He was awake and alone when he heard the footsteps approaching him.
Kur appeared above his face, and sat next to him.
Nar didn’t even need to look at his face to know what it looked like. Grim and conflicted. Guilty.
“I’ll do it,” Nar said.
Kur frowned. “Uh? How…”
“You’ve been trying to go inside and it hasn’t worked. You need me to go in again,” Nar said.
They had indeed been going at that Pressure relentlessly. But without success.
“Nar, I…”
“It’s fine, Kur. I have to do it. And I want to.”
He grit his teeth and pushed himself up, rejecting Kur’s offer of help.
“We can’t stay here forever. We’ll be attacked again,” Nar said. “And what we want… What we need is on the other side of that room.”
Kur hung his head.
“I wanted to wait until you were healed, but…”
“But I’m not healing,” Nar said, waiting for everything to stop dancing around him.
Over the last two days, his HP recovery had slowed even further, until it completely stopped at about 60%. Kur had offered his [Healing Boon] again, but it was a risky gamble to go another two days without it. Plus, Nar knew it wouldn’t do anything…
He licked his lips and brought up his sleeve to wipe them.
“Nar…” Kur whispered, eyeing the stains.
“It’s inside me. I can feel it,” Nar said. “It cuts me every time I move… I’ve tried pushing it out, but it won’t budge. It doesn't obey me anymore, and I can feel that more and more is leaking into me and building up.”
He looked at Kur's aggrieved expression.
“It’s not your fault. And it’s not Mul’s either. Will you… Tell that to him, please?”
“We’re not giving up, Nar!” Kur said, gripping his shoulders. “We’ll find a way. Even if we have to carry you, covered in our own [Aura]! Even if somehow we need to reach inside you and remove all the [Aura]! We aren’t moving from here until we’ve found a way!”
“Don’t. You could die.”
“We don’t care! We’re staying!”
Nar closed his eyes, and Kur sighed.
“Look, Cen thinks that if we figure out how to use [Aura] properly, that it might help you,” Kur said, his tone tinged by the lightest touches of desperation. “She cried a lot when she suggested this, and there was a lot of opposition to it. But in the end, I made the call. I decided that you should try again.”
“And I’ll do it.”
“I’m not forcing you to.”
“I know. This is my decision,” Nar said. “I don’t want to be afraid of it anymore. Not to say that I want to just accept it, but I don't want to run away from it anymore either. Whatever happens, it’ll be something I can be proud of when I meet my dad in the Waiting Dark.”
Kur nodded, with a grim expression that darkened his features. “Thank you for doing this. I know that I don’t know what I’m asking you to do… I know that it's even selfish, but I have to ask you to do it. For all of us.”
Nar smiled. “You’re our leader and I don't envy your path.”
“That’s… Fair enough,” Kur said, his shoulders sagging.
“Don’t worry,” Nar said. “It’s your duty.”
Kur clenched his jaw and stood. He stared out into the endless orange room before him, and after a moment, he nodded.
“Whenever you feel ready,” he said. “Today, tomorrow, whenever. Don’t worry about the guardians. We’ll destroy them.”
Nar smiled, but shook his head.
“Just give me a few minutes. And... Can Cen come with me?”
“She said there was no way you were going in alone.”
“Ah. Yeah. That sounds like her.”
“I’ll tell her to come over in a bit. Oh, and Nar?”
Nar looked up to Kur.
“When you come to save your dad, it won’t just be Gad coming down with you.”
With that, the party leader spun on his heels, and left.
Nar stared at his hands, thinking of that moment when his dad had insisted he found a good party.
Crystal, how right he had been. And how lucky Nar had been to have actually found them.
Or had he actually been blessed, steered in the right direction by the Blessed Crystal? Who knew anymore. Who knew anything?
He pulled out his sword and used it to prop himself up. Stretching into infinity ahead of him, the columns and ceiling and Pressure beckoned him.
He pushed against the pain and forced himself upright. He stood on his two legs and lifted the sword off the floor, clenching his jaw against the pain and the vertigo and the weakness that numbed him, even as sharpness cut him from within with every barest hint of a movement.
I don’t need a few minutes. I’m ready now.
*********
“Remember, tell me everything,” Cen told him. “No matter how basic it is, don’t assume that I know it. Take me with you all the way down.”
“Okay,” Nar said.
“And if it hurts, we stop right away, you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“Promise me you’ll tell me.”
“I swear, Cen. I’ll tell you.”
“Good. I’m trusting you!” the caster warned him.
Once more, the two of them stood before the invisible boundary. Her grip on his hand was fierce and he could feel her shaking through her hand.
“We’ll keep an eye, anyways,” Gad said. “I’ll pull you both out if I don’t like what I see.”
Nar nodded and offered her a smile.
He swayed on his feet, but he stood on his own.
“I’m ready,” he said.
Cen took a deep breath and nodded.
“Ok. Let’s do this.”
Nar gripped the sword hard, and before he could second-doubt himself, he reached out to that part inside himself where [Aura] came from.
Expecting resistance, instead, his eyes widened as [Aura] flooded him. His blade went bright white once more, casting back the orange and the darkness.
“Not so much!” Cen cried.
“I can’t help it,” Nar muttered, straining against the mounting pain. “We have to hurry.”
“Maybe we should stop this?” Cen asked, looking back at Gad.
“I think it’s too late…”
He coughed and felt wetness fly out of his mouth in big, oozy droplets.
“Nar!” she yelled.
“By the Crystal!” Tuk said. “Stop it! Stop it now!”
“I can’t!” Nar said. “It won’t listen to me!”
He felt like he was trying to prevent a pileslide with his hands, while a thousand metric tons tethered slowly towards him, about to lose balance and spill. And he could only watch as it tipped ever so forward, about to bury him.
“We have to do it now!” Nar said, squeezing Cen’s hand.
He felt warm stickiness leaking from his left ear, and knew that soon the blood would come pouring out through his very skin.
“Should I use my boon?” Kur asked.
Nar checked his HP, it was dropping, but it was still stable enough. “Not yet. Wait until my HP starts crashing.”
“Ok!” Kur said. “Cen, it's now or never!”
“But I…”
“You can do it!” Mul said. “You both can! Come on!”
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“Come on, Cen!” Nar told her.
Her eyes were very big and very afraid, but [Aura] gathered at her staff.
“Whatever happens, it is my decision. It’s not on you,” Nar told her.
“Oh, Nar…”
“Go!” Gad shouted. “We’re losing time!”
And next thing he knew, Gad pushed them both forward, into the deadly Pressure.
The heat and weight assaulted them at once. It prodded and tested their [Aura], looking for any flaw or weak spot through which to burst in and devour them.
“What do I do now?” Nar shouted, above the roaring gale that surrounded them.
“Where does your [Aura] come from?” Cen shouted back.
Thankfully, it seemed that they were able to hear each other, either because of their [Aura], or their linked hands.
“Chest! Solar plexus!” Nar said.
“But where? Go deeper! What do you feel?”
“I’m just doing what I usually do! Breaking it into chunks and…”
“But what are you breaking, Nar?” she pressed. “And how? Feel, Nar! Look! What’s in there?”
What’s in there?
The words of his dad came, unbidden to him. He had only been five years old, but he had never been able to forget that day.
“Here, you feel it?” his dad had asked him. “Right where my finger is touching. Aura comes from here. Imagine a little hole inside of you, and it comes from there.”
Nar, with his eyes closed, tried to focus on his dad’s gentle but strong finger on his chest.
“I… I don’t…”
“Relax, son. The machine is never wrong. We all have it, some more than others, and you definitely have more than enough. So just relax. Focus on your breathing. Yes, that’s it. Just breathe. That’s all we're doing.”
Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.
“Imagine something soft, and warm. Kinda like jell-o, but a little bit harder. Between a cracker and a jell-o, actually.”
“Dad, are you making this up as you go?” Nar asked, keeping his eyes closed.
“... no. Of course not. Now focus! This is the only time you’ll ever need to do this. Once you do it, you’ll just need to pull.”
And I did. But I never knew what was there. I never thought about it. But how do I find it again?
He remembered the softness of it. It had nothing to do with the sharp, shredding pieces that now cut through his body. His [Aura] was as sharp as broken aetherium now, but had it always been so?
Why is it so hard? So sharp? he wondered.
He focused on his chest, at the epicenter of the pain.
Shards were flowing into him, that much he could feel, but, from where? Where was that hole he had found only once before?
Where are you? Where are you coming from?
“Nar?” Cen asked. “What’s happening?”
Nar ignored her, his eyes pressing down harder, filling his sight with multitudes of dots.
Just breathe.
He inhaled burning air.
Just breathe.
He exhaled it even hotter.
He chucked the pain away.
He was a tank, if he couldn’t endure a little pain, he would never go anywhere. His life was about damage and wounds and blood and broken bones.
I might even get some [Constitution] out of this, he thought, remembering Kur’s words from before.
The thought, in the maelstrom of heat, weight and shattering pain, brought a furtive smile to his face.
And in that moment, something opened, and he fell through.
He gasped and held on tighter to Cen and his sword.
“Nar? Please, you have to speak to me! Nar?”
He fell and kept falling.
Through the darkness he tumbled, until, suddenly, there were lights coming up to him, bright and white and sharp.
“I’m falling!” he said, breathing hard. “I fell somewhere. In my chest. I-I’m somewhere else now. Deeper. It was dark, but now there are lights coming from below. White lights!”
He convulsed and spat a glob of blood onto the floor. It sizzled where it landed, burning away.
“Nar! Oh, my Crystal! Please, we have to stop!” she pleaded with him.
“No! I’m here now, Cen! I’m here! But the lights, there are too many! And they hurt! They are going through me and they hurt!”
Holding back tears, Cen pulled his hand against her chest. “Where are you, Nar? Where are you going?”
“I don’t know… Down and down and…”
“In your chest, you said? Where the [Aura] comes from, you went in? I’ll follow you, Nar! Hold on! I’m looking for it!”
Nar barely heard her.
He was going through a thousand shards of light, and it was destroying him.
He wanted to come back up so badly. He wanted to run. The pain was so much. But below, deep below, something called to him.
It called to him with such sweetness and tenderness, and heart wrenching loneliness, that he could not turn away from it. He wept for it, for its suffering was greater than his, and so, down and down he went.
Until he found it.
“Cen…” he whispered. “Cen.”
“I’m trying, Nar, I’m trying! I don’t have enough [Aura]!”
“I found it Cen… I found it.”
“Found wha…”
She gasped and he felt her tense from very far away. But it didn’t matter.
In the darkness, he had found a light. A hazy gray globe of light. It was so brilliant that it should have blinded him, but he stared directly at it, mesmerized.
It looked so alone, there in the darkness, and he reached out to hug it. There was nothing else in the whole of the Nexus that he wanted to do more, than to console this lonely, hurting light.
He wrapped his arms around it, and pressed it gently against his chest.
“What are you? Why are you so alone here, inside me?”
Inside me?
Inside…
Me?
“Cen.”
“I-I see it too!” Cen shouted, from so far away.
“I think it’s mine. The [Aura] is mine. It doesn’t come from anywhere... It’s inside me. It’s always been inside me! It’s always been mine!”
“I see it, by the Crystal, I see it! It’s beautiful…”
Nar fell to his knees, dragging Cen down with him.
“Nar!”
Tears fell down his face, evaporating in the heat.
“Why does it hurt so much? Is it not mine?” he whispered.
“What are you doing to it? Focus! What are you doing?” she asked, shaking him.
He took a step back from his [Aura] and looked.
There, at the edges. The light was being squeezed. Pinched. And little bits were being ripped out from it, leaving tears and marred scars across its glowing surface.
“How! Why?”
What horror was this? What crime? Such sin! Who could do something so destructive to something so pure and beautiful?
“What's wrong?” Cen asked.
The tears and holes healed themselves slowly, but that didn’t make it any less heinous.
And of the chunks, something was cutting at them with impunity, stripping them. All the gray and deep blacks were cut away, left to return back to the ball of light, and in its place, only sharp, ugly pieces of white were left. It was a sterile, lifeless, dead white despite its brilliance. And as he stared, the pieces slowly rose up into the darkness above them.
“Something is attacking my [Aura]! It’s ripping chunks from it! It’s…”
He gasped.
As he watched the white pieces of his [Aura] slowly drift upwards, he understood. He finally understood it all.
“We have to make it pure,” his dad had told him. “Stronger. But it makes it sharp, and that’s what makes it sore. Even painful, as the aura goes through us. But that’s the job. We are the middle man between the aura and the machine it powers. And that’s what it means to be an operator.”
No! No! No! Noooooooooo!
How wrong had his dad been. How wrong had they all been!
“Nar, I think I understand it, the pieces… The breaking, I…”
“It’s wrong! It’s all wrong!” Nar screamed in rage and agony. “How could they have been so wrong?”
The roaring Pressure seemed to have receded in the face of his fury, and his words rang loud and true.
He was the one hurting himself. And his dad had been the one to teach him how to do it, just like he had been taught by his dad, and so on and so on, back through the Long Dark until Crystal knew how long.
How many generations? How many of them had done it wrong? When had they forgotten the truth?
How could we be so wrong? How could no one have figured it out? I can’t believe that we’re the only ones… I can’t believe we had to Climb to understand this. It makes no sense! It makes no sense…
He tumbled to his arms and knees, weak and powerless, and Cen dug his nails into him, shaking with the strain, but holding him.
“Nar! Nar! Come on! Hold on! We’re here! We’re safe!”
“It’s too late… I did this to myself.”
“No! No! Just pull on it!” she shouted. “All of it! The whole thing! Stop breaking it! Stop cutting it! Don’t remove the gray and the black! Just pull! Pull it as it is!”
Something rang, sharp and loud, and he felt his cheek stinking amongst the clamoring of destruction rampaging through his body.
“Come on! Come on!”
Cen slapped him again.
“Just pull, Nar! Are you going to leave us? Are you going to abandon your dad? Pull! Damned it! Fucking pull, damn you! All of it!”
I can’t leave them. I can’t leave my dad…
The [Aura] was blinking now, in and out, in a panic, calling out to him.
I’m trying… I’m… Trying…
With his vision fading, with the last of his strength he reached for his [Aura]. His hand went right through it.
No more… Stop… Hurting… Stop…
He pulled.
With all his might, with all his being, he pulled.
The aura, his aura, exploded, swallowing all the bright, edged shards, and pushing away all that was damaging it.
Him, he had been the one damaging it.
How had he not seen it before? As a kid, all he had felt was, indeed, a hole, from where something that felt soft and warm had come from. But there had been nothing there. Had it just been too small to see? Was it only now, after nearly five months of gains, of being joined to the System, that it had become the ball of light he now saw before him?
And was it too late?
Brightness and heat took him.
It coursed furiously not through his veins as he had thought, but pushing through different channels. One up his head, two down his arms, and one down to his stomach, which then split into two and went further down, to his very feet
For a moment, he even saw where [Aura] left his hand and entered his sword…
His aura exploded again, sending a shockwave through his body that made him arch his back, howling a soundless scream.
It blew up, again and again, rocking his body with successive waves of raging might and gray light.
Just as he had pulled, it now pushed. It cleared all the residue of those sharp white fragments from his channels. It rejected and expelled them from his body, and Nar went beyond pain.
Warning!
You have accrued critical damage!
Your HP is at 0!
You are not covered!
Death is imminent!
Prioritizing HP recovery.
Failure!
Re-routing all stamina into HP.
Failure!
Triggering unconsciousness to preserve…
DENIED!
Triggering…
DENIED!
ACCESS DENIED!
The prompt was gone in a flicker so fast that he wasn’t even been able to read it. Not that it mattered, he was hanging on by a thread.
He couldn’t last much longer.
He couldn’t endure such an absolute cleansing.
It was washing him raw, eroding even him in its effort of purifying him from all the harm he had unknowingly done to himself, year after year, double shift after double shift, day after day.
I’m sorry… I didn’t know.
Yet somehow, he felt that he deserved it.
He had damaged something of incalculable beauty and purity. This? This was something worthy of punishment. This, and nothing else.
Here was his one, true sin.
Warning!
Energy source detected!
Identifying…
Identification complete!
Source is [Aura]!
Limits breached!
Triggering…
DENIED!
ACCESS PROTOCOLS MODIFIED!
Warning!
Warning!
Warning!
Warn…
OVERRULED!
TRIGGERING CHANGE!
Again, it was too fast for him to make any sense of it, and his [Aura] exploded with one more fierce blast, and everything was wiped away in a wave of gray.