Soul Merger

"I can't believe that asshole posted sentries at all of the places we were looking," Alissa muttered as she checked over her gear. Today was the day of the proper delve and they were prepared for a great deal of nonsense. The oddities of the labyrinth meant they could bring camping gear without too much worry of running into problems.

"It did add a few possible targets to the list," Fili said as she looked through her own supplies. "Do you see my can opener? I can't find it."

Alissa felt a smile cross her lips. "It's next to your cans. You put it there so you wouldn't forget where it is."

Fili blushed. "Oh." After a quick check she sighed. "Of course. Thanks."

"No problem." Alissa gave her girlfriend a pat on the back before finishing her own checklist. Everything seemed in order, so she turned her attention back to the others.

Everyone seemed like they were well prepared. Clara was carefully going over her arrows, but Alissa was pretty sure the woman had already confirmed she had more than enough last night. Her attention fell on where Trevor and Kotori were talking.

Kotori was facing the man and not bristling, which was a step up from their usual interactions. Now that she was focusing she could overhear their conversation. "You don't need to pretend to be her," Kotori said. "I know you have your own flock."

"Yeah. But I feel she's still worried about you." Trevor replied. "Harpies aren't solitary. I understand if you don't want to stay around me, but you should try to find someone to stick close to."

"I'll try." Kotori took that as a good place to leave. The bird was pretty prideful. Alissa wondered if that was normal teenager behavior. Not something she, or most of the people here, could say.

Instead she sidled over to where Clara was finishing her arrow count. "If you want to go smother Kotori now'd be a good time."

"Ah you noticed?" Clara grinned as she collected the bolts into the quiver. "Sure thing. I'll go make sure our little featherhead feels like she's got someone at her back. Or whatever the bird equivalent is."

As the tall woman moved to where Kotori was waiting Rosalina stepped up to the front of their groups. "Okay everyone! Are we ready for our little field trip? Everyone's got their deadly weapons, burning desire to exterminate demons, and a spare change of clothes?"

"Yes, Miss Saint," Alissa replied sweetly. Maria and the others quickly followed up with affirmatives.

Rosalina pouted as Akari quietly laughed next to her. "Very funny. Well let's finish up and start heading down. If we're lucky we can make it to the bottom in a few hours and figure out if there's anything for us to actually do or not."

Alissa looked to Fili. "Is there any way to tell when we're about to be done with a floor or level?" she asked.

Fili grimaced. "About to be done? Sure. Anything we can rely on all the time to be certain? No."

"Right." She raised her voice a bit for the others. "We'll want to make sure we exit rooms around the same time as we get to transition points. That way we won't be ambushed as easily."

"Got it," Trevor said. "After say the seventh we'll contact you after we finish our room, if you haven't contacted us already."

"Good." Alissa readied her sword and looked at the steps down. It was time to finish this nonsense.

The first few layers were mostly easy. The placid fields and tents of the first layer transformed to hallways and small classrooms. But Alissa didn't see much difference in the danger they faced. They chewed through most of the challenges with little issue.

"What do you mean you can't pull the fucking blocks? What kinda dumb rule is that?"

Most of them.

"It's weakness is salt!" "I don't have a salt arrow!" "Get some out of the cooking supplies! And hurry before it slimes someone else!"

With a few exceptions.

However things started to get nastier when they hit the third layer. The monsters died just as fast, but the traps were much more lethal, and much harder to disarm. Some of them were almost puzzles in themselves. And the puzzles had some nasty consequences attached as well.

Right now they were looking at a pentagon of giant snake statues, with smaller statues all around. Alissa stepped forwards. "Alright, is this a deadly trap or a puzzle?"

"At this point what's the difference?" Ibaraki muttered.

"Whether it kills you for 'cheating'" Alissa replied as she carefully checked the floor. She saw a number of pressure plates on the floor, one in front of each large statue, one in between each pair, and one in the very center. That suggested a puzzle, but she moved in closer to confirm.

Each of the large statues looked to have holes for spewing out poison gas or something. Meanwhile each of the small statues had a different weight. Finally the door leading further on was locked by eleven sets of bars.

That settled it in her mind. Eleven plates, eleven locks, and a punishment if you made a mistake. She carefully marked each plate's boundaries with orange chalk, then motioned the others in. "Don't step on any of those. We need to distribute the statues among them, but carefully. I have no idea what the criteria is."

Ibaraki picked up a couple of the statues and idly juggled them. "Can we just figure it out based on weight?"

"I can't tell from here what panel needs what weight," Alissa said. It was a decent cheat idea but not viable. "There's probably a simple answer, just one that requires a lot of attention to detail."

"Yep. Looks like there's about one hundred of these little things," Clara said checking a few. "Hm, well this one is a match for that statue." She pointed between the two.

Alissa looked over the five big ones. "Maybe each has a unique feature? Let's compare."

Fili pulled out a notebook and they began offering observations. "Well the mouth open with fangs bit is pretty unique." "This one has a tongue out." Kotori fluttered up top. "Hey! This one has an oval gem on the head. And this one a circle gem!" "Good find. Also this one has five coils."

Finally they had a full set. Except for one issue. "They've each got two unique traits," Fili muttered.

"Well we've got a few of these that are total matches," Rosalina said. "Let's break these into groups and see what we get!"

They started carefully sorting the statues, one by one, making sure to double check each one as they set them down in a quick mockup. After a bit of work they discovered the trick. Some had a unique feature from two different statues. At a guess those went In between each statue. One had a unique trait from all five. That went in the middle.

And that left exactly one. One statue that had no distinguishing traits they could make sense of.

"You're sure about all the pressure points?" Ibaraki said glaring at the spaces they'd been forced to avoid. "No sneaky hidden ones?"

"Yeah. Those are the spaces," Alissa said. "What they mean I can't say but they're the only ones."

Fili considered the setup. "There's no penalty for not having enough weight right? So we can fill in all the ones we know we have right and see what's missing."

"Good idea." She looked to Kotori. "Why don't you place this one in the middle so those of us who can't fly don't make a misstep. Then circle around, see if there's something up top we missed. Like the gems."

"Sure!" Kotori perked up at being part of the planning and flew her statue to the middle. She set it down quite delicately, and one of the locks opened with a click.

The rest of the statues slowly followed, each unlocking a section. And finally they were done. With one extra.

"That's just mean," Rosalina said looking at the open door while holding the spare snake statue. "I say we liberate this one as revenge for being left out."

Alissa looked at the others who all seemed to shrug. "Maybe it's our reward," Clara said.

"We'll go with that," Alissa responded, moving out.

They didn't arrive at an open clearing, but a simple hall to the next room. Alissa looked down and immediately discounted the lock. "That's a trap. Do anything to that and it will explode."

She started looking around but Clara laughed. "Well I see now. Check the frame to your left."

Alissa looked over to see a painting of the statue they'd taken with them. Moving the painting aside offered a hole in the wall that looked like it would fit a snake statue nicely. "Very nasty."

Fili nodded. "I'll warn the other group to watch for something similar."

Alissa nodded and let her girlfriend reach out to Sara before placing the statue in the hole. The labyrinth was getting much more cunning. And they'd need to stay very alert.