The RPG Ascension BOOK 2 — FIRST DELVE: A gritty LitRPG apocalypse survival adventure of monsters, factions, and hard-won power by Zerf Craig

Author:Zerf, Craig
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2026-03-09T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23 — Hold the Hinge

Rafe didn’t sleep much.

He didn’t sit and stare at walls either. Staring didn’t keep people alive. Work did.

By first light he had nine bodies in a quiet lane and a pile of scrap metal on the floor.

Lengths of reinforcing bar. Cut and cleaned. One end hammered flat into a crude point. Not razor sharp, but sharp enough. The other end wrapped with cloth and tape so it wouldn’t tear palms open on the first shove. Ugly tools made for ugly places.

Rafe stood over them with his axe in hand and his eyes on the line.

“I’m worried about what we meet down there,” he said. “And I’m worried about what happens if I go down. Or Jax goes down. If the front or the rear collapses, everyone in the middle dies.”

He jabbed the axe haft toward the bars.

“So everyone else gets one.”

He made it clear with a look: everyone else meant not him, not Jax.

“This is not a toy,” Rafe said. “It’s not a stick. It’s a spear.”

A couple of people shifted at that word.

Rafe didn’t soften it.

“You’ll use it to pin,” he said. “You’ll use it to lever. You’ll use it to keep something off the carry. And if it comes down to it—if it’s you or it—then you’ll use it to kill.”

The lane went quieter.

Even Selene stopped moving for a beat at the edge of the space, arms folded, face flat.

Kira’s pencil hovered. Then she wrote anyway, because of course she did.

Tess checked the wraps and rewrapped two spears without being asked. She didn’t care what they were called. She cared that hands stayed intact long enough to use them.

Noor watched quietly, palm touching a brace now and then like he could feel the depot’s mood through metal. Jax stood at the rear with shield and assagai, watching everyone’s grip like he was already planning how to keep the back from collapsing.

Rafe lifted one spear and held it the way he wanted them to hold it: low, close, not waving, not posing.

“Rule one,” he said. “You don’t chase with it. You don’t run off with it. You don’t get brave in a side corridor.”

He pointed at the floor.

“Rule two. You don’t point it at your own people. Ever. Spacing matters.”

He stepped to the gap he’d built with crates and shoved a sack into it so it bulged like a thing trying to squeeze through.

“Pin,” Rafe said.

Seven spears went forward, angled down. Tips pressed into the sack. Not stabbing. Holding.

“Lean,” he said.

They leaned together, steady pressure. No jerking. No panic. The point was to feel control.

Rafe watched the line. Watched shoulders. Watched feet. “Don’t bunch,” he added. “If you bunch, you fall.”

Then he changed the drill.

He yanked the sack free and threw it back in fast, like a sudden breach, like a thing slipping through.

“Now,” he snapped. “Stop it.”

Two spears pinned. A third hit the sack hard enough to drive it back. One person hesitated.

Rafe saw it instantly. He stepped in and shoved the person’s spear down into the sack with his own hands.

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