MAZE - The Endless Quest

Everyone walked through the tunnel in a unit. They had to wait for their turn since the new dungeon became a hot spot for the teams that were still in the city. It was something new, exciting, and the scenario inside was close to a guerrilla warfare situation, which was good practice for similar situations. That wasn’t just a mindless fear, but a reaction to the fact that a couple of cities had fallen in the past weeks. One wasn’t that big, and all civilians were able to evacuate before anything happened, but the second wasn’t as lucky. The city in question was called Kertal, and it shared its room with a human city. The problem was the location; it was in the center of a large crater, and there were no doorways nearby. This allowed the guild to set up a siege and constantly batter the Alliance defenses until they took over. Some people managed to flee during the assault, but most ended up stuck there. The one positive side of all of this was that the people in charge of the human army didn’t seem to be attached to the Soldier of Strength project. Or they were worried about how killing all the non humans inside a city that large would affect the morale of their army. Meaning that a large number of people ended up being used as bargaining chips.

However, those who were stuck there still fought back. They were constantly attacking the occupying force with all they had. Using home-made weapons and anything they could do to get rid of the humans. Ultimately, the Alliance made a deal with the humans. In exchange for the people who were trapped there, they would give up two cities, including the one in the room where Hera fought against Delta. But that wasn’t the end of the issues. Among the civilians that were captured were many children. Said children wouldn’t be able to cross a doorway until they turned 18, which forced the Alliance to make another deal to allow them to make a minor settlement in the room where their people would stay until the children could leave. The humans accepted that deal, but everyone knew this wouldn’t be the end of things. At any moment, the guild could use the lives of those living in the settlement to try to get something else from the Alliance. The only way to save those people would be to divert troops to take control of the entire room. Both sides knew that, and for now, were pretending not to do anything about it even as more and more people gathered in nearby rooms preparing for a massive confrontation.

People were acting as if this would be the largest battle in the war so far, which probably meant the Soldier of Strength would finally make a proper appearance. So far, aside from the prototype, no one saw any of them. A few of those who knew about that project were even starting to consider them just a rumor. Not the fact the humans were experimenting on people, but the idea that they were successful in creating this super powered type of soldier. The threat of those beings was already enough to hinder the Alliance movements, and that could be all the humans could do.

Hera was more or less aware of the entire situation, being informed by both Milla and Ka’mal, who still treated her team as part of the intelligence agency. She wasn’t sure what to believe in relation with the Soldiers of Strength. On one hand, it was completely possible for the humans, more specifically, the New Dawn, to be up selling that project hard. Trying to avoid losing investors, and refuse to admit a failure. But, on the other hand, Hera saw the power of Delta first hand. That didn’t feel like a simple prototype. If the only issue was how people would break down after the procedure, fixing that shouldn’t be that much of an issue. And if it was, there wasn’t a shred of doubt in her mind that the humans would consider those in the project as necessary sacrifices. What else to expect from a group of people willing to torture and experiment on people.

“Hello! Ground to Hera,” Bonnie waved her hand in front of the Ophidianite, who just blinked.

“What?” she was distracted by the thoughts of current events and didn’t notice anyone talking to her. Right now, her entire court was in the legacy to avoid crowding the place even more.

“It’s time to go. Let’s move,” Bonnie gestured to the corridor.

“Yeah, sorry,” Hera nodded and started walking behind her.

“What is the deal with this dungeon again?” Paige asked.

“Basically, we need to protect the purifiers. A group of priests or something close to it that can cure vampirism. There are three factions aside from them, the vampire hunters, the vampires against the cure, and the ones in favor of the cure,” Elistrae explained.

“And we need to protect them just from two of the three factions, right?” Fernando asked.

Alex shook her head as they turned the corner. The fire exit door with golden details on the border at the end of this new corridor, “Not necessarily. It depends on the mission. From what I know, it can be one, two, or all three of those factions that are going after the purifiers.”

“Even the ones that want to be cured?” Vash asked.

“They seem to be the worst ones when they get angry. In some versions of the dungeon, the vampires are very desperate for the cure and will start attacking, trying to kidnap the purifiers to get cured sooner,” Bonnie explained.

“I also saw that there is a variation where the purifier organization is corrupt, and they only cure those who pay very well. That makes the ones looking for a cure more dangerous than a starved vampire,” Elistrae added.

“Either way, we are about to find out,” Alex pushed the door open, revealing the same street she saw in the regular version of the dungeon. In fact, everything was just like she saw in the Bloodmoon Manor. With one significant exception. The moon on top of the mansion wasn’t red, but golden.

“What do we do here?” Flint, the last one to enter, asked.

“Hang on,” Bonnie closed her eyes but was quickly interrupted.

“Do we need to follow the shouts?” Roan turned to the researcher.

“Yeah, can you hear them already?”

“Yep. Follow me,” the beastmen started guiding the group, and soon everyone heard the noise. Initially, it sounded a lot like cheering, but after a loud crash, it became clear that wasn’t the case. Without saying anything, everyone just glanced at each other and started running, with Roan still taking the lead.

“Bonnie, do you have anything to defend an area?” Alex asked as they moved.

“Two things. Either the shield or a boat and,” she looked up, “Forget about the shield. I only have the boat right now. The stars are different from the other version.”

“Ok, be ready for that,” Alex nodded, but she failed to notice Hera’s preparation.

As everyone was running, the entire court came out, including Vulcan. In addition, the Empress shook her bracelet, letting the snakes out and told them to spread around the entire city, forming the necessary set up for the Pool of Styx spell to cover everything. Hera and her titled blades also became covered in some odd liquid shadow, something that looked like ink but moved as if it was inside a lava lamp. But instead of turning everyone black, it was like they were simply eternally covered by the shade. Even when standing under one of the streetlights.

“To the left!” Roan shouted and turned the corner. At the end of that road, they saw the source of all that noise. There was a large golden barrier surrounding a bus while strange vampires attacked them. They all had longer limbs and pitch black skin, and their faces were a mix of elf and bat. Some had bat eyes and regular mouths, others were mostly animals, and a couple even had the wing membrane attached to their arms.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You have found a dungeon quest

The vampires in the room have mutated due to some unforeseen circumstance.

Locate and destroy the source of the mutation and save the purifiers.

First time rewards:

Ancient Vampire Lord set piece, or Legendary Vampire Hunter set piece.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Legendary?!” Fernando gasped.

“Calm your horses, it’s just the name of the set. The rarity will be epic,” Bonnie said.

“Oh…” the hunter looked down, but he was still running at full speed, not wanting to be left behind.

“So, is there anyone we shouldn’t kill? Aside from the purifiers?” Skyler asked.

Elistrae shook her head, “No. This is the most annoying one to deal with. We need to kill everyone who is not a purifier. The vampires are all infected with the drug that makes them mutate, and the vampire hunters are responsible for the mutation. If anyone is alive, the mutation is still going.”

“How did they infect everyone?” Paige asked.

“They put the drug in the water supply,” Elistrae explained, being the one who knew the most about this dungeon. Bonnie and Alex were curious, but they didn’t want to spoil the experience by seeing things beforehand. The elf, on the other hand, didn’t see a problem doing that.

Vash frowned, “Wait, but how? Vampires don’t need to drink water, do they?”

“They don’t, but they take showers.”

“Oh, so the drug can get them through their skin. That sounds nasty. Do we have to worry about that?” Bonnie asked.

“Not from what I understand. It seems vampires are the only ones who are affected,” the elf continued.

“Got it,” Hera replied as she created a legendary venomous spear in her hand using a considerably large chunk of the mana inside her [Empress Core]. It was completely bronze, with a long piece of cloth attached to the base right after the edge. The blade itself was golden and shaped like a mountain, including the jagged peaks with a hint of silver to illustrate the snow. She added the Splitting Lightning spell to make attacks chain to nearby targets and threw it with a [Grasshopper Stab] and the [Weapon Break] aiming at one of the sides of the crowd, not to harm the barrier around the bus. However, she got a nice surprise instead.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

New Skill Acquired

Grasshopper Throw

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The spear flashed through the air as electricity crackled around it. The attack took the vampires by surprise, and when the first one was hit, the spear shattered in an explosion of lightning and thunder. The building behind now had a large hole in its side and the entire street became littered with vampire body parts. Where once was the pavement now was a large opening leading to the sewers. On the opposite side of the bus, most of the vampires were also gone, all killed by the lighting that spread out and chained towards them as the attack hi.

“Holy baby llama, what the fuck was that?” Paige gasped.

“I wanna know too,” Alex turned to Hera.

“A combo of skills. Including that weapon break one. Remember when we fought the giant?” Hera turned to the assassin.

“Oh yeah. The rarer the weapon you break, the stronger the attack gets, right?”

Hera nodded, “And that one was a legendary. I can make various rarity weapons with a skill. Just in name, though. The attributes are not that great and they don’t come with any skills.”

“That doesn’t look like something that’s not great!” Bonnie yelled, pointing at the building. It looked like someone used a massive wrecking ball to crush the three lowest floors.

“My level is higher than this dungeon. It’s not my fault the place can’t handle that kind of attack,” Hera shrugged, trying not to show that she was equally surprised by the attack. She quickly glanced at her skills and noticed how [Weapon Break] reached rank 3. This time instead of increasing the chance of the weapon not breaking, it increased the damage the skill dealt.

“Hey! Hurry, we can move now!” a voice came from down the road. It was the bus driver. They had dropped the barrier since the vampires scattered and were now calling for the people who saved them to go inside.

Elistrae picked up the pace, making everyone understand that this should be part of the dungeon. Even if she never came in here herself, the elf had really done her homework. Once everyone climbed inside, and Hera sent her court away one more time to save space, the bus driver stepped on the gas and started running from that place.

“We need to reach the headquarters. We will be safe there,” the driver said.

“Yeah, that thing might have attracted the vampires,” Bonnie squinted at Hera.

“Hey, I killed them, didn’t I? Besides, maybe they started running away in fear after that,” the Empress huffed.

“I doubt it. It would take something much bigger to scare crazed vampires.”

A cracking noise echoed in the street as the building that Hera broke open tilted and collapsed, covering the street in a cloud of dust.

Everyone just stared at the nothing that could be seen outside as the bus continued to move and slowly turned to Hera, who was also looking back with wide eyes.

“Maybe that enough to scare them,” Vash asked.