They distracted themselves by staring at the displays overhead. Tys called them screens.

“Bah! It’s just ads. Though I suppose for you guys they look entertaining,” she said, smiling. “Just wait till you get your hands on the good stuff. I won’t spoil you, though!”

Spoil? Nar thought, confused, as their recruiter laughed to herself.

Instead, he looked back at the screen that was closest to him. He was starting to feel the tiredness creeping in on him again, and this time, he could feel that something wasn’t quite right inside him. Deep down, his aura was unsettled.

What’s wrong with you? Nar asked, squirming in discomfort. Calm down. We’re out now and we’re together from now on, okay? And yes, I’m sorry for ignoring you for so long, ok? I didn’t know.

Nar had no idea if his aura was something intelligent or even something other than himself for that matter, so he had no idea what to do. Surprisingly, he did feel a certain easing coming from the ball of light, but it didn’t feel complete. And the tiredness only increased, making his limbs heavy and numb.

His eyelids got heavier, and he stumbled forward, about to fall into his aura. Into its warm, and comforting embrace…

“Head’s up!” Tys said, jolting him awake. “This is our stop.”

The familiar foreign sensation of energy that was not energy filled his limbs again, and Nar stood up straighter.

Behind him, he heard Kur sucking in air.

“What happened?” he asked, his words slurred.

“It’s okay, you just feel asleep,” Nar said, feeling a tinge of jealousy. “This is our exit.”

“Oh. Oh…”

“What?”

“... nothing.”

Nar whipped his head around, fully awake now. “Did you drool on me?”

“... no?”

Tys barked with laughter.

“Crystal. I like you guys. Hopefully you’re worth it me going back for you.”

“You came back for us?”

She nodded.

“I’d already grabbed my fill when I caught you guys on the screens,” she said, and looked at Nar in particular. “Everyone lost it over that last display of aura. Good job by the way. It’s what got my attention. I knew that I needed to go back for your two parties. And fast, before the other apprentice-ships got to you!”

She smirked with a conspiratorial stare and Nar felt a drop of sweat roll down his back.

“Did-Did you trick us?” Kur asked, taken aback.

She shrugged. “Who knows? Remember lesson number one. Never trust anyone in the Nexus or the Labyrinth!”

Just then, the train, as Tys had called their transport, screeched to a halt, and Nar struggled to hold onto them and Tuk, who had been caught unawares and had latched onto Nar’s shoulder to keep from falling.

“Sorry!” Tuk said, once they had stopped.

Nar had seen the compartment go black from the effort of keeping the four of them from going flying into the other passengers.

“Out! Let’s go!” Tys shouted.

“Do you think she was messing with us?” Nar grunted at Kur, as they lined up to exit the compartment. He clenched his teeth and blinked to get his eyes to focus again.

“Crystal. Who knows at this stage,” Kur muttered. “We’re with her now, so we can only hope this was a good decision. Besides, she swore on the Crystal. Twice!”

“Hmmm,” Nar made, as he stepped onto the new platform, one that looked nearly identical to the previous one. “I guess.”

Tys waited for them all to get out, then herded them away, past the moving stairs, the escalators, as she had told Tuk they were called, and up the normal stairs towards an identic set of gates as before.

“I don’t feel so good,” Nar finally allowed himself to tell Kur, as they got past the gates.

“Nar?”

“Whatever she’s doing, it’s the only thing keeping me going. Once she stops, I think I'm dropping.”

“Damn! Just hang on, okay? There’ll be healers there, you hear me?”

Nar nodded, his sight slowly losing to an army of tiny black dots.

The corridors and stairs and things called escalators passed by his eyes in a succession of people, ads and noise. The sound of his breathing, and of Kur’s continuous encouragement, was all that he could discern in the chaos, as he placed one foot in front of the other in an endless succession.

And then, there was a door, and the loud sound of something roaring. It was a hundred times louder than the train had been, and it jolted Nar back into reality.

Before them, a slender handrail stretched into the blue void, with nothing at all beneath them. And at the end of it, there was a tall and imposing wall of something metallic and rust colored.

“Finally, we’re here!”, Tys shouted above the noise.

“COO!” a woman shouted, running towards them. “Finally!”

She looked human, but she was geared up in something that covered her face, so he couldn’t tell.

Around the walkway, looking like they were guarding it, was a contingent of people all dressed up in the same way as she, in some form of black and brown gear. The same logo as the one Ty’s clothes was emblazoned atop their segmented, armor plates of various shapes and sizes, alongside some kind snarling, teeth bearing creature.

What in the pile are they wearing? Nar wondered.

The triangle logo probably meant they belonged to their guild, Tsurmirel, but he still had no idea what a guild was. He had a vague impression that it was a collective of people working together in some way, but that was about it.

“I know! I know! Let’s just get the fuck out of here!” Tys shouted back.

Tys and the new person guided them towards the rust-colored wall, and as Nar looked up, he realized what he was looking at.

A ship… An aethership! By the Crystal! It’s huge!

Behind them, the brown and black geared people closed ranks, and walked backwards towards the ship, their eyes on the doors that had closed behind them.

“Are they expecting to be attacked?” Kur shouted in Nar’s ear.

“I was just thinking the same!” Nar mumbled, unable to speak any louder.

However, they made it to the open entrance of the aethership without issue, and into a crammed, metal corridor, cut in a hexagonal shape.

“All in?” Tys asked.

“Yes, COO!” a man shouted.

“Good!”

Tys hammered away at a panel filled with buttons, and the door closed with a loud thunk. Then, a series of heavy thumps sounded from either behind it, or within it.

Tys gave the door a shove, then pressed another button.

“COO here! Ready to depart, captain!”

“About fucking time!” a female voice snarled from the device, making Tys and all the geared people flinch. “The fuck where you doing? Do you know how much XP we’ve just lost?”

“I… I’m sorry, captain. There were…”

“Shut it! I’ll hear you later.”

And Tys, the COO as they were calling her, leaned away from the panel of buttons, looking dejected and drained.

“Tough luck, COO,” the same woman as before told her.

Tys just sighed and leaned against the wall.

Nar looked away from her and scanned the people around them, all of them packed together even worse than in the train.

“Crystal, how many Climbers did they recruit?” Cen asked.

“About a thousand,” Tys said, her voice flat. “And you better hold on to something. This is going to be a wild ride.”

“What? Why?” Kur asked.

The geared woman snickered. “The captain has to make back the XP the COO lost.”

“XP?” Kur asked in confusion.

“Fuck’s sake…” Tys muttered, ignoring him. “I’m just doing my best for the guild...”

“There, there…” the other crew member said.

Nar leaned heavily against the wall, and his hands found a handrail to hold on to.

“How are you feeling?” Kur asked, turning his attention to him.

“Not great, but I’ll hold on,” Nar replied.

At least for as long as she keeps me going, he thought to himself.

His limbs trembled. On their way over, something had spread from his temporarily pacified aura and into his entire body. His heart now beat erratically in his chest, and his head felt like it was about to explode with each whoosh of rushing blood that filled his brain.

What in the pile is wrong with me now? He wondered, taking deep, slow breaths.

A loud klaxon startled them, and the yellow lights turned to a dim red.

“All hands, all hands! Hold onto something! We’re blasting off!” a woman’s voice sounded from somewhere above their heads. “I repeat, all hands, all hands! Hold on tight! We’re blasting off!”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

The floor shifted under them, and apprentices went flying into each other.

“This will just mean more work for the healers,” the geared woman said.

“Take it up with the captain,” Tys sighed.

The entire corridor tilted about forty-five degrees, and Nar and Kur were crushed against the wall. Somehow, Tys and the crew remained perfectly still where they were. Unbothered.

“Shit!” Tys suddenly said. “You, quam! Give me the alfin!”

“Uh?” Nar heard Jul’s startled voice.

“Give me the alfin. She’s fading fast!”

“I-Yes!”

“You guys stay here. They’ll look after you,” Tys said. “And don’t worry, the alfin will live!”

And just like that, Nar felt her leave. And with her, whatever she was doing to keep him going.

“Oh, no!” Kur said. “Nar! You okay?”

Nar’s head lolled against the wall, unresponsive.

“Damn it!” Kur shouted.

“What’s wrong with him?” Tuk asked.

“I don’t know. He said he was tired. Probably all that aura there at the end.”

“Damn. What do we do?”

Just then, before Kur could answer, the whole ship started vibrating, and a deafening roar obliterated all sound. Momentum forced them all backwards, and the crew person held them in place.

“What’s happening?” Kur shouted at her, half holding Nar and half still being held by Nar, while the two of them were kept in place by the same woman who had been talking to Tys.

Her helmet suddenly opened with a slight hiss, revealing a dark red skin and matching red pupils.

“The COO took too much time,” she said. “And the fees for docking went above what was expected. Now the captain’s going to blast her way through the port’s airspace, back to the main public channels, to try to pay less on our way out.”

“What?” Kur asked.

The woman grinned in the darkness, her red eyes shining through the dimness.

“Everything in the Nexus costs experience, kid,” she told them, shouting to be heard above the noise. “We needed to pay to exit the public channel, then to go on to the secondary tributary, then the tertiary, then the docking tributary, then this specific dock’s private airspace, then we had to pay to moor the ship… And so on and on. It all adds up. And the longer we stay away from the public, free channel, the more we have to pay.”

Kur had gone progressively paler as she went on, and he swallowed drily as she finished. “And all of this is paid with… Experience?”

“What else?”

The klaxon sounded again.

“All hands, all hands! Prepare to enter the tertiary tributary! All hands, all hands! Prepare to enter the tertiary tributary!”

“Nar hold on!” Kur shouted.

There was no response.

“Nar?”

“I think he’s out!” Tuk said.

“Crystal’s sake!”

Kur untangled his left leg from Nar’s dead grip, and pushed him against the wall, digging into his own non-existent reserves of energy to keep him upright. He kept his jaw tight to keep from screaming at the pain that flared all over his body.

Out of the corner of his eyes, his HP bar flashed red at him. Empty.

Thankfully, you don’t get knocked out when you run out of HP, Kur thought, gritting his teeth in preparation for what was coming.

However, it was still a sobering experience to know he was walking around without his protective shielding. Crazy, how a bit more than half a year ago, he hadn’t even known about HP, and now, its loss was enough to shake him to his core.

Pushing the thoughts aside, he dug onto Nar and clawed his fingers around the handrail.

“Are you okay?” Tuk asked, concerned. “You’re out of HP, aren’t you?”

“We don’t need HP, here,” Kur said, hoping his voice didn’t betray his own doubts. “Just hang on!”

The roar doubled in intensity, and around them, they heard a loud metal groan.

Once again, momentum shifted, and Kur had to hold on with everything he had. Thankfully, the crew member supplied him with the extra stability he needed.

“You don’t look so good,” she said.

“No HP!” he muttered, through the force of gravity.

“Ah, yes. That would do it. Don’t worry I got you guys,” she said, fully supporting them. “And don’t worry, this old rusty bucket of bolts can take it. You’re safe here.”

“Thank you,” Kur managed, easing his grip as vertigo threatened him.

They had to be almost horizontal by then!

Fortunately, the ship started to right itself out again, and Kur found his footing once more. He hadn’t even realized that he had lost it.

The ship was still vibrating, and the noise had to come from the extreme effort that whatever was powering the ship was making. They had to be going at some kind of extreme speeds, given the forces pulling at his stomach.

The klaxon sounded once more and Kur dreaded the next announcement

“All hands, all hands! We’ve cleared into the tertiary tributary! All hands, all hands! We’ve cleared into the tertiary tributary. Healers, you’re clear to go! I repeat! Healers, you’re clear to go!”

Finally! Kur thought.

“Just hang on in there, Nar.”

Surprisingly, Nar cracked open an eye to look at Kur.

“Nar! You’re awake?” he asked.

“Are they trying to kill us?” Nar mumbled.

“No, they’re trying to save on experience.”

“What?”

“Yeah… I know. Just relax. I got you, and …”

“Seh!”

“And Seh’s got us!”

“Thanks, Seh,” Nar said, closing his eyes again.

Seh laughed. “So polite! And in that state too!”

“He’s a good guy,” Kur said, readjusting his body to better cover Nar, ignoring his own pain while he did so. “And he’s going to be fine.”

Behind him, Seh smiled at the scene, and readjusted her own grip on the two boys. Nothing was going to happen to them.

“Healer! Let me through!” a voice shouted to be heard above the loud roar and the hundreds of shouts going on in that cramped corridor.

“Healer! Let me through! Someone is coming to see you, just hold on!” the voice said, clearly exasperated.

Then, a young man, probably in the same age bracket as Fon, and dressed in a brown and black short sleeved shirt and loose pants appeared next to them.

“Kur and Row’s party?” he shouted.

“That’s us!” Row shouted back.

“The COO told me to come check on…”

The klaxon interrupted the healer.

“All hands, all hands! We’re about to enter the secondary tributary! Brace for turn! All hands, all hands! We’re about to enter the secondary tributary! Brace for turn!”

“Ah for Crystal’s sakes! Hold on!” the guy shouted.

No later than had his words left his mouth, the ship groaned and shifted again, this time towards the other wall. Apprentices screamed in panic as they went crashing in the opposite direction, glued down by the force and the speed at which the Scimitar was turning.

The medic, holding onto Tuk, who was still holding onto Mul, and Seh, pinning down Kur and Nar, kept them safe.

“Is-Isn’t this dangerous?” Kur asked. “Can’t we crash into other ships?”

“Nah, our pilots are the real deal,” Seh said, unbothered. “The worst that can happen is that we get blocked from docking here again. But there’s a billion docks in the Nexus, you know? So, who cares?”

Kur blinked at the cheerful crew woman, trying and failing to make sense of what she had just said.

“This is madness…”

“Nope. This is the Nexus,” the healer said from behind him.

He was struggling to get some kind of L shaped device pointed at Mul, even as gravity tried to claim them.

“Hmm,” he said, trying to single handedly input something into the machine and keep it pointed at Mul. “Mild concussion. Some healing, some sleep, and he’ll be alright.”

The machine made a beeping sound and a wiring noise reached their ears. Kur watched as a yellow piece of something came out of a slit in the machine and the medic struggled to pull it out with two fingers, the other three closed around the device’s handle.

Kur reached over and mutely pulled it out for him. The back of the thing was sticky, and the words “paper”, “glue” and “sticker” rushed into his battered mind.

“Cheers. Stick that on him, will you? On his chest.”

Tuk did his best to shift his body, and Kur reached over and stuck the yellow sticker to Mul’s chest.

Next the medic pointed the machine at Kur.

“Zero HP. Crystal… And there’s fractures all over. Did you get blasted by something?” he asked Kur.

“Yeah. At the end. It exploded right above us. I think.”

“Ahead of you actually, and somewhat to the right,” the healer corrected him. “But, damn. That last bit is always fucked up alright. That’s going to take a bit of healing, but you’ll be fine after.”

Another yellow piece of paper came out the machine and Kur stuck it on his own chest.

As he did, the ship started to tilt back to normal.

The expected klaxon sounded again.

“All hands, all hands! We’re into the second tributary! All hands, all hands! We’re into the second tributary! Hold on, we’re almost through!”

“Crystal…” the healer said with a sigh. “Prop up your friend, will you? I need to point this at his head.”

Kur gently lifted Nar’s head, and the guy pointed his device at it.

The machine made a pitiful sound and he frowned at it in confusion.

“What the…”

Then he leaned in closer to take a better look at Nar.

“Oh, shit. That’s him. The guy with the aura sword.”

“Yeah… You saw us?” Tuk asked. He must have missed the healer’s earlier words.

“Of course! The Ceremonies are broadcasted to the whole of the Nexus. This guy’s about to become a local celebrity for a few days…”

Seh whistled. “That’s why the COO went back. You guys were the two parties at the end! Crystal. I cried! That was amazing! You all stood up for each other, and then, at the end, the other party coming in to rescue you… It was like a movie!”

She sniffled, and Kur looked from one to the other, in pure, and utter loss. Meanwhile, the medic stuck a dark blue sticker on Nar’s chest.

“I know what’s wrong with him,” the medic said. “It’s dangerous. But it’s easily fixed. I’ll call the Master of Aura to come have a look at him and I’ll take him with me to the sickbay myself. But just let me finish triaging the rest of your people first.”

The guy quickly and efficiently cycled through all of them, then Row’s party, distributing stickers of different colors. Most of them got green stickers, with the diagnosis being mostly exhaustion and superficial wounds. But both Viy and Raf got his attention for longer, and he stuck red stickers on both of them.

“Please, keep these stickers on you until a member of staff has directly told you that you can remove them,” he said, to the two parties. “You got that? What did I say?”

“Keep the sticker, until… told… remove,” they all intoned tiredly back at him.

“Good. Most of you are okay. The two red stickers will need the most attention, but they’ll be okay too.”

The klaxon sounded again, and Kur looked up in annoyance.

How much are they willing to risk just to save their precious experience?

He knew experience was important, but Crystal dammit, this felt like insanity!

“All hands! All hands! We’re coming up onto the public channel! Prepare to brace! All hands! All hands! We’re coming up onto the public channel! Prepare to brace!”

“Crystal preserve us,” the healer whispered, then raising his voice he shouted above the noise. “Hold on, everyone! We’re going to break!”

Kur groaned and held onto the handrail. He could already guess at how fast they were going to slow down.

Whatever Kur had been expecting, however, the reality was worse.

The whole of existence shifted forward, and had it not been for Seh holding onto him, he would’ve been flung forward.

The roaring rose to an even higher crescendo, the ship groaning and protesting all around them.

And then, suddenly, the sound subsisted, and the force trying to drag him forward let go of him.

“Crystal… You guys are crazy,” Kur whispered, unable to muster enough strength to speak any loader.

“Yeah, that was bad,” Seh said. “The COO and the captain are about to have a shouting match… Anyways, we’re all alive, so I’m guessing we made it.”

“This is insane,” the healer said, regarding the corridor filled with moaning and groaning apprentices. “All the triage… Gone. We’re going to have to start all over again.”

The klaxon sounded again, and this time the lights turned back to the brighter yellow.

“All hands,” a new voice said. “This is Captain Theombari. We’re in the clear. Apologies for the rough ride, apprentices, but I promise everyone’s going to get patched up. Stay where you are, and the crew will provide you with instructions. Captain out.”

“And that’s that,” Seh said, finally letting go of Nar and Kur. “Congrats on your first rough ride!”

“Can people die from this?” Tuk asked, dazed, and holding onto the unconscious brawler for dear life.

“Nah. You guys are strong enough for it,” the healer said, waving away his concerns. “But you can get injured. Loads of you probably did.”

He sighed. “Not my problem thankfully... Pass me your friend, the blue sticker. I’ll bring him to sickbay. The rest of you just wait here for instructions. And keep those stickers on you!”

*********

“Don’t worry, kid. I got you,” a voice said. “We’re gonna get you good as new again.”

Someone was carrying him through yellow lit, brown and red corridors.

His feet dragged behind him as much as they carried him forward, but however was carrying seemed to have no trouble with that.

“Kur?” Nar croaked.

“Don’t worry, your friends are going to be fine. I’m just taking you to sickbay, so that the master can fix you up.”

Nar tried to speak but nothing intelligent came out of his mouth, and so, the healer dragged him through the ship.

Next he came to, Nar was being lowered onto a bed.

“Where… Am I?” he asked, feebly trying to push away the hands that were touching him.

He was somewhere bright white, and he could barely open his eyes.

“Don’t worry, child, you’re safe,” a voice said

It sounded old and young at the same time. Patient. And it reached deep within his core, down to his very aura, and Nar allowed the hands to push him down onto the bed.

“Let’s have a look, dear, shall we?”

And he felt something. A stare. A presence. Within and without.

“Aura exhaustion?” another voice asked.

“A little worse than that,” said the patient voice. “There’s some nasty aura burning in his channels, and his core is collapsing…”

“Crystal…” another voice said.

A gentle hand patted his cheek.

“Don’t worry. It’s a simple fix. No one’s dying on our watch.”

“Die?” Nar asked, alarmed.

“Don’t worry. You’ll be fine. But this is going to hurt.”

“What wi…”

Something was shoved into his mouth.

“Bite on that,” a voice said.

“Alright, better to just get it done,” the patient voice said.

Nar tried to speak through whatever they had put into his mouth, but it stuck to his teeth and kept his tongue in place.

Then, agony coursed through him.

From somewhere on his chest, molten heat poured into him, drilling deep to reach his aura. There, it exploded in light and pain, and flooded his entire body. Nar’s back arched on the bed and he grunted, unable to make any other sounds through whatever they had put in his mouth.

Tears streaked down his face and strong hands held him in place, as his ball of light was squeezed tight and his channels scrubbed clean.

Then, as suddenly as it started, it was over, and Nar was left panting on the bed, blind and nearly gone

“He’ll be fine now,” the voice said.

“Thank you, master.”

Hands gently tucked him in, and they removed the thing from his mouth. Then, they gently wiped the saliva and tears off his face.

“You did good,” a voice said, and Nar just barely recognized the healer that had carried him over. “A few hours of sleep and you’ll be feeling much better. So, off to sleep with you now.”

Nar couldn’t even muster the will to speak, and he heard people leaving.

But he knew he wasn’t alone.

He forced open one bloodshot eye and tried to see who was in the room with him.

A gentle hand closed his eye, and rested over his face, warm and comforting.

“Hush, now. It’s been a long, long while and you’ve earned some rest,” the one who they had called master said. “Enjoy it now while you can. Soon, we’ll be making you work very, very hard.”

Nar mumbled something but oblivion was finally claiming him, ready to embrace him into sweet, peaceful nothingness.

However, before he was fully gone, he could’ve sworn he heard the master say something else.

“Still, you’re quite the find, aren’t you?”

Then, he was no more.