MAZE - The Endless Quest

Looking through her fridge she stared at the New Dawn Oranges. It seemed a waste to eat them all quickly. She picked a few other fruits to make a fruit salad.

Ready to eat her breakfast Hera went to her phone and sent two texts. One to her grandmother and the other to her father. Both were essentially the same. She just said that she would try to drop by in a couple of weeks and that she had some good and exciting news to share.

After that, she replied to a few texts from her friends who still worked at the bookstore. They were worried and just wanted to be sure she was ok.

With a soft smile, she texted back saying that she was great, that she quit because she got a new job and that the next weeks will be a bit crazy because of it.

She wanted to tell them the good news. But for some reason, she felt like it would be unfair to not tell her family first. It sounded a bit stupid when she thought about it, still, that seemed like the best idea.

Finishing her meal Hera went to do the dishes that she had left soaking. She wasn"t sure how the training would go, so doing them at night was not an option.

After everything was done, she still had over half an hour before she needed to leave. Opening the fridge again she stared at the oranges.

"You know, Amanda was right. I should spoil myself sometimes" She picked 3 of the oranges and made a gla.s.s of juice. Drinking it the same feeling she had the night before took hold of her body. That delicious flavor and the familiar electricity that ran through her arms. Finishing the gla.s.s in just a few seconds she placed it in the skin and looked again at the refrigerator.

"No, only one per day. I still need to have some restraint."

Looking at the clock Hera went to the bathroom to brush her teeth.

"Argh!!" She quickly spat out the toothpaste.

She completely forgot the only rule about orange juice. Even the magical oranges tasted awful when paired up with toothpaste. Luckily she managed to endure the taste long enough to finish brushing her teeth. And now, she was ready to go.

It took her less than forty minutes to arrive at the guild. With half an hour to spare Hera went to the training room. However this time she wanted to watch the seasoned explorers practicing.

Looking through the gla.s.s walls Hera failed to notice a guild clerk approaching.

"Excuse me, Hera?"

She looked to the side and saw Carol, the attendant that Hera meet early this week. With her customer service smile, she answered.

"Oh hi, Carol is it? Can I help you?"

Carol approached, Hera noticed that one of her nails seemed to be shorter than the others.

"I wanted to apologize, I didn"t know about your level up and should have done a better job checking. I was having a really c.r.a.ppy day and a lot of weird people started to show up only to give me more trouble. Even so, none of that is your fault and you deserve to be treated better than that."

The apology surprised Hera, even if she felt wronged at the time, the matter wasn"t enough to warrant an apology.

"Don"t worry about it. Any work can be troublesome. Besides, everything worked out. I"m okay now, actually, I"m great! really really great!"

Carol raised one eyebrow, the girl was acting weird. Even in that small exchange, she seemed to have trouble focusing on one thing. But her biggest concern was Hera"s eyes. They were wide in an almost unnatural way.

"Thank you, I was really worried about how you were feeling. By the way, did Helena found you? She was asking around if you had arrived already."

Hera looked around " No, I still haven"t seen her. Do you know what she wants? Is something urgent? Is something bad? Is she ok? "

The girl is talking too fast, there is something wrong. Carol had no doubt about it.

"I don"t know. She probably is in our breakroom. Come with me, I"ll take you there"

Hera gave her a big smile.

"Sure"

The two of them walked side by side, Hera kept looking everywhere. Carol started to get worried. Before long the two of them arrived at the breakroom. Helena was sitting on a couch with a book in hand.

"Hey Carol, and Hera! What brings you here?"

Carol grabbed Hera"s hand and pulled her towards the couch.

"You need to take a look at her now! Something feels wrong."

Helena frowned. There were very few times were Carol had this type of reaction, and none of them were good.

"Okay, Hera, sit here dear." Helena got up and pointed at the middle of the couch.

"Okay, but I"m fine, I"m great actually" She answered with a smile, letting her body fall on the couch making a bit of noise with the impact.

Carol and Helena glanced at each other.

"Hera, sweety, did you do anything different these days?" Helena kneeled in front of her as stared deep into her eyes.

"Well, I started the explorer training, but I felt Like I didn"t belong there since I"m older than the rest. Then I learned a map skill, it seems pretty useful but here it"s just better if I use the map app on my phone. My skill is still not as good. Then trained with swords, they are fun but I still wanna try another weapon. Mr. Greyson told me I was already an explorer and you wouldn"t kick me out unless I did something really bad. Since then I"m feeling lighter than ever. Well after that and the oranges. I also went by a grocery store near my home to treat myself and then I got here, that"s all I did differently these days, aside from the level up of course but you know that part, Helena."

Hera said everything in a single breath. Carol was glad she had found the girl, there was something very wrong with her. As Hera spoke, Helena who was staring at her grew darker, her hair started to change to an impossibly deep black, and her hair started to move around flowing towards Hera.

"What oranges sweety?" Helena"s voice felt cold and distant as if it came from another room.

Hera still had her eyes locked with Helena"s.

"Oh those New Dawn Farm ones, I always wanted to try. They are amazing, do you want to try one? I can rush home to pick one up I think it will be enough time. Or if you can wait I"ll go after the cla.s.s. I really don"t want to be late for Mr. Greyson"s lecture.

Helena"s eyes turned pitch black and her hair started to leak around her, the shadows in the room grew more intense and the light seemed to try to run away.

At this moment Hera was mesmerized. She could see small streaks of blue, purple, white and red running through the darkness. The colors had different appearances. The blue light ran as if it was inside a vein, spreading and looping. The red streaks seemed to be small flys buzzing around leaving trails as if they were airplanes in the sky. The white glow seemed to come from under the darkness as if it was trying to seep through cracks in a gla.s.s window. The purple sparkles were like fireworks that danced around Helena"s face.

"Now Hera, I"m sorry sweety but this is for your own good"

Hera realized that there was one more thing moving around that area, and that was the darkness, it looked like a mix of smoke and shadow and it started to wrap around her hands and torso. But her attention went back to the light show around Helena"s face. She started to feel a bit light-headed, the lights began to vanish and her mind to focus.

Shaking her head she looked again at Helena, only her face was visible, and her eyes were completely black. Looking at them was the same as looking at the darkness behind her. Hera swallowed her saliva too scared to do anything. Feeling a soft pain where the shadows had wrapped her body Hera bit her tongue so she wouldn"t say anything.

It took over a minute for the shadows to retreat and go back inside Helena, but for Hera, it seemed much more time had pa.s.sed.

Carol watched the room grow dark making Hera vanish in the shadows. When she reappeared, the darkness was still wrapped around her body. Carol knew that was just Helena"s magic, but it was still a frightening sight to behold.

The light came back to the room, the shadows turned back to normal. Helena blinked her eyes a few times before they regained its natural color.

She got up and sat down on a chair, breathing heavily and rubbing her eyes.

"Helena, are you ok?" Carol gave her a gla.s.s of water.

"Yeah, I"m fine, it"s just a bit tiresome, how about you Hera?"

After being released from the shadows Hera"s whole body felt heavy and she had a splitting headache. She looked at Helena and Carol but the bright light in the ceiling made her close her eyes.

"I"m... tired, and my head is killing me." She answered with a weak voice.

Carol went to a cabinet on the wall and grabbed some medicine, along with a gla.s.s of water.

"Here, drink this. It will help."

Hera thanked the clerk. "What just happened?"

Helena stared at her "You didn"t listen to the warnings on the label. That"s what happened."

Hera looked back at her "What label? "

"The New Daw Farm products are filled with mana, and in the package, there is a warning telling people that they shouldn"t consume more than a specific quant.i.ty every 24h unless their level is high. You didn"t even saw it did you?"

Hera looked to the ground, she never even considered side effects, they were oranges. Who would read the label in something like this?

"I"m... I"m sorry" Once again Helena had to step in and save her. She already felt like she owed her a lot. This was just one more thing for the tab.

"It is okay sweety, you didn"t know. For future reference, magic rich food can help you a lot but it can also make you a bit crazy. For someone at level one, the effect is close to a drug." Helena explained in a soft tone that made Hera feel more comfortable with the situation.

The information shocked Hera. How was it possible that a company that big would be seeling something like this with no problems?

"But... if it is a drug why are people letting them sell it? It should be wrong right?"

"It definitively should. But it"s easier said than done. New Dawn is a powerful company. And they just argue that their fruits and vegetables are just like medicine, one should not go over the recommended dose. And that is enough for them to get away with it" Helena huffed.

"Well anyways, thank you for accepting my apology Hera. I hope to see your graduation soon." Since Hera was looking better, and Helena was around. Carol felt comfortable with going back to work.

A few moments after Carol left, feeling better Hera stared at Helena, trying to see if those glowing lights would show up near her again.

"Hera, you are staring dear" Helena chuckled.

"Sorry. I"m trying to see if those glowing lights were just a part of the high." She looked away but it didn"t take long for her to try again.

"What glowing lights?" Helena raised one eyebrow.
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"They were around you while you were... doing something with your magic. There was a blue, a red, a withe and a purple one but I can"t remember where they were."

Helena adjusted herself in the chair.

"Hera, please, tell me exactly what you remember." Surprised, Hera described, to the best of her abilities, what each color did and when she saw it, with Helena asking a few specific questions during the process.

After she was done questioning Hera, Helena got up and sat down beside the recruit before giving her a big hug.

For some reason, it didn"t bother Hera when she was hugged by Helena. She wasn"t sure why but it felt more natural than what Blue did.

"Thank you so much! You have no idea how much that helped" Helena said without letting the girl go.

"Sure, but what did I do?" Hera asked unsure of what had just happened.

"You just gave me the information I needed for my research. It"s a bit too technical and I still need to a.n.a.lyze things but I think you just told me my elemental affinities."