There were eighteen of them in total ringing the obelisk in the town square. Alex had learned most of the other reborns’ names by now, and the book had filled him in on some of their skillsets. Basically, after the events of the last day, he was as ready as he was going to get.

With the advantage of dark-vision, Alex turned his head to slowly look across the assembled faces. The autumn summons time this year was in the early morning just after midnight. According to Berin (who stood next to Alex), astrologers in the capital would send out missives providing exact expected times at the start of every year.

The reborn of Linosa had still arrived a little early, just in case. They stood now waiting with their hands linked. Almost everyone, including Alex, had collected and shouldered a large pack after dinner. The packs mostly contained sharpened wooden stakes and torches; fortifications for when they arrived in the obelisk chamber. Others had contained more, but the one Berin had handed Alex had the stakes only.

“There’ll be four groups this delve,” the healer had explained on their way out of the mess hall. He’d been in meetings for most of the afternoon, but he and Isabelle had sought Alex out after the meal. “The first group will be the support group. With Eliza gone, that’ll just be Marik, Eri, Safjan, and Samara. Marik and Samara are both healers like me, although with slightly different specialisations. Eri is an [Architect] and Safjan is a [Woodworker]. They’ll be responsible for fortifying the main chamber, but they’re not much good in actual combat.

The second group will be the defensive group. They’ll be distributed around the main chamber to physically defend the gateways. Amaz will be there, along with Edrick. In total, there’ll be six of them. Plenty of firepower.”

That leaves… eight of us? I don’t know how he expects me to remember all these names and numbers, honestly. Even with his boosted INT, Alex had had a lot to take in over the last few days. As such, he’d been mostly interested in learning about his own group.

“The remaining two groups are what we call ranging parties,” Berin had continued. “You, I, and Isabelle will start on the first floor and work our way down to find you a treasure room. The guildmistress will take Iril, our [Navigator] Sarah, and the other two all the way to the tenth and further floors. Their role will be to collect resources for the town. Mostly iron.”

“Is there any possibility I could make it to the tenth floor by the end of the delve?” Alex had asked. One skill would be great, two would be better.

Three or four would have me on par with most of the guilders here.

Berin had snorted and muttered something about over ambitiousness, but Isabelle had seemed open to at least the tenth floor. “The guildmistress said that was up to us. It depends how long it takes to find a treasure room and what kind of class you get. We’ll need to make our way back to the obelisk chamber by the final day. Unless you want to get stuck in the depths.”

Stuck in the depths? That sounds legendary. Imagine surviving that!

Isabelle, perhaps seeing the expression on his face, had added, “you do not want to get stuck in the depths.”

Alex was drawn back to the present moment by what felt like a tugging on his soul. A pull – not in any particular direction but rather to somewhere else. Through his [True Sight], he saw the auras of those around him begin to vibrate and blur. His palms, already sweaty, gripped a little tighter around those of Berin and Isabelle, who were stationed to his left and right. Slowly but surely, his vision faded.

The entire world seemed to shift, and for the first time, Alex found himself in the depths proper. The transition had taken an indeterminate amount of time, and Alex blinked rapidly in the unfamiliar space. He felt a familiar voice speak into his mind, a new quest imprinting itself on him.

The summons sounds. Pay the price of rebirth. Fight for ascendancy. The way back will open in 74:59:58.

The expression of time in the statement seemed to blur and waver, leaving a glyphic impression in Alex’s mind that continued to tick down. He put the thought aside for now – he could check the timer and his new quest after he took in his surroundings.

Alex had been told what to expect of the obelisk chamber, but the sight still shocked him. The space was enormous. It could barely even be called a room. Emptiness stretched for hundreds of metres in every direction; especially upwards. The roof was almost too high to make out, and the obelisk’s true form hung down like a colossal, squared-off stalagmite with a circumference in the tens of metres. Its slate-grey stone was inscribed almost entirely with glyphs which hurt to concentrate on, and they flickered occasionally with golden energy. Its tip was just slightly embedded in the cracked stone ground of the main chamber, thrumming with power.

Four gargantuan archways were embedded in the far walls of the room. They reminded Alex of those that had been present in his challenge, only even more ornate. Even as Alex took in the sight of the room, the same starry portal surface that had occupied the challenge gates began to flicker and expand within each of these gates.

Before he could finish his observations, a barrier of stone began to rise in front of the closest gate. Amaz? Linosa’s reborn were scrambling around him, having dropped their linked hands the second they’d arrived. The routine felt co-ordinated. Alex realised he’d been taking his dark vision for granted when several reborn began to lob lit torches across the chamber.

Edrick had sprinted to position himself at one gate: axe in hand. Eleanor stood at another. Both were quickly backed up by teams of other guilders. Amaz’s stone wall hadn’t covered the gate he’d targeted entirely, but a huge portion of it was now blocked.

Eri and Safjan, the architect and the woodworker, were shouting skills rapidfire toward the gates. Alex watched in amazement as palisade pieces flew from guilders’ backpacks, assembling themselves into rows of fortifications. One skill caused a portion of ground to melt away, creating a pit of sharpened spikes in a choke point between palisades.

Around two minutes after the guild’s arrival, the first monsters began to filter through the gates. Against the assembled and prepared guilders, they stood absolutely no chance.

From his position in the centre of the room, Alex had trouble making out the brief flashes of combat behind the press of bodies and fortifications. Berin had remained next to him, along with a couple of others. The healer noticed Alex’s curiosity, and gestured for him to follow. They made their way toward the gate that Edrick had positioned himself at. The mayor was standing there almost lazily, the head of his axe resting on the floor. He glanced over at the pair approaching.

“Hoy! Ever seen a beast of the depths up close, boy?” The mayor seemed to be in a fine mood, and his axe was blazing merrily.

A scrawny, green humanoid shot out of the gate in front of him on all fours, its eyes glowing a rabid red. Alex caught a glimpse of needle-sharp teeth being bared before Edrick flicked his axe hand in a lazy backhand swipe that cleaved it in two.

He barely even looked at it. Was that a goblin?

Rather than flesh and blood, the beast’s body evaporated into an aura mist. Some of it seemed to flow into Edrick, but the rest dissipated. Alex noted a small golden stream of mist flow into the coin pouch on the mayor’s belt.

“What level was that one?” Alex asked. It had been explained to him that the gates in this chamber acted as nexuses, leading to portals on every floor the obelisk touched. Anything from a level one to a level twenty beast could wander through them and into this chamber.

Edrick only snorted. “Seven? Eight? My memories of the weakling floors are a little old, kid.”

A giant, snakelike creature appeared in front of the gate. Again, Alex barely had time to recoil in terror before the mayor swung his axe at it. The flaming axe sheared through its neck with no resistance, and the snake evaporated into mist before Alex even had time to take the sight in.

“They’ll slow down in a minute,” noted the mayor. “These are just the confused buggers who were lurking next to the portals when they activated.”

“Do all of them just… evaporate like that?” asked Alex.

Berin shared a look with the mayor. A moment later, the mayor spoke. “Kid, you don’t want to meet the things in here that don’t.”

Berin nodded. “Most monsters are just aura. The gods’, or so I was always taught. But there are living beings here.” He spoke slowly, carefully. “The last one we saw was responsible for the death of our last guildmaster.”

Edrick winced, then nodded grimly. “Pray you don’t see one, because if you do, you’ll already be dead.” With that, he turned back to face the gate. Three more goblin-creatures had emerged, and needed to be dealt with.

It wasn’t until around an hour later that the ranging parties were assembled and ready to go. The trickle of beasts through the gates had slowed, and Berin had taken the time to show Alex a range of different monster types as they emerged. Alex paid particular attention to descriptions of anything ranked below the tenth floor, as that was as far as he hoped to progress.

He’d also checked his quest log. A single quest had been added. He’d been incredibly excited by it, right up until Berin had told him that every reborn got the same one. Most, he explained, just hid it from their mental quest log for convenience.

Quests

The Edge of Endless: Descend into the Unending Depths and claim the power of the gods.

> Reach the hundredth floor (0/100).

Reward: Ascension

Alex had nodded but decided to leave it visible in the log. He wouldn’t be completing this one anytime soon. Or maybe ever. But it was nice to have there.

The other highlight of the time spent waiting had been when a massive dog, at least a metre and a half tall and powerfully built, had bounded through a portal. It had emerged directly by the spike pit the [Architect] had constructed and fallen in, where it was blasted to pieces by the waiting reborn. There’d been cheers afterward.

Alex had asked Berin what the excitement was about.

“Ironclaw hound. Almost always drops iron – it’s good luck to have one wander into a trap like that. Usually, they’re smart enough to stop using the portals pretty quickly.” Berin had paused. “Without backup, anyway.”

Standing now with the ranging parties next to one of the portals, Alex was glad he wouldn’t be around the main chamber to find out what ‘arriving with backup’ would look like. That was the defensive party’s job, and Edrick and the defensive team seemed to have things under control in that regard.

“Alright.” Eleanor’s clear voice cut over the existing chatter. “Those with me, we’ll be exiting on floor nine and moving to ten through the staircases. We’re hunting ironclaws. You three,” she directed at Alex, Berin, and Isabelle, “will of course exit on the first floor.”

Alex nodded along with the other two, as if he knew what she was talking about.

“Excellent. Stay safe – I doubt anything down there will give you trouble.” The guildmistress looked to the portal. “Alright. Gate’s clear for the moment. Let’s go.”

She waved across the room at Edrick and the others, who had settled down on guard around the other portals. “Good luck!” the parties chorused at each other.

Then, Eleanor turned on her heel, touched the gateway, and vanished. One by one, the others followed her lead. Alex’s group rushed after them, and he felt himself being pulled into an empty blackness as he touched the portal.

He found himself floating in a void similar to the one he’d had his soul reconstructed in. A glance confirmed that only the usual starry blackness surrounded him, with one exception: a single point of light. Information flowed into his mind as he looked at it: the light would take him to the first floor; he had limited time in this void; he would never be able to travel more than a certain number of floors below his own level.

I mean… gotta appreciate how user-friendly this portal system is.

With nothing else to do, Alex focused on the point of light which represented the first floor and felt his soul being carried towards it.

Alex popped into existence in a corridor made of yellowish-white stone bricks of varying size, arranged eclectically and occasionally engraved. It was probably around five metres wide and three or four tall. With twin pops, Berin and Isabelle appeared next to him. A smaller doorframe containing the portal back stood behind them.

Congratulations. Level Up – (1).

Distracted by familiar voice of the level-up notification, Alex jerked back when a phantom knife hurtled past his shoulder in a blur of purple-grey. It embedded itself in the shell of what looked to be some sort of oversized crab at one end of the corridor. The monster slowly faded out of existence.

“All clear!” Isabelle was smirking.

“Save your MP, you show-off.” Berin was less impressed.

“Sure thing, Mr Heals. C’mon, let’s get Alex here his first monster kill.”

Berin sighed. “You could have left him the crab. It would have been perfect for that.” The healer offered Alex a wooden club he’d brought with him through the portal. It looked suspiciously like he’d simply cleaned off the weapon used to murder Eliza. “Although he did forget his weapon, which doesn’t inspire confidence.”

Isabelle sighed right back at the healer, much more theatrically. “This is going to be a long three days, isn’t it? Forgot you were anti-fun.” She’d withdrawn a piece of parchment from a smaller backpack. They’d left the far larger packs used to hold the wooden fortifications in the main chamber, but most had also carried personal gear with them.

Not me… because I don’t have any.

With a small piece of what looked to be graphite or charcoal, Isabelle sketched a line on the parchment she’d withdrawn. A map, Alex realised. They didn’t have the town [Navigator] with them, so it made sense to do things the old-fashioned way. It appeared as though Isabelle’s cavalier attitude didn’t extend as far as throwing basic protocols to the wind.

“Alright. It’s been a couple solstices since I’ve been to a floor this easy. Let’s go find a staircase.” Berin had withdrawn a club of his own and was resting it over his shoulder. He was carrying it almost as awkwardly as Alex was his own.

“And some monsters!” added Isabelle chirpily. “Alex can get his first drops!”

“I have zero LCK.” Alex muttered. He knew she already suspected as much and figured he might as well confirm it. He had some questions about LCK, anyway.

“Gods damn it. Oh well, you should still get regular coin drops. And I don’t think LCK impacts actual treasure rooms. Just… uhhhh… stay back if we find any unpredictable traps, trials, or enemies. They won’t go well for you.”

“Stupid stat,” Alex muttered.

“Yep! There’s a reason most people hate The Gambler! Worst god ever. Imagine making all your decisions by coin flip. The rate of divine interventions plummeted after his ascension." She paused, sliding her impromptu map into a pocket in her own sturdy-looking leather armour. "Anyway – let’s get going! Time’s a-ticking. We’ll be taking left turns only. Standard delve procedure. Shouldn’t take too long to find a stairwell.”

“What do you mean by divine interventions?” Alex asked as they started walking. That had been a lot of information, and the redheaded rogue was a fast talker. He still hadn’t quite worked out the whole ‘gods’ thing.

Both of the guilders shot him a look before Berin answered. “OK, two things. First, both of you should avoid making noise unnecessarily while outside of safe areas. As Isabelle well knows, it can attract beasts or trigger traps. We’ll ignore that for now, since this is only the first floor, but it’s good to build habits. Secondly, to answer your question, the gods can only act when they all agree on a course of action.”

Alex thought back. It was consistent with his memories; the way they'd seemed to split and blur together. “How often does that happen?”

“The second god, The Shining Knight, ascended with the objective of killing the first god, the demon Ludionel. She failed. Five others have ascended since. Most of them were a little insane even before they ascended. Does this give you an idea of how often they agree?”

Alex frowned. “So why would they do things like bring random strangers to this world?”

Isabelle answered this time with a short snort. “There’s one thing that unites the seven: boredom. They do shit when they think it’ll be entertaining, as long as it doesn’t conflict with any one of their agendas. Throw spanners in the works and wait to see what happens.”

“That sounds pretty shitty for them. Why would anyone want to become a god?” Alex was a bit puzzled. He could barely imagine being stuck with divine power but being totally unable to do anything but spectate because some other dickhead didn’t like you or your decisions.

“Most don’t. Beyond an obelisk’s benefits for a settlement, skills, and the resources in the depths, there’s no real reason to push to the ‘Edge of Endless’. Apart from the ascension surge, but that’s hotly contested.”

Alex was about to ask what an ascension surge was when they rounded a corner and saw two of the crab monsters approaching from far down the next corridor.

“[Phantom Knives]. See,” muttered Isabelle, a shadowy knife appearing in her palm, “like Heals over there said; attracted to unnecessary noises.”

“Wait,” said Alex. The crabs were scuttling toward them but were still a fair distance away. “Let me take one… or both?” He hefted the club in front of him. He needed the experience in combat, and this seemed like a safe way to get it.

These things are a bit creepy crawly, but this is fine. They're small – I can smash them easy. Hey, aren’t crabs meant to move sideways? These ones were walking eyes-forward, like spiders. Different world, I guess.

Berin and Isabelle glanced at each other as the crabs approached, then mutually shrugged. “It’s only level one. I can always heal him.” They both stepped back, leaving the beasts to Alex.

He’d played a bit of cricket in his younger years, so Alex decided to take a similar approach. Or golf, perhaps? He lined the bat up with the ground, keeping his eyes on the crabs as he flexed it back and forth.

“Interesting approach! Position yourself to take one at a time,” Isabelle helpfully shouted from the sidelines, reminding him of his initial training a couple of days ago. She seemed amused.

Alex followed her advice, moving to one side of the corridor and putting one crab behind the other on their path toward him. They were getting closer… closer… Alex pulled the bat back.

Eyes on the ball. Knees steady but bent. Don’t forget to follow through on the swing. His late father's advice came through to him, and he almost teared up a little before he pulled his focus back to the situation at hand.

Ok. ok. This is floor one. How hard can it be?

I mean… I’ve never been very good at cricket.

Keeping his eyes on the closer of the two crabs, Alex brought the club down and around as fast as he could in a bastardised golf-swing. The beast moved to dodge – scuttling to the side – but Alex turned as he swung to match its movement. The club didn’t quite hit it head-on, but rather smacked it slightly to the side of its beady black eyes.

The crab’s carapace cracked and it was flung back down the corridor, dissolving as it went.

“Wooooo!” cheered Isabelle. Even Berin was grinning a little. “Go Alex!”

But the second crab was close behind, threateningly clicking its sharp-looking pincers. Alex didn’t have time to line up a second swing, and instead swatted at it with his club.

While increased coordination from his DEX stat had no doubt aided his reflexes on the previous swing, this attempt was hopelessly off-target. The crab leapt, flying under the club with its clacking pincers outstretched. It landed on Alex’s upper thigh, needle-like legs locking around him in spite of the leather greaves he wore.

“Ahhhhh!” Alex had no idea how to get it off. He flailed his bat uselessly. What was he meant to do – hit his own thigh? The weapon was too long, the angles were all wrong.

He reached down with his hand to grab it, but the crab’s pincers snapped at him threateningly. Not wanting to lose fingers, he yanked his hand back. That may have been a mistake because the crab redirected its strike directly into his thigh.

“OW!” Alex’s HP dropped to 108/120. The sharp pincer had managed to slice through his armour slightly and damage his thigh. He started dancing around, trying to shove the beast with the tip of his club. Eventually, he got some leverage and pushed, feeling his reborn strength come into effect. The crab was levered off his greave and fell belly-up on the floor. Not wasting a second, Alex brought the club down in an overhead smash to finish it off.

He heard slow applause coming from behind him as he watched the crab evaporate into mist. Isabelle was laughing, clapping with at a speed which suggested more than a hint of sarcasm. “Bravo! Six points out of ten.” Berin inclined his head as if to acknowledge the score, and then walked up to Alex and restored his missing health. The fight had also depleted his SP a little, and he was sitting on 63/70.

“Well? Are you gonna collect the loot?”

Loot? Alex glanced at the ground and noticed a few flecks of golden aura lying where one of the crabs had been. They hadn’t flowed into his coin pouch as he’d seen from monsters defeated in the obelisk chamber. Do nicer coin pouches collect automatically? God, my gear is shit.

Bending down, Alex found he was able to transfer the drop easily by simply touching it. His pouch updated in his mind, telling him he had 0.03 gold.

Hardly a fortune, but it’s a start. I still have no idea what the relative value of gold is. I wonder if they have [Economists] here.

The fight had raised a more important concern, though. “Am I going to run out of SP?" he asked Berin, who was doubtlessly the more helpfully inclined of his two mentors. "How do I restore it?”

“You should be alright,” Berin responded, “resource points regenerate much quicker in the depths than they do outside. It actually gets faster the deeper you go. But we could also find a fountain room, or just rest in a corridor if we’re desperate. Don’t worry too much – at this stage, it’s not a risk. Tell me if you drop below twenty and we can take a break.”

Alex nodded. His SP had already gone up by one, moving to 64/70.

I wonder if I can measure the regen rate. It sounds pretty complex.

But there were more important things to do for now.

“Alright,” announced Isabelle. “Tutorial over. Let’s get going – if you want any chance of seeing the tenth floor, we’ll need to be on the fifth floor by the end of the day.”

She tossed her phantom knife then dismissed it mid-air with a flourish. “No more talking, no more slow kills. These newbie floors are a waste of time, and it’s about time we got you a class, kiddo.”

With that, the party’s search for a stairwell began in earnest.