Chapter 92: Cracked Immortal

Fighting William Oh is like fighting a tornado. A force of nature. I personally witnessed no less than fifty men violently tossed around and battered with furniture, all the while grasping at nothing but air. Then he came for me.

-Bill Brion, level 30 Bartender.

A wet cough erupted from Will as he limped along the pier, followed by a sharp pain through his chest that froze him in place until he remembered how to breathe.

Will gingerly poked his ribs, trying not to aggravate the many shallow cuts covering the majority of his body. They had just finished scabbing up.

I don’t think the rib’s busted, just…a little loose.

With that in mind, Will ran his tongue along a couple teeth that were wiggling a bit more than they should, spitting the coppery blood welling up into his sleeve.

Rule #1: don’t bleed into the ocean.

“You gonna live?” A reedy voice asked, prompting Will to glance up, Phantom Hand poised to take the man’s head off with a cannonball. A bar brawl is one thing, but following him into the dark of night…

Will relaxed when he recognized the emaciated, homeless fellow from before, rather than a Party leader with a grudge.

The men at The Bridge had actually all seemed in pretty good spirits when Will had left, lots of drinks and back-slaps and un-requested shots of liquor dumped over his wounds to ‘sanitize’ them.

Aside from that, and the horrible pain he was currently in, it really had been a great time. The single lesson he’d received from Bakton had opened his eyes to a flow that he hadn’t been able to perceive before and prepared him to deal with the vast majority of Climbers without too much trouble.

“Yeah, I’ll live.”

Will wobbled in place for a moment before using Phantom Hand as a cane, pressing back against his hand to stabilize himself.

“Here, let me,” the emaciate man said, putting Will’s truncated arm over his shoulder and tottering forward in lockstep.

“Thanks,” Will said as they resumed walking through the pre-dawn light. “…What do you want?”

“What?” The man scoffed. “Me? Want something? I’m just a humble- all right, fine. I do want something.”

“What’s that? Drinking money?”

“I wouldn’t say no to that, but I’m after something a little…harder to acquire.”

“And what’s that?”

The grey-eyed man glanced over at him, searching Will’s expression for a moment before pointing up. “On a certain Floor above us, is an object I really really want.”

“And what do you expect from me?”

“Well, you’re the guy.”

Will raised a brow.

“You know…the guy. The once-in-a-thousand-years legend. The one with the best shot of making it to the top. Did they not teach you this in school?”

The emaciated man frowned and mumbled to himself. “I thought they taught that in school? They taught my kids that. Was that a different coil? Shit, is Jacob dead? No, I just saw him the other day… is a day one revolution of the sun, or one winter, or one coil? No, it’s probably not a coil, that seems like a lot…”

Will frowned as the emaciated man began muttering, staring straight down with a vacant look in his eyes.

“…Who do you think I am?” He asked.

“Ummm…”

Will waited for a solid ten seconds before giving him the answer.

“William….”

‘William… The emaciated man repeated after him.

Oh.” Will finished.

“Right. Yes. I heard your larger-than-life legends and I knew you were destined for great things.”

“You’ve never heard of me before.” Will said.

“I’ve never heard of you before.” The emaciated man admitted.

This is an interesting conversation, Will thought. This man didn’t know Will, but he had known enough to know about the overblown legends.

Typically he might’ve fallen in the category of con men who simply praise every newcomer they meet as the ‘chosen one’ until they can take what they want and cut loose.

But he wasn’t slick enough to be a con-artist. If anything, he seemed like a dog that had been beaten too many times. Hunched over and self-blaming.

“What’s your name?” Will asked.

“Reese. Probably. Maybe.”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“And how did you wind up here?”

“Well, I got swept up with Mark Wyrd’s Party as they left Akul, and they cut me loose here a couple years ago.”

“A couple years ago?” will asked.

“Decades?” Reese said with a shrug. “I dunno, I just remember getting shanghaied by them on the Ocean Floor, meeting a girl, starting a family here and being an exotic fisherman and my granddaughter took over the family business when-ah, shit, different coil. It was days. I’ve only been here like a couple days. I think.”

Will asked the obvious question.

“What is a coil?”

“You know…when all human civilization gets wiped out and The Tower adds a floor and everyone starts over from scratch. You know. A Coil. Happens like every year. Don’t they teach that in school? I guess school gets destroyed too…”

Reese got a vacant expression on his face.

Will thought back to Baron Akul’s ominous observations on the gradually worsening situation in the Tower as Lords died faster than they could be replaced.

“…How old are you?”

Reese gave a small squeak and shrugged.

Will saw the morning light beginning to touch the tops of the surrounding ships, and he knew he was going to get an earful from Loth.

“I have a thousand questions for you, but right now, I only want the answer to two things:” Will said. “Number one: Tell me exactly what the item you want is. Number two: tell me exactly what you are going to pay for it.”

Reese took a deep breath.

“Okay. I want access to a System Administrator panel that will allow me to revoke my protections and finally shuffle off this mortal coil. I think we made some in the high-tech coil.”

“And how I will pay for it: I have personally witnessed more Floors than anyone alive. I’ve studied the pattern. I’m betting that above the tenth Floor, information is limited about hazards and points of interest and such. I can help with that.”