“Okay, that’s it! Viy, stab it!”

Viy shouted and pushed her spear into one of the soldier’s weak spots. It didn’t go in as easily or as deep as Wik’s attacks went, but it still had an effect.

The soldier roared in anger, but as it shook off Gad’s aggro, the tank hit him with the second charge of her skill. The guardian was forced to forget about Viy and her spear.

“That skill has a cooldown of 2 minutes, right?” Kur asked, talking about the guardian’s anti-aggro effect.

He and Tas stood in the middle of the formation. Tas gave the commands, and Kur asked questions and listened to him.

“Exactly! Which will give Gad enough time to recharge her taunt charges. We don’t need to worry about another guardian, because nothing’s getting past that massive thing in this narrow corridor. And worst-case scenario, we have Nar.”

It was their fifth fight.

Five days had passed since Tas had turned everything upside down with his revelation.

Kur had explained to him how everything worked in the party, and the role each one played in detail. For the most part, Tas had agreed with everything. Nar had feared what the more experienced party leader would have to say about the choices he had made, but it had been in vain.

“That’s incredible!” Tas had said. “So that's what you were doing. You can actually stop those bolts!”

“More than that,” Kur said with pride. “Nar was critical to crossing that bridge. He kept both the bolts and the guardians away from Tuk. You should’ve seen it!”

Nar shifted awkwardly under the praise, but inside, he was happy that Tas approved of him. Even proud.

“However, for now, let’s rely on Rel to stop those poisoners,” Tas said. “No need to risk your life like this. This is all just the beginning, right? I heard you plan on going into the Labyrinth, so no need to take such risks now, eh?”

And just like that, Nar had returned to his usual position at the back of the party. And he had gone smiling.

Jul now hung back to stay with him, and so did Rel, as she said it gave her a better view of the fight. Plus, she confessed that she felt safe with Nar covering their back, and he had found no reason to push her away.

Kur and the others had helped him forge his path. But to receive confirmation, and even admiration, from Tas and Rel? It somehow felt bigger. More important. More real. Like the first true sign that he was doing something right.

“Should Mul try and hit another leg?” Kur asked.

“Yeah, that sounds good. It might speed things up before Wik gets back. Mul, try to hit one of those legs. Trust your fists! You can do it!”

Tas was like the perfect leader. He did everything Kur did, but just that much better. He knew more, and like he had said, he seemed to spot things nobody else did. Things even Nar and Jul missed with their senses.

Sometimes though, Nar found himself frowning at Kur.

He had given away his party leader’s position so easily. Nar knew that it was meant to be temporary. But as the days wore on, he felt like more and more, Kur was stepping further and further back, and letting Tas take over.

“Okay, Mul, step back. Tuk, Cen, hit that spot. Viy, you focus on your own side!” Tas said.

A chorus of yeses sounded around him, and the party scrambled to obey him.

Nar was split. It was good to learn, but was Kur just learning, or was he discreetly stepping down? It had been five days. Surely Kur had learned enough by now? At least to take back the leadership while still asking Tas whatever questions he had.

And what if he doesn’t want to? What if he just wants to be taken all the way up? Is that so bad? Nar wondered. Maybe I can do it too? I have the beginnings of my path. My skills are okay, and my attributes are looking as good as they can. I could just let these three guide me up… Then, I just need to find someone who can teach me how to use my sword. From there, I can…

And just like that, any thoughts about Kur evaporated.

Everyone seemed to be having a much nicer time too. Cen had slowly recovered, and was looking forward to level 20.

Tas had warned her that her use of [Aura] might have delayed her gaining magic, but he was certain she would still get it. As for Tuk, he was happy to let Tas lead him in making the best out of his rings as they were. Which, in fairness, was a lot.

The DPS managed to down the guardian before Wik came back, though Tas told them they could do even better.

“Tomorrow, we’ll go faster! We’ll go harder! I know we can do it!”

More yeses. Even cheering. That being Tuk, of course.

“Wik!” Tas said. “What took you so long?”

“Another one showed up,” Wik said, in his usual gruffness. “I took care of it though.”

“Hey! You should have come back and let Rel handle it!”

“Sorry.”

“Sorry. Sorry. That’s all you say. Can’t you use your head a bit?”

“...Sorry.”

“Of for the love of…”

The party laughed in good cheer, and when Tuk slapped Wik’s back, he managed to look as unimpressed as Mul.

“You, spear girl,” Wik suddenly said. “You’re okay, but it can be better. Follow me.”

Gad stepped in front of Viy. “Hey, you can’t just…”

Viy placed a hand on her shoulder, surprising the tank. In fact, surprising everyone else.

“It’s okay, I want to learn,” Viy said.

Gad simply stared at her. Nar was as stunned as she was.

“Are you sure?” Gad asked.

“Yes. I should get better. I should be better,” Viy said.

Gad seemed to stare into Viy’s eyes for a moment, then she nodded.

“I’ll be close.”

“Thank you.”

Viy walked towards Wik, but the spearman stopped her with his spear.

“What am I doing?” he asked.

“Stopping me?” she answered, confused.

“Yes and no. Watch.”

He moved his spear from side to side, forming a wide semi-circle around him. He walked forward, and Viy was forced to step back.

“This is an area-of-denial. It’s one of the advantages of two-handed weapons, and the spear makes it easier than most. Once you get more attributes, and become more of a threat, you can even do a sort of tanking like this.”

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“I can tank?” Viy asked, in a high-pitched tone.

“She can tank? Gad asked.

“Not like you,” Wik said. “Not like Nar, either. But she can stop the guardians. Keep them away from the party. Deny them passage. You understand?”

“I think so,” Viy said.

Tas smiled. “Come on, guys. We still have a bit of walking to do. Teach her on the way.”

He looked and caught Nar’s attention.

“Why don’t we swap for a bit? Nar, walk with me in the front. Do you mind Gad?”

Gad looked at Viy.

“Go on, I’ll be fine,” Viy said.

Gad looked not very enthusiastic about the idea, but she did as she was told.

“I’m going to walk with Nar for a bit,” Tas told Kur. “Keep revising what we’ve been talking about.”

“Got it!”

“Come on, Nar! Let’s go do a bit of scouting.”

“Eh?”

Nar looked at Jul, who stared back at him in panic.

“Don’t worry. These guardians can’t really surprise me anymore. Come on!”

Nar nodded at Jul, trying to ease her obvious discomfort, and ran after Tas.

The two of them walked until the light of the path dimmed almost to nothing behind them, and Nar had to use his stamina to sense his way forward.

“How can you walk in the dark?” he asked Tas.

“I have some [Sight] too. You unlock a lot of stuff at level 20. Wait for it, it’s going to be awesome. I promise!”

“I can’t wait!”

Tas laughed, and Nar copied him.

Nar was still not sure what it was about Tas, but he felt so at ease with him. Almost more than with the others even.

He wondered if it was because Tas was from a different cubeplant, and thus was a stranger to the whole Clean/Unclean situation. Plus, his views on the Crystal seemed to closely match Nar’s own. He had actually noticed that neither Tas, nor the other two for that fact, ever mentioned the Crystal by name. Even alluding to it seemed to evoke dark feelings, and Nar couldn’t agree more with them.

Also, Tas had more than likely saved his path. He had been growing more and more tempted by the promise of quick power that his [Aura] offered, and the guilt had grown and grown within him, reaching an unbearable weight… He was more than happy to finally shed it.

It in itself was a guilty thought, but Nar was happy that he had met the red skinned party leader when they had.

“By the way, the stuff back there, with Jul. It’s nice. She clearly likes you. You’re probably the first one to show her what family actually means,” Tas suddenly said.

“I-What?”

“Family. She probably looks at you like a brother, if I’m not too mistaken.”

Nar stopped abruptly, which forced Tas to stop too.

A brother? Family? What in the Crystal’s name…

“I’ve seen it too often,” Tas said. “In the cubeplant. We know what's happening. We see the signs. The bruises… But we close our eyes. Pretend we don’t see anything. Nothing can disturb the line, am I right?”

He nudged Nar and they started walking again.

“Even out here, away from those so-called parents, it's hard to break out of the years of abuse and pain. I’m happy to see Jul the way she is now. I can only imagine she’s much different than she was at the beginning.”

Nar hesitated for a breath, then he nodded. “She barely talked or touched anyone, when we first met her.”

“Wow. That’s an amazing improvement! Keep at it man, you’re clearly having a good influence on her.”

Nar smiled. “It’s mutual.”

“Even better!”

They walked in silence for a few more minutes.

“You want to ask something,” Tas said.

“How’d you know?” Nar asked him, surprised.

“I want to say it’s my amazing mind, but the truth is, you kinda look like Wik when he wants to ask a question. Worried, and slightly dumb.”

“Ouch.”

“I’m messing. Go on, ask away.”

Nar looked behind them. They stayed within sight of the line, but maybe they were far enough that they could talk.

“Well… I just… I mean, I don’t mean to be rude…”

“Ah,” Tas said, nodding to himself. “You want to ask about Rel.”

“I… Yes. What happened to her?”

Tas scratched his chin.

“Well, something did happen to her. Though not just her.”

“What do you mean?” Nar asked, frowning.

“Well, the short end of it is that she’s sick,” Tas revealed. “It’s a disease that is slowly eating at her. It ages her. Makes her lose her hair, her voice. It even affects her attributes. Not even [Constitution] helps.”

“Damn…” Nar whispered.

“Yeah… It’s pretty bad, and the sickness affects every alfin, and not just the ones from our cubeplant,” Tas said. “There’s no escape, and no exception. It can hit you young, or older. But unless you die in an accident or something, you will get it at some point.”

Tas inhaled sharply.

“She was beautiful, you know. She could take your breath away with a smile. But out here, the disease progressed much faster than it was supposed to. Her hope was to get out and find help. A healer. A cure. Anything.”

He spoke so intently that he missed Nar’s expression change. The way he pressed his lips together. The way his eyes widened.

“She’s saved my life so many times already, and I swore to myself I would do everything to get her out! To find the cure and save her. To restore her! You understand?”

Nar nodded. He did. He understood very well. More than Tas could ever know.

“But we were running out of time. I took risks. I told her to sleep. To skip her watch. She had been sick, you know. Puking her guts out. And I just wanted her to rest…”

Nar squeezed his shoulder. “It was not your fault.”

“You don’t know how much I want to believe that,” Tas whispered. “But we lost six people. Six amazing, most precious people. They didn’t deserve it, Nar! They didn’t!”

Nar shook his head. He didn’t know what he could say in the face of such raw sorrow. Maybe even love.

His sword was in his hand and swinging just as [Instinct] warned him.

He parried the arrow that flew straight at his heart.

“Get back!” he shouted, pushing Tas behind him. “Help! Help!”

More arrows flew at them, but Nar parried them as easily as he did the poisoners bolts.

Arrows, though?

“Be careful! Those aren’t guardians!” Tas shouted. “Help! Cannibals!”

The rest of the party came running in, bringing in the light with them.

“Careful, it looks like they have Climber weapons!” Tas said.

“At least multiple bows!” Nar added, just Gad took an arrow on her shield.

“Tas, I’m taking over!” Kur said.

“I…”

“Jul, how many?” Kur asked.

Jul closed her eyes and focused. “A lot. More than thirty. Forty? No, fifty?”

“Too many,” Kur said. “Cen. Tuk. I hate to do this to you, but we can’t let them get close. They’ll destroy us.”

“It’s okay. I’m ready!” Cen said.

“Me too!” Tuk said, spinning his four rings, already shining.

“No, wait. You can’t!” Tas shouted.

“It’s okay!” Tuk told him, grinning. “The party needs us!”

The cannibals came running towards them, shouting and howling in a chaos of noise that echoed through the corridors and made Nar’s ears tremble.

“Tuk. Cen. Don’t let them reach us.”

“Never,” Cen said.

While she charged her [Aura Projectile], Tuk stepped forward and let his rings fly.

It was a massacre.

The rings cut through the cannibals as if they weren’t there, and Cen’s [Aura Projectiles] blew them into chunks and bloody, charred bits.

Up close, they would’ve been a thread. These newer, stronger cannibals could have taken them down on sheer weight and numbers alone. But at range, they were just targets.

Nar grinned.

It was a grim sight on his face, illuminated by [Aura] explosions, but he couldn’t deny the satisfaction of seeing those failed, traitorous, Climbers put down. He could forgive them for failing, but not for turning on others and ending their Climbs. And not for everything else they did… It was unforgivable. And with every cannibal dead, less were the chances of some other party suffering the same fate that Tas and his people had suffered.

In a matter of moments, it was all over. Tuk and Cen still breathed normally. It had been effortless.

“Well,” Tas said in the silence. “I can see why [Aura] is so tempting. That was… Something.”

Tuk smiled at him. “Guess you got to see it after all!”

“I did! It was impressive, I can’t deny that. But think about the magic!” Tas cautioned. “For now, we can use your [Aura] when we really need to. Okay?”

“We know,” Cen said. “But we will still protect our party.”

Tuk nodded at that.

“You have a good party, here,” Tas said to Kur.

“You too. You’re one of us now, remember?”

Tas swallowed and looked away.

“I… Thank you. That means a lot to me...”

They walked for an hour, until the corpses were far enough behind them, and stopped for the night.

“I have a selfish request to make,” Tas said. “Of you, Jul?”

Jul half-hide behind Nar.

“M-Me?”

“Yes. By now you must all suspect that Rel is sick. Every day she gets worse and worse. And it’s affecting her attributes. Especially her senses…”

All of them turned to look at the archer. Rel stood at the back of the party, staring at her feet. Her scarred face was impenetrable.

“I need to ask you to watch over us during the night. The whole night, I meant. I’m scared we’re still surrounded by cannibals, and until we’re sure we’re clear of them, we need someone with good senses to watch over us while we sleep. To make sure we don’t get… Surprised.”

His face was a mask of pain and Nar found himself nodding without hesitation.

“I’ll take turns with her. I’m not as good. But I’m good enough.”

“No. I’m sorry, Nar. But we need you well rested,” Tas said. “You’re going to have to start taking those bolts again.”

“Ah,” Nar said, glancing at Rel. “Yes. That's… Okay. Don’t worry.”

Tas looked at Jul again, and grimaced.

“I’m sorry. I’ll carry you myself during the day, so you can sleep.”

Jul thought about it for a moment. “I’ll do it. But only if Nar carries me.”

“I’ll do it!” Nar said immediately. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep you safe.”

“Thanks, Jul,” Kur said. “We appreciate it.”

“I know it's dangerous, but is that really needed?” Gad asked. “She’ll be exhausted! There’s no way she can sleep on someone's back!”

“I’ll be okay!” Jul said.

“But…”

“Only for a while,” Tas pleaded with Gad. “Just until we get away from these corridors. If Jul gets too tired, we’ll stop and rest for the day.”

Gad pursed her lips. She wasn’t happy, and she wanted to fight it. But she knew that the decision was already taken.

“Fine! But if she gets too tired, we’re stopping. And I’m making that call!”

“Of course!” Tas said. “You know her better than I do.”

Gad muttered something under her breath that to Nar sounded a lot like “Damned right I do!”, but the decision was made.

As they lay down to sleep, Nar patted Jul’s leg. Very briefly.

“Thank you.”

“It’s all good. Sleep well. You need to fight tomorrow.”

“And carry you,” he said, with a half-smile. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep you safe so you can sleep.”

“I know. Go on. Sleep.”

Nar sighed and closed his eyes.

If things keep going like this, maybe the rest of this Climb won’t be so bad. Maybe we can really do this.

With a bit of a smile, Nar turned to the side, and was soon asleep.