He felt the cut. It stung and shrieked against all the others that he had accumulated across his ankles and shins.

“Again!”

The cuts would heal. They didn’t matter.

Tuk spun his ring and flicked it at Nar once more.

Nar swung his sword, slashing in a diagonal cut.

A hair’s breadth. For a moment, he had seen it. He had felt it. In his heart. In his mind. On his grip. Not too tight, and not too loose. Just certain. He believed that he was going to make it, and held on to that belief as he cut down.

Another line burned above his ankle.

“Again!”

Tuk reached out with his stretched finger and received the spinning ring. He flicked his hand and again the ring flew at Nar.

Another slash. Another cut.

“I know you can do it,” Tuk said, before Nar called out again. “I don’t believe it. I know it. But maybe there’s something you’re doing wrong. Something you’re missing.”

Nar bit down the retort that formed in his throat.

He’s helping me. And attitude is not what I need.

“Any ideas?” he asked instead, lowering his sword.

Tuk stopped spinning his ring and crossed his arms. He regarded Nar through semi-closed eyes, looking him up and down.

“So?”

“Hmmm.”

Tuk scratched his chin and rubbed his mouth.

He took a step back, and his knee shook.

“I’m sorry, man. I think we need to take a break.”

Nar was on him in an instant.

“I got you!” he said, holding on to Tuk’s arm. “Come on, I’ll take you back.”

“I’m alright. I just need to sit down for a bit.”

“Nah! You’ve been helping me the whole morning. You need some time with Cen. I mean… If you still want to learn and all that… Y-You know?”

Tuk chuckled.

“That awkwardness breaks my heart, man,” he said. “And yes, I still want to learn it. I need to see if Cen will teach it to me, though.”

“It’s your choice. Even Kur said so. I don’t think she won’t.”

Together, they return to the party. Tuk walked on his own, and Nar watched him closely, ready to catch him. The trugger’s legs trembled, and his knees scared them both every couple steps, but they made it back without incident.

Tuk headed straight for Cen. She had seen them return, and was now bombarding Tuk with the deepest frown she could muster. Tuk, for his part, walked on, undaunted.

Nar left them to it, and instead, sat next to Kur.

“How did it go?” their leader asked.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you.”

Kur grimaced at him. “Don’t worry. I was awake.”

On the night of the day when Gad, Jul and Cen had dispatched the guardians, Kur and Viy had finally woken up. Viy had regained consciousness first. She had scared them all by bolting upright, screaming at the top of her lungs. It had taken Gad and Cen the better part of an hour to calm her down, and she had succumbed back to sleep eventually.

A bit later, Kur had woken. He did it quietly, without alerting anyone. After a few minutes, he called out to whoever was on watch duty. Gad had rushed over and Kur had asked her about the party’s status. Together, they had decided not to use his [Healing Boon], as everyone seemed to be slowly getting back to full health.

After that, Kur fell asleep again, and it wasn’t until the morning that Nar found out he had been awake. Both Viy and Kur had then spent the day between napping or sitting around, still too weak to move or talk much.

“I’m telling you, man. Whatever that stuff was, it was no joke,” Tuk had told him. “Everything’s still numb!”

And now, looking down at Kur’s pale and sweaty face, hardened Nar’s resolve to stop those bolts even more.

“Tuk’s a great help. The problem’s me,” Nar said. “He says I’m missing something, but I don’t know what it is.”

“You’ll get it. Don’t be too hard on yourself. I know I asked you to do it, but I also know I pretty much asked the impossible of you. You’ve never even done this stuff before.”

“Yeah… Still. I don’t think it’s impossible. I just need to figure it out.”

“You will.”

Kur groaned and lifted his arms, pushing them forward to help him hoist his torso up. Nar reached forward to help him.

“No, I got it!” Kur said, between gritted teeth.

He managed to sit up and then, groaning again, and closing his eyes with the effort, slid his butt against the wall. He leaned on it, breathing hard, with fresh sweat shining on his forehead.

“That poison is something,” he said, panting. “By the way, I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”

“Yes?”

Kur massaged his neck with visible relief. “I hope you don’t mind, but Gad told me about the talk you two had. About your tanking, and the changes you decided to make.”

“It’s fine. I’ve realized that it's not something I should hide from the party. And that I should talk more,” he said with a grimace. “Also, I’m sorry, I should’ve come to you when I couldn’t figure it out.”

“I mean, it might have sped things along, but, at the end of the day, it’s your path,” Kur said. “Only you can build it, and only you can make the decisions you think are best. At the very least, though, I don’t think you need to hide it. We’re all in this together, and making each other stronger and better is something that helps all of us. We’re not in a competition against each other.”

Nar nodded. “I know that. And that’s not why. I just…”

You’re Clean, and I spent my whole life being spat on by you people. I worked more than any of you, threatened by starvation and death. It’s not easy to just start trusting you now…

“It’s fine, Nar,” Kur said, unaware of his thoughts. “Don’t worry about it. Just know that we’re all here for you.”

“Thanks,” Nar said, looking down.

“Now, what I wanted to talk with you about, was how you feel about the changes you’re making, and how it impacts your path. Are you happy about it? Do you feel forced into it? Is this what you want?”

Nar smiled at the party leader.

“I appreciate you asking, Kur, but don’t worry. This is my decision. Gad just helped me put it into words and action, and open my eyes to what was right in front of me.”

Kur nodded.

“Gad would die for us without hesitation, and her mind is quite something. But that being said, only you yourself know what's best for you. Gad, or me, or anyone else, always remember that, and that it’s your path you’re building.”

“I know. Gad didn’t convince me,” Nar said. “I already knew, deep down, that I was going about it all wrong. It just took some time to realize that I was being stubborn. Holding on to an idea and an imagination from when I was still in the cubeplant… Reality is different, and I needed to adapt.”

“And?”

“And I’m happy to make these changes. It’s what I need and what the party needs. If I regret it, I can always make changes when I get out,” Nar said, grinning. “I like these attributes, and I’m not worried about them. They will always be useful. Plus, I’m honestly interested in the possibilities. I think this path is good. At least for now, and if I can make it work.”

Kur nodded along, slowly, and smiled as Nar concluded.

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“I thought so as well,” Kur said. “But I wanted to hear your opinion first, without swaying you with mine. For what’s worth, I think that you’ve stepped into a crazy great path. More than you can imagine right now. That [Constitution], skill, and movement and senses attributes? It’s like if you got the best out of Gad, Jul and Viy and merged it together into one crazy path.”

Nar snorted.

“They’re still much better at what they do than me,” Nar said.

“Yes, they are, but you’re not trying to do the same thing, are you?” Kur said, and gestured at his bloodied legs. “You’re doing something else entirely. It looks like you’re trying to do what they do, but I truly think that this is something completely different. And every time you fail, and stumble where they succeed, you need to remember that. You’re making your own path, beyond the traditional roles. So hang in there, and keep going. And remember, whatever this is that you’re building, there is a place for it in the party. A role only you can do, and have been doing all this time.”

Nar swallowed against the sudden lump that formed in his throat.

“I’m telling you. I’m really happy you came to our party. And any party would love to have you. They can’t have you, though. You’re ours!” Kur said.

Nar laughed and blinked away some moisture. “I’m not going anywhere, man.”

“Good. That’s what I wanted to hear,” Kur said. Then he frowned. “That’s one down. Now, I just need to figure out why that damned lengos is running back and forth like that.”

********

Days dragged by.

Gad, Jul and Cen protected them. Through their work and sacrifice, they gave the party the chance they needed to rest and recover.

For Nar, Tuk and Mul, it was also the chance to get better.

At the back of the party, where Nar and Tuk practiced, Mul had arranged a makeshift obstacle course with the pieces of the guardians that Cen blew apart. In the murky yellow darkness, he now spent most of his days running, jumping, punching, rolling and dodging through the small maze he had built for himself. Nar had even caught him doing kicks as well, something he had never seen the brawler do.

Mostly, Mul kept to himself, and left Tuk and Nar to it. Sometimes he would watch them, and he would snicker every time Nar got cut. After watching it a couple of times, he would then return to his own training.

Nar supposed that there were worse things he could be doing than serving as Mul’s entertainment and stress relief, so he never said anything.

Whenever they got tired, Nar and Tuk headed back to the group. There, Tuk would beg Cen to once again try the impossible task of teaching him how to use his [Aura].

“Come on, Cen, I’m so close! I can feel it!” Tuk, predictively, begged her as soon as they sat down.

“You were an operator. Of course you can feel it!” she threw at him.

“No, it really does feel different. Like it's right there, at the tip of my fingers. I just need that final push!”

“Ugh! What you need to do is wait for your damn magic!”

Still, she sat down with them and grabbed his hand. Nar only half watched, and yawned. He should be thinking about his own problems, but he was sick of it. He had spun and spun his brain in circles, thinking of senses, and attributes and how to use his sword differently. But he kept coming up empty.

Now, he just wanted to space out for a moment. Just for five minutes, have some peace and quiet inside his head. Surely that wasn’t a bad thing?

“Oh! I do feel it!” Cen shouted.

“See, I told you! I just need to push it out somehow…”

He held a ring in his outstretched palm and tightened his shoulder, as though his [Aura] was something physical he was trying to push out of him.

Well, that’s basically how it goes with the receptor, Nar thought, staring at the trugger, shaking with effort. But that’s a ring. How do we even know it can take in aura like a staff does?

To be fair, none of them understood how Cen’s staff did it either.

A few minutes later, Tuk relaxed and hunched forward, breathing hard.

“Why is it not working?”

“I don’t know,” Cen said, with a shrug. “All I do is push. It’s basically the same as with the receptor.”

She brought out her staff and demonstrated for him.

“Maybe I don’t have enough [Aura] yet?” Tuk asked. The raw desire in his eyes as he stared at the gathered [Aura] was unmissable.

“I don’t know… But I don’t think so. I’ve had the skill from the start, and my [Aura] was much less then, a lot less than yours is now.”

Tuk sighed. “Then what am I missing?”

He got into position again and concentrated on the ring in his hand. Nar watched him out of the corner of his eyes, his mind only half following along with what the two of them were doing.

“Try to push harder,” Cen whispered. “Imagine it’s the receptor.”

“Hghn!”

Tuk gripped his wrist with his other hand and bent down towards the ring.

“You can do it!” Cen said.

But Tuk collapsed, breathing hard, and covered his mouth.

“Oh, no! Too much?” Cen asked.

Tuk raised a hand to ask for time, and downed big gulps of air.

Nar patted his back gently. Aura sickness was something all operators bonded over.

“Why is it not coming out?” Tuk muttered. “I push and push, and nothing.”

“Tuk…” Cen said, grimacing in sympathy. “Maybe it just can’t be done. And that’s probably a good thing.”

“No. I know it's possible. I feel it. The System wouldn’t give me something I can’t use. There has to be a way!”

Nar pursed his lips.

Tuk had been saying that a lot, and he didn’t like that idea at all. He much preferred to think that it was a useless attribute, a sadistic punishment, rather than consider that the System was giving him [Aura] with the intention of him having to use it.

He pushed the thought away, and as he did, something clicked.

“Show me again, please, how you push it,” Tuk said, leaning forward to get a closer look at her staff.

“Maybe that’s it,” Nar muttered.

“What is?”

Nar blinked and found the two of them staring at him.

“I-I…”

“Come on, if you have an idea, out with it,” Tuk said.

“I, well, I just thought that maybe you should do it differently,” Nar said. He pointed at Cen’s staff. “Cen pushes her [Aura] into that, and it builds up at the tip. We used to push it into the receptor, because it received aura from our bodies. But you have those rings. You do that…”

Nar raised his hand and half spun, half wiggled his index finger.

“...weird thing with your fingers.”

“It’s not weird. It’s just how you spin and toss them,” Tuk said.

“Exactly! Why don’t you spin them? Or spin your [Aura] into them. You know, like you do the weird thing.”

“I don’t do a weird thing,” Tuk said, but his attention had shifted to the ring in his hand.

“It makes sense?” Cen said. She too stared at the ring. “I mean, it sounds crazy, but it's a crazy that somehow sounds logical?”

Tuk covered his mouth and thought about it.

“Do I spin the ring, or the [Aura]?”

Nar’s eyes widened at the question.

“I-I don’t know? Both? Maybe if they are in sync that’s when it works?”

Tuk ran the ring through his finger and spun it. Slowly at first, but quickly gaining speed, until the ring was nothing more than a blurry line of faint shining yellow around his finger. He brought his hand closer to his face, and half-closed his eyes, focusing.

Nar and Cen waited in silence, their hearts beating strangely quickly.

A faint glimmer of gray spread over the ring.

“Holy shit!”

Cen’s shout startled the two of them.

Tuk lost control over his ring, and it shot out past Nar’s face.

It ricocheted against the walls with a loud, clear, metallic ting, ting, ting, and punched into Mul’s training ground.

“What the fuck was that?” they heard him shout.

“What happened?” Gad asked.

Everyone came running towards them.

“He did it!” Nar shouted, not believing what he had just seen. “He used his [Aura]!”

Tuk pumped his fist into the air.

“Yes! I did it!”

“Really?” Kur asked. “Are you serious?”

“I-I saw it!” Cen said, her eyes wide. “It shone. The ring shone!”

“Crystal…” Gad whispered. “This is…”

“Impossible!” Kur said.

“No, it’s not. And it was all thanks to Nar!” Tuk said, slapping his back.

“I just blurted something out!” Nar said in shock.

Tuk stood up.

“Always easier looking in, man! Come on! Your turn!”

“I-What?”

“Come on,” Tuk said, looking at him. “I’m going to help you! I have an idea too!”

“What? You just figured the [Aura] thing out!” Nar shouted. “Come back! Try again before you forget!”

“I won’t, come on! Quick!”

At his insistence, and under the stunned eyes of Cen, Gad, Kur and Jul, Nar stood up.

“Alright. Alright! At least watch where you are walking!”

The corridor at the back of the party was strewn with guardian bits and parts. Blades, legs, and wires were all jutting out from haphazard piles and tangles, from which Mul continually expanded and improved his training area.

Tuk turned to flash him a grin and show him a thumbs up. Just as Nar had predicted, he tripped.

Nar caught him as he was about to kiss the floor.

“See! Come on! Relax! Just go do your thing!” Nar said.

Tuk sat down and grinned at him. Like a happy child that had just pulled a prank on someone.

“Did you see what just happened there?” he asked Nar.

“Yeah, I caught you before you damaged your brains even further!”

Tuk laughed and looked behind him.

“Did you all see it?”

“I did,” Gad said.

“How did you do that?” Kur asked.

“What are you talking about?” Nar asked, growing in confusion.

“I don’t think he’s going to get it,” Tuk said, and stood up.

Kur pointed at the floor right in front of him. “Nar, you were right here. How did you get over there so fast?”

Nar blinked.

“I always move fast.”

“Exactly!” Tuk said. “Gad, take it from here!”

Gad gave him a thumbs up.

“Nar, you’re fast. Probably the fastest in the party. And you have the quickest reaction too, thanks to your high [Reflex],” she said. “It’s how you stop things before they hit us. It’s how you run circles around the party, being everywhere you need to be. You’re using your attributes.”

Nar made a face.

“Think about it, in all these days of training, how’s your stamina been?”

His face dropped. The flash of insight and knowledge hit him like that guardian had.

“It's full,” Nar whispered. “Or not anymore, because I’ve just used some of it. I used it to power my [Speed]. I haven’t been using my attributes!”

“You’ve been as slow as Mul, man,” Tuk said, laughing.

“Hey! I’m working on it!” Mul grunted.

“But attributes are not something you use. It just happens. You want to hit harder, and your [Strength] just does it...” Nar said.

“I told you. You’re thinking too much,” Gad said. “You just need to let it happen. Come on, once and for all, just do it! Tuk, shoot him!”

“With pleasure!” he said. “Come on, go over there.”

Still unsure and frozen by the sudden realization, Tuk had to gently turn him and push him along.

Nar had only taken a few steps when his [Instinct] shouted in alarm.

The sword was in his hand, and he twisted, slashing at the incoming danger before he could even think about it.

Ting!

The sword and ring met and the little flying disc shot off against the wall, where it bounced, and returned to Tuk’s hand.

The trugger smiled at Nar, who was frozen in his stance.

He hadn't even thought about pulling the sword from storage. He hadn't even thought about how he was going to move, or how he was going to swing his sword. He had just done it. Just like that.

“You’ve been doing this since the beginning,” Tuk said. “You are what you do. The System just made you better at it. You walked into an army of cannibals for Crystal’s sake! How do you think you came out alive?”

“I used my [Instinct]...”

“And [Speed]. And [Agility]. And [Reflex]. And [Strength],” Gad said, raising a finger for each. “[Hearing]. [Sight]. And most important of all, your experience. It's been months, Nar. Months.”

“It’s been rough for all of us, but I think you take the bonus,” Tuk said.

Nar started from one to another.

“That’s it? I was thinking too hard?”

“Looking in man, looking in,” Tuk said.

“You’d be surprised how much damage you can do, when you get stuck in your own head,” Gad said.

Kur nodded. “Gotta agree with that.”

“All that flailing about, and doing that weird stuff with your wrists. Now that was weird,” Tuk said.

“Thinking too hard? Just thinking…”

Nar stared at his sword. His mind had gone blank.

“I think our hybrid boy is going to need a moment,” Tuk said. “Cen, want to help me again?”

“Yes! Get your ass over here before you forget how you did it!”

Tuk laughed and walked away, leaving Nar stuck in the same position, looking into the colorful depths of his blade.

His brain stuttered and tried to resume functioning, but it took several tries. Eventually, the first thought managed to finally form.

Am I just dumb?