The group suddenly appeared in the Traum Mountain Path just outside of Kirlsa. Twilight intended to make sure they didn’t appear where there were other people nearby. As dire as the situation was, there was no need to make things worse by causing a panic about ‘people appearing in a flash of light.’
“Alright, let’s hurry to the first site,” Twilight said.
As they walked, some of the group had questions. “Why was Kirlsa chosen as a place to hide a god?” Nel asked.
“It wasn’t the town that I chose, actually,” Twilight answered. “The site has been here long before Kirlsa was founded. Coincidentally, there was a mine near where the entrance was and that was why the town was founded. The Maze of Tribulations, as the site is called, is protected by a large amount of security. The first measure is a simulation of unstable structure within the entry cavern. There’s a cave-in that keeps away anyone brave enough to explore the cavern. The unstable structure makes sure that no one was brave enough to dig out the cave-in.”
“So the instability isn’t real?” Fayt asked.
“No, but the people of Kirlsa can’t know that or they might risk spotting a high tech transporter at the end of the cavern.”
“And probably worship it as some sort of holy relic like the Sacred Orb,” Cliff added.
“Most likely,” Twilight shrugged.
The group soon entered town and passed the town guards. The guards took a moment to give a salute to Albel who ignored them completely. They headed straight for the southwestern part of town where they went down three flights of stairs before they were in front of a tunnel entrance that was chained up with a warning sign that alerted any would-be trespassers the dangers of cave-ins in the cavern. Albel drew his katana and cut the chains down, allowing them passage.
Twilight led everyone into the cavern and toward the spot where the cave-in was located. She lit her horn and her hand glowed with the same light. She pressed that hand on one of the rocks that blocked their way. She then backed away as the rocks started moving themselves out of the way to allow everyone passage. Once everyone was through, the rocks returned to their original position.
Not far from the cave-in, the group found a mysterious high-tech device that looked like a circular stone pedestal that had a pair of stone rings floating above it. A glass lens was in the center elevated by a small set of stairs. Parts of the stone glowed a bright green.
“We can get into the Maze of Tribulations from this transporter,” Twilight said. With that, everyone took turns using the transporter. The floating rings moved to surround each person while a magic circle temporarily formed around the transporter.
Just like the transition from the Ruins of Mosel to the Firewall, the group emerged into a highly advanced location. The walls and floors were metallic and there were rotating circles of light green light on the floor with the walls, displaying the same light as words that only the unicorns understood, flowing along them. For Twilight and Lyra, the lights were part of the maintenance spells that kept time from wearing away the Maze.
“Be careful everyone, from here we'll be dealing with stronger monsters than the ones you fought at Spiral Tower,” Twilight warned. “There are also a few guardian programs that Crystal will have likely taken control of to stop us.”
Cliff punched one of his hands, “Alright! Let’s go beat up this trio once and for all so we can get on with our lives.”
From the room they were in, they found that there were two paths, but one was blocked by a locked door. The other path was open so they went through that and into a room that was a walkway that split into two paths. The right path led to another locked door so they proceeded down the left path again.
In the next room there was another doorway in front of them and a path to their right. They decided to explore the next room and encountered their first enemies in the place: yellow flying fish. One type resembled the fishes with sharp fins like the ones they encountered in the Airyglyph Aqueducts and the others resembled the shooting fish that Sophia encountered in the Depths of Mosel.
Unlike their previous encounters, these fish were much faster in movement and rate of fire. There were several close calls as the fish aimed at Roger, Cliff and Albel, who all managed to dodge in time as the shots left deep impacts on the walls. Thankfully, the stat boosts were all that was different about the fish as their attack patterns were still predictable and they were soon dispatched.
There was also a brass-colored dragon zombie in the room but Thanatas quickly enslaved its mind before it could become a nuisance.
The next room had two more doorways to go through. As the group checked the closest of the two doorways, they were ambushed by a few red-scaled lizardmen. Lyra and Sophia sliced their weapons and shields to pieces. When the warriors tried to breathe fire on the duo, Sophia created a few small green-glowing creatures and stuffed them into their mouths. When the lizardmen tried to bite down, the creatures exploded and their mouths tasted corrosive acid. The lizards screeched in agony for a few seconds before they vanished as they began to melt into green goo.
This was when Sophia decided to bring up a matter that had been bothering her for a while. “We certainly have been seeing a lot of palette swaps of old enemies throughout our adventures. We’ve seen some diversity in the number of monsters as well. Don’t tell me that these are the types of monsters that would be encountered on all worlds in the Eternal Sphere.”
Twilight winced at that, but was at a loss for words on how to respond to that. Sophia’s stare soon broke her. “There’s only so much the monster design department can do, creative designing is hard work, or so they claim,” she defended.
Thanatas shrugged, “True, creativity is limited by one’s imagination. It might do your design teams some good to go on some intergalactic field trips and expand their creativity.”
Twilight smiled, “That sounds like a good idea.”
The room the lizardmen ambushed them from was empty so they moved on to the next room through the other doorway. The next room held another dragon zombie and a four-armed demon. Thanatas made the two fight each other, but the demon ultimately emerged victorious but was greatly weakened and was finished off by Albel.
The next room was a maze of narrow hallways that were patrolled by a fair sized number of yellow fish, red lizardmen and a few four-armed demons. The group split into smaller groups to explore the maze faster and dealt with any enemies along the way. Once the exit was found, everyone regrouped and headed into the next room and through another door.
The door led the group through a few hallways and into a larger chamber that had a set of stairs going downward. The stairs were guarded by a new type of creature that they had never seen before.
The creature before them had light gray fur all over its body and its thick, bony claws were dark gray. There was no indication that the creature had eyes or a nose, possibly covered by its thick fur, but it did have a giant mouth with a moderate number of jagged teeth and a pair of tusks at the ends of its mouth pointing upward.
“Hee he he he…” the creature laughed. “So you intruders managed to make it this far, but I advise you to turn back now. The secrets that lie hidden in the depths must remain so. If you seek to continue, be prepared to have your flesh rent asunder.”
“Guardian Render, this is Project Leader Twilight Sparkle. Request voice authentication.”
Render paused for a moment before it growled. “Authentication denied, position of Project Leader transferred to Crystal Silicon as of two minutes ago.”
“Looks like Crystal is still one step ahead of us,” Maria said. She and the others prepared to fight the furry beast.
“I’ll handle this guys,” Thanatas said. Render quickly accepted the challenge by opening its mouth and a ray of ice magic flowed from it. Thanatas quickly countered by launching a sphere of ice magic that collided with the beam and caused an explosion, flash freezing the chamber. Thanatas used her skeletal wings to block the explosion and prevented any harm from coming to the others, who decided to return to the previous room to avoid getting caught in another icy explosion. They watched the fight from around the doorway.
Render channeled ice magic through its right arm and prepared to smash the ground, only to be met with a giant skeletal arm emerging from the floor and grabbing Render’s arm.
While Render was trying to free its arm, Thanatas did something the group was not expecting. She ran her hand along Evermourne and activated a few runes on her sword that were not visible before. The new runes glowed red and orange. Her pale skin turned to that of charcoal and her snow white hair caught fire.
Render breathed ice on the skeletal hand and shattered the brittle bones to free itself, only for a sudden flash of orange to fill its vision briefly. Render was unable to move as it saw the burning undead before she appeared to split in two halves. The intense heat from the slash set its fur ablaze. Render never realized what happened until the moment it began to vanish.
Thanatas quickly deactivated the fire runes on her sword and her hair and complexion returned to normal. “Can’t be using Burning Dead Mode too often,” she muttered to herself. “That form burns through my runic power really fast.” She then looked toward where Render used to be. “Thanks for being my test subject.”
“What was that?” Fayt asked as everyone entered the now-soaked room after Thanatas’ transformation melted the ice.
Thantas shrugged, “Since that creature was going to be resistant to my frost attacks, I figured that I could test another disease on him. Then I suddenly remembered that there were some experimental runes that I had yet to test.” She sighed, “It was truly unfortunate that the creature couldn’t handle one simple slash. I go through so many guinea pigs that way.”
Fayt and Maria shuddered as they remembered that they were also used as test subjects by Doctor Leingod.
With the guardian vanquished, the group proceeded downstairs to the next floor.
With a new floor came more challenges and new enemies to fight, even if they were palette swaps of monsters that they had encountered before. The second floor hosted a number of thieving scumbags that were metallic, like the ones from the Gemity Arena. More aggravating, however, was the return of the most annoying monster they had ever encountered. This monster didn’t have any attack but their whining was enough to eat away at a person’s sanity.
As usual, the nobleman hid behind the actual combatants while whining at the group. Thanatas gave an innocent look at the thieves before she pointed her blade at the nobleman and yanked him to her with her necromantic magic. She then used the unfortunate victim as a meat shield to absorb the stabs from the thieves’ knives while she proceeded to eliminate the thieves one by one. Once her shield expired and vanished, she finished the rest of the thieves with a single sweeping strike.
“Best use of a nobleman,” Sophia chuckled.
The group explored the rooms further and found more monsters along the way, including off-white beholders, giant crabs, and fat demons like the ones Sophia encountered in the Depths of Mosel which were a relatively new encounter for most of everyone else.
The demons provided more of a challenge than anything else on the floor as their hides were very durable and some of their attacks cracked the ribs of some of the less protected members. The deadly breaths were barely dodged while Twilight healed the injured with her symbology.
Their exploration soon brought them to a room that was occupied by the second guardian. This one was a succubus like the ones that were seen in the Gemity Arena. Just to make sure the men didn’t get in the way due to the demon’s powers over males, the men in the group were made to stay out of the room while Nel, Maria, Twilight, Sophia, Thanatas, Lyra, Mirage, and Peppita faced the succubus.
The succubus became frustrated that the men didn’t come to play with her and was forced to fight the others. However, the fight didn’t last long as Lyra’s rapid movements were more than the demon could handle and was quickly and brutally dismembered and vanished.
“That was a guardian of Project Valkyrie?” Lyra asked out of shock about how easy that was.
“That guardian was designed to deal with male intruders,” Twilight explained. “To be fair though, Render would have dealt with any intruders that intruded upon the Maze. Usually the guardian succubus was unnecessary except in cases where Render couldn’t handle them. The succubus would have at least charmed unprepared male invaders into being her puppets and drove them out of the maze without any memory of their time there.”
“Seems kinda sexist if you ask me,” Maria said with indignation.
“Actually, the project developers were working on placing a vampire to back up the succubus guardian in the event of an all female party, but that was put on hold because of Crystal’s cyberattack.”
The group proceeded into the next room which was quite small and had a sphere in the middle of the room. Moving to other rooms, the group realized that the rooms were almost all the same with the exception of a few rooms. However, they found no stairs to the next floor. They did find what seemed like an incomplete room that had nothing but a drop into the abyss below.
“There’s something odd about these rooms,” Fayt said.
Twilight sighed as she remembered the floor, “Right, this is another puzzle.”
“My head hurts already,” Cliff complained.
“This is a large-scale sliding puzzle. The rooms themselves are the sliding pieces, but the rooms do not need to be arranged in a specific order. The objective is for the room with the hole to be in the top left corner of the four by four arrangement.”
“So will the stairs appear if we get the hole there?” Cliff asked.
Twilight winced, “Not quite. You see, the only way to the third floor is to actually jump into the hole.” She was received by twelve deadpan stares.
“I’m guessing that we need the hole in the upper left corner in order to jump into a room where we can continue our descent from?” Maria asked, receiving a nod of affirmation from Twilight in response.
Once everyone was informed of the plan, Twilight began touching the orbs in the center of each room that was next to the hole. Each time the room moved, they had to brace themselves as the rooms shook as they moved. Eventually, Twilight managed to move the rooms so that the hole was in the upper left corner of the puzzle. With the hole where they needed it, they leaped into the hole.
It was a testament to their toughness that they could handle a drop into a lower floor as that would have likely injured a less resilient person.
As they recovered from the fall, Twilight briefly mentioned that the third floor was going to be short because most of it could only be explored if they jumped into a hole from different parts of the puzzle above them. However, those paths only led to transporters that were all linked to one place on the second floor.
Outside of that room, the group encountered different monsters from the floor above them. This led the group to the conclusion that each floor was going to feature different monsters. This floor featured the return of the long forgotten slimes, burning zombies whose flames were pale green this time, demon hounds, romper bats and gold versions of the transparent hydras. None of these monsters were any trouble for the group who were quickly growing stronger as they continued fighting monsters in the Maze.
The group soon found a switch that Twilight informed that unlocked some doors on previous floors, including an elevator on the first floor that would take them to the fourth floor. With the switch activated, they now had to find a way back to the first floor since there was no transporter in their area that would take them back to the second floor.
As the group entered a doorway, Sophia’s instincts warned her of a danger around the corner and pulled Thanatas and Lyra back out of the room and yelled at the others. She acted just in time as a stone gray cloud filled the next room. However, she gave her warning too late and the cloud engulfed Cliff, Fayt, Roger, Mirage, Nel, Albel and Peppita. When the cloud dissipated, the others found their unfortunate friends turned to stone.
“Oh, right, the third floor guardian is a cockatrice,” Twilight mumbled.
“Might have been useful information a few seconds ago, Twilight,” Sophia deadpanned.
“This guardian is not as tough as Render. In fact, a lot of the normal monsters are tougher than this guardian as its real strength lies in its petrifying abilities and the means to use the narrow corridors to make sure its targets are not able to avoid it,” Twilight explained.
Sophia sighed, “I’ll deal with the overgrown chicken you and the others work on undoing the petrification.”
The cockatrice had no time to react once Sophia charged in and decapitated it in the span of a millisecond. She spent the rest of the time helping Twilight and Adray reverse the petrifications of their friends.
“Think you can give us a heads up on the other guardians?” Sophia asked.
“Well, if I recall, the fourth floor guardian is a dragon like the one you fought in the arena, he’s not as tough as that one, but he is still tough. On the fifth floor is a four-armed demon who is a little stronger than the ones we fought on the first floor. I’ve actually forgotten who guards the sixth and seventh floors but there will be a number of powerful beasts on the eighth floor who will be guarding the final seal to the door to the room that houses Gabriel Celesta.”
“So we are looking at eight floors for this place?” Twilight nodded to Sophia’s question.
Once everyone was freed from their stone prisons, Sophia made sure everyone was up to date on what to expect in the lower floors.
Continuing their exploration, the group soon came across a tall set of stairs that would take the group upward. They climbed their way back to the first floor and the transporter that they entered the Maze from.
“So all that just to get to a switch that is supposed to unlock an elevator on the first floor? Gimme a break!” Cliff complained. Everyone else rolled their eyes.
From the Maze entrance, they returned to the first fork in the road and headed right and into the room that had a previously locked door to find that it was now unlocked. They proceeded into the new room to find the elevator that Twilight mentioned before and used it to move to the fourth floor.
The first thing they noticed once they got off the elevator was that the room was dark. Their only sources of light came from the elevator and a message on a pedestal.
“Light blocks your path so let darkness be your guide,” Fayt read.
“Sounds like we’ll have to trust our friends who can see in the dark to guide us to the next floor,” Nel noted.
Twilight had reservations about casting a night vision spell on those who couldn’t see in the dark because there were monsters on this floor who gave off a bright light and that may have a negative impact on their overall vision in the long term.
“So what do you suggest instead of a night vision spell?” Sophia asked, reading Twilight’s mind.
Twilight’s eyes widened briefly before she remembered that the bunny templar could read minds. “Oh, yeah, mind reader.” She cleared her throat, “If I use the spell then those who are affected might get blinded by the wisps on this floor as their natural bioluminescence is very powerful. The light from my horn will be counterproductive to the theme of this floor because we need complete darkness to move forward. Instead, we let Sophia and Thanatas guide us through the area and deal with any monsters lurking in the darkness. The rest of us can handle the wisps on this floor.”
With the plan made, the group made sure to stay close to the templar and undead while moving through the darkness.
The next room housed a fair number of wisps that brightened the room. Their bright forms made them easy targets for the people who couldn’t see in the dark. They still had to be careful though, as their energy attacks were still very potent.
It was beyond that room that the real challenge began. The room itself was huge and had numerous narrow pathways that made the room look like a maze. Darkness filled the room, yet the group did notice several lights floating around the room providing the only illumination. The room was also filled with a small army of monsters.
“The only way forward is to deal with the Earth Dragon guardian on this floor, but it will only show up once the wisps in this room are gone,” Twilight explained. “Until then, the passage to the next floor is locked.”
The going was difficult for most of the group as they had to stay very close to their friends who could see in the dark. The only time when they could see was when one of the wisps in the room was nearby.
The monsters in the room were not so varied. Among the monsters were some of the long-forgotten bogle bandits. Lyra and Twilight dealt with some of the bandits who got too close to the others. They may not have been able to see, but they could still sense their minds with their psionic powers.
There were also fire spirits who gave off green flames, but the light the flames provided was very dim. It was still enough for the others to see it though. However, they didn’t dare attack it without knowing the terrain around them.
Then there was a new species of monster that the group hadn’t encountered before. Hulking, dinosaur-like hydras that resembled a brontosaurus with several heads. The creature’s dark scales made for excellent camouflage in the dark room. The beasts thought the intruders were easy prey in its home, but Sophia and Lyra made the beast realize its folly too late as their minds synchronized so they could accurately decapitate its heads together. The heads did not regenerate because the beast was not a true hydra.
The rest of the group focused on hunting down the drifting wisps. With each wisp eliminated, the room became darker. It eventually got to the point where the group was wandering in complete darkness. Because of this, each person had to remain in physical contact with each other as they explored the floor.
This didn’t last too long as the blinded group soon found a source of light in the room that remained stationary. They continued moving closer and closer to that light until they soon heard a deep, rumbling growl coming from where the light source was.
“Intruders are attempting to breach the fifth floor!” The voice rumbled. “The Project admins must be notified!”
Getting closer to the voice, they soon found themselves in front of a large dragon. It was only half the size of Crosell, but it still looked very strong.
The dragon paused as the group approached. “...Error…unable to contact Project admins. Probable cause: admin gag order in effect. Issued by…error…identification files corrupted. Unable to determine cause. Attempting to fix corrupted files…”
…
…
…
“Unable to fix corrupted files. Recommend full system reboot. Cannot perform programmed tasks efficiently without orders from Project admin. Error…error…” The dragon walked away from the door.
“Let’s get to the next floor while it’s confused,” Sophia said. Everyone quickly headed down the stairs to the fifth floor.
“What was that all about?” Cliff asked.
“My own little counterattack against Crystal’s cyber attack,” Twilight said with a smirk. “She may be able to corrupt the identification files of my employees, but she can’t change my personal administration codes. Among them is my gag order program that prevents communication to and from NPCs and administrators. I had that ready in case an NPC decided to go rogue.
“Guardian Earth Dragon is the only NPC here who requires confirmation from the Project Valkyrie administrators to take any action. He’s one of the more powerful guardians here so we needed to make sure he didn’t kill one of my employees by accident.”
The group barely moved a few feet into the fifth floor before they heard the frantic clopping of hooves just ahead of them. A few seconds later, they saw a panicked-looking bright yellow mare with a deep red mane and tail and wearing the Sphere Institute uniform racing toward them.
“Help me!” the mare cried.
Behind her were a trio of ridiculers wearing red cloaks chasing after her with their rapiers drawn, occasionally swiping at her.
Thanatas launched a sphere of frost past the mare and hit one of the ridiculers. The burst of frost magic flash froze all three of them. Sophia rushed past the mare and shattered the frozen monsters with her fists.
The mare continued running until she bumped into Twilight and wrapped her arms around her midsection. “Boss! I am so happy you came to rescue me! When the protection programs here turned on me, I didn’t know what to do!” The mare’s frantic yelling then turned to sobbing then frantic crying.
Twilight’s surprise at her employee’s frantic behavior quickly faded and turned into a motherly desire to calm her panicked subordinate. She wrapped one arm around her and gently stroked her mane. “There there Lemon Puff, just stay with us and we’ll get you to safety.”