They crashed, either inside the administrative center or near it. Once they worked out that there was a small amount of space that was safe from falling rocks—mostly by looking at where other rocks had struck before and the clear space around—the group settled down. Of course they were not just trusting in the impact locations and had someone on watch. After all, the mushroom movers and even the camouflage grass had a tendency to move, if very slowly in the second case.
Arthur was one of the first to crash, woken later in the evening by Jan who happily took his place, curling up in the laid-out blanket and extra clothing that worked as their bedding. Sleeping bags and other comforts like blowup sleeping mats were things that most climbers brought with them, early on.
It rarely took more than a few floors before these items were sold off or lost to the vagaries of climbing for the serious climbers, or left behind at settlements for later. When you had to run in the middle of the night from a fight, when you had to blow up a sleeping mat and then squeeze the air out every day, such creature comforts were much less important. Especially when the added weight could draw the line between life and death.
Not that this kind of mindset was held by all, of course, but it was more common than not. You could have luxuries when you got back to your base, especially if you were making only overnight or two-night trips at most into the wilderness. The rest of the time, you could sleep comfortable.
Out here, a little discomfort might even keep you alive, keep your sleep light in case something snuck up on you.
Back against the wall, Arthur's gaze roamed over the night sky. There were stars up there and a trio of moons, though one was barely thrice the size of a twinkling star. It was just a little more steady, a little more textured than the planets that lay in the distance. The constellations were nothing at all that he recognised, though to be fair he'd only learnt to spot a few and mostly for navigation purposes. They'd not spent much time with that though, what with the alien geography of the Towers that mostly dominated the floors.
Mostly.
A half-hour later, Arthur found Mel slipping in beside him, leaning her head back to watch their right. They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes before Arthur could not help but ask.
"You know, I can't help but wonder how far I've come. How I—we—stack up against the seventh floor." He touched the armour he had slipped back on for his watch. "I've got better equipment now, but not that much better . . ."
"Better than what we have," Mel said, though there was no rancour in her voice.
"Yeah, but compared to our competitors? Everyone else on the seventh?" Arthur grimaced. Their choice to rush ahead was dangerous, so damn dangerous. They were underleveled, underpowered. Even if they'd grinded for cultivation levels and were at the minimum needed, they lacked the various techniques and equipment those who had spent more time in the Tower would have gotten. "How far behind am I?"
Mel smiled a little, then shook her head. "Less than you think. You've improve a lot. Gotten some actual experience under all that training, and that makes you even more deadly." She turned her head and nodded to his seniors who were sleeping, propped up on the other side of the door. "Look at them."
"Exactly! They're three quarters of the way to the second threshold, third transformation. Much more rounded out than I am." He waggled his hand. "I'm still . . . not there yet."
"You've got 17, 18, in Body?" Mel asked.
"18," Arthur replied. He'd managed to eke out another point in the time they'd spent to get up here, and he would have been even closer if he hadn't pushed another point into Spirit to speed up his cultivation.
"Right. Two more points to another Trait. And you've chosen them well, to back up what you need." She continued, slowly, "By now you're as strong as the rest of us who followed you from the first floor, I'd say." She smiled, ruefully. "Except maybe Uswah. Your Yin Body, the better cultivation techniques, they all help."
"Really?" he said, surprised.
"You can't see it because you're so close, but you've come a long way." Mel frowned. "Just don't forget the rest of us, when you start overtaking us."
"I wouldn't. "
"I know you don't think so. But . . . it's easy." Something in her voice made him look at her more closely. She turned away, looking upward as her voice dropped. "I had … a friend. Someone who I was close to. Then, her family, they . . . she changed. Grew colder, grew critical about me, about my family.” A shake of her head. “I’m messing this up. A relative of hers, an uncle, got lucky. Joined one of the bigger groups, TG, because he did someone a favour in the Tower. He became someone important there, and he helped his family.”
Appropriate. Normal, of course. Pulling up the extended family via your connections and opportunities was a time-honoured tradition. Meant that you had someone to fall back on, someone to help solidify your position. Mutual aid when things got rough for one person. In-built loyalty via blood.
She never even noticed his thoughts, her mind on a distant past. “Started laughing at the rest of us, being a bitch. She thought she was better than us, because she had the chance to get proper training now, get taught an actual cultivation method before even entering the Tower. When she did, she'd be ahead. She'd leave the rest of us behind, so what did we matter anymore?
"Not that she said it that way. She even offered, you know? To help us. Get us jobs, get us contracted. Maybe be mules."
Arthur grimaced. Dangerous jobs, but an opportunity. Not necessarily a bad thing, but . . . "Not much of a help is it? Unless they were offering better contracts?" Because often, the families of slain mules or those who failed to bring the goods over were the ones under the kris.
"I never checked. She just stopped being who I knew, stopped being a friend because she started thinking of what we could do for her." Mel sighed. "So, when you really start being the boss, don't forget about us, eh? We're not just tools."
"I won't," Arthur repeated, just as firmly. He nodded to his two seniors, then at the snoring Rick. "Why do you think I have the Durians, or you guys at all? The goal is to keep growing, together. To make something, of ourselves, of this world. To give people . . . options."
"Good." Then, she elbowed him in the side. "So why are you still talking?"
"What?"
"Why aren't you cultivating? We have a few hours. Pull out a stone and get to it. You might even get somewhere." This time, he was sure she was laughing at him. Not that she was wrong; he should probably get back to utilising the stones to boost himself. After all, for all his complaining, there was quite a bit of energy in the sixth-floor stones. Enough that a few hours at it and he'd be most of the way towards getting a new point.
Worries for later, cultivating for now. End of the day, if he was afraid he didn't have enough strength to beat those on the seventh floor, he just needed to get stronger.