Conversations.

Hunger.

Madness.

Screams.

The splitting pain in his head brought him in and out of it. From senseless to delirium, and into senselessness again.

At some point, there was bright purple. Purple everywhere. Blinding and painful, and he shut his eyes against it, to keep it out of his dreams.

And the screams! The screams…

It was too much!

Then he was somewhere darker. Quieter.

They threw him down and he gasped awake into the nightmare.

The ceiling blurred and danced above him. Something dark, and of a dirty white color.

“Nar? Are you okay?”

“Tuk?” Nar managed.

“Yeah, man. It’s me. Are you okay? That was a nasty hit.”

Hit?

Cannibals. Jul. Rel. Tas. Wik.

He sat upright and pulled his sword from storage, ready to start slashing. Instead, his hand grasped nothing.

The rest of the memories flooded him, and he stared at his empty fist, breathing hard.

I failed. I failed again… Maybe for the last time.

“Nar?” Tuk asked. “Are you okay? You’re not bleeding anymore from all those injuries, but that hit to the head… That was bad. How do you feel?”

His head? What did it matter? Soon it would be split open and cannibals would slurp his brain, trading jokes as they feasted on his flesh.

“Nar?”

Nar? Another voice, in another place, calling for him.

Nar grabbed Tuk.

“Where’s Jul? Is she here?”

“Woah! No, man. Don’t worry. You got her out,” Tuk said. “That stuff you did there at the end? You opened a way for her and she managed to slip through.”

Nar’s head swam and he leaned down against Tuk’s chest.

“Thank Crystal,” he whispered. That was some small mercy at least.

Tuk patted his back. “No, Nar. Thank you. Every time I think you’re done surprising me, you do it again. Can’t believe you carried her back like that.”

“It wasn’t enough. I should have done better.”

“Better? Come on, that’s just not possible.”

“I could’ve used my [Aura]. I have so much of it. More than you. More than Cen!”

“What? But-But how?”

Nar gasped and pulled back from Tuk.

“And you! I should’ve told you!” Nar said, the words bubbling out of him. “I know what happened at the bridge. It wasn’t your fault! You didn’t have time!”

Tuk went pale. “You saw?”

“I did! And it was not your fault! There was nothing you could have done!”

“Oh, but there was… You didn’t see the whole thing,” Tuk said, looking away.

“What do you mean? You just missed…”

Tuk shook his head.

“It looked like that, yes. But the real reason was that there was another one… Another guardian. And it was aiming at five people, and the other one was aiming at just one. Don’t ask me how I know it. I’m a ranged DPS, I just did. I could tell the trajectories. And in the moment, I had to choose… Five, or one.”

Nar sat back down, heavily.

“You had to choose?” he repeated.

“I had. And I did.”

Nar raised his hands to his forehead, stunned at the revelation, his brain quaking in pain within his too tight skull.

“But-But you choose the right option! You saved more of them!” he said.

“No, Nar. The right option was to save them all,” Tuk said. “I just wasn’t strong enough. I could only use two rings back then. If I was able to use just one more, it would’ve been enough to save them all. But I couldn’t do it. Because I wasted weeks thinking about whether or not I should or shouldn’t use [Aura].”

“And you were right! There’s magic, Tuk!”

Tuk scoffed. “That just made me feel worse, man. I sacrificed my chances at magic, and I couldn’t even save her life.”

“You saved all of us!”

“Not all,” Tuk said. “Not all.”

“But…”

Tuk smiled thinly at him. “It’s alright Nar. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

He motioned to something behind Nar. With a sinking feeling, Nar remembered where he was, and what had happened. His thoughts finally fell into place. Coherent and doomed.

He was inside a box of some kind. It was made out of a strangely polished yellow material, reminiscent of the bone daggers the cannibals used. The sides were comprised of bars, arranged in uneven rows to make sure he couldn’t pass through them, but spaced wide enough so that those outside could look in.

And look in they did.

Tas and Wik stood in the middle of what appeared to be some sort of mismatched ashen cloth construction, the dominant colors being ashen brown, purple and red. Bits and pieces of guardians were mashed together to form columns of some sort that held the cloth up.

The floors were covered in more of the mismatched cloth, and a bright purple light shone through the clothed walls.

Wik, sucking on something white and pinkish, opened his arms wide when Nar looked at him.

“Hi! Now that everyone’s awake and focused, welcome to the end of the Climb,” he said, talking through whatever it was he had in his mouth. “It's the worst end possible, but, oh well, there have been plenty of others before you, and there will be plenty more after. So don’t feel too bad about it, okay?”

Nar looked around him and found the rest of the party in their own strange boxes. Gad was with Cen. Mul was with Kur, who was propped against the back of their box, breathing hard and pale and clutching at his side. And lastly, Viy sat alone in a smaller box.

“You’re a cannibal,” Kur said. His voice was low, a wisp almost.

Wik pulled out the thing from his mouth.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“What gave it away?” Wik asked, waving it around. “The bone? The eyes?”

As mentioned, his eyes had changed from a human dark brown to a sort of purplish brown.

Nar thought back to the cannibals they had fought to protect the cubeplant. Their eyes had shined purple, but at the time, he had simply thought it was due to the purple arrows. Now, it seemed he had been wrong.

“Can you put that thing away?” Tas asked.

Wik sighed and sucked the bone wetly back into his mouth.

“It's just a snack, damn it. I’ve had it with those fucking crackers. A person needs meat!” he muttered.

“Come on, Wik! Enough!” Tas said.

Wik made a dramatic expression.

“Enough, Wik. Enough!” he said, mocking the zeibar.

Tas sighed and looked at Kur.

“Look, guys. This is nothing personal…”

“It's not? Then why don’t you open this thing and we can chat about it?” Mul asked.

“I can’t. That’s the point I’m trying to make. We got captured too!” Tas said. “They tortured and ate all the others, and then the boss gave us a choice. Work with them, or satisfy them. What else were we supposed to do?”

Shocked silence met his words.

“Yeah, I thought so. Not so easy to judge, is it?” Tas asked, looking defeated.

Wik spat out the bone, and it thudded with a muffled sound on the clothed floor.

“Fuck, man. You make me sick.”

Fear took over Tas' face and he took a step back from Wik. “Wait! I…”

Wik blurred and punched Tas. Before Tas could fall down, Wik grabbed him by the hair and pulled, offering his bloody face to the party.

“Look at this guy! He always does this!” he snarled.

He grabbed Tas' jaw and forced it open and shut.

“Oh! Look at me. I’m Tas. I’m so innocent! I’m sorry I captured you guys. I had no choice. I don’t eat Climbers. I don’t torture anybody! I’m a good guy!”

Wik let go of his face and punched him hard again.

Once, twice, thrice.

He let go of Tas and he crumbled, whimpering at his feet.

“He always comes in here to apologize. To beg forgiveness and tell our sob story. But what’s that you never tell them, Tas? Hmm?”

Wik kicked him, and Tas curled into a ball, moaning.

“What he doesn’t tell you, is that two cute cannibals have taken a liking to him. And so did he. He’s gonna go straight from here to them. And you know what? They’re all going to have a great time. All. Night. Long!”

Wik kicked him again and Tas spat out a glob of blood.

“Well, not tonight you are!” Wik said. “If you ask me, you're the sickest of all of us. Rel at least has a real excuse, and I at least am honest about it. I torture. I fuck. I eat. But you… You still think you’re the better of us. Still think you’re some Climber or something… But how many actual Climbers have you brought in by now, uh? Genuine question, cause there’s so many I’ve lost the count.”

Tas crawled to one of the misshapen pillars and pulled himself up. Without another look or word at any of them, he wheezed and panted his way out.

“Yeah, that’s right. They’ll kiss it better!” Wik shouted after him. “Careful! They might bite, though!”

He took a deep breath and looked around at the stunned faces that stared wide eyed at him.

“Right, I’m sorry you had to see that. I just can’t stand him,” he said. “Don’t worry, he’ll be very happy soon. Anyways, now that it’s just us, we can have a proper chat. So ask away! Go on, don’t be shy!”

“Are you insane?” Tuk blurted.

“Good first question! And you know what, I do get that a lot. The answer is…” he shrugged. “I’m not sure. Maybe, who knows? I do eat people after all. Anyways, boring question. Next?”

He looked around at them, making a show of being some top-level manager who had come to grace the low-born workers under them with their presence.

“No? Alright, I’ll just carry on then.”

He sat himself down on the floor, facing them all equally in an easy posture.

“So, before we start, I’d just like to say that me explaining all this stuff is just for my benefit, okay? I love it. I absolutely love it when after a good haul - that’s what we call it, you know, baiting you suckers - I get to sit down with you and rub in your faces all the signs you missed, all the lies you swallowed, and all the ways in which you now find yourselves here,” he said, clapping his hands like a happy child. “I’ve found that it really adds a little something to the activities that are going to be following. That might have to wait for tomorrow though. I made sure no one will touch you until the boss gets here. He’s absolutely going to love you guys. You’re the strongest party we’ve hauled so far and… Oh, man! I can’t wait to tell him how we did it! He does love a good story! Anyways, you guys first.”

Nar watched all this as if from a nightmare. He couldn't move. He couldn’t speak. He didn’t want to listen to this insane cannibal. But he couldn’t do anything but stare and listen.

“So. Let's go back to that first day when you saved us,” Wik said. “Funny thing is, you were not supposed to. And you want to know what's even funnier? We didn’t even know you guys were there! You came to us. In the dark! Now, whose fantastic idea was that? Come on, don’t be shy! Who do we all have to thank for being here tonight?”

Nobody said a word. Nobody even looked at Nar. But Nar betrayed himself by looking at the floor with a shattered expression.

It’s my fault. It's all my fault. If we had just ignored them…

Wik laughed out in delight.

“Nar! Of course it had to be you!”

The cannibal crawled to him and reached into the box. Nar and Tuk backed away to the back of the box, pushing away from Wik’s proffered hand.

“Oh, don’t be afraid! I just want to thank you! After I hand you to the boss, I’ll finally be promoted. A party leader! No more of this baiting and pretending to be a Climber. I’ll be an Other, true and through! So shake my hand? No? Alright, alright. I’ll check again later. These things take time.”

He crawled back to his spot in the middle of the strange cloth construction.

Nar, curled with Tuk at the back of the box, watched him with shock filled eyes. His heart hammered at his ears. Wik had moved so fast. It had caught him completely by surprise. How was he doing it? He was supposed to be cut off from the System!

“Anyways, where was I? Hmmmm… Ah! Yes, so you guys found us, and you saved us,” Wik continued. “We hadn’t expected to be attacked out in the dark where we were, and Tuk’s [Aura] rings made things complicated for us. You see, usually, we avoid Climber parties that have learned to use [Aura]. It’s just too much trouble, you know. Not worth the hassle.”

“What do you mean?” Cen asked. “What do you mean by learned to use [Aura]?”

“Ooooooh!” Wik said, clapping his hands in delight again. “You’re going to love that one. But be patient! I’m building up to it.”

“What? Just tell…”

Wik uncoiled in one, long, sinuous movement. Nar watched, wide eyed, the spearman go from sitting, to jumping at Cen and Gad’s box in less than a second. He landed with a foot on the brown clothed floor and one foot against the bars. Cen screamed as the box tilted backwards and slammed back down.

Gad scooped up the caster into her arms, where she trembled, too scared to utter a sound.

“I said be patient. I can’t just skip parts of the story, now, can I? Also, don’t bother Mul. Those boxes, cages we call them, are made to block your connection to the System. No attributes. No skills. Nothing!”

Nar sat up straight. He tried his [Sight]. He tried his [Hearing]. Nothing. Just like Wik had said.

He pulled up his UI, and again, nothing.

He tried it again and again, but his status never came up. He could still use his inventory, but his sword was not there.

Mul groaned and shouted, trying to break through the bars to get at Wik, or his sister.

“It’s quite something, isn’t it?” Wik said, looking at Mul’s dark face. “Why do you think we just dropped your weapons over there? To mess with you? Well, you’re right!”

Wik giggled and walked to the lengos. He flicked one of the bars, above Mul’s angry face.

“No idea how they make them… But I will, soon. Once I get promoted, I’ll be taken Home. The Home of the Others! Where the Truth will be revealed, and I will take my fate amongst the chosen of the boss!”

Wik laughed and panted, alternating between the need to breath and his maniac laugh.

“But I’m getting lost. Don’t interrupt me again.”

He sauntered about the place and came to lean on Viy’s box. Gad glared at him. They all did. Nar closed his hand around the hilt of his missing sword.

“Anyways, you’re making this a mess, and I'm getting bored. You saved us, lots of [Aura], blah blah blah!” he said, staring longingly at the spearwoman. “Anyways, the idiots fall for your little plan and run after you. But we three are smarter. We stay put. We think fast... What should we do? Rel wants to run away. Get back here. Get another party. I was inclined to follow her, you know, too much trouble and all that, but Tas though? He thought it was a great opportunity. The [Aura] parties are always the strongest! The boss usually hunts them himself, or he sends a bunch of his top leaders to do it. Usually, you guys would be way too much for us to handle. But!” he said, raising a finger in a dramatic pose. “But if we stuck to the plan, changed it a bit, yes, but stuck to it... If you took us in, if you heard our sob story, and if you trusted us… Then, that would be a different story, now, wouldn’t it? We would be able to get close. Just like we always do.”

He drummed his fingers against his chin, lost in his own storytelling.

“Rel was still against it, you know. She always is. She doesn’t want to hunt. She doesn’t eat. She doesn’t torture. She’s no fun… She’s tried to kill herself a couple of times, but that thing in her head always stops her, you know? Anyways, I’m the strongest. I eat and kill the most out of us. So, whatever I say, goes. Plus, I thought that Tas had come up with a good idea for once.”

Wik grinned and looked down at Kur. “You really fell for it, party leader. Damn! I’ve never seen anyone fall to Tas’ make believe as fast as you did. He told you he was some sort of genius, and that he had come up with all those ideas and strategies, and you really believed it. Truth is, Tas doesn’t know shit! All that stuff about the guardians and the fighting and what not, he learned it from the boss!

“What?” Kur whispered.

“That’s right. Tas didn’t know shit until the boss spent all that time teaching him,” Wik revealed. “Easier to enhance someone that is already a party leader, than make one from nothing. But I’ll change that! I have you now! The boss will pay attention to me now, and maybe, I can finally kill him! Ohh! If you knew what Tas is really like!”

Wik hugged himself and got lost in his own head. He muttered to himself, and seemed to have forgotten them.

Nar glanced at Kur. He could not describe Kur’s expression. He felt like he had been punched. He felt ill.

He had to look away.

Nar had never thought he would see his party leader cry.

“So, Tas got you sucked in. But we still needed to deal with Cen and Tuk,” Wik said, suddenly, picking up where he had left. “[Aura] users are the strongest Climbers. We couldn’t just throw Others at you. The boss is trying to build up. Not down. He would’ve been angry. Really angry. And we don’t want to see that…”

Wik shook his head violently.

“No, we don’t want that. So, what do we do? Magic!”

He snapped his fingers and pointed at Cen.

“What are you doing? There is magic! You are breaking your path!” Wik said, in a mockery of Tas’ voice.

Then he shrugged and grimaced at Cen. “Sorry. Turns out, there’s no magic… Who would’ve thought?”