The walls of the city stretched before me as we closed the distance. The walls here, unlike in the town I spent my last week in, actually looked like they’d stop a small invasion. They looked polished, tall, but most importantly, they looked solid. Ballistas were spaced on the walls, placed on small circular pedestals, one of them aimed at us as we approached, yet it stopped tracking us once the soldiers manning it saw our appearance.

  The gates of the city opened with a creaking sound, the thick metal adorned with the regalia of some kind of noble house; the logo had a distinctly wizardly hat with a frog on it. Mark chuckled when he saw it, for some reason, though Crudia only commented that it looked cute.

  A duo of guards stopped us as we passed through the gates, holding long halberds and wearing a set of full-plate armor, colored the dull color of black. Their helmets had a weird shape, a ‘beak’ under their visor slits. Ugh, they could paint it any color they wanted, and they chose black of all things? How boring.

  “Hold! What is the reason of your visit?” One of them asked, almost as tall as me. These humans, though still clearly a part of the tournament, were not weird the same way that the humans on the last floor were.

  “We’re just visiting. Want to clear dungeons.” I said, hoping that the quest from the gods would be enough for these lads to stop pestering us.

  The other guard stretched himself, walked closer, and started inspecting me and Crudia. “Adventurers, huh? Haven’t seen your like for a while. Well, you can pass. Know your directions?”

  “Ask where the inn is.” Mark commented offhandedly.

  “Umm, anywhere we can stay and sleep in?” Crudia smiled at the guards

  The taller guard grunted. “Just go on the main street, toward the spires. There are a dozen inns around.”

  “Just don’t get dragged into the spires by their wizardy.” The other chuckled, waving us forward. The gate started closing behind us again, the terrible screeching sound making me shudder.

  “Thank you!” Crudia said, grabbed my arm by my wrist, and pulled me forward. I didn’t protest, but I didn’t look at her, not really. Instead, I watched the city around us, and I couldn’t help marvelling at the sight. The city, just like the guard’s armor, was painted black, though there was white mixed in, and some of the parts were made from the sandrock that was found outside.

  The citizens, as I’ve noted before, weren’t the small kind like in the town of last floor. These were regular humans, really similar to Mark in all ways except their clothing. Most of them were young, however—I had a hard time finding anyone who looked above thirty in the crowds who shuffled from one store to another.

  The buildings on the side of the streets were also more… sophisticated. They had ebony-black roofs shaped into all geometrical shapes, making the sight look a bit strange if I looked up. Not in a bad way, though—there was some weird beauty in their disharmony. It made the city feel less artificial, more as if it was actually made by these people.

  Maybe according to them, that wouldn’t be far from the truth. Oh how wrong they were.

  It could still use more color, though.

  As we neared the giant spires that did their damn best to reach even further into the sky, the crowds dissipated, and we’ve found the path easier to get through. And as we were almost at the spires, an even weirder sight started appearing. Some people, walking in groups of four, actually wore the damn hats that I saw on the gates just minutes before.

  “Oh god, what is this.” Mark muttered, seeing the same thing. “A Gandalf cosplay event?”

  “I have no clue what either of those words mean.”

  He chuckled. “Course they wouldn’t implant some less important references to your brain. Doesn’t matter. Pick your share out of the inns, team. But pick one that has a big blue circle on it on your minimap. The others don’t count.” He hovered a bit higher into the air. “They aren’t buildings you can buy a safe-house in, and you can’t buy a guild starting token there. We’ll need an inn with an actual god-made inkeeper.”

  Strange. So these inkeeps would know about the tournament? Or would they think they’re selling us a room, just for what they sold us to be something completely different?

  I considered asking, but decided against it. This whole conversation was reminding me a tad too much of my first day on the first floor, and I was already getting tired of all the new info.

  We approached one of the buildings, a two floor inn, slightly larger than the buildings surrounding it, and walked inside. Instead of a human, the inkeeper was a minotaur.

  “Hello there, players!” His deep voice carried over from the other side of the hall as he waved at us. The wooden black door closed behind me as I fully stepped inside and scanned the room. Similar to all inns, it was mostly tables, chairs and some source of light - chandeliers hanging from the ceiling this time around. While the building was black from the outside, inside it was more colorful; Olive green with brown lines on the walls, the floor a pretty smoked cedar.

  “Ask for a safehouse first. We’ll need to buy one.” Mark said from behind me.

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  “Not the guild base?”

  “That too, but it’s less important than the safehouse. Your buildings didn’t carry over, right?” He looked at Crudia as he said that, and I somewhat recalled him telling her to pick up the alchemy table after the battle of the last floor. She straightened and her eyes glazed over as she looked at her inventory. Her smile almost disappeared as she shook her head, failing to find it.

  “That’s why. The crafting stations and other things you’ll get will need upgrades. Some of them will be expensive, and we don’t want to spend all the materials to craft them each floor.” He hovered closer to the minotaur, who, in the meantime, went to cleaning some glass mugs. “Also, it will be a completely safe place to sleep in. God-created monsters can’t enter, and neither can players you don’t specifically invite.”

  Sighing, I walked up to the minotaur as well, grabbing his attention. “Hey. Ummm, I’ve been told you can sell us a safehouse? Or something like that?” I seriously didn’t like talking about concepts I didn’t understand that well.

  The minotaur, to his credit, only nodded. “Access to your safehouse, you mean? I don’t sell safehouses, at least that’s not the way I see it. If you talk to any of the cat-people that guard the other bases, I think they might think differently.”

  “Okay, access to one, whatever. I just need a safehouse.” I replied, slightly annoyed how many explanations were involved. I’d figure it out eventually, okay? No need to cram me with so much info.

  “Sure, let me open up the menu for you two.” The minotaur opened a menu of his own, clicking buttons in the air that I couldn’t see. He lifted his eyes to me for one second, pressed one last button, and a new menu opened in front of me, similar to the equipment menu.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  I quickly scanned the list, ignoring the last part, and then looked at Mark, who did the same. “Which do you think we should get?”

  “Why not just buy several small ones?” Crudia asked before Mark could answer.

  He scratched his head, looking at the menu. “It’s simple, really. You can’t upgrade some buildings to their max potential until you go up to the final size. And once you buy one, you can’t just buy another. You have to upgrade, which is more expensive than just buying the big one right out of the gate. They don’t just offer the size increase, there’s more involved.”

  “Okay.” I said, my head hurting. “And that means we get?”

  “Get the large one.” There was no hesitation in his voice.

  “There’s two of us. Dusk and Bryga might return, and that makes four. Why do we need one for 10 people?”

  “Because the condition for passing to the next floor means there have to be ten of you. You’ll need to be a team, and that also means you need to get to know each other.” Mark said impatiently, tapping his finger on his wrist.

  I rolled my eyes, and looked at the options again. We’d have to get a lot of people, huh. I hoped they’d be at least somewhat normal. “Crudia, can you give me five thousand? We’ll go half and half.”

  “Sure thing, boss!” She said, doing a little dance while she browsed inventory. I put the gold into my inventory again, and before I could lament it further, pressed the buy button.

  Congratulations! You have acquired [Large size safehouse]!

  Enjoy the comforts of your newly bought safety! New menus are unlocked!

  I was kinda liking these texts. For some reason, this building menu had shorter text than almost anything else thus far. Straight to the point. How lovely.

  “Third door to the left.” The minotaur mentioned, somehow knowing that we bought a safehouse.

  “Thank you, Mister Bull!” Crudia flashed him a smile and then darted towards the room he selected. While I thought the first floor would only be the hall I just exited from, I was quickly proven wrong. Behind the stairs to the second floor, there was a long hallway, five doors on each side.

  How could it fit, though? I was fairly sure that the building wasn’t this large from outside! “How…”

  “Don’t ask. Just accept it as is.” Mark said, not giving me a complete answer, but I took it.

  The door swung as Crudia approached, and she ran inside. I followed soon after, looking around.

  It was uglier than I expected. Just slate grey walls on all sides, boxing us in. There were doors on all three sides, and the room itself was fairly large, though. With some renovations, I could imagine it looking… cozy.

  “Look, Shrimpie! We finally have a home! A real home that will stay!” Crudia ran around in circles, happiness incarnate. I couldn’t help but smile at the sight.

  “Well, look at them! Homebuyers at the ripe age of… I forget how old you two actually are.” A snarky voice came from one of the doors. I didn’t even notice it opening.

  A woman stood there, a face I recognized instantly. Talisha. She, however, was not blue anymore. Instead, she looked like humans were meant to look—weird, furless creatures with hair On top of her head. She lost her blue color, and instead she looked as solid as all the players and townsfol did. She smiled heartily at us, though her holding one of her hands in the other exposed the hint of nervousness she must have been feeling.

  “Ta..Talisha?“ Crudia asked hopefully, sniffing the air.

  “Of course, dummy. Who else do you know that looks like—“

  She didn’t get to finish her sentence, because Crudia dashed forward and threw herself at her, bringing them both down to the ground with a crash.

  They both laughed, whispering something as they hugged one another tightly. It took about two minutes before they finally got up.

  “You might not believe me, but I have no clue why I’m the way I used to be!“ Talisha laughed.

  “Of course you don’t. You’re too dense to catch on the hints about the class selection I gave you.“ Mark sighed, but smiled as well. “Anyway, let me catch you up to speed a bit, and then we all discuss what to do next.“

  “And decide how to make this place less ugly.“ I demanded, leaving no place for discussion.

  “Sure, sure. You two, go over your new items or something. You probably didn’t check your loot from the dragon much yet, right? New skills.“

  “And the evolution!“ Crudia barked out.

  “That too, but save that for a bit. I want to make sure you pick the bes tone you can. Now shoo.“

  I grinned, sat down on the ground, and opened the menu, somewhat registering Crudia sitting next to me and leaning on my shoulder.

  The menu opened with several notifications, and I thought about just going to check the new items. But the evolution button was right there! Surely Mark wouldn’t be mad if I took a peak, right?

  I clicked the button, and tens of options spread in front of me.