An Owl's Rise



"Another dead end."

Evelyn sighed as she and Aralee came upon their thirty-sixth dead end of the day.

It had now been nearly three months since they began exploring the second floor of the Verdant Warlord's domain and they were getting extremely close to the center of the maze.

Yet, the closer they got the more branching paths appeared that went nowhere and the faster the maze changed and made it difficult to keep their bearings.

"The corridor we came through has already moved. We are going to need to go back and go down another path." Aralee said, looking at their magic map that had been upgraded twice.

Now the map gave updated information within a radius of about half a kilometer rather than the fifty meters that it started out with.

This allowed them to witness areas that they had recently passed through change in real time and scout for enemies that were not hiding at a greater range.

It also should have helped them to find their other comparisons easier, but at this point the two of them had not come across anyone else.

At the very least they had been able to meet with everyone except for Otis on the first floor and been able to exchange information together.

'Verrader and Rehni managed to meet up, but we know they are on the other side of the maze, so meeting up with them will be impossible until we reach the center. As for Bylur, he is somewhere in the eastern side of the maze but finding him is also impracticable. The only real problem is Otis. He has not come back to the first floor once so far.' 

Evelyn scratched her claws against the floor in frustration as she and Aralee tried to choose the next direction that they would go. They were closer to their goal than ever before, but the maze seemed intent on preventing them from reaching the center.

"I suppose that our best bet is to go back and take the path we did not go down before. I just wish that we could have avoided it." Evelyn said, clearly unhappy about the decision.

The map had displayed that the area was teeming with roaming enemies that were patrolling the area. A rarity in the maze where most of the creatures were hiding and lying in wait to initiate an ambush.

But this did not mean that these monsters were stupid compared to the others. Just that they had no need to resort to hiding since they were almost always far stronger.

Evelyn and Aralee had encountered a few such monsters before and each time it turned into a tough fight. Sometimes they even had to flee and completely avoid the area.

Luckily situations like these had been far less common since they upgraded their map to show a far wider area.

"Maybe we will get lucky and can completely avoid the monster patrolling the area." Aralee said, her expression full of optimism.

However, Evelyn just grimaced as he sister basically just jinxed them into having to fight whatever was wandering the area they were about to pass through.

"Get ready for a fight Aralee. I can feel that we are not getting through without any trouble." 

Resolved for conflict, Evelyn jumped back into the air and began flying down the giant corridors of the maze to next pathway she and her sister were going to try going down in order to find a way to the center of the maze.

It was not long until they reached the area that they had previously avoided, and after a quick look at the map they began flying through it.

For several minutes everything seemed to be going well and they had not encountered any sort of creatures and only hit one dead end.

Unfortunately, when it seemed that their good luck was going strong, as they had found a terminal to access and obtain powerful goods from, a red dot appeared on the map and was swiftly coming towards them.

'Damn it. I knew we should not have stopped.'

Gritting her beak, Evelyn hurriedly got Aralee to disconnect from the terminal and the two of them began racing in the opposite direction that the red dot was coming from.

After spending so long together the two of them had their strategy for fleeing down. Aralee would use her momentum magic to speed them both up while Evelyn would lower their gravity.

Then they would both use wind magic to accelerate further and shoot down the corridors of the maze at blistering speeds.

Sadly, their rush to escape was met with a dead end and when Aralee pulled out the map to try and plot a new course, she found that whatever had been chasing them was already catching up. Showing that this creature was unbelievably fast and persistent.

"Aralee, you check the wall first, I will face whatever this thing is." Evelyn said, turning around and waiting for their pursuer.

When the monster finally came around the corner and into view, Evelyn was shocked to see what it was.

Normally the creatures roaming the maze and not hiding were incredibly large, but this one was actually smaller than Evelyn.

Like all of the monsters in the maze it was a plant creature, but it had taken the form of a dragonfly.

Its main body was made out of dark brown brambles with sharp thorns all over its body, while its wings were actually thin translucent green wings. 

Finally in place of where a dragonfly's eyes would be, were two sacks filled with some sort of liquid. 

From its appearance the monster resembled a dragonfly, but it was still very much a plant.

'This is the first time we have come across something that can fly. At least now I know how it was keeping up with us.' 

Her focus trained completely on this monster; Evelyn was waiting to see what its first move would be when she heard a loud commotion behind her. The dead end they had come across was actually a false wall and another enemy that they would need to deal with.

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