Going up slowly proved to be a lot easier than just dashing up, of course. However, Mynap challenged the melee apprentices to try and go as fast as they could safely go.

  That resulted in a few more injuries across the board, but for Nar, he eventually discovered that with a little help from his [NPC], he could just about manage to stick his landing. Viy had competitively accused him of being a cheater, as he was managing to go up faster than her by the time they wrapped up their training, and Nar took it gracefully on the chin. He wasn’t cheating, just balancing things out between her much higher [Dexterity] and his. Besides, more than just competing with her, which he of course didn’t admit to doing, he was worried that something would go wrong the next morning.

  By the way everyone kept talking about those green raimels, he had started to get a really, and growing, bad feeling in the pit of his stomach about the long haired beasts.

  If one of them, or anyone in their promenade really, were to be dragged down, he wanted to be able to quickly go down and back up to get them to safety. Not to mention, he himself might need to retreat back to the relative safety of the promenade in a rush.

  I still hope we don’t need to go down, Nar thought, casting one last glance over the railing as they returned to the inside of the ship, and handed their belts back to Mynap, turning their backs on a darkening sky.

  Dinner soon followed their return into the ship, and it was a muted affair that night. Everyone retired to their party rooms early following it, nursing injuries, soreness and serious concerns about their upcoming second assessment.

  However, despite their orders to go to bed by 10PM, Nar found himself returning to the common room at around midnight, knowing that he would find most of the others there as well.

  “Yoh! Can’t sleep?” Tuk asked, as the door opened for him. “Join the party!”

  Nar shook his head.

  “The other two?” Tuk asked.

  “Sleeping,” Nar said.

  “How are they doing it?” Viy whispered, shaking her head.

  At the table, Tuk, Jul, Viy and Cen sat very much awake, the yellow light above their heads dim, and casting their faces full with shadows of worry.

  “Everyone alright?” Nar asked, taking a seat.

  That got him a few shrugs and a few mumbles. Casting a glance around, he saw that of the four of them, Cen looked the worse for wear.

  “It’s going to be okay,” Nar told her. “You won’t need to jump.”

  “Yeah…” Cen said, though not sounding very convinced.

  Of the nine of them, she had the worst time trying to make sense of that jump safety belt. Gad and Kur had fared a bit better, though not by a lot, and Tuk had again done a little bit better than the two of them, due to his immense ring tosser’s [Dexterity]. If the need actually arose, it would be up to Nar, Viy, Jul, Mul and Rel to jump down.

  Maybe not Rel, Nar thought, leaning forward. The archer had performed alright, but she wasn’t a melee, and he doubted the alfin would be able to do much of anything, dangling down from the ship. But then again, who knew what she could do. What any of them could do? When pushed to it, and when the choice was either live or die, they kept finding themselves being capable of things that had never even occurred to them before…

  Though us being reduced to 30% aura effectiveness has to sting to a caster, Nar thought, grimacing at the shifting lengos.

  Looking from Cen with a sigh, he looked at Jul and Viy.

  “You guys were jumping fine,” he said. “Why are you awake?”

  “So were you,” Viy shot back.

  “Yeah… Fair,” Nar conceded.

  What now? He thought.

  Usually, Tuk was the one cheering them up, or Kur, or even Gad. But Kur had just finally managed to fall asleep, not more than ten minutes past, and Gad seemed to be sleeping as well. He couldn’t risk waking them up and then nobody actually managing any sleep at all.

  Hope Rel’s okay, he thought. The archer was sleeping with the other alfin in the chapel somewhere within the ship, under the regenerative light of the Source, and would only join them in the morning.

  He sighed.

  I wish there was a way for us to talk from far away, he thought to himself. He had seen hints and signs here and there that such a thing was possible, amongst the crew members, instructors and even the masters. But no one had brought it up with them yet, which meant either of two things. One, he was wrong, and he was just imagining it. Or two, and hopefully the right answer, it was possible, but it wasn’t something they had shown the apprentices how to do yet. Or made available for them…

  “Hey! I got an idea!” Viy suddenly said, drawing Nar’s attention. “How about we play a game?”

  “A game?” Tuk asked, perking up. “What kind of game?”

  “How about a word game?” she suggested. “We go through the alphabet, and everyone says a word starting with that letter. If there’s someone who doesn’t know the meaning of that word, the person who said it gets to explain it. That way we all learn something new! Maybe, I think…”

  “Ohhh, I like that!” Tuk said. “I’ve learned a lot of words!”

  Cen nodded. “Sure…”

  “And we can just keep going until people get sleepy,” Viy said. “And whoever knows the most words than the others don’t, wins!”

  “Alright, you go first then,” Nar said.

  “Sure! Uhm… Wait let me think of a weird one,” she said, concentrating. “How about… Aromatic?”

  Nar shook his head. “I know that one.”

  “Me too,” Tuk said.

  “Yeah…” Jul added, while at her side, Cen also nodded.

  “Booo!” Viy said, fake pouting. “Let's go this way then. Tuk, you’re up next!”

  They took turns going round and round with words. Tuk and Cen accumulated easy points, Tuk with the weird words he had learned from his explorations across the ship, and Cen with the complicated ones from her aura classes. Nar and Jul managed to sneak a few one’s in, mostly from their respective Blades and Shadow classes, but Viy seemed to have a knack for coming up with words that they all knew about.

  “No! Again!” she would say, after each round. “This time for sure!”

  Unfortunately, Tuk and Cen were unbeatable at the top of the game, and Jul and Nar weren’t too keen to come out last either.

  “Viy!” Nar whispered, sometime close to half one in the morning. “Look…”

  Jul, with her hands crossed over the table, and her head resting over them, was breathing at a deep, and regular interval.

  “Finally!” Viy whispered, success in her tone. “She was a tough one!”

  Nar smiled and nodded at her words.

  Tuk had been the first one to go under, and they had moved him to his bed with a lot of laughter and whispered threats to shut up. The next one had been Cen, and now, finally, it seemed as though Jul had also fallen asleep at last.

  “Let’s wait a bit, then move her to the room,” Viy said.

  “Yeah…”

  A moment of silence stretched between them.

  “You want to keep playing? You might win now,” Nar said.

  Viy chuckled but shook her head. “I think I’m done with words. You?”

  “Yes, please,” Nar said, with a sigh. “My brain can’t take any more of this.”

  Between Tuk’s confusing explanations, Cen’s convoluted ones, Jul’s hesitant ones, and his own very crappy ones, his mind had been reduced to a jumble of floating new words, their meanings clashing like a storm within his mind. He doubted he was going to even remember a third of them.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  “I’m going to be dreaming about words tonight,” Viy said, stretching on her stool.

  If you manage to sleep, Nar thought to himself.

  Truth was, he was tired. He had been holding on for the last two of them, but he wasn’t sure how much longer he could stay awake. Not to mention, they didn’t know exactly at what time they would be yanked out of bed by the morning klaxon, only that it would be early.

  “You can go to bed after we put her in,” Viy said, as if reading his thoughts. “You can’t hide your yawns anymore, Nar. I know you’ve been holding out for us.”

  “No…” Nar said, looking away. “I’m just… Hmm. Sleepless. Yeah.”

  Viy snorted and shook her head. “You’re always so…” She sighed, and did not finish her sentence.

  “What’s keeping you “awake” anyways?” she asked him instead.

  Nar shrugged.

  “The fighting, I guess,” he said. “It’s always the fighting the next day. I just can’t sleep…”

  “Scared?” Viy asked, frowning with concern.

  Nar stretched his own back with another sigh.

  “Scared? Maybe? Maybe not?” he said. “I’m not scared of the actual fighting. Or dying… It’s more like, there’s stuff in my head, you know, and I keep thinking about it, again and again, and it keeps me awake.”

  “Is it always like that?” Viy asked.

  Nar interlaced his fingers and rested his hands over the black tabletop.

  “I think so? But it’s worse out here,” he said, then he smiled. “Tuk says it's because I’m more scared now, because out here there’s more to live for, and more to lose.”

  Viy snorted. “Crystal… Typical Tuk.”

  “Right?” Nar said. “But… Maybe he’s a bit right. I’m here, doing everything I can to get stronger fast, and it would be… Bad, you know, if I fail now, after all this way, and when there’s actually some realistic hope of getting my dad out.”

  “Maybe… Or maybe you’re just overthinking things,” she said, and flicked his forehead. “Again!”

  “Ouch!”

  “You’ve always been like this, right?” she asked, grinning. “I only remember bits and pieces of it… But you were always over worrying and overthinking about everything back when we were Climbing.”

  “What am I overthinking now?” he asked, rubbing his forehead.

  “I don’t know,” she said, with a shrug. “Your skills? Your training? Impressing your master? Getting good gains? Fighting well tomorrow? Keeping us safe tomorrow? What you need to do tomorrow? What you need to not do tomorrow? Swords moves? Steps? Stances? Improving your [Sword Aura]...”

  She fixed him with a knowing look. “Do I need to go on?”

  Nar pursed his lips and dodged away from her stare. “No…”

  “Tuk has some right,” Viy said. “But a lot of it is just you going at an absolutely insane rhythm and not stopping, you know? Sometimes you just gotta take a break. Do something else… Do someone else!”

  Nar chuckled and shook his head.

  Truth be told, he had been wondering what it was that Viy did in her free time, and while he had some idea, she had sort of just confirmed it for him just there. Everyone spent their free time doing whatever they wanted, and why not? Unlike him, the others in the party had reached their goals already. They were out, and that was all they had ever set out to do, and now they got to live the life they had so insanely earned.

  “Seriously, I can introduce you?” Viy said, smirking. “Guy or girl?”

  “I appreciate it, but…”

  “But what? You don’t have time for it?” she asked him. “Not even a little bit? A few minutes here and there? Trust me, most times it's that fast!”

  She snapped her fingers to emphasize her words, and that got a laugh out of him.

  “It’s not that… I just don’t have the brain for it,” he said. “I don’t want that kind of… Distraction in my life right now.”

  “Some distraction is exactly what you need!” she said, slapping his arm. “And it doesn’t have to be that serious. People do whatever they want, get whatever they need, and get back to their training. You think anyone’s out here looking for love?”

  Nar winced at the big “L” word.

  “No one’s life is that settled for any of that, Nar,” Viy said, sighing. “We’re all just living on the edge still. The Climb might be over, but we still know close to nothing about the Nexus, or even what tomorrow brings. Maybe we’ll stay aboard. Maybe we won’t. Some people might give up their combat classes, while others want it even more, loving every second of it. And some others, a good deal of them, just want to know what their life's are going to be like going forward, and what they’re going to do with their lives now that they’re out.”

  Nar pursed his lips. How could he explain it to her?

  It wasn’t that he was made of stone, as the O-Nexian expression went. It was more like, there just was no room within himself for anything else other than his training, which he stretched day and night. His need to prove himself to both his master and himself as well, no to mention his need to grow stronger, and ever faster, so he could return to his dying dad, was all that occupied his mind. His soul… It was as though he had left the cubeplant on a self-imposed, one-man race, and he was still running it, and if possible, he was going even faster and faster now, his eyes set on that distant goal of making it back down the B-Nex.

  There was no room for anything else. Only his sword. Only his aura. Only the next step before him, and the next skill. The next gains… Other than ensuring his party’s safety and happiness, nothing else mattered to him. Nothing else made his heart beat.

  I might as well be made of stone, he thought. His dad would’ve had a few words for him if he knew. But really, honestly, he could care less about any of that other stuff at the moment, and the shock from seeing the Navy apprentice’s performance was still whipping him ever forward, driven, and gaining more and more momentum.

  He sighed, and turned his eyes to Viy. “How about you? What’s keeping you awake? The future?”

  Viy froze at the sudden change in the tide of the conversation, and hide from his gaze by looking down at her hands.

  “You are getting plenty of… Distraction, right?” Nar asked. “But here you are, awake just like me.”

  Viy glanced over at Jul, still peacefully sleeping over the table.

  “The future?” she asked, slowly. Tasting the word. “Or is it the present, now?”

  She drummed her fingers over the table.

  “I Climbed to run away,” she suddenly said. “And now that I’ve escaped, I don’t know what to do with myself. What to want. What to crave or desire… It all feels… Almost empty. A moment of distraction and then… It’s gone.”

  Nar stared at her, startled at the suddenness of her honesty.

  “Oh, don’t look so worried!” she said, laughing at his blanched expression. “I don’t expect anyone to fix it for me. I just need time… Or maybe it will fix itself.”

  Nar took a deep, slow and quiet breath, as though any sudden noises would startle her.

  “Have you… Talked with someone else about it?”

  She smirked joylessly. “I did. With my master.”

  “The Master of Emotions?” Nar asked.

  Like him and Jul, Viy had also secured the private attention and direct tutoring of the master’s managing to snag the attention of the Masters of Polearms and of Emotions and Hand Combat, but Nar knew close to nothing about either of them, and in fact, he had never even seen the Master of Polearms.

  “No,” Viy said, sighing heavily and melting across the table. “With the Master of Polearms.”

  “Really?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “I’m not learning from the Master of Emotions yet, and the Master of Polearms brought it up with me, and she listened to what I had to say. But in the end, she said it was for me to decide.”

  “Decide what?” Nar asked, frowning.

  “Whether I was right or not,” Viy said, her eyes taking on a glazed look. “And whether I’m guilty or not…”

  Nar held his breath. Before him, was the Viy he had Climbed the most with. The aloof, distant, and lost in her own head, Viy. The one who had cracked and snapped, and whom he had to chase into a tide of cannibals not just once, but twice.

  “Viy?” he whispered, touching her arm.

  “Hmm?”

  She looked up at him, and for a moment, it was as though she didn’t recognize him, or as though she saw something else. Or someone else.

  “Sorry…” she said, shaking her head. “Ugh! I think it’s time for bed, no? Crystal! It's almost two in the morning!”

  “Yeah…” Nar said, still stunned.

  “Come on, let’s get her in bed.”

  Together, he and Viy lifted Jul up softly, gently, so as to not wake her up, and with much hissing and whispering at one another, managed to safely get her in bed and covered in her blanket.

  “Hmm… Nar?” Jul mumbled in her sleep, as he lifted the blanket up to her chin. “Sleep…”

  “Yes, yes,” he whispered back to her. “Shhh…”

  He patted her head, and the quam relaxed and dozed off once more. Thinking of cannibals had brought up some nasty memories, and he was happy Jul was safe there, in that bed. That they were all safe.

  “See, there’s room for some stuff,” Viy whispered. “We’re like family now, so, if you won’t find some other form of distraction, at least try to spend more time with us. Too much training will break anyone, even you.”

  “Hmm,” Nar said, with a noncommittal grunt. “Are you going to bed?”

  “Yeah… I think I can sleep now,” Viy said. “You?”

  “Yeah. I’ll be fine,” he said.

  She walked him to the door of the girl’s room, then stopped him.

  “Nar, seriously, ease up a little, or you’ll burn out,” she whispered to him. “Not even Kur or Cen are going as crazy as you are.”

  “Yeah…” he said, nodding.

  That’s because they can afford not to, he thought. I can’t. The clock never stops…

  “Alright, goodnight,” she said, smiling at him. “And everything will be fine tomorrow, you’ll see!”

  “You too!”

  He turned to go but then… “Viy?”

  “Yes?”

  “Will you… Talk to me, from time to time? I mean, about… You and stuff, and how's it going?” he asked. “I mean… Uh… You don’t have to tell me about it, you know, but… Once in a while, we can just talk, you know?”

  Viy smiled at him, and for a brief moment, he was reminded that for anyone else, the young , dark haired and pale woman before him was, in fact, quite stunning.

  Well… he thought, temporarily lost for words.

  “Thanks, Nar, I appreciate that… I really do,” she said, her eyes glistening in the low yellow light of their common room. “And I will… I think I need to, or I’ll go crazy.”

  “A-Anytime,” Nar said, and he asserted himself once more. “Just… Don’t keep it all inside, alright?”

  “Hmm,” she said, nodding. “Yeah… And, I’ll probably have a favor to ask you. After the confluence, I mean…”

  “Anything,” Nar said, smiling at her. “Though, Gad, Cen or Kur might be the best ones to ask.”

  She laughed. “Definitely not for this!”

  “Crystal… What do you want to ask me?” Nar asked, frowning.

  “Don’t worry about it and just go to bed,” Viy said. “And remember, I can still introduce you to…”

  “I’m okay!” he said. “Goodnight!”

  He turned and left. However, when he looked back from the boy's door, he found Viy still staring at him.

  “Yes?” he asked, frowning.

  She smiled. “I’m glad you joined our party, Nar. You may not know it, but… You really do help a lot. All of us.”

  “Uh?”

  She chuckled. “See you in a few hours!”

  And with that, she was finally gone.

  Nar, still frowning, let the door to his room close behind him and quietly made for his bed. He wasn’t sure what she had meant by that, but he did want to help her. Whatever she was carrying, it was obvious that it hadn’t stayed behind in the cubeplant, or even beyond the Gates, and he was worried that she would relapse into her old behavior at any moment. Or worse, if everything they saw was all just a facade she was putting on for everyone else to see, and within, the suffering raged…

  Problem was, how did one even begin to help someone, if they didn’t even know what Viy was running away from in the first place?

  At some point, he, or someone else in the party, was going to have to pry that out of her, if she was to have any chance at healing and changing her affinity. And that would not be an easy conversation to have, nor perhaps an easy decision to make, concerning Viy, and whatever it was that had branded her soul with such all-consuming guilt.

  He sighed. Best get to sleep now, he told himself. He had no doubts that in a few hours, things were going to turn insane.