MAZE - The Endless Quest

In the hospital room were Leo, his crew, Hera, Neria, Bonnie and Alex. Elistrae felt that this was too personal for her to be involved, asking to be called once Alex started to work so she could help. The rest of the Harmony Guardians were already aware of the entire story, but decided against being in the hospital room. There were already too many people there, and it wasn’t like they could do anything to help.

Leo was by his uncle's bed, while everyone else was using the chairs and the couch that was in the corner. Alex and Bonnie were seated closer to Leo, with Hera by their side.

“Ok, so what is going on?” Alex asked.

Hera turned to Leo, “Do you want me to just give them an overview? I know it was hard for you to tell us the full story.”

The hunter shook his head, “No. It’s good for me to tell this. The Alliance will want to know the details, and if I’m too emotional, it will be hard to be interviewed.”

“Is it that bad?” Bonnie asked, getting only a defeated smile from Leo.

“I’m going to explain this from the beginning, and,” the hunter turned to Sophia, Paige, and Fernando, “Feel free to add anything that I miss.”

The crew nodded, and everyone let Leo take a few deep breaths before starting. During that time, Hera went towards the door that was still open, and sent Viper and Crimson on a Royal Quest to get some coffee, water, and soda for everyone. They would go to an actual shop, not the hospital cafeteria, which meant they should take a while to come back. Hopefully, their return wouldn’t interrupt the story.

When the Empress sat back down, Leo looked towards the group and started speaking, “As you all know. I became an explorer to find my uncle. He vanished seven years ago now. People assumed he was killed in action, but no one ever found a body. I refused to believe he was dead. Something in my gut told me he was still alive, and well,” he glanced at the man in the hospital bed with a sad smile, “I was right. But I don’t know if that was the better alternative.”

“I joined the Crimson Coalition as soon as I could. You know this. That was the organization my uncle was a part of, and where he worked before he vanished. While there, I asked around, but people didn’t know anything about him. And the ones that did know told me they couldn’t share anything since his mission was classified. I figured that he vanished while searching for a legacy, or in one of their secret dungeons. In theory, the guild was supposed to have information about all dungeons in the MAZE, but even as a new recruit, I realized that wasn’t the case. The Coalition was hiding some good training spots. Dungeons that were either easy, and helped people level up quickly. Or that were sources of a specific material that could be sold at high prices.”

“Like what?” Bonnie asked.

“Like, Green Iron Bark. Which is a material for a lot of low-level armor. It’s light, strong, and easy to be enchanted. But it’s a rare drop from a couple of dungeons, and it can only be found there. Or so people are led to believe. The coalition has access to a dungeon where monsters drop that bark pretty regularly. They give smaller pieces, but a single run would give about 5 times the amount people could get as that rare drop. And I know, if they sold the raw materials it would be obvious what was going on, but instead, they sent it to some of the people who worked for them to make armor, and then sold it at a discount calling them ‘faulty products.’ Even if those bad versions of the armor were almost as good as the ones other people would sell. Because of the price, they made a lot of money,” Leo Explained.

“Wouldn’t people suspect that? If the coalition could make that many sets of armors, wouldn’t people start to question where they got materials?” Alex frowned.

“They did, but there are over 100 thousand members in the coalition. They just said they had teams dedicated to farming that item. To be fair, they did have a couple of teams there. Since the dungeon in question was good for people around level 15. But still,” Leo shook his head, “Either way. That doesn’t matter. All you have to know is that they are sketchy on a good day, and I now I know they were criminal on a bad one,” the hunter let out a long sigh before continuing.

“Now, I did my best to raise in the ranks, and people were starting to scout me. Sending me to better training camps, and to more dangerous quests. Nothing super important, but not the random mundane stuff, either. At one point I was with a group that worked only on Rampages. The goal was to get a skill related to them, but we needed to participate actively in 6 of them over a 6-month period. Unfortunately, we missed the mark and only completed 5. After that, I ended up meeting one of my uncle’s old squad mates. Someone who worked directly under him and considering uncle Marco a good friend. But he was very… What is it called when the person is paranoid but the word you want to use is not as heavy? Like when they keep looking around, as if someone was watching them and are really suspicious of everything.”

“Skittish? Jumpy?” Sophia suggested.

“I was thinking jumpy. But both work. Either way, he was jumpy. It took a while, but I was able to find him in a secluded place. In a room controlled by the tritons, away from any of the member of the Coalition. There, he explained how some of the things I heard about my uncle were not what they seemed. Before that conversation, from what I understood, my uncle was a well-respected and beloved member of the top brass of the Coalition. Everyone was sad about his disappearance and before that, he was helping the organization move forward. But, this friend of his told me that was far from the truth. According to him, uncle Marco was upset about the direction the Coalition was heading, and constantly argued with other members of the top brass. Especially the general, which is the leader of the entire organization. This friend also said he didn’t believe uncle Marco’s disappearance was an accident. He believed the Coalition had him killed to avoid any issues in the future. Ever since then, he, my uncle’s friend, left the organization and was doing his own thing. Making sure to stay away from any business with the Coalition. He also had something that my uncle left me. A diary. One that he was never been able to make heads or tails off since everything was just gibberish. But it wasn’t, it was a code that I made up and taught my uncle when I was little and really into spy movies.”

“Aw, that’s sweet,” Paige said with a smile. Everyone turned to her, “What? I know the topic is heavy, but it is sweet. And Leo never told us that part.”

Leo coughed, feeling a bit embarrassed, “Either way. I got the diary and went back home. On earth. To grab the decoding key. It was an old thing I made when I was little. First, I changed all the letters of the alphabet to random ones. So A became N and N became P and so on. Then added a bunch of nonsense rules like, if the first or the last letter appear in the middle of the word, then it has to be written backwards. Or how two-letter words needed to repeat the second letter but also change the second letter to the coded version of the next translated letter of the alphabet. It was stupid. I made those rules when I was twelve and I only remembered that code because of the way his name was written on the first page. I asked for a vacation, went home, found a box with the rules for that nonsense and spent the next month translating everything in that diary. And that… made things much more complicated.”

“The fact that you were able to make a code that no one cracked is impressive. Even if it was nonsense,” Bonni nodded.

Hera turned to Bonnie, “That’s what I said. He wrote a couple of passages for me to try to decipher, and I couldn’t. Sure, I am better at old languages, but still. I have the researcher role.”

“What was the name that was written on the first page?” Alex asked.

“Knigt, without the h. That’s how you spell Marco on this stupid code,” Leo turned to his uncle with a smile. After a pause, he turned back to the group, “The diary painted a very different picture. The Coalition, which was supposed to be a group of guardians and pioneers. People who protected those in the MAZE and that explored the outer reaches in search of potions, material, and items that could help those on Earth, was now turning into a mercenary group. One that had the New Dawn as its main client. That really didn’t sit well with uncle Marco, and he kept butting heads with the other members of the top brass. Eventually, it reached a boiling point. After the Coalition was hired to pressure some factory workers into stopping their protest for better work conditions, my uncle couldn’t take it anymore and tried to take down the general. It was a sort of uprising, but only among the leadership. Unfortunately, no one wanted to help him. Once it came down to it, he was the only member of the top brass that didn’t like the current state of things. Everyone else enjoyed the money, and the influence that being part of the Coalition gave them. The diary ends with him talking about one large meeting where he is going to try to convince everyone to stop one last time. If that didn’t work, he was going to take all the documents he had about everything and expose the Coalition and the New Dawn.”

Bonnie frowned, “Ok… but how did you find out? Like, sure, it is very likely that either he spoke about the documents trying to threaten the Coalition, or they realized he had access to that information and decided to capture him. But there is no proof.”

“I know,” Leo nodded, “In the last page of the diary, there was one more code. A login and a password to be used on a cloud service. Funny enough, it was a free version of it, so nothing was deleted and there wasn’t a payment for them to track. Inside was a single audio file. Let me play it.”

Leo walked over to the group and hit the button. There was a pause and some shuffling before a voice could be heard.

“What do you mean, I can’t leave? Is that who we are now? We keep prisoners?”

“That’s my uncle,” Leo said.

“No, Marco. We don’t. But you are still not leaving. You know too much, and we know you downloaded some of the files about our dealings. Thank you for suggesting to improve our cyber security. You were right.”

“That’s the general,” Leo said, his face contorting in anger.

What followed were 10 minutes of what could only be described as sounds of combat. Various people were shouting, explosions, large impacts and things being broken. Screams of pain, people asking for healing or buffs. There was also the occasional shout of a skill name, but it was too gargled to be understood. After everything was over, a third voice appeared.

“How the fuck did he do all that?”

“I guess the rumors about him getting bound to a Spirit were correct,” the general replied. His voice showed he was injured during the fight.

“Fucking Marco. I’m getting rid of him,” the third voice continued.

“No. What he did was very interesting. A difference of 15 levels between him and me. Not to mention he was fighting against all 9 of us. And he is the weakest in terms of power. If we can figure out how he managed to be so strong. I’m sure we can replicate that effect. Call our contact in the New Dawn. Tell them we have a new test subject for them to play with.”

The audio finished, and no one said anything for a long time. Fernando was the one who broke the ice, “Mother fucker. That’s movie level villain right there. How can such a massive asshole be real?”

“Beats me,” Neria shrugged, “But it doesn’t surprise me. Not after what we saw.”

“Yeah,” Sophia nodded.

“But we have proof now, don’t we? Can’t we have the New Dawn and the Coalition pay for what they did?” Paige asked.

Hera shook her head, “I doubt it. The audio is garbled. Is from a person who vanished years ago and now is unrecognizable. And it would be coming from someone who has every reason to create a conspiracy theory, and spent the last seven years denying a known fact. Even if there wasn’t a war going on, it would be easy to refute any of this. Unless Marco wakes up, we have nothing,” the Empress turned to Leo, “But you didn’t mention he was Spirit Bound.”

“I didn’t know. According to the diary, that happened 17 years ago. He found the Strength Spirits when I was still a kid and kept their location a secret. Being bound to them for that long likely made him figure some stuff out. Maybe that’s why he was so strong.”

“And the New Dawn used that knowledge to make the Soldiers of Strength. Shit,” Hera slumped back.

“But how did you go from discovering all that to finding you uncle?” Bonnie asked.

“That’s less interesting. Research, asking some questions, bribing some people. And a lot of legwork. That was like the 64th research facility we looked into. And the 12th that we invaded to see what was going on,” Leo replied.

“And how did you meet up with Hera?” Bonnie turned to the Ophidianite.

“It was an accident. Kind of weird, but I’m not complaining. We were going to attack the same facility for the Alliance, and when we… Hang on,” Hera got up and opened the door, Viper and Crimson walked inside, bringing various beverages for everyone.

As they got more comfortable, the Empress continued telling her story. She was going into a lot of detail and even Daskka joined to help. It was an intentional thing, since Leo clearly needed some time to cool off before anything else. After all, he still wasn’t sure if Alex would be able to free his uncle or not.