She started packing their supplies.
"Then one of us kills the other." He shouldered his pack. "That's how it works in the Tower."
She didn't argue and just followed him deeper into the swamp, because they both knew that Adrian Cross was watching them carefully and waiting for them to slip up, but he had been watching Adrian longer and he wasn't the one who was going to slip first.