Chapter 169: The Mislead

***Caddock, level 63 High Paladin***

“Sir, the scouts say William Oh’s caravan is parked in Bakton Keep, and they’ll be there for another two weeks. They took a month off to shore up their levels.”

Caddock digested that. It would be ill-advised to pick a fight in the middle of a Lord’s demesne, so he would simply avoid Bakton Keep altogether.

He never thought he’d be granted the opportunity to pass his target on the way up, but here it was, staring him in the face. The opportunity to claim a Stronghold and fortify his position before the Deceiver even set foot on the 10^th Floor.

“Take us to the Key Site,” he said, scanning the surrounding Climbers.

They’d started with a few hundred convicted criminals and their numbers had swelled to the low thousands, attracting hopeful Climbers like lodestone as they swept through the Strongholds on the way up The Tower, drawn in by Caddock’s determination and the paradoxical appeal of a paladin striking out against the church.

None of them really understood that determination had nothing to do with them, nothing to do with breaking the chains of systematic oppression. None of that mattered, in the long run.

The Coil was coming to a close, and Caddock had to kill the seed of destruction and chaos, the scion of ouroboros, the symbol of chaos and rebirth.

Chaos humanity could handle. It was the other part that doomed them.

Rebirth. Starting from nothing. Again. Humanity could not keep getting knocked down to refugees huddled around a fire, barely eking out an existence. They must become powerful as a society and conquer the tower.

So sayeth Granesh, king of the gods.

While Caddok had disobeyed the Church, he still had absolute loyalty to Granesh, and he felt his god guiding him toward the Deceiver’s heart like a loosed arrow.

“But sir, we’re underleveled too.” Albert said.

“Albert.” Caddock said, placing a hand on albert’s shoulder. “No one has died on my watch and no one will.” Caddock lied.

****William Oh***

The days blurred together in a maelstrom of bruises and scrapes, and Will’s understanding improved.

It was like listening with an ear he’d never had before, seeing with eyes he’d never used. Everything was a cacophonous blur, and very occasionally, on a good day, he could read someone’s intentions from the vibration through the Floor’s Debt.

Those good days started coming closer and closer together as Will learned how to narrow in on the sensation.

Bakton slowly ramped up the speed and increased the complexity of their ‘conversations’, adding new sounds, phrases, and meaning by carefully blending in new styles, weapons, and techniques, each of which had its own subtle language.

What was once ‘I’m going left’ or ‘I’m going right’ had evolved to:

‘I’m going to shift my left foot a couple inches closer to the wall so that if you recklessly charge me I can kick off it and get inside your range, overwhelming your defenses.”

Will was talking back, he was sure of it, but he didn’t have any control over what the Debt revealed, so every move was honestly forecasted by the Floor itself.

If anything, Will’s actions were probably still just saying ‘Right! Left! Duck!’

Will was getting a lot less injuries now that he could ‘hear’ what Bakton was saying, so that was good, but even after another ten days, Will hadn’t quite figured out how to speak back intentionally.

Am I going to have to figure out how to lie to Debt itself? Most jokes are built on a lie or a hypothetical situation that never happened…but not all of them? Can I tell a joke with the kernel of truth?

Based on a shared experience?

Will and Bakton didn’t really have much in common:

Bakton knew what organs did what from years of all the finest foods and instruction money could buy from a young age, owing to his noble upbringing.

Will had eaten disgusting burnt stew for a year because he desperately needed the mass, and was currently clawing his way out of illiteracy.

Their backgrounds could not have been more different.

We’re both men, I guess. That’s a shared experience, but what-

Will’s brows twitched as a joke occurred to him:

He and Will had both been present when Bakton displayed shock and a hint of envy when confronted with the army of Anna’s treatment of Will. That was a shared experience with a bit of emotional investment on Bakton’s part.

Now I just need to find a way to set up his expectations…in the next week. Gotta get him thinking about it.

Not wanting to let his plan surface in his behavior, Will discarded the thought, tossing it aside like a stick into a lake. If it was a good plan, it would float back. If not, something better would surface.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Once the sun went down, the sparring shifted to discussion, seeing as Will’s wounds were mostly limited to bruising, or in Bakton’s words: ‘Not bleeding on the furniture.’

“So why teach me this if it only works on this Floor?” Will asked.

“It’s like learning how to read, first with your eyes, enough to know that the words are there and what they mean.” Bakton said. “In my metaphor, this the only floor with any sort of illumination, but the words are still there anywhere fighting exists. Once you go onto another Floor, you’ll have to learn how to read it with your eye closed.”

“…How do you read with your eyes closed?” Will asked the obvious.

“With a great deal of effort.” Bakton said, glancing into the distance. “Only a week left in your stay. Even if you fail to make me laugh, you’ve come a long way, and it’ll serve you well.”

“What, no over-the-top fail condition like ‘I’ll end your ambition here’ if I don’t get it fast enough? You know, to arbitrarily raise the stakes and motivate me to succeed? Akul did that with the whole ‘slavery’ thing.” Will asked.

“Never liked that,” Bakton muttered. “You’re a kid with two hundred Resistance. Barring murder, You’ve got decades to crack this. Maybe centuries. And you’ve gotten pretty fluent in combat, actually.” He glanced over at Will contemplatively.

“…Maybe you’re just bad at humor?”