MAZE - The Endless Quest

“We are about to reach the point. Can anyone see them?” Hera yelled through the wind. They were not as fast as Nimbus regular mount form, but the difference wasn’t that big. But each time the Sentinel would flap his wings, a large gust of air washed over the group on his back, making them struggle to keep their footing.

“I can!” Roan shouted and pointed a bit to the left, there was a large horde of mutated vampires and some elves attacking from a distance trying to break open a large golden dome.

“Nimbus, take us down there,” Hera yelled, but also talked in the Sentinel’s mind.

‘I can only land on top of the dome, then you can drop off,’ Nimbus replied. His current size wouldn’t allow him to land on one of the regular streets. Unless he dove, but then they would be free falling for a few hundred meters. In that case, even the Harmony Guardians with their high level and attributes wouldn’t be able to land without getting injured, if not worse.

Hera agreed to that idea and turned to the rest of the group, “He’s going to land right above the dome.”

“Hurry! I don’t think they can keep that up. The dome is already showing some cracks,” Vash was leaning over the side, with his legs being held by Paige so he wouldn’t fall.

“Try to keep at least one alive. I want to see if I can remove the mutation,” Alex said.

“Got it!” the group replied as Nimbus started his descent. It took a while, and people started jumping off at different heights. Vash was the first to go, he could already fly and didn’t have to worry about falling. Alex was next, using her wind chaser ability as a way to descend quickly without hurting herself. Fernando followed, using a rope arrow to latch on to a nearby building and swing like a super hero between the large structures. All the other Harmony Guardians jumped soon after. Skyler had a spell that could cushion their fall, but it only affected a certain number of people at once. Seeing that, Elistrae followed along, bringing Bonnie, Paige, and Sophie with a similar spell.

As they landed, Hera called her entire court and let them all go wild. She did ask them not to kill the vampires if possible, but it wasn’t a hard rule. Creating an uncommon venomous longsword, she covered the weapon in a Grasping Flame while pieces of frozen stone covered her body to create an armor. The blades and their Empress landed right in front of the golden dome, making some of the vampires pull back in fear. Since they were more monster than elf right now, their instincts could tell when they were facing someone stronger.

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

Mutated Vampire - Level 44

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

The Ophidianite rushed to the closest monster, and using her tail for support, she spun around it before slashing twice at its back. Each attack illuminated the area as the flames from her weapon formed an arc. She wasn’t the only one doing that, the entire court was also affected by the spell thanks to the [Army of One] skill. The vampires quickly struck back, trying to avenge their fallen comrade, but their attacks hit the frozen armor, scraping the rocks and ice without hurting the Empress herself.

Vulcan, being the one who ended up cooped up inside the legacy for longer, really wanted to stretch his legs as the fight began. He jumped, kicking the vampires and spinning around to hit the ones he passed by with his tail and hammer. The biggest danger of that move was not the strength behind each attack, but the large bronze colored claws on his feet. With a single strike, he could easily gore the monsters, and hitting them in the stomach would disembowel them. If that wasn’t enough, he also constantly kept sending out the sacred flame from his arms and weapon to heal wounds of his allies and burn his enemies. That was a scary move, since even if a small wisp of fire hit the vampires, Forge’s white flames would soon cover them.

Livy, and the twins, Viper and Crimson, also jumped into the fray right away, opening a large path on the norther side of the road, but Lurize kept his distance, focusing more on protecting the golden dome. Nimbus took a long time to return to his regular form due to the buff given by the Astral Witch. The rest of the Harmony Guardians took care of the western side, while the humans took the south, leaving Bonnie, Alex and Elistrae to cover the east.

In just a short few minutes, this group of vampires were either dead or unconscious on the ground. Hera and the others had a quick conversation with the purifiers, who also had their own bus and said they could reach the headquarters without a problem. But they were asked to wait a bit since they might have more people for them to take soon. During that time, Alex kept trying to remove the mutation from the vampires that still lived while keeping their vampirism. They spent around 15 minutes there, which gave Purifying Light around 15 tries with her skill but to no avail.

“Hang on. I don’t understand. Why are you trying to remove just the mutation?” Fernando glanced at the people who no longer were vampires being helped to the bus.

“Because of the Vampire Lord. Sure, I can just be nice, heal him and move on. But if we want help, having him keep his vampire powers would be much better,” Alex explained. She also glanced to the side and saw one of the bodies being burned by Vulcan’s [Sacred Flame]," Hey, what is that?"

“It’s my skill. Nice, isn’t it?” Vulcan had his arms crossed, and a satisfied expression, proud of his work.

“Yeah, can you bring that over? I think that fire is kind of similar to what I do,” Alex asked as she stared at the unconscious vampire at her feet.

“Oh? This is easier,” Vulcan stepped closer to one of the nearby bodies and let out a tiny amount of the flame from his hands. Then he pushed the dead vampire closer to Alex, “You don’t need to be careful. My flames only hurt my enemies. For allies, they can heal.”

Alex blinked slowly and mumbled, “Now that’s just cheating,” with a sigh, she focused once again on the fire.

“How are you feeling, big guy?” Hera asked Forge as they waited.

“Having you call me big is kind of condescending,” Vulcan huffed, he was, after all, shorter than an average dwarf.

“To be fair, I called some dwarfs big guy, too. It’s not just about height, but size in general. Even if you are short, you are big. And before you say anything, no. I’m not calling you fat,” Hera rolled her eyes, but focused on Vulcan again, “And you avoided my question.”

“I’m… doing fine. It’s weird to have a month missing in my life. Actually, are we alive? Ah, who cares,” Vulcan shrugged, “I’m just trying not to let this get in my head, but it’s hard. While you and the other blades were around, I was in a limbo. I know it is a very different situation, but it feels a bit how it was like when I was being experimented on. Only being woken up when shit was about to go down. I’m also not saying you only call me when bad things happen. I know that’s not the case, it’s just…” he sighed.

Hera nodded, “Don’t worry. I get that. And I’m sorry. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“I don’t think you had an alternative. Letting me be close to Marco and the Daemon that he is bound to wasn’t doing anyone any good. I just wish we could already see what’s happening outside when in the legacy.”

Hera shifted the conversation to a mental one so she could talk about the guides without a worry, ‘The funny thing is, once we complete that quest, you will probably have to worry less about the influence.’

Vulcan understood the reason for the change in the conversation and followed along, ‘Why is that?’

‘To get the reward from the guides, we need to save the Spirit homeland, or give them a new one. Once we’ve done that, you will know that others of your kind are not suffering. That might help you with the anger you feel about all that.’

‘I honestly think I’ll be much better once we kill all the assholes who are part of the Soldier of Strength project,’ Vulcan glanced at Hera, rage burning deep inside his eyes.

‘Me too,’ the Empress nodded, giving him the same intensity in reply. They watched Alex work for a few moments before Hera spoke again, ‘How much is your influence right now?’

‘32%. Why?’

‘Neria had an idea about healing you. Like lowering the influence with a heal. How do you feel about that?’

Vulcan paused, ‘Depends, is the idea just doing that to me or using that to heal the Spirits that became Daemons later?’

‘From what I understand, it’s option number 2. She wants to fix the Daemon bound to Marco. If that works, then we might be able to do the same with the other spirits.’

Vulcan looked back at the group still helping the elves to the bus, “Let’s go talk to her,” he said out loud, getting a nod from Hera as they moved.

While Alex continued to work, Forge and the Empress talked with Neria, discussing her idea about the Spirit healing. In essence, the triton wanted to hit Vulcan with a heal made of strength mana. She realized that, in order to pacify the Strength Daemon, the humans were using liquid strength mana. That made it sleep, or be in a state similar to stasis. However, the liquid mana couldn’t enter the Daemon form, because it wasn’t like water that could be absorbed by skin. On the other hand, heals were made to affect the target’s body. That had the potential to be a path to solving the Daemon problem. And not just the ones being used by the humans in the experiments. If this worked, it might stop any Daemon from being born ever again. As long as the people involved were able to learn that kind of healing spell.

Vulcan accepted to be a guinea pig, since it would be better to use him than an actual Spirit. Then again, everyone was aware that his situation was different. Even if things worked for him, that might not be the case for the other Spirits. Neria spent the next 10 minutes trying the various healing spells she already had prepared. Unfortunately, none of them worked as they hoped, but by the end, there was some progress. Initially, all spells worked like regular heals. They would just try to cover the wounds in Forge’s body, and when they found none, they fizzled out. But, by the end of that session, the healing became targeted. It wasn’t aiming at the physical form itself, but something more profound. According to Neria, she was using things similar to the spells used to treat mental illness. But that area was still very much experimental. There was no magic wand to cure depression or anxiety, and spells had to fundamentally change the chemistry of the brain in order to make that work. Neria’s ‘Strength Healing’ followed the same concept, but it didn’t stop at the brain. Despite the unsuccessful result, there was a bit of good news. Vulcan’s [Daemonic Influence] didn’t have a single change during the process. Which meant that, at least, Neria wasn’t making things worse.

“Finally,” Alex gasped as the vampire in front of her woke up. He was back at his regular self, no more mutation, and still with the vampirism.

“What was the issue?” Bonnie asked.

“The mutation is intertwined with the vampire curse. But it’s behaving like a parasite in a host. So if I treat it the same way, I can target it. The one problem is that this takes a while, and I’m assuming against the vampire lord it will take even longer,” the assassin replied.

“Then are you ready to go after him?” Elistrae smiled, she left the purifiers and the elves that were fawning over her back in the bus and was focused on the dungeon again.

“I think so. We need to get to the mansion, right?” Alex got up, helping the vampire to his feet as well.

“How do we get there?” Paige asked, getting blank stares from everyone.

“Paige… The mansion is that way,” Sophie pointed to the sky where a giant golden moon could still be seen peeking over the buildings."

“Oh… right,” the human just nodded awkwardly.

Hera quickly asked Neria to stop experimenting with her heal, they could test that again later, but now she wanted to know if a vampire lord really was all that or not.