MAZE - The Endless Quest

Two days later, they boarded the Moby Dick once more. All members of the army who came here, including Kaela and Thalion, were heading back out to perform their duties. They climbed up the waterfall and crossed to the previous room again. Everyone continued to move together until reaching the Underground Babel. Only then did the groups split off. The army headed down to one passage leading closer to the battlefront. While the Harmony Guardians moved up, Hera and Helena still went along with them since they were in the same direction.

But after a couple of floors, they split off. The Harmony Guardians would be going to help clear out some roving bands of monsters that were attacking one of the high level forges of the Alliance. No one was having trouble defending against those attacks, but the need to have a more robust defensive force detracted from the number of escorts shipments would have. That was starting to cause problems, but to go after the nest of the Birdhounds, wolves with wings covered in ice, would take a strong team. Those creatures lived in large packs and even if the people in the city could protect them from attacks, charging towards their home would be too much for the level of the protectors.

“You all be safe, ok? Don’t get distracted and make me regret not being there to save you,” Hera told her team as they approached the doorway. It would still be about one hour before the doors opened, but Helena and her had to move already.

“You too. Don’t let the fact you have a legacy get to your head, making you bite more than what you can chew,” Flint replied.

“C’mon. You know me. I’m obviously going to do that. It’s part of who I am. Besides, I wouldn’t be much of a future Hero if I just kept punching down,” Hera chuckled.

“I’m more worried about you letting the whole Hero thing get to your head,” Neria admitted.

Hera looked at her for a moment before nodding, “Yeah. Me too, and not in a good way.”

“Be careful out there. And keep us posted. I know you won’t be able to talk about your location, but let us know what is going on,” Roan added.

“We will, and you too. You have fewer restrictions on sharing information,” Helena smiled.

Everyone waved at each other as they split off. The Empress and the former guild clerk climbed up the steps for another 20 minutes. They just talked about the old days, the things they did when traveling together, and the funny stories they shared. During the last week, they had enough time to catch up with most of their lives. Helena had made some nice progress with the Wendigo detection system thanks to the help of those in the R&D department. It still had an unacceptable fail rate of 20%, but at this point it was just about ironing out the kinks. The reason they couldn’t accept that error margin was because of the error itself. The system wouldn’t give a positive result when it should be a negative, but it could give a negative signal even where it was positive.

Another interesting development was the indirect creation of an affinity lens. Helena’s old research ended up being instrumental in that project. But instead of using stones to change one type of mana into another, it was just a way to see a specific affinity by flooding a lens carved with a specific spell to make it so the mana would gather inside the lens when pointed at the same type of mana. There was a range, of course, but depending on the lens, it could cover an area of several kilometers.

The big issue now was to make it constantly reusable. Currently, after a few scans where it caught something, the mana would end up gathering on the same spots over and over again. The mana was somehow lingering on some parts of the carving, as if the material absorbed them. However, both those issues were minor when compared with actually building the entire thing. Which was why Helena didn’t need to be there for things to progress anymore. It would help, of course, but not to the point of the project being unable to move along without her.

Hera also talked a bit about the [Mana Palace] skill, which only made Helena frustrated.

“Sweetie, how did you get that skill?” the mage gasped.

“It was a reward for a quest. One that Vulcan ended up triggering. Why?”

“That explains it. You are infuriating at times, you know that?” Helena chuckled.

“What did I do? I just got a skill!”

“Yeah, a skill that many people, including myself, worked their ass off to get, only to end up not being able to.”

“What? Why?” Hera frowned, “I looked that skill up. There are some ways to get it.”

“Yeah, sure, there are ways to try to get it. But those are more likely to give you a different skill instead. There is one related to memory, and another that speeds up your casting time. And if you get one of them, any attempt to get Mana Palace would go to the progression of the new skill instead.”

“Oh…“ Hera looked down.

Not long after, they crossed to the next room, arriving at the Twisting Tower. It was a place split into three parts. First, the upper terrace, a sprawling balcony mostly consumed by farmland. A peaceful area where people could live without much worry basking in the sunlight. Then, the actual tower, located in the center of this land. It had two paths leading down, forming a double helix with a large hole in the center. Near the top, the hole was empty, but the deeper someone went, the more vines and foliage would take over that opening.

People could move about halfway down the tower and still see windows peering to the outside, where there was just a wide expanse of nothingness but blue sky. No one couldn’t even see the terrace from inside the tower, but that was merely an illusion. Or, at least, that was the theory. In reality, no one could go there. If anyone were to try to go over the windows in the tower, the invisible walls of the room would meet them. The same would happen before reaching the edge of the terrace from above.

Finally, at the very bottom of the towers, there were a couple of paths leading to a massive underground cave complete with a bioluminescent forest. The monsters of the room would all live down there after being chased out from the floor above. Because of that, creatures who lived there were extremely aggressive. Still angry at being pushed out of their homes.

All of this meant the room had, strangely enough, an hourglass shape. It was extremely rare to see something like this, and once upon a time, several researchers and scientists did their best to study the invisible walls in hopes of unveiling a secret of the MAZE, but to no avail.

Luckily for Hera and Helena, they didn’t need to get close to the lower floor. Arriving at the basement of one farm, which was mostly a cover for the path leading to the Underground Babel, they simply had Nimbus take them to the doorway leading to the next part of their journey. At this point. They were a week off from the home of the Strength Spirits. Even with the Sentinel, it took them a few hours to cross the terrace, and with their destination being quite literally at the opposite end of the room, they decided to stop in the small city by the tower itself.

It was well past noon once the duo arrived, and the first thing they did was stopping at a diner for lunch. The meals here were mostly veggie based and freshly made. Which made a lot of sense considering there were no cattle in the area, but there were some options for meat lovers, although they were considerably more expensive since acquiring meat would require someone to go down the tower to hunt.

In the end, Hera decided to go for some pasta with sauce and cheese that was imported from somewhere. Helena, on the other hand, ordered some steamed veggie buns. The Empress wanted to have her court out for the meal. After all, they barely had the chance to eat anything in Neptara. But it would attract too much attention, more than she was already attracting by just being there.

The fact she was an Aspirant Hero, already spread like wildfire. It was all over the news, social media, and even the printed press in places where that kind of thing still existed. Once they finished ordering, the waiter spoke up, “I’m sorry if this is rude, Aspirant Hero, but would you be so kind as to take a picture with me?”

Hera paused, but shook her head, “Apologies. During this time of war, disclosing my position might cause problems. I understand that it is impossible to stop the spread of such information, but the harder we make it for the humans, the better,” she spoke in a voice loud enough for other people in the diner to also hear. There were a few who already had their tablets out, trying to sneak a picture.

The fact was, not just Hera, but the entire council already knew this kind of thing would happen. To get ahead of that issue, they had a small PR team, which right now was made out of only two people, using some advanced softwares to scrub the internet for pictures of the Aspirant Hero. Once they found that picture, they could hide it in a way that no one could access it, and remove that protection at a later date, making it seem like Hera was in a room she left a long time ago. The more pictures appeared, the harder it would be their job, but also, the better they could confuse anyone trying to follow her path using social media.

The entire council agreed that this was a borderline abuse of power. They were, in essence, hacking those services and changing data. But that was all related to a single person who was in a unique position during a very serious situation. Which meant that people were more likely to accept the extreme measures once they came to light.

The server looked a bit sad after hearing the denial, but he accepted nonetheless. Once he returned with their drinks, some freshly squeezed juice, Hera pulled up a small stone carving of a snake, very similar to Daskka, but with a couple of differences. The shape of the eyes, and the size of the nostrils, underneath it the Empress signed with her full name, “It’s not a picture, but I hope it makes up for it.”

A perk of having the [Explorer’s Blueprint] was that she could make a few trinkets like that as often as she wanted. This was the kind of thing she would make when she was bored, or just felt like working with her hands in something more delicate. The only recent addition to the small sculpture was her signature on the bottom.

“Of course! Thank you so much,” the server gasped and left Hera and Helena while staring at the small stone snake.

Helena just chuckled at the interaction. If this was the Hera she first met, she would’ve been bothered about being asked for a picture and likely unable to eat. While the Hera of now, was advancing on the breadsticks and her watermelon juice, “So. You and Neria?”

Hera choked on her drink. “Are we that obvious?”

“Not really. I wanted to at night the day before we left Neptara, and I saw her picking you up and kissing you as you entered your room.”

“Oh…. Yeah, we should’ve been more careful.”

“You don’t want anyone to know?”

“Not really. It’s not serious. It is basically just us letting off some steam. There is a lot going on and we need a way to vent.”

Helena nodded, “Can’t blame you. There is a lot riding on your back. Or your front, I imagine,” she smirked.

“Lena!” Hera gasped before laughing; “How about you? Seeing anyone?”

“I’m not. But there was this really cute guy in the R&D department. He’s sweet, very focused on his work, and oddly proud of his tastes. He has this tablet cover of a very cute anime character who’s a maid. And I’m pretty sure I can get a pretty good version of that costume. I was going to show up at a costume party dressed like that and shot my shot. But then the issue with my cousin happened.”

“I’m sure he would love to see you in that costume even without the party. Actually, maybe even more than at the party.”

Helena nodded, “Oh. I know, and that is in my to do list, just not a priority right now. Being the Aspirant Hero escort will always be more important than boys. Even really cute ones.”

“Fear not, my noble squire. Your job as my companion will be uneventful. You shall return to your paramore in no time.”

Helena didn’t say anything, just raised one eyebrow.

“Ok fine. With my luck, it’s likely that we will end up either stuck in a room, or in the middle of a war between two factions we don’t even know exist. But it’s going to be fine. We’ll figure something out,” Hera laughed it off, but quickly stopped staring into the table with a haunted expression. Could things really go south like that?

Helena started laughing as their meal arrived, the two friends just having a moment of fun in the middle of the MAZE without a care in the world.