A special panel of five game-moderators chosen as hosts and commentators for the Grand Tournament suddenly appeared on a large display, announcing the official opening of the tournament and the start of its first official event: the Grand Melee and Magic Brawl, as it was now being called even by them. Their names, from left to right, were Forseti, Athena, Lumpstein, Wandreada, and Ricklelopes.
“We would like to thank all of our fellow GMs and of course the many, many players who have come out for this first major tournament event!” Wandreada, who looked like she might play some sort of witch-type character, announced with a smile as she and her fellow commentators, along with an arena full of spectators, clapped or cheered in appreciation. “And now, without further ado -- Lumpstein, if you will!” she then said, throwing the spotlight to the Santa-looking Dwarf GM in the middle.
“Players!” he began in a gruff but friendly voice. “You've spent the last week fighting each other in the preliminaries... but now it's time! You who now stand at the top of the lists, as well as several betting pools,” he added, earning a chuckle from the crowd, “How will you fare against players who have climbed to the same heights as you have? Hold your answers, please! For we will let such a question be answered by...!” he continued with a sly grin, and his fellow commentators then joined with him in announcing it:
“The Abyssal Labyrinth!” they said as one, and a large rectangular cube began to materialize over the main arena.
That was as simple a description of it as anyone ever agreed on after the fact. Besides the fact that it was a mad labyrinth of quagmires and death-traps with psychedelic Escher-style motifs running through the whole thing. Beyond that it was simply too ridiculous looking to describe as a whole, being assembled with various aesthetic and architectural designs no doubt meant to bewilder us once we were inside: and that was just what we could see from the outside. The interior was, doubtless, a thousand times more convoluted.
To give you a sample: on the corner now facing us, I could see elements of a Gothic Cathedral, a steampunk laboratory, and a jungle with large, ferocious looking primates. Oh, there was also a waterfall streaming out of that side at high velocity, no doubt the final destination of a trap meant to throw players out. And I swear I could see clouds of smoke billowing up from another side.
“Th-this is gonna be intense...” Maryn said with a bemused grin.
“The rules are simple,” Forseti, who was a giant even for a Nordian, began. “Survive, by any means necessary, until the event is over.”
“No doubt many of you will fall prey to the monsters, traps, or puzzles inside,” Athena then remarked. She was, obviously, Thessalian. “But do your best!”
“And don't think twice!” Lumpstein winked.
“And now,” Wandreada picked up again, “Ladies, gentlemen, magical beasts and mythical creatures all, join us for the countdown!”
Ten!
Nine!
Eight!
Seven!
Six!
Five!
Four!
Three!!
Two!!
ONE!!!
Another sound of trumpets and horns went off to riotous applause, and then the three-thousand or so of us who had won the preliminary rounds were teleported into the the Abyssal Labyrinth for our final entry challenge.
***
“Nyah??” I said as I looked around. Lysandra was the only one with me.
“Huh??” she seemed just as surprised.
“Post-script! Players in groups will be separated -- mostly! Good luck finding your teammates again!” Lumpstein's voice then announced, cackling with amusement.
“Why that dirty, rotten Santa knockoff...” I grumbled.
“Coal for you.” the werewolf-girl quipped.
“Oh!” I said, and then brought up a map.
To my surprise, the map worked. What was not surprising was the fact that it only showed the immediate area so far. But the best part was that I could see four other dots, our absent group members. Like us, they had been separated into twos. One pair then took off, probably heading as straight for one of the other groups as they could.
“Handy.” Lysandra nodded. “But screw the map, hon. I know your friends' scents.”
“Oh, that's true,” I recalled, but held on to the map a moment longer, thinking about it. “That pair is definitely Ariana and Belle. Maryn and Anhe are more deliberate.” I noted.
“I agree,” my new partner-in-arms nodded. “Oh, they're now on the move, too... but more slowly, of course.”
“Ari and Belle can incapacitate or trap anyone that gets in their way; but those two will have a fight of it even with Anhe's battle auras and stuff. All right, I'm done, let's go!” I said as I clicked the map away, and we set off at a steady jog down a corridor to our left.
This was one of the steampunk corridors, with broken pipes exuding weird smoke and chemicals, lots of metallic design, haywire automatons patrolling the area, and of course lots of traps. I kept my bow out to take down enemies from range, and Lysandra took out her blade, which I now noticed was not exactly a katana but not exactly another kind of sword either. If a katana was more like a saber, that would be the kind of sword she had, a single-edge medium blade that was only slightly curved, a strong grip on its ornate handle, with no crossguard on the hilt.
“In the game lore, this is an Elven blade,” she explained when I asked her about it during a brief lull. “I got lucky in a dungeon on the north side of Sylvanian Reaches. This is one of the twenty ultra-unique weapons in Harmonia.”
“Wow...” I remarked with awe.
“So far as I'm aware, none of the other nineteen have yet been found, though there's a lot of people who have the grand uniques.”
“Of which there's only a hundred.”
“Yep.” she nodded back as a swarm of automatons found us again. She let out a growl, and began slicing through them as I carefully picked my targets and let them have it. A few minutes later they were broken parts, as were a couple dozen others in the corridors behind us.
“Wait a sec,” I said, grabbing up some of the crystals that had been powering them.
“You know, that's a good idea,” Lysandra agreed, picking a few up herself before we set off again.
Seconds later we emerged from the winding corridors into an arctic zone. We fought our way through this carefully, nearly snowblind, and almost got caught by several unexpected traps--including a monster with an outrageous amount of health and ridiculous regeneration rate. The two of us finally managed to use some distraction skills and retreat, racing through the dizzying arctic valley to emerge in one of the infamous Escher halls.
All at once my brain tried to process the place too logically, and I swayed, ending up on the floor. Lysandra knelt down and put a hand on my back.
“Don't think about it too much.” she said gently.
“Ugh.” I remarked, looking down at the floor and idly pulling up the map. The dots representing our friends had merged. They had been closer together than I had thought. But they were still a ways from us.
“Can you believe we've barely explored three-percent of this place so far?” the older girl suddenly remarked as she looked at the map.
“In this game? I believe it.” I replied.
I then looked up again. To my consternation, and to Lysandra's as well, it seemed, the room was slowly spinning. It was already crazy enough without that!! I griped internally.
“Oy...!!” my companion grimaced.
She then picked me up off the floor (much to my surprise once more), stood to her feet, and booked it across this section of the labyrinth. Several floating spells or creatures started to swarm and come after us. Lysandra seemed to avoid them all by pure instinct, leaping from foothold to foothold at times with all the grace and agility of -- well, a wolf. We entered another corridor of steampunk design, where she set me down and caught her breath.
“Rats!” she said, drawing out her sword. The things that had begun chasing us were still chasing us. Something then caught my eye on the wall; there was a slot. I took out one of the crystals from my inventory and placed it there. A force-shield came up, and our enemies were thwarted. Lysandra looked over at me with amazement.
“Don't think twice.” I shrugged, repeating Lumpstein's words as I turned to head down the hall.
“R-right,” she returned, keeping a hold of her sword as she followed after me.
After an hour of walking through the massive cuboid labyrinth, we had gone through several different kinds of zones, fought off several different kinds of monsters, and either evaded other players or tricked them into heading for a dangerous zone or trap. I brought up a panel that had been specially given to us for the event, the survivor list. Obviously I wasn't going to read through every last name, but it also showed you how many players were left.
“After one hour, one-thousand three-hundred and nineteen players have been eliminated.” I read aloud, and Lysandra whistled.
“Nice.” she remarked. The two of us had been hiding out in a jungle cave to take a break. I was sure a trap of some sort was going to go off sooner or later, but for now it was a convenient spot. She then sniffed the air. “I don't like that smell. Time for a new spot.” she said, and the two of us got up to head elsewhere.
“I bet we run into a Maneater Flower...” I softly grumbled.
“Oh definitely. Or a Poison-cup Bloom.” Lysandra agreed.
“Yeek.”
“There's already an infinite number of ways to get killed in this game, and you can bet they packed every last one of them into this particular event.”
“Hasn't stopped me yet.”
“Oh right, none of you have died... at least since you formed your guild,” the older girl recalled. “And riding into Harmonia City on a dragon!” she grinned with amusement.
“It seemed like the only way at the time...” I returned bemusedly.
“I'm sure it--” she began, then broke off as she caught a scent.
“Hm?” I asked her.
“Quick, this way!” she said urgently, and we took off through the jungle, narrowly avoiding several dangerous plants before escaping the jungle into a steampunk Escher zone, complete with magical orbs that flew around shooting beams or bolts at anything moving that wasn't another magical orb.
“Yipes!” I exclaimed.
“Get ready to jump on my back!” Lysandra then said. She then shifted to her werewolf self, and I hopped on at once. She galloped through the place, confidently picking turns at every junction until she got to a dead-end drop-off.
You know, the kind of hallway that terminates at a seemingly endless large chute. But she headed straight for the edge of it, and jumped down. I have no idea how I kept from screaming, but I did, though later Lysandra told me I was making some sort of noise. But anyway. To my understated relief, we did not go splat and die. Instead, she managed to catch hold of a strong vine at the last second, swinging around, and then expertly rolling me off of her shoulders so that I did a somersault in the air to land on my feet like a cat -- right in front of Ariana. Who was with the others. Battling a giant gorilla monster.
“L-lana!!” she said with relief.
“Good timing!” Maryn said as Lysandra rushed past us to do battle with the monster. Maryn gave it a bash for good measure, and while it reeled our werewolf ally tore at its throat and then knocked its head clean off, destroying the beast. She then shifted back to a human form, and calmly readjusted her clothes to cover herself.
Meanwhile, Ariana wrapped me in a big hug, as did Anhe. We all sighed in relief, and then scurried off to a quiet corner of the labyrinth to plan our next moves.
“You probably had that thing, but it seemed a convenient excuse to meet up.” Lysandra shrugged.
“Maybe, but I'm glad you did show up.” Maryn returned.
“Ari has some amazing DPS, but that thing was stupidly resistant to magic, even my debuffs!” Belle remarked indignantly as she took roost on my shoulder.
“So physical damage was the key for that thing, huh,” the college-age girl noted.
“Apparently!” the pixie nodded back.
“Even my auras barely gave us an edge,” Anhe sighed.
“You all did good!” Ariana beamed.
“And now we're all back together again,” Maryn smiled.
“There's still nearly two-thousand players left, though,” I noted.
“And if they want to keep the events timely, they'll start shaking things up soon... who knows, they might do it literally,” Lysandra smirked.
“S-snap...”
“Shake this monstrosity of a cube?” Maryn wondered. “I guess I wouldn't put it--” she tried to say, but at that moment the massive labyrinth did indeed start to tilt. Fortunately we had gotten into an area that felt pirate-like, if anything, so there was plenty to hold onto.
“W-wh-why did you have to jinx it!!” I complained out loud.
“I hate being right!!” Lysandra quipped as she wrapped herself up in rigging. The tilting picked up momentum, and we shrieked at the sensation, shutting our eyes to block out some of the disorientation.
“I feel very bad for anyone in those Escher rooms right now!!” Anhe remarked.
“Right??” Belle agreed.
The cube then tilted and turned at roller-coaster speeds for several minutes before finally settling into its original position, by which time the six of us were exhausted. Even in this favorable spot it had been a chore to hang on. I pulled up that special panel again, and once my eyes and head stopped spinning I was able to zero in on the number of players left.
“A-as of now,” I stated, still dizzy, “Zere's... about... one-t'ousand... 'thousand and sisty-three... players...”
“S-sixty-three, Lana.” Ariana said with a gentle laugh.
“Zah's what I said...” I groaned, slowly trying to sit up.
“No amusement park dates in your love-life, huh?” Lysandra quipped as she untangled herself from the mass of ropes. “Grrrgh! I did this way too well. I hope everyone else is recovering just as well as we are!” she grumbled.
I fell back upon the ground, and then Belle, who had been the least affected, began casting her magic on us. In a few seconds we felt like ourselves again, and gratefully thanked our little comrade, who beamed with pleasure. We then helped Lysandra out of her predicament, and after recovering ourselves a moment more we moved on.
“Woof,” our werewolf girl remarked as we entered a desert area with winding canyons and imposing mesas. Ari used her Mystic Vision skill to scout it a bit; we found giant scorpion monsters, possible rockslide traps, a definite nope-cavern that was probably home to some sort of raging beast, and a couple of rivers teeming with dangerous reptiles.
“Hahh... they keep it interesting,” Maryn sighed.
“We can avoid these, more or less... it's what we can't see that concerns me, and I know Shadow Vision doesn't work here from earlier.” I said.
“When in doubt, everything is a trap!” Belle nodded wisely.
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“Oh definitely.” I agreed.
“Especially that rope-bridge we saw.” Anhe remarked.
“Total trap there.” Lysandra nodded.
“Get to the middle of it and boom, crocodile boss.” I frowned.
“Let's get going before they pull another whirly-gig stunt.” the older girl then said, and with that we started off.
“Hey! It's the Silvernight Queens!” an unfamiliar voice said from behind.
Uh-oh. I looked back; there were at least twenty-five players, maybe more.
“Quick! Get them!!” another one shouted.
“Snap!!” I shouted, throwing down a smoke bomb. It provided just enough time for Lysandra to use her wolf summon, and then we scampered away.
“Left!” Ari said in as loud a whisper as she dared, casting a wind spell to erase our footprints.
“They might have a mage that can use Mystic Vision too, you know!” Lysandra warned.
“Looked like a party of meatheads and muscle-brains to me,” I replied as we jumped and ducked through a pile of deadwood. “That way!” I then said, pointing to a rickety ladder that led up to the top of a cliff.
“Hope it's not a dead end!” Maryn remarked with concern.
“I'll fly up and see!” Belle told us, zooming off as we began ascending the ladder. She came back to hover near my face a few moments later. “There's some sort of door up there, we can probably get inside before they see us!”
“Did you see them? Are they following?” I asked her.
“I think only a couple of them were heading the right direction so far, but let's not hang around!” she said.
“Gotcha!” I nodded back as I scurried up the last few rungs and then army-crawled after our pixie ally, who led us straight to the door.
It was a simple wooden door, the kind that opened upwards courtesy of an iron ring. I opened it without much resistance; a musty and dank smell wafted out. I grimaced, but quickly noted an iron ladder descending down a narrow shaft. Without hesitation I began descending it, Belle staying by my side as a partial vanguard while the others quickly followed me down. The pixie girl flew down to the bottom, and came back up with a sigh of relief.
“No traps so far!” she told us.
“Great!” I said, and then practically slid down the rest of the way. The others came down just as swiftly, Lysandra arriving last.
“I got the door shut again. There were only the two that I could scent, but they'll probably figure out where we went, even though I wrecked the ladder,” she said with a wry smirk.
“Niiice.” Ariana grinned back.
“In the meantime, let's figure this--oohh...!” I began, suddenly noting that, while there were no traps, there was quite a lot that could be used to make traps. “I get it now,” I said with a delighted grin.
“Ooh, definitely,” my Wood Elf partner agreed, picking up on my thoughts as quickly as usual. “What kind of trap should we make first?” she smiled mischievously.
***
So we used everything. And I mean everything. First we booby-trapped the shaft with the ladder, as well as the bottom of it, with spikes, poison-smoke bombs, and grease. Then we wrecked the light fixtures so that they couldn't see anything. And then we continued down the maze of corridors, setting up all sorts of devious devices and pitfalls to hinder or eliminate our competition. My favorite were the horizontal guillotine traps we set up. Oh, but the slip-and-slide of death we fashioned with grease, explosives, and several sharp objects including a pile of broken glass bottles that we smashed up--before we set up the explosives, I should say--was also a favorite.
“We could have left the lights alone, maybe.” Maryn remarked bemusedly. At that moment a chorus of screams, shrieks, and wails came to our ears.
“Eh. Nope.” I then said.
“Pffft!” Lysandra quietly guffawed.
Over the next twenty minutes, that miniature horde of players came swarming in to try and smoke us out, only to receive the reverse uno-card that was our carefully constructed mini-maze of death. At the end of that horrible yet oh-so amusing spectacle, the last of the players came stumbling towards us through the final corridor.
“Heh... heh-hh-heh... found yous... now I got yas!” he said in a dazed tone, clearly not thinking too straight.
“Maybe we should have lightened up on the gas and chemicals for that one corridor...” Ariana said with a faint giggle.
“You sure about that, friend?” I replied to the man with a smug grin as he continued, suddenly slipping and falling down hard on one of the explosives. He went up with a squawking shriek, and with that the torrent of adversaries ceased.
“Well that was fun. What's next?” Lysandra quipped.
We found a back door to the place we had used as a death trap a couple minutes later, emerging once more in the desert. Our aimless journey now resumed across the deadly expanse of canyons and sand. We had a couple of fights with the local wildlife, but other than that we managed to avoid any huge traps. After the desert we found ourselves in a forest of oak and pine, where the dangers were more subtle. Oh, you know, the usual: angry wolves, attacking trees, malicious roots that try to squeeze you in two, blood-sucking bats, malevolent sprites, and so on. Just your typical fantasy forest à la maze-mode.
In the middle of it we found this cozy looking cottage, complete with a garden on one side and smoke coming out of the chimney. We headed on inside thinking it might be one of the very few safe hideaways in the entire maze, but wouldn't you know there were occupants inside? Four skeletal warriors, one of them with a bow, and a decayed corpse of the elite variety. The skeletons were no problem. The elite, however, released a poisonous gas cloud when it died, forcing us out of the little cottage and back into the woods, where we got into a scuffle with another group of players who set upon us before we finally beat them and continued on our way.
“Now where to?” Ariana wondered as we softly scurried along.
“Any ideas would be welcome,” I said. Belle, perched on my shoulder again, brought up the special event panel.
“Player numbers are in the low eight-hundreds now, but the drop rate is declining. That twisting and turning earlier probably ended up mashing a bunch of groups or solos in the same space.” she remarked.
“So we had a spike in combat right after the labyrinth shook. And now everyone's probably scrambling about or sneaking around to find targets again,” Maryn noted.
“Most likely,” Lysandra agreed.
“I wonder if -- yeek!!” I suddenly exclaimed, jumping back. Before us was a huge, mist-covered bog.
“Ooh...” our shield-user frowned.
“Hmm... I can probably keep us alive here... I've spent a lot of time in places like the Marshes of the Wyrd and the Bogs of Inyan, along with a few other bog-like areas.” Lysandra told us, gazing at the place thoughtfully.
We could hear the sounds of frogs and crickets, as well as that of several kinds of birds (mostly owls, I think), and I heard the low, rumbling growl of some hungry predator. Lysandra definitely heard it, for her eyes started gleaming and she sniffed the air.
“What was it?” Ariana whispered to her softly.
“Some sort of reptile,” she returned just as quietly. “Get a couple red-lanterns out if you can, and stay close to me,” the she-werewolf then said, and we let her take the lead. Belle used one of her pixie-powers to give off a red glow, and Ari summoned a magical red hover-light while Anhe took out one of the lanterns she had gotten from the Halloween quests.
Slowly we made our way through the place, creeping along the driest paths possible to get through it. From what I could tell, this was going to be one of the more challenging mini-mazes in the whole place. The dry paths functioned as the “paths”, while the “walls” were the bog itself, which was probably filled with all sorts of deadly monsters. And I was guessing there would be some sort of sinking sand or tar pit around.
As we delved further in, I could see will-o-wisps and other bog-lights floating around, most of them of a white coloration but some had faint tinges of blue or yellow. I could see Lysandra frowning. It was quite possible we were going in circles, but I wasn't going to complain about it. Most likely a lot of other players would turn back from this part of the labyrinths, which gave us some breathing room from them. Once or twice someone slipped into the water, but the rest of us were always able to quickly haul them out without incident. Ari almost had a panic attack when we fished her out, swearing up and down that something had gotten under her armor. She was relieved--and thoroughly embarrassed--after divesting herself to find it was just a fish.
About forty minutes passed by like this, and then our guide led us towards a gnarled old pine tree that we saw rising out of the mists. By now we were mostly soaked, and the temperature of the bog had been steadily increasing as well. It wasn't too uncomfortable, but it was getting to that point. We sat down next to a log with questionable-looking fungi nearly covering it, and this time Lysandra brought up the panel. She gazed at it for several long moments, and then brushed it away with a sigh.
“Six-hundred and thirty-seven players left.” she remarked.
“Almost to the goal, then,” Ariana said.
“Now it's probably gonna get to that point, and they'll have to shake us up again.” I noted, and the werewolf-girl nodded back at me.
“Oh definitely.” she agreed.
“Hmm?” Ariana wondered.
“Sometimes in events like these, when it gets close to the end of the event, a lot of players try to batten down and wait things out, hoping other players knock each other out of the running so they don't have to do any more.” I told her.
“Hmm... it's not a terrible idea, but...” she returned, trailing off with a frown.
“Exactly. That kind of thing worked in older games, but in this one I doubt it'll go over so smoothly.” Lysandra nodded. “Sorry, but it is getting seriously hot in here.” she then said, slipping her bandeau down.
“Agree.” Maryn nodded, starting to take off her breastplate, but at that moment the ground vibrated. We all tensed up. Lysandra quickly covered herself again and Maryn refastened the strap she had undone. Nothing further seemed to be happening.
“Grrgh, psyching us out...” the college-girl grumbled, starting to get comfortable again. But at that moment something sprang out of the bogs and we jumped to our feet, except Belle, who was still on my shoulder.
“W-w-w-what is it?!” she cried out anxiously.
Before us, grinning at us with a devilish delight, was a massive bog-monster. It had crocodile-like claws, the face of a toad and torso of a wood-tree demon, a horrible mismatch of jagged teeth, it was covered in and crowned with bogweeds, the eyes were a malevolent orange-yellow, and it had to be at least four meters in height. Two stocky legs like tyrannosaur legs ended in wickedly clawed feet with seven toes, and as the water continued to drip off of it the thing let out a sinister chuckle and then a heart-stopping cry that was something between a grating shriek and domineering howl.
I felt my knees buckle, and I slipped to the ground, as did Ariana beside me. Maryn rushed to the forefront, sword and shield raised, and Anhe came quickly to her side. Lysandra looked dazed for a moment but swiftly drew out her blade, and then Belle cast some of her spells on us.
“Come on, girls!! You made it through that Xuanpu world boss, you can get past a dirty old bog monster!!” she squeaked out encouragingly.
“Hahh!!” Anhe cried out, activating one of her battle-auras. I stood up to my feet and helped Ari to hers, inwardly berating myself and smiling at Belle, who smiled back and gave us both a kiss on the cheek.
“Let's do this!” she then said.
“I'm ready!” Ariana returned, gripping her staff with renewed determination.
“Still...” I said, looking towards the slowly oncoming monster with a bewildered expression.
“What in the never-ending heck is this piece of--” Lysandra started to say, but then it stomped on the ground, and a mini-quake almost toppled us on our backsides.
“Yikes!” Maryn exclaimed as she quickly regained her stance.
“I swear, if this is some unbeatable dev-prank, I'm gonna let them have it on the forums as long as I live!!” the werewolf-girl said angrily, and with that, she, Maryn, and Anhe charged, while the rest of us backed them up.
However confusingly amalgamated the thing was, it seemed like the best attack would involve fire. Anhe's current battle-aura did in fact include a reflect of fire-damage. So Ari used her flame and lightning spells while I used fire arrows, and Belle darted between us and the melee group to support us or to debuff the monster, which was apparently a rare champion elite named The Dark Soul of the Bogs.
There was nothing terribly complicated about the fight; every couple of minutes it would let out that unearthly scream to try and rattle us, or it would stomp down for a mini-quake, and several times it would summon up swarms of stinging bugs or even poisonous toads, but other than that it was a fairly straightforward fight.
When it got below fifty-percent health, it started doing these things more frequently, but that only made Lysandra take to her werewolf self in a fit of anger, whereupon she wailed on and tore at that tree like one possessed. I actually stopped shooting arrows just to watch the spectacle. As it reached twenty-five percent it tried to unleash a new skill, but Lysandra noticed it at once and then lunged for the thing's throat, cutting off the induction. It still had enough gusto to knock back Maryn and Anhe, but it could not shake off the angry werewolf.
Seeing an opening, I activated my critical damage and booster skills, and queued up a Doom Shot. I let it fly, and it struck the thing square in the chest, doing at leas as much damage as I had hoped it would. Ariana then followed me up with several jolting attacks on it, and Dark Soul staggered to the ground, whereupon Lysandra managed to activate one of her automatic kills: ripping off the creature's head. She then batted the headless torso back into the bogs after it, and shifted back to human form.
“Yeek.” Ariana grimaced.
“Nice.” I remarked.
“All right, that's taken care--” our werewolf ally started to say as she finished adjusting her pants and began pulling her bandeau back into place, but at that exact moment--sure, it may be obvious to you, perhaps even cliché or predictable, but it happened anyway--they did it again. They began spinning and turning the labyrinth for a second time.
Belle caught on to Ariana, who wrapped herself around one of the still sturdy pine tree's branches, and Maryn grabbed Anhe, plunging her sword into the trunk of the tree. Like a cat, I jumped into the branches nearby, and Lysandra followed me up, the both of us wrapping ourselves around the branch we had caught onto and hoping that it would keep hold of us. After a couple of minutes, the turning stopped; we were now completely upside-down. Why the water or anything else in the bog wasn't spilling upwards was beyond me.
“Th-they stopped it...?” I wondered suspiciously.
“Oh no. They wouldn't.” Maryn suddenly looked frightened, redoubling her grip on the sword and holding Anhe tightly against her.
“M-Maryn, this is close!!” the younger girl said in slight embarrassment.
“I'll apologize later all you want, but right now--” the other girl began, only to be interrupted by what happened next. The giant labyrinth began shaking, as if some giant hand had wrapped around it and the whole thing was a massive salt or pepper shaker.
We screamed. Even Lysandra, who was generally composed in any situation, let out a shriek, but that was only because she got shaken off. Faster than lightning I grabbed her hand, and she quickly reached out with her other to clasp onto me as tightly as she could while the thing shook. I looked out of the corner of my eye to ensure that the others were still okay; Ariana was using one of her spells to keep herself, Maryn, and Anhe rooted to the tree, while Belle, who could fly, wasn't in any real danger. The problem was the two of us on the other branch.
“Lana!! Lysandra!!” Ariana cried out as I turned back to our werewolf ally.
She had regained most of her composure as soon as she had a firm grip on my arm. Both of us were still visibly anxious as the shaking continued, our eyes locked together. I tried to pull her back up, but the shaking was too much.
“Just keep hold of me!” I grunted out. She nodded back. And then we heard the noise. It was the sound of a tree branch starting to break. My eyes widened, and Lysandra nervously turned her head to look at the branch.
“Oh... God...!!” she swore with a shiver that even I felt.
“Oh dear!” I heard Belle's voice cry. A second cracking sound was heard. Still the shaking continued.
“Not... like... this!!” Lysandra shouted at the top of her lungs.
I was in complete agreement with her, mentally. I wasn't gonna chance losing my focus and my grip on her by ranting myself. Then the shaking stopped. But we were still upside-down. And the branch was now closer to breaking off.
I then dared to look past Lysandra for a moment. It should have struck me earlier, but there was a decent chance that we were on a lower level of the labyrinth and that we wouldn't actually fall out. But that brief glance told me everything I didn't want to know. I could see the crowds in the stadiums, anxiously watching and awaiting the final results. We had somehow gotten to the top floor of the labyrinth.
“Oh boy...” Ariana remarked as she looked as well.
At that moment, I heard the creaking of the branch, the kind of long and slow creaking sound that generally precedes the final crack whereupon the branch is then loosed from its tree to fall off. My heart began racing.
“P-panel!” Maryn said to Anhe, who blinked and then hurriedly opened it.
“Where--ah!! there!” the younger girl exclaimed. “Five-hundred and fifteen -- ah! One more down! Five-hundred and fourteen!” she read.
Five-hundred and fourteen. Two away from their goal. The creaking sound got audibly louder, and it started making that sort of stuttering noise that usually occurs right before the--
Crrrrrr--rrrackk!!
I suddenly felt weightless, and a touch numb. Both Lysandra and I gazed at each other in horror. But before either of us could scream, someone grabbed hold of us and kept us afloat in the air. Belle!! I almost fainted in relief. The pixie-girl had used her temporary growth skill to rescue us. But her strength stat was probably not enough to hold on to us for long.
“Maybe... twenty... seconds!” she warned us as we grabbed on to her.
“Five-hundred and thirteen!” Anhe announced with excitement.
Come on! Come on, come on, come on -- somebody else, hurry up and fall out of this dang thing!!
The seconds passed by in agonizing slowness. I could see Belle straining to hold on to us. She gave us both an apologetic glance; I smiled back, shaking my head gently. Then something else happened. The sound of a massive gong rang out, and a new fanfare played.
“Congratulations, players! You who yet remain inside the labyrinth have now passed the final trial! Welcome to the Grand Tournament!” the voice of Athena announced.
“W-w-we, we made it!” Anhe said in relief. A new spell then teleported us out of the labyrinth as the victorious fanfare continued, placing us, by our groups, apparently, into a chamber that was probably adjacent to or below the arena. We sighed in relief as we touched on solid ground at last. Then I looked over at Belle, and blushed.
“Wh-what is it?” the blue-haired pixie girl in normal size asked me.
“N-no-nothing... I just forgot you don't have normal sized clothes...” I returned with a wry smile.
“Oh! Right!” she said with a giggle, and then looked around. “Ack!!” she then cried out, curling up to cover herself.
“What's wrong?” Maryn asked her.
“My pixie dress is still in the labyrinth...”
***
Fortunately for Belle, there was a lost and found in the arena. As soon as Lysandra mentioned this, I scurried off to it at once with Belle cupped in my hands after she shrunk back to her normal size, and we found it waiting for her. She hastily equipped it while I kept her covered, and then she flew up to hug my face.
“Ohh, thank you...!!” she said in relief.
“No problem,” I smiled back.
“Luckily we're all girls or that would have been ten times worse,” she said as she returned to my shoulder. A brief crinkle came to my smile, which was smoothed back out as soon as the others caught up to us.
“Whew!” Maryn smiled in relief.
“Nothing worse than losing your clothes while having an adventure,” Lysandra remarked with a wry grin.
“H-have you lost that top many times, Lysandra?” Belle softly giggled back.
“I'll keep that to myself.” she winked. “Anyway; we made it, and from what I can see... all of our targets made it through as well, Lana,” she said to me.
“Nice.” I nodded back to her.
“Don't forget our wager, cutie. See you in the ring.” she said to me with another wink, coming over to kiss me and Ariana on the cheek, and then she left our party, heading out of the arena. I stood there with a semi-frazzled look on my face, and then Ari coughed next to me.
“'Don't forget our wager, cutie'?” she asked me with a faint grin and a stern look.
“She kissed you too, you know.” I returned with a soft indignance.
“Hmm... but it looks more intimate when she does it with you.” my partner told me.
“Does it?” I said with genuine curiosity, rubbing the back of my neck. That was enough to convince her there was no ulterior motive on my part, it seemed, for she took my arm and laid her head on my shoulder.
“I'm glad we all made it through so far.” she whispered softly, and I reached over to stroke her hair with my free hand.
“Me too, partner. Me too.” I whispered back.