The labyrinth - Part 1

It is already around dinner time when I finally arrive back at my apartment. Which isn't that great considering that I haven't even started to prepare dinner. But once I walk inside I notice that I can't see Liam or Eleanor. I know that Eleanor might not send a message when she would leave the house but Liam would send one. He would have sent one not only for himself but also one for Eleanor. But since I have gotten no message of any sort. I have to assume that they are in their rooms. Knowing them they are probably talking to their friends online or they might just be making homework. But let's be honest assuming that they are doing homework is pretty naive. But I do think that both seem like positive options. I know I told them to do homework so they could get ahead a bit. But talking to friends is also good since they would probably talk about what happened today. And if they are talking about it means they might be processing it all. Which is more than I can say that I did. I probably should have someone I could confide in too. But I have been delving for so long now that I haven't been able to maintain a lot of friendships I had in high school. And it wasn't like I had so many friendships in high school, to begin with.

I walk by the bedroom doors of my siblings to show them that I got home. As I shout out "It's just me, I got back home." I quickly walk towards my room to drop off my bag and change into some more comfortable clothes. Since I honestly don't like walking around in my sports clothes. I then walk towards the kitchen to see what I can quickly make for dinner. But as I open the fridge I don't really see any ingredients that I could make fit well together. I would have to go to the store tonight still to make a proper dinner for the three of us. But the time wouldn't allow that. It is already a bit too late to go there and still eat at a reasonable hour. And I am not adding the time I would need to cook something either. Then all the dishes and such would need to be cleaned. Which adds up to quite a bit of time wasted when I could just order online. We probably would even have leftovers for each of us tomorrow. Since I don't want either Eleanor or Liam to go to bed too late. It is still a school night after all. And since I want to find an F ranked portal for tomorrow I shouldn't go to bed too late for myself.

"So what's for dinner?" I hear Liam ask as I see him go to sit on the sofa. He of course asked the one question I wanted to ask both Eleanor and him. Because I have no clue what I should order online right now. I don't really care what I have to eat right now. Just that I eat something that fills up my stomach. There is only one type of food I would say no to which is any sort of fast food. I tend to feel a bit bloated after eating it. But if they want to eat I wouldn't protest it a lot either, since I don't have any ideas for it. Also because it isn't that they ask for it a lot.

"Well, I wanted to ask you and Eleanor that exact question. So if you could get her real quick we can see what type of food you two want to order." I ask Liam as he immediately stands up to get Eleanor. I don't order food too often so when I do they tend to have a lot of different ideas of what we could eat. As I am opening the ordering app on my phone I see that Liam has brought Eleanor over.

"If we are ordering food online, could we maybe try that new curry place? It is apparently good and not too pricy either." Eleanor asks as she plops down on the sofa to continue to scroll on her phone. I however don't know the name of this new curry place. I have heard a new one was opening, I even walked past it quite a bit already. I just never really took note of the name of the place. But knowing Eleanor, she is probably opening the site of the place already. I am also not going to complain about curry since I like to eat it a lot. But also I need to know what type of curries they have on the menu since I do have my favourite kind of curry. But so do Eleanor and Liam.

"Curry sounds good to me. Is that alright for you to Liam?" I ask Liam who went to sit next to Eleanor. He nods yes while he goes to scroll on his phone too. "Eleanor, what is on the menu?" I ask as I look over her shoulder a bit. But she doesn't have the site open. She seems to be chatting on discord or something. I assume she is chatting with one of her friends. "Oh, I thought you had the site open of the place. Can you give me the name so I can see the menu?" I ask as I go on my ordering app to see if the place will be on there. Or if I have to go to the site of the restaurant to order.

"The place has a pretty cheesy name. It's called curry heaven but my friends say that their curries are indeed pretty good. Better than the other curry places around here.". She explains as I go to search for the name on my app. But it seems the place is not associated with the app. I hope it has a delivery service since I am too fond of the idea of having to pick food up today still. "But can't you like make food? It should be simpler than having to order food." She asks me as I go to search the restaurant online. Which shows they do deliver their curries.

"Well, I don't have enough time to both get ingredients and make the food. Considering it is a school night for you two. I don't like the thought of you having to stay awake too long because of my bad planning." I explain as I scroll a bit through the menu of "Curry heaven". The site itself also looks a bit cheesy but it seems to be done that way on purpose. Like a gimmick of sorts. But the curry selection is actually pretty impressive, having some curries I have trouble finding and making myself. They have one of my favourite curries on there which is Vindaloo. I like it because I find the spice in it really good. And the prices of the curries aren't too bad either. I scroll quickly through the reviews of the place which state the portions are quite big. Which makes the prices reasonable for what you are getting. "Which curries do you two want to eat? They have some of your favourites like Tiki masala and Korma. Here have a look to see what you want." I say as I hand my phone over to Eleanor so they can have a look.

"I am never going to say no to Korma. So my decision has been made. Here Liam since I know you like to see what you are going to get for a bit." She responds as she quickly clicks to add the Korma to the order. After that, she hands it to the only person who has trouble choosing what to eat. He scrolls through it for a bit.

"They have some good options on here. I really want to tiki masala but they also have Redang curry on there." Liam complains as he now has to choose between his two favourite curries. This is not too fun to do since both are from what I saw from the reviews pretty good. "Okay, I am taking the Redang curry this time. If the curries are good I will try the tiki masala next time." Liam proclaims as he hands my phone back to me after he has added the Redang to the order. There is one thing I still have to check before I order. Which is that I have to make sure that rice is included in the order.

This reminds me, I might have to buy an extra bag of rice in the store. Since our rice supply is getting a bit low. But first I need to order these curries. "Okay, the food should arrive here in about half an hour to forty-five minutes." This is actually a pretty reasonable time for delivery. But I need to add the rice to the list. The list is a system we have in the house we use when we are running low on a supply we commonly use. Which can be rice which I am adding to the list now. From what I see on the list it is also shampoo, flour, and some teas. I bring this list with me on Saturdays so I can't forget things we really need to have in the house. But I really need to get searching for a portal I can do tomorrow. Since an F ranked portal might be easy to train a bit. Also not a big portal that my siblings would have to worry about.

"When are you going to another portal? Do you have to keep doing them? Couldn't you just do a normal job like anyone else your age?" Liam asks as I start scrolling through the portal site. It hurts a bit to hear him say that. I hate to worry the both of them but it is still sort of the only job I can do that has an actual liveable wage. I never continued to study, I stopped doing it to care for them. I don't want to blame them for it either since they were only eleven when I started to take care of them. And it isn't like they haven't suffered from me having to do this too. Since it hasn't been easy for them either seeing me hurt so much. And honestly, delving pays well for someone without a college degree. It was also the only way I could make that they were safe and that I know that they are safe.

"I am going to do another delve tomorrow. But no worries since I am only going to do an F ranked portal. So I should be back home around the evening." I say as I ruffle a bit through his hair. Making it an even bigger mess than it already is. As I go to sit next to him I notice that the F ranked portals are nearly all booked full. The only portal that seems to be left is an F ranked labyrinth-type portal. It is my least favourite type of environment in portals. They are a hassle to get through and are usually the hardest type to go through. But still is an F ranked portal I however not that sure about "oh it is only a ... type portal" with what happened in today's portal. It also had another thing I didn't really like. But the type of portal might just be an advantage for my plan. There is someone I know who is coming on this delve too and the person seems to be Emily. I am honestly surprised that she joined another delve so soon. She was with Drake when all those people got killed inside that cave. Considering the fact that she is a D ranked healer in a group with all F ranks she will have to be the leader of the group. But it isn't too surprising that someone with a D rank joined an F ranked portal. Since it apparently became a requirement to have at least one person with a D rank or above join an F ranked portal.

I had hoped that I didn't have to go in a labyrinth-type portal and that no one I knew joined the delve. But the two things together might just work. Since you usually split up in these types of portals. Well at least in F and E ranked versions of the portal at least. I was told to not join any labyrinth-type portals of D rank and above. And they didn't have to tell me that twice.

For the rest of the night, it was pretty calm inside the house. The curry arrived pretty soon since it was closer to the thirty minute mark than it was to the forty minutes mark. And the curry itself was pretty good. It had the right taste and texture for a vindaloo curry. But there is way too much curry for me to finish up tonight. I can probably even eat it for tomorrow night's dinner. And from what I see the same goes for Eleanor and Liam. But I can already tell how much spice it will have tomorrow. Since I personally think that after I headed up something spicy it was spicier than before. As I clean up I tell Liam and Eleanor that I will finish up the cleaning myself and that they should go to bed on time. But I didn't even follow my own advice since after I finished cleaning everything up I got an idea. I might be able to get my "Copycat" ability under more control. Since I don't know how to activate any ability I copied. So in fact I might not be so different from a newbie in the field. So there might just be some "How to guides" online that can steer me in the right direction. Since I doubt newbies learn it all themselves nowadays with the internet being such a big thing. I first search about the "Copycat" ability in of itself. To see if there are things on it online. But I don't manage to find anything about it online.

So I go to my original plan which is to search the "How to guides" for abilities. I could safe how to use them and teach myself when I copy an ability. One of the abilities I look at closely was the healing abilities. Since I will probably copy that ability tomorrow. And then I know how to use it a bit more proficiently. It is one of the abilities I wish I could store though. But as I research one ability, I start to research another ability and then another. I even find some channels which have very clear instructions on how to use certain abilities. Before I knew it, it was already close to midnight. But at the same time, I had gotten my hopes up too much Which I try to get down a bit again since I don't know how this will even pan out for me.

But as soon as the clock hit midnight another pop-up window appeared in my vision. I can't help but be a bit stunned since I have no clue why something popped up even. However, what was on there was the most shocking thing to me.

The following activities have given you:

Running: 10 points

Muscle training: 8 points

Ability training: 3 points

Mental training: 6 points

You have gained a total of 27 points which you can invest in stats.

Wait a second, I actually got points from the things I did today. If this is going to keep on happening I might need to have a busy day every day. Since I don't know how all of these things work precisely. But one thing is true, I am too tired to invest these points right now. I would probably make a dumb investment. There is however one good thing about it. F rank portal delves only start at 10 pm. Enough time to get a good night's rest. As I go to bed I can't help but wonder what I should invest these points into.

The labyrinth - Part 1

Complete

You got an ability card

Enhanced Strength

Known users: Lake Westview , Drake Lanley

Rank required: E rank

Known spells:

Enhance strength: Increases the person strength by 10% if used