MAZE - The Endless Quest

The two Soldiers of Strength were bringing up the rear of the attack. It was hard to tell why the humans thought that to be a good idea. Maybe the hope was to have them cleaning up after the rest of the army, or to tire out the Alliance before coming to deal with whoever still remained or who proved to be a problem. Either way, they were now gone, and that also created ripples across the battlefield.

Hera wasn’t able to help with that final wave of enemies, then again, she didn’t have to. While the Soldiers of Strength were alive, the humans received a buff that made them stronger. The buff was nowhere near the same level as the one the Soldiers of Strength had themselves, but it was enough to change the tide of battle. The same could be said for the moment when that buff stopped working.

Suddenly, every person who was defending against the attack felt their attacks were packing more punch, and their enemies became slower. Only half of that was true, of course. The blows delivered by the Alliance members didn’t change; it was the humans who lost their defensive capabilities.

With that change, the battle finished quickly. Nimbus carried Hera away from the front line to make sure no one would take advantage of her current weakened and injured state. Thanks to Lurize’s [Exoarmor] and her own [Ophidianite Scales] the damage she took was reduced, but that wasn’t enough to stop the blows from the Soldiers of Strength. The Empress was covered in bruises, and there was a chance her ribs had been broken. Still, she was awake.

Neria saw the fight, but she was unable to help due to the distance and the situation in front of her at the time. Too many humans tried to move away from their apparent secret weapons. Possibly in fear of being caught in the fight by accident, or just wanting to prove themselves. But once the battle died down, she quickly rushed over to the Empress and started healing her. Luckily enough, Hera’s bones didn’t break during the fight. Which also meant she wouldn’t be out of commission during the rest of the day. Even if she would still have to be careful.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Hera suddenly groaned.

“What? Is everything ok?” Neria gasped, looking over the Ophidianite to see if there was any serious wound she missed.

“Yeah. I’m fine, it’s just. My snakes arrived at their location. I could use the Pool Of Styx now.”

“Don’t scare me like that,” Neria huffed and went back to healing, now the Empress’ legs, who were more bruised than one would expect. Nothing that could be seen by the naked eye, but internally the muscles were a mess, “Daskka, do you mind clearing the mist from her feet? I need to take a look at them,” the triton turned back to Hera as the mist opened near her feet, “And isn’t that a good thing? “

“Not right now. I had to use All In during that attack. So I have a debuff for a while. And I’m not sure if the spell would be affected by that debuff or not.”

“Didn’t you say that buffing wouldn’t do anything for that spell?” Neria frowned as she noticed a couple of large splinters embedded near Hera’s ankle. The fact the explorer wasn’t screaming in pain, and could walk seemingly without any problem, was almost scary.

“Buffs don’t help, but debuffs hinder it, and I still have,” Hera glanced to status screen to check the timer. To her surprise, the skill had ranked up. Now being at rank 3.

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All In (Rank 3):

The user can increase one of its attributes to perform a single action, as if all the available bonus points were allocated in the relevant attribute. The attribute will have bonus increments and, at the same time, reduce all other attributes to 86 (30 + level - 1) for 3 hours.

Value of attribute when the skill is used: 209

Cooldown: 20 hours Remaining (19:48:35)

Debuff duration: 2 hours renaming (2:48:35)

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The cooldown had been reduced, and the debuff was a bit weaker, but it was still a massive drop from her regular stats. Using the spell now would end up wasting too much of its potential to be worth it.

“Three hours. Maybe I won’t even have time to use it,” Hera gave a weak smile. She didn’t believe in her own words. There was no way this battle would be finished in just a few hours. It was unlikely the Alliance was able to take control over even one of the cities in the room during that time.

Not long after, the rest of the team gathered while Helena went to check on her cousin. Roan and Flint had some bruised but nothing close to Hera’s state. Skyler and Vash were mostly fine, having only been hit by a couple of strikes. Perks of being in the back line.

“What about your court? I’m only seeing Nimbus and some of the blades out, but I feel like there are a couple missing,” Roan looked around.

“Yeah, Vulcan got overwhelmed by the Daemonic Influence. The Heart of a Phoenix skill triggered, but his mental state is not great. Crimson got a really nasty cut on her tail. Livy was beat to shit, and Lurize wasn’t looking that hot either. Viper can’t be outside without Crimson, so he’s letting her rest,” Hera explained.

“But don’t worry. We can recover quickly from those injuries. Lurize should be able to join the next fight. Livy and Crimson… Maybe. Depends on the time frame,” Nimbus added.

“When I can cast the spell, all of them should be ok to move. Clay, on the other hand… he is the only one who broke. Like was actually broken by the Soldiers of Strength. It will take a couple of days for him to get back. Storm, Pyro, and Shadow are also recovering but they will be ok in a few minutes,” Hera looked down, only now noticing how her purple scales were hidden because of a sheer number of purple bruises all over her body, “Damn… I’m a mess.”

“Tell me about it,” Neria rolled her eyes, “Also, no one can give her a mirror until I’m done.”

“Wait. What? Why?” Hera looked at the triton with a worried expression.

“You don’t want to know, trust me. Can you even see through your left eye?”

“What do you mean?” Hera reached up and flinched as she touched a swollen temple. Most of her left eye was covered by the engorged skin. She could also feel pieces of dried blood around her face, and some scales were extremely sensitive to the touch, as if they were about to fall off, “You know… I think you’re right. I don’t need to see this.”

“You really don’t,” Neria turned around, “Anyone knows if we have a harpy healer here? What’s going on with her scales is something I don’t know how to handle.”

“We do have a couple. But only one of them was part of the team. He is currently helping a few people who were injured by the monsters on the other side of the camp. The humans sent their people to this entrance, but a couple lured monsters to the other side. I guess they wanted to use the creatures for a pincer maneuver,” Kaela appeared out of nowhere by the group.

“Can you call him? Tell him it’s not life threatening, but I don’t know if this has a time frame,” Neria asked.

“Sure, what should I tell him?” Kaela touched her earbud ready to send a message.

“That someone with scales got punched and now some of them are loose. Feathers were the closest thing I could think of that maybe act the same way,” Neria turned to Vash, almost as if to ask for confirmation.

“I mean.. Yeah, that can happen. It usually either hurts like a bitch, or they just fall off and we don’t even notice,” the harpy explained.

“I can say that this is hurting like a bitch, but only when I touch it,” Hera said as she touched the scales again.

“So stop touching it. What the hell?” Skyler was just staring at the Empress with a confused expression.

“It’s the first time this happens, I need to know what it feels like,” Hera defended herself, but she stopped poking her loose scales. It was a bit weird to have something like this to happen. She always assumed that her scales were more similar to snakes, but being able to have a single loose scale maybe meant that her body was closer to a dragon for some reason? Then again, she didn’t really feel like she was touching a single scale when she poked it.

“Stop that!” Neria swatted Hera’s hand away from her face as she was about to touch the scales again.

“As entertaining as this is, I need to ask you a question, Hera,” Kaela spoke up, making them stop with the cheesy comedy routine.

“Can we talk here, or is it a private situation?” the Ophidianite turned to the scoutmaster.

“We can talk here. First, I wanted to ask you about the spell. Any progress?”

“Yeah, it’s ready, but during the fight I had to use a skill that gives me a debuff. If I trigger the Pool of Styx now, it won’t be as powerful as it could be, since my attributes are much lower for the next couple of hours.”

“How much lower?”

“Close to half. They are supposed to be 149, but now they are just 86.”

Kaela frowned, “That’s a big decrease. How long until that debuff is gone?”

“About 3 hours.”

“Ok, wait then. From the information that was passed along to me, the army won’t be moving to the next city so soon.”

“Next city? We already have one under control, then?” Roan asked.

“We do. The one that already belonged to us. It seems like the humans didn’t want to use our structures, so they left it mostly unprotected. Even if it was ransacked for the most part. Getting that city under our control again was easy, now we are already pushing their armies to their city, but that is a slow process. Mostly because we are making sure not to leave any groups of humans behind our lines.”

“Are they going to pass by us? We are between the two cities, after all,” Skyler asked.

“They are. Once that happens, we will send the families back to their city. Our teams will split, some will go with the army while others will follow the families as an escort and to protect them,” Kaela turned to Hera, “My intention was to ask you all to go with the army, but considering what you did here, I understand if you need to go to the city.”

“Honestly. I’m not in a state to answer that now. I need to rest and recover for a while. Even then, I wouldn’t be able to help the front line,” Hera explained.

“Don’t worry about it. You don’t have to answer now. And it’s ok if you need to pull back. But that brings me to the other reason I was looking for you. I need a report of what happened. The fight with the Soldiers of Strength.”

Hera nodded and started explaining everything she saw and felt. During the fight, she didn’t have the time to analyze the situation, but now, looking back at it, there were several things that caught her attention. First, the two men leaked out Strength Mana. It was easy to tell if one was looking for it and was more sensitive to mana in general. She also mentioned how Vulcan was able to interrupt the connection by slamming them with the exact same type of mana. But it would be hard to replicate that effect. After all, one had to be a Daemon in order to do that.

Twiggy was exceptionally helpful during this conversation, adding several details that Hera missed due to the intensity of the situation. About half an hour, Kaela thanked the group and left to make her own report of the situation. At the same time, the healer harpy flew over.

“Hey, I was called here. Who is- Holy crap!” he gasped as he saw Hera.

“Damn… do I really look that bad?” Hera chuckled, but her smile made a piece of her skin to painfully peel off.

“You look terrible, but I can help,” he glanced to Neria, “We can help.”

They tried healing a bit more, but it quickly became clear that there wasn’t much they could do right now. The fight was so intense that forced Hera to change skins even if she wasn’t ready for it. Her options now were to finish the job or cut the loose pieces and deal with that a later date.

Hera took the second option. Changing skins for the first time felt very personal, and a very vulnerable situation. She wasn’t about to do that in the middle of a battlefield. Which left the strange option of cutting pieces of her own skin off so they would stop trying to fall on their own. Then again, that wasn’t the strangest thing that ever happened in her life.