A new set of words shimmered into being before him, stark and merciless.
[You have obtained an item of the tower]
[You unlocked Inventory]
[You unlocked Inspect]
Kael's eyes widened, fatigue and fear momentarily forgotten. The words blurred for a moment as though he doubted their reality. His heart gave a startled jolt. Inventory? Inspect? He had read enough in the journals of past climbers to know these were not gifts handed out freely.
Inventory was a privilege you bought from other dwellers with hard-earned gold, a convenience purchased only after days or weeks of suffering. Inspect was rarer still, an ability earned after countless battles and trials. And here they were, unlocked before him without effort, as casually as though the Tower had chosen him for something.
"Why…?" The word almost slipped past his lips, though it came out as nothing more than a rasp in his throat. Maybe it was to ease access to such skills in the reverse tower…
He shook his head violently, shoving down the questions clawing through his mind. Answers could wait. Survival could not.
The sound of footsteps was louder now, echoing up from the lower floors. This time there was no mistaking them, the thudding of many feet, uneven yet insistent, claws scraping against stone as they rose. The fragile moment of quiet was gone.
Without hesitation, Kael bent and grabbed the goblin's body by its limp arm. The flesh was clammy, slick with fresh blood, and for a heartbeat he had to force himself not to lurch. He braced his boots against the wood and yanked. The corpse resisted, caught on the splintered edges of the doorway. The jagged wood bit into the goblin's gut until with a wet tearing sound the belly split.
The stench hit him instantly.
A rancid, choking wave of rot and bile filled the small room, thick enough to sting his nostrils and blur his vision with tears. His throat convulsed, his body demanding he gag, but he clamped his teeth together and forced the reflex down. He had smelled foulness before, sewers half-collapsed under construction sites, pipes burst and spilling black water, but this was worse. This smelled worse than rotting cheese inside the guts of a camel corpse on a summer day. Human waste was sour, but this was alien, rancid in a way that clawed at the back of his throat as if it wanted to stay lodged there forever.
The goblin's innards slopped onto the boards, steaming faintly in the stale air. Blood mixed with something darker, a sludge that spread quickly across the floor in rivulets. Kael's boots slipped as he tugged again, finally dragging the twitching carcass all the way inside and away from the doorframe. The torn gut trailed behind it, a smear of filth painting the floor.
He stumbled back a pace, dragging the back of his glove across his eyes to clear the water stinging them. His helmet lamp flickered again, throwing jittering light across the blood-slicked boards, and every reflection seemed to writhe in the corner of his vision. His stomach knotted, threatening to betray him with sickness, but he swallowed hard and pressed on.
The footsteps below paused. Then came the sound he dreaded: high-pitched screeches echoing through the stairwell. They were shrill, piercing, a chorus of alarm that raised every nerve in his body to taut attention. His gut twisted as he realized the truth. They had smelled it.
"Shit…" His voice was a hoarse whisper, barely audible even to himself. "I'm cooked…"
He looked around the ruined office, eyes darting to the broken window, then to the blood that already soaked into the boards. The smell was everywhere, saturating the very air. Staying here meant death; every moment that passed would only draw more of them. His chest tightened with the bitter recognition that he could not hold this position, no matter how strong the barricade had seemed.
He swung his pack onto his shoulders, the straps sticking slightly where blood smeared against his hands. The tools he had scavenged rattled faintly inside. They felt pitifully inadequate, yet they were all he had. He shoved the desk away from the doorway with a grunt, the wood scraping against the blood-slick floor.
The helmet was weak, cracked, little more than a miner's relic, but it gave him light, and light meant a chance to see. He settled it firmly on his head, ignoring how heavy it suddenly felt. His hands fumbled briefly on the strap, slick with gore, before securing it into place. The small glow sputtered, dim and unreliable, but enough to ward off the dark.
The footsteps resumed, louder now, climbing. He could almost picture them, jaws dripping, claws digging into the stone, their eyes wild with the promise of prey. The sound of their hunger was in every screech. The stairwell was a throat, and he was trapped in it. He knew what awaited if he descended into that dark. To go down was to die in a press of bodies he could not fight, to vanish beneath claws and teeth in the blind.
His gaze snapped upward, toward the stairs that led higher. A different danger awaited there, but it was the only choice. He pressed his lips together, breath steadying despite the heat of fear in his chest, and pushed himself into motion.
"Up," he whispered, almost a prayer.
The soles of his shoes struck the first step, and he felt a surge of gratitude at their muffled tread. Thick-soled, a small blessing from a tower that only gave dismay and grief. They were quiet enough to pass unheard. He climbed, one heavy step after another, each movement controlled. His mind raced with calculations, mapping the building in his head, weighing risk against necessity. He could not let panic dictate the path, not here, not now.
The stairwell seemed endless as he ascended, his helmet light sputtering with each jarring step. Twice it flickered so violently he nearly lost his footing. His knee clipped the banister once, sending a dull knock echoing through the hollow shaft. His breath seized in his chest at the sound, every nerve on fire. And then came the screech from below, answering, eager. They had heard.
Kael cursed under his breath, his voice a ragged hiss. His legs burned as he forced himself faster, climbing toward the higher floors. The second floor blurred past, then the third. His lungs strained, though he forced them to silence, his chest heaving soundlessly as his body begged for air.
At last he reached the fourth floor. Here, the building opened to a violent gust of wind. The air smelled of dust and stone, whipped through the broken remains of walls that had collapsed outward. His eyes widened as he saw the ruin stretched ahead: the shattered edge of the building had crumbled into its neighbor, forming a precarious slanting bridge of rubble and fractured wall.
His only path forward.