The team entered the next room and looked. Torches flared up in the room as they all entered. The room looked square in shape to Marcus, about thirty feet in length. The floor a few feet in front of him was made up of smaller squares, about three feet in length and runes seemed to be scribbled on it. Golden runes. Some clear, some fading but all glowing with a faint golden light which seemed to be reflecting the torches along the wall.

They wondered what to do. Marcus knew about the Labyrinth existing inside the Gunin Mountain range. There were many entrances and exits to this Labyrinth. It was filled with many rooms and passageways full of monsters and traps. However, there was only one true way through the labyrinth and that led to treasure.

It was that treasure that their collective team was after. A spell which would help anyone survive in the undead aura present on the landmass Urtor.

The team members wondered what to do. Erato stepped on a square with the glowing rune which gave away beneath her feet. She jumped back as darts flew from the top. The others advised her to stay away from further squares.

This was a trap room. And the way across was stepping on correct squares. That would mean there had to be some sort of a clue to identify the correct sequence. The team members stayed away from the runed squares and looked around, searching for some directions.

It was Kenirath who found something. It was a riddle.

I can bring tears to your eyes,

Resurrect the dead,

Make you smile,

And reverse time.

I form in an instant, but I last a lifetime.

Find out who I am and cross the room.

Tamara said, “A riddle. And the answer would give us the rune sequence to step on.”

“Memory”, Clio said, “The answer is memory.”

Marcus suddenly started to laugh. He found this funny. The others stared at him.

Marcus said, “Don’t mind me. Just… Let’s just cross this room.”

They looked at the runed squares. The runes were Loquellan alphabet, and they looked for the squares which formed the word, Memory. A path formed. The team took turns one by one and had crossed the room.

Tamara touched the exit door and light suddenly glowed out of it. She looked at the others and opened the door. It was a small room, tall in height with a stone in the center.

“Resurrection Stone”, said Tamara, “It seems that the labyrinth is making this a bit easy for us.”

“That or the labyrinth is so tough that it requires its own resurrection stone”, said Tanniv.

“On that cheerful thought, let’s set up our resurrection point.”

They all did what Tamara said and the exit door appeared.

Tanniv said, “It seems we will need to complete the conditions of certain rooms before we can proceed further.”

The others agreed. Tamara once again took the lead. She opened the door and they stepped into a circular chamber with no exit. It was not a big chamber, and it was a tight squeeze once all adventurers stepped into the room. Selena was the last to enter this time.

As soon as all the adventurers had stepped into the room, the door closed behind them. Selena tried to open it but could not.

“What now?” was the general question asked.

They had no clue regarding what to do. The next moment, the walls of the door started to spin. It stopped after some time. A door appeared. Tamara opened it to a passage. She stepped first followed by Tanniv, Shania, Duranos and Shadra. Tamara declared that the passage seemed safe but there was only room for one person to walk at a time.

The others then started to enter. After Shadra, Mikhail, Vladimir, Ivan, Victor and Hestia entered the passageway. After Hestia stepped into the passage, the door suddenly closed, and the walls of the room started spinning again.

“It seems that the labyrinth is trying to divide us”, remarked Marcus.

“We noticed”, said Kenirath.

The next time it stopped, another door opened which led to another passage. This time, Kenirath led into the passage. It was again narrow enough to fit one person at a time.

Kenirath was followed by Garun, Sylvianna, Tim, Artemis, Thalia and Erato. With Erato’s entry, the door closed again, and the walls started to spin.

Now Marcus, Kyrie, Selena, Clio and Athena remained.

Selena said, “I hope the passage keeps us together. It would be troublesome if the five of us split. Especially for Marcus and Kyrie as they are low leveled.”

“Thank you for your concern, Selena”, said Kyrie, “But Marcus and I can handle ourselves. You do not need to worry.”

This time the walls stopped spinning to open to another passage which seemed beside their entrance to the room. The five remaining adventurers stepped into the passage.

They continued through the passage slowly. They were concerned about traps. Athena led the way. She was good at detecting traps.

There were no traps in the passage. It twisted and turned a few times, but other than that they faced no resistance. After walking for about fifteen minutes, they reached the end of the passage to an exit door.

Athena opened it to a large cavern. The five of them entered it.

Marcus opened his messaging tool through the utility belt and tried to send a message to other members. It failed. He tried to access Globalnet and failed too.

“It seems that we cannot message other team members”, said Clio.

“Globalnet is down too”, said Marcus.

“Only you would be worried about Globalnet at this time”, said Kyrie.

“Hey! Don’t blame the Globalnet. It could have been a useful tool here.”

They looked around the cavern. It seemed empty. There was a pool of water in the center. The five of them walked up to it. Water shimmered in the pale light which was somehow illuminating the cavern.

Athena said, “There must be some sort of clue in the water.”

Clio said, “I think that is obvious.”

They all looked at Kyrie who unequipped her gear and jumped in. Some time later she resurfaced.

Kyrie said, “There are three levers at the bottom. No other instructions. It is a small pool. Can’t swim anywhere else either.”

Selena said, “Let’s look around the room. Maybe we can find something.”

“Yes”, said Marcus, “The room will tell us which lever to pull.”

Selena narrowed her eyes at him, “I can’t tell whether it was sarcasm or not.”

“It was not sarcasm. My sarcasm usually has the use of word fuck in it.”

“That is true”, agreed Kyrie.

Kyrie stayed in the pool while the others searched the cavern. They did not find much. Marcus walked back to the pool. He looked up. Right above the pool, three vines lay hanging. Each of these wines were of different sizes and it looked as if they had been hung on the ceiling with the help of something which Marcus could not see because of less light.

“You see them too”, said a voice beside Marcus.

Marcus jumped and looked to see who was there to see Athena standing close to him. He had not even noticed her arrival.

“Are you talking about the vines?” asked Marcus.

“Yes”, replied Athena, “What else would I be talking about?”

Marcus nodded and did not say anything. He looked up again.

“You think the vines hold some clue?”

Marcus jumped again. This time it was Selena and Clio soon came up to them.

Athena said, “Makes sense.”

Athena and Clio jumped, flapping their wings to provide them additional boost. They hovered near the vines for some time and then came back down.

Athena said, “Kyrie, can you check whether the vines are directly above the levers you mentioned?”

Kyrie dived back in and reappeared after a few moments.

Kyrie said, “They seem to be exactly above the levers.”

Selena said, “Considering the faint light of the cavern, are you sure? Were you really able to see clearly?”

Kyrie pouted as she said, “You are certainly welcome to try.”

Selena raised her hands up, “I am sorry. I just wanted to make sure.”

Athena said, “The order could be from either smallest to largest or from largest to smallest. Let us go with the smallest to largest. Kyrie, can you pull the corresponding levers such that they follow the smallest to largest order of the vines?”

Clio asked, “What if the order is wrong?”

Athena said, “It is a fifty-fifty chance. However, it is a chance that we need to take. So, please Kyrie.”

Kyrie went back into the pool. They waited for some minutes and then they heard it. A sound was coming from somewhere in the cavern, a sound as if air was getting sucked in. A bluish portal appeared some feet away from the pool. Everyone had their weapons out in an instance. Kyrie came out of the pool, looked at others and the next moment she had her bow out.

The portal disappeared and a creature stood in place of it.

Elite Rock Golem

Level 104, Health 10,400 / 10,400

The elite rock golem was a mass of small boulders. The head, because Marcus could think it would be the head was filled with holes. The golem roared out of its holes and charged them at full speed.

Selena was the first to react. She threw a flask at the golem which exploded on impact. A small hole appeared on its chest which was quickly covered.

Clio said, “I wonder how my rapier or my daggers would be effective against this.”

However, she still poked at the golem dealing exactly 1 point of damage to its health. The golem attacked her and she side stepped it.

Athena had cast a spell of protection giving everyone a buff, increasing their physical resistance. Then she cast another spell blasting the golem with pure magical energy. That did damage the golem a bit but it caused only 50 points of damage. The damage repaired itself as before but the health did not regenerate which was good.

Kyrie was shooting arrows in the golem dealing about 10 points of damage per hit. At this rate, it would take them long to kill the golem.

Marcus tried to remember what he had read about the golems. He considered opening his notes but he doubted he should do it in the middle of the battle.

Athena said, “Golems have a magic crystal inside them which powers them. Destroy it and the golem is dead.”

“Good point”, said Clio, “Now we just ask it to show the gorking crystal to us.”

Selena laughed and threw another flask straight at the charging golem’s chest. The golem hesitated in its charge towards Selena as the flask exploded with even greater force than before. A hole appeared in its chest and Marcus saw something pink glowing inside before it closed up. The hole had been visible for about three seconds.

Marcus said, “Selena. Throw something powerful at the chest. I can see the crystal. It is emitting a pinkish glow. The hole opened is small and it’s only for about three seconds I think. Kyrie, can you take the shot in this amount of time?

Kyrie said, “Yes.”

Selena said, “Okay. Get ready Kyrie.”

The golem had been charging Clio but Marcus shouted at it, drawing its attention.

The golem charged towards Marcus. Selena hit the golem in a chest with a similar explosion as before. The hole opened. Kyrie shot straight through the hole. There was a shattering ping which reverberated across the cavern. The golem lost 1,000 points of health. Its current health was now 9,286 / 10,400.

“Well”, said Kyrie, “10 more shots and we kill it.”

Selena said, “I have only two more such exploding flasks. There are other exploding flasks but none have as large an impact as this.”

“Fuck”, said Marcus, “There has to be some sort of a way to expose the stone.”

Athena said, “Selena. Create another hole. Let me take a shot at it. My spells would be more powerful than Selena’s shots.”

Selena threw the flask and the hole was created again. Athena shot the pure energy bolt inside the hole and there was another reverberating ping across the cavern. The golem lost 2,000 points of health.

Selena said, “I do not have five more such flasks, Athena.”

“I understand”, said Athena.

“Guys”, said Clio, “Some gorking help would be appreciated.”

Clio somehow kept on engaging the golem. There was no tank amongst the five of them and somehow the golem was keen on attacking Clio the most.

Clio dodged one of the fists to be hit by another. She could not block or dodge it in time and she flew back.

Marcus rushed the golem and slashed at its legs before getting back. The golem rushed Marcus. Marcus used the attacking fists to get a foothold and jumped on the golems head. He struck his twinblade right into one of the holes in the head and there was a whistling sound.

The chest area in front of the crystal parted, exposing the crystal completely. Everyone stared in shock and surprise. However, their surprise was short lived as the golem attacked Marcus and he had to jump down. The crystal disappeared from the view, covered by rock.

“Poke the fucking holes”, said Marcus as he ran away from the golem.

Clio took charge. She somersaulted on the golem’s head and poked her rapier inside. The crystal was exposed again. The remaining adventurers attacked the crystal causing a total of 5,000 points of damage to the health.

The golem was down to 2132 points of health. Clio had jumped back and was now again dodging the golem’s attacks. This time Selena jumped on the golem’s head with the help of Athena and thrust her estoc in a hole. The others attacked the exposed crystal immediately. Clio had the final attack, her rapier going through the cracked crystal. The crystal shattered. The golem disintegrated into small particles.

Marcus helped Selena up. Then he looked at the others. They seemed okay. Clio seemed to have lost the most health which Athena healed.

Athena said, “The next lever sequence please, Kyrie.”

Selena said, “Can we have a breather please? That was a gorking strong foe.”

Athena nodded, “Five minutes.”

Five minutes later Kyrie went back into the pool and pulled the levers in the sequence of descending order of the size of the vines. There was a grinding noise and a door appeared on one of the walls of the cavern. They went through the exit door into a small passage.

The room after the passage was filled with traps. They navigated it successfully but Marcus got hit with one of the drafts which caused 100 points of damage to his health and earned him a lecture on safety and carefulness by Athena.

The room after the trap room was filled with 10 imp like beasts. They were easy to dispatch. It was good to have Athena in their team. Even though they did not have a tank, Athena was a support and healer which helped in their group surviving the next two rooms which were filled with creatures which looked so grotesque that Marcus simply wanted to forget them.

They finally reached a room which looked serene. There was a pool at one of the ends and a fountain in the middle. The fountain had greenish liquid in it while the pool had crystal blue water.

Athena said what Marcus was thinking, “Someone needs to test the waters.”

Marcus said, “I volunteer.”

No one argued that point. Marcus said, “Thank you for the fucking support.”

Kyrie whispered in Selena’s ears but Marcus could hear her.

“Sarcasm”, she said and Selena giggled.

Marcus ignored them and went up to the fountain. He took the green liquid in the palm of hands carefully and took a sip. He immediately got a notification.

Health has been fully restored.

Marcus rolled his eyes and sighed. He said in a deadpan voice, “The fountain water restores health. That would mean…”

Marcus went up to the pool and drank the blue liquid. He got another notification.

Mana has been fully restored.

Marcus turned to the others, “The pool water restores mana.”

“So, this is a resting area”, said Athena.

“Seems so”, said Clio.

The others drank both the waters and the door to the next room appeared on the far end of the room.

Athena looked at the others and said, “I say we rest here for some time. I have a feeling that this is just the first part of the labyrinth. We have many challenges to face ahead.”

Marcus said, “Feels like there will be a boss room next. Resting area. Restoring waters. The next room has either a huge mob or a boss-like enemy. Makes sense to me.”

Selena said, “How do you figure that out?”

Marcus frowned as he thought about it. He said with uncertainty, “The answer that is coming to me is… Video games? I know of video games. Silas explained to me when I was in NAIF’s care. Game World is a real life video game.”

Selena asked, “What’s a video game?”

Marcus said, “Are you not from Earth? I thought humans from Earth knew of video games.”

“I was born here. We do not have video games here. Though I doubt anyone would be interested in playing a video game here considering that they could be adventurers.”

Marcus and the others nodded. Somehow what Selena said made sense.

Athena said “Barring the topic of whether video games are present on Una or not, how can you discern whether the next room has a strong enemy or not?”

Marcus said, “There is something faint. In a video game, typically, before a boss fight, there is a resting area with supplies and a place to rest. Typically. Not always though.”

“Is that true for every video game?”

“I don’t know.”

Athena stared at the door. Clio stared along with her. Selena and Kyrie alternated looking between the door and Marcus.

Athena said finally, “Whatever the case maybe. Let us rest here. I checked the watch through the utility belt. It is already night time. And I am tired.”

Clio said, “We shall eat something and rest. I think six hours of sleep would be sufficient. We tackle the next room after resting.”

Selena said, “I need eight hours of my beauty sleep.”

Marcus said, “Let’s eat first. We can discuss sleeping matters during dinner, I think?”

“Yes, it would be dinner”, agreed Kyrie.

They ate the rations that they had brought. They discussed the amount of hours they would sleep for and finalized on eight. They decided to keep no watch as they felt safe in the room. Marcus hoped that it was not a mistake.

Marcus woke up groggy. Eight hours were already over! That was not sufficient time to fucking sleep. Marcus got up and saw that all were already awake and getting ready. Even Selena was up and about and she had complained about getting her beauty sleep.

Marcus got up and got ready. They had some breakfast and everyone was then ready for the next room. Athena opened the door. They entered the next room.

It was a huge hall filled with pillars, furniture and a throne in the middle. Marcus saw the creature sitting on the throne, eating fruits.

Artenos the Minotaur

Level 150, Health 55,000 / 55,000

Artenos was wearing bronze coloured armor. The armor looked thick to Marcus. Twin axes lay beside the throne. The servants surrounding the throne were wisps. They disappeared as the adventurers neared the throne.

“Welcome Adventurers”, said Artenos as Marcus and the others approached him, “Welcome to my chamber. How may I help you today?”

Athena said, “We are navigating the labyrinth. Passing through each of the rooms, each of the challenges as we proceed in our quest.”

Artenos said, “A noble goal. Questing. I presume you wish to proceed to the next room.” Artenos pointed at the exit which was behind the throne and at the end of the hall.

Athena nodded. She said, “Will you let us pass?”

Artenos said, “There are two options for letting you pass. The first; one of you stays here with me for a week. I would let them go after a week, do not worry. I simply need the company. It is boring with just wisps here. The second; one of you fights with me one on one. It is not a fight to death. Do not worry. The fight is till the health points reach less than 20% for any of us. You win, you pass. You lose, then I open another exit which leads you back to the entrance you came from. And yes, only one of you can fight me. No taking turns.”

Athena said, “And what if we choose option 3? All of us kill you and we pass.”

Artenos laughed. He said, “You are welcome to try. However, I advise you to take one of the options I have provided. Your option will only open the door back to the entrance. To proceed forwards, you have to comply with my options.”

Athena said, “Can we take some time to make a decision.”

“You have fifteen minutes”, Artenos went back to eating fruits. Marcus could see that Artenos was still keeping an eye on them.

The adventurers put some distance between Artenos and them and started to discuss what to do.

“The best option does seem to be one of us staying here”, Selena said, “It does not involve violence.”

“I agree”, said Clio, “But who would stay here?”

Athena held up her hand, “Wait. A majority of us should agree with that option.”

Kyrie and Marcus both said together, “Option 1 is good.”

Athena said, “Okay. But who will stay here for a week?”

No one volunteered. Athena said, “We can try fighting one on one but no one here can do so. Clio here is the best bet. She is at level 200 and could you take on the minotaur, Clio?”

Clio looked at Artenos and said, “Possibly. It would be a tough fight though.”

Athena said, “And we are back to one of us staying here.”

Marcus said, “I will stay. Makes sense. I am the one with the lowest level. You can all go on. Get everybody and you could try to get back to me. Or go forwards or something. I can figure the way out after a week.”

The others looked at each other with uncertainty. They debated whether they should let Marcus stay or not. After much debate, their time was up. Marcus would be staying.

Athena relayed their decision to Artenos who said, “Alright then. The door forwards is open.”

Marcus watched the others walk out of the exit door and the door closed behind them.

Then Marcus turned to Artenos, “Do you have any books to read?”

***

Kyrie did not like leaving Marcus behind but it had been the best option. She saw that Selena was also not happy that Marcus had been left behind.

The next room was just like the first room. Square tiles on the floor with golden runes carved on them formed the majority of the room.

Clio found the riddle this time.

I speak without a mouth,

I hear without ears,

I have no body,

I come alive with wind,

Tell me who I am and find your way across.

Kyrie found the riddle tough. The others also seemed to have a problem with it for they were also taking some time to answer.

Clio said, “I can hazard a guess. An echo. But I am not sure.”

Athena said, “Loquellan runes for echo are there on the floor. Two times you spell it to form a path to the other side.”

Selena said, “Let me try. I can move the fastest of all of us.”

Selena crossed the room spelling echo twice. Once she reached safely, the square tiles shuffled and a new path for echo was formed. This seemed to be a bit more difficult than before.

Clio went next and the floor shuffled again. The next time, there was a requirement of jumping a short distance in the path. Kyrie went next and she did have a narrow escape at the end, almost falling on the wrong tile. Athena came last. Her path mostly consisted of longer jumps but she managed.

A resurrection stone appeared as they crossed.

Clio asked, “What does this mean? Is this mid way or an exit?”

Athena said, “The Gunin mountain range has many entry gates. Maybe this leads to one. Let’s check it out.”

They exited the door into a passage which ended in stairs. They took the stairs up to a large door. They opened the door and squinted as light flooded in. They went outside.

Kyrie observed that they seemed to be in a valley of sorts. She could feel a pull of water from her right. She could also feel some sort of wrongness in the air.

They seemed to have come out of one of the entrances of the labyrinth in the Gunin mountain range. This had to be near the lake that the water nymphs had mentioned. That would mean there was a demon lord nearby.

Selena coughed, “What the gork is wrong with the air? I feel like gagging.”

Athena said, “Let us investigate.”

They walked towards the right, towards the source of foul air, through the trees and they came upon the lake. Kyrie was horrified at the sight. The lake was bubbling. Poisonous fumes rose into the air. And in the middle of it all she saw something which chilled her.

A demon lord rose from the lake and looked right at them.