Broken Lands

Chapter 340 – Out of the Maze

“The climb is,” Arak agreed. He put out a hand to steady Sophia; she looked like she needed the help. “If you look down the side, you’ll see it isn’t really all that much of a climb, we’re only about fifty feet up. I’m impressed you made it; even at the third upgrade, most don’t.”

He felt it when she relaxed and extended her Domain across his. It was bright and cheerful in a way that his shadowy Domain couldn’t match. He wasn’t certain if she could hide it or not; all he’d seen her do was withdraw it into herself, the way she did during the climb. He couldn’t do that, but all Domains were different.

At least the Guide didn’t announce peoples’ Domains the way it did monster Domains. That would become annoying quickly; there were at least a dozen different people with Domains in the Registry. There were only four people with Domains on the expedition. It was definitely not a coincidence that those four were the people who stood at the top of the Tower. He’d never seen someone at the second upgrade make it before, but people with Domains were rare and people with Domains at the second upgrade were even more unusual than that. “Welcome to a very selective group, those who have conquered the Tower of Aura Weight. Either you are not weighed down by your sins or you bear up under them well.”

A puzzled look from Sophia told Arak that his joke didn’t land. Ah well; he shouldn’t have expected it. Youngsters didn’t respect the old stories. “You’re the only new person here. The rest of us didn’t gain Wisps for climbing the Tower; that only happens the first time or when you beat your previous best height. I think you’re the first person I’ve ever seen reach the top on their first attempt.”

Like Sophia, Arak managed to enter the Maze in an expedition that found the Tower of Aura Weight while he was still second upgrade. He was at the peak, rather than in the middle of the upgrade the way she was, but he managed to get a couple of steps past the third landing. It was a good showing and one equaled by the least capable of her companions, which was impressive in its own right. Even so, it was an excellent result for someone without a Domain. Arak was certain he wouldn’t have managed to create his Domain without the experience; perhaps some of the other Flying Stars would also crystallize one as they moved into the third upgrade.

“Two thousand…” Sophia whispered as she stared at a display only she could see.

“That sounds like more than I’d expect from climbing the Tower,” Arak noted. He’d earned about eight hundred and fifty between his two attempts, but the second one was at the third upgrade and it did take him two tries. Even then, he got more than most, even the few who managed the full climb. Most people took far more than two attempts. He could easily believe a thousand was the reward for completing the Tower in a single attempt at the second upgrade. “Is that how many Wisps you have now? You shouldn’t sit on them for too long; spending too many at once is uncomfortable and it’s a waste not to use them. That many Wisps ought to get you a level, even with everything you need to improve.”

“I’m aware. Unfortunately.” Sophia’s voice was dry and definitely said that she’d experienced the discomfort of spending too many Wisps at once. “This is going to take a while to spend safely.”

“A tenday or two,” Arak stated with a shrug. “You shouldn’t spend it all before you leave the Maze, but you’re what, level eleven? You ought to be able to spend a thousand Wisps in a tenday without too much trouble.”

“Ten,” Sophia corrected him. “I guess that makes sense. It ought to be possible to use more Wisps when you’re higher level. Everything costs so much more.”

“That it does,” Arak agreed with a small laugh. “And it looks like we’re lucky this time; the inside of this Tower was only a maze.”

Sophia frowned at him in confusion, so he waved towards the open stairwell next to the link-gate that would lead them out. There were people coming up the stairs; he’d sensed them in the shadows before they were visible.

There were no words on the link-gate that led away from the top of the Tower of Aura Weight, but that made sense; it was the default exit from the zone. It required passing at least part of the challenge, but almost anyone could get to the first landing.

There wasn’t enough space at the top of the pyramidal Tower of Aura Weight for the entire expedition, so Arak sent the first full scout group that made it onto the top through first, then followed with a two-team group of heavy combatants. One of the scouts returned after that with the news that there were Darklight Beetles absolutely covering the trees in the link, which made Arak hopeful. It meant they were exactly where he aimed, or at least within a single zone. He didn’t want to take the expedition through the Darklight Beetles’ home zone, but he would if he had to.

Arak sent Alister Smokehaze and his team through next. Darklight Beetles didn’t handle smoke at all well and the man knew exactly how to both corral them and kill them without harming anyone else. After that was Meadow’s team and the Flying Stars; that was the first full two-team group with a qualified harvester. He had to keep pushing people through the link-gate.

Arak was relieved when he finally got to head through the link-gate and get out of the blazing sunlight. 

That was something he envied people who didn’t have a Domain for; they weren’t weakened when they were in an area at odds with their Domain. They also weren’t strengthened when they were in an area allied with their Domain, though, so it evened out. Even in the brightest of lights, there were shadows.

The link-gate smelled smoky, but it didn’t look like it had been set on fire. That was good; it meant the Darklight Beetle infestation wasn’t that bad. Past a certain point, you had to set everything on fire, and Alister Smokehaze knew exactly what that point was. Arak took the time to set additional guards around the camp to watch for more beetles; the dog-sized insect pests were surprisingly hardy and had an annoying tendency to burrow. They’d have to continue to smoke the place for the entire time they were in the link.

There were four link-gates. One was the one they’d come through and one was the “locked” link-gate that was Arak’s specific goal. No one had ever found a key to that link-gate, but it was one of half a dozen recognizable repeating symbols and the only one that still had a beacon from one of Arak’s previous expeditions in the link so that he could find it again, even though they’d taken a very different route. The link-gate wasn’t the one with the Broken Lord’s sigil; instead, the symbol had a crescent moon with a handprint in the middle. 

Arak had no idea what was on the other side, but that was enough to make him want to go through it. He knew of two symbol-covered link-gates that were opened by solving their conditions rather than by finding a key in the past hundred years, and they both had interesting zones on the other side. 

The link-gate with the symbol of a deer led to a different terrain each time it was opened. That place was almost overrun with valuable magical versions of the native creatures of the area, whatever it was, and anyone who found it came back with four or five expeditions’ worth of wealth. If he remembered correctly, the method for opening the door was discovered accidentally, because it was to shoot the dots on the deer’s hide with arrows. They couldn’t just be shoved into place, either. A crossbow or bow was required, and you had to hit the dots and only the dots. Arak doubted the way in would have been discovered if the door wasn’t usually near the Maze’s entrance.

The other one was the symbol of a fist and it was unlocked by punching the door. Arak was there when they discovered the link-gate and watched as the expedition leader broke his hand punching it in frustration. That was the only time he knew of when the door was found, so it was extremely lucky that he was there. The other side of the door was a series of arena fights of escalating difficulty; they were lucky that the zone took their surrender when they went a little too far. Like the Tower of Aura Weight, it gave a surprising number of Wisps, though Arak didn’t know if it would grant Wisps to people well into the third upgrade. He’d barely passed the upgrade when they found it.

The crescent moon and handprint was the most commonly found symbol other than the door, but no one had figured out how to open it. It was obvious that you should put your hand on the door, but then what?

If Sophia could figure that out, maybe she could also figure out the one with the Broken Lord’s sigil deeper in the Maze. 

When he escorted her to the link-gate, Arak didn’t expect Sophia to look at it for a minute, set her hand against the handprint, wait another minute, then form her hand in a curve and set the side of her hand against the moon. That was exactly what happened, however, and almost immediately the door in the center of the link-gate faded away and turned into a normal gateway. “How did you do that?”

Sophia shrugged. “There were no sensors behind the handprint, but there were sensors in the moon. I figured it was worth a try.”

Arak sighed. It was just like the other doors; someone tried something that sort of made sense and it worked. It wasn’t the evidence that Sophia could bypass locks that he’d hoped for. It did at least show that she could see something he didn’t, though, so he was still going to take her to the Broken Lord’s door.

The other side of the locked link-gate was another “city defense” mission. This time, instead of defending a festival against enraged skyeagles, they had to defend a mountain village against corrupted animals. Each wave was different, and some of them seemed to require information from the “city residents” in order to succeed. The wave of oversized maddened rats that rose from the sewers was easy to defeat because they were able to stop it where it emerged, but it would have been awful if no one noticed it until it spilled into the streets.

The rewards were excellent; instead of the aurichalc Arak expected, they were each given a “gift.” The gifts were individually customized items; Arak’s was a pair of gloves that made it easier to touch with his shadows. It was something he’d never seen anywhere else, but he was highly impressed by the gloves. Being able to feel what he was healing with his hands as well as his Domain was useful. On top of that, he even gained a few Wisps, which was unusual for someone as far into the third upgrade as he was.

It took four days to win the scenario, which used up the last of Arak’s planned “outbound” supplies. He didn’t dip far into the reserves, but it was time to turn around and head back to Mazehold. 

It wasn’t hard. The Tower of Aura Weight was easy to descend, and the only issue in the other direction was fighting off snakelike monsters that dropped from the trees as they descended a steep mountain trail. Most of the other zones were quiet, since they’d been through them recently; the only truly challenging one was the fight across the “ocean floor” in the zone that held the Night Markets. It wouldn’t have been much of a challenge if they’d taken the first link-gate out or even the fourth, but Arak knew that which gate they used didn’t matter much; on the way in, the teams that went through the “ocean floor” used different exits and all ended up in the same place. How far you went only determined your reward and how difficult the fights were, not where you ended up.

He’d achieved his primary goal of the trip by keeping everyone alive as they went far enough into the Maze to justify the effort and also completed his secondary goal when he determined that the rumors about Sophia were true. The expedition was a complete success.