“As unbelievable as it may sound,” Illuna says, ignoring Arraka, “the banshee trapped in this amulet is the one responsible for the exile of all the banshees to the earthen plane. The gods didn’t want to deal with her, so they banished her here, along with all her kind. Or so she claims.”
“I can see why they’d want her out of the magical plane,” the tiger says. “Even the gods would run out of patience when dealing with such idiocy.”
“Oh, yeah?” Arraka says. “Well, I’ll have you know that—”
She does not get to finish what she had to say, because Illuna snaps the amulet shut in the middle of her sentence.
“I’ve heard enough of this,” Illuna says. “We have more important matters to discuss right now.”
She then turns to me.
“Barry, do you and Leila have a means of returning to your cells?” Illuna says. “I think I should warn you that Fyron and I will be teleporting out of here as soon as we free the minotaur, so we won’t be there to escort you back.”
“No, we don’t have a means of returning to our cells,” I say. “The way we came is sealed shut and a hundred feet above the ground. We need to find another way back.”
“If you’re looking to reach the main corridors below the arena,” Fyron says, “there’s a secret tunnel that I can open for you, not far from where the minotaur is located. You might have to get past several traps, in order to reach your destination, however.”
“That’s… awful nice of you,” I say.
“Do not worry,” Illuna says, seeing the mistrust on my face. “Fyron is not foolish enough to risk his alliance with me for no other reason than to amuse himself. He is not Arraka. If he says that there’s a tunnel leading to the corridors below the arena, then he likely speaks the truth.”
“I see,” I say. “Well, in that case, thanks, I guess…”
“There’s no need to thank me, Barry,” Fyron says. “I never help people for free. There may come a time when I will be in need of your help as well. If that time ever comes, I’d rather have you owe me a favor, than the other way around. That’s all there is to it.”
“Fyron, is this the last tunnel before the labyrinth?” Illuna says.
“Yes,” Fyron says. “The tunnel’s exit should leave us very close to the maze’s entrance.”
“Wait, what maze?” I say.
“Do you know that old legend,” Fyron says, “in which the gods worked together to build an elaborate maze for the sole purpose of trapping the king of the minotaurs? Well, it seems that the owner of the arena liked the story so much that he decided to build his own underground labyrinth, as soon as he got hold of a minotaur. Unfortunately, I did not have a chance to visit these tunnels since the maze was created, so once we reach it, I won’t know my way around as well as I have so far.”
“I don’t think that will be a problem,” Illuna says, “since there will likely be no need to hide ourselves anymore, once we reach the maze. They will surely have caught on to our presence by then. I think we should be able to handle their guards by ourselves easily, but if worst comes to worst, I’ll wake up Flower as well.”
“I’m sorry, who is Flower?” Leila writes, confused.
“Flower is the little girl inhabiting this body,” Illuna says.
“You mean… she’s still alive?” Leila writes, shocked. “But, aren’t you a banshee? Didn’t you consume her soul when you took over her body?”
Illuna laughs.
“If only it would have been that easy,” she says. “Unfortunately, the two of us have been stuck together in this body for the past twenty years, and we’ll likely continue living like this for years to come. Our souls are fused.”
“I see…” Leila writes, simply.
She looks as if she’d still have some questions to ask, but ultimately she decides against it. As the tunnel’s exit draws closer, Illuna reopens Arraka’s amulet, and she asks her if she can spot any enemies nearby.
“Oh, so now you want me to talk?” Arraka says. “You’re not going to close the amulet in my face anymore? Well, what if I don’t want to talk? What do you say to that?”
“If you’re not planning to talk, then I have no further need of you,” Illuna says, as she starts to close back the amulet. “Have a good nap.”
“Wait, wait, wait!” Arraka says, just as Illuna was about to close the amulet completely. “Okay, fine! You win! There are some trolls much further down the next tunnel, but they’re not in viewing range of the maze’s entrance. The coast is clear.”
“That doesn’t sound right,” Illuna says. “They should have at least some guards at the entrance of the labyrinth. I’m much more inclined to believe that they’ve become aware of our presence, and that they deliberately emptied the next tunnel, in order to lure us into the maze.”
“That changes little,” Fyron says. “The only way to reach the minotaur is through the maze. If the trolls choose to stand in our way, then we’ll just have to make our way through them.”
Once we reach the next corridor, we make sure that the coast is indeed clear, and then we proceed to enter the maze. The walls inside the labyrinth look a bit different from all the rocky walls that we’ve seen in the caverns so far. They are black as coal, and they appear to be made from a different material.
Fyron, who seems to have spotted the difference as well, gets closer to one of the walls, and he looks at it curiously. He swipes the wall briefly with his index finger, and then he brings the finger closer to his face, studying the black powder that has accumulated on the tip of it attentively.
“Tell me, Arraka,” the goblin says, “are you sensing any trolls nearby?”
“What?” Arraka says. “No, I already told you that the coast is clear.”
“Are you sure?” Fyron asks.
“What kind of question is that?” Arraka says. “Of course I’m sure!”
“Oh?” Fyron says. “Then could you perhaps describe to me what lies beyond this black wall?”
“Yeah, hold on a sec,” Arraka says.
For about ten seconds, we all wait silently for Arraka’s answer.
“Well?” Fyron says. “Weren’t you going to describe to us what’s on the other side?”
“There’s… a bit of interference,” Arraka says. “I’m still working on it.”
“Oh, then by all means,” Fyron says, “do not let this old goblin’s ramblings interrupt you from your work. Please, take all the time you need.”
It takes thirty more seconds of silence until Illuna finally snaps.
“Good gods!” she shouts. “How long is it going to take you to admit the obvious? This wall is clearly made from a material that blocks magical sense. We can wait here all day, and you’re still not going to get through it. Are you really that stubborn?”
“Fine!” Arraka shouts. “I admit it! I can’t get through it. I have no idea what’s on the other side. Are you happy now?”
Fyron grins.
“Thank you, Arraka, I believe that will suffice,” he says. “As Illuna noted, this wall is made from a material that does not allow magical sense to pass through. This type of black rock is not uncommon in underground caves such as this, and it is called ‘seredium’. The owner of the arena must have chosen to build his labyrinth here specifically because of the existence of these rocks. There wouldn’t be much point in making a labyrinth if people could just use their magical sense to see through walls, now would there?”
The goblin pauses for a few seconds, and when he sees that nobody is planning to answer his rhetorical question, he decides to continue his train of thought.
“So…” he says. “Now that we know what we’re up against, I believe that our first priority should be the mapping of this maze. Arraka, I understand that you have the ability to generate holograms?”
“Yeah,” Arraka says. “But I can’t make a map of this place if my magical sense can’t pass through the walls.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Fyron says. �
��You can just draw the map as we walk. What’s important is that we don’t lose track of where we are. I will be marking the walls periodically, as we advance through the maze, for that same purpose.”
“Alright, then,” Arraka says. “Here goes.”
She then conjures a hologram similar to the one she made in the ogre stronghold, where we are represented by colored dots, and the map is covered by a black fog, except for the corridor that we are currently in. In the meantime, Fyron uses his staff to imprint a complex symbol on the wall to our right, in magical green ink.
“We’re good to go,” Fyron says. “Follow me.”
As we walk, the fog from Arraka’s map is beginning to clear, little by little, getting replaced by the parts of the maze that we already know, while Fyron is making sure that he leaves no wall unmarked.
“Aren’t you going to ask me what the complex symbol I’m marking the walls with means, Barry?” Fyron says, with a grin.
“No, thanks,” I say. “It’s not worth owing you another favor just to get an answer to that question.”
“You are learning fast!” Fyron says, and then he marks yet another wall with his green inked symbol.
We walk through the maze for about fifteen minutes without encountering any resistance. Along the way, we reach a few dead-ends, but Arraka marks them all on the map, so there would be no risk of running into them again. As we continue our journey through the maze, however, we eventually manage to run into a situation that we had not predicted.
Even though we’d been carefully following Arraka’s map the whole time, somehow we ended up in the middle of a corridor that had already been marked with Fyron’s green symbol. Dumbfounded, we all look at Arraka’s map, in an attempt to understand what we missed, while Fyron carefully inspects his symbol from the wall.
“How is this possible?” Illuna says. “I’ve been closely monitoring Arraka’s map while she was drawing it, and I am certain that it’s accurate. According to the map, this should be an unexplored area. Did the trolls manage to falsify the green symbol?”
“It’s not a copy,” Fyron says. “My mark cannot be so easily reproduced. And aside from that, I also recognize this corridor. I can tell you with a certainty that we’ve been here before. Although I’m not exactly sure how we—”
As he is talking, a certain rock formation in one of the walls catches his eye, and it makes him stop mid-sentence.
“Hmm…” he says, as he gets closer to the wall, and he taps it lightly with his staff.
“The goblin is not wrong,” we hear a voice coming from a darker part of the corridor.
As the one who just spoke gets closer to us, we see that he is a particularly bulky troll, wearing anti-magic armor from head to toe, and holding two scimitars in his hands. He is grinning triumphantly.
“You’ve been running in circles ever since you entered this maze,” the troll says. “I knew that you’d be coming back to this corridor, soon.”
“Psst,” I whisper to Illuna, while the troll is giving us his victory speech. “Why aren’t you killing him?”
“He is wearing anti-magic armor, and he has a helmet,” Illuna whispers back to me. “That means that I can’t make my water sharp against him, so I won’t be able to cut his head off with my water whips.”
“Yeah, but isn’t anti-magic armor basically just regular armor with some protections on it?” I whisper. “Can’t you have Flower burn him alive?”
“There is no anti-magic armor in existence without protection from fire,” Illuna whispers. “Casting fire magic on him would be pointless.”
While the two of us were whispering, hiding behind Leila and the tiger, the troll seemed to have finished his gloating, and was now preparing to attack.
“There is no way for you to escape,” the troll says. “Resign yourselves to your fate. Today is the last day of—”
Leila appears to have had enough, as she makes a dash towards the troll, shocking him with her speed, and slashing his head right off with her dagger in an instant. Instead of dropping to the ground, however, the troll’s body attacks her with the two scimitars, which Leila barely manages to avoid, by making a quick jump backwards.
“That’s not how you begin a battle, human,” the troll’s head says, from the ground. “Attacking an enemy out of the blue without giving them proper warning is a mark of cowardice. Did they not teach you proper gladiator etiquette when they brought you to the arena?”
His body then picks up his head from the ground, and it places it back on top of its neck. Within seconds, the head attaches itself back to its body, making it look as if there had never been a wound in the first place.
“A troll that doesn’t die even when you cut his head off?” Fyron says. “This is not what I signed up for. Illuna, use the cage spell.”
“I can only use that spell once per day,” Illuna says. “If I use it now—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Fyron says. “You won’t need to use it later. I have a plan. Cage him, now!”
Illuna frowns at him, but she does as he asked. She stretches her arm towards the troll, and out of nowhere, a golden cage appears around him, trapping him inside. It is the same spell that she used to trap us when we were at the ogre fort. The golden fox’s spell.
“Do you seriously think that a mere cage can stop me?” the troll says, as he begins slashing furiously at the cage’s golden bars.
“Yes, we do,” Fyron says, and he smacks his staff into the ground, generating a cloud of gray smoke that fills the entire corridor.
I then hear the sound of rocks moving to my right, and after that, I can see the outlines of my companions through the smoke, moving past me.
“Over here!” I hear Illuna’s voice, as she grabs me by the arm and pulls me towards her.
I follow her through the smoke, and we both enter a narrow passage, leading to the other side of one of the walls. Once we are all through, Fyron smacks his staff into the cave’s wall from the inside, and the hole in the wall closes itself back up. He then makes his way past us, to retake the lead, and he smacks his staff on the other end of the passage, opening another secret door, which leads us into an unexplored corridor, without any markings on the walls.
“That cage isn’t going to hold him for long,” Illuna says, as we all make our way out of the passage, and the secret door closes itself behind us. “Would you mind telling me what this plan of yours is?”
“He doesn’t need to be held for long,” Fyron says, “I very much doubt that he knows about the existence of that secret passage, so he’s not going to find us anytime soon. More importantly, I recognized that corridor from earlier, and I recognize this one as well. It seems that they’ve kept some of the old corridors, and included them in the labyrinth, when they built this place. If that’s the case, then I think I have a pretty good idea of where we are, and the minotaur’s cell should not be far from here. Follow me.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask,” I tell Illuna. “Wasn’t the golden cage from earlier one of the golden fox’s spells? How did you manage to learn it?”
“It’s not the fox’s spell,” Illuna says. “It is a complex spell that can only be used by beings that originate from the magical plane. I learned it from Arraka.”
“I see…” I say.
“Hah, I was wondering why I didn’t remember there being a wall on this side!” Fyron says.
As we turn to him, we see him walk straight through one of the walls, disappearing from our sights.
“Come over here!” Fyron shouts, from the other side. “The wall is an illusion. This is how they must have been fooling us for so long. If they’ve got illusions like this set up, then I wouldn’t put it past them to also have a spell cast on this place that messes with our sense of direction. That would explain why Arraka’s map didn’t help. It doesn’t matter, though. If my intuition is correct, we should be almost there.”
We all walk through the illusory wall, and we continue our journey towards the minotaur.
A few minutes later, when we are almost at our destination, we encounter a few more trolls, who are likely the ones that were chosen to guard the minotaur’s cell. The monsters barely get the time to react to our presence, before Illuna slices their heads off, with her signature water whip.
“Aren’t you going to burn the bodies?” I ask the goblin.
“I’m not wasting any more energy from my staff for something this trivial,” Fyron says. “If you want, you can hide the bodies yourself. Not that it would make much of a difference at this point.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I guess there wouldn’t be much point in hiding bodies if we’re almost at the end of the maze. Let’s keep going.”
We make our way towards the end of the corridor, where we find a single cell, with a magical panel on the wall beside it. Inside the cell, there is only one prisoner, with the head of a bull, and the body of a man, laying on the floor, with his back against the wall. The minotaur is taller than Daren, and he has twice the muscles. When he hears us arrive, he does not move an inch, and he doesn’t even turn his head to look at us.
“Who are you?” the minotaur asks.
“I guess I was right when I figured that they’d place you in the old paralysis cell,” Fyron says. “The maze’s only purpose was to keep the intruders out, not to keep you in.”
“Who are you?” the minotaur asks again.
“I am Fyron, the general of all free goblins in Varathia,” Fyron says. “I’ve come here to recruit you to join my army. What do you say?”
“A goblin army?” the minotaur says.
He laughs bitterly.
“I never thought I’d live to see the day,” the minotaur says, “when I would actually seriously consider an offer like this.”
“It’s not as bad as you might think,” Fyron says. “At the very least, in our goblin camp you should have access to more food than here, and you wouldn’t have to spend your days locked up in a paralysis cell. Or would you rather spend the rest of your life entertaining these humans?”
“This goblin army of yours…” the minotaur says. “Is it made only of goblins? Or have you also recruited other warriors such as myself to join it before?”
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