Morning in Hearthpost tasted like smoke and metal.

  A bunk above him creaked.

  Jordan dropped down the ladder quickly, landing beside his bunk. He hesitated for an instant, then rotated his shoulder as if checking for pain before trying to act casual. His hair stuck up in two directions, and his shirt was half-tucked like he’d lost an argument with a blanket.

  “Good news,” Jordan said, overly bright. “Nothing killed us in our sleep.”

  Cal made a low sound. “Give it time.”

  Jordan scratched at his jaw and glanced toward the palisade, eyes flicking to the gaps between buildings and back again. The humor stayed on his face, but the scan was automatic.

  “New plan,” Jordan said. “Eat real food. Survive. Then back to the murder woods for pay.”

  Cal started walking. “We don’t have chips for breakfast.”

  Jordan fell into step at his right shoulder. “I noticed.”

  The band on Cal’s wrist pulsed once.

  A faint, textless notification flickered in his vision, then vanished. No words, no prompt—just the Tower’s quiet reminder that the day had started whether he had or not.

  Jordan’s gaze darted to Cal’s face. “You see that too?”

  “Yeah,” Cal said.

  “Cool,” Jordan said. “Love when the world winks.”

  Cal followed the sound of hammering.

  The smithy stood near the square, downwind from food stalls and upwind from latrines. Just a roof over an open shelter, but sturdily built. Thick posts. A stone-lined forge was dug into the ground. An anvil with notches where it had bitten back.

  Racks lined the back wall with swords, spears, axes, and stranger, evolved weapons. Shields were stacked by size. A barrel of mismatched knives sat near the entrance like a bouquet of sharp metal.

  The woman at the anvil looked up as Cal approached.

  She was broad-shouldered, with dark hair braided tight, sleeves rolled to show muscled forearms. Forge light painted one side of her face; shadow covered the other. A Tower band, dull from wear, gleamed on her wrist.

  “You’re early.” Her voice rasped. “New faces. Lost on the way to coffee?”

  Jordan perked up instantly. “There’s coffee?”

  The smith stared at him like he’d asked if the sun was optional.

  Cal stopped just outside the worst of the heat.

  “Looking for a weapon,” he said.

  She snorted. “You and everyone else. What are you swinging now?”

  He tapped the baton at his side with two fingers, then shifted the welded shield forward into view, letting its battered front catch the light.

  “Old-world baton,” Cal said. “Scrap metal shield. Both salvaged.”

  “Police issue?” she asked. “Or private security?”

  “Police. Pre-wave. Storage crate find.”

  “Good steel,” she said. “That’s something. And the trash-can lid?”

  “Welded plates,” Cal said. “We did the work ourselves.”

  She grunted, noncommittal, then jerked her chin toward the racks.

  “Hold them up.”

  Cal unhooked the shield, holding it out so its scraped, dented face and strong weld lines were visible. He gripped the baton near the base, holding it so that its head caught the light.

  The smith wiped her hands, stepped closer, and inspected them—quick, thorough, unsentimental, like a building inspector or clinic doctor.

  “Shield’s ugly,” she said at last, “but it’ll turn teeth and bone if you keep the welds from splitting. Baton’s seen better days.”

  “Better than nothing.”

  “Almost everything’s better than nothing,” she said. “Don’t trust it.”

  Jordan grinned. “He trusts it. It’s basically family.”

  The smith’s eyes flicked. “And you? His reason to trust it?”

  Jordan’s grin sharpened. “I’m the reason he’s still got all his fingers.”

  Cal didn’t correct him.

  The smith’s mouth moved like she was deciding whether to laugh or throw something.

  “Go on. Look, touch. Don’t cut off anything vital. I’ll tell you what’s good, then you’ll see what you can afford.”

  Cal moved along the rack closest to him.

  The swords drew his eye; blades ranged from forearm length to as tall as he was. Some straight, some gently curved. Edges caught the forge light. The leather-wrapped hilts felt solid when he reached for one.

  “Straight sword,” the smith said behind him. “Bread and butter for a lot of climbers. Good balance between reach and control. You keep the edge, and it will treat you fairly. But it wants training. You swing wrong, you tire early, or get your blade stuck in something that is still trying to kill you.”

  Cal tested the weight, then set it back.

  Spears came next—some little more than sharpened steel on shafts, others with barbed heads or crossguards meant to catch and twist.

  “Spears keep danger at the end of a stick,” she said. “Safer for the untrained. Good for holding lines, poking things that bite. The problem is, too many new climbers think the point is the whole weapon. They forget the butt, the shaft, the footwork.”

  Cal picked up a spear, feeling its weight shift away from his hand so the tip drooped unless he adjusted his grip. The ache in his sore shoulder, still tender after taking a hit from a goblin spear, flared at the thought of holding it too long.

  Jordan made a sympathetic noise. “That thing looks like it wants to ruin your day.”

  “Everything in the Tower wants to ruin your day,” the smith said.

  Axes and hammers hung further down. Axes gleamed; hammers were squat and heavy, their faces scarred from impacts.

  She smirked. “Axes split armor and bone. They also split your stamina if you’re not built for them. Hammers are worse. You are Earth?”

  Cal blinked and looked back at her.

  “How did you know?” he asked.

  She nodded at his band.

  “Scan that came through the board last night said we had six new unsponsored in Hearthpost,” she said, studying him closer. “One with high Earth resonance and no class. You stand like someone who knows where the ground is, and you’re here early, asking about weapons. Lucky guess.”

  Cal glanced down at his own feet without meaning to.

  Earth. The word still sat in his bones from the Atrium.

  Jordan’s expression shifted—subtle, quick. Like the word landed somewhere private.

  “Earth makes sense. He’s stubborn enough to qualify.”

  The smith looked back at the hammers. “Hammers would suit you later. Once you have an ability slot unlocked and some more meat on your arms. Earth likes things that hit hard and do not move when something hits back. But for now?”

  Her gaze slid from Cal’s bruised thigh to his callused hands and back to the baton.

  “For now, you need something you already know how not to drop.”

  Cal put the spear back.

  “What about shields?” he asked.

  She ticked off on her fingers. “Tower-forged steel, proper boss and grip, light enough you don’t hate me after an hour? Twenty chips for the low end. Forty if you want something that has seen more than test swings.”

  Cal’s hand tightened around the baton.

  The numbers slammed into him faster than any goblin.

  He did the math for rent, food, and medicine. Anya’s five chips: one to stew, two to bunk, leaving him with two now—edges digging into his palm.

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  “Twenty,” he repeated.

  The smith heard something in his voice and paused.

  She wiped sweat from her brow with the back of her wrist and leaned against the anvil.

  She spread her hands. “Basic Tower steel in this shop runs from ten to thirty chips. You can find cheaper in the stalls, but most of that will snap on your first bad parry. You can find more expensive in the corporate quarter, but if you had that kind of money, you wouldn’t be standing here.”

  Cal forced himself to keep looking.

  A short sword that felt almost right in his hand until he imagined the price tag.

  A spear with a balanced head that would have made goblins think twice.

  A round shield with a smooth face and reinforced rim that would not complain every time something hit it.

  Not for him. Not yet.

  He let the sword hang back on its peg and stepped away from the rack.

  The smith arched an eyebrow. “Reality check?”

  “Reality check,” Cal said.

  She tapped the anvil. “You keep that baton and that scrap shield. They got you through yesterday.”

  “Barely,” Cal said.

  She glanced outside. “Barely is another word for alive. Ask the ones who did not make it back.”

  Cal swallowed.

  “What can I get for two chips?” he asked.

  She considered.

  She wiped her hands and beckoned. “Not much steel. But steel is only part of what keeps a weapon useful. Bring that baton here.”

  Cal did.

  Up close, the old-world casing looked worse than it had the first day he pulled it from the crate. The head was dented from meeting a goblin's bone. Fine scratches marked the length from a predator’s teeth. The rubberized grip peeled at one corner, ready to slip at the worst moment.

  The smith turned the baton over in her hands, studying the manufacturer’s stamp near the base.

  “Good bones,” she said. “The Tower did not make this, but it respects stubborn old things. For one chip, I can clean and rewrap the handle. Put a proper leather grip on it. Reinforce the head with a steel collar. That way it doesn’t mushroom the first time you hit something harder than you planned.”

  She glanced at his shield.

  “Another chip gets you a quick pass on those welds. I am not remaking it for you, but I can lay a few new beads where it wants to split and grind off the worst of the stress cracks.”

  Cal hesitated.

  One chip meant he would still have something in his pocket when he walked out. Two meant leaving himself with nothing but hope that he earned more before nightfall.

  Jordan’s voice came softer, closer to Cal’s ear than to the room. “We can be broke. We cannot be broke and busted.”

  Cal’s eyes flicked to him.

  Jordan didn’t grin this time. He just held the look, steady.

  “How long?” Cal asked.

  “Half an hour,” she said. “Maybe less if no one tries to haggle me into a bad mood.”

  Cal thought of the goblin spear butt slamming into his thigh. The way his fingers had slipped on the baton’s worn grip when sweat and blood got into the ridges. The hairline crack he had seen in the shield’s weld when he checked it in the forest.

  “Do both,” Cal said. “Please.”

  He set two chips on the anvil.

  They looked very small there.

  The smith scooped them up and slid them into a pouch at her belt.

  “Name?” she asked.

  “Cal,” he said. “Calen Ward.”

  She nodded once.

  She nodded to the water barrel. “Sit by the water barrel, Calen Ward. Watch and learn, if you like. If you are going to trust your life to junk, you should know how that junk is put together.”

  Cal moved aside, out of the way, but close enough to see.

  Jordan didn’t sit. He drifted to the edge of the shelter, eyes on the square beyond. His posture said relaxed. His fingers around the scavenged bar said otherwise.

  The smith went to work.

  The baton went first.

  She clamped it in a vise and stripped the old grip away in long, peeling strips. Underneath, the steel was clean but scarred. She took a file to the worst of the dents, smoothing sharp edges, then heated a thin ring of metal in the forge until it glowed faintly.

  “Steel collar,” she said as much to herself as to Cal. “Keeps the head from flaring when you hit bone or armor. Spreads the force better, too. Your wrist will thank me later.”

  She slid the ring over the end of the baton and drove it down with short, precise hammer taps until it seated snugly above the main body. Then she quenched it, steam hissing.

  A new wrap went on next, thick leather cut from a wider strip and wound tight around the handle, each layer overlapping the last. She sealed the end with a small brass rivet and tested the grip with a few experimental swings.

  The baton looked the same in outline when she handed it back, but it sat differently in his hand. The balance point had shifted a finger’s width closer to his grip. The head felt solid without the dull, tired pull it had carried before.

  Cal closed his fingers around it.

  His Earth-sense picked up the difference the way his ears picked up a change in background noise. The weight told him exactly where the baton wanted to move if he let it.

  “Thank you,” Cal said.

  “Use it as you did before,” she said. “Just remember, it will ask you to hit harder now. That can be a blessing or a curse.”

  She turned to the shield without waiting for a reply.

  Up close, the welded seams looked thin near the edges. She ran a practiced eye over them, muttered something rude about whoever had done the original work, and set to redoing the worst sections.

  Sparks jumped as she laid fresh beads along the cracks. The smell of hot metal filled the air. When she was done, she ground the new welds smooth enough that they would not catch on every spearpoint that glanced off them, but left the functional ugliness intact.

  “Still scrap,” she said, straightening. “Just stronger scrap. It will hold together a few hits longer before it comes apart. By then, you should have either better gear or better instincts.”

  Cal ran his fingertips along one of the new seams.

  The line was warm, but solid.

  “Better instincts seem cheaper,” he said.

  “Until they are not,” she said. “Gear breaks. People do, too. Try not to do both on the same day.”

  Noise shifted at the front of the smithy.

  Two climbers had come in while she worked. Both wore armor that had seen more than one floor’s worth of trouble. The taller had a spear strapped to his back; the other carried a short sword at his hip and a bandolier of throwing knives across his chest.

  “…telling you, the first ability unlock is Floor Two,” the spearman was saying. “You just have to make it through Floor One and clear the goblin cave. Walk into Atrium 2, and the Tower hands you your first trick. No sponsor needed.”

  “Yeah, if the cave does not eat you,” the knife-thrower said. “You saw the board. Three names were scratched off this week already. All unsponsored. All thought they could solo it.”

  Cal’s head turned before he could stop it.

  “We’re not talking about going in today,” the spearman said. “We run the forest one more time, pick off patrols, get a feel for the routes. Tomorrow or the next day, we find a group for the push. We hit Atrium 2 with enough in the tank to actually enjoy the unlock.”

  He flexed his hand, and a faint shimmer ran along his skin. Heat distortion, like looking past a grill.

  Jordan’s eyes tracked the shimmer, then slid back to Cal—quick check. Like he was measuring whether Cal was about to do something stupid out of hunger.

  The smith flicked a glance at Cal, then at the two men.

  “Do not let them fool you,” she said quietly. “Floor Two is not a gift. It is another way for the Tower to see how much strain you can take.”

  Cal nodded.

  “First ability unlock is Floor Two,” he repeated in his head.

  He already knew that from the Atrium’s scan, but hearing climbers talk about it like a reachable thing did something the glowing letters had not. It took the idea out of theory and pinned it to a concrete objective.

  Clear the goblin cave.

  Reach Atrium 2.

  Unlock something beyond bruises and better footwork.

  “You new?” the knife-thrower called suddenly, noticing him watching.

  Cal hesitated.

  “First day was yesterday,” he said. “Floor One. No clear yet.”

  The spearman’s eyes went to his band, then to his baton and shield.

  “Still breathing,” he said. “That puts you ahead of some. Don’t rush the cave. Forest will teach you a few things if you let it.”

  “Like how to get eaten,” the knife-thrower added.

  “Like where the goblins actually walk,” the spearman corrected. “Learn their paths. Their timing. You walk into that cave blind, you die tired and confused. You walk in knowing where their patrols come from, you just die tired.”

  The smith snorted.

  “Out,” she said. “If you two are done filling my shop with bad advice, go take it to the board instead.”

  They laughed and backed out, still arguing about whether Fire or Wind got the prettier visuals.

  Their voices faded into the general noise of the square.

  Cal looked down at his wrapped baton and his mended shield.

  He thought of Floor Two’s promise and Floor One’s warning. Of Anya’s roots and the way she had said overconfidence killed more climbers than monsters.

  He also thought of his mother’s hand shaking when she lifted her cup and the number on Dr. Imani’s slate.

  “What?” the smith asked when she caught his expression.

  “Just thinking,” Cal said.

  “Dangerous habit in this place,” she said. “But better than not doing it at all.”

  Cal slid his arm through the shield straps and settled it against his back. The new welds pulled differently on his shoulder. His Earth-sense adjusted, building the change into its quiet map of his balance.

  He holstered the baton at his hip. The leather grip sat solid under his palm, no give, no slip.

  “How much do I owe you if I come back in one piece and can actually afford something real?” Cal asked.

  The smith gave a short, dry laugh.

  “Bring the same number of limbs you left with and a handful of chips, and we will talk about steel that was born in the Tower instead of dragged in from some dead city,” she said. “Until then, remember that no weapon fixes bad decisions.”

  Cal nodded.

  “Then I’ll try to make fewer of those,” he said.

  “Good luck,” she said. “You’ll need it more than the steel.”

  Back in the square, the morning had fully arrived.

  The notice board stood crowded with climbers reading and arguing over bounties. The smell of grilling meat mixed with the sharper tang of potion brews from a nearby stall. Somewhere above, on a guard tower, a horn sounded a short, flat note that sent a ripple of movement through the crowd as a new group of climbers headed for the gate.

  Cal watched them for a moment.

  They moved with a mix of nerves and practiced calm. Some laughed too loudly. Some stayed silent, knuckles white on the grips of their weapons. All of them walked toward the trees as if they had already made the same choice he was weighing.

  He checked his pockets.

  Empty.

  The last of yesterday’s luck was now wrapped around his baton and welded into his shield.

  Jordan stepped closer, lowering his voice. “We do one thing first.”

  Cal didn’t look away from the gate. “We don’t have chips for ‘first.’”

  Jordan’s humor flickered and tried to come back. “I meant ‘breathe.’”

  He shifted, wincing so fast he thought Cal wouldn’t notice.

  Then he sobered.

  “You go out there because you have to,” Jordan said. “I’m going out there because you are. That’s it. That’s the whole explanation.”

  Cal’s throat tightened.

  Jordan, sensing the moment, immediately tried to break it. “Also, I’m pretty sure the bunkhouse air is eighty percent regret. I need fresh air.”

  Cal let out a breath that was almost a laugh.

  He could have gone looking for day labor at the woodpiles or latrines. He could have tried to sell himself to a sponsor for a fraction of his future earnings. The corporate recruiter in the plaza would have loved to see him walk into her office in Hearthpost with desperation in his eyes.

  He thought of that forty percent cut. Of contracts that wrapped tighter than any shield strap.

  “No,” Cal said quietly.

  He had not walked into the Tower to trade one set of chains for another.

  He had come to buy his family time.

  That meant floors cleared, bounties collected, chips counted into his hand without someone else standing there to take their share first.

  His body still ached from yesterday. His thigh burned when he shifted his weight. The fear was still there, pulsing just under his lungs.

  But there was something else now, too.

  A clearer map in his head of how goblins moved through the forest. The memory of the predator’s weight against his shield and how the ground had held under his boots. The way his balance had sharpened in the Atrium when the Tower had written Earth into his bones.

  He tightened his grip on the baton until the leather creaked.

  “Gear’s not enough,” he murmured. “But it’s what I have. The rest is work.”

  Jordan nodded once. “We do work. We do not do stupid.”

  Cal turned toward the gate.

  Rafe stood there again, crossbow resting against his shoulder, watching the next group line up to head out. When he saw Cal approaching, his brows rose.

  “Back already?” he called. “Didn’t the trees try hard enough the first time?”

  “They tried,” Cal said. “They can try again.”

  Rafe’s gaze flicked to the baton and shield.

  “Looks like you made friends with Talia,” he said, nodding toward the smithy. “She doesn’t waste her time on people she thinks are going to die before lunch. Take that for what it’s worth.”

  “I will,” Cal said.

  Rafe stepped aside, giving him a clear line of sight to the trees beyond the palisade.

  The forest waited, dark and layered and full of things that wanted to turn him into another story told over stew in the Second Wind.

  Cal drew a breath that tasted of smoke and damp soil.

  Then he walked out to meet it.