Riding the falcon was a novel experience. It’s like I’m riding a missile, Lisa thought. A big, feathery missile. But seriously, how the hell is this safe? If Didgie messed up and rammed into something, they’d all be dead, splat, mush. Not that she didn’t trust Didgie, but...she was honestly more surprised that Bath trusted Didgie and the falcon quasies enough to let her ride them.

There must be some kind of system in place that acts to safeguard the passengers, Lisa reasoned. Probably.

Lisa wasn’t sure how high they were, but she could see the clouds stretching out around them like snowy ice flows. And Didgie was still gaining altitude, wingbeat by wingbeat. Lisa was frigid and had difficulty breathing, but it was bearable: they’d only been flying for 30-or-so seconds. Boons definitely helped Lisa and Lauretta to stay conscious with less oxygen, while Didgie was a source of warmth, preventing their digits from numbing and losing circulation.

Everyone, Didgie suddenly communicated. We’re getting ready to dive. Are you both okay?

Fine, Lisa replied, gritting her teeth.

I’m alive, Lauretta grated. What does ‘diving’ entail, exactly?

It means I’m gonna start the descent, Didgie clarified unhelpfully.

Isn’t it going to be dangerous going so fast without any protection? Lisa asked, wondering if she should start to use her magnetic sense to shield them from particulate debris.

Didgie transmitted the image of an explanation point, followed by a COTD insignia. This journey would certainly kill any normal humans, he explained. But you aren’t normal humans!!! You should have boons that increase your pain tolerance and toughen your bodies. Additionally, there are several ways in which you might sustain damage over the trip, though none that aren’t immediately heal-able using your caretaker boons. And now we’re even supplying you with protective goggles! You’re very valuable kursi, after all; you’re definitely safe with me!

Lisa began to open her mouth in incredulity before remembering to keep it shut. That’s...not encouraging at all!

Didgie, she began, can I use an ability that creates magnetic repulsion around us to deflect incoming particles? That’s what she did when she flew solo.

You can try, Didgie replied, its mental voice dubious. Doesn’t matter to me.

Do it, dear, Lauretta interjected.

Alright, we’ve wasted enough time. Starting the descent in 5, 4, 3, 2...1!

Lisa felt her stomach lurch as Didgie dove forward, the dragonleaf harness immediately straining at her legs and arms. She squinted her eyes closed out of instinct while activating magnetic sense.

Ack! rushed over the dragonleaf thought network, soon followed by Lauretta transmitting a sensation of biting pain. I don’t think your repulsion field is working.

Lisa pressed her lips tightly together, acutely aware of fine particles–and the biting wind–bombarding her skin. Yeah, we’re definitely going way too fast for it to do anything.

Just enjoy it! Didgie exclaimed. Stop panicking! It’s better that way. He then transmitted the image of a smiling emoji.

—

When Didgie finally touched down on the ground, Lisa was actually a bit sad to disembark. Though there was a bit of a learning curve at first–namely, getting used to the stomach-churning speed and whipping wind–the flight was probably the most viscerally enthralling experience she’d yet had in COTD. She never flew that fast on her own; and when she flew comparably fast with Bath, he always tucked her away safe inside some interior compartment, letting her outside only when traveling at a more reasonable speed.

Expression excited and somewhat regretful, Lisa disengaged from the dragonleaf and gracefully slid off the falcon quasi onto the ground. Lauretta, meanwhile, wore an expression of relief as she jumped off Didgie, shooting the quasi a piercing look before removing her goggles and shaking out her hair.

Lisa removed her own goggles and walked over to Didgie, depositing them into a small pouch on the bird’s oatmeal-colored breast. She placed a hand on his beak, giving him a wide smile and a light chuckle.

“Thanks, Didgie. You were right: it’s better when you just chill out.”

Didgie warbled merrily, rubbing his beak into her hand.

“Lisa,” Lauretta called out. “We arrived just outside Sodom. Look.” She pointed off into the distance, where a large object stood...erect against the skyline. Lisa walked over and sighed. I guess we were moving too quickly to see it on our way down.

“Yeah, that’s...a lot.” Lisa crossed her arms. “A real lot.”

Lauretta planted a fist into her left palm, dragonleaf flaring to life around her feet. “Who had the gall to make something so...absurdly amusing?”

Lisa looked over, surprised by the sentence’s conclusion. Sure enough, Lauretta wore a whimsical expression on her face, her eyes glinting with curiosity. Lisa blinked. When roleplaying as Aunt Lauretta, the woman generally filled the archetype for “cool aunt,” though was still wholesome enough to weekly bake and donate cookies to church bake sales.

“I guess we should get going,” Lisa smirked while touching her wrist, pulling up her chip reader’s interface. Lepochim said that Nevis pulled together a brief on the city...found it. Lisa began to project her screen in the space in front of her, creating a transparent holo. “Let’s look at the city’s official tourist brochure while we walk.”

—

Enrique had been scared out of his wits when the ground opened up like a sinkhole-earthquake between him and the competitors, moving past fear when he dove into its gaping hole. His breathing exercises helped to regulate his body’s response, but didn’t actually address the root of his anxiety.

That being the fact that he was entirely outclassed by the other seven competitors.

Just don’t think about it, he whispered to himself as he scrambled into the labyrinth, taking one of five passages at random. If I were to build a labyrinth, and needed to do it quick, what would I do?

“I’d make it as complicated as possible,” he hissed while leaping over a four-foot fissure. Nearly missed that one, if not for the glowing mushrooms giving night vision boons something to work with. They wouldn’t be very much help in perfect darkness.

He continued to race forward as fast as he could, mainly relying on his land-shaper boons to feel the wall and ground around him with extensions of dragonleaf. He essentially created a thin, multi-directional veil of dragonleaf around him, using it to develop an area of enhanced perception. He’d spent quite a few path points investing in these hyper-sensitive, tiny dragonleaf fronds, intending to use them to ensure smoothness and assess the integrity of land-shapen dragonleaf buildings and objects.

Sometimes in his haste he missed things, his fronds unable to provide feedback fast enough to register; this led to him stumbling past the occasional fissure or circular pit. But for the most part, Enrique felt like he was making good progress. Probably. I hope.

He hadn’t run into anything violent until the first minute mark; that’s when he first felt heavy shaking through the ground, soon followed by noises indicating the presence of a massive, stomping entity.

No~ Enrique moaned, rubbing a hand over his brow. Just keep going...

Enrique finally reached a small clearing where two people were engaging a veritable giant T. rex look-alike. It was covered in fuzzy feathers, with giant feet and chicken-wing arms. Aside from its mammoth size, it wasn’t too dissimilar from the raptor quasies, so Enrique quickly dashed around and ran as fast as he could down another corridor. Raptor quasies were vicious when on the attack, and he had no chance against one the size of a truck.

Besides, the point was to traverse the labyrinth, not fight monsters, right? I’m being smart by leaving those two people behind to fight...

—

Bath looked out over the stadium where the crowd was cheering out different names as they watched the competitors’ progress. After the first person entered the labyrinth, Bath had projected the point of view of each competitor to sate the crowd’s appetite. He’d made it easy on himself, planting tiny cameras (generously donated by the Lime World slug-like sapients) on each competitor’s shoulder/neck and magnifying their camera feeds onto a giant screen. He’d kept the cameras on-hand in the hopes of using them to see Avery’s competition. He certainly hadn’t expected needing them before that, but at least this was a good way to test them out.

But as Bath continued to follow the activities of the competitors, his stoic, professional expression failed to reflect his inner mirth. Who is this Tsai guy? He’s running like his feet are on fire, and didn’t even bat an eye at my razor-claw megaraptor. The other contestants had already run into their monsters, and all had chosen to engage, exchanging powerful blows and demonstrating Expert-level combat prowess.

Another 30 seconds passed; the competitors defeated the first monsters–essence extensions remotely puppeted by Bath himself–and the competitors were dashing through the cavernous maze unfatigued.

Bath considered the next round of monster essence puppets. I wonder what Enrique will do when he has no other option than to fight...Doesn’t seem like he’s invested PP into combat, and I’m planning to make combat increasingly difficult.

Bath let the competitors run for a bit longer, then decided it was time to spice things up a bit and start eliminating people. “The competitors have all made it through the first stage,” he boomed, eliciting cries of excitement from the crowd. “The second stage begins...now.”

–

To the eyes of the competitors, the ground was shaking. Actually, it was more like something had grabbed the entire cavern and started yanking it back and forth, causing the walls to crack and smash into one another.

The screen of most interest to Bath, and the audience, was that of a competitor named Jorge L. The live camera feed followed Jorge as he darted through a narrowing tunnel passage, dodging two jutting columns of rock just as they smashed together behind him, sealing the way back. Jorge continued onward unfazed, keeping his rapid–but steady–pace through the increasingly chaotic labyrinth.

When introducing himself in the beginning, the man had only given a single letter for his last name, and had said only a few words in introduction. Bath noted that most people knew who the man was, however: His short introduction worked because the man needed no introduction.

Bath had sent a tendril of essence to consult with the wasp quasi-sapients after arriving in Tollan, and was still questioning the head wasp to gather some information on the city’s current situation. Like the other quasies, they’d been charmed by the imposter kursi; however, they still had a good sense of the city’s politics before Maya’s absence. Apparently Jorge L. was the mysterious enforcer of the city’s security division under a man named Miguel. He was the one sent out to deal with people breaking the city’s codes, and was apparently most active outside Tollan proper, protecting some local historical monuments from vandals.

The wasps appeared confused regarding the entire Maya-disappearance debacle, specifically because Miguel, Maya’s right hand man, and his security force were so strong and active. They noted that the next item on their agenda was to interrogate the security force, all of whom–besides Miguel–were competing in the labyrinth challenge.

Bath’s essence clone at the wasp hive frowned upon hearing this detail. So, all but Enrique Tsai were in the pocket of one man, and someone who was first on the wasps’ list of suspicious individuals? He shook his head, then vanished in a puff of smoke.

On the screen, Jorge leapt into a small hole, then rammed his body into a pouncing panther beast, placing a palm thrust to the monster’s head and shattering its skull in one fluid movement. The attack didn’t even interrupt his stride. The other competitors from Miguel’s security division fared similarly, but none moved with the ease and grace of Jorge, and failed to capture the audience’s attention. Meanwhile, Enrique Tsai drew many eyes for the wrong reason–the man appeared to be holding on for dear life, scrambling forward and clumsily dodging nearly every enemy that came his way.

Hopefully nobody notices I’ve made his path a bit easier, Bath thought. He might really die if faced with the same difficulty as the others.

Bath couldn’t in good faith let Enrique win over someone like Jorge, but also felt uneasy with empowering anyone from the security division with control over the city.

Maybe leaving control over an entire city-seed up to the result of a tournament, or challenge, isn’t exactly the best way to do things, he thought sheepishly. I should maybe do a bit of research on how other powers in the universe choose their leaders. Illudis had some kind of nobility system that revolved around kursi being adopted into the royal family; he couldn’t say he knew much about any other planet’s politics. Lepochim had briefly mentioned how Zder worked, but hadn't gone into too much detail.

I’ll need to fix this knowledge gap before we leave Earth and head to the Intermediary Strand for that centennial congress Juserin discussed. Bath hoped to get some more information from both Lepochim and Eyrin; relying on Juserin’s information network, and the short encyclopedic entries stored on the chip reader, seemed ill-advised.

Bath sighed internally. Regardless of how he felt now, he’d need to elevate someone from the competition to head the city-seed. And to be honest, he knew it had to be Jorge. But part of him couldn’t help but respect Enrique’s decision to enter the competition and break up the security force monopoly. Bath didn’t know the man’s motives, but clearly he hadn’t entered the competition for selfish reasons: he appeared scared out of his wits, like he wished he could be anywhere but in the shifting labyrinth. Enrique could’ve forfeited, but instead continued on, sweat pooling generously on his brow and on his back, his heart hammering from exertion and adrenaline.

As Jorge defeated a particularly dangerous-looking monster modeled after the female “mama” gurgle on Equinox–a boss monster, for all intents and purposes–Bath called the challenge to a halt. The caverns stopped shaking, and the ground under the competitors rapidly rose up, extracting them up to the surface. The security-seven quickly righted themselves, while Enrique seemed to nearly keel over and faint upon reaching the surface and solid, non-shifting ground.

Bath levitated to the center of the stadium, stealthily removing the tiny Lime world cameras from the competitors and positioning them around the stadium to provide a multi-angle view of himself and the stadium.

“Everyone, the competition has come to an end.” Bath paused, allowing the audience to applaud and cheer. He smiled. “I have decided who will lead Tollan into the future. Jorge L., I pronounce you leader because of your physical prowess and experience defending Tollan.” The audience erupted into hoots and hollers. “And Enrique Tsai, I pronounce you leader because of your bravery and vision for Tollan.” The audience was silent for a moment before applauding slightly less enthusiastically. Bath could imagine the audience’s confusion over two victors–and particularly Enrique Tsai, who never even engaged one monster head-on–but many city-seeds were jointly ruled by two or more individuals, such as Sodom and Kray City. Besides, if anyone had any misgivings about Enrique winning based on his performance, they needed to send their complaints to him...which was laughable for the average Dragon-worshiping COTD member.

Bath didn’t feel the need to linger in Tollan any longer than necessary; he quickly ushered the two victors to the wasps for an informational briefing, and then collected the imposter brown-robe kursi. Then he was off, feathered, multi-colored wings propelling him toward Basalith.