MAZE - The Endless Quest

She shook her head. She had to trust her friend. Bonnie was okay.

She had to be.

After what felt like an eternity, the flames subsided. Hera"s heart was beating fast. The first thing she saw was the worried expression of her friend on the other side. Then, she saw a golden hair, attached to the head of a dark-skinned girl. She was crouched inside the safe area. When the fire vanished completely, Bonnie looked around with wide eyes and smiled at her friends.

"What are you doing? Go!" Hera yelled, waving her off with her hands.

The researcher came out of her daze and dashed to the other side. She reached Leo"s group without an issue this time. The flames came up, and then it was Hera"s turn.

She was careful not to get stuck in any of the grates and still crossed the hallway with five seconds to spare.

"You guys make it look so easy," Bonnie said, looking at the explorer.

Blue snickered, "It helps if you don"t trip in your own feet."

"It was the grating, not my feet," Bonnie stared daggers at the controller.

Hera gave Bonnie a big hug, "I"m so glad you"re safe." she couldn"t imagine what it was like to be in the middle of those flames. Even if she was safe, it must have been terrifying.

Bonnie hugged her friend back and replied in a weak voice, "Thanks."

After a few moments, Blue joined the hug, breaking the acc.u.mulated tension in the room, "Of course she"s fine. Do you think something will stop our little bookworm? All she has to do is think about all the books she has yet to read."

Breaking off from the hug, the group looked around the circular room. There was a similar carving to the one in the air door. The mage was above the door that they just came through, and a small flame came out of both her hands. The fire would grow from a small ember to a candle, then a campfire, then a huge forest fire, and finally, to a volcano on the other door. However, the flaming mountain seemed less alive than the image in the air room.

"So, the patter is pretty close. My guess is that there will be some sort of creature in that room," Bonnie said after investigating the area.

"Just like those air elemental prototypes?" Blue asked.

Bonnie nodded, "Yeah. Something like that. I just don"t know why this would be repeating. The system is a bit lazy at times."

"I don"t think so. To me, it took a lot of effort to craft a place more realistic," as Hera spoke, the rest of the group stared at her, "It"s all about the story. This was an arcanist tower. So she probably made this place to have a secure location to do some research. She split this up to make various subjects. Like different cla.s.ses in college."

Bonnie looked around, "You are right. If I think about this place as a research lab, it makes a lot of sense. Well, aside from the traps, they are a weird case."

"How so?" Leo asked, moving towards the volcano door.

"It"s one thing to make a trap to stop people from coming in, another to stop things inside from coming out. To stop both at once, she should"ve made the traps in the opposite element."

"If the story is right, then it"s not weird. She didn"t know that things would come alive. The quest said so. The magic mutated with time," Alex said.

"Fair point. It would also be easier to use fire in a place built to withstand it," Bonnie concluded.

The group walked towards the door under the volcano engraving and carefully opened it. If it were just like the previous room, they would find some creature here too. After opening the door, they looked inside.

The room was filled with various stone ovens and small furnaces. They were all made of red firebricks. Not only that, but the fire under them was lit.

"Ok, so what is going on here? Are the ovens going to come to life or something?" Blue asked after looking around.

"If that is the case, we should run away. I can"t take one of those," Leo stood by one of the ovens measuring its height.

Hera took a step back after hearing this. If those things started moving around, she wanted to be far away from it. In the corner of her eyes, she noticed a small flicker of light moving behind one of the furnaces.

"There was something over there!" Hera announced.

The group quickly moved back and walked carefully towards the place Hera mentioned. With Leo in front, the group jumped behind the furnace, but there was nothing there.

Alex noticed something on the other side, "Over there."

Rushing to the other side, the group found a small ember moving around near one of the furnaces.

"Is that thing... alive?" Blue asked.

Hera approached the ember that was moving around like a bug on the floor. With her [Observe], she managed to see what it actually was.

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Minor Elemental Ember (Prototype)

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"This is an elemental!" Hera exclaimed.

"What?" Leo asked just before a loud noise came from the furnaces.

The group looked back towards the noise and saw a series of large iron plates opening, followed by dozens of small embers that moved as if they were c.o.c.kroaches. The flaming bugs started to cover the floor. Some went straight towards the flames in the oven. Bonnie jumped into one of the stoves to be clear of the path while the rest kept stomping their feet, trying to get rid of the creatures.

"Bonnie, use the Cold Bomb," Alex yelled as a group of the embers started to climb her legs.

The researcher started to charge her spell, tweaking the formula so it would trade temperature for the area of effect. Hera was having some trouble keeping the embers away. Not only were they very fast, but their movement was erratic. There was also the problem that she couldn"t use her weapons against it. The targets were too small. It would be like using a sword to kill a fly.

Blue, on the other hand, was doing just fine. The controller would spin around and move backward while stomping in the bugs that got too close. After a few moments, Bonnie finished the spell and threw it in the middle of the room.

"Watch out, It"s gonna get cold!" the researcher yelled.

The spell arrived at its destination, and the entire room was covered in a thin layer of chilly water. The Cold Bomb snuffed out most embers, turning them into dark specks of dust. The ones remaining were quickly taken care of by the rest of the group. Although, a few rushed towards the ovens and jumped into the flames. With the creatures gone, Hera could look around again. Maybe there would be a treasure here too. Before she started to search the room, Alex called the spearman.

"Leo, what just happened? Are you ok?"

Hera looked to the a.s.sa.s.sin, "Did something happen?"

"Leo was glowing. It was just for a moment, but I"m sure of what I saw."

Leo turned around with a ma.s.sive smile on his face, "I"m fine. I just leveled up."

"Congratulations!" Hera cheered.

"No fair, why only you? Bonnie was the one who killed those things," Blue stomped her feet into another runaway ember.

"I have no idea. But I"m happy. I got quite a few bonus points."

Bonnie came down from one of the ovens, "How many?"

"Five and four basic points," Leo replied.

"I wonder if you leveled up because of the quests you kept doing. I mean, Mr. Greyson told us that the more quests you do, the easier is to level up," Hera said.

"If that is the case, you owe us some quests. You only completed that much because we gave you the last kill on the frogs," Blue stopped talking for a moment, " Oh no, did you steal the experience from the frogs too?"

"If he did, it wasn"t on purpose. No one knows how much exp we get for fighting monsters. It"s actually a subject of debate in the guild. Some say it is about the contribution to the damage, other than the last hit gives more," Alex explained.

As her friends kept discussing Leo"s level up, Hera walked around the room. She used her pulse a couple of times, but due to the high concentration of mana in the stone and bricks, it was hard to see anything with the spell. All of the sudden, a series of clangs filled the room. It looked almost like someone had just won in a slot machine.

Hera looked to the ground, and the embers were vanishing, being replaced by small golden coins. Just doing a quick glance, the explorer could see more than 200 golden coins spread around the room.

"I guess this is part of how we make money," Hera mumbled.

Gathering all the coins, the group counted 237 coins. In a quick discussion, they agreed that they should get 40 each, while Bonnie should get 77 coins. She was the one who killed the most embers, and without her spell, they would take way too long to get them all.

Searching the room, the group also found a stove in the back of the room with a closed pot on top of it. Leo used his spear to open the lid from a safe distance, but nothing jumped out from it. Inside there was a glowing orange liquid. It looked almost like liquid fire, but it was cold.

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Elemental Essence - Fire

The condensed energy of fire. It can be used as a catalyst for the creation of fire golems. Or be used to give weapons and items temporary fire attributes.

Depending on the item it was applied to, the effect of this essence will change.

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Blue tested out it her dagger. She only used it to butcher frogs, so if it broke or something, it wouldn"t be a problem. The blade changed, its edge turned into a bright orange. Reading the description, Hera saw that it was enchanted to deal a portion of its damage as fire for the next hour.

Leo, Hera, and Alex applied the essence to their weapons. Not only the portion of the damage was higher, but the effects lasted for two hours. Her chakram was even more surprising, 25% of its damage would have the fire attribute, and the effect would last for 2 and a half hours. The feathers changed from the now less dull grey to a bright red, Hera could even see a small eye-like design in orange and yellow on the edge of it. The chakram blade now looked even more to be made from a peac.o.c.k"s feathers.

After one more round of searching, the group understood that there was nothing else in here for them. They went back to the center room. Luckily, the flaming corridor seemed weaker now. Instead of 30 seconds intervals, the flames only appeared once every five minutes. The center room now had one difference. The light sphere hovering in front of the fire door now had a red hue to it.

At Leo"s request, the group went towards the earth"s room. The book room inside it was just like the others, and it had several drawings of small clay dolls with hollow eyes and big smiles.

"That is cute," Hera said, looking at one of the drawings.

"To me, that"s just creepy," Leo said.

"Why? They are just dolls, or are you scared of them too?" Blue asked.

"I"m not scared. They are just weird."

"Would it be better if they had porcelain masks?" Alex asked with a playful smile.

"That"s it. Let"s go through the door," Leo marched towards the closed door in the back of the room.

"Thas was just mean," Hera said, laughing at the situation.

Unlike the others, this door didn"t have any special lock. It was a simple iron door with two heavy deadbolts. Opening the door, the group heard a loud crashing noise coming from the hallway.

The corridor had several large tiles on the ground. Periodically, they would raise and smash into the ceiling in sequence, but only a row at a time. This seemed more daunting, but it was quite easy to get through. As long as the group stayed one tile behind the one who just smashed, they could pa.s.s through it without an issue.

As they reached the circular room with the carving, Leo stopped moving, making the group push him forward.

"Oh, no. Please, no," the hunter cried.

Hera looked towards what the hunter was seeing. In the middle of the room, there was a small brown clay doll with hollow eyes and mouth. The doll looked at the group and opened a smile that reached all the way to the sides of its head.