Chapter 50: Hedge Maze

Alabaster

Alley wasn’t yet ready to head back into town, in fact he was pushing that they keep searching for the hidden manor even if it meant spending the night in the swamp. He was expecting Darius to protest on the grounds of the risk posed by the zombies in the dark. Of course Darius could see in the dark so his warning turned out to be much more mundane.

“Mosquitoes will eat us alive if we camp out here Alley.” He said with surprising seriousness. “Like just cover us in bites.”

That didn’t seem like such a big deal to Alley, but he accepted that his friend had experience on his side and agreed to meet him halfway. It was a little past midday, they had plenty of supplies for a few days out here if they needed them. So the hunter agreed that if they could find the mansion before the sun started to set they would spend the night in it, if they couldn’t the pair would head back into town. Apparently, even that was pretty bad form by the standards of your average hunter.

Two hours later the pair of boys found themselves floating atop a mid-sized pond where three waterways met, staring at a gap in an overgrown wall of densely packed plant…of some kind. Alley didn’t recognize or really know how to describe it. A single shrub-type thing that had been allowed or encouraged to grow thick and tall enough to actually prevent passage. It honestly looked like if he managed to scale its fifteen-foot height the top would be able to support his weight.

It certainly fit the description of a ‘ huge and strange plant’ which along with a greater density of Undead were signs they were closing in on the ruined mansion. However, all of the accounts Alley had read suggested the plants he was looking for caused you to become disorientated and this shrubbery thing wasn’t putting out some sort of hallucinogenic pollen or whatever it was that got you all turned around.

Still, after weighing their options the boys concluded that while it might not be what they were looking for, it was certainly something and worth at least checking out. After all, the mansion being the source of the swamp’s Undead was just a theory. Whatever that source was, Alley was hungry to find it. Something out here was making the zombies, he was certain of it.

The idea that a population of Undead had been simply introduced to the Rakino swamp and managed to remain just seemed unlikely to him. Even with their ability to resurrect they simply could not have maintained their numbers. If the records were to be believed the monsters had haunted the swamp for centuries and surely in that time they would have been destroyed by local or passing Deck wielders, or even just burned to ash. Alley hadn’t tested the claim that fire could destroy the Undead yet, but he was confident it would work.

So whatever out here was raising and releasing zombies Alley wanted to know all about it. While he had no intention of becoming a tower-dwelling necromancer like in so many spooky tales. The idea of potentially utilizing the Undeath Resonance that would start to flow through his veins when he reached rank eleven had been bouncing around in his head. Alley had almost no use for a Card made out of a regular monster, but what if he could raise something he had slain as Undead and make that into a Card?

“You know you are going first right?” Alley said, turning to his friend.

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Darius leaned over to get a better look into the shaded interior beyond the strange wall of plant.

“What happened to Sword, Hammer, Canvas?” asked the redheaded boy dubiously.

“No way, I can’t Manifest, you can still Enhance. So you are sure as fuck going first into creepy places like that.”

“I hate you.” Grumbled Darius but there was no venom in his words. The Hunter let out a long nasal exhale and hefted his spear before leaping from the raft onto the small bank of reeds before the opening.

Stalking into the gap in the organic wall both boys kept their weapons at the ready. What they found was a strange corridor created by another poorly tended plant wall that soon turned sharply into even more of the plant corridors.

“Oh fuck me!” Darius suddenly exclaimed as the boys carefully advanced. “ This is a hedge maze.”

Alley gave his friend a questioning look. “ I know what a maze is, but what's a hedge?”

“That.” Darius said as he pointed at the strange plant walls. “ this type of plant though usually it's nicer looking and more blocky looking.”

“And we are in a maze made of this stuff?”

“I’m pretty sure, yeah.”

‘Plants that disorientate.’ mused Alley before giving his surroundings a closer inspection. If someone made a maze presumably they wanted to protect something, but why make it out of plants? Surely a more secure building material had to be available. When he asked Darius about it the other boy had shrugged and informed him it was really more something rich people made for fun rather than an actual defensive measure.

Moving through the maze the boys began to encounter the swamp zombies once more. Initially, it was just one or two at a time that were easily dispatched. Feeling conflicted, Alley held off on turning any of the monsters into Cards. The zombies were easy enough to kill and escape before they resurrected and Alley had a feeling he would regret it if he allowed his Deck to lock up for an hour just for a weak zombie Card.

The deeper they got into the maze, the denser the groups of Undead became. While still not in large enough numbers to truly threaten the pair they were slowly being worn down by the semi-constant assault of the rotting monsters. An issue that would only intensify if they couldn’t find their way to the other side of the maze. The option to retreat was always open as the boys had made sure to mark their path as they progressed, but at this point, neither was willing to let what was essentially an untended garden get the better of them.

Eventually by a process of marking off dead ends, squeezing through massively overgrown corridors, and trying to follow a single wall as long as they could, the pair of teens made their way to a huge stone staircase rimmed by ornate railing that had been overgrown by some sort of vine. That same vine had since contracted some sort of plant illness, as it was deep into the process of rotting alive, its damp biological smell filling the air.

At the top of the stairs the maze ended, opening up into a large and strangely well maintained lawn which stood before a huge stone residence.

“I think we found your swamp manor.” Said Darius. His voice was kept a whisper as patrolling that lawn was a monstrosity of bones standing at least ten feet tall. It’s was vaguely human shaped, but had been heavily augmented by metal plating and blades seemingly bolted directly to the bone of the giant.

“I think you might be onto something there.” Said Alley with a grin. He had never been more glad to have listened to his instincts. Whatever this bone creation was, Alley was certain he both wanted it as a Card and probably wouldn’t survive if he let it resurrect.