They walked away from that hole, and the orange became yellow once more.

They were dragging their feet and barely standing upright, but nobody wanted to sleep next to that damned thing. They were sick of Pressure and of that orange light.

Yes. Even Nar was.

After a while, Kur ordered a halt.

“We can talk tomorrow,” he said. “For now, well done everyone. We made it through. For now, eat, sleep and heal. When we wake up, we’ll worry about what comes next. But for now, we all need rest. You hear me?”

The chorus of yeses was low and frail. Even with the excitement of knowing that they were close to the exit running through their veins and minds, possibly less than 15 days away at that, there was only so much a sentient could take.

Mul alone muttered something about the lack of experience and gains.

Nar, however, was out before he could muster enough strength to eat. He sat down with his back against the wall, and was gone before any of the others.

When he woke up, he found Gad and Kur already awake.

They sat with their backs straight and propped against the wall, their eyes closed and their expressions serene.

Kur opened his eyes as he heard movement.

“Oh, Nar. Nice that you’re awake,” he said, in a hushed tone, so as to not wake up the others. “Eat first, you didn’t eat yesterday. Then do the [Meditation]. We needed all the aura you had down there, and we might need it again.”

Nar nodded.

“And Nar? Thank you. For the aura, and for Rel,” he said. “And for everything, really.”

“Yeah… No worries,” Nar said, looking awkwardly away.

“Go on. I want us up and ready as soon as possible. We’re on a timer now. The end’s finally coming.”

“Finally!” Nar said, grinning.

Kur smiled and closed his eyes again.

Nar quickly got something in his mouth and chewed happily.

The Final Stretch! This is it! We’re getting out! By the Crystal, we’re getting out!

It was hard to stick to his [Meditation] skill, but eventually, he managed to drift off into its quiet, warm embrace. However, just as he was about to let himself go into the skill, he remembered something.

Oh! Cen wanted me to check my aura!

Extricating himself from his meditation, Nar checked his status.

214. Crystal… That was close.

Covering them from the surge of Pressure that had almost wiped out the party, had taken much more from him than he had expected.

I wouldn’t have been able to do it again. If the exit hadn’t shown up…

He exhaled slowly. Another near death.

Had the Crystal offered them the exit right as they had needed it, or had their escape been the real test, and first, they had been exhausted of their aura so that they couldn’t use it properly to run away? They had even been deprived of their UIs, so there had been no telling how much each of them still had…

Nar shook his head. There was no point to those thoughts. They had made it, and that was all that mattered.

Moving past those thoughts, he closed his eyes and went down into himself, to where the ball of light, the internal aura as Cen had named it, floated in the darkness.

What even is this place? Nar wondered, looking at the darkness that surrounded him. If only the System had been forthright with its information.

He approached the ball, and once again wrapped his arms around it.

Uh… Looks the same?

He tried it a few more times, but he honestly could not find any difference.

Hmm… Well, I'll just let Cen know, I guess.

With that taken care of, he returned to his [Meditation].

When he heard the noise level increasing around him, he thought it was time to finish.

A shame I need to give it up. I actually really like this [Meditation] skill.

He felt a little slow coming back into his surroundings. Things looked strangely blurry, almost dreamlike. When he focused on his shoe, it sharpened beyond the clear sightedness, almost shining in his eyes. Every single detail, and grain and speck of iridescent purple came to life before him. It was almost breathtaking.

Even amongst his moving and chatting party, it still felt quiet inside his head. Peaceful.

A shame, really.

“Nar?”

Nar turned around to his left, slowly. Tuk waved at him.

The ring tosser sat by his side, munching on a cracker with a look that alternated between the serene, something akin to happiness, and a deep frown.

“Hey,” Nar said. “Is everything ok?”

“Yeah… We’ve gotten the exit quest, we’ve escaped that horrible Pressure, bonded together, tighter than ever before…” he said. “So yeah, I’d say that everything is more than okay!”

Nar grimaced. “Your ring though.”

“Yes. That’s something we need to talk about.”

Tuk finished chewing and swallowed, then he fixed Nar with a stare.

“Nar, you have to promise me you will never do that again,” Tuk said. “No weapon, no thing, is worth your life.”

Nar looked away. “It’s not just any weapon.”

“Yes, it is!” Tuk said. “I’m sure I can get another ring up there. I can probably get a brand-new set of much better rings than these trashy things! So no, it’s not worth it! Promise me you won’t do it again.”

“... fine. I couldn’t get it anyways.”

“But you were going to if I hadn’t stopped you!” Tuk said, shaking his head. “Crazy idiot! You’re more important to me than some rings, man. Stay alive!”

“I… Okay.”

“Good, and don’t forget it. Next time you pull something like this, we’ll have to move that joke from twice to thrice, you hear me?”

Nar laughed.

“I'm serious, man!”

“Alright. Alright. I won’t do it again.”

Tuk flashed him one of his big, bright smiles, then got up.

“Tuk?” Nar called.

“Yeah?”

“You’re important to me too, man.”

“Ah, stop it,” the trugger said. “But thanks Nar, I appreciate it. I really do. Just stay alive, alright? We still have all of our adventures in the O-Nex ahead of us!”

“And in the Labyrinth too?” Nar asked, on a sudden whim.

He had never asked what any of them intended to do after their Climb was over, but for some reason, he had started to think, no, expect, that they would all continue their adventures together. And after all, no one had said anything about putting down their weapons back then, when Kur had asked them all if they cared about magic.

Tuk’s face brightened. “Of course, man! That’s where the greatest adventures are, right? You and me, man. And everyone, I think. Maybe? It’s going to be awesome!”

Nar laughed and waved at his back.

It will definitely be much better if I’m with someone I know. Even better if I’m with all of them…

He took a deep breath, and got up. For some reason, he couldn’t make the small smile that adorned his lips go away.

Things were looking up. The exit was finally coming, they were all still alive, and he might even have company to go into the Labyrinth with.

Yes. Things were definitely looking up.

“Alright! Gather round everyone. Gather round!” Kur called.

Their party leader rubbed his hands while he waited for them to form in a tight semi-circle around him, with the shortest people at the front.

“Right. So, the exit. Yesterday, I purposely didn’t talk about any of this because we all needed to rest, and I appreciate the patience…”

“Why are you looking at me?” Mul asked, frowning. “I’ve been good!”

“And that there was no panic.”

“I-I’m okay,” Rel said, when Kur looked at her next.

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“Good, now, keeping the same mindset…”

“Why does he keep staring at me?” Mul whispered at Cen.

“Shhh!”

“I want us to consider the worst,” Kur continued with a grimace. “We may be too far to make it on time.”

“Do you feel anything?” Gad asked. “Like before…”

“No. Not really. I… Well to be honest, I think I could’ve just been going crazy back there. It’s a real possibility, Gad, and we can’t ignore it. I don’t feel anything right now, and until I unlock a new attribute there’s no point in thinking about it. Jul is and remains our only guide. And thank you, Jul, for finding us a way out of that mess yesterday.”

“I-Yes. No worries!”

Nar clapped her in the shoulder and she flashed him a shy but very proud grin.

“Thank you as well, Nar, for your aura which kept us alive. As well as everyone, for holding on and keeping us in place. Cen, thank you for opening the way for us, with your aura knowledge, and everyone, really, for keeping it together and being there for each other. We made it thanks to all of us working together.”

“As always,” Gad said. “We are stronger together.”

“Yes, we are. With that said, and conscious of the time, there isn’t really anything much to talk about,” Kur said. “We will walk and walk fast. We won’t be going late into the night anymore, though. We don’t know what else is going to be thrown at us, only that something will, and we’ll need to be ready for it. I want everyone to use their [Mediation] every night and to make sure that aura bar is always as full as possible. Other than that, keep going as you are. You’re doing great, and let's get this Climb finished!”

“You’re doing great too,” Nar said.

“Is that to make up for yesterday's bashing?” Kur asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

They all laughed.

“I’m joking, Kur. You’re doing great,” Nar said.

“Ah. Hmm. Thanks! Alright, store everything, and let’s go! And in formation please!”

Within a few minutes, they were ready and following the yellow arrows once more.

Tuk joked with Kur and Mul, and somehow the two of them managed to not be at each other's throats. Gad seemed to be able to extract a bit of a slow conversation from Viy. Jul had disappeared to go scout up ahead, to check for any surprises. Rel walked with a vague smile on her face, enjoying her own company and, Nar hoped, maybe some peace and quiet inside her own mind.

That left Cen, who walked alone. The caster held a hand to her chin, and barely seemed to look at where she was going.

Probably thinking about aura again. Oh… That’s right!

“Cen,” he called her.

Cen looked up and back at him. Nar motioned for her to come over.

Cen looked at Kur, who was watching the interchange, and he gave her a nod.

The caster broke off the formation and waited for Nar and Rel to catch up with her.

“Is everything okay?” she asked, falling into step with the two of them.

“Everything’s fine. I just remembered our conversation about aura from before.”

Her face lit up. “Oh! The external and internal auras?”

“What’s that?” Rel asked.

“Oh, sorry, yes!” the caster said, clapping her hands.

Cen quickly brought her up to speed on the whole conversation she and Nar had had.

“Internal and external… Makes sense, I guess,” Rel said.

Cen nodded and turned to Nar expectantly. “So, did you find something out?”

“Not sure to be honest, but I do have something to tell you.”

Her grin was contagious, and he could tell she barely managed to bit her tongue and not bombard him with questions.

“So, two things. Two things? Well, I’ll let you decide…”

“Yes, yes!” she said, practically bouncing on her feet.

“So, the first one, this morning I remembered to check my internal aura before using [Meditation]. Although I was down to 214 points on the external aura, the internal one looked the same.”

“By the Crystal… No difference at all?” she said.

Nar shook his head.

“That’s… I don’t really know what that even means for us,” Cen said.

“Yeah... Well, the second thing was that I can still use my aura on my sword, just like before.”

“Not on a skill?”

“Not on a skill. But it wasn’t as strong as the skill, though.”

“What skill was that?”

Nar brought up his [Aura Attack] skill into his UI and read it out loud for them.

“An attack that does an extra n * 0.55 damage, where n is the amount of aura points you wish to use. Extra damage modifiers can be triggered, based on several factors such as… Here, there is no more information available… And then, it ends with, it costs n points of aura.”

“That’s basically my [Aura Arrow],” Rel said. “But considering all the aura you have. Damn…”

“Hmmm,” Cen made, considering this new information. “It’s hard to tell whether the skill is stronger, or if you just didn’t push as much aura into the sword yourself.”

“The aura did look stronger on my sword with the skill. More solid too,” Nar told her. “But yes, you could be right. Maybe I just didn’t push enough aura into it.”

“But then, if that’s what happened, what's the point of having the skill?” Rel asked. “I can just push aura into my arrows myself.”

Nar was silent for a moment, trying to remember anything else of value. “Actually, I think that the skill was easier.”

“Than pushing out your aura directly?” Cen asked.

“Yes. I… Yes, I'm pretty sure, actually! Like the difference between thinking of the skill versus having to actually and manually push the aura out,” Nar mused. “But I’ll check again next time.”

“No! Don’t do that!” Cen said.

Nar chuckled. “In combat, Cen. Don’t worry. I’m not going to do anything stupid.”

She frowned at him, but nodded.

“Just make sure you don’t use it more than you need… And so, the internal aura does not match the external aura,” she said. “We can use the external aura, or, what we assume is the external aura, with a skill or directly. Using it with a skill does makes it easier to use, though.”

“That’s about it. Does it help?” Nar asked.

“I don’t know…” Cen answered truthfully. “I don’t understand any of this. There’s just not enough information.”

“No more information available…” Rel muttered.

Cen nodded. “I don't think we can figure this out by ourselves. Not without knowing more. And I doubt we’ll learn anything more down here.”

Ner patted her shoulder.

“Don’t beat yourself over it. You’re smart. You’ll figure something out. And anyways, we’ll be out soon. You’ll have all the information you need out there.”

Cen smiled. “That will be nice.”

A sudden string of notes interrupted their conversation.

“One. Two. Three,” Rel counted.

“Jul wants us to stop,” Nar said.

He turned on his UI and as expected, Jul’s portrait was flashing gray.

The string of notes came back again, and then once more, before it went quiet.

“It doesn’t look like she’s in trouble,” Kur said, approaching them. “Can you sense anything?”

Nar pushed on his [Smell] and [Hearing], and to his surprise, he did sense something.

“What is it?” Rel asked.

“The air… There’s a smell to it,” Nar said with a frown. “I don’t know what it is, though. I’ve never smelled something like that… Or, have I? And there’s a sound too. It’s like someone’s whistling.”

“Well, that’s not concerning at all,” Kur muttered. “I guess we just have to wait for her to come back and see what she found.”

Kur walked away to talk with the others, and Nar focused back on his senses.

That smell told him nothing. He couldn’t even tell if it was pleasant or not, though it tickled something at the back of his mind. And the sound was even more intriguing. Eerie even.

That can’t be someone whistling, though, can it?

Another string of notes.

She’s coming back.

That at least brought him some relief. Whatever she had found, she wasn’t in danger.

A few minutes later, Jul was back, dashing towards them through the darkness and making herself visible again.

“Are you okay?” Kur asked her.

“I-I’m fine, but I think there’s a problem,” she said. “Our path might be broken, and there’s a hole in the wall.”

“What?” Mul said.

“What do you mean?” Kur asked.

“I don’t know. The path disappears, and then suddenly it appears again, but the arrows are all wrong. Some of them point backwards, others to the walls. And the path is flashing, on and off, and missing bits.”

“You found the path out there, without us?” Gad asked.

“Yes. And then, it stopped again, right in front of this hole in the wall,” she said. “And it’s not like a door. The wall is broken. And inside, there’s another corridor, but everything’s also broken in there. But in the distance, I saw a light. It was gray, not yellow. But I didn’t go in to check it. I have a bad feeling about that place.”

“You did good,” Gad said.

“Yes. It’s not safe to check these things out alone,” Kur agreed. “That being said, there’s a high chance that really was our path you saw. And that maybe the wall being broken has somehow affected it. But we won’t know until we get there.”

Kur looked around at the party.

“We have no choice but to check this out, so let’s get to it. Everyone, back into formation.”

*********

The whistling sound got louder as they progressed. Deeper and higher pitched at the same time. The sound entered his ears, and echoed sorrowfully inside his brain.

A person can’t make that sound, right? Nar wondered.

“The arrows up ahead are flashing,” Gad said. “Just like Jul said.”

“Alright, everyone be careful,” Kur told them.

They continued forward, and just like Jul had told them, the arrows indeed began to behave erratically, pointing back towards where they had come from, or towards the walls.

“I can hear it too,” Rel whispered to him. “That can't be a person.”

“Right?” Nar whispered back.

The further they went down the broken path, more and more arrows went missing, until they were gone altogether. A few steps after that, they found the broken wall, and the source of the sound.

A jagged, ugly wound had been carved into the wall on the right. It was as wide as two of Nar, and it was taller than the ceiling, showing them the much higher ceiling of the corridor beyond. The sound, in the end, seemed to be caused by a strong current of air that was blowing out from the broken corridor.

Gad approached it cautiously, and peeked in.

“Broken bits everywhere. And the gray light, in the distance,” Gad said.

“It’s… Cold?” Tuk said, waving his hand in the air. “Real cold…”

Nar reached out with his hand as well, marveling at the strange new sensation on his skin. Goose bumps formed under that insistent cold current.

“No way we’re getting in there,” Mul muttered.

“I hope not,” Kur said.

He looked down their corridor, and into the utter darkness that awaited them.

“Jul and Nar. Can you go and check if the path shows up again?”

“Will do,” Nar said.

The two of them speed away from the group.

It wasn’t long before they found signs that things weren’t right over there either.

There were long gashes and cracks along the walls, especially the one on their right, the same one where they’d found the hole.

The further they went, the more broken down the wall became, until suddenly, they found themselves blocked. The walls, or ceiling, maybe all three, had completely crumbled, forming an impassable barrier of ruble.

“We’re blocked,” Jul said.

“Hold on,” Nar said. “Let me check, you stay back.”

“I…”

“Stay back.”

Nar approached the broken debris and examined it.

“Don’t touch it!” Jul said.

“Yeah, I don’t think I should.”

He locked up, following the multitude of cracks, big and small, that flowed across the ceiling and down the walls. There were cracks across the floor as well.

“You should get away from there.”

Nar stepped gingerly back towards her.

“I think we can’t go this way.”

“Nothing can be easy for us,” Jul muttered. “Come on, let's go tell the others.”

Another quick run brought them back to the party.

“So?” Kur asked.

“The ceiling fell,” Jul said.

“Crystal…” Tuk whispered.

Nar shook his head. “It’s completely blocked, and the whole thing is cracked and looking like it can still collapse further. It doesn’t look safe to try and clear a way through.”

Kur looked at the broken corridor beyond the hole and winced.

“Do you want to go see it?” Jul asked.

“No point. I trust you guys,” Kur said. “Which leaves us with two options. Go back and hope we find a different path, or…”

“No,” Mul said.

“Only way forward is always forward,” Tuk said, shrugging.

Mul rolled his eyes.

“I don’t think we have a choice,” Cen said. “We only have 14 days to get to the Gates.”

Mul sighed and passed a hand over his face. “Fine, go look at that light then. I hope it’s not a fucking arrow.”

“I’ll go,” Nar said.

“We’ll go,” Jul corrected him.

She marched towards the hole before anyone could say anything, and Nar ran after her.

“Hey, slow down. We don’t know what’s in here!” he called after her.

“Why? Because it could be dangerous?”

“Yes?” Nar asked, confused.

Jul shook her head and kept going.

What in the pile was that all about?

They climbed over and around debris, finding clear spots that were large enough to let them through.

“The ceiling looks okay, at least,” Nar said, looking up.

He collided with Jul.

“Oof! Sorry, I wasn’t…Looking.”

“Those are…”

“Yes.”

Bodies.

Piles and piles of bodies. Blackened beyond recognition, some of them burned down to their very skeletons.

They were everywhere, crushed under rubble or strewn around the place.

It was wrong to see them like this. Almost carelessly discarded.

It also answered the question of what had been vaguely familiar about the smell he had sensed. It was like the burning corpses on the bridge, except a lot more faded. Older.

“These are real, right?” Jul asked. “They’re people…”

“I think so… Come on, let’s keep going.”

She nodded and they continued forward. They took even greater care now, not wanting to step on, or touch any of the bodies.

They climbed over one more, massive chunk of ceiling, and then the corridor stretched on before them, unbroken from that point onwards.

It was filled with dead people, their ghastly remains illuminated by a cold, but very clear and undeniable gray arrow, shining on the floor just a few feet beyond them.

“Mul’s not going to like this,” Jul said.

Nar shivered in the cold current.

“I don’t like this,” he whispered.

The corridor continued on into the distance, with more gray lights at steady intervals. As far as the eye could see, the floor was littered with corpses, and the walls were marked by blackened spots and stains whose nature were easy to guess.

“Let’s go back and tell the others,” Nar said, prying his eyes off the corpses with difficulty.

What in the Nexus had they just stumbled upon now?