Author's Notes: This is precisely why I love doing challenge runs, even if the following scenario only counts as the pseudo-variety.
Chapter 7: The Edge of a Decision
Cyrus and Lily opt to circle the perimeter of the room, figuring that the giant mantis chasing them would have a bit less of an advantage in its pursuit. It noticed them from what appeared to be the center of this incredibly large room, effectively taking away a great deal of the duo's escape strategies. Despite this clear advantage, Lily notices something strange about the pursuing mantis. "Cyrus, it doesn't seem to be trying to outsmart us; it's…almost as if it's waiting until we're lined up before charging."
As she explains this, they run past a set of bushes that looked as if they led to another section of the floor. Seeing this, Cyrus thinks to himself, 'That's likely a shortcut, but we can't do anything about that now.' Thinking upon Lily's observation, he adds, "Yeah, I noticed that too. Doesn't it appear as if the mantis stops moving after a short while too?"
"You mean like right now?" Without ceasing their sprint, the two turn their attention to the mantis, which had momentarily stopped flying towards them to…brandish its claws. It stands to reason that the monster was trying to be threatening, but such an effort was wasted if its prey was too busy fleeing for its life to look upon its intimidating weapons. Wisely, the two prey in question took the time to gain more distance on the creature.
Quickly approaching the door, Cyrus lets go of Lily's hand and charges ahead in hopes of getting the door open for her. Charging full speed at this door, which was incredibly tall and had the design of a tree on it, Cyrus thinks to himself, 'Please don't be a "pull"!' He rams into the door with his shoulder, only to come to the painful realization that it was, in fact, a door that needed to be pulled to be opened; said door was also revealed to be a pair of doors that grant passage when they were separated. Despite the pain he was feeling, he quickly recollects himself and throws the set of double doors open just as Lily arrives. The two run into the next room and the doors behind them somehow shut themselves.
The two wished to catch their breath, but this room proved to be filled with twice the peril of the last; there were two the mantises in this room, one of which was positioned a short distance behind the right flank of its companion. Lily curses to herself and comments, "We can't go left this time, Cyrus; that bastard would have us cornered in an instant and we'd be caught in a pincer attack." Cyrus merely lets out a disdainful grunt in acknowledgment of Lily's observations. Unconsciously taking her hand again, he starts into a dash for the right, the mantises quick to begin their pursuit.
Just as before, the mantises seemed to stop their advance every so often to brandish their claws. Cyrus reaches the doors of this room with time to spare and quickly pulls them open; the room he and Lily dashed into was much smaller, with the doors to the next room standing right before them. Flanking the doors appeared to be two passages. Approaching them, Lily crouches down and tries to determine their usefulness. Doing the same, Cyrus says, "These appear to be one-way passages, Lily."
"What's the point of that if the doors are right next to them?"
"That is an excellent question." He approaches the doors and prepares to pull them open, but hesitates; his eyes took on a stern and focused gaze as he tensed his fingers in between the cracks of the doors.
"What's the matter?"
"I need you to use that Grimoire we made to use Blood Fortune on us."
"We have to fight this time, huh? I got it."
Lily takes her Grimoire Stone and holds it close to her chest; as she focuses energy into it, a visible red aura flows from both her and Cyrus towards the sky. "When I open this door, make a dash for the left side and don't stop until you exit the room."
She questions this, opting to voice her concern; "What about you?"
"I'll be fine; that's a promise. And just so you know," his expression suddenly changed from its battle-ready appearance to one that sported a warm smile. He looked to Lily with caring eyes and continued, "I never break my promises."
Lily sighs to herself and nods to her partner. "You two really are just alike; I'll trust you, so you better not screw up."
"You can be quite direct when you want to be."
"I'm a lot more than a cute face, Cyrus."
A laugh escapes him before he can say, "I don't doubt that."
Reassuming his serious expression, Cyrus pulls the doors open and charges into the room at full speed; Lily is close to follow suit, immediately making her way to the left side of the room as she was instructed. This room, unlike the two large rooms housing mantises, was narrow. This proved to be an issue, due to there being three mantises on the far side of the room. There were also two treasure chests, but it was highly likely that all three mantises would need to be eliminated if those were to be collected.
For once, however, Cyrus and Lily weren't the only two people in the area; a trio of what appeared to be archers clad in varying designs of the same outfit were also present, forced to deal with one of the mantises. Said mantis was golden in color and seemed to be significantly faster than its ordinary counterparts. Further, it seemed to be even stronger than the blood-red mantis, as a simple swing of its claw released a faint shockwave along with emitting a ringing sound as it cut along the wind.
One of the archers, who looked to be the youngest of the trio, ordered her two comrades to run for the doors of the room while she provided a distraction. She took up her bow and nocked an arrow, staring at her target with intense and focused brown eyes. A red scarf covered her mouth, hiding her expression, but she was currently clenching her teeth; 'If this arrow doesn't work, I'm dead,' she thought to herself. 'That's why I need to make this happen, for the others' sake.' She let her arrow fly towards its destination only for the mantis to quickly deflect it with one of its claws. The archer's eyes widened in horror as the creature drew closer; it had a claw extended forward, ready to run its potential prey through with no hesitation.
Closing her eyes to prepare for the end, the archer flinches as she hears the sound of steel clashing against steel, as well as the sound of something impacting the ground near her with great force. She slowly opens her eyes to see an Alchemist wielding a spear standing in front of her. His spear had intercepted the mantis' claw and forced it to embed into the ground. He looks back to her and lets a smile form on his lips. The archer couldn't help but look surprised.
Turning his attention back to the golden mantis, Cyrus lifts his spear and runs along the arm of the overgrown insect. By the time the creature frees its arm from the clutches of the earth, Cyrus is already directly above it. He spins forward and aims the tip of his spear directly at the mantis' head. 'They say fortune favors the bold, right? Please don't let me screw this up.' To his joy, his spear pierces through the mantis' head; after giving his weapon a slight twist, the mantis' body jerks upwards as it lets out a swift shriek and dies almost instantly. Cyrus wrenches his weapon from the beast's skull and jumps to the ground below. Seeing that the archer he saved was still rather shocked, he straps his spear to his back and looks to the exit to see the only male archer of the trio holding the doors open.
Cyrus nods to himself and picks up the brown-eyed brunette next to him, knocking her out of her dazed state. More confused than before, she shouts, "Wait a minute, what are you doing?!" Cyrus chooses not to answer her, instead running straight for the door. The five adventurers manage to make it to the other side without engaging the other mantises in combat. Though the doors closed behind them, the five could hear the sound of the mantises' bladed arms running along the doors before silence graced them once again. Realizing that he was still holding someone in his arms, Cyrus quickly apologizes and sets the woman down, a faint blush appearing on his face. The archer was also blushing, but her trusty scarf kept that portion of her face hidden. "Thanks for saving me back there."
"Think nothing of it; are the rest of you alright as well?" The others nod to him, to which he replies, "That's good; then that perilous dash was successful. Blood Fortune turned out to be the boost I needed, Lily, thanks."
"How can you tell?"
"Really, I can't, but my luck is usually never that good so I'll concede my success to that."
She laughs at that before shrugging her shoulders and responding, "Sure, boss, we'll roll with that."
The young archer returned to the side of her companions and looked over to Cyrus and Lily. She realizes that those two must have gotten to this point of the labyrinth by themselves and asks, "You two…aren't traversing the labyrinth as a lone duo are you?"
Looking to her, Cyrus says, "No, no, of course not. I wanted to pre-map this floor for my guild and opted to come here before it got too dark."
"He planned to come down here alone but I insisted on tagging along."
"You planned to come down here by yourself?!"
Cyrus scratches the back of his head upon hearing that. "Everyone seems to react the same way when they find that out…I wonder why. Uh, anyway, I'm Cyrus, the leader of the Seekers Guild; the young lass next to me is Lily, our Hexer. It's nice to meet you three."
The young brunette stepped forward and strapped her bow to her back. She placed her hands on the hips of her red shorts and says, "The three of us aren't members of a guild, but we're sanctioned by the Radha to help stock the markets. I lead this trio; my name is Elizabeth…" she closes her eyes and looks away from the duo, another blush forming on her face albeit concealed by her scarf. She then follows, "But you can call me Lissa."
The second woman of this archer trio stepped forward and pulled the scarf covering her face down, revealing a conniving smirk that was directed at Lissa. Her green eyes, rather, the visible left eye that wasn't concealed by her shoulder-length blonde hair, told of a desire to be mischievous. Upon her head was an orange hat with the emblem of a shield sewed into it, along with a white and red feather tucked into the rim. Her attire was much like Lissa's, but with a few alterations. Instead of her sleeveless vest being green, it was the same color as her hat; she also opted to wear a black shirt underneath this vest, choosing not to bare her midriff as Lissa does. Instead of red shorts, she wore a pale brown skirt which matched her scarf.
"Hm? Has our little Lissa stepped into the field of love?" Her voice seemed to carry itself along the wind with a low tone; Cyrus found it to be familiar and likewise relaxing. Lissa quickly turned her attention to this woman, a look of fury gracing her face.
"Shut up, Eva; that's not even close to what this is." She was slightly disconcerted as well as embarrassed, just as this Eva wanted.
"Oh I'm just teasing you; lighten up a bit." Looking to Cyrus and Lily she says, "My name is Evangeline, but feel free to call me Eva." Directing their attention to the male of their trio, Eva follows, "This guy right here is Leon."
Leon's attire was mostly similar to Eva's in appearance, consisting of an orange hat and matching vest, albeit slightly longer than the one the girls wore. Beneath it he wore a long-sleeved grey shirt; instead of a scarf he wore some sort of shroud with his emblem sewed into it. Upon his hat were also a pair of goggles, pinkish red in color. His hair was teal and his eyes were the same shade of brown as Lissa's. In addition to wearing pants instead of shorts, his boots were similar to Cyrus', fitting tightly to his legs. "Nice to meet you two," he says with a smile on his face.
Having noticed that the area was clear of adversaries, Cyrus pulls out the blank map of this floor and turns to his memory as he starts drawing in what he and Lily have traversed thus far. Looking at the three mantis-filled rooms with a frown, he thinks aloud, "We'll need to find a shortcut if we want to avoid that mantis trio in the last room." As he starts mapping the current surroundings, he tilts his head as he sees a path to his right. It was on the border of the map, leading him to assume this path would lead to a dead end, but his curiosity was piqued.
The others take slight glances at each other before deciding to follow Cyrus. The slightly winding path leads them to a spot from which they may mine materials, much to Cyrus' surprise. Leon takes a mining pickaxe from the pack on his back and says, "Hey, good find there, Cyrus! I'll get some stones from this so give me a sec." By the time Leon finished his gathering, the forest had grown dark with the sun's setting. Despite the group being two floors into the labyrinth, the moonlight continued to illuminate the surrounding forest.
Leon's find consisted of a collection of two different types of ores, along with a few of a third type procured from elsewhere in the labyrinth. Lily and Cyrus were quick to notice the white stones known as Pyroxene, as they had found a sample of the ore when they started out on the first floor. The second set consisted of copper-colored ore. Studying it for a moment, Cyrus' eyes widen and he says, "Ooh! This is Bronzite! I haven't worked with this since I was a kid; I bet Shilleka could make some decent weapons if we got these to the shop."
Eva seemed impressed that Cyrus identified the stone so quickly. She asks, "You come from a mining family?"
"Kinda. We're blacksmiths and goldsmiths by trade but we also go out of our way to procure our own base materials."
Lissa then picks up the other unique ore of this collection. It was green in color and, had there been sunlight shining into the labyrinth, would have likely shined vividly. Turning to Cyrus, she asks, "Can you identify this one too?"
He stares at it for a moment before saying, "That's Andradite." After reflecting upon the color, he follows, "Specifically, that's Demantoid, a pretty rare variety of Andradite; it's a valuable gem filled with calcium and iron. Where I'm from, the gem is still new so we're looking for ways to incorporate it into our technology and industries. I believe it recently became a reliable sand paper for finishing bare wood, but I'm not a carpenter so I can't be certain. For my business, it sells for quite a nice price when polished and properly cut into jewelry."
Lily looks to the stone and, after a moment of thinking, says, "I think I read about this stone once. In my world, it's mixed with water to cut steel and other types of materials."
The other four looked quite shocked to hear this. Lissa asks, "You use water to cut steel?!"
"How does that work?" Eva asked.
"I can't give specifics since I don't work in that kind of field, but I believe they use water jets to do it; the water is highly pressurized and mixed with good abrasives like Andradite to cut through sturdy materials."
"How intriguing," Cyrus says with a hand to his chin, "it sounds like your world has greater technological advancements than my own."
"But your world has the better magic from the sounds of it."
Leon looked to Cyrus and Lily dubiously and asked, "Why do you two keep saying 'world' in that context? It sounds like you're more than just foreigners."
"Oh, right," Cyrus says with slight surprise, "you're not aware of our situation. Come, we'll explain as we explore."
True to his word, Cyrus and Lily work together to explain the teleporting mishap that led to them arriving in Etria. Lissa and her group understandably had a difficult time believing such claims, but this duo didn't strike them as the suspicious sort. "So exploring the labyrinth may help you get back home?"
"Yes, Eva, but it's definitely a tall order," Cyrus sadly admits.
"First we need to reach the second stratum; without a Geomagnetic Field to work with, we're stuck."
"Sounds like you were thrown into quite a bind, huh?"
"That's putting it lightly, Leon," Lissa remarked, "I sure hope you can find some way back home. Ending up on the other side of the planet is one thing, but being placed in an entirely different world is a whole lot scarier than that."
A moment of silence passes as the five travel through the strangely empty third floor of the labyrinth. Excluding the giant mantises from before, the group had yet to be beset by any more creatures. This left Lily on edge; the uncharacteristic tranquility was not what she had come to expect from this place. Suddenly, Lissa calls for the group to stop moving; it took a moment for Cyrus to see Lissa's reasoning, but he quickly realized that an enemy was approaching them.
From the rustling bushes emerged a towering beast, one that was a primate in stature whose black and grey fur was oddly reminiscent of the stripes of a zebra. It had piercing red eyes and constantly bared its golden teeth, which seemed to shine in the moonlight. Its muscular figure alone was enough to cause the group to slowly back away, but those red eyes, coupled with the dim lighting of the labyrinth's nightly shroud, instilled a sense of nervousness among the group. Cyrus reached for his spear when Lily held her arm out to him. "I'll take care of this one," she said with a confident voice and expression to match.
She takes a slight step forward, provoking the creature to pound its chest in an intimidating manner. Lily, in response, decides to strike a pose; she places her left hand on her left hip and turns so that only her shoulder is facing the beast. She closes her eyes and angles her head so that she looks slightly to the ground. The others tilt their heads inquisitively as they watch the young Hexer adjust her red glasses so that the moonlight completely covers the right lens with a white glare while only the right half of the left lens is concealed.
The striped primate takes a step forward and Lily opens her left eye, shooting an intense glare in the creature's direction. For a moment, nothing happens, but then the beast makes eye contact. It takes another step forward before the group hears the sound of a muffled explosion. A small amount of blood leaks from the beast's mouth before it weakly clutches at its chest and falls to the ground, dead. Lily sighs to herself, reassumes her usual posture, and returns to her group. She looked to Cyrus with a smile on her face and says, "See? I told you I had that one. Bet you were surprised, right?"
"That was certainly a creative way to use Lethal Glare," Cyrus admits with a smile of his own. "You looked pretty good too; you should pose like that more often."
"Wishful thinking, Cyrus. Maybe I'll think about it…maybe not."
"Bah, you're no fun."
The group reaches a fork in the road and opts to take the left path. As he draws the map for his guild, Cyrus looks up and notices a patch of yellow flowers very similar to those found on the previous two floors. These flowers, in his experience, have indicated shortcuts. He ponders the notion for a moment and then eases his way into the passage. He slips through the trees with ease and finds himself back in the room with the two mantises. They had yet to notice him, so he silently slipped through the trees once more, rejoining his allies.
Lily nudges his arm and playfully says, "Another shortcut found, huh?"
A smile forms on Cyrus' lips as he continues to draw the map. "Indeed, lass."
The rest of the path leads to a dead end of no particular interest, leaving the five to return to the crossroads to take the path untraveled. They don't travel very far down this path before they are stopped by two traveling explorers. The younger of the two, dressed in the same Hexer robes as Lily, had flame-red hair and yellow eyes that shimmered in the darkness of the labyrinth. In her grip was some sort of stuffed animal that appeared to be a rabbit. Cyrus was slightly off-put by the doll, given the look of its mouth, but Lily found it to be cute.
She looked to her companion, a taller and presumably older woman with blue hair and cold blue eyes. This woman was dressed in blue and white samurai garments, adorning her left shoulder with a brown shield and covering her arms with bracers. In her left hand was a sheathe concealing a katana with a golden hilt. A small scar could be seen on her forehead, suggesting that she was no stranger to combat. She nods to the younger girl addressing her and steps forward.
The blue-haired woman looks about the group, seemingly studying the five adventurers. Her stoic gaze eventually falls upon Cyrus, who makes eye contact with her. The Alchemist could feel a sense of apprehension welling up within him; there was a level of strength to this woman that he hadn't encountered in some time. He thought to himself, 'Why is someone this strong on the early floors of the labyrinth?'
The woman, in kind, could see a deal of strength in Cyrus and discerned that he's the leader of this group. At the very least, she was half-correct. "Well met, travelers." Her voice was likewise stern and direct. "I must say…your party structure is certainly a unique one." That got an awkward chuckle out of the group, prompting Cyrus and Lissa to explain the circumstances of their groups coming together. Understanding the situation, the blue-haired woman looks to Cyrus and Lily and says, "Though you seemed to have things under control, know that it is dangerous to explore the labyrinth with only two people. There are certain…risks you run with that choice."
The two opt not to say anything in response to that; this woman clearly understood what risks she was referring to, assuming that she and her Hexer companion were, in fact, a lone duo themselves. Said Hexer stepped forward to stand at her companion's side. "My name's Tlachtga, and this is Ren." Her voice was also stoic, albeit in a manner different from Ren's. While Ren spoke with a sense of seriousness, the young Hexer named Tlachtga seemed to have a voice that was completely devoid of emotion. Her facial expressions, however, filled the role of portraying her emotions. Presently, Tlachtga looked worried about something. She looks to the Ren again, who nods silently to her.
Turning her attention back to the five adventurers, Ren states, "My companion and I are here on the orders of the Radha to prevent explorers such as yourselves from venturing beyond this point."
Cyrus raised an eyebrow at this. "Really? Lily and I visited the Radha just a few short hours before we dove in here; Subaltern Quinn didn't make mention of anything unusual."
Ren, in turn, raised an eyebrow of her own. "Was he distracted with another matter?"
Lily answers, "We had a report to turn in regarding a mission from the Radha."
Thinking it over for a moment, Tlachtga soon tugs at Ren's sleeve and says, "I think they were the ones who defeated the red mantis on the first floor."
"Ah, I see, that was a pressing matter indeed. You see, there is another threat beyond this floor, one that would be far too great for novice explorers to handle."
"You're here to make sure those people don't get themselves killed; admirable."
"We will only allow you to pass if you receive permission from the Radha. Until then, I'm afraid your exploration will be limited."
"Yes, I understand." Cyrus pats a hand on Lily's shoulder to get her attention. "We've been out late enough as it is; we should get back to our guild and address this matter tomorrow."
"We appreciate the warning, so we'll get out of your hair now; you two take care."
"Yes, safe travels to all of you."
Despite being sanctioned by the Radha, Lissa opts for her team to depart alongside Cyrus and Lily. "You two don't plan to walk all the way out of here do you?"
"Oh, no, not this time," Cyrus replies with a smile. "I have a formula that Lily and I wish to test. If it works properly, we'll be warped out of the labyrinth to the city gates of Etria."
Leon thought about that concept for a moment. "Oh, you mean the Return Formula? I've heard a few Alchemists talking about that one at the bar. It especially helps to have it if your group carelessly forgot to bring an Ariadne Thread."
Eva and Lissa looked to each other with confused faces, left in the dark as to what Leon was talking about. Instead of asking questions, they simply shrugged and watched as Cyrus took a knee and started messing with his gauntlet. He opened a door at the base of where his left hand would be, revealing the inner workings of his somewhat modified construct. There were four medium-sized vials aligned with his four fingers, three of which were filled with red, blue, and yellow liquids, respectively. The fourth, which aligned with his pinky, was strangely empty.
He removed this empty vial and held it in his right hand. Using his left, he channeled the natural energy around him to fill the vial with a small portion of the liquid forms of fire, ice, and electricity. This results in the contents of the vial appearing to be brown before shifting to a warm shade of grey. He carefully secures the vial in its place within the gauntlet and closes it off again. "Everyone, gather around; I have yet to experiment with the range of this spell; I wouldn't want to leave anyone behind."
Leon was rather excited about this if the smile on his face was anything to go by. "I've never been teleported before; this'll be pretty cool."
Lissa and Eva, however, were actually quite nervous about this. They, too, had never warped before outside of using an Ariadne Thread. Considering this was Cyrus' first time making use of this formula, especially when coupled with his strange origin story, they were both understandably nervous about where this spell would take them; this was, of course, assuming the spell actually succeeded. "Alright, here we go." Cyrus then channels energy into his gauntlet, causing the runes he engraved to glow with a grey hue. Coincidentally, the runes he opted to design his gauntlet with were in the same design at the runic pattern in his left eye.
Cyrus' fist collides with the ground, causing a magic circle to appear beneath the group. As he feared, the circle wasn't very large, leaving him pleased with his foresight to bring his companions a lot closer. Three seconds after the circle forms, it shimmers brightly and causes the group of five to disappear from the labyrinth's third floor. When they reappear, they are standing before the gates to Etria, just as Cyrus and Lily predicted. The guards expressed dull surprise at this, having seen plenty of other Alchemists pull off the same feat.
Eva breathes a sigh of relief and nudges Lissa's arm. She quietly says, "Isn't that a relief? Your boyfriend didn't send us to another dimension."
"Oh would you give it a rest? You have no reason to think that way…and yes, yes it is a relief."
Leon couldn't hear what his two friends were talking about, but seeing Lissa frown at Eva provoked him to add, "Ladies, ladies! There's no need to fight over little ol' Leon!" The reward for his quip was a pair of blank stares from both Lissa and Eva. "Has my charm left you both at a loss for words once again?"
Lily stepped to Cyrus' side and giggled to herself. "I think you two would get along quite well, Cyrus."
"Funny, I was thinking the same thing." He clears his throat to get the attention of the archer trio. "I know this is rather sudden, but do you three have a place to spend the night? If not you could stay at our manor tonight; we have plenty of room."
"Cyrus here is also a good cook so we can force him to make breakfast tomorrow."
"Lily, when you put it that way it just sounds awful."
"Oh you love your role; you know you do."
While Eva and Leon were laughing at Lily and Cyrus, Lissa stared at them with widened eyes. "Could you…go back a bit? You have a manor?"
"We were just as surprised as you are," Cyrus admits with a chuckle.
"Our maid is really sweet too, and smart. We don't want to impose or anything, but we'd be happy to have you over."
Eva steps in between her comrades and wraps an arm around their shoulders, pulling them in close to her. "Who are we to turn down such a wonderful offer?" Seeing that they have no room to decline, Leon and Lissa smile and concede. With that properly decided, the five are granted passage into town and proceed towards the Archive.
Author's Notes: Having gone back to re-read these to avoid plot holes and such, I've been wondering: Do any of you readers think the pacing of this story needs to change? Perhaps it is too slow or the focus, you feel, is on the wrong subjects? Let me know what you think.
