Chapter 370: Can You Make It?

The Record Belongs to Anonymous

Kael moved quickly through the crowd. A few people looked his way, though most only glanced once. Kael was large enough to attract attention under normal circumstances, and walking around with red hair, battered armor, bloodstained clothing, a damaged helmet covering his head and steel gauntlets that looked as though someone had attacked them with an industrial saw did not help.

Fortunately, climbers returning from Floors in terrible condition were hardly unusual. Kael kept moving toward Andre’s workshop, following the route he still remembered as the district gradually changed around him. Shops and small peddlers spreading their wears on the ground, stalls selling food and spice and blade at once, and finally equipment shops were the last before the path gave way to Andre’s smithy.

He heard Andre before he saw the workshop.

"I SAID FUCK OFF!"

Kael smiled. "Yep."

He had definitely found the right place.

Several climbers stood outside Andre’s workshop, though calling the gathering a queue was generous when everyone appeared to be arguing over who had arrived first. The door remained shut, and Andre stood in front of it with his beard looking slightly more unkempt than Kael remembered. Thick leather covered the dwarf’s chest, one glove remained on his right hand, and a hammer hung from his belt. Both wooden legs looked slightly sad for someone with such skill.

"I’m not takin’ requests!"

One climber raised a sword.

"I only need the edge repaired!"

"Then find another smith!"

"You’re the best smith on this Floor."

"Aye."

Andre pointed at the road.

"That means I get to choose when I work. Piss off."

Another climber protested.

"I’ve been waiting three days!"

"Then ya should’ve learned after the first two."

Several people groaned as Kael approached. Andre’s eyes moved across the crowd before stopping on him, and the dwarf’s eyebrows rose.

Kael lifted his undamaged hand. "Hey."

Andre stared at him for a second, then pointed toward the door.

"C’mere."

The crowd immediately erupted.

"What?"

"Seriously?"

"We’ve been waiting!"

Andre ignored them as Kael walked forward. One climber stepped slightly into his path before taking a proper look at him. The man’s eyes traveled from Kael’s ruined right gauntlet to the burned sections of his jacket and the sword marks carved through the metal plates.

He moved aside.

Another climber opened his mouth to complain, but Kael looked toward him and the complaint died before leaving his throat. Kael was not deliberately trying to intimidate anyone. He simply looked as though he had spent the morning being beaten with siege equipment and was in no mood to discuss queue etiquette, which was mostly accurate.

Kael entered the workshop, and Andre followed before turning toward the crowd.

"No more requests!"

Someone outside shouted something unpleasant. Andre responded by slamming the door.

"Lovely customers."

Kael looked around and discovered that the workshop had changed considerably. The old forge remained, but most of the equipment surrounding it had been replaced or improved. Better bellows stood beside larger anvils, organized racks held rows of tools, new storage cabinets lined one wall, and completed weapons rested upon reinforced stands farther inside.

Even the ventilation had improved.

Kael nodded. "Place looks good. No more bottles with strange liquid in them."

Andre grunted. "Business."

"You just told all your customers to fuck off."

"Aye."

"That normally hurts business."

"Not when they come back tomorrow. If ya got skills, yer skills speak for themselves, treat em rough, n’they’d beg you for it."

Andre finally turned toward him, studying Kael from head to toe before focusing on the gauntlets.

"What the hell happened to ya?"

Kael walked toward one of the tables. "I’m taking a break."

Andre stared. "That’s what ya look like when resting?"

"I had the pleasure of fighting something slightly outside my expectations." Kael said as he sighed.

"Slightly?"

Kael sat down, and his right arm immediately thanked him for the decision. Andre narrowed his eyes as he studied the damage, then something appeared to click inside his mind.

"Was that you?"

Kael looked up. "What?"

"The record."

Kael sighed. "News reached here too?"

Andre laughed. "Reached here?"

He pointed toward the walls.

"We’re all Climbers, boy. The whole damned community knows."

Kael leaned back. "Ah, I see."

"Anonymous just dropped a Floor Eleven record over a million points and ya walk into my shop lookin’ like someone tried feedin’ ya through a meat grinder."

Andre crossed his arms.

"I can add numbers."

Kael stared at him. "Can you not?"

"Not what?"

"Tell anyone."

Andre snorted. "Course not."

"Seriously."

"I said course not."

Andre walked toward a cabinet.

"I don’t expose clients."

"Good. I appreciate it."

"Bad for business." Andre said.

Kael smiled. "There it is."

"What?"

"The real reason."

Andre opened the cabinet. "If some guild finds out one of my good customers has somethin’ valuable and kills him, who brings me more valuable shit?"

"That’s surprisingly practical." Kael smiled.

"I’m a dwarf. We take pride n’ our practicality."

Andre pulled an unopened bottle of wine from the cabinet. Kael stared at it, finding the unbroken seal more unusual than anything else he had seen since entering.

"You haven’t drunk that yet?"

"Nope."

"Are you sick?"

Andre glared. "Was savin’ it."

"For what?"

The dwarf grabbed two cups. "Lost a bet with the Fist King, so apparently this."

He broke the seal, releasing a smell that reached Kael immediately. It was better than whatever the Fist King had been carrying lately.

Andre poured one cup and pushed it toward Kael before filling another for himself. Kael lifted his with his left hand while his right remained mostly useless, a detail Andre immediately noticed.

"That arm broken?"

"Probably."

"Probably?"

"I haven’t checked."

Andre drank. "For something to break yer arm... Ya haven’t finished that bastard’s training."

Kael took a sip. "Not yet. It’s not something you can rush."

"Aye. It isn’t. You need ta be careful. Tower’s only getting worse the more ya climb, lad."

Kael nodded, it was rare for Andre to act like he cared for someone, this was a good chance of scenery.

"Really good." Kael said as he finished the sip.

"I know."

They sat quietly for a moment. For the first time in what felt like days, Kael was not surrounded by alarms, enemy waves, monsters, system warnings, or higher beings spending metaphysical currency to get him killed. He had only a forge, a cup of wine, and a rude dwarf for company.

Andre refilled his own cup.

"So."

Kael looked toward him. "What dragged ya all the way back to the Second?"

"Couple things."

"Repair?"

Andre nodded toward the gauntlets.

"I can fix those." Kael said.

"I know. Which makes it strange why ya haven’t... so, Upgrade?"

"That’s closer."

Andre became more interested as Kael placed his cup down.

"I learned something."

"Knowledge is dangerous, what ya learned?" Andre asked.

"My gauntlets aren’t good enough anymore." Kael admitted.

"That took ya long enough. They were never good enough n the first place."

Kael frowned. "They worked."

"Ya seem to be misunderstanding. A sword has an edge to cut monsters, a hammer is blunt to break em, them gauntlets, they only as good as how strong yer muscles are. Y’er using weapons never before used by anything else. For em to take ya all the way to the eleventh floor, that already somethin’ great.

"They worked really well."

"And now?"

Kael lifted his right hand slightly. The damaged metal creaked, and Andre laughed.

"Figured as much..."

"The material was good." Kael said. "The Atrax spider metal was pretty damn good at moving internal energy."

"For what ya were fightin’. Twas good, but soon, you’ll start needn far more power than what these things can support."

"Exactly."

Kael looked toward the forge.

"I need something better."

"How much better?"

Kael smiled. "A lot."

Andre leaned back. "Now yer speakin’ properly. But I don’t got on me more rare materials."

Kael opened his inventory. He had accumulated plenty of ore, equipment, and materials from places most climbers on the Second Floor would never see. Among them was one item he had deliberately kept because he had not trusted himself to work with it properly yet.

He selected the item and placed it upon the table. The impact produced a sound far heavier than its size suggested, and Andre’s cup stopped halfway to his mouth.

The dwarf stared at the material before very slowly lowering his wine. Kael watched his expression, already certain that coming here had been the right decision.

Andre leaned closer as his eyes widened. He did not touch the material immediately, which was almost alarming behavior from a smith. When his fingers finally moved, they stopped just above its surface as he whispered something beneath his breath.

Kael raised an eyebrow. "What?"

Andre looked at him. "By the Nine Forges of Hell..."

Kael smiled. "That good?"

Andre finally reached toward the item, his attention moving between the material and Kael’s ruined gauntlets.

"Where the hell did ya get this?"

Kael leaned back in the chair. "That’s another long story."

Andre looked from the material to the gauntlets and then back again. Kael took another sip of wine.

"So?"

Andre remained silent.

Kael pointed toward the item. "Can you forge it?"