“You fucking idiots should’ve woken me up!” Kur yelled at them.

  It was the next morning, after the klaxon had sounded even earlier than anticipated, and it was a very sorry looking motley of a half party that had assembled before the party leader. Dark bags were carved deep underneath glazed, reddened eyes that refused to make eye contact with the irate party leader, and they all knew they deserved the berating.

  “Or me,” Gad said, eyeing Jul, Viy and Cen in particular. “I could’ve helped.”

  “We didn’t want to disturb you guys…” Viy said, his voice a lame hush.

  “And this is better?” Kur said, waving at them all. “You’re all barely standing!”

  Only himself, Gad and Mul looked to be well rested enough for the insane assessment awaiting them, and Nar rubbed at the back of his neck.

  “You…”

  The klaxon sounded again above their heads.

  “All hands, all hands! Prepare for the final micro-jump,” the voice said. “All hands, all hands! Prepare for the final micro-jump! Jumping… Now!”

  As with all the other jumps, there was a momentary deprivation of sight and sound, a moment of selflessness and nothingness, of feeling as though Nar was being pushed out from his very body as it stayed back in time and space, but it was gone before he could even focus on the sensation. Like the one-eyed professor of Nexus 101 had told them, he was getting more and more used to it, and soon, he would likely stop noticing it altogether.

  “Fifty-eight minutes to confluence,” the announcer said. “Bridge, out!”

  Kur sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose, and in that moment, the door opened and Rel walked into the room. She froze as she took in the guilty faces around the table, and the stormy, raging atmosphere oozing from her party leader.

  “What happened… Here?” she asked.

  “They were up all night,” Mul muttered.

  “No, we weren’t!” Viy said. “Me and Nar were in bed by two! And the others were asleep before that!”

  “That was three hours ago!” Kur shouted.

  “What were you doing?” Rel asked, frowning at Nar.

  “Couldn’t sleep…” Nar said. “Look, Kur, we tried to…”

  “No! How many times do I need to tell you? If you can’t sleep, you wake me up! I’m the party leader! It’s my duty to look after you guys!”

  “Or wake me up,” Gad added, eyeing the girls once more.

  “No!” everyone shouted at her, including Kur.

  “Why?” Gad said, taken aback.

  “You’re the tank,” Mul said, ahead of the others, his voice cutting off to a flat tone as his suppressor kicked in. “Are you crazy? If you’re tired, we all die.”

  “Kur, it’s going to be okay,” Nar said, deciding on putting an end to things. “We Climbed on much less sleep than this and for much longer periods of time. Next time, we’ll wake you, oaky? But for today, we’ll all be fine.”

  Kur took a deep breath, even as he shook his head. “In Leadership classes they taught us that lack of sleep was no joke… Difficulty concentrating or focusing, memory issues, slower reaction times, brain fog, impaired decision making, sluggishness, muscle weakness, and so on and so on… Yes, in the Climb we did what we had to do, but we are out now, and the last thing I want is to lose any of us after our lives are just starting to look up. Yes, it’s dangerous, but gods dammit, it’s a great life we’ve found ourselves in, isn’t it? And the best is yet to come, and I want us all to be there for when it does…”

  Gad squeezed the party leader’s shoulder. “And we will, Kur. We all will,” she rumbled, as heads bobbed up and down around the party, determined, fierce eyes gleaming back at Kur.

  “And you’re the leader, Kur. You're just as important as Gad!” Tuk pleaded with a miserable look. “We need your head fresh, man… The rest of us just need to kill stuff.”

  Their party leader groaned, but his shoulder dropped as he conceded the point. Or at least, some of Tuk’s logical counter.

  “Look, we don’t have time for this now, but this isn't over!” Kur said. “Come on, let’s go get breakfast before it’s too late!”

  *********

  Nar stifled a yawn, tightening his jaw, and Kur shot him a glare, forcing Nar to bow his head and hide away from his party leader’s baleful eyes.

  The klaxon sounded above their heads again, coming to his rescue, though it felt extra shrill in Nar’s ears in the tight, brightly yellow lit corridor that they found themselves in, along with nine other apprentice parties.

  “All hands, all hands! Confluence entry in 3 minutes! All hands, all hands! Confluence entry in 3 minutes!”

  “It’s going to be okay,” Kur whispered to them, his anger suddenly melting away. “Just keep your eyes open, cover each other, and help when you safely can.”

  Nar murmured an affirmative alongside the others.

  “Just like in the Climb,” Cen whispered.

  “Just like in the Climb,” Kur said.

  Behind and in front of them, Nar heard party leaders repeating similar speeches amongst the gathered apprentices.

  Apprentices… Nar thought, idly, as he stared at the clock in his UI. Look how quickly we’ve stopped calling ourselves Climbers… Ah! Ex-Climbers indeed!

  It almost felt like a different lifetime now. Memories of the cubeplant were more akin to a long, recurring and confused, black and white nightmare rather than the reality of his entire life. And those memories of the Climb? Those felt even more as though it had all just been a very long and fever-induced dream, the memories being almost too insane, too painful, and too cruel to be anything other than the cries of a delusional mind.

  But they were real. It was all real, Nar told himself. And it’s still real.

  His dad still awaited him down below, in the absolute darkness of the B-Nex. He still worked that recycling machine each and every day, for double shifts, even as the Wasting sought to claim his life.

  Maybe he’s working right now… Nar thought. It was a dark thought, but it was better than thinking that his dad was already gone, claimed by the sickness… He tightened his fists jus as the klaxon sounded overhead once more.

  “All hands, all hands! 1 minute for entry! All hands, all hands! 1 minute for entry! Stand-by for confluence!”

  A lower, endless klaxon smothered the tiny corridor, and the gentle hum of the ship suddenly flared into a high-pitched whine. They were pushed back by the sudden gravitational shift, and arms darted for handrails and to people, in search of support.

  “Hang on!” Kur shouted.

  Nar held onto Mul and Rel, keeping them both seedy as the Scimitar manoeuvred underneath them, and Gad took hold of Kur and Cen, while Viy and Jul helped steady each other and the flailing ring tosser.

  “All hands! Thirty seconds!” the voice sounded overhead again. “Apprentices, storm gliders, prepare for combat!”

  Nar took a deep breath. Alright, here we go. Let’s get this done…

  But what of the next battle?

  In that moment, he realized that maybe, this was what it meant to be a delver. The constant training might ease up as he grew stronger, but he would always go from battle to battle, from danger to danger, and from crazy situations to insane situations… Always his blade drenched in the blood and gore of his felled opponents, beast and monster alike, and perhaps even sapients. Always the sleepless nights before. Always getting injured. Always the risk of failing someone in his party for the last time… Or himself. The risk of it all coming to an abrupt, and painful end, always striding hand in hand every time he marched to fight.

  He sighed.

  Maybe it’ll be better for us to live in the Nexus after all, Nar thought. By the time he got his dad out, he would be strong, assuredly a lot more powerful than he currently was. And he would have likely accumulated more than enough XP to sustain them with comfort for the rest of their days. They could spend their days chilling, eating and enjoying all the endless distractions of the O-Nex…

  And enjoy a nap whenever we want to… He thought, a small smile touching his lips. And perhaps then, there would be space for more in his life. For someone else…

  He shook his head, his growing smile shifting into a grimace. That was all a long time from now… A long, long time, and there was no point even entertaining the notion, when there was work to be done.

  “All hands! We’re entering the confluence!”

  The ship quaked under them, a high wail of metal creaking and screaming all around them as they plunged into the yet to be seen storm that awaited them.

  “Fucking ship’s gonna break,” Mul muttered, eyeing the groaning corridor around him.

  “Relax! They know what they’re doing!” Rel shouted back.

  The two of them still held on tightly to Nar. Mul had both hands around Nar’s right leg, and Rel had her arms tightly wound up around Nar’s waist. As for Nar himself, his attributes and his hand on the left railing in the corridor kept him and the other two standing.

  TAK! TAK! TAK! TAK! TAK! TAK!

  Something loud was moving under them now, setting the floor to vibrating even harder.

  The aether rod! Nar thought. They needed to be extended out before the apprentices could stomp onto the promenades, to spare them the worst of the raging, wild aether, and not for the first time, Nar wondered what touching aether would feel like.

  He still remembered getting zapped by that spider in the B-Nex, back when they had been forced to go through that strange, circular chasm, as well as when he had faced off against the big spider’s aether. However, he didn’t know whether the pain he’d felt back then was due entirely on the enemy, or due to what he now knew to be the opposing nature between aura and aether. And his fight with the psaelis hadn’ answered that question yet either, as he did not know whether the pain came from the damage, or from the aether used.

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  Guess I’m finally about to find out, he thought.

  KA-TUNK!

  “All hands, all hands!” the voice boomed above their heads. “Aether rods deployed. Promenades are a go! I repeat, prom…”

  The voice came to a strangled screeched and silenced.

  There goes the comms, Nar thought, pursing his lips. Just as promised.

  A blast of wind and sound roared into the corridor, a physical howling that forced them all a step backwards. Casting a glance up ahead, Nar glimpsed lightning lashing outside, and through the roaring wind, he heard the sound of many, many things screeching.

  “Crystal…” Rel muttered at his side.

  “GO! GO! GO!” someone shouted from up ahead, most likely another one of the squad leaders.

  “Remember to check your jump safety belts once in a while!” Mynap shouted at the three parties under his control. “Especially you, party leaders! This is your job first and foremost!”

  Their squad leader was standing ahead of them, with a trio of other crew members who had been introduced as Huk, Xer and Kik, and who referred to Mynap as corporal. Including Mynap, they were all wearing the same armor with shifting plates, black and brown combat gear, with Tsurmirel’s logo emblazoned upon their chests.

  Together, they were the promised higher leveled combat delvers that would be fighting alongside them from Tsusrmirel’s contingent of storm gliders. The four of them were responsible for keeping them alive… At least, as best as possible.

  “Try not to get tangled in each other too early!” Mynap warned. “Keep your eyes open for everything, especially those raimels, and shout when you see them!”

  “Yes, squad leader!” they shouted, even as the winds howled like mad beasts, pouring into the tight corridor through the open door.

  “And help everyone who needs it!” Mynap added. “You’re here to get gains, so let’s make sure everyone stays alive to get them! Is that clear?”

  “Yes, squad leader!” they all shouted again.

  Mynap glanced back, through the door opening, as the last of the first squad apprentices ran out into the maelstrom, followed by Xer and Huk.

  “Lil’s party, stand ready!” he shouted, propping his helmet onto his head, his face disappearing behind what looked like a liquid metal, only his trio of eerily lit green eyes beaming through the helmet.

  “We’re ready, squad leader!” Lil shouted.

  “Rings… Go! Go! Go!”

  Nar strained to watch Lil’s party latching their rings onto the steelium handrail. With a somersault in his stomach, he saw them run out into the storm, and be engulfed, one by one.

  And then, it was their turn.

  “Kur’s party, stand ready!” Mynap repeated, motioning them forward.

  “Ready, squad leader!” Kur shouted back. “Helmets!”

  He cast a look around his party, doing a quick scan of the multi-color array of armored and quickly helmeting people around him, and nodded to himself.

  “Rings…”

  Nar clenched his jaw as the aura helmet closed around his face, and held firmly to his ring in his gauntleted hands, his fingers pushing back the locking mechanism so that he could latch on quickly and without issues.

  “Go! Go! Go!” Mynap shouted.

  He pushed Viy forward, and one by one, they latched onto the steelium handrail, which began close to the door, and dashed outside.

  Viy went out first, followed by Jul, Tuk, then Kur and Cen followed by Mynap himself, then Gad, then finally, enclosing the party’s right flank, Rel, Mul and Nar. It was the best formation they had come up with in the short time they had to prepare, and it ensured that the ranged would still remain somewhat protected in the middle of the party, covered by Gad and Mynap at the party’s center, and the melee at their flanks. Now, they just had to see if their strategy was going to work…

  We got this… Nar told himself, as his turn approached. Come on! Let’s go get some gains!

  “Go!” Kik, the storm glider, shouted in his ear, pushing him forward.

  Nar kicked the floor beneath him, and dashed after Mul, closing the party’s right flank. Screeching filled his ears, amidst the burst of gale lashing winds and rumbling thunder, and Nar latched his ring to the steelium bar, even as his eyes darted out to find what he was up against.

  Lightning coursed through the skies, highlighting a scene straight from nightmare.

  Crystal…

  Dark clouds of pulleys and zappers darted through the air, riding the wild currents of the confluence in screeching, twisting masses that had to go far into the hundreds of thousands each, if not even higher. Here and there, with a knot on his stomach, he spotted the sinuous, darting shapes of the dreaded raimels, latching onto pulleys and zappers and dropping down into the black clouds below after shredding through their membranes and wings. And in the distance, highlighted in brief flashes of color and deafening thunder, Nar spotted several other ships, of different sizes and shapes, riding the confluence alongside the Scimitar.

  Jutting out from their ship, like massive spears, were the aether rods. Red lights flickered at constant intervals across their length, and a close to blinding white light, with a golden rainbow halo surrounding it, blazed at the tip of the rod closest to him.

  Aether streamed towards the light, plucked from the very air itself, and it sometimes snarled and snapped in long, blinding peals of lightning and…

  THUNK!

  Shit!

  He had been distracted and missed the railing joint. Quickly, noticing Kik rushing towards him, he unclasped his ring from the handrail and clasped it across the joint and into the next section of the handrail. Then, he was off again.

  One joint.

  Two joints.

  Three joints…

  Done! He thought, breathing with relief. The initial joint hopping was the most dangerous part of deploying out onto the promenades, as they could be attacked or snatched up in that crucial moment where they weren’t tethered to the hull. But, a quick glance showed him that thankfully everyone in the party had made it, and he stepped into formation alongside them.

  “I want to see your gear active at all times!” Mynap shouted. “And communicate any threats and problems you see! We all need each other now!”

  Nar gulped under his helmet and scanned the chaotic skies before him.

  This time, and going forward, they were the ones who controlled their combat gear, having had the chance to train in its simple use and activation. The now familiar tightness embraced him, and shifting grays covered his entire body, forming its protective segmented plates, joints, bracers and so on. All made of and feeding off his own aura.

  Nar grimaced and tightened his jaw. As long as his aura remained, so would his armor. Unless it went damaged beyond its supposedly significant self-repairing and abuse taking capabilities. However, looking down at himself, it was impossible to notice how the armor looked significantly less bright and solid than it had during the den, and ripples of angry static spread through it, as ambien aether made contact with his aura. All he could now was hope that the gear, and his aura, would hold.

  A sudden, howling gust of dark, glimmering rainbow cloud dashed through the promenade, and Nar’s breath seized in his lungs as a cold jolt took over his body. Tiny, tiny knives, stabbed through his armor as though it wasn’t there, and Nar felt the angry press of aether across every single fiber of his body. All-consuming static filled his ears, but before he could even react, they were out of the cloud.

  A strangled cry escaped his lips, and Nar fell back against the steelium handrail, gasping hard as non-tank and non-[Toughness] strengthened apprentices went down to their knees. His armor blinked in and out dangerously, parts of it showing the soft black material it was made of, before it finally re-asserted itself, armor plates reforming.

  “And that was probably your first taste of wild aether!” Mynap shouted, above the roaring winds. “There’ll be plenty more of those, so be prepared… And here they come!”

  “Weapons!” Kur snarled. “Use skills as needed!”

  Nar drew his sword from his inventory and looked up, following the directions of his [Instinct].

  A dark, screeching and pulsing fist of pulleys rose above them, darkening the promenades, and Nar dropped his jaw, craning his neck higher and higher as he sought to take in the entirety of that mass of beasts. There were so many of them that they covered the entire starboard of the ship.

  From his side, Mul suddenly roared at the sky.

  “Come on, then!” Mul shouted at the storm and the incoming beasts. “Come and get it!”

  And there goes the suppressor… Nar thought.

  The pulleys did just as Mul taunted them to, and Nar pushed away from the ship’s hull to meet them.

  In a sudden rush, the beasts dropped towards the promenades, gliding around the blazing, arching multi-colored tips of the aether rods. It seemed that not even in their frenzy they were too far gone to go for the aether rods. Still, in the press of bodies and chaos of winds, scores of them got too close, and were incinerated in bright flashes of white, rainbow flames, their burning bodies trailing past the hull in the raging winds.

  Nar raised his purple shimmering sword as the mass flooded towards them, but what were his steps and stance, and sword style meant to achieve against such numbers? The pullies slammed onto the ship, and darkness swallowed them all in a chaos of tentacles, membranes and screeching sharp circular mouths.

  “Ugh!” Mul shouted. “Fucking pile!”

  His fists went through the pullies with ease, blasting them into bits of purple goo and tentacles, which sizzled and fizzed against his flaming, muted armor. Nar too, sliced through the beasts with ease, as they were tiny, no bigger than his head, with barely any HP to speak of. However, the mass of tentacles and screaming all around him, quickly blinded him.

  “Stay close!” Mul shouted at Rel.

  Nar too, moved in closer to Mul and Rel, and the party itself closed up ranks around their ranged fighters.

  “They’re too fast!” Rel shouted.

  “Just do what you can!” Nar replied. “Look out for those raimels instead!”

  “On it!”

  Together, Nar and Mul slashed and punched at the ceaseless cloud of beasts, while Rel hunkered behind them and canvassed the darkened skies around them for the dreaded green beasts, her bow and arrows now useless against such fast, close ranged opponents.

  Through the darkness, Nar caught the glimmering trails of Tuk’s rings, no doubt downing pullies by the dozens.

  How aren’t they not just flying away? He briefly thought. Is it his aura?

  “Fuck’s sake!” Mul shouted.

  Nar glanced down to his left, and found the brawler frantically punching at a couple of pulleys that had managed to latch onto him. Where they latched, they sizzled and smoked from the flames of Mul’s armor, but at the same time, around those areas, the armor too flickered as the aura coursing through Mul’s pathways got sucked by the hungry beasts.

  “Stop moving!” Nar shouted, as more and more pullies latched onto the brawler. “I got you!”

  Mul growled, but he stopped moving, and Nar’s sword flashed through the air, slicing and killing all of the little creatures attached to Mul.

  “Done!” Nar shouted.

  “Thanks!” Mul grunted back at him, pulling apart the now sliced and diced beast leftovers from his armor.

  Suddenly, arching blue lightning spread throughout the raging pullies, and tiny, burned bodies dropped hollowly across the promenades, or were blown and scattered by the winds, to be gone into the vastness of the Endless Labyrinth.

  What now? Nar thought, covering his head from the dropping pullies that thudded all around him.

  Something, or many somethings, screeched into view. It was an enormous ball of flapping, frenzied out of their minds and stuck together zappers, with blue lightning snapping and lashing out of that ball in long, wide arcs.

  “Rel?” Nar asked, staring up at the bright ball of lightning that had come to a stop directly over theirs and several other promenades, inundating them in glaring light.

  “On it!” she shouted.

  Her red arrows joined the mostly gray projectiles that flew out from several of the promenades, impacting, exploding or blowing through the ball of zappers, and with a maddened screech, lightning flared out in all directions. Most of it was sucked right into the blinding tips of the aether rods, but enough of it made it through onto the promenades.

  “Watch out!” Mynap roared.

  From their left flank, a crew member jumped up into the air, straight into the path of the deadly lines of lightning aimed at their promenade. At the last minute, she swung her two, thin and pointy blades in a crossing slash in front of her, the swords shining a bright white, and deflected the lighting towards the rod to their left.

  “Wow…” Nar whispered. “You can do that?”

  The woman dropped over the edge, but seconds later, she flew right back up, and disappeared amongst Lil’s party.

  Was that Xer? Nar wondered, still stunned by the display of mastery.

  “Damn…” Mul muttered, just as stunned.

  “Look forward!” Rel shouted at the two of them. “Those pullies are coming back!”

  In a hate filled cry, the cloud of pullies closed around the lightning coated zappers with bloody vengeance, plunging down to attack them with as much fierceness as they had the apprentices on their assault on the promenades. The air was soon filled with blood, feathers and ripped, smoking tentacles as the two herds went at each other.

  But there were more pullies than the feathered zappers, and the tentacled beasts were a lot fiercer and more violent due to their very nature, and under the assault, the ball of zappers came apart, lightning flashing in every direction, incinerating each other, the pullies and being sucked into the aether rods around them.

  “How long has it been?” Mul shouted.

  “Five minutes!” Rel replied, hiding back behind the two of them as pullies descended upon them once more.

  “Are you fucking serious?” the brawler shouted. “Five minutes?”

  To their left, Gad and Kur were covering Cen, who knelt down to charge her projectiles in the relative safety they provided her, and beyond them, Viy and Jul were similarly covering Tuk, who stood tall amidst the raging winds, pullies and lightning, his rings flying with deadly promise and delivering it. And Nar’s eyes were drawn to Viy.

  Damn…

  One would think that this sort of fight would’ve left the spear wielder at a disadvantage, given how small, fast and close the enemies were… Instead, Viy’s spear was a blur of purple, dancing madly all around her. She slashed and smashed as though her spear tip was a blade, or some sort of blunt weapon, rather than a spear meant for thrusting, and pullies exploded in sprays of dark purple goo all around her, as they met the bright purple lines left in the after images of her spear.

  Is that a skill? Nar wondered, dodging and killing a pullie as it came for his face. Or is she just going that fast?

  He didn’t remember her having such a skill… And though her [Speed], [Agility], [Reflex] and [Dexterity] were all incredibly high, he doubted they were enough to surpass his [Sight].

  Must be training for a new skill, then, Nar thought. Or maybe it could just be her affinity?

  After all, Mul had his flames, Jul the shadowy smoke of her fear, and Rel the deep crimson of her repentance affinity. But how does weight even manifest? He wondered. Wait! Was that…

  He snapped his head to his right, in time to hear the strangled cry of surprise as an apprentice went flying over the railing, tangled in a formless shape of darting green.

  Shit!

  His feet were on the move before he even realized it.

  “There’s a raimel! It got someone!” Nar shouted. “I’m jumping!”

  “Be careful!” Mul shouted back. “Kur! There’s a…”

  Nar ran towards the external handrail, and propelled by his attributes, he jumped directly to the top of the railing, and leaped downwards into the open, raging void.