Chapter 42: Fetch

  “Everyone over here,” Alex called.

  The squad clustered around the table, heads craning in to see. The plaque’s surface gleamed faintly in the filtered garden light, every line and etching distinct even under years of grime.

  Peter let out a low whistle. “That’s… yeah, that’s the whole place. Courtyards and hedges, and they even show the pathways, so it’s a maze.”

  “Maze,” Garret repeated flatly. “Great. Just what I wanted. To get lost in a leafy hell forever.”

  “Shut up,” Allie muttered as she leaned in closer. She tapped one of the etched symbols on the plaque. It was a tiny, diamond-like gem cut into the metal. “What about these? There’s more than one.”

  Alex followed her finger as she traced the many symbols. There looked to be seven of them scattered across the map at different points in the maze. Gem-shaped marks, but they were all somewhat unique, each one slightly varied.

  “Treasure, loot?” Lance asked hopefully.

  Eric shook his head. “The System doesn’t hand out freebies like that. But, if it marked them, it wants us to go to them.”

  “Objectives then,” Holly said softly. “Seven of them.”

  Peter clicked his tongue disapprovingly and frowned down at the etching. “Could be trial markers. Maybe the dungeon wants us to activate these, same as the statues back in the tundra.”

  “That would track,” Alex admitted as his eyes scanned the picture of the maze. From what he could see, the paths twisted and spiraled in maddening ways, almost as if it was intentionally disorienting. A shocker, that.

  The gems were spaced widely apart, leaving no direct line between them. They’d have to make choices to take turns, or possibly backtrack a lot while collecting them in a group. “Seven points of interest. Seven tasks.”

  Peter’s brow furrowed as he looked at the plaque. “But why gems? Doesn’t really fit the garden theme.”

  “Could just be how the System marks them. Or maybe we’re supposed to collect something.” Allie said.

  “Or destroy something, I wouldn’t mind smashing a few overgrown weeds with magic crystals stuck in ‘em.” Garret offered with a grin.

  Alex straightened and rubbed his chin. The plaque didn’t give any more details, there was no text or hint beyond the layout and the symbols. Just a maze, and the promise of seven unknowns. Which in System terms meant seven ways to bleed and die in painful ways.

  “Doesn’t matter what they are yet. What matters is getting to them. So I say we pick a path, we follow it, and we see what the dungeon throws at us.” He finally came to a conclusion, though it was less of a plan, and more a general vibe.

  The team shifted uneasily at his words, many eyes lingering on the twisting map. They lingered around the plaque longer than Alex liked. “We split up,” he added. “That way, we cover more ground. And we could finish faster.”

  “Absolutely not,” Allie shot back. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  Peter nodded quickly. “She’s right. This is a dungeon maze. Splitting up means losing communication, getting isolated, and then picked off one by one.”

  “Divide and conquer,” Eric agreed. “For the dungeon, not for us.”

  Alex frowned. They weren’t actually wrong. Still, seven objectives spread across such a large mess was a lot. The map wasn’t portable either, the plaque was fused to the table, immovable. If they wanted to plan routes, this was the only place they’d see the whole picture. He set his jaw and started memorizing the layout. Line by line, curve by curve, committing each twist to memory.

  Obby spoke in the back of his mind. “Left fork, right turn, loop east. Mark the second gem by the arch of hedges. All good.”

  Alex traced another path with his eyes, but his focus broke when the courtyard suddenly… groaned. A deep, heavy creak reverberated through the air, like the wood of an old seaship strained past its limit. The squad froze at the sound. A shape slid into view from one of the hedge arches, its body gliding low across the stone path.

  It was a fucking snake. But, not just snake. Its body was thick and corded with muscle, with scales that glinted faintly in green and gold. Around its head erupted a bearded frill, not like a cobra but like flower petals. It was red edged with gold, opening and closing as though breathing. Its eyes were pits of green light, unblinking as it slithered into the open courtyard.

  “Chimera,” Alex shouted.

  The squad broke into action without any more prompting. Garret locked his shield in place, Lance and Henry moving to flank with spells of earth and water flaring across the pair’s hands. The three of them rushed forward and the snake opened its mouth.

  A burst of yellow-green spores erupted outward from the snake's maw. It created a cloud of pollen that spread across the courtyard in an instant. It was thick to the point of choking, and sweet on the tongue in a way that made Alex gag.

  The team coughed and cursed, hands flying to their faces and stumbling backward as the cloud settled over them.

  All but one.

  Eric didn’t slow his charge. He barreled through the cloud with lightning crawling wildly up and down his arms. His fist reeled back then crashed forward into the chimera’s skull. The crack of impact echoed across the courtyard as the two connected. The snake’s frilled head whipped back, its body jerking, and with a final convulsion the thing collapsed in a smoking heap.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Eric stood over it. “That’s one garden pest handled.” He yanked his fist free from the snake’s skull.

  Everyone was coughing and hacking violently as the lingering spores sank into their lungs. Even with the snake dead the air was saturated with its pollen. It created a cloying sweetness that stuck to the back of the throat. Alex felt his knees somehow weaken and his breath began to come to him in shorter gasps than he was used to.

  “Fuck—” He doubled over, his chest tightening quickly. His [Aether Sight] flickered as if his senses were blurred by a mirage. “A poison? Toxin?”

  He could feel it worming through him already, like alien threads of aether forced into his body. It spread fast, tainting his blood and crawling under his skin. But where it tried to latch on and do damage, his wyrm-heart trembled and beat loudly as caustic, corrosive blood leaked from his bonemarrow. His constitution's blood-toxin ate at the poison and began to erode it bit by bit in a rabid fight within his body.

  Only problem was, the venom wasn’t staying in his blood. It was already deep into his lungs. Every subsequent breath burned, and each inhale was starting to feel like serrated knives dragging through him. Looking around, he could see everyone else looked just as bad as he felt.

  Lance staggered to one knee, coughing so hard he spat flecks of red. Holly pressed a hand to her chest and it looked as though she was struggling to shape a spell of some kind. Perhaps some air spell she was trying to use to clean her lungs of the spores but it didn't seem to be helping at all. Garret leaned on his shield, face pale and sweaty. Even Eric was doubled over at that point, the previous electrical sparks around his arms now sputtering uselessly.

  Then the System hit. A glowing screen flickered into everyone’s vision despite the poison spore cloud.

  The glowing timer began to tick down, second by second.

  Suddenly, the fountain burbled quietly in the center of the courtyard, its water spilling from its stone petals in a gurgling sound that reminded Alex of giggling, as if mocking their struggle.

  Alex straightened, coughing hard into his glove. “Shit. Looks like we’ve got our objective.”

  They staggered to the fountain, each cough echoing in the too-quiet courtyard.

  “Look,” Peter croaked, pointing to the rim.

  There were seven slots evenly spaced around the basin, each hollow shaped like the gem markers from the plaque.

  Alex’s stomach sank. “Seven gems. Seven objectives.”

  Garret winced as he coughed into the crook of his elbow. “So that map wasn’t just for show. We’ve gotta fetch ‘em and slot ‘em in, or the whole garden shuts like a coffin lid?”

  “Shit, but look at the size of the place. There’s no way we can stick together, hit all the markers, and get back here before that timer runs out.” Lance said.

  Peter frowned once more. “Which means Alex was right after all, we need to split up.”

  Allie shook her head. “We already went over this. Splitting up in a dungeon is suicide.”

  “Not splitting up means we fail,” Henry said quietly, his normally deep voice now raspy with the pollen in his lungs. He tapped a thick finger against the fountain rim. “Seven slots. Seven gems. We only have one hour. The math’s the math.”

  Eric spoke up. “Or we don’t play the System’s game. We push straight through the garden as a unit, head for the crystal biome, and leave this objective to rot.”

  “Yeah,” Garret said, though without conviction. “What’s the System gonna do? Cry about it?”

  Holly shook her head, her long braid swaying as she swiped a trembling hand across her mouth. “No. The message said it would seal the garden. If the biome locks down, we’re trapped inside. We can't cross the entire biome in an hour, the exit is on the complete other side. The crystal objectives are much closer, even if they are miles away. IF the timer runs out, we get trapped, we have to go for the objective.”

  Alex could feel the threads of foreign aether woven through his lungs, every inhale a firebrand of pain. His wyrm-heart blood was still chewing at it, keeping it from spreading further, but not fast enough. Around him, the others looked just as wrecked, their movements already sluggish, sweat beading on their foreheads despite the cool air of the biome.

  He didn’t know what the poison’s endgame was. Sleep? Paralysis? Just a crippling toxin meant to slow them down and keep them unable to fight at full strength? The fact of not knowing was worse than the burn in his lungs. He set his hands against the fountain rim, leaning in, eyes focused on the seven waiting slots.

  “We don’t have good options. But we’ve still got some options. Question is, which poison do we choke down? Are we splitting up and risk it? Or are we running as a pack to get the objectives? I doubt this poison will allow us to keep moving fast enough to exit the biome before the System can slam the door on us.”

  Beside him the fountain burbled on, indifferent to their struggle. The timer ticked: 55:42...

  “We can’t just leave, try to make it to the exit. We can't fight right now, so going for the crystals might be even more risky than running.” Peter said finally.

  Garret snorted weakly. “So we choke on flowers if we run for it, or choke on flowers while running errands for the System. Great options. But I don't think all of us are fast enough to make it all the way out of the biome. Holly, Eric, Alex, maybe Peter and Allie too, but the rest of us are not built for speed.”

  Lance straightened. “Then we pick running errands, right? It’s the only play we have to try saving everyone.”

  “Fine,” Alex said. “Then we do it smart. We split the objectives by distance.” He thought back at the plaque in his memory, tracing lines in the air with his finger. “Three of them are damn near on the middle point the maze. Those will be the hardest to get. I’ll take one. Eric, you’re second. Holly, you’re the third. Like Garret said, we’re the fastest—we’ve got the best shot of making it back before the clock runs out.”

  Eric cracked his knuckles. “Fine by me.”

  Holly hesitated, her lips pressed tightly, but then nodded once in agreement.

  “Tom-Tom, Henry, you two stick together. He rides, and you run.” He looked at Tom-Tom, then Henry. “There are two markers close by, both on the left side of the garden. Hit them and loop back here.”

  Tom-Tom perked up, his ladles tapping against his scaled shoulders. “Tom-Tom ride forever!” he crowed, Henry just rolled his eyes.

  “Garret and Lance, you guys take the two in the middle towards the east of the garden, and the south. Peter, you'll be back up with buffs.”

  “And what about me?” Allie asked sharply.

  “You stay here,” Alex said without missing a beat. “That poison isn’t going away, and if it gets worse while we’re out, we’ll need an antidote. You’re the only one who can even attempt it.”

  Allie opened her mouth to argue, then faltered. Her eyes swept the squad, seeing pale faces and stiff movements. Every one of them was hanging on by grit, and it would only get worse. She gave a curt nod.

  “Fine. But don’t expect miracles. I don’t have a full kit here.”

  Peter stepped in quickly. “I’ll stay too. Two heads are better than one for puzzles like this. I’ll help with ingredients, or mixing, whatever you need.”

  “Good,” Alex said. “That’s the split.”

  The timer ticked down in their vision: [53:12...]