Floor Two did not look like a battlefield.
That was the first thing Eran noticed, and the first thing he did not trust.
The chamber they had arrived in opened after a short corridor into something that resembled a city district more than a trial ground. Buildings of pale stone lined wide streets. Lanterns hung between rooftops, burning with a soft amber light that felt almost warm. There were stalls along the walkways selling food and equipment, and people moved between them with the casual ease of those who had been here for a while. Some wore gear that marked them as Climbers. Others wore the darker uniforms of Tower residents, Penjaga, those born inside the Tower who had never known the Lower World and never intended to.
The four of them stepped out of the corridor and into the middle of it.
"A rest floor," Noor said quietly. There was relief in her voice, though she kept it small.
"Not just a rest floor," Siva replied, eyes already moving across the crowd. "A checkpoint. Every tenth floor is administered. Neutral ground, technically. No Trials, no combat between Climbers." She paused. "Which means Floor Two through Nine are not neutral."
"We just came from Floor One," Drak said.
"And we need to reach Floor Ten before we can breathe properly." Siva glanced at him. "So enjoy the stalls. We are not staying long."
Eran was not looking at the stalls. He was looking at the people.
Most Climbers who arrived at a checkpoint floor looked the way his group looked, worn, alert, carrying the specific tension of people who had just survived something. What he was seeing instead, scattered through the crowd with careful spacing, were individuals who looked too comfortable. Too settled. They moved through the checkpoint floor with a familiarity that did not match the clothes of long-term residents. They were watching the new arrivals with a professional kind of attention.
Information gatherers. Someone was cataloguing who made it through the First Trial and in what condition.
Keluarga Vorn, possibly. Or someone else with resources enough to post observers this low in the Tower.
He kept that thought to himself.
"We need supplies before we go higher," he said instead. "Food, rope, anything with medicinal use. We spend thirty minutes here and then we move."
Nobody argued. They split into pairs without discussing it, Drak moving with Noor toward the supply stalls while Eran and Siva drifted in the opposite direction. It was a practical arrangement. Drak's size made vendors nervous enough to be honest, and Noor's quiet manner made people lower their guard. Eran and Siva could cover more ground without drawing attention.
They walked in silence for a moment.
Then Siva said, "You fought the Trial leader without using your Arus."
It was not a question.
"I noticed," Eran replied.
"Most people cannot do that. Not against someone actively channeling." She kept her tone light, the way she seemed to keep most things light, like a surface that deflected rather than absorbed. "Either you're extraordinarily well trained in physical combat or you had a reason for holding back."
"Both can be true."
She looked at him sideways. The amber lantern light caught the edge of her expression and for just a moment it was something more direct than her usual unreadable quality. Curious. Genuinely curious, not the performed kind.
"What color is your Arus?" she asked.
Eran met her gaze briefly. "I haven't determined that yet."
The look she gave him in response said clearly that she did not believe him and had decided, for now, not to push. She turned her attention back to the street ahead. "Fair enough. We all have things we're not ready to explain."
They reached a supply stall run by a short man with ink-stained fingers and the careful eyes of someone who had survived a long time in a place that ate the careless. Eran purchased a compact medical kit, three ration packs, and a coil of lightweight rope without haggling. Haggling drew memory. He wanted to be forgettable.
He was paying when he felt it.
Not a sound. Not a movement. A sensation, the same pressure at the edge of awareness he had felt in the pale forest before the other Climbers had shown themselves. Something nearby was paying specific attention to him. Not the general surveillance of Vorn observers cataloguing new arrivals. Something more focused. More personal.
He took his change from the stall owner and turned slowly, as if simply checking on Siva's position.
There was a young man leaning against the wall of the building across the street.
He was around twenty, lean, with dark hair that fell across his forehead and an expression of complete relaxation that Eran recognized immediately as the kind of relaxation that required active effort to maintain. His clothes were nondescript. His posture was casual. He was eating something from a small paper wrapper and looking at nothing in particular.
He was also, without question, looking directly at Eran.
When their eyes met, the young man smiled. It was a good smile, easy and open, the kind that made most people instinctively smile back.
Eran did not smile back.
The young man pushed off the wall and crossed the street without hurry, still eating whatever was in the paper wrapper, and stopped a comfortable distance away. Not close enough to be threatening. Precisely close enough to be conversational.
"First Trial survivors," he said pleasantly. "You four made good time. Most groups that come through here look worse."
"Most groups that come through here didn't have a reason to be fast," Siva replied. Her tone had shifted, still light, but with something underneath it now. Recognition, perhaps. Or caution.
The young man glanced at her with an expression of mild amusement. Then his attention returned to Eran. "My name is Cael. I've been on Floor Two for about three weeks, waiting for a group worth traveling with." He finished whatever he had been eating and folded the paper wrapper neatly. "I think you might be that group."
"Three weeks is a long time to wait," Eran said.
"I'm patient."
"Or you had other things to do here first."
Cael's smile did not waver. That was the thing about it. Most smiles responded to conversation, shifted with the emotional temperature of an exchange. His stayed exactly the same, pleasant and open and revealing nothing. "You're perceptive. That's useful in a Climber."
"What do you want?" Eran asked.
"What everyone in this Tower wants. To go higher." Cael looked upward, toward the ceiling of the checkpoint floor, toward the floors above that neither of them could see. "I have knowledge of Floors Three through Nine that your group doesn't have. Floor layouts, Trial patterns, faction patrol routes. Information that would meaningfully improve your survival rate."
"And in exchange?" Siva asked.
"Company," Cael said simply. "And a fair share of whatever we find on the way up."
Eran looked at him for a long moment. The smile. The careful casualness. The three weeks spent on a checkpoint floor, waiting. The knowledge of floors above that a newcomer should not reasonably have accumulated in three weeks unless he had arrived with it already.
Too much about Cael Eran did not know yet.
But there was another truth sitting alongside that one, uncomfortable and practical. They were four people with no map, no faction backing, and floors ahead that would not get easier. Information was not a luxury at this altitude. It was the difference between surviving and being removed.
Drak and Noor appeared at Eran's shoulder. Drak looked at Cael with the measuring expression of someone estimating how difficult a person would be to hit. Noor said nothing but her hand moved, barely perceptibly, to rest near the Ukiran on her left hand.
Eran made a decision.
"You travel with us under one condition," he said.
Cael tilted his head slightly. Still smiling. "Name it."
"You lie to us once and you're on your own. No second chances. No explanations accepted."
A pause. Something moved behind Cael's eyes, too quick to read, there and gone in the space of a single breath.
Then he nodded. "Agreed."
Eran held his gaze for one more second. Then he turned toward the corridor that led to Floor Three, and the group of five followed without another word.
Behind them, the checkpoint floor continued its quiet business, lanterns burning amber, vendors calling out to new arrivals, observers noting names and faces in whatever ledgers their employers kept.
And somewhere in the crowd, a figure in plain clothes watched the group of five disappear into the upper corridor, then turned and walked in the opposite direction with calm, unhurried steps.
By the time anyone might have thought to look for that figure again, they were already gone.