I was woken up by Patience just a short while after dawn. We’d decided to let Millicent get some extra rest, so my watch was second to last. While most of my dreams were lost to me the moment I woke up, the meeting I had with Ren was still crystal clear in my mind. He was getting impatient. My early successes had kept him happy at first, but now that the other gods were catching up, his attitude was shifting. I wasn’t sure that he would do anything to me, but I had no way of knowing either way. My only real sense of safety came from the fact that from the conversations I’d had with Ren in the past, I was his only option.

I went to lean against a wall of the maze and watch the only entry to our small camp. I looked over the changes to my character sheet again, noting that now along with the blue bar I had to represent mana, I also had a green bar to represent stamina. I took a moment and activated my new concentration ability.

I could see a droplet of water dripping down on the maze wall two dozen feet from me. The air was cold, and I could sense changes in it as it blew over and through the walls of the maze. Millicent was still dead asleep, as were Patience, Nica, and Tristus, but I could tell from his breathing that Tib was already awake. I shut the ability off. Less than three seconds had passed and I took a moment to adjust to everything returning to normal. I looked at my stamina. The bar was only very slightly depleted and already starting to slowly refill. It wasn’t explicit, but I guessed that if I wasn’t well rested, or hadn’t eaten for some time, then the regeneration would likely be slowed.

I looked at the blue bar. I didn’t want to risk wasting any mana in order to experiment with it, but I decided I’d try something different. Focusing on magic, the feel of it, the hum I sometimes sensed from things, I began to turn that sensing inward. After a short time I started to actually feel the energy of it inside myself. Flowing through me like blood through my veins. Before, I'd kept track of my spell slots by keeping count in my head, but now that the system had shifted, I’d need to learn to keep track of it by feel more than anything. There was no way I’d be able to keep track of the math involved for specific spells in the middle of a fight. That was something that Millicent could manage, but it just wasn’t something I myself could do.

After just a short time ruminating, I heard Tib finally get out of his bedroll and amble up to lean on the wall of the maze opposite of the one I was on.

He gestured his head toward the camp. “You can take a break if you’d like. I’ll take watch for the rest of the morning.”

I shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. At this point it’s hardly worth it to go back to sleep.”

He nodded, and started looking down the path in the same way I was. I watched as his expression darkened.

“You alright?” I asked.

“Hrm? Fine.”

I let him be, watching as his grimace deepened even further and he took on an expression so stern it could give the most disappointed father a run for his money.

“You sure you don’t want to talk about it?” I pressed.

He looked at me, looked back down the path, then back to me, and sighed. “I’ve never seen her get hurt before.”

“Who? Nica?”

He shook his head. “She’s got her bow, and is quick, and stealthy. She usually manages to take anyone or anything down without much effort at all. She’s strong, and graceful. I just… seeing her be wounded surprised me.”

“You two have been adventuring together for a long time right? Hadn’t you considered that this might happen?”

“I knew… I knew it was a possibility. Objectively I’d considered it, and I’ve even told myself that if she was hurt I’d need to stay in the fight and make sure I didn’t prioritize keeping her safe at the expense of the group. I’d even talked to her about it, in a tactical sense, and she agreed.”

I shook my head. That was the most Tib thing I’d ever heard him say.

“The minute I saw the blood coming from her leg though.” He took another deep breath and let it out slowly. “I found myself more affected than I expected to be.”

I nodded slowly. “Well, that’s normal. You can try to predict how you’ll react to a situation, prepare for it, but until it actually happens, it’s impossible to know what you’ll do or how you’ll feel. Life is chaos, if you try too hard to make order out of it you’ll just wind up hurting yourself.”

“Hrmm. I suppose you’re right. Still, it’ll be hard to let her go into battle after seeing her hurt like that.”

I smiled. “You think you’re ‘letting her’ go into battle? I’d like to see you try and stop her.”

He grinned. “I’d probably wind up with an arrow in my ass for the trouble.” He shook his head. “Oh, Tristus would have a great lot to say about that.”

I chuckled. “Have you eaten yet?”

He shook his head. “Haven’t eaten for a day, I think. Forgot to yesterday.”

“You go ahead and have something. In my experience nothing is as bad on a full stomach as it was on an empty one. I’m going to take Millicent’s watch too anyway. You take it easy.”

“Alright. I’ll do that.” He started to move back toward the camp, but hesitated. “You know, when we first met I thought you were a bit of a fool, but you actually possess a fair amount of wisdom.”

“I think your first impression is the more accurate one. I’m definitely a fool, but even a broke clock is right twice a day.”

His face became thoughtful. “Huh, I suppose it would be. Since the hour and second hand are locked in one place, and-”

“Easier to think that through with a full stomach.”

He nodded. “Right.” Then he moved back to his bedroll next to Nica, pulling what looked like dried meat from his bag.

“Softie.” I muttered, even as I myself glanced at Patience with a concerned look.

…

The rest of the morning was spent primarily listening to Millicent thinking out loud about the changes that had occurred while she was sleeping. She devoured her breakfast with gusto, talking between mouthfuls about what the change means for magical theory, society, and her magic on a personal level. All of it was fascinating to hear, and to contemplate. It also made me feel incredibly dumb for only considering how it would impact me in combat, rather than the implications the change would have in a more general sense.

Once everyone had eaten, and fully woken up, we all started back on our path through the maze, though this time we went with Millicents idea of creating handholds and simply climbing straight through the maze one wall at a time. I felt a slight hum of power, and then Millicent would simply reach out and mold the walls as if they were clay, creating hand and footholds. Once she was done she would stop, and step aside to allow me or Tib to climb to the top and help everyone else over it. We used the extending rope to lower everyone down from the other side, or help them up if they were having trouble. Tristus struggled the most, and was panting and covered with sweat in spite of his muscular build. Nica, had no issues. Her impressive sense of balance allowed her to avoid placing any unnecessary weight on her injured leg as she climbed.

This continued for more than an hour, not including several breaks that became necessary as we went. Eventually we came to a wide, long path where the walls were more than 20 yards apart.

Nica squinted and placed a hand above her eyes to shade them from the sun. “There’s some people in the distance. Looks like…five.”

“Other adventurers maybe?” asked Tristus.

Nica shook her head. “I can’t tell from here. They seem to be armed.”

We all drew our weapons, and began moving forward more cautiously. After we’d moved a few dozen more yards, I saw the figures as well.

Nica stopped and walked a little to the left, then to the right, then slung her bow over her shoulder and rubbed her eyes.

“What’s wrong?” asked Tib.

She pointed at the figures. “It’s us.”

We all shared a glance and walked further forward until all of us could tell that Nica was telling the truth. It was us, a reflection. In our path was a massive mirror that stretched from one maze wall to the other.

We stared at the reflections for a few moments, we were less than twenty feet away at this point. We stayed still, and that’s when they suddenly moved.