Chapter 221: The Guest List

Once upon a time, William Oh went to a party where dozens of young women of fine lineage were presented to him by their mothers.

William Oh didn’t take any of the young women as lovers, but their mothers were left blushing and weak in the knee.

• Jason Salazar

“So are we running or what?” Bess asked, flopping into her cot after a long day of being harassed by William Oh. The barrier mage had a habit of using her Charge on any little thing, but right now she was letting it max out in preparation for a fight.

They all were.

“I’m not.” Kyle said. “He already killed Mark for trying to run.”

“Yeah, but can he kill all of us at onc-“

“About that…” Roger interrupted Bess, earning a stern glare that bounced off of him. “Did you notice him asking about how brave Mark was, right before he went back to giving us humiliating bullshit tasks?”

“Mark probably stood up to him before he died. I mean if I were Will, I wouldn’t kill anybody on the first day. Maybe break some legs. But if the guy had a spine, I suppose I’d be forced to make an example of him.” Kyle mused, staring at the ceiling.

“Do any of you think Mark would do anything other than grovel?” Roger asked. “The guy had a pretty clear-cut way out, which was to deny any knowledge or involvement with how we screwed William Oh over. It wouldn’t even be wrong.”

That’s right. Mark was convalescing in Ashwood the entire time.

“Was that actually Mark?” Kyle mused.

“What do you mean?”

“What if Mark used a clay replica to take his place and fake his own death?” Kyle said.

“He can’t do that.” Bess said. “His golems are made of clay. Even if he painted them, it wouldn’t be nearly accurate enough to fool anyone. No body heat, no heartbeat…no blood.”

“Do you know what Mark’s last three Upgrades were?” Kyle asked.

“Umm…no.”

Mark had kept the finishing touches of his Build under wraps. Most Climbers weren’t willing to share the last handful of upgrades before they hit Advanced, because those last few upgrades were responsible for the most differentiation between themselves and their original class.

The last few upgrades were trump cards and secrets, and they never learned Mark’s.

“So it’s possible. That’s the only way I could see Mark standing up to a Lord…if he wasn’t anywhere near them at the time. So either he’s dead, or he’s not. And if he’s not dead, there’s a slim chance he might throw us a bone out of some misguided loyalty rather than hightailing it out of here like a sane person.

“Pretty slim chance.” Amy said, resting her chin on her palm.

“Yeah, so we’ll do our own thing.” Kyle mused.

“Which is…” Bess asked, glaring at their leader.

“Running away.”

“Obviously, so let’s-”

“But we have to make an opportunity or else he’ll just track us down immediately.” Kyle interrupted Bess again, which made the barrier mage audibly grit her teeth.

“What kind of opportunity?” Roger asked, ignoring the fuming woman.

Kyle stared at the ceiling for a moment, thinking. The only person who could stand up to a Lord was another Lord. Luckily for them, there were a lot of those present, and not all of them liked each other.

The whole place was a powder keg, just waiting for a spark.

“…We’re gonna pick a fight. Who would bother looking for mice scurrying away while giants are stomping around?”

…

……

I might. Will thought, taking the map away from his ear.

According to Ghoul sound was vibrations travelling through the air, and when they hit the terrain, they would vibrate that as well. Since his his map updated automatically, it must vibrate in tandem as long as it was within twelve miles.

The problem was, the scale was so distorted that the vibrations in the physical map were too small to make anything out.

So if Will manifested a physical map about the size of his ear and zoomed in on one single area enough for the map to be a 1:1 scale, then placed the map directly against his ear, he was able to pick up the sounds vibrating the terrain. It was as if he had his ear pressed against the floor in the room they were in.

The sound was extremely faint, but Will’s Acuity made up for that.

Picking a fight between Lords then using the distraction to run? That would be a good plan, if I didn’t know about it.

Now the question was…who should Will steer them into picking a fight between? Hopefully someone whose death would benefit Will.

Is there anybody like that? I don’t really have any direct enemies as a Lord. I have a few..complicated relationships, but there’s nobody I’m directly opposed to. I need to learn more about the other Lords invited to the wedding.

Will paused, thinking back to their earlier words.

They’re convinced that I’m the one who killed Mark. Mark would’ve grovelled, according to them. But the man didn’t feel any fear.

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A clay decoy, huh? Will mused.

It didn’t…seem possible. Will had sensed body heat and a pulse when he first met Mark, and when he found him in the alley, there were all the signs of a real death. The scent of blood and viscera. The crap in his pants.

How could that have been fake?

Kyle and company were building their theory on a false assumption: That Will killed Mark.

But they did have a point.

Was that really Mark?

Will had never met anyone who simply didn’t have any fear at all. Maybe someone like that could exist, but how long would they last against monsters? Fear motivated you to take extra precautions and play it safe. Logically, people with no fear should be dead long before the 11^th Floor.

And they mentioned that Mark was a relatively fearful person in the past.

Which is more likely: that the man I saw had no fear, or simply wasn’t a man at all?

I would guess the second option.

That doesn’t explain what killed him though. It simply asks more questions.

What if he was being controlled by a Charm archetype?

From what Will had heard of them, they were able to hollow out large portions of heir victim’s minds. Rendering them incapable of feeling fear shouldn’t be impossible with enough time.

But that didn’t really make sense.

Mark the golemancer was so-so Advanced Class, a wanderer without strong ties to anyone or anything, in a Party of middling adventurers with few notable features other than a particularly strong survival instinct.

A Charm archetype would have had to follow along with the group, slowly eroding Mark’s mind over a long period of time as they bounced around the tower.

It would’ve had to be one of the other four. And none of them were Charm archetypes. Will had directly or indirectly witnessed all their Abilities.

Although the priestess is still a little suspect.