I slowly moved up the stairs, carefully looking for any traps. So far, I’d only seen one. A whole step had glowed red from ‘Detect Traps’, so I’d simply stepped over it and had continued on my way.
These stairs were not like some of the other ones that I’d encountered in the Labyrinth, ones that had led me and my friends deeper into the Labyrinth itself. Instead, these were mostly normal stairs, merely leading me to the higher level of the maze.
When I neared the top of the stairs, I paused to look back the way I’d come. Down in the chamber below, all I could make out was the mist that covered the floor. There was no sign of the primal that had attacked me. I still wasn’t sure why the spectral had attacked me in the first place, but the reasoning of such alien creatures didn’t always make sense to humans.
“At least things worked out,” I muttered with a faint smirk.
I’d walked away from that exchange with a new ability, courtesy of a small trade I’d made in exchange for the primal’s continued ghostly existence. It turns out, negotiating with primals was a lot easier than I’d thought. You just needed to find the right leverage.
Of course, there was one downside to gaining another new ability, one that Wolf had never warned me about. Then again, I doubted that he’d ever run into this particular problem. It turns out, there was a limit to just how many abilities an invoker could possess, and I’d just reached mine.
There were no visible indications of this. No popups, and no notices on my status sheet. However, I could feel it, as though I’d eaten a little too much for dinner and was now uncomfortably full. And I assumed that I’d continue to feel this odd discomfort until ‘Detect Traps’ timed out and went away, just like I suspected that I’d gain more room for additional abilities as I leveled up and became more powerful.
“More to worry about in the future,” I mused, turning my attention back to the path in front of me.
I continued going up the stairs, leaving the large chamber entirely. I was completely surrounded by stone blocks on the sides, though only for a short distance. It didn’t take long before I emerged through a new opening and stepped out back into the main level of the maze.
When I looked around, I saw that there were walls on both sides of me and ‘sky’ above. I was back in the main maze. At least, that was my first impression. A couple seconds later, I realized that the walls beside me weren’t the familiar walls of the maze, but the walls of buildings. I was standing in an alleyway.
I carefully moved to the end of the alley and discovered that I wasn’t just in an alley, I was in what looked to be a town. There was an open area surrounded by old-fashioned buildings, ones that wouldn’t have looked out of place in Europe, a couple hundred years ago.
My surroundings were surprising, but not a complete shock. When we’d looked down on the maze before going inside, I’d seen a few buildings scattered around. It looked like there had been a few more of them than I’d realized, and a bit more clustered together.
Off to the side, I saw another stairway, one that was going up. This was one of the typical Labyrinth stairways, one of the ones that led to a shallower area of the Labyrinth. That was the way out, if we were merely trying to escape the maze.
“It might still be the right path,” I mused in consideration.
I pulled out my mirror ball, suspecting that it might lead me in the direction of the other stairway, though it didn’t. Instead, it tugged me in the direction of one of the nearby buildings. I stared at the building for a moment before looking back at the mirror ball.
“They’re here,” I whispered in realization. “I caught up to them.”
I felt a surge of triumph, followed by a crashing wariness. With that, I retreated, stepping back into the alley while hoping that nobody had seen me. I might have found them, but I was in no position to do anything about it. Not while I was on my own.
“Crap,” I growled in annoyance.
Until that moment, I’d been trying not to think about the others, not when there was nothing I could do for them. I had been especially trying not to think about Ace and what had happened to him.
“I need to find them,” I muttered. “Before we lose the rogues again.”
The question was, what should I do next? Should I head back into the maze to look for my friends, or should I stay close to the rogue players and hope that the others would catch up?
The problem with the first option was that I had absolutely no idea where I could find the others, and the problem with the second, was that I didn’t know if they were even still looking for the players. For all I knew, they could have given up on the mission entirely.
After careful consideration, I decided that my best option was to get more information before deciding on a course of action. That meant scouting this area and actually setting eyes on the rogue players. A high vantage point, such as at the top of the tallest building, would probably help with both of those.
I quickly decided which building was the tallest, immediately identifying a bell tower. Then I made my way towards the building, trying not to be seen. This was one of those times when I really wished that I’d invested more into perception, or even presence. Presence could be used to make people ignore you as well as pay attention to you, and at the moment, that would be pretty damn useful.
Once I made it to the bell tower, it was a simple matter of going up the stairs. The tower was four stories tall, which put it well above the rest of the maze. When I reached the top and looked out, I could see surprisingly far, probably over most of the maze. However, I still couldn’t really see INSIDE the maze. All the walls blocked the view of everything except for the closest corridors, which I could simply look down on.
“I need a better view,” I mused.
It seemed that this was the perfect opportunity to test out my new ability. With that decided, I held out both of my hands and activated the ability, then I channeled the primal energy through my body and out my hands. It felt light and airy, barely noticeable at all, which was quite the contrast with the power I channeled from Avexis.
Transparent mist began to form and swirl in front of my hand, then it quickly began to take a new shape. Seconds later, the mist became a ghostly crow, which let out a silent ‘kaw’ as it began to flap around. It flew around the inside of the bell tower before landing on my shoulder and letting out another silent ‘kaw’.
“It looks like Bunny isn’t the only one who can call up an ally,” I said with a chuckle.
My new ability, ‘Invocation of the Spectral Crow’ was similar to what Bunny could do on the surface, but not nearly as powerful. For one thing, I could only summon the one crow, and for another, I could only use that ability once a day.
I felt my connection to the spectral crow, just like I also felt my new patron’s connection to it. It was, after all, a manifestation of his powers, simply channeled through me.
Just then, I suddenly realized why that primal had been so accommodating with my demand for power, besides the obvious threat. It had given me this specific ability for a reason. This crow gave the spectral a pair of eyes…two pairs of eyes outside of his territory. I made a mental note to be careful with what I let the crow see.
“I have a job for you,” I told the crow. “I need you to fly over the maze and see if you can find my friends.” I gestured outward.
The crow cried out another silent ‘kaw’ before flying off over the maze. I remained where I was, watching the ghost bird and wondering how long it would take it to find my friends.
While I stood there waiting, I heard voices coming from below. I looked down, over the edge of the tower and saw two of the rogue players were walking past. Mad Mike and Jace. My eyes narrowed as I considered whether I could hit them with an ‘Invocation of Spite’ from that distance.
“I can’t believe those losers are still following us,” Jace said. “I thought they’d be dead after that last fight.”
“The Guide is helping them,” Mike responded with a shrug. “Just like its helping us.”
“No problem then,” Jace said. “We just take out the one with that mirror ball thing, and they won’t be able to follow us anymore.”
Mike let out a sharp laugh. “They won’t be able to follow us anymore anyway.”
“But two of them are Wardens,” Jace continued. “At least, our prisoner says that their bitch of an invoker used to be a Warden.”
I tensed at that. “Prisoner?” I was wondering how they knew about us, but that explained it. I didn’t like the idea of them having a prisoner either.
“I just wonder why Raze hasn’t killed him yet,” Jace said.
“Because,” Mike explained impatiently. “We might need him again. He might be useful bait for luring out his friends.”
“He,” I muttered. That really narrowed down who their prisoner could have been.
“His friends will be here sooner or later,” Mike continued with a shrug. “We’d better get ready for them when they arrive.”
The rogues continued their conversation as they wandered away, though they’d gone far enough that their words no longer carried to me. I tried to continue eavesdropping, hoping that I could catch at least one or two more words, something that could give me another clue. It seemed that it was already too late for that.
I stared down at the ground below me, muttering, “Well, crap.”
My plan had been to stay up on the tower for a bit longer, watching over the rogues and waiting on the crow to come back with more information. However, if they had a prisoner, then I needed to deal with that. I wasn’t going to leave anyone in their hands.
I made my way back down the tower, half expecting to run into one of the rogue players at any moment. Fortunately, I made it all the way back down to the ground without running into anyone. It seemed that none of them had bothered checking out the tower, which seemed poor planning to me. If they wanted to control this area, they should have used it as a lookout post…or sniper nest.
“Their negligence is my benefit,” I stated with a faint smirk.
When I reached the ground, I began to carefully sneak between the buildings. I stayed close to the building walls so that I wouldn’t be spotted out in the open, and I stuck to the shadows as well as I could.
“I should have a been a stalker,” I mused. Of course, if I found the right patrons and the right abilities, I’d probably be able to do all the same things that stalkers could. “Interesting idea.”
I peeked around the corner of a building and froze as I saw what I was looking for. The prisoner. I immediately tensed up at the sight of him.
“Ace,” I whispered, my eyes going wide.
Ace was alive. I’d seen that wall collapse on him, but there he was, alive and well. Well, he was alive.
My artificer friend was sitting in a chair that was made of stone, and which looked like it had sprouted right out of the ground. Stone extended from that chair and covered his hands and feet, locking him in place. Obviously, the work of their shaper.
At the moment, Ace was slumped over in the chair, groaning and covered with blood. They’d clearly roughed him up a bit. The sight filled me with a quiet rage, making me clutch my hammer so tightly that my knuckles turned white.
For a brief moment, I wondered why I hadn’t seen Ace from the bell tower when it gave me a good view over the area. Then I noticed the placement. Ace was positioned right beside one of the buildings, on the far side from where bell tower was. The building had blocked my view.
“Where are they?” I muttered as I looked around.
Since they’d positioned Ace in that spot, I could only assume that it was for a reason, such as leaving him where they could see him from one of the windows. I looked at the building beside him, scanning the windows. There. I saw a figure move past one of the windows. That was where they must be.
“Now to get to Ace without them seeing,” I thought aloud.
In spite of the temptation to rush over to Ace, I remained where I was. If I ran in now, I risked being spotted and making things worse. Instead, I needed to watch and wait. It was the same plan as before, just without my being in the tower.
“Don’t worry,” I promised, glancing towards the nearest entrance to the rest of the maze. “I won’t leave you there for long. Now, where the hell are the others?”