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Arnold ‘Arms’ Ames is wanted dead for a staggering number criminal acts, primarily including Murder, Extortion, War Crimes, and Human Trafficking.

Bounty: 3000 gold, 20000XP, to be shared among the party that claims the bounty.

I guess they got the mask off him, Will thought, leaning against the wall of his prison cell.

It was a very nice prison cell, with a comfy bed, private restroom, miniature library and a plush recliner to read from…but the door locked from the outside, which was really the only criteria that mattered to Will.

He tensed for a moment, waiting for the follow up that revealed that someone had claimed the bounty, but…nothing.

I guess they’re interrogating them. Will thought. It made sense they would want to pry what information they could out of their unwelcome guests.

I’ll bet their prison cells aren’t as nice as this one. Even though Will was in a cell, there were different types of prison cell.

This one said: “I’ll get to you as soon as I can, thank you for your patience.”

Will was fairly sure the other two were in a cell on the other end of the spectrum that said: “You’ll never see the sun again.”

About an hour later, another message flooded the consciousness of every person on the 5th Floor.

Vincent Duncan has been spotted on Floor 5.

Vincent ‘Void’ Duncan is wanted dead for a staggering number criminal acts, primarily including Mass Murder, Crimes Against Nature, Human Trafficking, and Tax Evasion.

Bounty: 4500 gold, 60000XP, to be shared among the party that claims the bounty.

This is probably going to take a while, Will thought, picking up a book and starting to read. Loth had told him he should read more.

About two hours later, There was a knock at the door before a pair of high-level warriors dressed in the duke’s colors politely escorted Will down an ominous series of halls that culminated in an equally ominous wooden double door, which swung open to reveal the baron, sitting behind an oversized wooden desk.

The size and shininess of the desk harkened back to the one he’d seen in the Oilton castle. Something designed to make the person sitting behind it more important.

Maybe that was a good thing, because the Baron didn’t look much older than twenty, so gravitas was difficult to come by. Either his Body was outlandishly high, or he’d found some other way to halt the aging process.

I wonder if that’s a Lord thing or just this one.

“Welcome, take a seat.” Baron Akul said, motioning to the chair in front of him.

Will sat. Doing anything else didn’t really fit the vibe.

“William Oh, is it?” The Baron asked.

“Yessir.” Will said.

“You’re rather famous for a nobody.”

“That’s fair.”

Baron Akul’s brown eyes narrowed, and Will felt like a real big fish had noticed a waterbug on the surface of the water. Will was the bug.

“Did you want to become a Lord, William Oh?”

“Don’t all kids want to become Lords?” Will deflected.

“That’s just a lie parents feed their children to give them something to die for.” Baron Akul said, raising a hand. Will’s skin went cold. That hand could produce bolts of fire that could kill kaiju instantly. Ř

“But you…” the Baron lowered his hand, pointing at Will. “You’re well on your way to becoming one.”

“…Thank you?” Will hazarded.

“You’ve assembled a talented Party. Secured sponsorship from two influential families. Funded a war chest that you could use to seed a Stronghold. All of these things are necessary steps.”

Will didn’t respond, hoping maybe the Baron would tell him what the next step was.

“In the interest of transparency, so you can understand my thought process…allow me to explain the situation you’re in.”

“Please do.” Will said.

“You, an orphan ostensibly born to Mary and Thomas Oh, two of the greatest Climbers of the modern era…have appeared in my city shortly after the church of Granesh began circulating word that you are a demonic changeling.”

Will broke into a cold sweat.

“My investigators have interviewed anyone who has so much as heard you speak, and based on your adventures, they tell me that you likely have the scout/Infiltrator archetypes, and have possession of a dimensional storage, and not only can you use it to steal other Climber’s Relics, you can treat the dimensional storage as an extra Slot.”

“You’re not unarmed even now, are you?” Baron Akul asked.

“I could do a bit.” Will admitted.

“I figured.” The Baron clasped his fingers together and gave Will a long, silent stare, seemingly weighing Will’s fate.

“My options are threefold.” The baron suddenly said. “First: I could kill you or deliver you to the Church. It would be a bit of a waste. Second: I could force you to become a Vassal. I would gain the service of a powerful rogue archetype.”

Neither of those sounded very good.

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“Third…I could send you on your way with my blessing.”

“That last one sounds good to me.” Will hazarded speaking out of turn. The Baron didn’t acknowledge him.

“…The Tower needs more Lords. We’ve been whittling away at each other for decades, and there’s only a handful of us left now.” The Baron glanced off to the side thoughtfully.

“You’ve got most of what it takes to be become a Lord, but the most important thing, I haven’t got a clue.”

“What’s that?”

“The most important trait to become a Lord…is an Ability synergy so wildly unfair that normal Climbers, who specialize in fighting monsters, don’t dare cross us. In short, Lords are uncannily good at killing other Climbers.”

“You, boy, are not the best monster slayer. What Rogue archetype is? On the other hand, I’ve heard reports from Micheal’s ill-fated party and your ‘fixed’ underground matches. You have very strong mobility and an invisible attack that you use to take control of a fight regardless of how it started. That is Lord material.”

The Baron finally wound down his pontificating about Will’s Build and invited him to join the conversation.

“Were you going to join the ‘under 25’ tournament to secure opportunities for your Party?”

“Yessir.” Will said.

“I imagine you were going to conceal your Dimensional storage Ability and aim to hit the semifinals.”

“Something like that,” Will admitted. “I don’t want to reveal-“

Baron Akul broke into laughter.

“Sorry,” The Baron said, wheezing as he wiped tears out of his eyes. “I remember playing things close to the vest like you, many years ago. Let me tell you something I’ve learned.”

Free advice from one of the Tower’s most powerful combatants? Will was all for it.

“If you become a Lord, everyone who matters is going to know how your Ability works, whether you like it or not. There are even families who figured out what 99% of my Build is and have given their children the same starting point.”

Will thought about Mason for a moment, then nodded.

“I have a grandson.” The Baron said, giving Will whiplash with the topic change.

“Luis’s son?” Will asked.

“One of them. Luis tells me the boy is in need of humbling before he gets himself killed. He will be joining the under 25 tournament.”

“You want me to…beat up your grandson?” Will asked, frowning.

“Did you not have an experience that taught you to keep your secrets close?” The Baron asked.

Will flashed back to the two days spent starving in that empty space…and the betrayal that led up to it.

“…You want me to traumatize your grandson.” Beating up was a component of that, but there was nuance.

The baron held his thumb and forefinger slightly apart.

“Just a bit. Those who know no fear are not long for this world. You’d be saving his life.”

“Here’s what I want you to do:” The Baron said. “I want you to join the tournament. I want you to use every Ability at your disposal to crush your opposition, including my grandson if you get the opportunity. I want to see what you can do when you’re holding nothing back. If you win, I will give you my support.”

“…What does your support look like?”

“Protection. Money. Equipment. Sacrifices. Kaiju hunting without a line at one of my controlled spawn sites.” The Baron said, leaning back in his seat. “And help reaching the sixth Floor.”

“And if I don’t win?”

“Well, then your Ability synergy wasn’t unfair enough to become a Lord in the first place. I will make you my vassal. Unless the church of Granesh makes me a really good offer.”

The cold sweat was back.

“What do you get out of me becoming a Lord?” Will asked.

“Ideally? A new ally, a new revenue stream from trade. A new friend when the rest of my family is dead and gone again. And of course, if you make your Stronghold in the higher Floors, that eases my troubles here.”

“How so?” Will asked, frowning.

The Baron paused a moment, like someone who had realized he’d overshared. He gazed at Will for a moment.

“Do not repeat this to anyone until you are a Lord.” The Baron said, his tone conveying all the threat Will needed to hear.

“Yessir.”

“The spawn rates of monsters in every Floor have…weather patterns. Some years it’s worse, some years it’s better. Most people know that.”

He glanced sideways at Will.

“There used to be no less than eight Lords in the Floors above me. There are now five. Every time one of the other three died or disappeared, there was a corresponding uptick in the spawn rate and strength of the kaiju on my Floor. I believe no one else has noticed because it’s damn near impossible to track the exact spawn rate on other floors, but here, it’s impossible not to. My accountant who was tracking our income from kaiju farming brought it to my attention.”

“So…why not make more Lords? You could certainly afford to do so.”

“Oh, Zodiac and I tried that. We gave some promising, well-educated young men and women all the tools they would need to become Lords in their own right. One by one, they all failed. Some never had the right counter-Climber build to make it, others were assassinated by rival Lords jealous of losing influence, Others simply died fighting monsters, and still more had the power offered to them corrupt their minds until they were slaves to their cruel desires.

“And these promising…well-educated young men and women who died or went mad were all the children of friends and family?” Will asked.

The Baron’s expression soured. “That played a factor in the blowback, yes. Since then, Zodiac and I have shifted to identifying potential Lords who are most of the way there already and…giving them a little boost past their last hurdle. Less effort for a better result.”

“And you think I’m a ‘potential Lord’?” Will asked.

“Potentially. What do you think the tournament was created for?”

Will’s mind connected the dots.

“Oh.”

“Now, I believe this was yours?” the Baron asked, reaching under his desk and placing a familiar tomahawk on the desk.

It was all Will could do not to lunge forward and snatch it up.

“Yessir.”

The Baron motioned to it, and Will took his axe and slipped it into its familiar loop in his belt.

“That’s a good weapon. Where did you find it?”

“In the hands of a Maksu chieftain on the 1st Floor.” Will said.

“Hmm. Take good care of it.” The Baron stood and shook Will’s hand. “William, this has been a nice diversion, but both of us have things we need to do. Enjoy the tournament.”

Will bit back a sarcastic ‘how am I supposed to enjoy it when I’ll die or be enslaved if I lose?’ and simply shook The Baron’s hand.

Will’s mind was crowded as the guardsmen escorted him back to the entrance of the massive palace that doubled as the seat of government.

The information revealed to him had a lot of subtext:

Fewer Lords meant individual Floors became more dangerous, which in turn made it harder to pass through them and become a Lord, which in turn meant fewer Lords, which meant harder Floors…

If one took it to it’s logical extreme…what happened when there were no more Lords left?

Had this been happening a while? How many Lords existed fifty years ago? A hundred? A thousand?

Will was starting to understand why the Baron told him to keep it to himself.

And the church of Granesh…The Baron had put next to no weight on their accusation of him being half-snake. Almost an afterthought. Did the man not care what they thought, or did he simply think they were wrong? …Or did he not care if Will was a demon in disguise?

From Will’s perspective, their claims had a grain of truth.

Sure, it was 99% bullshit, and they would never get along because of it, but Will was pretty sure he wasn’t pure human at this point. That part they got right.

They’re gonna be at the tournament, Will thought to himself.

They were going to be one of many churches providing healing and, like The Baron, keeping their eyes open for potential new Lords they could ingratiate themselves with…or perhaps to watch for enemies of the church who had escaped them before.

The Baron was right. Sooner or later everyone who mattered would know exactly how his Ability worked. The Baron, and likely other Lords, knew nearly precisely what his Phantom Hand could do already.

He needed to impress the Baron, but in so doing, he would draw the eyes of the church and alert them to what he was capable of, giving them a clearer picture of his Abilities.

Then let’s make lemonade, Will thought as he walked, flanked by Warriors in their 30’s.

Let’s do what he asked, and crush our opponents so hard they don’t even know what happened. The way a Lord does it.

If he gave a strong enough performance, the church would think twice about wasting their operatives on him.

Will arrived at the entrance to the palace, where the rest of his Party waited for him. The guards gave a nod and turned on their heel to attend to other business, leaving Will free to do as he wished…for the most part.

Will glanced over at Mason, who seemed fine. “How’s the wound?”

“The healers tell me I almost died from septic shock, but on the bright side, I have a really cool scar now.” Mason said, patting his stomach.

“Boar’s bounty pushed me up to level twenty-three,” Travis said.

The rest of the party nodded.

“What do you want to do now?” Loth asked, looking up at Will.

“Now…we’re going to do everything in our power to dominate the tournament...but first, some raspberry tarts.” Will mused.

Loth rolled her eyes.

I need to know what Jean’s connection to the Wyrd family is.