Broken Lands

Chapter 312 – Some of us are trying to sleep, here!

Sophia had some of the coffee-flavored hot chocolate, of course, as did Dav. Everyone else asked for one variety or another of tea, which certainly explained why Arak had a pitcher of hot water even though he wasn’t using it. He expected most of his guests to prefer tea. The messenger, Lori, left for a moment, then returned with small containers filled with the requested leaves and placed them on the end table near where each of the guests chose to sit.

Arak waited for Lori to leave again, then cleared his throat. “So, I know you were there when the last expedition came back. You know what state they were in; late to return and injured. We only had three people die, but I’m convinced that was luck rather than anything else. It’s as much my fault as anything else; I was overconfident. I should have canceled the expedition when I found out how badly planned it was. I’m glad you took my offer to stay behind and would understand if you don’t want to go on the next expedition.”

“Is three deaths unusual?” Sophia glanced around. She had a good idea what the death rate was for smaller teams, but Bai didn’t have good numbers for the Arena’s expeditions. “I know on smaller trips, you can usually spend five days in the Maze and return with the full team alive, but one team in every couple hundred that plans to spend that long in the Maze loses some or all of its members. It usually happens either really early or on the way out.”

Arak chuckled, but it didn’t sound like he truly found it funny. “You’ve been talking to Bai. He’s collected those numbers for years. They haven’t changed much. They’re accurate enough, but people forget that we only know when the attacks happened if people got back out. That’s why we know about the ones near the entrance and exit.”

Sophia nodded. Even if she assumed that most of the fully lost parties happened deep in the Maze, the ones near the entrance and exit were more common than they should be, almost as if there was a band of danger there. It wasn’t the only band of danger, either, but the second band seemed to be roughly four or five days’ travel into the Maze, so you wouldn’t get there if you wanted to return within five days.

“Most expeditions do lose someone, but we’re usually also in the Maze for more than five days,” Arak continued. “The whole thing was a mess. We were supposed to be in the Maze for two nights. The plan for that’s pretty simple; we travel inwards for a day, then rest and travel sunwise until noon, then head back to the original resting place. After that, it’s fairly simple to walk out, far faster than the walk in unless there are injured; we’re out roughly mid-morning. Several of the groups decided they wanted to make up for the delay on the first day by pushing on a bit deeper, to where we’d normally get on a short Maze run. That wouldn’t normally add more than a few hours, but a slightly different campsite could be found. It should have been fine.”

The way Arak said that, it was obvious that it was not fine.

“It would have been fine … if they’d followed me sunwise instead of splitting off inwards. By the time I knew they’d separated from us, we were split into two groups. I had about a third of the expedition, while the splinter group had the rest. Most of those people did nothing wrong; they followed the people ahead of them, the way they were supposed to. I’ve blacklisted the three teams that broke off, but it’s too late to fix things; three people died before we were able to find them and drag them out of there. Even then, some of them didn’t want to come; it was only the threat to leave without them that made them come out.” Arak’s knuckles were white where he gripped his chocolate mug. 

He took a deep breath and rolled his shoulders before he continued. “It’s hard to believe we made it out of that mess with only three deaths. So. I’ve asked you here today to see if you’re still interested in the next expedition I lead, even with my mistakes on the last one. If you are interested, I want to make sure you know what to expect from me and the expedition. I also need to know what you can do so that I can plan for it.”

It felt a little odd to be told just how poorly the previous expedition went as part of being convinced to join the next one, but Sophia couldn’t really blame the man in front of her. Sure, maybe he should have canceled the expedition; it was clear he’d known something was wrong with it or he wouldn’t have offered them a way out. At the same time, she’d made similar mistakes herself, trying to finish something she’d started when she should have just given up and accepted her losses. 

Not knowing enough about the people he was about to lead into danger was a bigger mistake, but it sounded like one he was trying to fix for the next expedition. Sophia had the feeling that he normally tried to know a lot about his people; otherwise, he wouldn’t have called them in to see him immediately after his return from the Maze. He’d been pushed into ignoring his usual preparation by the disappearance of the person who should have been leading.

“Did you ever find out what happened to him? N’Bayan?” That was the only name Sophia had ever had for the man who was supposed to lead the expedition. She wasn’t certain if it was his first name or his last; she should have asked that. Jax probably knew more, but it didn’t really matter now.

Arak seemed to relax with a chuckle and shake of his head. “The best we’ve been able to find out is that he probably left Mazehold entirely. A few of the caravaners have said he asked about caravans leaving the city, but they weren’t leaving soon enough for him. There was one that left that morning, headed back to the Far Desert.”

“I want to go on the expedition,” Jax silently declared across the mindlink. “I want to compare it to Registry expeditions. We should sign up for one of those once we get back from this one.”

“The Registry does expeditions?” Sophia glanced towards Jax. He was somehow managing to keep his full attention on Arak, even though he was talking to everyone else. She wasn’t that good at it. “I didn’t know that.”

“Bai mentioned it,” Dav sent. He somehow managed to include images with his mental message, so Sophia saw numbers on paper dance in front of her mind for a moment. “They do a lot fewer than the Arena does, even though there are more Called who work through the Registry. It’s not where the discrepancy comes from. The expedition death rates are extremely similar, it’s the smaller groups that have wildly different deaths. Registry groups are a lot more likely to have the entire group lost while Arena groups are more likely to lose one or two. Expeditions are supposed to be the best way to see the Maze for the first time, though, and it almost has to be where the Arena does any training that could account for the difference.”

Arak sipped his hot chocolate and watched their team talk. Sophia knew he couldn’t hear them, but she had the feeling that he knew they were talking. He seemed to be saying that he was happy to wait while they decided.

“An expedition with an experienced leader is definitely a good starting point,” Xin’ri contributed thoughtfully, “And we all know we’re going. We wouldn’t be here if we weren’t. Why don’t you just tell him that so we can get started on the real point of this?”

“I thought that was why he invited us here?” Ci’an’s mind-voice sounded sleepy. She hadn’t been getting much sleep at night; instead, Ci’an and Marcie would sleep in until someone went up to wake them. They hadn’t made it to breakfast that morning before the messenger arrived.

Xin’ri chuckled audibly but answered silently. “No, we answered that question by showing up.”

Taika somehow managed to yawn loudly across the mental link. “Tell him we’re good and be quiet. Some of us are trying to sleep here!”

Sophia giggled to herself, then looked up at Arak. “We still want to go, but … why was it such a problem that they split off from you? Could you just wait for them, or did you know they were in trouble?”

Arak blinked, as if it was a question he hadn’t expected. “We entered the Maze together.”

Sophia waited for a more complete explanation. When Arak didn’t say anything more, she prodded. “So?”

“N’Bayan didn’t tell you anything about the Maze and how expeditions work, did he?” Arak slumped slightly. “I knew he didn’t talk to me about it, but I assumed he’d done the minimum. Okay, then, we’re going to need to start from the beginning. How much do you know about the Maze?”

Sophia bit her lip. She wasn’t sure how to answer that. 

“Monsters come out of it and people can go into it and get stuff, like a Challenge or a Hollow,” Dav said quickly. “Other than that, it’s supposed to shift around somehow, but how isn’t really clear. Oh, and mazestorms come out of the Maze; they’re one of its dangers. Most of the monsters are third upgrade, but some are only second; they’re caught and used in Arena fights.”

Arak’s horns glinted darkly in the light as he nodded. “Close, but not what you need to know for an expedition. First, the Maze is divided into zones and links. Each zone is like a Challenge, but it can be a Challenge of any type, including some I’ve never heard of outside the Maze. Links are what they sound like; they’re the space between zones. They both shift around and they’re both dangerous, with monsters and hazards of all sorts, but links are generally safer. They’re probably what you think of when you hear the word Maze, a confusing passageway filled with monsters.”

Sophia nodded slowly. Some dungeons were like that back home, filled with smaller pocket spaces that made up the “levels” instead of being contiguously linked together. They were rare and powerful, but she didn’t think there were any on the scale of the Maze. There certainly weren’t any that released clouds of mana like the Mazestorm; that was exactly the opposite of the purpose of a dungeon. 

“Navigation in the links is in four directions: inwards, outwards, sunwise, and widdershins. You shouldn’t need to worry much about that during the expedition, but generally inwards is more dangerous, outwards is safer, and the other two are simply directions. Most expeditions return through the same entrance they used on the way in, though small teams often travel along the Maze wall to find an exit.” Arak sketched a circle and demonstrated with his hands which way was sunwise and which was widdershins. It was simple enough; just like back home, sunwise was clockwise.

“Next, anything at all you’ve heard about a small-team entrance doesn’t apply. Maze zones adjust based on how many people enter, and it knows if you’re in a group. It’s a little fuzzy, because both how many people entered the zone together and how many people entered the Maze together matters, but that’s the first rule: stay with your team. If you’re on an expedition, make sure to stay with the expedition. There are some links where the Maze will try to separate you. The Brass Hammer claimed that’s what happened to their group, but I don’t believe it; you don’t split into two groups in a mystery link. If we’d ended up in a dozen different teams, sure, but we didn’t. No one had trouble following me before them and no one had trouble following them.” It was very obvious that Arak was more than a little bitter about the last expedition.