Back in their room after the celebrations, Leon laid out the three Seals on the table. The metallic scrolls glowed softly, their runes shifting, alive in a way that normal objects weren't. First Seal. Second Seal. Third Seal. Three trials survived. Three pieces of a path none of them fully understood.
Sylas watched from the edge of the bed. Lyra leaned against the wall. Dorn and Vex sat in the corner, quiet as always.
Sylas: What are you doing?
Leon: Albert said they could link. We never tried with three.
He aligned them edge to edge. The First Seal clicked against the Second. The Second against the Third. They fit perfectly—three pieces of a larger whole, edges matching like they'd been designed to join.
For a moment, the Seals glowed brighter. Power built in the room, a hum that vibrated in their chests. Light spilled between Leon's fingers.
A system window flickered into existence before his eyes.
User not recognized. Seals remain inert.
The light faded. The hum died. The window vanished.
Lyra: Nothing happened?
Leon stared at the Seals. Still warm. Still glowing faintly. But silent.
Leon: It recognized me. And rejected me.
He stepped back from the table.
Leon: One of you try.
---
Sylas moved forward. She placed her hands on the Seals, realigning them where Leon's touch had disturbed them.
This time, the light didn't fade.
It built—brighter, stronger, until the whole room glowed. The hum returned, deeper now, more urgent. A system window appeared, large and clear, visible to everyone.
Three Seals detected. Fourth Trial location unlocked.
A map materialized in the air above the table. Greyhaven sat at one edge, a small mark among many. Lines stretched east, crossing mountains and plains and territories none of them had seen, until they reached a single point marked with pulsing red light.
Beside it, a name appeared.
Spirehold.
The moment the name materialized, Dorn went rigid.
Vex's face drained of all color.
Lyra noticed immediately, her usual grin fading.
Lyra: What? What is it?
Dorn didn't answer. He stared at the name like it was a ghost made of light. His hands gripped his knees, knuckles white.
Vex's voice came out strangled, barely a whisper.
Vex: Spirehold. The tower city.
Sylas: You know it?
Vex: Everyone knows it. But we—
She stopped. Couldn't finish.
Dorn spoke instead, his voice hollow, distant.
Dorn: Our parents died there.
---
The room went silent.
Leon looked at the map still hanging in the air. At the pulsing light. At the name that had just shattered his party.
Leon: Tell us.
Dorn took a breath. When he spoke, each word seemed pulled from somewhere deep, somewhere he rarely visited.
Dorn: Fifteen years ago, our parents were a Gold party. One of the best in Greyhaven. They attempted the Fourth Trial—the Spire of Ascent.
Vex: Back then, no one had passed the sixth floor. Parties climbed every day. Traders built a city around the base. But the sixth floor's Guardian had never been defeated.
Dorn: Our parents did it. First party in decades. The whole city celebrated.
Vex: Then they climbed to the seventh floor.
Lyra: What happened?
Dorn: No one knows. They never came back. No bodies. No records. No message. Just… gone.
Vex's hands were shaking. She didn't try to hide them.
Vex: We were children. We waited at the base of the tower for weeks. Watched every party that came down. Hoped every time.
Dorn: Weeks turned to months. Months to years. Eventually, we stopped waiting.
Vex: But we never stopped wondering.
Sylas looked at the system window, still glowing, still waiting. She read the objective aloud, her voice gentle.
Sylas: Ascend to the tenth floor of the Spire of Ascent.
Lyra: Tenth? No one's even seen the seventh.
Dorn: Our parents did.
Leon looked at them—at the weight they carried, the fear they hid, the resolve underneath.
Leon: You don't have to come.
Dorn's head snapped up. His eyes were hard, fierce.
Dorn: Yes I do.
Vex: We both do.
Dorn stood, moving to the map, reaching out to touch the light. His hand passed through it, but he stared at Spirehold like he could see through the magic, through the distance, through the years.
Dorn: For fifteen years, I've wondered what happened to them. Did they suffer? Did they fail? Was there something they could have done differently? The Spire took them, and I need to know why.
Vex: Even if the answer is nothing. Even if we never find out. We have to try.
Leon held their gaze.
Leon: Then we climb together.
---
The next days were a blur of preparation.
Spirehold was weeks away—across mountains, through hostile territories, past lands none of them had traveled. They needed supplies for the journey and for the climb itself. The tower could take days or weeks depending on how far they got. No one knew. No one had ever documented what lay beyond the sixth floor.
Albert provided maps of the route, warnings about the territories they'd cross, names of settlements where they could rest. But about the tower itself, he had little to offer. Only that the first six floors were mapped, and beyond that, nothing.
Sylas studied the documents obsessively, memorizing every detail.
Lyra sharpened her axes and stocked up on jars.
Leon practiced his forging until he could summon weapons in seconds.
Dorn and Vex spent hours staring at the map of the Spire. Tracing the known floors. Wondering what lay beyond. Neither of them spoke much. Neither of them slept.
---
They left at dawn.
Greyhaven's gates opened for them, and this time, more than just Albert watched them go. Word had spread through the city. The party that survived the stampede was attempting the Fourth Trial—the Spire where no one had passed the sixth floor, where a Gold party had vanished fifteen years ago.
Adventurers lined the walls, watching in silence. Merchants paused in their stalls. Even the guards stood a little straighter as the Outliers passed.
Lyra: No pressure.
Sylas: Ignore them. Focus on the climb.
Vex paused at the gate, looking back at the city one last time. The morning light caught her face, revealing shadows under her eyes, a tightness around her mouth.
Vex: Our parents left through gates like these. Fifteen years ago. They never came back.
Dorn stood beside her, solid, unmoving.
Dorn: We will.
Vex: You don't know that.
Dorn: No. But we'll try.
Leon walked at the front, the three Seals heavy in his pack. He could feel them pressing against his back, warm, waiting.
Behind him, the mountains rose, their peaks lost in clouds.
Beyond them, Spirehold waited.
And somewhere in the sky, hidden by distance and mist, the Spire of Ascent stood eternal. Waiting for the children of those it took. Waiting for its next challengers.
Waiting for the Outliers.
They didn't look back.
---
End of Chapter 46