Tower Climber (A LitRPG Adventure, Book 1) by Jakob Tanner (interesting books to read for teens .txt) 📗

Casey’s shoulders slumped at that and then she plopped herself on the ground.

“Damn,” she sighed. “It looks like we failed this test.”

Max sat down as well and rubbed his forehead.

“I just wish there was some way to tell where we were, but this damn forest looks so similar in every direction!”

Max sighed. “Let’s take five minutes to clear our heads and then maybe a new idea will come to us.”

They sat quietly for two minutes.

Finally, Max broke the silence and asked, “Why were you nice to me earlier today? Everyone else seems to be so outright cold and mean.”

Casey hugged her knees and looked down at her feet.

“I don’t know,” she sighed. “I guess I just know what it’s like to be an outsider.”

Max considered the name they kept calling her. Fake-vein. What did that even mean?

“Why were they calling me a commoner and you a fake-vein earlier?”

She shook her head and rubbed her eyes. “It’s just the stupid names the prestigious families use to make themselves feel better than everyone else. They called you a commoner because you have a common trait. They called me a fake-vein because my parents are traitless. I don’t come from a family of climbers.”

Casey’s face went pale with dejection.

“Hey,” said Max. “If it makes you feel better, I barely got to know my parents at all before they died. I would rather have traitless parents than, you know, dead ones.”

Casey shook her head. “Was that supposed to make me feel better? Now I just feel bad for both of us.”

They went silent again for another few moments. Casey broke the conversational lull that time.

“Why do you want to become a climber anyway?”

Max was caught off guard by the question. They were supposed to be thinking of a way through their predicament, not getting to know each other better. Plus, he wasn’t sure how much of himself he wanted to share.

“I want to become a climber because I’m looking for someone on the upper floors,” said Max.

He’d leave it at that.

The silence settled on them once more, until Casey broke it again.

“Are you not going to ask me why I want to become a climber?”

She looked up at him. Her previously dejected face now looked full of irritation.

“I...uhh...”

Max was at a loss for words suddenly. He figured she wanted him to ask the question and yet somehow he was struggling to get the words out.

“Casey—why do you want to become a climber?”

She smiled with a devilish grin. “There’s a lost treasure hidden on the higher floors of the tower and I’m going to be the first to find it.”

Before Max could ask about what treasure she was referring to exactly, he had an idea.

Treasure.

Treasure map.

Clues.

He looked around. Maybe their way back to the teleporter wasn’t so hopeless after all.

31

“C’mon, this is unfair,” said Cyrus back at the arrival teleporter. “You should go out looking for them now. What if they’re dying out there? You’re letting them bleed to death.”

The instructor kept his eyes on the forest around them and ignored the boy’s pleas.

“Hmph, fine don’t listen to me,” said Cyrus. “When my father hears you let two student climbers get killed on the second floor, I’m sure you’ll be in deep trouble.”

The instructor simply lit another cigarette and took a puff, continuing to ignore the boy.

Cyrus gave up and stomped away.

What did he care, the test would be over in ten minutes anyway. Those two would fail and quite possibly be dead.

Cyrus would just stand there smugly until that happened. That was his new plan.

Then through the thick labyrinth of trees appeared the silhouette of two figures.

“Look!” shouted another student. “I think it’s them! They made it back!”

“There’s no bloody way that’s them,” muttered Cyrus.

They would have had to travel a great distance away from where they started, killed eight monsters, and then made their way back through the undecipherable forest. Very few people survived in the endless forest without a map, so it was pretty much impossible for those two weaklings to have lived.

The silhouettes got closer until the new kid and the fake-vein were in view. They were limping and had some dirt on their clothing, but they were very much alive.

The new kid grinned as he reached the instructor.

“Did we make it back in time?”

Max was out of breath, but filled with joy that they’d made it back and had passed the test.

The instructor smiled and congratulated them for making it back.

“Seriously,” he said, taking a drag of his cigarette. “I thought you two might be dead.”

“They bloody should be,” shouted a voice.

It was Cyrus coming up to the three of them.

“They must’ve cheated,” he cried. “How could they have survived out there for so long and then made it back? Impossible!”

“Do you want tell us how you got back?” asked the instructor. “Or should I take a guess?”

“I’ll explain,” said Max. “We were really lost and I thought we were done for. We both did. However, then I started to think: all the different ranks and branches of climbers go through this floor from the arrival teleporter to the departure teleporter. There must be some kind of system of signs to mark locations throughout this labyrinthine woods. So we started looking at the trees and we discovered signs carved into the trunks near the bottom of the tree.”

“Bullshit,” yelled Cyrus. “I didn’t see any signs.”

“They were easy to miss if you weren’t looking for them,” admitted Casey. “But once we started looking for signs other climbers would’ve left for each other, we found the markings in no time.”

Cyrus’ face was flush with anger. “Fine, you found out how to get home, but I still haven’t seen you guys present your monster cores. I doubt you would’ve been able to get lost, find your way back, and defeat four monsters each.”

Both Max and Casey materialized each of their own set of four copper monster cores and presented them to Cyrus.

The