The Mage Tower had no basement. The ground was too hard to excavate, so the storage room was set on the first floor for convenient transport of supplies.
Anser had lived here for five years and was already thoroughly familiar with the place. He squeezed through the broken door and discovered that it had long since been looted—handled roughly, with items thrown everywhere.
"Damn it, it had to be those gray dwarves."
He cursed inwardly, but his movements were swift as he quickly gathered the useful supplies together.
Candles, a shovel, soap, a water skin, ink, a stack of blank paper, clothes, a spyglass… nothing valuable, but extremely useful for someone about to flee.
After putting together a large bundle, he casually tossed it into the main hall.
But the most necessary item—rope—was nowhere to be found.
Left with no choice, he worked up his courage and ran upstairs: the dormitories, the kitchen, the alchemy room, the meditation room…
Most of the rooms had been searched destructively, but not carefully. Since he knew the environment well, he really did find quite a few good things.
Several coin purses, two spellbooks, some food, and even a bundle of rope. The most valuable item was a spare staff he found in Fabian's room.
"The gray dwarves don't know good stuff. Or maybe it was searched by those brainless goblin and orc slaves. Too bad I didn't find Fabian's secret strongbox."
The staff was a full six feet long, standing on the ground and nearly as tall as Anser. It looked like nothing more than a gray-green rod, its surface marked with dull patterns, thoroughly unremarkable.
He didn't know the Identify spell, so he couldn't immediately learn its properties or how to use it, but he could treat it as a standard spellcasting focus.
Mentor Fabian had once said he would award this staff to the best-performing apprentice—an empty promise used to whip a group of overworked beasts of burden into a frenzy, the kind who even paid their own expenses to work.
Absolutely laughable.
Among the dozens of apprentices in the Mage Tower, most had little potential. Some were oblivious to it, some harbored ulterior motives, and even more were simply unwilling to accept it.
To curry favor with Fabian and compete for limited resources, the apprentices constantly fought among themselves, often scheming against one another over an assistant position or a procurement post, never realizing that all of it was merely one of Fabian's petty stratagems.
Anser suddenly remembered Gais, the first assistant instructor who had set up the original owner. If he ran into him, he wouldn't mind killing him along the way, and then "rightfully" inheriting Fabian's belongings.
He shook his head, pushing aside the chaotic thoughts. He changed into the new clothes and boots he had found in his own room, then packed all the valuables into a black leather backpack and slung it behind his back together with the staff.
He bundled the rest of the miscellaneous items into a package and hid it in a corner outside the Mage Tower, planning to come back for it later.
Carrying the rope, he came to the edge of the huge pit and leaned forward to look down. Below was pitch-black; he couldn't see anything.
There was no way around it. He could only pull the glowing stick from the side of his backpack, lift one corner of the black cloth and give it a quick shake, then immediately wrap it tight again.
"I'm here, I'm here!"
Bratt's voice came up from below, his tone carrying an unmistakable delight.
Holding the rope, Anser swept his gaze around and found that the spot directly above the stone pillar was not a good position.
After the Brampton District and the Eastway District collapsed, the River Chionthar burst its banks, and the surging river water poured into the huge pit from the southwest, forming waterfalls of all sizes. Even after a full day, the flow had only eased a little.
Bratt's position wasn't ideal. Climbing straight up would mean taking the brunt of the current, which would be strenuous.
Anser avoided that stretch, moved sideways more than ten meters, and fixed the rope to a thick, broken tree stump.
"Watch the rope!"
After saying that, he hurled the rope hard down toward Bratt's direction.
A few seconds later, the rope went taut, and Bratt's reply came from below: "I've got it. You don't need to pull—I'll climb up myself."
"Alright." Anser smiled faintly; the other man was worried that if he hauled on it, the rope would fray through from rubbing.
He pulled over the torn blanket he had already prepared and padded the spot where the rope hung down, to keep the rock from wearing through the hemp rope.
A few minutes later, Bratt's figure appeared in Anser's line of sight.
Using his belt, rings, and the rope, he had made a safety rig. The rope buckle at his waist looked very professional—each step he took, it cinched tight at once. He wasn't fast, but it was safe, and when he got tired he could half-hang against the rock wall and catch his breath for a few seconds.
In the last few meters, Anser did not go up to help. Instead, he stepped back a few paces and watched as Bratt climbed up, then rolled over and collapsed on the ground, gasping for air.
"Thanks… I'm… exhausted…" Bratt brushed aside the mess of hair on his face, revealing a gaunt visage. His lips were pale, and a pair of emerald-like eyes stood out as especially striking.
He hadn't been as lucky as Anser. After the current shifted, he had been drenched for a long time, his stamina drained—tired and hungry.
"Very professional, adventurer?" Anser sized him up from head to toe.
"I've done this before. Until last night, I was the captain of the port hospital guard—Level 2 Fighter." As he spoke, Bratt struggled to his feet, unfastened the buckles, and coiled the rope up loop by loop before putting it away.
"Then you were pretty lucky," Anser said with a sigh.
The port hospital wasn't far from the Mage Tower and had already vanished from the surface. In a disaster of this scale, there was little difference between professionals and ordinary people—surviving at all meant having a bit of sheer luck.
"Meeting you was the real stroke of luck. I owe you my life." Bratt looked earnest, his gaze involuntarily focusing on Anser's face.
They were tiny dragon scales, giving off an extremely faint metallic sheen under the moonlight—something only noticeable up close.
"Come over here and talk." Seeing that Bratt had recovered a bit of strength, Anser led him to the spot outside the Mage Tower where the bundle had been hidden.
It was more concealed here, unlikely to be seen by passersby or subterranean creatures.
Bratt carried his longsword with heavy steps. When he saw the large bundle in the corner, his eyes immediately lit up. "Any food?"
"Yes. Not much."
Anser pulled out a cloth bag from the bundle, took out a piece of dark bread over twenty centimeters long and more than ten centimeters thick, tossed it to Bratt, then took one for himself and started eating.
"Brown sugar walnut bread—good stuff," Bratt said, not standing on ceremony as he hugged it and took big bites.
Brown sugar walnut bread, also called Amn black bread, came in many varieties. It was the Mage Tower's standard staple, but for common folk it was a delicacy they only got to eat occasionally.
On that count, Fabian still had a bit of conscience.
Anser was hungry as well. He hadn't noticed it earlier, but once the soft, sweet bread entered his mouth, the hunger surged in like a tide.
He took out his water skin and casually tossed one to Bratt as well.
In the corner, the two of them sat facing each other, neither speaking, focused solely on eating.
Even so, Anser did not relax. His ears were pricked up, constantly listening for any movement outside.
Bratt was the same. At the slightest sound, he would stop chewing, his longsword kept at hand, his alertness even higher than Anser's.
His gaze flicked from time to time over Anser's clothes and staff, a look of understanding crossing his face.
After washing down the last bite of bread with water, he hung the water skin at his waist and asked in a low voice, "You're a mage from the Mage Tower?"
"More or less. My name's Anser." Anser didn't explain much. "This place is very dangerous. What are you thinking?"
"We can't stay here for long. To the north and northeast are all subterranean creatures, to the south is the River Chionthar, to the east is Dusthawk Hill. We'd better head up into Dusthawk Hill to lie low for a while…" Bratt said thoughtfully.
His idea was simply to hide. The Baldur's Gate council wouldn't sit by and do nothing; once the Flaming Fist and the Watch took action, this wave of invaders—mainly gray dwarves—would soon be driven back underground.
Even if Baldur's Gate's upper echelons couldn't handle it, they could call for aid from the Lords' Alliance. Silverymoon, Neverwinter, Waterdeep—each of them was formidable.
"The Weave… something's wrong," Anser said in a low voice.
That was the real disaster.
"What?" Bratt's eyes widened in shock, then, as if realizing something, he asked, "Then… how can you still cast spells?"
"The Weave hasn't collapsed yet," Anser explained. "I accidentally awakened a draconic bloodline and switched to casting with magic power."
Bratt lowered his head, his eyes flickering uncertainly. After a long silence, he finally spoke slowly, "Then you really are a genius."
Clearly, for someone accustomed to casting with spell slots, switching over to casting with magic power was no easy matter.
"Maybe." Anser didn't know how different he was from other professionals with his class panel, so he could only answer vaguely.