Nar was jolted awake by a pinging sound.

Four more pings followed after it, and Nar’s drowsy mind slowly put their meaning together.

Jul found something, and she wants us to go to her.

After the escape, Kur had immediately set about establishing a list of simple signals that they could all use to communicate. It was another of his bitter regrets, that he had delayed it for so long, debating the pros and cons of the perfect system, that they had been caught without it.

“When Tas betrayed us, we had no way of telling each other anything,” Kur had told them. “You and Jul were running towards us, and we were trying to tell you to stay away. And we had no way of actually communicating. It was...”

He had shaken his head.

“Never again,” Jul had said.

“No, never again.”

In the end, he had opted for simplicity, and usability, as he should have done from the beginning. For example, the string of pings that Jul had just sent them through their party view, meant that she had found something, and was telling them that she wanted them to join her. At the same time, there was no signal that she was in danger or hurt.

It was simply a dozen signals all together, ordered by increasing counts, and they all had memorized it without issue. That simple communication allowed to them by the party view had already proved useful, and it would continue to do so.

Wait? How long has it been? Nar thought, still somewhat in the grasp of sleep. He felt a whole lot better already.

“Kur?” Gad asked. “What do you think she found?”

Nar looked about him and noticed that the others had fallen asleep in a circle around him, keeping him surrounded and covered from all sides.

His throat tightened at the sight, and he felt a warmth spread over him.

“The end, hopefully,” Kur said. “Nar’s still hurt, and she’s not here either. There’s no telling when they’re going to strike again.”

The party leader was right, it could be now or it could be days. There had been no discernible pattern to the five attacks they had so far endured in that corridor.

“I can fight,” Nar said, letting them know he was awake.

Kur stared at him with a critical eye. “You don’t have that much HP.”

Nar checked it quickly, and was unable to hide the disappointment that took his face.

“124.”

“Barely half,” Gad said. “Though I don’t know if we’ll have a choice in the matter.”

Kur frowned.

“We'll fight if we need to,” Kur said. “But if we do, we’ll be even worse off afterwards. I think our best option is to risk it, and go see what Jul found. Maybe it will be safer there. Could even be the end of this corridor. Thoughts?”

“I agree,” Gad said, standing up. “And I think Jul knows what she’s doing.”

“I thought the same,” Kur said.

And no one wanted to stay in that corridor any longer, so that was that.

“Guess it’s decided, then,” Kur said.

Light fingers brushed his shoulder and he looked for their owner, already knowing who it would be.

“How are you feeling?” Rel asked.

“Getting there,” Nar said. “How long was I asleep?”

“Almost five hours,” she answered, with a look of sympathy.

“What? And you just let me?” he said, aghast.

“What did you expect? You were cut with [Aura]! You needed to heal!” she threw at him, glaring. “You’re lucky it wasn’t worse!”

There was nothing he could say to that.

Rel was taken by a sudden yawn, and tried to hide it behind her hands.

“Did you manage to sleep?” Nar asked.

She shook her head. “No, I took the watch.”

Again? he thought to himself.

Rel stood up and reached out her hands for him to grab onto. He gratefully accepted it and let her pull him up. Slowly, and with delicate movements, she helped him stand, doing her best to avoid putting weight or pressure on his injured side.

“Thank you,” Nar said.

He took a few tentative steps, and tried twisting his torso. The wound had closed, leaving behind a strangely ugly and jagged line of angry dried scab. However, he could tell that things weren’t as patched up inside of him just yet, and his ribs still hurt from the soldier's blow as well. However, it was good enough.

“Careful,” Rel said, examining him as he went through the motions. “Don’t open anything back up!”

“It’s fine. Still a bit sore, but I think the worst of it is healed,” he said, lying to her face.

The same went for his head. It was heavy. Raw. But it was functioning and he was ready to let his [NPC] ravage him yet again if needed. Or so he hoped…

“That’s a tank’s [Constitution] for you. Had to receive something for all that effort,” she said.

“Barely,” Nar said, stretching gently. “And still missing [Toughness]. I don’t even know if I qualify as a tank.”

He glanced back at her.

“By the way…”

“Everyone ready?” Kur asked, cutting through the hubbub of separate conversations. “If so, let's get going. I don’t want us to be hit while we’re separated like this. Even with [Stealth], we shouldn’t leave Jul alone for so long.”

They swiftly got under way, walking through the darkness, guided by their path and only lifeline.

“What were you going to say?” Rel asked him, her words barely a whisper.

As usual, they walked at the back of the group, and without Jul around, Nar had his senses stretched out around him to their maximum reach. His head be damned, he wasn’t about to let them be ambushed.

“Me?” he asked, in an equally low tone of voice.

“Before Kur told us to move.”

“Oh. That?”

Nar scratched the back of his head, and she rolled her eyes at him.

“Yes. That. Whatever it is.”

“I… Hmmm. I’ll tell you later.”

Her eyebrows went up in surprise, but she nodded. “Alright.”

Nar gave her a half-smile and focused on the path at his feet.

He had been about to tell her that she should try to sleep.

He had noticed that she had more and more difficulty falling and staying asleep as of late. He wasn’t sure if it was the nightmares or her condition, but more and more, he went to sleep before her and woke to find her already up. She was also volunteering for the watches a lot more, something that he should probably talk about with Kur, though he doubted the party leader hadn’t noticed it.

However, still not understanding her condition, Nar wasn’t sure if he was just reaching out to someone else’s pile, and about to make a mess of it.

At the same time, after what had happened with Tuk, he didn’t just want to let it slide either.

Maybe it's time I finally asked her what in the pile is happening to her, he thought.

She wasn’t going anywhere, at least not until the Climb was over. He… They needed to know what was wrong with her, and how they could help her. By the worsening scarring on her face, and the darkly colored spots manifesting across her otherwise pale skin, he knew that she was getting progressively worse. And the lack of sleep couldn’t be doing her any favors.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Though, a part of him did not want to care and would rather avoid the responsibility and the confusing moral dilemma. But like Tuk had said, it was a duty they all carried, as part of the party. Like it or not, he spent the most time with Rel out of all of them, and if she was ever going to open up to someone, it would be him. Maybe…

He sighed heavily.

“Are you alright? Pain?” Rel asked, misinterpreting his sigh.

“What? No. No. I’m fine.”

“Ah, okay. Well, don't push yourself too hard. Let me know if I can help.”

“I… Thanks.”

“No worries,” she said, flashing him with a smile.

Again, that smile.

Nar almost spilled out his worries right there and then, but he decided he would do it later that night.

Just like you decided for Tuk, right before you got captured? a voice asked him.

Nar grimaced and shooed the thought away. Annoyingly, the voice lurked just at the edge of his consciousness, not too evident that he could dispel it, but not gone enough that it didn’t still weigh on his mind.

Still, he stubbornly clung to his decision. Or was that his fear and embarrassment? Of being heard. Of her reaction? Of being wrong?

It made for a very long walk, and it only made Rel frown in suspicion when all his answers started coming out short and mumbling, and how he avoided her helping hand when it reached out to him.

Eventually, they fell into an uncomfortable silence. At least to Nar it was. He couldn’t stop thinking that now he had gone and made her mad, which would make their conversation later all the more difficult.

As for Rel, she was just worried that Nar was in pain and was hiding it. Such is the bane of an overthinker.

Eventually though, hours later, Nar noticed a change in their surroundings.

“Is it getting brighter?” he asked, looking around him.

“Is it?” Rel asked. “I don’t see it.”

Na tried to squeeze more out of his [Sight], but despite the spike of pain, it was to no avail. He could not pierce the darkness ahead of them. And [Smell] and [Hearing] yielded similar useless results.

However, he couldn’t shake the feeling that it was getting brighter.

He focused on his surroundings as they walked, staring hard into the impenetrable darkness that surrounded him.

A few minutes later, he was sure of it.

“Kur, it's getting brighter,” he said.

“Oh, thank you, Crystal!” Tuk muttered.

“Are you sure?” Kur asked, squinting around him.

“Yes. But that’s all I got.”

“Maybe we’re finally getting out of this place,” Mul grunted. “And back into leveling.”

“But does that mean we cleared this part of the Climb, or is the trial coming up now?” Cen asked, looking nervously around her.

They had no way of knowing, and their silence conveyed as much.

“It doesn’t matter. We need to keep going anyway. Come on. Let’s try walking a bit faster,” Kur urged them. “And Nar, tell me if you’re in pain.”

“It’s fine, don’t worry,” Nar replied.

Kur snorted. “Rel, tell me if he starts making faces and breathing hard.”

“Will do.”

“I said I’m fine!”

They continued down the tunnel, faster than before.

“I think Nar’s right. It is getting brighter!” Tuk said, a few minutes later.

“I think so too,” Rel said.

“It is,” Nar said.

The wide corridor was slowly being revealed before his eyes, though so far, he could only see about 100-feet of unremarkable, smooth floor in all directions.

A half hour later, Nar could just about make the walls in the distance, and a bit of the ceiling above him. They were all as featureless as the floor, and a couple minutes later, Nar noticed a proper light in the distance.

His stomach sank.

“I see a light,” he told the others. “But it looks orange…”

“Ah, for fuck’s sakes!” Mul said. “Again?”

“Let’s just keep going,” Kur said, silencing any further conversation. “It could mean anything.”

Please mean something else, Nar thought, clenching his jaw.

But as the light grew, so did its intensity, and its color was undeniable. It was the same orange of the Pressure barrier they had crossed to escape the cannibals. Only, it was a much brighter, and vibrant tone than the now comparatively palel orange of that previous barrier.

Crystal. Here we go again.

He had no doubt that this was yet another [Aura] trial, blocking their path unless yet again they delved deeper into their [Aura] to surmount it.

Around him, the others kept quiet, but the same thoughts must have been going through everyone’s heads. Meanwhile, the orange glow kept growing, dispelling the darkness.

A while later Jul pinged them. Just once.

“Jul’s saying hi!” Tuk said, laughing, and pinged her back.

“She can probably hear us coming. We must be almost there,” Kur said.

The light grew and grew and grew, until finally, they reached Jul and the end of the corridor.

The rogue waved at them with her two left hands. Her shadow was massive, and her waving arms covered them. Behind her dark silhouette, the corridor opened up into a giant emptiness colored in bright orange.

“Jul!” Kur said, waving back. “Everything ok?”

“Yes! Look! I found the end!”

She was right, the path did end at the edge of the corridor, and what an end it was.

Nar, stepping closer, felt his breath slip away.

“Holy Crystal Almighty,” Tuk whispered, as he lifted his head back against his neck.

In front of them, with enough space in between them to fit their entire cubeplant, were endless rows of gigantic columns. They spread in all directions, and as far as they could see.

Each of the columns was completely covered in swirling, bright, orange Pressure, and above them, on the endless ceiling, the Pressure gathered in a mass of bright, undulating orange of many hues and shades and tints. What he assumed was lightning streaked across the Pressure ceiling, marking long jagged lines in their eyes, but surprisingly, the whole thing was eerily and absolutely silent.

It's beautiful… Nar thought.

With eyes wide, Nar almost forgot what it was that he was staring at.

“Stop!”

Jul’s shout rang across the open space, and Nar was brought back to reality.

He quickly found that Tuk, who had most likely been just as mesmerized as he by the spectacle of color and light, had been about to proceed further, and cross into the infinite room beyond the corridor.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, looking around himself.

“You’ll burn!” Jul said.

She stomped to him and pulled him back from the orange edge he was so dangerously close to.

“What do you mean burn?” Kur asked, staring at her.

“The whole room is full of Pressure,” Jul explained. “You can’t see it, but it will burn you very badly. The Pressure is too strong. I can’t even go inside.”

She looked remorsefully at Kur. “I’m sorry. I thought that here, at least we would have light, and that we could sleep next to one of the walls. And before, when we were fighting the Sentry, none of the guardians walked into the Pressure, so I thought that maybe we would be safer here. That it would be easier to fight.”

Kur approached her and squeezed her shoulder briefly.

“Why are you sorry? It was a good idea. And it is a great idea!” he said. “And never mind that, are you hurt?”

She shook her head.

“I healed. I did take some damage, though.”

“It’s good that you’re okay, but from now on, if you see anything glowing orange, you need to be careful. We all need to.”

Kur turned his head and considered their situation.

“For now, let’s get to one of the walls first. If this Pressure will work to cover us, with that wall, we may be able to make the fighting more organized again. And we’ll have a better rest there as well, while we figure out what to do with all this.”

They left the interrupted path behind, and took refuge by the tall wall to their left.

While the others sat down to rest and discuss their next steps, Nar, despite his protesting body, approached the invisible wall of pressure in front of him.

He could not avert his eyes from the brilliant show of light and color. And the fact that he felt no heat at all, despite standing so close to that invisible boundary, amazed him even further.

He knew exactly what stood before him, baring his path to the surface yet again.

Pressure and [Aura].

And yet, he could not take his eyes away from the shifting light and the graceful long lines of lightning. From the giant pillars shrouded in bright, flowing orange. From the endless gathering of Pressure that was the ceiling high above him, higher than any ceiling he had ever seen…

In a daze between the wonder and the anguish, he raised his hand and inched his fingers closer to the Pressure.

The pain was instantaneous.

As soon as his fingertip crossed the line into the infinite room, tinting his fingernail and skin orange, the unyielding Pressure leapt voraciously at his flesh.

Ignoring the pain, Nar watched his skin redden, blisters starting to form. Then, the skin darkened…

Eh… It’s not worse than using my [Aura], he thought, in a strange detachment.

He withdrew his finger. It was a very dark red, and a tiny blister had formed besides his fingernail. Pain radiated up his arm from it, but it felt so far away, so tiny compared to what he suffered whenever he tried to harness his aura, that he dropped his hand and immediately forgot about it, his eyes drifting back to the wondrous sight in front of him.

This was one of the reasons why he had left the cubeplant. To see a world of beauty and wonder, of which the workers only knew of from legends and myths passed down through the ages, all the way to the very first workers. The Original Sinners.

Why do you block me like this, Crystal? Nar found himself asking.

These days, he found that he had somehow started to re-open to the Crystal. He did not pray, nor praise, or sing, like some of the others did. However, he did not refuse to even think about the Crystal anymore, and found himself conversing with It, from time to time. Though the nature of his conversations was more often than not accusatory.

I worked as hard as any of them. I was a child when they branded me an Unclean, and I don’t know what the Original Workers did to You. All I want is the strength to Climb, to save my dad, and ensure our freedom in the O-Nex.

The pain on his fingertip slowly changed into a dull ache, and then, into a distant itch.

I know You’ve given me much. The chance to Climb. The best party to do it with. Even a proper chance at the path I have chosen, the only path I could think of that would make me strong enough to save my dad’s life, and ensure our future together in the Nexus above. So, I don’t mean to be ungrateful, but I just don’t understand any of this. Why do you not grant us your [Aether]? Why can’t we have magic?

He looked down from the view to his itching finger. It was still a furious red, but of the damage he had inflicted upon himself, there was barely any sign of it left.

I have the [Constitution]. I have the [Stamina]. I have my movement and senses stats, and even my [NPC]. I have seen no one like me on this Climb, and I can do things that are amazing. Things which are different from what I dreamed of, but which are, maybe, even better... But without magic, my path, no, our paths won’t go anywhere. If You keep pushing us into [Aura], You’ll break our paths. Is that what You want?

He closed his fist.

To punish us more? To give us false hope? And all of this? These columns and all this Pressure… Do we really warrant all of this? Just to atone?

He didn’t even know why he had started speaking to the Crystal again.

The deep seethed dark thoughts and emotions he harbored had gone nowhere. He had neither forgiven, nor forgotten, the defense of the cubeplant, the bridges, the cannibals, and all that Pressure that continuously forced them to fall deeper into [Aura]. But all the same, he found that he wanted to talk to It. To understand why. To receive some hope, some assurance, from the Almighty Crystal that ruled every aspect of their lives.

So far, the Crystal had remained mute. Or It was just simply ignoring him. Either way, it angered him all the more. Like a child betrayed and hated by their parents, not ever knowing why or what it had done to deserve such treatment.

“You’ll be ok.”

Nar lifted his eyes and found Jul, standing by his side.

Her face shone orange, with an expression that Nar couldn’t read.

Nar inhaled sharply and bit down an angry retort.

He wanted to shout and point at that massive Pressure blocking their path, and which was about to push them all further down towards the point of breaking their paths. He himself was close to losing his second modifier to his [Aura], an [Aura] he couldn’t even use without wanting to puke blood. So how was anything going to be okay?

“I know it's hard to believe,” Jul said, her eyes glazed. “But you’ll be okay. We all will. As long as we have each other, we’ll find the way.”

She faced him then, turning her big, kind eyes onto his. Eyes where he could only see his own orange face reflecting back from, in thousands of tiny dark specks.

“I’ll always be with you. You’re not alone.”

Before he could say anything, she patted his arm and motioned to leave.

“Come on, Kur asked me to come get you. We need to decide how we’re going to get through.”