An Owl's Rise



After coming to the consensus that they could not take on the ungainly leafless tree sitting in the northern part of the central room and guarding the warp pad to the third floor of the domain, Evelyn, Aralee, and Otis focused on their main goal.

"Bylur, Rehni, and Verrader are still wandering the maze. The first thing we need to do is return to the first floor and inform them that we have made it to the center and how we got here." Evelyn said.

"That is certainly important, but there is something else that we should address first." Aralee said, directing Evelyn and Otis's attention to one of the several terminals that were dotted around the area.

She explained that this one had the sole function of upgrading their magic map further and giving it the function to connect with checkpoints that they had registered on the map and use them to warp around the maze.

"Unfortunately, applying to upgrade to our map is going to cost two thousand five hundred iron tokens. We will need to continue hunting in the maze for quite some time if we want to gain access to this, but I can only see it helping us in the long run." Aralee said.

Evelyn nodded her head in agreement. Certainly, there were many valuable things that could be obtained from the domain, but being able to warp around the maze even to a limited degree would help alleviate the difficulty in navigating its ever-changing corridors.

"Yes, we definitely need to inform the others about this. Depending on how many tokens each of them has, we may be able to use this function sooner rather than later." Evelyn said, glad that Aralee had investigated this. Once they gained this function with the magical map, they would not have to worry about not being able to reach the center of the maze again whenever they left and would just make exportation much easier.

Still, before they could continue with any other plans it was pertinent that the three of them return to the first floor to leave behind not only the information they had collected, but that they had met up with Otis.

When they returned to the first floor though, an unexpected surprise was waiting for them.

Standing in front of the message board was Rehni, and she was carefully examining the area for new information.

"Rehni!" 

Happy to see her friend again, Evelyn jumped up and flew over to her.

Rehni's head jerked all the way around and she went wide eyed to see Evelyn landing right in front of her.

With scrutinizing eyes, Evelyn looked Rehni up and down. She was checking her friend for new wounds and frowned when she saw the several scars that were all over Rehni's body.

"You don't need to worry about these. They were only light wounds. I am already mostly recovered thanks to the potions you gave me before we left the Roost." Rehni said bashfully. Anyway, we have more important things to discuss. I am quite close to the center of the maze now and want to discuss what I have found out since the last time we communicated." 

Rehni enthusiastically began to share what she had learned, but Otis quickly cut her off and said that they had discovered several things that were far more important.

He then turned to Evelyn to allow her to explain, but she just sighed, while Rehni wore a grumpy expression.

"Otis, it is true that we have much to tell her, but there was no need to interrupt. Please continue Rehni." Evelyn said.

After being reprimanded, Otis stood meekly behind Evelyn with his head lowered while Rehni finished explaining what she had learned.

"I see. That is very interesting." Evelyn said, her eyes filled with engrossment.

Rehni had found a secret passageway that entered the walls of the hedge maze and brought her close enough to the center of the maze that it showed up on her map.

The secret passageway unfortunately did not take her all the way there, but instead came out into a checkpoint that was nearby.

"There were also a lot fewer monsters in the secret passageway, though the ones that were there were fairly strong. Still fighting through it was more than worth it. The passages within the hedges themselves do not change at all. At least I did not see any evidence that they do while I was inside it." Rehni said.

Of course, not all of the walls of the maze had these secret passages within them. Only the ones that were stable and never shifted.

"There's still a lot I do not know about them, however. I have only been in the one so far and have not gone to any other checkpoints to check if I can find another secret entrance."

"That is fine. We will have more time to explore this later. The first thing we need to do is get you to the center of the maze. The three of us have actually made it there." Evelyn said with a grin.

Rehni looked stunned to hear this and immediately began asking them how they managed to navigate the ever-moving passages and increasingly dangerous monsters that infested the maze closer to the center.

Evelyn held her head up and relayed exactly how they had completely bypassed the hardest part of the maze and simply warped directly into the center.

"So, that is what those doors are for. I had not considered that the keys would be dropped by monsters and was on the lookout for them to be inside of a terminal." Rehni said, a contemplative look on her face.

She was running through her memories of the monsters she had encountered but not been able to beat and trying to figure if they might have been one of these special monsters.

Once she had finished, she only came up with one candidate for a monster that she had encountered that might fit the bill. She had not come across a door with its depiction so she could not be sure, but it was the most powerful entity she had come across.

"Perhaps we will go searching for it later, when we have gotten everyone back together. The most important thing is to get you to the center of the maze. To that end, I think I might have a good idea."