“Alright, try to move your fingers… Very good. Now, the elbow…”

  Nar followed the instructions of the healer.

  He’d been surprised to find a zeibar, of all things, as he entered the room, and had been immediately reminded of Tas, the party leader that had betrayed them to the cannibals in the Mid-Levels of the B-Nex.

  If his mood was already dour, tired and raw from the confluence and a mostly sleepless night where he hadn’t even been able to check his gains, as the System needed more time to put them together after the confusion and chaos of the wild aether within the confluence muddling its capabilities and sight, now seeing a zeibar, as innocent as he was and a healer no less, only managed to sink his mood further.

  “That looks great!” the man said, smiling at him despite the heavy bags under his eyes, and the slight roll of his tongue. “Just rest for today, and tomorrow you should be all good to return to training. But I hope you’ve learned what happens when you push through your [Mastery]... Anyways, I’m sure whoever’s teaching you is going to give you an earful!”

  Nar nodded at him, and got up to leave. However, as he reached the door, he suddenly felt a wave of guilt washing over him. Here was an innocent man, a healer, definitely wrecked from a sleepless night of healing and saving lives, and there he was, being silent and rude to him.

  “Uhm…”

  “Yes?” the healer asked.

  “Thanks… For the arm. And for everything you’ve done… You know. For everyone.”

  The zeibar smiled.

  “Cheers, that’s what we’re here for,” he said. “And what, did a zeibar give you a wrong turn?”

  “What?” Nar asked, alarmed at how accurate the healer had been.

  “It was obvious from your face that you didn’t like what you saw when you entered the room,” the man said. “We’ve never met before, and nobody hates healers of course… So that left only my race as the probable cause.”

  Nar looked away from the still smiling, and easy going zeibar, then he sighed.

  “I’m sorry, and you’re right,” he said, surprising himself with his own honesty. “We saved a party in the B-Nex from cannibals. We took them in, and their party leader was a zeibar, the only one I’ve ever met… And then they handed us over to the cannibals we had “saved” them from.”

  “Crystal…” the healer whispered, his smile vanishing. “Yeah, that would do it…”

  Nar nodded. “Still… It wasn’t right of me. It won’t happen again.”

  “It’s fine, man. You’ve had a rough 24 hours, and I understand that being the only one of my kind you’ve ever seen that it triggered bad memories,” the healer said, his tone understanding but firm. “Just make sure it doesn’t happen again. Racism, the hatred of race, is not welcome amongst good people, and those who do welcome it are not the sort you’d want to find yourself with.”

  Nar nodded. “I’m sorry. And thank you for fixing my arm.”

  “No worries. And rest for today, okay?”

  “Yeah…”

  Nar turned to leave, but he cast one last glance at the healer.

  “Next time I see a zeibar, I’ll remember you instead,” he said.

  But the healer shook his head with a sigh. “Remember us both, apprentice. There are good and bad people out there, regardless of race, and you should always be careful who you trust…”

  *********

  In the cubeplant, dead bodies were returned to the Nexus. You opened a long metal drawer in the dispensers, you pushed the body through, and the Nexus would claim it. In return, you received a few extra portions of crackers and jell-o, meant to aid you and your family in surviving that period of lower work to rations quota that arose from the loss of a worker in the family. It was also meant to serve as a bit of consolation, or so the priesthood said, and so it was called the bereavement rations.

  But Nar was no longer in the cubeplant or even in the Nexus, and while had no idea what they did to dead bodies in the O-Nex, or even the I-Nex, in the Labyrinth, they burned them, and then they shot them out of the ship and blew them up, so that their ashes would be set free to roam across the Endless Labyrinth.

  The klaxon sounded, drowning all conversation, and the lights of the packed promenades were turned off, dropping them all into a silent twilight. At his sides, the party stood in a taciturn silence, with Kur standing on his left, and Rel on his right with Tuk. Gad had both Mul and Cen up on her arms, holding them up at, surprisingly, Mul’s request, so that the short lengos could observe the proceedings, and Viy stood at their side. And beyond Kur, stood Row’s party without their red haired party leader.

  Both Jul and Row were still in a healer's induced coma, and slowly recovering. Jul ought to be discharged within the next two days, while Row would be allowed out by the fourth morning, provided everything went well.

  Nar had gone to visit the quam with the party in the afternoon. As it turned out, every room in the sick bay had a wall that could turn into a window, and it had been through one such window that they had seen Jul. She had looked well… Peaceful even, in her aura, healing induced coma, and above her head, several discs of some kind of aura infused metal had pulsed in a soothing rhythm, doing Crystal only knew what.

  Staring at her sleeping form, Nar had felt his heart tightening in his chest, close to bursting, and again, he was unable to keep his mind from straying into dark thoughts. Had he missed her… Had he been just a few seconds too late…

  The klaxon sounded once more, startling Nar and bringing him back to the present. The sorrowful note blasted for a good while longer this time, then a capsule shot out from somewhere below them.

  The capsule brightened the twilight clouds beneath them, and Nar clenched his jaw as he followed the dazzling line of light flying out into the Labyrinth. The klaxon wailed mournfully three more times, and each time a new capsule was shot out into the Labyrinth, to never return.

  If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

  Three apprentices that will never see the Nexus… Not even a dungeon, Nar thought, clenching his fists. And a junior storm glider that was still getting his footing, and that will never return home… Unless this was his home.

  Tuk covered his eyes, and Rel gave him a fierce, tight hug. Nar glanced at Kur at his side, and noticed his stiff posture, and the emotion… He couldn’t even tell what that was on his face. Grief? Sadness? Anger? Fear? Worry? Guilt? Maybe a bit of it all, as sapients were never simple in their emotions…

  Nar reached an arm up to him, and pulled Kur close.

  “It will be okay,” he told his party leader.

  Kur wiped at his eyes and chuckled. “Shouldn’t I be the one telling you that?”

  “You tell it enough times,” Nar said. “Now I’m telling you. We’re going to be okay.”

  Kur swallowed and nodded. “Yeah… Thanks, man.”

  The klaxon sounded once more.

  “Brave are the delvers, smiling in the face of death!” the captain’s voice said through speakers in the hull.

  “Brave are the delvers, smiling in the face of death!” the crew repeated after her, the apprentices catching up and joining in at the second half of the sentence.

  “We go where few go, so that the many may live in safety and comfort,” she said. “We are delvers. We are the ones that supply the Nexus, that defend the Nexus, that die for the Nexus… And today, we honor the brave fallen, the apprentices Suh, Bor and Fif, and our crewman, Junior Storm Glider 2nd Rank Jat. Long may they be remembered!”

  “Long may they be remembered!”

  “May their ashes spread for eternity across the Endlessness of the Labyrinth, and may the Gray One ferry their souls into the Truth at the End of Everything!”

  The capsules exploded with loud bangs, forming giant balls of light and shooting color across thousands of feet of dark sky. The lights brightened the faces of the gathered, and tears glistened down many a cheek.

  Nar may have not known them, but they were still all ex-Climbers, all the same apprentices and part of the same crew and ship, and their loss… He felt it.

  “Call the Big Man!” the captain shouted over the speakers. “So that he may carry our honored dead!”

  “Call the Big Man!”

  “Call Him!”

  “Call the…”

  From above their heads, below and across the starboard hull of the Scimitar, guns exploded to life, flooding the night with even more light. The salvo was deafening, and it lasted for a good while.

  30 seconds, Nar thought, his ears ringing once it was done. How much aether did that use? How much XP did it cost? I guess experience isn’t everything in the end…

  “As for the living, remember who we are!” the captain said. “Brave are the delvers, smiling in the face of death!”

  “Brave are the delvers, smiling in the face of death!”

  Cheers sounded, shouts and cries, and more guns fired into the empty night. Nar squeezed Kur’s shoulder, who in turn had pulled Lim into their embrace.

  Brave are the delvers, smiling in the face of death…

  Nar could only hope that he would remain brave, always. To do what was needed. To endure what was needed, so that one day he could make his dreams come true… But if his time did come… When his time did come, would he go smiling?

  *********

  Then, they celebrated the memory of those who were not gone, but simply had gone on ahead of the rest of them ro Truth at the End of Everything, as the captain had called it, to know what truly awaited every soul in the Beyond.

  There was music. There was food. There was drinking. There were many emotions let loose as well, and there was crying, fighting, and finding mutual comfort in the arms of another… And as for Nar, he slipped out of the party unnoticed, unable to tolerate anymore company or noise.

  A while later, he found himself staring out the window of what had become his de facto private training room, and there, flying outside the window, following in the glimmering wake of the Scimitar, was something his brain struggled to even describe.

  They were beasts, huge and massive all of them, the biggest of them as big as 500-feet wide, and they glided peacefully through the night, shining in glorious blues and purples, their massive appendages spread out full with aether currents and ambient aether, glowing yellow and orange, and blue and purple… It was such a sight of beauty, of innocence, that Nar felt a swelling within his heart, and his eyes prickled.

  How can it be so cruel and so beautiful at the same time? He thought. This Endless Labyrith is so…

  He didn’t even have the words for it.

  “Beautiful, aren’t they?”

  Nar whirled round, his sword coming to his healed hand instinctively.

  “Nice reaction, but you can put it away.”

  And Tys, Combat Operations Officer of the Scimitar, stepped out of the shadows of the corner of the room and approached the window, her eyes shining from the bright light of the beasts outside.

  Feeling a little embarrassed, Nar put the blade away, and stood awkwardly at her side, unsure of what to do.

  “They’re called glimmershine owons,” she told him. “And they’re just one of the many species of owons you will find gliding across the entirety of the Labyrinth… Even in the Deep Deep.”

  The Deep Deep? Nar thought with a startle. Why did she sound as though she was speaking from experience? Has she been all the way that far? No… That can’t be. Why would she be on an apprentice-ship all the way back here then?

  “They can’t fend for themselves, you know? They have no attributes but for one,” she continued. “They radiate a [Presence] of peace and tranquility, an absolute promise of being non-threatening. And most leave them well alone… Even most beasts. Of course, greed is greed, and many people are willing to hunt and harvest them for the most banal of things… Dyes. Cosmetics. Dubious pills with dubious benefits and promises…”

  She sighed and glanced at him. “So, why aren’t you getting plastered with the others? Laughing? Finding… Companionship? Moping around in the dark only makes things worse…”

  Nar folded his arms and as he considered her, he noticed in passing that in the low blue and purple light, her silver pin was gone from her uniform.

  “Why are you here then, COO?” he asked.

  She snorted. “Fair point. And don’t call me COO tonight. I’m Tys… Just Tys tonight.”

  Nar frowned in surprise, but he nodded.

  “I couldn’t take the noise anymore,” Nar said. “It’s not how I…”

  He sighed. “I remembered things I didn’t want to, and the drink made it worse…”

  “Ah… It does that sometimes,” Tys said. “When you don’t really want to forget, nothing can make you.”

  “Hmm… Is that why you’re here? You… Remember things too?”

  It was an awfully personal question to be asking of someone from her station, but his mind buzzed with the numbness of alcohol, and he was already not exactly in the right state of mind.

  Tys stood silent for a few moments. “Yes… Yes, I do.”

  She blinked away from the mesmerizing sight of the owons and glanced sideways at him.

  “What were you doing here anyways?” she asked. “I’ve never seen anyone here before.”

  Nar shrugged. “I’ve been training here since the den… It’s quiet. And I like the view.”

  She chuckled.

  “A very fancy training room, isn’t it? And is that what you came here to do, tonight? To train?”

  Nar nodded.

  “Weren’t you injured in the fight?” she asked, scanning him.

  “It’s healed,” he said, lifting his arm and wiggling his fingers

  “Not fully,” she said, squinting at it. “But enough, I guess… And people cope in different ways… Alright, let’s do it then.”

  “Do what?” Nar asked, as she stepped away from the window.

  A round, black and silver shield materialized in her left hand, and to his surprise, a second one, identical, popped up on her left hand as well.

  “Two shields?” Nar asked, flabbergasted.

  “They are weapons in and off themselves,” she said, and sharp, short blades slid in and out of the edges of the shields. “Have you ever fought a tank before?”

  A tank? Is that what she is? He had her pegged for a DPS, or maybe even a party leader given her commanding position aboard the Scimitar, but a tank? Now that was a surprise.

  “No. Never.”

  “Well, the first time is always special, good or bad,” she said, grinning wickedly at him. “Show me what you got, kid, and don’t hold back. I’m a lot stronger than your Master of Blades.”

  Nar gulped as he drew out his sword again. He didn’t know why, but something told him she wasn’t just messing with him or bluffing. Then he frowned at himself, and smiled.

  Why be scared of her? He thought. Might as well have some fun, and learn something.

  “That’s the spirit!” she said, smiling. “Now let’s see if you’ve been practicing properly!”

  In less than a blink of an eye she was before him, her left shield swinging for his throat, blades glinting in the purple and blue light emanating from the magnificent beasts outside.

  Crystal… Nar thought, as his [Instinct] screamed in surprise.

  He truly was in for a lesson.