“It was like nothing I’d ever seen, and so much more than I could’ve ever imagined...The Labyrinth stole my heart, and never gave it back.” - Anonymous delver, minactt, DPS, ex-Climber, the so called “The Always Open Market” (Quadrant D, Section 29356, Division 387499, Sector DHX49377362IHHL, no official ID), a popular black market and gathering spot for ex-Climber freelance delvers looking to sign up for short delves

  Excerpt from “A Treatise on Forgiveness and Freedom - On The Integration of Ex-Climbers into O-Nexian Society”

  Status: Unpublished. Censored by the authority of Truth Praetor Elisa Tranevor

  Notation: Level 1 Breach of The Tenets for Scholarly Conduct, Education and Enlightenment

  Scholar Kuon Feeir, KUO274021097334283LDX – Warning Issued

  >>><<<

  His father hit hard, for someone who hadn’t done any physical labor in decades. He curled up in a tight ball to cover the important bits, but still, each kick, each punch, the blows rocked him to his very core, edging him closer to unconsciousness with every hit.

  Beyond the maelstrom of pain, he heard his father panting and gasping, and knew, amidst the mind destroying fear, that he would tire out soon. And with a mighty grunt, a kick that set his whole spine numb and tingling, his father stepped back, breathing hard.

  “Why can’t you just be like your sister?” the man said, choking on the words.

  He remained silent, and after a snarl, his father’s footsteps receded into the distance, taking with them the light. His father had grounded him once again, taking his crystalight with him, to punish him to a cubeplant of darkness, injury and danger.

  He wondered how long it would last this time. How many days, weeks or even months of feeling his way around, of relying on kind strangers’ lights for guidance… Of fearing every step he took in the dark. In the silence, no tears came to his eyes, but as he balled his hands into fists, his bones cracked as though the entirety of the B-Nex was collapsing down on him…

  *********

  He stirred in his bed and opened his eyes.

  “Ugh…” he groaned, disgusted at both the immediate punch of the slept-on chemical dryness coating his tongue, and at his dream. Whenever he dreamed of that shitty old man, he knew the day ahead was always going to be a shitty one to match.

  “Apprentice.”

  Mul startled and bolted upright. This isn’t my bed, he realized. Then he noticed other things.

  The first and foremost was that he was not in battle anymore. He was out of his gear, and he felt clean, and the bandages coming up from his fingers to his elbows were tight, and smelled of something that managed to be equal parts pungent and soothing.

  With a glance, he found himself in a clean, dark, silent empty room. At his side was a simple table, made of something that wasn’t metal, with something shimmering blue standing in a container of some kind of gel. Besides the bed he found himself in, and the table, the only other piece of furniture in the room was a thin chair, also made of something other than metal.

  Upon it sat a woman wearing a sleeveless uniform, which exposed her muscular forearms, their back covered in a fine line of black fur. She was built fast, rather than bulky, and her all-brown eyes glistened in the soft yellow light coming from the intersection between the walls and the floor, and as always, Mul had trouble understanding her expression. Her entire forehead and eyebrows section was replaced by a complex, bone-like structure he knew from experience it was as hard as metal, and which ended in rows of sharp horns above her furlike hair. However, it was not her racial features that made her hard to read. It was her eyes. Always blank, and devoid of any semblance of emotion.

  “Instructor Bas,” Mul said, with a short bow.

  “Apprentice,” she said, replying with a short bow of her own. “Do you know where you are, Mul?”

  Mul cast another glance around. “Sick bay?”

  Instructor Bas nodded. “Healing, and with a modicum of aura replenished to stave off the worst of aura depletion. Do you remember what happened?”

  Mul looked down at his bandaged arms. His limbs were a competing mix of soothing coolness, and raking stabs of heat, and as he raised his right, bandaged hand to his face, he remembered. The anger. The rage…

  The fire and the explosions.

  Death with every punch.

  “I enraged…” he whispered.

  “You remember it?”

  “Not all of it…” Mul said. “I remember the fire. The heat and the explosions… The beasts burning and blowing to pieces… And I remember being so… Angry.”

  He looked past his hand to his instructor.

  “You said it would be months before this happened,” he said. His tone was flat, but the accusation was clear.

  “Check your gains first,” instructor Bas told him. “Then we’ll talk.”

  Mul stared at the woman, but that was all he could do, and he felt as though he should be angrier. A lot angrier. She had told him she would help him activate his rage in a safe, secure and planned way, where he could let loose without fear of hurting anyone else. Where he could learn to control his rage. To wield it. Instead, he had lost his shit in the middle of battle, where he could’ve just as easily turned on his party instead of the enemy.

  Or my sister…

  However, his heartbeat remained steady, his thoughts clear and unclouded. He didn’t like it. It was like wanting to sneeze and being blocked from it.

  Something’s wrong, he realized. However, if there was one thing he had learned about his instructor in the past two weeks, it was that she was immovable. There was no point asking her anything, or speaking of anything at all until he did what she wanted of him. So, with a sigh, he checked his latest notification.

  That’s a lot of gains, he thought, scanning through the list a second time. A lot more than we expected.

  Mul glanced at his instructor.

  “Take your time,” she said. “You are the last one I’m visiting tonight.”

  Mul pressed his lips at the implications of her words, but again, just as his anger reared its head, it quickly dissipated. There was no doubt that something was being done to him, but he wouldn’t know what it was until the instructor was satisfied.

  He meant to grind his teeth, and when that failed, he simply sighed again. Being without anger… It was not nice. Not true to who he was.

  Status, he thought.

  Aura keeps going up, and so is [Strength], he thought. But that was as expected. What he hadn’t expected was to unlock [Toughness] with his post-Ceremony gains. The attribute that Nar was still fighting teeth and nail to unlock, had just been given to him, as a result of him gaining his third attribute modifier in his [Strength*], while his second had gone to his [Aura**].

  [Toughness] was an attribute that they had long considered to be an exclusive to tanks, but according to the dual Master of Emotions and Hand to Hand Combat, those who built a path of [Strength] always unlocked the [Toughness] to match it. And this was especially crucial for those who fought with their bare bodies rather than through weapons, and [Toughness] would reforge the hand to hand combat apprentices into mighty physical paragons. Some would even grow to become tougher than tanks.

  Regardless of the surprise, it had been a welcomed one for a change, and as for the new attribute he had just unlocked…

  The new attribute was simple enough to understand, and it explained why he had mostly shrugged off the mental and psychic attacks of those psaelis. It however didn’t explain why some of the others had such a tough time of it. Why was theirs so low? Or maybe, the right question to be asking was why was his so damned high?

  Understand oneself? he thought. What a load of…

  He groaned as his anger was once again curbed, and he took a deep breath to try and shake off that smothering sensation within him.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  I… Whatever. Skills!

  Mul reached the end of his skills tab for the third time and finally looked up at his instructor.

  “This is my path?” he asked, his eyebrows raised up to his bald head.

  Instructor Bas nodded.

  “It… Damages me?”

  She shrugged. “Fire burns.”

  The brawler nodded. “The path correction… It came a lot faster than I thought.”

  “And it’s far from over,” instructor Bas said, getting up and bringing her chair over to sit besides Mul. “We always tell you apprentices how the affinity changes your path in a quick and significant manner, and you never believe us.”

  “Everything is slow in the Climb…” Mul said.

  “I would say that once your affinity concludes its path corrections, it will go back to being slow. Stable,” she said. “But you’re with the Scimitar. Our training is harsh and accelerated, and designed to get you to the elite ranks as soon as possible… For now though, know that you’re in for a period of rapid changes, an expanding. And then, a period of deepening, of strengthening your path... How long until it all settles? Hard to tell. It varies from person to person, path to path, and affinity to affinity, but it will be at least a year or two.”

  Mul nodded again, uncertain.

  “Your class should also change in the next couple of months,” she added. “Your affinity was unlocked early, so you’ll most likely gain a class upgrade as soon as you get your anger under proper control, unless…”

  Mul frowned at her. “Unless?”

  “Unless you decide to abandon this path,” she said.

  “What?” he shouted. Or meant to.

  His tone came out flat and devoid of emotion instead of the outburst it had been meant to be. His instructor leaned back against the chair and crossed her arms, a slight tensing at the corner of her lips.

  That’s the most emotion I’ve seen out of her, he noticed with a startle. Shit… What now?

  Instructor Bas was always calm and collected. Aloof almost, emotionless to the point of emptiness. He had never gotten a raised shout out of her, or a smile, or anything resembling a sapient emotional response, but now that it was here, it made his heartbeat quicken and his stomach twist into an uncomfortable knot.

  What? He thought, looking down at himself in surprise. I feel that…

  “It only blocks anger and anger related emotions,” instructor Bas revealed. “On your neck. Think suppressor, visible.”

  Frowning, Mul raised a hand to his neck, and now that he thought about it, did he feel something there? A slight pressure against his skin?

  Suppressor, visible!

  A small mirror appeared in Instructor Bas’ hand, and she angled it so he could see the red, skin-tight, circlet that had materialized around his neck.

  “What in the Pile is this?” he asked, his tone half muted, half shocked.

  “An anger suppression device,” she said. “Keep it hidden, or people will know what your class is with a glance, and that’s something you never want others to know. By the time you’re amongst them, using your skills and revealing what you are, it shouldn’t matter anymore, but from a distance, people could devise ranged counter-measures against you.”

  “Suppression?” Mul asked, ignoring almost everything she had just said. And again, his voice came out eerily calm to his ears. “Take it off.”

  The instructor shook her head. “I will not, Mul. It’s there for your protection, as well as that of your party, everyone else aboard this ship, and the safety of the Scimitar itself. But don’t worry, slightly over half of the apprentices in the Emotions and Hand Combat Hall are wearing one. Rage is a common affinity amongst ex-Climbers after all.”

  Mul stared at her in open confusion. “What do you mean hurting someone?”

  She nodded, expecting the question.

  “Listen to me, and listen well, Mul. You already know that the brawler paths are fueled by rage,” she began. “And that it gives us tremendous power boosts, but with several very significant downsides which we didn’t properly discuss. For you, your rage manifests through fire, which means you are consuming yourself at the same time as you ravage your enemies with flame and rage empowered skills. This is common of all rage paths, no matter the affinity. And with the danger of us destroying ourselves being very real, we all have significant penalties to make it harder for us to kill ourselves in our rage. For you, for now, this manifests through cooldowns and your [Heart of Loss] debuff. Cooldowns are usually there to ensure your brain doesn’t melt, or your body breaks down under the strain of skills, and they tend to get smaller and smaller as you gain attributes and your body and mind become stronger. But for paths like ours, cooldowns are there to protect you always, and they will never diminish in length. This is a very significant downside to our paths, considering that for most other classes, except for very powerful skills, their cooldowns tend to grow smaller and smaller as their skills upgrade, sometimes even completely disappearing. Furthermore, we have passives like your [Heart of Loss] which further aids in keeping us alive. These are boundaries and barriers, ones you will learn to respect and manage, if you are to stay alive…”

  Mul considered her words for several moments.

  “We will speak more of this, especially once your class upgrades,” Professor Bas said. “For now, I just want you to understand the path before you.”

  “I… Alright, I guess. But what does that have anything to do with this suppressor thing?” he said, feeling the cool metal around his neck.

  “Look at your [Heart of Rage] passive again. What is it missing?”

  “Missing?” he asked, frowning.

  He scanned through his skill again.

  What in the Pile is it missing? He asked, mutely. The suppressor seemed to block his annoyance as well, which somehow felt even worse. It was like an itch inside his very skull, and which he could do nothing about, not even allowed to grind his teeth in annoyance.

  “I don’t see it,” he muttered at last.

  “It’s simple,” the instructor said. “It’s missing the part where it says that this passive only triggers in combat. Do you understand what that means?”

  Mul’s mouth dropped as realization blossomed within him.

  “Yes, apprentice. Any annoyance. Any irritation. Anything that makes you angry, that makes you want to flip out, retort, shout back or hurl insults, anything at all connected with anger and rage, will trigger your [Heart of Rage], which is your [Enraged] state,” she said. “Not only would allowing that to happen result in constant, and potentially deadly damage to yourself, if you accumulate enough instances of [Burning Anger], your very aura will start leaking out of you. And it will be burning hot…”

  “I… What?” Mul whispered. He tried to dig his fingers under his suppressor, but it was firmly attached to his skin. He worked his mouth, but his mind was unable to formulate any words. Hurt Cen? The party? That huge ship?

  “Look, Mul. Let’s take it slow, alright?” Bas said. “The bracelet makes it hard to think properly sometimes, so why don’t you take a few deep breaths first, alright? Come on. It will help.”

  Mul nodded, feeling a strange pressure across his chest. He raised his right hand to it and took a few slow, deep breaths.

  “Good, now ask,” instructor Bas said.

  “How… How can I hurt others?” he asked.

  “Aura is a dangerous thing when under control, apprentice. Exponentially more so when going wild under the influence of rage manifesting as fire,” she said. “As you accumulate [Burning Anger], increasing heat will emanate from you, and it can cause damage to others and your surroundings. We will teach you to manage your [Heart of Rage], when to increase your instances of [Burning Anger] and when to spend them. We will also, of course, teach you when to trigger and end your [Heart of Rage]. However, for now, you do not know how to do this. You would accumulate more and more [Burning Anger], burning hotter and hotter and hotter… You could end up causing immense damage to your surroundings, but the greatest risk is to yourself. Without the control, that bracelet is the only thing keeping you from setting yourself on fire. It’s the only thing keeping you alive right now, Mul.”

  “And anything will trigger it?” he whispered, looking stunned. “Anything at all?”

  She shrugged, shaking her head. “Your alarm in the morning. An insult. A queue that is too long or slow… Even nightmares could trigger you.”

  “But… I… Then…”

  “Breath, Mul. Keep breathing.”

  Mul took another deep breath and shook his head. “So, I just need to control my anger… That’s fine, right? Once I do that, I-I can get rid of this thing?”

  She raised her own chin for him to look at, and a similar, but dark blue circlet gleamed discreetly against her dark fur.

  “No,” she said, considering running her fingers across her own circlet. “A suppressor is the most important piece of gear in any rage path. We train our whole lives to be able to control our rage and anger, but sometimes, it just escapes us. We are sapients after all, and such emotions are an intrinsic and impossible to sever part of us, and while we train to build a mighty discipline, it's not perfect. And when our anger or rage escapes us, something else needs to be there to stop it… Before we can do any damage.”

  She dropped her hand, and her circlet went invisible once again. “There’s more to it, but the short answer is yes, we keep it on at all times. Of course, in battle and during training, we turn it off, though not for you. Not until it’s safe enough. Your suppressor will scale down just enough to allow you to fight, but not enough to allow you to use your path skills yet.”

  “And it will always feel like… Like this?” he said, his expression blank instead of the angry explosion he had intended.

  “No. As you get better at controlling yourself, you can swap into better and less invasive suppressors. I hardly ever feel mine now… But they’re expensive things, though, and Tsurmirel does not pay for them. So, bear that in mind.”

  Mul stared at his instructor. Did she hardly ever feel it because she was in control of her rage, or had she simply given up any and all emotion in the pursuit of discipline, as she had put it? Considering all of their interactions, he couldn’t discard that possibility.

  “Look, apprentice. The idea that the rage paths are all screaming, muscles and no thought is pervasive throughout the Nexus, but it couldn’t be farther from the truth,” she said, leaning closer to him. “The reality is the exact opposite. Rage is a resource, just like aura, stamina and HP, even if it doesn’t show on our UIs. And like any resource, it needs to be managed and respected. You need to know when to enrage, when to spend it, when to increase your anger and when to calm yourself down a notch. You need to plan ahead, taking into consideration your enemies, the battle flow, what is happening and might happen, in order to effectively plan around your rage generation, your [Heart of Rage], your active skills, your cooldowns, consuming [Burning Anger], and the cost of if all to your HP and your [Heart of Loss] debuff. Of course, your party leader should help you with all of these, but in the heat of the moment, split second decisions need to be made, and you need to have all of these in mind.”

  “Why… Why would anyone follow this path, then?” Mul asked, his tone forcibly muted. “That's all… It’s all shit! You can hurt people… You can hurt yourself. And you need to pay attention to all of this… All of this…”

  “The paths of the brawler, or, as they are actually known for, the paths of the berserker, are not one something anyone chooses,” the instructor said, a touch of steel peaking in her tone. “They are paths we fall onto. Paths for those who are broken, and either refuse to or are unable to heal. It is part of the negative emotion paths, so they come with all the baggage you’d expect. But all things balance out, and with great cons, come great pros… Namely, that berserker paths are mighty, and unrivaled in pure, raw, destructive melee DPS.”

  Mul lifted his eyes to her, still shocked.

  “Yes, we are powerful,” she said, staring him in the eye. “But at great cost… Which is why I’m offering you the chance to stop now, before it’s too late. Like we do for every other brawler, you have seen the beginning of your affinity correction, and it gives you an idea of the path ahead of you. A path of raging fire and destruction. And you now also understand the cost of said path.”

  Mul frowned at her, his eyes fleeting to her neck, where the suppressor lay hidden amidst her fur. “And… I can do that? Change my path?”

  “You can. While your gains were significant, you haven’t had your class change yet,” she said, leaning back and folding her arms. “And if you decide not to continue on this path, Tsurmirel will pay for your treatment, back at the Nexus.”

  Mul snapped his eyes to hers. “My what? In the Nexus?”

  Her eyes were piercing. “Treatment. Didn’t you hear what I just said? We are those who either refuse to or cannot heal. I don’t know which is which for you, but whatever it is, you’ll be sent back to the Nexus to be examined and undergo treatment.”

  “Wait… But… I’ll go and then I’ll come back, right?” Mul asked, lost.

  “Treatment for this kind of stuff takes time, apprentice. Years, if not decades,” she said. “And that’s if one can actually heal. Regardless, in almost all of the cases, all brawlers have to give up their combat classes, and go the civilian way and work for Tsurmirel back in the Nexus.”

  Mul struggled to articulate words. “What-What… What in the Pile are you saying? What do you mean decades? What do you mean give up?”

  “I’ve never undergone treatment or looked into it,” instructor Bas said. “So I can't help you. All I know is that usually, combat is forbidden for those seeking to heal.”

  “I’m not healing from anything,” he tried to shout. Yet again, his voice came out perfectly level.

  “You are, if you want to get out,” she said. Her voice was low, but Mul noticed the slight tensing in her jaw. “People get angry all the time, but they don’t catch fire when they’re pissed off! Genetics, trauma, abuse or whatever it was that happened to you, me, or anyone else on the path, if you want to get out, you need professionals to help you understand what caused or is causing this, and then you need to find a way to either fix it, or live with it! And your blood turning to fire every time you get angry is not going to help any…” he tone went flat mid sentence, and she sighed the final words. “Any of that.”

  “You…” he looked from her, to her neck. “That thing…”

  “I told you. The short answer is yes,” she said, closing and opening her eyes, her tone emotionless once more. “And there’s only so many times I can go through the same conversation, the same questions, the same denial, without it… Bothering me.”

  Instructor Bas took a deep breath. “I apologize, Mul. That was unprofessional of me.”

  Mul nodded, still taken aback by the way her voice had been rising, only to suddenly cut off like that.

  And did her eyes also… Change? For a moment, he was sure they had looked different. Brighter… Turning blue maybe?

  “So those are my only two options?” he asked. “Wear this around my neck for the rest of my life, or give up combat and… Heal?”

  She shrugged. “Pretty much.”

  The instructor got up and grabbed her chair. “Take the day to think about it, but we move fast, so I can't give you too much time to think about it. I’ll return tom…”

  “I’ll do it,” Mul said. “I’ll take the path of the berserker.”

  She frowned at him. “You… You don’t need to decide right now.”

  Mul looked up at her.

  “Today. Tomorrow… What difference does it make?” he asked her. “You said this is a strong path?”

  She nodded. “One of the strongest.”

  “Then I’ll take it,” he said. “I’ll learn to control it, right?”

  She pursed her lips, then sat back down again.

  “You will…” she said. “The path of the berserker is built upon discipline and control, and eventually, you will need the suppressor less and less. But it all depends on how hard you work on it. I mean truly, really, give it your all… And know that rabid beasts get put down before they can hurt anybody.”

  “Fair. But I still want it,” Mul said.

  “Are you sure?” she asked. “Once your class changes, it will be extremely hard to abandon it, or… Come to grips with whatever lies in your past. It will always be an oozing wound from which you fuel your path, and healing from it would be much more… It would be a lot better of a life. I think…”

  “Maybe, but I want the power to protect my sister… My party,” Mul said. “And the power to do whatever the fuck I want, without some asshole telling me what I can’t and can do. And I don’t need to feel angry for any of that.”

  “That you don’t, I guess…” she said, nodding. “The suppressor is annoying, but you get used to it.”

  “And it never fails?” Mul asked.

  “At your level, you won’t need to worry about that for a very, very long time,” she said, smiling. “If at all.”

  “Then that’s fine. Er…” he hesitated. “How do I… Not be angry anymore, a-afterwards I mean?”

  She snorted. “How to calm down, you mean? It takes effort, control and a lot of practice. You bring up thoughts and memories that make you angry, and then you replace them with thoughts and memories that make you feel something else. Anything else, almost. Happy. Sad. Horny… Though that one doesn’t work for everyone.”

  Mul felt his checks flush, and the instructor chuckled at him.

  “You think of any thought. A memory. A person! Anything that calms you down,” she said, and then grimaced. “The hard part then comes with letting go of the anger and the thoughts and memories that caused you to [Enrage] in the first place… Once you do, eventually, the red will go away, and you will slowly return to normal.”

  “Red?”

  “Your sight,” she said, making a vague motion to her eyes. “Everything goes red when you enrage, no matter how your rage affinity manifests. Where do you think the expression “everything went red” comes from?”

  “I… I’ve never heard of it,” Mul said.

  “Hmm,” she said, getting up again. “Regardless, I’ll come back tomorrow. If you change your mind, we’ll make arrangements for you. If not, we’ll start training. I’m a berserker hand to hand path like yourself, so you won’t need to change instructors.”

  “But I use weapons?” Mul asked. “Knuckle dusters.”

  “Hmmm,” she said again. “By the way, never use your aura directly beyond your [Mastery]. The damage to your body would be immense, if not deadly, as our path is not one of direct manipulation of aura, but one of rage management… I say this just in case you decide to try anything in the meantime, which I discourage you from doing, and I will tell you many times over going forward, so that it becomes ingrained into your brain.”

  Mul stared blankly at her. “It’s the middle of the night and I’m hurting like fuck. I’m going back to sleep.”

  “Good,” she said. “But I must warn you that this is one of the most common deaths amongst berserker paths. About 60% of us die of mismanaged rage, and another 30% die consumed, reaching out to our raw aura in the throes of our rage and the need for more power when faced with the frustration of our paths’ barriers.”

  “And the 10%?” Mul asked.

  “Something actually manages to kill us in the midst of our rage,” she said, her lips curling upwards. “That usually means something crazy happened or you did something stupid, as we’re tough to kill... So don’t do anything stupid, and you’ll be fine. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  And with that, she left the room, taking the chair with her. Mul traced the suppressor around his neck once more, his stare lost at his feet under the white bed sheets.

  Shit… What am I going to tell Cen?

  The others would kick up a fuss too, of course. But his sister was going to be the worst… And there was no keeping that huge and impactful of a secret from her. From anyone.

  But… Does it matter? He asked himself.

  He was out. He was free.

  Maybe it was time he started making his own decisions, for his own selfish needs and wants. And if the berserker path was going to enable him to do that, then… Then why not?

  He was never going to heal, as instructor Bas had put it. He had a feeling that meant either forgetting or forgiving what had been done to him, maybe even both, and he wasn’t having none of that. Shitty people deserved neither forgiveness nor forgetfulness, and he wasn’t about to grant them to those pieces of trash he had left behind in the darkness.

  No… No, they deserve it, he thought darkly.

  And so, he might as well put all that rage to good use.