Soul Merger

The shell around the Old Tower Labyrinth was interesting. It was a dome of concrete and steel, obviously put together with magic. Inside was the stairs leading down, but instead of the guild tables and emergency equipment, the place was filled with chalkboards, seats and other items that made it look like a pre-Fall school. The place was guarded by a bunch of bored mages who likely were on punishment detail.

"Ah the old field trip feeling," Brian said while loosening his sword. "Shall we finish the first layer and head back up for a test?"

"That sounds good," Alissa replied.

Maria sniffed. "We could just kill everything."

"Not without supplies you won't," Clara replied. "We had enough trouble last time." The other members of Trevors party shot her an appreciative glance for being the voice of reason.

Alissa stretched her fingers. "We'll want to test our communications, as well as get a feel for how the labyrinth works. After that we'll know what to pack for the full delve."

"Do we have any information about what monsters are going to be on the other side of the portal?" Trevor asked.

"Unfortunately no," Fili said. "The tower looted most of the good items early on, and they haven't been willing to risk lives on repeated delves after."

"A problem for the future," Rosalina declared. "For now, let us deliver problems to the labyrinth below!"

Alissa followed Akari and Rosalina down the stairs. As she crossed the threshold the air seemed to change. Not just the smell and sound of the labyrinth, but something intangible. A weird hit of energy that seemed different than usual. "Anyone else feel that?"

She got several confused looks. "No," Akari said before shifting expressions. "Oh. Wow, that's a lot of magic floating around. No wonder you sniffed it out," Ibaraki corrected.

Fili nodded. "This labyrinth has nearly three times as much ambient magic as other labyrinths in the area. We think it's at a leyline point. Or maybe it's just built into the design. Still that's why the innate effects of the labyrinth are stronger than most."

They continued down the stairs until they arrived on a concrete walkway surrounded by about three feet of grass before the ground just cut out. Looking over the side Alissa couldn't see a bottom below. Just inky blackness. "Oh. Fun."

Kotori flapped her wings nervously. "The wind feels wrong above those pits. I don't wanna fly over them"

"It would be best to avoid that." Sally's voice crackled over the magic item they'd been given. "No one's survived flying over the open areas. Oh, and are you hearing me?"

"We hear you," Trevor replied. "I take it you can hear us?"

"Clearly for now," Sally replied. That was fairly impressive. Communication over distance was hard even before the strange space warping of Labyrinths came into play. Alissa hoped it'd keep up.

They carefully continued on until the path split. A sign reading "Occupancy limit 6 travelers per road" sat at the fork. There were no signs as to what made each path different.

"Kinda on the nose," Clara pointed out.

Fili shrugged. "The labyrinth's purpose seems to be to test people. It avoids ambiguity for the instructions, if not the questions."

"This is where we split up," Trevor said. "Let's contact each other after we finish the next challenge?"

"Sure," Alissa said. They needed to check the inter team communication anyway.

Continuing down the path their first challenge appeared. The road opened up to offer a large tent, bigger than some houses. The group carefully stepped aside to let her inspect the closed flap.

"Would there really be a trap on the first entryway?" Kotori asked.

Alissa looked over and saw the needles contained in the drawstrings to open up the tent. "Apparently yes." She got out some heavy gloves while inspecting the rest of the contraption. It seemed the needles were the only trick. It's possible they weren't even poisoned. Perhaps a painful lesson to those who approached the tasks too lightly.

Once her gloves were on she carefully opened the flap. Another curtain stood between them and the exit halfway through the room, but there didn't seem to be any more traps. "Okay."

Ibaraki strutted in, followed by Alissa and then the rest. "Monster room," Fili said, readying her staff.

The curtain dropped to reveal what appeared to be a single zombie. Alissa gripped her sword as it lumbered forwards. It couldn't be that easy right?

"Zombie like, no runes," Fili said into the magic communicator.

The creature lurched in but Ibaraki kicked it back a good three feet. "So can I just smash the thing already?" Alissa moved to the side, ready to intervene if it showed any dangerous tricks. Fortunately it mostly just stood back up and went to shambling.

The voice that came back over the receiver was softer than Sally's. Perhaps her tamed kyuubi? "Least Revenant is most likely. Will fight even if dismembered."

Fili brightened up. "Ah, of course! So we need to use fi-"

A heavy slam resounded through the room as Ibaraki crushed the creature flat with her club. It's relatively intact arms tried to pull it forwards to attack, but it'd be hard to catch anyone at that rate. "Ooh! It is tough. Suppose we will have to burn it. Anyway it's not moving much so have fun."

"So what do they call the Gordian Knot in the East?" Fili asked dryly as she set the ugly corpse on fire. Ibaraki just shrugged and took a drink.

"Probably what we should expect for the first layer," Clara said.

Rosalina smiled as she used a spell to freshen the air so they didn't have to smell roasting flesh. "No labyrinth would waste their best up top. I'm sure it will do its best. But there are rules. And this place seems quite dedicated to rules."

"That's an interesting point," Alissa mused. She idly tapped her sword against her leg as she thought. "If we assume there's some kind of rules here, it's possible they'll give us harder tests than normal, or at least more complex tests. But nothing that would threaten an experienced party actually paying attention."

"Labyrinth sentience is a very contested subject, even with high magic ones like this labyrinth," Fili said. She picked up the other communicator. "We've completed our room. How about you?"

"Do we need to kill the monster completely?" Trevor asked back. "Maria went a little wild so we're hunting down all the little bits."

Fili blinked a few times while Alissa shook her head. Dicing the monster into bits was a strategy she supposed. "Uh, it should be fine. Let's both head out."

"Why'd they get the same monster as us?" Kotori asked as they headed to the open rear tent flap.

"It's standard for the top layer," Fili replied. "Groups traveling in tandem get similar challenges." As Alissa stepped out into the open field behind the tent she noticed that Trevor and his band were exiting a similar tent onto the same field. "We also end up along the same route."

Kotori ruffled her feathers. "Kinda weird."

"We call it the general education route," Brian said as the groups met up again. "Since everyone gets the same training. Though the puzzles and traps won't have exactly the same answers. This will change starting at the second layer."

"Interesting. Well it means we can help each other after a battle," Alissa mused. That could come in handy if a fight went wrong. "Anyway we've confirmed the communicators work between us and the surface as well as between each other. Let's see if it keeps working as we go down."

The path split again leading to another tent. This time there was no trap, so Alissa entered to find a table with name tags wine glasses and entree lists stacked on top. "Oh no," Alissa muttered.

"Yep!" Fili confirmed. "Logic puzzle. Let's see we have four guests..."

The rest of the layer continued fairly easily. Alissa forced herself to stay alert, but if you were paying attention there was no real challenge. She had a feeling that would change when they did a real run. But first layers were generally simple.

"I can see why no one bothers with this labyrinth," Rosalina said as she worked on an annoying light puzzle. "We haven't gotten anything worth selling yet."

"If they charged to let people down here delvers would riot," Ibaraki agreed. "It's not even fun fights. Sure some of the stuff breaks nice, but most of them don't give you the satisfaction of a good kill."

Alissa snorted. "The perils of standardized education." She finished aligning the last mirror, and the bars preventing their exit dropped. "There. Shall we move on?"

"Yes. Next should be the stairs down, and the elevator up," Fili said.

Alissa followed Ibaraki out the back into the glade and time seemed to freeze. Her eyes snapped up to the four giant figures that were waiting for them. Grotesque two headed three armed monstrosities of stitched flesh.

"Look out," she yelled to the others before diving to the right.

She'd have to lure at least one away so Ibaraki wouldn't get overwhelmed. She threw her knife as she tumbled to her feet, the blade solidly landing in one creature's thigh. The blade sank in, but the enchantment didn't fire off. Worse, a bevy of centipedes leaked out of the wound. She didn't like the look of that.

The creature swung an oversized femur at her like a club and she had to slap it over her head. Her back was to the void. She needed more space.

A bolt of lightning smashed the creature's right head, and Alissa took the chance to circle around it. The brute recovered from the hit and swung at her again. This one she managed to dodge. Seeing an opening she decided to take a chance. "Dismissive Disarm."

Her blade lashed out at the waste of flesh and carved through its arm. Another stream of centipedes burst out, but she'd slipped away from the retaliatory strike. Then hissed as the left claws raked her arm. Maybe she should have let it keep the club.

The rustle of wings resounded as Kotori flew in. The harpy's talons latched into the remaining skull before the young woman ripped it off with a loud cry.

The monstrosity collapsed, but centipedes poured out of the severed head onto Kotori's legs. The harpy let out a surprised squawk and shook her legs to try to remove the biting insects.

Alissa looked up to see Fili blast one of the remaining monsters off into the black void. With Ibaraki stomping one while on fire and the other being cut to ribbons by Maria who was also on fire it seemed the battle was over.

That let her turn her attention back to Kotori. "Quick, land!" she called to the harpy as she ripped off her cloak.

The bird woman hesitated a moment before listening. Alissa felt a flicker of happiness that Kotori trusted her, but she quickly focused on the action. Her cloak trapped the bugs in a makeshift back down on the harpy's armored talons. A few bugs had gotten higher and her biting flesh. But she could easily grab and crush those.

She looked again then checked Kotori's face. "Did any more get out."

"No but the ones on my lower legs still feel creepy," the harpy moaned. "Is there a spell for that or something."

"Probably. Maybe alcohol?" Alissa considered the matter.

Fortunately Trevor stepped in. "Let me." He held his hand out and white flame flashed over her cloak. Shrill whistling that seemed almost like screams rang out as the holy fire snuffed the insects. Alissa hesitantly reached to help tamper down her cloak to make sure all the creatures were dead, but the flames seemed hot to her. So she waited for Trevor to finish the job.

"Ugh that was awful," Kotori moaned as the flames flickered out. "I suppose I owe you."

"And I owe you thanks for saving me," Alissa said. "I don't know if I could avoid those centipedes again myself." She looked up at Trevor. "Why'd the fire work on the bugs and not Kotori though."

"Because those things were unholy," Trevor replied. "And from what Brian said, not supposed to be here. I think someone left us a present."

Alissa took a deep breath. "Well. That might mean we're on the right track."

"Or someone really wants us dead," Trevor muttered.

"Oh goody," Kotori sighed.