Chapter 159 — Climbing Out

Chapter 159: Chapter 159 — Climbing Out

He allowed himself perhaps a quarter hour of simply sitting with the pain before forcing himself to move — long enough for the worst of the initial shock to settle, not so long that the ankle stiffened past what he could still work with.

Could have been worse, he thought, probing the torn line along his ribs with careful fingers. Should have been worse, hitting that outcropping at that angle. Bonebark’s the only reason I’m not lying here with something actually broken instead.

It was a strange comfort, cataloguing exactly how badly he hadn’t been hurt, but it steadied him regardless — proof that the accumulated weight of everything he carried wasn’t just useful in a fight, but here too, in the aftermath of his own carelessness.

First, the bleeding.

He tore a fresh strip from his spare cloth and bound his ribs as tightly as he could manage one-handed, wincing at the pressure but grateful for the way it dulled the sharper edges of the pain into something more manageable. Mireflow Regeneration was doing its slow, patient work beneath the wrapping — he could feel it, faint but real, the wound’s worst edges already less raw than they’d been minutes earlier.

Then the ankle.

He couldn’t properly set it, not alone, not without risking making it worse. He bound it as best he could instead, snug enough to limit movement without cutting off feeling entirely, and tested his weight against it carefully.

Pain lanced up through his leg immediately, sharp enough that he had to breathe through it before trying again.

Twisted badly, not broken. Small mercy. Not walking on it properly, though. Not yet.

He looked up at the pit’s opening — a distant, pale thread of fungal light, considerably higher above him than he’d have liked. The walls themselves, he confirmed on closer inspection, carried the same smooth, deliberate quality throughout, not just near the surface. Someone or something had shaped this space with real intention, and the crust that had given way beneath him had clearly been maintained rather than simply neglected into thinness.

Whoever built this wanted something to fall in and stay in.

He turned that thought over with careful unease, glancing toward the pit’s shadowed edges for any sign of what might normally use a trap like this — bones, old gear, anything. He found nothing immediately obvious, though the light here was poor enough that he couldn’t fully trust the absence.

Climb first. Worry about the builder after I’m not sitting at the bottom of his hole anymore.

He studied the walls properly now, searching for handholds, and found the smooth stone offering frustratingly little purchase — worked deliberately smooth, he suspected, specifically to discourage exactly this kind of escape.

He thought of Silkspinner’s Touch, untested since the moment it had settled into him the night before, and decided there was no better time than now to learn what it actually offered.

He reached inward for it the way he’d learned to reach for every new ability — not quite conscious effort, more a kind of directed attention — and felt, gathering at his fingertips, something considerably finer and more deliberate than Web-Silk Binding’s familiar rough strands. Thinner thread. Stronger, weight for weight, and responsive in a way that felt almost like an extension of his own hands rather than a separate technique layered on top of them.

He tested it cautiously, spinning a short length between his fingers, and found he could shape it with a precision Web-Silk Binding had never offered — not just strands cast outward, but something closer to actual craft, thread wound and knotted with an ease that felt instinctive despite having never done anything like it before.

Enough to climb with, maybe. If I can anchor it properly.

He worked slowly, favoring his good leg, spinning a length of the fine, strong silk and testing it against a jagged outcropping near the pit’s upper reaches — the same kind of stone that had torn his ribs open on the way down, he noted grimly, though now serving a rather more useful purpose.

The anchor held under a careful test pull. He tied off a second line lower down, judging the distance as best he could, and began the slow, awkward work of hauling himself upward using his arms and his good leg both, the injured ankle held carefully clear of any real weight.

It was slow going. Painful, too — his ribs protesting every reach, every twist, the wrapped wound pulling tight with each new handhold. He paused twice, breathing hard, forcing himself to wait rather than push through exhaustion that might cost him his grip entirely.

Ironshell Grip, he thought, partway up, testing the ability properly for the first time as his fingers began to ache from the sustained effort. He called on it, and felt his grip harden, strengthen, the strain easing just enough that he found the will to keep climbing rather than stop.

That’s what you’re actually for, apparently. Not smashing things. Just holding on when nothing else will.

He reached the pit’s upper lip a considerable time later, arms trembling, breath ragged, and hauled himself over the edge with the last of his strength, collapsing onto the solid, honest stone of the passage floor with a relief so total it briefly overwhelmed even the pain still radiating up from his ankle.

He lay there a long moment, simply breathing, the vast, patient dark of Floor Five settling around him exactly as indifferent as it had been the night before.

Made it.

He forced himself upright eventually, testing his ankle again and finding it no better than before, though his ribs, at least, seemed to have stopped their worst bleeding beneath the wrapping.

Can’t walk properly. Can’t climb back to the surface like this either, not three floors’ worth.

He weighed his options with the same careful, deliberate calculation he applied to everything now, and settled, reluctantly, on the only sensible course available.

Camp. Properly this time. Rest until the ankle bears weight again, however long that takes.

He found a defensible hollow a short distance from the pit’s edge, checked it carefully for any sign it belonged to something else first, and strung a thorough perimeter of Web-Silk Binding around it — more layers than usual, given his current inability to defend himself quickly if something came calling.

He tested Stonebound Stance next, curious whether it might offer him anything useful even sitting still and wounded, and found, planting his good leg carefully against the stone, a faint but genuine steadiness settle through his core — not healing, nothing that touched the actual injury, but a grounded readiness that made him feel less like a wounded man waiting helplessly and more like someone still capable of holding his ground if it came to that.

Small comfort. Real one, though.

He built a low fire once the perimeter was set, and allowed himself, finally, to properly rest — the accumulated ache of the fall, the climb, and the whole exhausting stretch of the previous day and night settling into him all at once now that there was nothing left demanding his immediate attention.

He thought, as the fire caught and the first wave of proper rest finally began easing through his battered body, of Enduring Vitality’s steady support beneath everything he’d just managed, and of Mireflow’s quiet, patient work on wounds that would have left him considerably worse off without it.

Both of them, working together the whole time. Neither one enough alone.

The thought settled into him with unexpected clarity, turning over and over as exhaustion finally began pulling him toward sleep — two separate gifts, gathered months apart from creatures that had never met, and yet somehow, in the moment it mattered most, working as if they’d always been meant to move together.

He didn’t chase the thought any further that night. Sleep took him before he could.