The sky was still a dull gray when Thomas arrived at Dock Eleven.

  The air had that early morning bite, and most of the bay was quiet—just a couple of maintenance drones hovering over the water and two bored-looking Association operatives lounging by the skiff. He checked in with his ID band, nodded through the short briefing, and was told to wait.

  So he waited.

  Leaning against a crate, Thomas stared out at the water, mind mostly blank, until he heard the unmistakable sound of boots thudding against the dock. Big boots. Heavy ones. Like someone had strapped anvils to their feet and decided to jog.

  Thomas turned.

  And what he saw almost made him double-check reality.

  A guy—no, a **walking fridge with legs**—was heading toward the dock, holding a **half-eaten chocolate chip cookie** in one hand and a **pencil** in the other. Not a pen. Not a stylus. Just a regular-ass wooden pencil, eraser first, which he promptly bit into like it was part of the cookie.

  Thomas blinked.

  The guy chewed, stopped halfway, looked at the pencil like it had betrayed him, then shrugged and took another bite of the cookie instead.

  “Excuse me,” the man said to no one in particular, voice booming. “Where’s the... uh… the Delver boat? The one that goes to the Ring? The floaty metal one?”

  He turned in a full circle, squinting at signs, then spotted the proctor—Cook—from yesterday.

  “HEY, MR. COOK!” he shouted, barreling over.

  Thomas watched as the guy launched into a full-on hug, lifting the poor proctor slightly off his feet.

  “Brick,” Cook groaned. “Not again. Put me down.”

  “Oh, right, right, sorry,” Brick said, setting him down gently like a toddler placing a favorite toy. “Good to see you, sir! I remembered not to eat the pencil this time. Mostly.”

  Cook muttered something about reassessing safety protocols and pointed him toward the waiting area.

  Brick turned, saw Thomas, and beamed.

  “Heyyy!” He jogged over, cookie still in hand. “You the other guy goin’ to the D-Ring?”

  Thomas nodded, cautiously. “Yeah.”

  “I’m Brick. Brick Smith. You can just call me Brick. Everyone does. You... look really cool, by the way. Like, kinda haunted and glowy. That’s good, right?”

  Thomas stared at him for a second. “Thanks. I think.”

  Brick took another bite of his cookie. “Wanna share? It’s chocolate chip. Kind of. I think.”

  “I’m good.”

  Brick shrugged and crunched the rest of it, then looked down at the pencil in his other hand.

  “You sure this isn’t food?” he asked, pointing it at Thomas. “It was next to the cookies. Could be a new type.”

  Thomas blinked. “That’s… a pencil.”

  Brick looked at it like it was a riddle from God. “Right. I knew that.”

  There was a short pause.

  “I’m Thomas, by the way.”

  Brick lit up like someone had just handed him a prize. “Nice to meet you, Thomas—my **new best buddy!**”

  Thomas blinked again. “...Sure.”

  Brick slapped him on the back, nearly sending him forward a step.

  “This is gonna be great,” Brick said, grinning ear to ear. “You and me, side by side, doing training stuff. Maybe we get cool weapons. Maybe I get to punch a squid. Do you think we’ll fight squids?”

  Thomas looked out at the skiff, already bracing himself.

  “God, I hope not.”

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  ---

  More people started shuffling in as the sky brightened just enough to turn the sea from pitch black to steel gray. A girl with dark eyes and silver piercings. A tall guy in tactical gear that looked too clean to be used. Two twins in matching Delver jackets. All of them carried the same look in their eyes—part exhaustion, part calculation. Measuring each other up already.

  Brick, of course, did not get that memo.

  He turned to every new arrival with the same massive grin and the same line.

  “Hi! I’m Brick. Brick Smith. You can just call me Brick.”

  Some nodded awkwardly. One girl gave him a polite smile and moved away quickly. The tall guy in tactical gear rolled his eyes and muttered, “Great, another headcase.”

  The twins just said in unison, “No,” and kept walking.

  Someone straight-up told him, “Shut up and sit down, moron.”

  Brick didn’t seem to mind. If anything, he smiled even wider.

  “Okay! Catch you later!” he chirped, then turned to Thomas and said under his breath, “They’ll come around. I got a good vibe.”

  Thomas raised an eyebrow. “You sure that vibe isn’t a concussion?”

  Before Brick could respond, a sharp whistle cut through the dock noise—followed immediately by a voice that sounded like it could shatter steel.

  “All right, you miserable sponge-brained excuses for Delvers-in-training, MOVE YOUR ASSES.”

  Heads snapped up. The voice belonged to a man in full Delver tactical uniform—black, weatherworn, and trimmed in faded crimson. His chestplate was dented, his boots were crusted with salt, and his beard looked like it had been trimmed with a rusted combat knife. His face was carved from stone, and he had the stare of someone who’d survived one too many trench dives and had started to enjoy it.

  He paced in front of them like a storm, hands behind his back, boots thudding on metal.

  “My name is Sergeant Keller. I’m the one responsible for making sure you don’t die drooling into your oxygen masks. You’re headed to D-Ring Station Nine. That is a twelve-hour ride, and if you so much as fart too loud on the boat, I will personally hurl you into the damn drink and let the current decide if you're worth keeping.”

  Brick raised his hand. “What if—”

  “NO QUESTIONS.”

  Brick slowly lowered his hand.

  Keller pointed to the transport skiff docked just behind him—sleek, armored, and ugly. “Gear goes in the rear hold. Bodies in the forward cabin. You’ll sit, shut up, and listen when spoken to.”

  He gave them a once-over, eyes stopping on Thomas for just a second—maybe because of the glow behind his eyes, maybe not—then snapped his fingers.

  “MOVE.”

  The group surged forward, muttering, adjusting packs, bumping shoulders. Thomas stuck near the edge, letting the crowd pass ahead of him.

  Brick was still beaming. “Man, I like this guy. Real motivational energy.”

  Thomas shook his head, stepping onto the ramp. “You’re going to get strangled in your sleep.”

  Brick shrugged. “That’s future Brick’s problem.”

  The transport’s interior was tight but sturdy. Rows of harnessed seats bolted to the floor, low ceilings lined with hand grips. As Thomas found a spot near the middle and slung his bag to the side, he glanced out the porthole.

  Twelve hours to D-Ring Nine.

  And Thomas was sure Brick was going to annoy him the whole way.

  ---

  The skiff rumbled to life beneath them, engines firing with a deep, guttural hum that vibrated through the floor. The cabin lights flickered on, casting a cold, sterile glow over the group as the bay doors sealed behind them.

  Thomas adjusted the shoulder straps of his harness as the transport lifted from the dock. Outside, the drowned skyline of New Crest faded into a wall of mist.

  Keller stood at the front of the cabin, one hand gripping a ceiling rail, the other holding a datapad he hadn’t once looked at. He didn’t need to. The speech had probably been burned into his brain years ago.

  “All right, listen up, you half-cooked meatbags. You’ve got exactly twelve hours to mentally prepare for what’s waiting on D-Ring Nine, so I’m going to make this real simple. You screw around, you fail. You fail, you get sent back with a stamp on your record that says _liability_. And no guild touches a liability.”

  He paced the narrow aisle like a predator in a cage, glaring at each face as he passed.

  “You’re not Delvers yet. You’re cores with legs. Raw. Untrained. Dangerous to yourselves and everyone around you. That ends the second we hit the platform.”

  He stopped at the midpoint of the cabin and braced a hand on one of the side rails.

  “**Day One:** Orientation, stabilization drills, and baseline sync evaluations. We’re going to find out what your Core wants to do, and whether your body and mind can handle it without seizing up like a drowned drone. Half of you will puke. A few of you might pass out. Don’t worry. We keep buckets and defibrillators.”

  Brick raised a cautious hand. “Do the buckets come with names, or is that a find-your-own sort of thing—”

  “DAY TWO,” Keller barked, cutting him off, “you start combat training. You’ll be partnered up, rotated, drilled, and evaluated. Weapons, pressure control, underwater mobility. If your Domain so much as twitches, we test it. If it doesn’t, we still test it. You’ll be submerged for most of it. If you’re afraid of drowning, that’s a _you_ problem.”

  Someone in the back cursed under their breath. Keller didn’t stop.

  “**Day Three:** Dungeon sim trial. That’s where we drop you into a live-pressure chamber with variable conditions based on what you screwed up the most during the first two days. Sim dungeons aren’t lethal—but if you treat them like they’re not, you’ll get yourself killed when the real ones open their mouths.”

  He stepped back toward the front, grabbing the ceiling rail again as the skiff rocked gently with a current shift.

  “After the third day, you’ll be issued your rank. Tidewalker or not, you walk off D-Ring Nine with a clearance band and a provisional license. From there, the Association decides if you’re worth tracking, and the guilds decide if you’re worth buying.”

  Thomas didn’t move. He just stared forward, watching the way the other rookies tensed.

  Keller looked at all of them one last time, his voice lower now, but no less sharp.

  “You’ve got three days to prove you're not a statistic. Because the sea doesn't care if you're talented. It only cares if you're ready. And most of you aren't.”

  He snapped his fingers. “Rest. Hydrate. Shut up.”

  With that, Keller stepped into the forward cabin and left them in silence, the hum of the engine and the occasional creak of the skiff the only sound.

  "Tom is your backpack edible?" and Thomas just shook his head "Its Thomas, and no Brick my backpack isn't edible"