Luke Everhart

Chapter 206 - Our Minds

“I think that’s everything,” Kur said.

At his feet, there was a tall, sturdy looking and square backpack, in a color blend of dark and lighter browns. It had been a part of the free, basic package that they had received when they had arrived at the quartermaster, and was necessary to store not only all the harvesting and gathering that the party was supposed to do in the dungeon, which was nothing short of substantial, but also all the consumables they were bringing in with them.<...

Chapter 205 - Dungeon Allotment

Kur called for their attention as they left the auditorium.

“We’re up,” he told them. “I just got the notification to head to the offices of Leadership. It’s time to know what our dungeon is, and look into getting all the stuff we’ll need.”

“Those consumable things?” Tuk asked.

“Yes, those consumable things,” Kur said. “Anyone want to come with me and give me a hand? Gad will be busy starting today.”

“Sorry guys,” she said.

“Why ar...

Chapter 204 - Dungeon 101 (Part 2 of 2)

“Why would anyone do something like that?” Cen asked her brother, horror lowering her tone into a hushed whisper.

Mul shrugged. “People suck, and they’re greedy. Haven’t you realized yet what kind of place the Nexus is? It’s all about their precious XP.”

“To kill for it, though. That’s dark…” Rel said, from Cen’s other side.

“But can you deny it?” Mul asked her. “Remember what happened to us.”

Rel didn’t reply, and within, Nar nodded a...

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Chapter 203 - Dungeon 101 (Part 1 of 2)

“Good morning! Good morning!” Professor Thim greeted them as he entered the auditorium from the lower entrance.

Nar had just made it back in time to catch his party as they left their room, and their reunion had been loud and exuberant, though cut short, as Kur ushered them out the door.

“Nar…” Rel had said, approaching.

“Later, okay?” he’d told her, smiling in the hopes that would convey to her that he wasn’t mad at her in any way. “We’re going to be l...

Chapter 202 - One Thing After The Other

He knew he was in sickbay even before he was fully awake. He hadn’t forgotten that overwhelming comfort, that sensation of being hugged and all of his problems just being very, very far away… But he also knew he was not alone.

Nar opened his eyes, and found Kur sitting by his side with a deep frown marring his features.

“Did you get a report?” Nar asked, his voice dry and scratchy.

His party leader blinked and looked up to find him awake, then he nodded.

“I d...

Chapter 201 - Whatever It Takes

When all was said and done, and his head hit the pillow, the curtains pulled closed, and he lay in the dark with nothing but the gentle hum of the ship and his very thoughts to distract him, everything that the priestess had pried loose inside him came cascading down once more.

The memories barreled upon him, spiling through his pitiful attempts at stemming that procession of endless images, sounds, and sensations in black and white crystalight. The memories flowed from one another, pou...

Chapter 200 - Sparring Partner

He raged through the ship in a blindness of raw pain and rampaging memories, his aura roaring within his core, and his heartbeat pounding against his ribcage as though it was some enormous beast seeking to be let loose on the ship.

He had no idea where he was going until he arrived there, however, his private training room, as he had begun to think of it, wasn’t empty as it should have been.

“Nar! I’ve been waiting for you!” Viy said, stopping mid swinging her spear to gra...

Chapter 199 - Of Gods And Regret

“Are you okay?” Rel asked as they traversed the yellow lit, hexagonal corridors of the ship. “You’re so quiet.”

“What? Am I?” Nar asked.

Rel looked down at her feet. “I’m sorry. You’re thinking about your training, aren’t you? That was selfish of me to drag you away from…”

“No, no! It’s not that!”

He sighed, and checked the lone corridor they were in. “I just… I don’t know what to think about… It. Them.”

“You m...

Chapter 198 - To Wait

Nar turned off the alarm in his head with a mental grunt, and took in a deep breath as the dark ceiling above his head came into focus. From around the room, he heard the now familiar sounds of the others waking up as well. Kur, as always, and like a complete freak, got up as soon as he turned off his alarm, and he always got ready ahead of all of them, and then made sure they all got ready on time like a good parent.

Tuk would usually get his butt off bed after Kur, and humming or whis...

Chapter 197 - Conflicting

When later that night he returned to his room, with the lessons of his master aching across his body, Nar found that the lights of the common room were still bright despite the late hour, and a hushed conversation reached his ears as the door to his party room sighed open.

“Hello?” he called out, as he entered.

“Nar?” Kur’s low voice filtered down the short hallway.

Nar stepped into the bright circular light shining down on their circular black table, and found Kur...

Chapter 196 - Don't Give Up Yet

“Things turned out a lot more chaotic than expected", the Master of Blades said, earning a slow nod from his apprentice.

The two of them sat cross legged in the center of the master's private tutoring training room, but rather than begin their usual routine, the master had asked Nar to sit down for a moment, and silence had stretched for a few heartbeats.

“Confluences are always messy affairs, but that herd of parnais hit us incredibly hard,” his master said, folding his arm...

Chapter 195 - Confluence Gains

“Hey-hey!”

Nar groaned and flipped to the other side.

“Come on, man!” Kur said, shaking him. “Breakfast!”

“Noooo…” Nar moaned hoarsely.

“Your fault for staying up so late!” Kur said. “What were you doing anyway? The COO brought you back at four in the morning, man!”

Nar’s eyes flashed open and he flipped back around.

“She did? Wait… I’m…”

“In your bed, yes,” Kur said, shaking his head. “She carried you here ...

Chapter 194 - We Are Delvers

“Alright, try to move your fingers… Very good. Now, the elbow…”

Nar followed the instructions of the healer.

He’d been surprised to find a zeibar, of all things, as he entered the room, and had been immediately reminded of Tas, the party leader that had betrayed them to the cannibals in the Mid-Levels of the B-Nex.

If his mood was already dour, tired and raw from the confluence and a mostly sleepless night where he hadn’t even been able to check his gains, as the...

Chapter 193 - Reality Check

Nar came slowly to a blurry chaos of darting figures and moans of pain.

“Jul?” he rasped. “Jul!”

“Nar!” someone shouted nearby, and  small, warm hands wrapped around his left hand. From his other arm, agony lanced up his shoulder and into his core, yanking him fully into wakefulness, and he gripped on tightly to the hands holding his.

“Cen?” Nar asked, turning his face.

His sight was blurry, and every time he blinked, he could still see lightning s...

Chapter 192 - Gone Wrong

“I fucking hate these things!” Mul shouted.

His flaming hands propelled him upwards, and Nar reached down to pull him up to the top of the fish they had just killed together.

You hate everything, Nar thought to himself, quickly letting go of Mul’s fiery hand before it did any more damage to his already nearly two thirds depleted HP, as unlike the rest of the neutral flames in his armor, the one’s raging from his fists were the real deal.

However, he couldn�...

Chapter 191 - Jump!

“Get ready to jump!” Mynap shouted, over the sound of the storm and the impacts. “Melee! We’re going down! Stay away from the heads!”

Stay away from what heads? Nar thought, leaving Tuk behind in Kur’s care, and running towards the outer handrail. He leaped for it, and swayed to stop himself from following Mynap and the other storm gliders jumping down.

“What in the Pile is that?” Mul asked from his side.

Below them, spread across the hull, and ...

Chapter 190 - Chaos

The wind roared against his body, and for a split moment, Nar wondered if he was going to be blown back up into the promenade, but then, he was through the wind resistance, plummeting towards the snarling raimel and the screaming apprentice stuck in its deadly, green hold.

Out of the corner of his eyes, Nar noticed that another apprentice was flying down at his side, the both of them plunging down at speed, desperate to save the tangled apprentice, but Nar landed first.

He was una...

Chapter 189 - Into The Storm

“You fucking idiots should’ve woken me up!” Kur yelled at them.

It was the next morning, after the klaxon had sounded even earlier than anticipated, and it was a very sorry looking motley of a half party that had assembled before the party leader. Dark bags were carved deep underneath glazed, reddened eyes that refused to make eye contact with the irate party leader, and they all knew they deserved the berating.

“Or me,” Gad said, eyeing Jul, Viy and Cen in particular. �...

Chapter 188 - Can't Sleep

Going up slowly proved to be a lot easier than just dashing up, of course. However, Mynap challenged the melee apprentices to try and go as fast as they could safely go.

That resulted in a few more injuries across the board, but for Nar, he eventually discovered that with a little help from his [NPC], he could just about manage to stick his landing. Viy had competitively accused him of being a cheater, as he was managing to go up faster than her by the time they wrapped up their trainin...

Chapter 187 - Promenades

The wind blew wistfully past Nar’s shocked expression, and below him, blocked by a single, skinny looking handrail, the ship's hull curved down and out of sight. Beyond that, the clouds and vastness of the Labyrinth tunnel stretched endlessly, with the massive cubes that made its walls just vague outlines in the distance.

“Crystal…” Kur whispered at his side. “I don’t like this.”

“No,” Gad said. “Me neither.”

“Kur’s party?” a gravelly voice asked ...

Chapter 186 - Second Assessment Prep

“Time’s up. Please turn off your devices,” Professor Vissur’s translator said.

Nar groaned and turned off his touch screen, stashing away the little metal cylinder in his ring.

“How did it go?” Gad asked him.

“Okay, I think…” he said. “Ugh. I don’t like studying.”

Gad shook her head in agreement.

Sweat, bruises, pain and blood. These he could take and endure through by just gritting his teeth and motivating himself off of his meager daily ...

Chapter 185 - Guns

“The lengos first. What's your name?” Jarl asked.

“Mul,” the brawler said. “And that’s Jul and Nar.”

“A’ight! I’ll try to remember, but no promises! You ex-Climbers and your three letter names… Come on, let's see if we can all squeeze in!” Jarl said, continuing downwards. “I won’t be able to move it though…”

It? Nar thought, as Jul turned around to follow after Mul.

Nar went last, following Jul down the tight ladder, and fo...

Chapter 184 - What Happens When You Die?

“No! I mean… I…” Tuk stammered.

“Because that’s… Hilarious!” and the man boomed with a throaty, wheezy laughter.

“Fuck’s sake, Jarl…” Tuk breathed. “My heart nearly stopped, man!”

Around them, Nar heard the sound of spreading laughter, and when he searched for its origin, he found people of several different races, who all displayed the same strange characteristics as the morsvar in front of him.

“You thought you’d get a laugh out of you...

Chapter 183 - Forced Rest

Sweat dripped down his face, his neck. The sword’s grip was slick in his hands, but Nar held it firm.

His heart raced, and despite the burning begging from his lungs, Nar fought back to preserve the rhythmic breathing that instructor Koh had taught them for stamina preservation and conditioning.

He raised his sword and eyed the first, glowing blue “1” of the sequence. Before him, beaming from a little device that the instructor had loaned to them, was a square of blue and re...

Chapter 182 - Blood & Curses

Viy stared into the vast, silken twilight outside. In the quiet of the night, with the snack machines humming at the back of the leisure room, she eyed the void with blank emptiness upon her features, blind to the glimmering trails of aetherships flying alongside the Scimitar.

She saw things that weren’t there, but which she would never forget. And even in the silence, especially in this silence, she could still hear their screams… As she always would, and just as she had, when the ...

Chapter 181 - Falling Behind

Strangled shouts and constrained grunting made Gad look up from her weight lifting routine. She already knew what she was going to see, but was still unable to not put down her weights and walk over to the handrail to look down, to the training grounds of the Tanks Hall.

“Put your backs into it!” an instructor roared. “Push!”

Below, a line of thick, heavy tanks groaned in reply, and pushed harder against the line of ethereal, yet solid and very real, golden tower shields b...

Chapter 180 - Promising Apprentice

“Good morning, apprentice!” the Master of Shadows beamed at her, as Jul entered the master’s private training room. “Do you feel well rested? Fully healed?”

Jul smiled at the Master of Shadows. Her chaotic hair gave her a constant look of having just gotten out of bed, or not having gone into it in the first place, and her permanently stained clothing spoke of all of her late night sessions spent concocting mixtures of different purposes and success, as well as to her utter di...

Chapter 179 - To Be A True Leader

In the early hours of the day after their den fight, Kur finally gave up trying to go back to sleep, and instead, got up, and slipped out of their room, coming to sit at the table in their party’s common area.

With a sigh, he clasped his hands together, and brought up his list of skills again, the yellow light dim above his head plunging the room in comforting shadows.

-[ Skills

Active

Words of En...