"What is going on?" Blue asked.
"I don't know. It's the first time I see this type of notification. Can you guys connect to the internet?" Helena asked.
"I can't. It says that the connection doesn't have internet access," Hera was trying to see if she could change networks on her tablet, but only the one controlled by the guild was available. Not that it was a surprise since this is how every room behaved.
"What about our communicators? Are they still working?" Bonnie pressed the device on her neck, and her voice came through everyone's earpiece.
"Yeah. They are on their own network. I don't think we have to worry about that," Helena replied.
Before anyone could think more about the situation, Alex walked to the door leading back to Dzviery, "We should get out of here."
"What? Why? The notification told us to hide," Blue gasped.
"Yeah, but what do you think would happen if whatever is attacking the room comes here? We are in a dead-end, and sure we can go inside the dungeon, but then we have no way of knowing when it's safe to come out," Alex stopped to explain.
Hera and Bonnie looked to Helena, who was in deep thought. Since the mage had more experience than everyone else in the MAZE, they wanted to hear her opinion on the matter, "I agree. We should get out of here. For a lockdown to happen, something must have been very wrong. If we just stay inside here, we won't be able to know what's going on. or what's the best course of action."
"Exactly, and if we stay here and end up back in the dungeon, we can't control if we will ever split up again. Who knows what will happen this time. Besides, I need to get back to our hotel room," Alex replied as she opened the door. There was no movement in the tower, but it was clear it wasn't empty. People were screaming, monsters were roaring, and the sound of explosions echoed through the chambers.
"Why do you have to go back to the hotel?" Hera asked.
"I left something there, and I can't risk losing it," Alex was already in the hallway leading to the central chamber.
"Alex! Are you serious?" Hera followed the assassin. Everyone else was right behind them. Like Helena said, staying in a dungeon was a bad idea. In fact, Hera had already thought about something. If she went to her private room, even with everybody, she could at least use her tablet and ask Luna about what was going on. This shouldn't be something the guide would be against saying, and everyone would be safe there. The only problem would be food, but she could think about that later.
In the central chamber of the tower, there were about 200 people. Ten were by the door casting spells and keeping something at bay. The rest was hunkering down and trying not to make too much noise, even if some were not as successful in doing so. Hera could see that some people were on the upper floors as well. Most were trying to hide, but a couple seemed to be using long-range spells or arrows to hit whatever was outside. As they passed by a beastman with floppy dog ears, everyone stopped to get some information.
"What's going on out there?" Helena asked.
"Some monsters appeared. They are level 60? 70? I don't even know, but only high-level explorers can do anything about them. There is also a centaur outside, and they are even stronger than the monsters. They started attacking and exploding everything, and we don't know what's going on. There were some high-level people in the room, and they started fighting, but everyone else just ran for it. Some managed to get out, but the lockdown trapped most of us here."
"Centaurs? I thought they were only real on fantasy books," Bonnie asked.
"Me too, but it's the MAZE. Everything here is from fantasy books," the beastman shrugged.
"Do you know if people can leave the tower? Or is there someone stopping us from going?" Alex asked.
"Why would you wanna go out there? You don't seem to be high level. No, you're not high level. Are you crazy?"
"Just answer my question, are people being blocked from leaving here or not?" Alex rolled her eyes.
"I don't think anyone is going to stop you. But you don't want to be out there."
"Yeah, yeah. Thanks," Alex waved the man off and walked towards the tower's entrance.
"Alex!" Hera grabbed the assassin's wrist, "Are you really going out there?" as if to punctuate her point, a large explosion happened just outside the tower entrance, causing a large flash of light to blind some of the people in the chamber.
"I have to. I can't lose what I left in the hotel. You don't have to come with me. I can do it by myself," Alex held Hera's hand. The assassin's eyes showed a resolve that Hera had never seen before.
"Fine," Hera turned back to the group without letting Alex go, "Bonnie, Blue, stay here with Lena. Alex and I will go grab our stuff."
"What? Why are you going?" Helena gasped.
"I'm not letting Alex go alone, and she can't carry five bags by herself while still being stealthy. When we get back, I can open my private room in one of the doors, so we are at least safe. I'm sure most explorers who are stuck here are doing the same," Hera explained.
"Then I'm going to," Blue stepped forward.
"How high is your hide skill? Alex has that busted stealth skill, and I can use the Memory Armor. Do you have a way to stay hidden? And no, using a cloud to cover us is not a good idea. It will end up making us a target," Hera explained.
Blue struggled for a moment, trying to come up with something, but she eventually gave up, "I… don't…."
"See. Stay here then. Help them, and we will be right back. I'll take everything I can from the mini-fridge before coming back," Hera smiled and turned back to Alex, "I'm going to ask again. Are you sure you need whatever you left there?"
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"I am. I need to get that," Alex replied.
"Fuck. Fine, let's go," Hera let go of Alex's hands, and both started walking but were stopped by Helena's tendrils.
"If you two wanna go, that's fine. Just come back alive and here. That's the best I can do for you," the shadows enveloped the two allowing them to blend with the darkness more easily, "Stay in the shadows, and it will be harder for anything to see you."
"Thanks, Lena," Alex smiled before dashing towards the entrance with Hera in tow. Just as they were getting close to the entrance of the tower, Alex stopped and turned to Hera, taking a small chocolate mint from her pocket, "Here. Eat one of these."
"Right, I completely forgot about the mints," Hera picked the mint from Alex's hand and used her [Inspect].
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No Hotel Chocolate Mint
Allows you to breathe underwater while inside room 341568G. If taken outside the No Hotel, it will have a random temporary beneficial effect.
Effect when outside the No Hotel: Increases stamina recovery by 50% for 10 minutes.
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"This will help a lot," Hera nodded.
"Yeah. I got two of these, and both had the same effect, but don't eat now. Wait until we are in the hotel and grab our stuff," Alex turned back to the entrant of the tower, "Ready?"
Hera nodded as the two of them got closer to the exit. The People horse by the door asked them what they were doing and when they told him they needed to go to the hotel, no one said anything else aside from 'be careful' and 'don't attract attention.' Looking towards the rest of the room Hera could see that by the entrance of this tower, there was a large crab monster, or at least the body of one. Apparently, they had just killed it after 10 minutes of fighting and were counting their blessings as no other creature seemed to be coming towards this tower.
Hera activated her [Memory Elemental Armor] and her [Hide] while Alex started her [Stealth] skill before heading outside of the tower. After stepping over the corpse of a giant crab, they could both see that the city was a mess. There were large plumes of smoke coming from several buildings. Parts of it seemed to have collapsed, and something was moving in the streets. Something very big. In front of the other towers, there were also monsters trying to attack those taking shelter inside. It was a shame that the entrances of the towers had actual doors leading towards the city. After this, it was very likely that that would change. There wasn't a doubt in Hera's mind that the guild would decide to build some reinforced gates on every single tower. Of course, for that to happen, there still had to be a city to protect. And by the looks of it, that wasn't a sure thing anymore.
"Let's take the third street on the right. It's the smallest one, and we can avoid the big monsters there," Alex's voice came through the communicator.
"Good idea. It can also be safer there if buildings start to collapse since they can support each other," Hera replied and started running. She couldn't see Alex, and she was afraid of using her sensory net and lure monsters toward them, but she believed that the assassin would be close by.
Before they even reached the city proper, another monster appeared and started heading to the tower they had just left. It was a 3 headed lion with bramble for its main, framing the light green fur and a tail with a white rose on its tip.
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Asesherm - Tyrant of the Jungle - Level ??? - Frenzied (Wood affinity)
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Seeing the level, Hera felt a chill going down her spine. She had done some tests inside one of the training rooms and knew her [Observe] could identify creatures up to level 56. This meant that whatever was going to the tower was beyond that, and, to make matters worse, it had a title. Creatures inside the maze would only get a title when the system recognized it as something beyond what the room they lived in had to offer. For a moment, Hera Thought about stopping and going back to help Helena, Bonnie, and Blue. However, doing so would only put her in danger. Not to mention, her friends were smart. If push came to shove, it was likely that they would be able to hide somewhere. No one was better equipped to hide from high-level creatures than Helena. And this wasn't simply a baseless claim. She had done it against monsters that should be much stronger than those attacking the city. Focusing again on the task at hand, she continued to run towards the small street that Alex had pointed to. They arrived at the alley without any issues and started moving through the city, heading towards the hotel Alex and the others were staying at.
Because of the way they moved, the roaming monsters didn't notice the explorers who were making their way through the city, but they weren't the only ones watching. A battle raged in the outskirts, between the buildings and the towers. A group of 5 explorers attempted to subdue a centaur who could not just defend against the attackers but push them back. Even worse, it was clear that the centaur's objective was not to fight the explorers but to destroy the city and kill as many people as she could. While still being attacked by the explorers, the centaur noticed the two weak humans trying to sneak by the city, and she wasn't about to let two weak prey flee. She slashed the air with her sword, cutting a spell aimed at her torso, and the shock wave was strong enough to reach one of the buildings right above Alex and Hera.
With a loud bang, the structure broke apart, and solid pieces of rock started falling on the side street that the two friends were using to hide from the monsters. They managed to avoid the first few pieces of debris but more and more started to fall, almost as if the entire building was coming down. Hera tried to use her Stonewall to create a barrier, but the structure that was above them was too heavy, and her spell was quickly destroyed, only adding more rock to their path. Everything was falling too fast for them to leave. Or at least for one of them.
"Alex, go! Get out of here!" Hera yelled to the assassin, who was just a meter in front of her.
"But…" Alex looked at Hera.
"No buts, go!" Hera yelled again.
Alex clenched her fist and used her wind chaser spell to get out from beneath the crumbling building. Hera swapped her elemental armor to rock in hopes that, along with a bunker made out of stone, she would be able to survive having a building crash on top of her. She was about to call her court and do her best quick bunker when a man jumped from the corner. He waved his hand in the air, and large pieces of stone and concrete that were falling became much smaller and were pulled to his hand. The entire building was now gone. There weren't even any rocks on the ground.
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You have been observed
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"The fuck are you doing here? Are you stupid? Go hide somewhere. This is no place for you," the man yelled before dashing towards the main street. As soon as he got a visual of the centaur, he tossed the small figurine of a collapsed building toward her.
The figurine flew through the air, and, in the middle of its course, it returned to its full size but kept the same momentum as it had in its smaller form. For the first time, the centaur seemed distraught, and she had to run to evade the attack, but the other explorers didn't let her. They used their skills and spells to hold the person responsible for all of this in place and allow the building to crash on top of her. The impact made the ground rumble, and even the monsters seemed to take a moment to see what was going on. However, that wasn't enough. With a battle cry, the centaur emerged from the rubble, glowing tattoos covering both her arms and torso.
"These petty tricks won't stop me! You will bleed to atone for your sins!" the centaur yelled as she stopped trying to kill the stragglers and focused her attention on the now six explorers attacking her.
Hera and Alex didn't see that happening. By the time the collapsed building returned to its full size, they were already running toward the hotel.
"I'm sorry!" Alex gasped as they ran, tears forming in her eyes.
"I'm fine, and shit happens. Let's just go grab our stuff. The hotel is right over there," Hera pointed to a building that was still standing up even if it had some missing pieces.