Part 2 - To be a Delver
“It was like nothing I’d ever seen. And so much more than I could’ve ever imagined...The Labyrinth stole my heart, and never gave it back.” - Anonymous delver, minactt, DPS, ex-Climber, the so called “The Always Open Market” (Quadrant D, Section 29356, Division 387499, Sector DHX49377362IHHL, no official ID), a popular black market and gathering spot for ex-Climbers freelance delvers looking to sign up
Excerpt from “A Treatise on ...
2025-01-16 11:30:01 +0000 UTC
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Hey everyone,
I hope you all are still enjoying the story!
So, Part 1 of Book 2 is finished! It was meant to give Nar and the party a bit of a breather. They managed to Climb after all, so they had earned a little "rest". Besides, it was time to have a fair chunk of worldbuilding to start getting an idea about the Nexus and the Labyrinth (but it was just the tip of the iceberg!). Going forward, we'll start seeing the story ramping up again, especially once past the...
2025-01-15 11:43:03 +0000 UTC
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The fighting back to the ships was brutal.
Fur, teeth and claws.
Green blood gushing.
Fur, teeth and claws.
Green blood splattering…
Even now, in the safety of the wasp, with his eyes closed, Nar could still see the endless horde of psaelis before him. His feet and hands twitched, as even drained leaden, his muscles were reacting to attacks that were now only in his mind. And his head pounded, and his ears and neck were killing him, from the hours pressed insid...
2025-01-15 11:30:02 +0000 UTC
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A line of tall, matt blue shields pushed through the ranks of the psaelis, matching short, straight, blue blades thrusting through the gaps in between said shields. Blue, flaming projectiles and arrows streaked from the dust, trailing dense blue smoke behind them, and laying havoc amidst the beasts.
“By the Crystal! Who are those people?” Cen asked.
“They-They’re the Navy!” Nar said.
The blues in their matt armor and weapons was a perfect match to each other, ...
2025-01-14 11:30:01 +0000 UTC
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The line held against the screeching tide, and soon, they were all covered in fresh, sickly green. Now that they knew to expect the mental attacks, the Scimitar apprentices were, if still somewhat defenceless against them, at least prepared and on the lookout to react to them. Nar, by virtue of his capabilities, often found himself wading deep into that mass of fur, claws and teeth, to hunt for those psychic aether wilding beasts, Rel, Tuk, Cen, and even ranged from surrounding parties, doing...
2025-01-13 11:31:01 +0000 UTC
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Nar kicked forward, slicing through fur and snapping teeth.
[Aura Quickening]!
There was a whooshing rush of sound, his sight tunneling and extending before him, and pain exploded inside his skull, ricocheting through his brain and kicking against the back of his neck.
Damn! He thought, in that timeless moment as his [NPC] kicked into overdrive. Aura flooded his brain through his recently established pathways, and Nar remembered, too late, that with ev...
2025-01-13 11:30:02 +0000 UTC
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A tide of black, brown and dark gray fur rushed at them, kicking up an even thicker cloud of debris and dust that quickly obscured the rest of the battlefield, and size of the den, from view.
“In formation!” Kur shouted. “Don’t let them push us over the edge!”
“Don’t expect they will swoop down and catch us, uh?” Tuk said, glancing downwards.
Nar, clenching his jaw, also considered the miles and miles of wall beneath them, and then the floor of the Labyrinth,...
2025-01-12 11:30:00 +0000 UTC
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“Holy shit!” Viy shouted from the front.
“Woah!” Tuk said.
“What? What?” Mul cried, unable to see.
Their party moved forward, within the queue of apprentices, and Nar stepped into a place unlike any he had ever seen before.
They stood upon a metal walkway, and before them, spread a massive, dark blue metal square room. And below them, there were aetherships.
The roar of engines was almost deafening. And yet, Nar could still make out the sounds of shou...
2025-01-11 11:31:01 +0000 UTC
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It felt like only moments had passed since he and Tuk had returned to their beds, and the moment the klaxon jolted them all awake.
“Up, up, apprentices!” the captain’s voice sounded above their heads, shrill and dripping with excitement. “We have a great day ahead of us, and a tight schedule to do it all in! So, let’s get ready and get some food in those bellies! You won’t have time to eat until it’s all over!”
“Until what is over?” Mul shouted back. “Just te...
2025-01-10 11:31:00 +0000 UTC
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“Sorry about that, man,” Tuk said as they exited the party room. “Shit, maybe this is stupid and we should just go back to bed…”
Nar smiled at the trugger.
The light had revealed a pale, sweaty complexion on the ring tosser. His eyes darted from left to right, up, down and back again, and if Nar concentrated on his [Hearing], he could hear his erratically sped up heartbeat.
“It’s alright. I couldn’t sleep anyways,” Nar told him. “Maybe a walk will help us...
2025-01-10 11:30:01 +0000 UTC
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Nar lay awake, staring at the darkness above his head.
The soft breaths from Kur and Mul meshed with the ever-present background hum of the ship’s engines. As for Tuk, he could hear him tossing and turning, sighing, as the ring tosser tried to sleep.
The days had flown by in a whirlwind of endurance, new knowledge and training.
Slaying was a lecture they had every other day, given to them by Professor Vissur, who delivered death with every monotonous syllable from his tran...
2025-01-09 11:30:01 +0000 UTC
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Hey everyone,
I hope everyone's having a great start of 2025!
From my side, I'll be ramping up things again, and will be focusing on getting book 3 finished by the end of January. There's a lot of cool stuff coming in there and I'm having a blast writing it! I can't wait to show it to you all!
As always, if there's anything that you think is not going quite well or can be improved on, just let me know. All of your feedback is precious, and in February, I'll be taking all o...
2025-01-08 12:05:54 +0000 UTC
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Nar scampered to obey.
I didn’t even see him move!
“Do you think midnight means the end of training?” the master asked him, grinning with a wicked glint to his eyes. “Not to you! Not if you want to succeed, Nar. Now show me what you got!”
Nar stumbled to pull his sword from his inventory and lowered himself into stance.
“Good. It's painful, but it's starting to sink in already,” the master said, nodding approvingly. “But let’s see how long yo...
2025-01-08 11:31:00 +0000 UTC
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Nar wobbled to a stop in front of the door.
That morning, when he woke, Nar had been barely able to move. The pain shooting through him and the stiffness had been close to unbearable. Not even in the first week had he felt as hurt as he felt that morning.
“We did this on purpose,” instructor Koh had told them. “So that you learn the value of warm ups and stretching, which we’ve been so far guiding you through. Today, I will show you how to do both, and from now on, we will...
2025-01-08 11:30:02 +0000 UTC
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“It burns, does it not?” instructor Koh asked.
Nar grit his teeth and squatted down in tandem with the instructors.
His legs burned as though hot knives carved through them. They were wobbly, weak and shapeless like jell-o. Every time he lowered his butt into the squat, he feared he would never be able to get back up again. Or even walk properly.
After hours of basic stance and passing step drills, traversing their assigned red square along cones and lines and different ...
2025-01-07 11:30:01 +0000 UTC
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A klaxon ruptured his sleep into a thousand shards.
“Ugh!” Nar cried, holding onto his head.
At some point, a bottle of something had found its way to his hand, and things had gotten rowdier.
He remembered Kur dancing on top of a table with Mul. Gad watching over a passed-out Cen, asleep on a couch. Tuk had gotten a bunch of people to form a circle and learn some kind of song, and Jul had started shouting and slurring all of her words, as well as introducing herself to a...
2025-01-06 11:31:01 +0000 UTC
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By the time they were finally set free, drenched in sweat and their uniforms splattered in a dozen colors and dishes, and smelling of delicious food, Nar had to give it to Tuk.
They had set out to find out where their food came from, and not only had they discovered it, they had also learned how it was made, and had made it themselves.
Boiling, steaming, frying, grilling, stir-frying, blanching, mashing, crushing, cooling, heating and so many, many others. They had done it all, an...
2025-01-06 11:30:00 +0000 UTC
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“What in the pile?” Mul said, looking around. “It’s all blue here!”
“The crew decks are separate from the faculty decks,” Thobask explained, from in front of them. “There are a few places in the ship where the two met, but for the most part, it’s all kept separate.”
“Why’s that?” Tuk asked, as they got underway.
“Each to their own,” Thobask said. “It makes no sense for the crew to be tripping on apprentices, nor for apprentices to be worrying ...
2025-01-05 11:30:01 +0000 UTC
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When Jul returned to the party room, about an hour after Nar himself had returned, the common room exploded in cheers, whistling and applause.
“W-What's going on?” Jul asked, backing up against the door.
Tuk strode towards her, grinning from side to side and wiping his eyes. “Nar told us what happened! You were so brave!”
And he gave her a tight hug.
“I-I was?”
“Of course!” Cen said, coming in next, snot peeking within her nostrils. “My Crystal!...
2025-01-04 11:30:01 +0000 UTC
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“Nar?”
“Hmmm?”
Nar rolled over, feeling a pair of hands at his back.
At first, he didn’t see anything in their dark and quiet room.
Briefly accessing his [Sight], he was finally able to make the small figure reaching up to him.
“Jul?” he asked. “Is something wrong?”
Jul exhaled shakily. “I need your help, Nar...”
That finally got the rest of the grogginess to dissipate. He had stayed up late the previous night, having fun in Row...
2025-01-03 11:31:00 +0000 UTC
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“Today, apprentice. Or is this the first time you’re seeing me?” the master said, a slight curl on his lips betraying his stern tone.
“I… Y-Yes, master!” Nar said, stepping forward.
Behind him, instructor Liv left them to it, and the door closed itself.
Nar found himself, for the first time, alone and face to face with the Master of Blades whose attention he had so much craved.
His heartbeat was fast, and he alternated between terrified and the need to scre...
2025-01-03 11:30:01 +0000 UTC
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The sound of laughter and good cheer filled their room as they waited for dinner.
Tuk had returned with news of success. He had tossed a ring, and he had managed to get it back onto his finger without hurting himself or slicing it off. And he had managed to do so several times after that as well. He was finally making some progress.
Mul hadn’t complained about his training once in the hours they’d been there, and Nar was feeling light and content in the moment.
The only ...
2025-01-02 11:30:01 +0000 UTC
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A few minutes later, after having inhaled his food, Nar rushed towards the Aura Hall.
When he arrived there, he was relieved to find that half the pods were still free, as the apprentices were taking their lunch break.
He almost ran towards the closest one, as though scared it might get snapped from him before he could reach it, and closed the pod around him.
It was still early into the lunch break, so hopefully, maybe, just maybe, he could make some progress in that small h...
2025-01-01 11:31:01 +0000 UTC
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The weekend came and went in a frenzy of activity.
Nar’s [Constitution] and [Stamina], as well as his newly unlocked [Vigor], kept him going through the insane pace the Blades apprentices were put through in those two days and nights.
He was also extremely thankful for the recovery effects of cycling his aura, and got into the habit of cycling it whenever he could in between exercises, during their short breaks.
No one had given out to him for it, and so he had to assume t...
2025-01-01 11:30:03 +0000 UTC
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-[ Attribute unlocked:
Vigor
You have gained:
Vigor 0 -> 2 ]-
“Were you told to stop moving, apprentice?” a voice shouted at him.
“No, instructor! Sorry, instructor!” Nar snapped back at immediate attention.
“Then why did you stop?”
“I… Uh. I unlocked [Vigor], instructor,” Nar said.
The tall and dark morsvar instructor considered him for a few seconds, then gri...
2024-12-31 11:30:01 +0000 UTC
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“Ugh,” Nar groaned, as he lowered himself into a sitting position within the already closed pod.
Despite being less than three hours long, the session today at the hands of the Master of Blades and his instructors had been even more devastating than the previous day’s one. Nar still couldn't understand how they had managed to achieve it, but if anything, he felt actually ill today.
And no signs of that new attribute… he thought with a sigh, as he tried to get...
2024-12-30 11:31:01 +0000 UTC
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“Okay, apprentices,” the professor said, clapping to get their attention back. “Today, we’ll need to skip the break if we’re to have any hope of finishing our intended material. I know all of this is very shocking, and that there’s still much left unspoken that you will need to find out yourselves. The optional lectures are a great place to start. But for now, we need to keep going!”
A bar of blue, orange and white appeared next to the square.
“I was going to go in...
2024-12-30 11:30:00 +0000 UTC
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We what? Nar thought, stunned, and sure he had heard wrong.
Not only was there the Church, but now there was this whole nobility to obey as well?
“It is the way of the Nexus!” Professor Thim said, raising his voice above the clamor that filled the room. “And it is so, because the nobility provides nearly half of all the combat classes in the Nexus, and nearly 90% of the Named Few to boot, thus taking upon its shoulders the great responsibility, and incurs the insane...
2024-12-29 11:30:01 +0000 UTC
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When his alarm rang the next morning, Nar silenced it with a groan.
“Come on, people,” Kur shouted. “Up, up, up!”
Nar groaned again and turned around, but Kur pulled open the curtains and shook him.
“I’m awake… I’m awake!” Nar cried.
“Then get up!”
Making a sorrowful face, Nar forced himself to sit up.
“Didn’t we just come back?” Mul asked, from the bunk bed across from him.
“We got five hours of sleep. That's more than e...
2024-12-28 11:30:01 +0000 UTC
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Consulting his map, Nar realized that he was closer to the canteen than to his room, so he decided to head there instead, in the hopes of finding his party already eating dinner.
And if they weren’t there, he would quickly eat something and head back to the room, to see if he could catch them before they headed out for aura practice.
His plan formed, he was only half aware of where he was going.
The physical exertions of the day as well as his talk with K had left him wrec...
2024-12-27 11:31:00 +0000 UTC
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