Broken Lands

Chapter 314 – Into the Maze

The entrance to the Maze was a stone archway that led onto a cobbled path lined with bushes that wound between tall uneven stone walls. It looked very little like the image Sophia had of the Maze from her previous distant glimpses, mostly because there was no orange glow and there were too many plants. 

The pathway opened into an oval courtyard with two metal gates, one in front of them and one to the left. By Arak’s directions, that meant they were inwards and sunwise. They’d take the inwards gate.

The lead team for the first gate was Rockfist, led by a man who used the same name. He could actually turn his entire body into stone, but he fought with his fists and chose them for his name. The rumor about his team (according to Jax) was that he’d picked the name, then told his teammates they could change it if their weapons broke his fist. 

Once they were through the gate and verified there wasn’t anything about to jump the group, it was time for the scouts. In this case, that meant Sophia’s entire team was second in line. They weren’t all scouts, as such, but the other teams with scouts would be right behind them and gate entry was always done in teams rather than by specialty. It helped prevent issues with being separated by gates and also meant that if something went very wrong on either side, you were surrounded by the people you were used to working with.

Nothing went wrong.

The other side of the gate was a pristine snowfield lit by a large moon. It looked a lot like Earth’s moon to Sophia, but all that really meant was that it was a dead ball of rock, rather than a livable moon. She’d seen both in the past.

They’d entered the snowy landscape in a sort of a saddle between two hills. They weren’t steep enough for Sophia to call mountains, but they still dominated the landscape before her. If she turned around and looked past the stone archway that held the portal of their entrance, she could see actual mountains in the distance, along with a valley between her location and those mountains. 

A very, very deep valley. It was deep enough that it suddenly became obvious that she was, in fact, standing on a mountain; she was just high enough up that it didn’t look like one when she looked farther up. It didn’t rise to a single peak; instead, it was more like a long ridge line covered in snow. 

She probably should have known that by the complete lack of trees, now that she thought about it. They were clearly above the tree line, which meant they were very high up indeed. 

“There, in the distance,” Ci’an called out. “I see ice bears with glowing eyes. And when I say ice bears, I mean bears made of ice.” 

She shared the image with the rest of her team. It was clearly the result of an Ability, like looking through some kind of telescope; the dots Sophia had seen in the distance and not paid any attention to were ice statues of bears with glowing green eyes standing motionlessly scattered across a snowfield, silhouetted against the night sky. 

Sophia was certain they had to have something to do with the zone they’d entered; they were probably an enemy that would come to life in some way and attack them. It also seemed remotely possible that they were a puzzle of some sort, but Sophia doubted it. People didn’t really talk about what they saw in the Maze, other than to talk about the monsters they fought. That meant that puzzles were rare, if they existed at all.

It was always possible that they were more common than she thought but could be beaten by force if they weren’t recognized as puzzles, but that didn’t really help. Sophia probably wouldn’t do much better at recognizing puzzles than all of the people who’d already been through the Maze. A hundred years was a long time. Even if people tried to keep them secret for some reason, secrets had a way of coming out. The healing artifact under the Arena was a great example; according to Jax, it was originally used by a few to gain an advantage. These days, it was well known and used by most of the people who fought in the Arena.

“Well spotted,” one of the members of team Rockfist told Ci’an. Sophia thought she was another scout, but she couldn’t remember the woman’s name. Some sort of flower? No, that wasn’t right. “Off to the right, there are wolves. Look below the moon.”

Sophia looked in that direction, but all she could see was the moon. She didn’t even see dots like the bears.

“Ah, I see what you mean,” Ci’an muttered. “Where the mountain rises again. They’re not moving, but there are footprints, too.”

She sent an image across Dav’s link as she spoke. The wolves were clearly made of ice, like the bears, and also had glowing green eyes. They seemed to also have darker areas where their nose and ears should be, like shadows. 

They were posed as if they’d been walking, but there was something off about them. At first, Sophia thought it was the tails; they were far too short. Something still seemed wrong after she noticed that, though, so she stared at the picture for a moment longer. It suddenly hit her what was wrong. “The footprints. They’re in front of the wolves, not behind them. Were they walking backwards?”

“This is an Ice Mountain,” the woman snapped. “Two ice monsters isn’t unusual, but backing up or hidden… Broken sword, that’s bad luck for a first zone. Are you sure they’re going backwards? I can’t see that well at that distance.”

“The bears aren’t,” Ci’an answered. “The wolves … I think Sophia’s right. They look like they’re walking forwards, but the footprints are completely wrong for that.”

“What color are their eyes? Are they all the same color?” One of the others in team Rockfist asked. Sophia was certain he wasn’t Rockfist, but she wasn’t sure who he was. She didn’t think he was one of the scouts; they’d all been introduced. He wasn’t a healer, either, but that was all Sophia was sure of. She’d seen the team fight in the Arena, but they weren’t really distinctive enough to stick in her memory.

“They’re all green,” Ci’an answered before Sophia could. “Glowing green lights, they don’t look like real eyes.”

“A Hunger. Dammit, Meadow! Why are you always right?” The man growled at the female scout whose name was, in fact, not a flower.

Meadow snorted. “I just picked the worst option we were likely to see in an early zone with a snowfield. Look for other ice beasts while I go let the Shade know what we’re facing. Oh, and Jace? Tell the newbies about what we’re likely to see. I like their vision, but you remember our first expedition.”

“Don’t mention that.” Rockfist’s voice was higher than Sophia expected. “I still hate those things. What good is it fighting a monster you can’t punch?”

Jace hid a chuckle. “You can punch everything else. The ice beasts will shatter easily. It’s only the Hunger that can’t be touched.” 

Rockfist snorted, then turned to watch the hillside ahead of them. “Talk to them, not me.”

Jace nodded as he turned back towards Sophia’s team. “Right, so, this looks like it’s going to be a wave-type encounter. A bunch of the ice statues will charge us at once, then there will be a pause, then a bunch more will charge. It’s a common encounter for expeditions, so I’m sure the Shade mentioned it.”

Sophia frowned. That was the second time one of team Rockfist referred to the Shade. They had to mean Arak Shade, the expedition leader, but Sophia wasn’t sure why they were turning his last name into a title. “He did, but … why do you call him the Shade?”

“You’ve never seen him heal,” Jace stated as if it was obvious. “Or fight, though he’ll only do that if things are desperate. When he heals, the injuries seem to darken and fade into shadows until all that is left is the shadow and healed flesh. It’s eerie, but he’s one of the best healers in the Arena.”

Sophia blinked. She supposed she’d seen equally odd methods of healing, but that was a new one.

“The ice beasts are exactly what they look like, monsters made of ice that act like real beasts. Some of them can imitate the ice or breathe cold; it’s always one thing per beast type. Ice wolves tend to have an icy breath that is far longer than it should be or teeth that freeze whatever they bite. For bears, it’s the claws or the fur, usually, but those are obvious; if the bears are smooth and nearly clawless, they control the snow. That’s worse.” Jace paused and looked expectantly at Ci’an.

“I can’t see any claws,” Ci’an admitted. “But their paws are hidden in the snow. They do look really smooth, far smoother than the wolves. I couldn’t see any of the wolves’ teeth, either; their mouths are all closed.”

“Snow control, then.” Jace nodded as he spoke confidently. “And probably ice breath. If it’s just bears and wolves, this won’t be too bad, but I expect more animals. Four is about right for something this early. There might only be two visible from the entrance, though. We need to find where they’re coming from; that’s our way out. It’s also where the Hunger will be.”

Sophia nodded. She wasn’t that worried about the Hunger. If the team that entered ahead of them knew about it, everyone probably did and had a strategy to deal with it. Her group certainly did, and it started with her True Death Abilities. The various Abilities that would affect spirits might also work.

“The beasts are the remnants of things the Hunger ate. It takes the flesh and bone and leaves only ice behind, ice that it can control. That’s how it kills, and it can do it to anyone it kills as well, or anyone its beasts kill. It won’t eat someone who’s too badly injured, but if you bleed out or are frozen to death or suffocate, the Hunger will take you.” Jace described the monster’s attack in a matter-of-fact tone of voice that made it sound nastier than if he’d tried to scare them.  The way he said it, Sophia didn’t have to question if he was overstating things; what he said was true as he knew it.

“I’ve never heard of anything like that,” Ci’an objected. “Eating a body doesn’t somehow leave another one behind.”

“You won’t, outside the Maze,” Jace answered easily. “Ice Hungers don’t appear anywhere else. We don’t catch Hungers for the Arena; they’re pointless without the ice beasts, and ice beasts can be captured. If we go back through this area on the way out, I’m sure we’ll stop to catch some. No point leaving aurichalc behind if you can pick it up.”

Sophia nodded; she could understand that. She could also sort of see the connection between the monster being called a “Hunger” and the ice beasts, the way Jace explained it. “It’s the monster’s concept, probably its Sphere, isn’t it?” 

Sophia had to remind herself to use the local term. Talking about the fact that magic worked the way you thought it did, at least to an extent, wasn’t helpful here. She knew from experience that while monsters didn’t seem to gain power the way Called did, they were still pretty analogous, so Spheres worked. “It can’t eat ice, so ice is what’s left behind when it eats. That gives it something to control. I guess that’s why the eyes are green, the Hunger is controlling them?”