MAZE - The Endless Quest

Once she was done talking with the leadership of the army, Hera grabbed Skyler and walked towards the crafter’s area while explaining what they discussed in that quick meeting.

“Hang on. So you just walked into an army as a nobody. A random high level soldier that is here just to help a friend, and now not only is on a first name basis with the entire top of the chain of command, but also are going to play a pivotal role in the incoming war?” Skyler was staring at Hera with her arms crossed, her fingers tapping impatiently just above the elbow.

Hera glanced at the elf, “I’m not sure we are on a first name basis, but yes. Is that bad?”

“No, it’s just… there’s protocol. People need to rise the ranks and shit. My father took ages before he was able to get a meeting with people on the upper echelons of society and you just… walked into a tent.”

“To be fair, I’m the only one of my kind. So I’m already known as the Empress by default. We were talking about a spell I can do, which they only knew because Vazor was there and mentioned it,” Hera shrugged.

“Yeah, but you didn’t have to spend years going to boring ass parties and kissing ass to climb the social ladder,” Skyler huffed.

Hera chuckled, “Sorry about that, feel free to use my name if it helps in the future. Just don’t abuse it.”

“Will do,” Skyler nodded with a smile.

Soon, they arrived at the area where the crafters were preparing everything. Some were working on weapons, armor, and ammo for the archers. In addition, some were creating large siege weapons and defensive structures to be placed in areas where the Alliance was able to take control. The bigger items would have to cross to the next room in pieces, and would need to be taken to the right place before being fully assembled, but it was good to have some proper defenses for places that needed it. Especially wherever the families were being kept.

The humans might have said that they were treating everyone fairly, but Hera didn’t believe that. Sure, there were a lot of people, which meant it would be hard to do anything too outrageous, but what if they were all on the same page? What if all the humans in that room were ok with everyone else being experimented on?

During the travel here, Hera let Daskka out. A number of people had their pets around and a snake wouldn’t be that strange, not more than the Ophidianite herself, at least. Once they reached the crafter’s area, they were about to ask someone for help when the herald perked up.

“Mum, over there!”

Coming out of one of the tents, talking with a few different people, was a woman with dark skin, and long braided hair wearing thick leather clothes. Despite the change in appearance, Hera could recognize that person anywhere.

“There,” she pointed to Skyler.

The elf paused for a moment, “You never mentioned she was that pretty.”

“Oh, she’s gorgeous. And really smart to boot,” there was some pride in Hera’s voice.

As the two approached, the mage noticed them getting closer, “Hera?” Helena opened a huge smile and rushed over, giving the Ophidianite a hug, “It’s been so long. How are you?” her face turned serious, “And what are you doing here?”

“What do you think? I heard you were coming here, so I figured out a way to come help.”

“Sweetie… you shouldn’t have. Go home, or do something else. I know you didn’t want to fight humans, and you don’t have to.”

Hera paused hearing that, not because of the comment, but because Helena was one of the few humans that were on this army. The crafters that she was talking with, Skyler and a few other people who were passing by and heard the conversation all froze and stared at the mage. After a long pause, Daskka started laughing, and she was soon followed by the Empress.

“C’mon, you can’t say that. Not you,” Hera said between breaths.

“Hey! Of course I can. I’m worried about you,” Helena frowned.

“Did… did I miss something?” Skyler asked, she was getting more confused by the second.

“No, this is just her,” Hera replied, wiping away a tear from the corner of her eye, “Lena, look around. Who do you think should be bothered about fighting humans, you or me?”

“What are you talking about?” Helena looked around, seeing the crafters that followed her shaking their heads, “What?”

“C’mon. You really can’t be that dense,” a harpy shook his head, “You’re the human here. You are the one who should be the most bothered by the situation.”

“Why? What the guild and some of the other humans are doing is bad. That’s all there is to it.”

“Ok, ok,” Hera waved Helena off, making her huff in the process, “Sorry to bother you, but do you mind if I steal Lena for a bit?”

“Go for it. We were already done here,” the harpy turned to Helena, “Come back in three hours so we can make some tests with that elemental combo spell.”

“Will do. I’ll see you later,” Helena turned back to Hera, “Where can we go to talk? This is not the best place for that,” she turned to Daskka and patted her head, “And I missed you too.”

As if to confirm what Lena had just said, the sound of hammer hitting steel started to echo through the area.

“Let’s go to our lot. We have a big tent,” Hera replied and started walking. She first introduced Skyler properly, and the three talked while moving

Hera gave a brief rundown of what had happened to her in the last few months. Helena was aware of some parts, but the details couldn’t be shared through text or video calls. Then came time for the mage to talk about herself. After the Empress left Zaxalam, she assisted Bonnie in getting the legacy. They also made a deal that Helena would have the second shot at it in case the researcher failed, but things didn’t come to that. During that time, she also started working on a prototype device to find wendigos. It would work almost like a radar and be able to see anyone with ‘Devouring’ mana as the monsters had.

Once she was somewhat successful in making the device find specific kinds of mana, Rutigan and Typhera talked to the intelligence agency and they offered her a research position in the engineering division. There, they made various devices and tools to help with the war effort. It was mostly spy and defensive tools, but a couple of people tried to push for biological and magical weapons of mass destruction. Those ideas were quickly shut down. Not just because of the potential danger that they brought, but also because doing something like that was against most warfare laws that were accepted by everyone. Even the humans. Or at least, that’s what was widely accepted.

Helena mentioned that even within the agency, not everyone knew about the origin of the Soldiers of Strength. Which might cause people to change their opinion about committing war crimes. In a sense, Hera agreed with keeping that information a secret. Anger could make people cross lines that shouldn’t be crossed.

Once they arrived at the lot assigned to the Harmony Guardians, Hera gave Lena a quick tour of their tent, which still had room in case she wanted to be there. A suggestion that she quickly accepted. The mage had been staying at one of the tents offered by the army and those were rough.

After some time, Hera and Helena walked outside to where they had set up the fire rug. They sat on a couple of stumps that another soldier had created as a thanks for Flint helping him out with his own tent.

“So, can you tell me what are you doing here? And don’t give me the crap about helping the children. You are kind, but not kind enough to go to war because of people you don’t know,” Hera asked.

Helena gave her a sad smile before turning to the flames, “Did I ever tell you about my family?”

“Only some surface stuff. Like you don’t talk much with them, but you don’t avoid it either. But it’s more about things that happened, nice or funny memories. Never what is going on right now.”

The mage nodded, not looking away from the fire, “Yeah. There is a reason for that. My family doesn’t really like me. Or at least, don’t like my decisions. I guess I never felt it was my place to trauma dump on you.”

“Lena… really? I’m basically the poster child for bad families. You can talk to me. I know our ages are different, but we are at the point where that really doesn’t matter. Not after all we’ve been through.”

Helena turned to Hera, her jaw hanging open, “I was going to say how I was kind of a role model to you. A mentor of sorts, or at least when you started I was, but thanks for calling me an old hag,” she huffed and crossed her arms, “34 is not even that old, especially for you.”

“No! I didn’t mean it like that. You still look great for your age,” Hera froze and looked down, “I didn’t mean it like that.”

Helena just chuckled, “I know. Don’t worry, sweetie. I’m just messing with you. But you are not wrong. Our ages are very different and there is a degree of worry that comes with it. Or it did at first. Later… I don’t know, maybe because I know how bad your mother was, I felt like my problems didn’t matter. That’s not the right way of saying it. My problems weren’t as big as yours, so I shouldn’t waste your time with them.”

“Lena-” before Hera could say anything, the mage cut her off.

“I know. Don’t worry. It was never you who made it seem like I couldn’t talk about it. That was a me problem,” she turned back to the fire, focusing on the light and the shadows created by the flame. But Helena didn’t say anything, she just stared for a few seconds.

“If you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to,” Hera said, still looking at her friend’s eyes, even if Lena wasn’t looking back.

“No. You should know. You came here because of me, you have the right to know,” Helena sighed, “My family doesn’t like the fact that I came to the MAZE. They never liked the danger that came with that and always preferred the idea of staying back on Earth. ‘There are enough wonders outside the MAZE for us,’ my dad used to say. But that wasn’t the case for me,” Helena took a sip of her drink. It wasn’t alcoholic, the army had a strict no booze policy before a battle. That was for the celebration of victory. Or to help cope with defeat.

“When I turned 18, I got checked in the guild and my attributes were good enough to join. So I did, without talking with anyone. Once that happened, I was pretty much kicked out of the house. Which was fine since I was going to the MAZE. But it still hurt. Then, about eight years ago, a cousin of mine wanted to become an explorer too. He did the exact same thing I did and had the same result. With people kicking him out. Then I helped Alan to get himself set up as a hunter. Gave him some pointers about jobs, let him crash at my place. Eventually he wanted to travel and his level was as high as mine back them. Which wasn’t hard since I didn’t focus much on leveling up, but still,” Helena took another sip, pausing once more.

“Is he ok?” Hera was worried something happened with Lena’s cousin.

“What? Oh, yeah. He’s fine. Got to level 30, I think, before he found a nice girl and settle down. They got married here in the MAZE, and my family only knew her from video calls. But she had to wear a disguise because of the whole ‘information block’ policy the guild had. It’s super stupid, but he couldn’t tell his parents that he was marrying a beastwoman. Five years ago… or was it six? It doesn’t matter. Back then, he had his first kid. A little boy named Brian. Cutest kid I’ve ever seen, and also a beastmen. Because of that, Alan couldn’t visit his family, nor introduce the baby to them. That is until the ban was lifted.”

Hera nodded in understanding, “They gave you a lot of shit before then, didn’t they?”

“Not just before. When I left that was it, but helping Alan was somehow ‘trying to destroy our family,’” Helena rolled her eyes, “Later they blamed me for his lack of communication, and for them not going to visit them. To be fair, Alan did try to defend me, but he couldn’t tell the real reason and that only made things worse. Even after the ban was lifted and he shared everything, I was still in the wrong for not telling them.”

“And he lives here with his family, right?” Hera asked.

“Yeah,” Helena sighed.

“Ok, that makes sense,” the Empress took a sip of her own drink, a bland of tea that one of the people who came with her in the boat gave to her group.

“That was enough? Don’t I need to explain how I feel guilty for being on his side when he decided to live here?” Helena turned to Hera.

The Ophidianite shrugged, “Maybe to someone else. I know you well enough to understand that someone you care about is in there. That’s all I needed to know. Honestly, if you just said ‘My cousin is in there and we were close,’ I would already have understood.”

“So why did I talk about my family and all that stuff?” the mage frowned.

“I don’t know. It was probably eating you up from the inside,” Hera replied with a smile. She couldn’t help but feel happy for Helena being able to share something like that with her.

“I really need to learn how to shut up,” Helena sighed.

“Don’t. I like hearing your voice,” Hera winked, getting a groan from the mage.

They continued talking and later were joined by the rest of the Harmony Guardians. They would soon be going to a battle, but for now, it was like camping outside with some friends.