ALEXiThymiA: Chapter 103 The A-Mazing Race

Chapter 103

The A-Mazing Race

Alexa was surrounded, clearly poisonous plants lining the walls of a maze and a giant minotaur chasing her, encouraging her to move faster. While she was fairly certain she could do a number of things to save herself from this situation, she felt that that was not the purpose of this dungeon. If this had been the Alexa from a month ago, she would have likely charged through the maze, cutting a way with her magic, while slaying the minotaur as a fun challenge. Yet she had grown, she now knew the purpose of dungeons, they were not designed to kill, but rather to teach. The only problem was often trying to figure out what each individual dungeon was meant to teach.

Here she was running in giant paths, paths that seemed to simultaneously grow brighter and paler with each movement. Also she mentally noted the way the dungeon’s path changed, beginning with straight intersecting lines and then changing to curved lines, and finally to curved lines that looped backwards. Also there was the pace of the minotaur who rumbled and stomped his way forward, forever being an overshadowing presence on the field. But again the minotaur was minor in comparison to everything that was going on.

The more Alexa ran, the more she noticed the minotaur would incrementally increase their speed until they were keeping up with Alexa, but still at a maximum distance. Never seeming to fall too far behind to be irrelevant. Seeing the great beast, Alexa had her ideas on what the minotaur was supposed to represent. The first and likely most obvious aspect of the minotaur was the inherent threat the giant monster posed.

Legendary Sized Minotaur (Summoned Aspect): Level ???, Status: Healthy, Disposition: Guarding

Honestly looking at the creature, Alexa could all but imagine the beast being inspired by a minion of hell. Large, muscular, with deep red skin and glowing red eyes. Even the level of three question marks caused Alexa to pause. Fighting this foe would be a worthy challenge, but one that she felt the dungeon was purposefully making too powerful.

With this as the stage, Alexa mentally went through the reason why the different camps were set up. Why would the Elves and the Orcs both choose this particular dungeon to claim as the seventh stage. Mentally the only reason for this stage that made sense was for the two armies to fight not only each other, but the minotaur as well. At least that was her working theory as to why this maze dungeon would be chosen for the Trials of Ascension. Since this was the Trials of Ascension, Alexa could count on two things, first the Orcs and Elves would want me to face off against the opposing faction, and second that the runners of this dungeon would flip the script, that they would want me to do things that would all but ensure she would never be able to succeed at the dungeon’s true purpose.

With that last thought in mind, the knowledge that the elves and orcs would assert themselves in this dungeon to purposefully hinder any true completion of this stage, Alexa thought. This was supposed to be a dungeon that one person could complete on their own. Dungeons encouraged soloists, as the difficulty often went down in such events. By so many elves and orcs here, it likely meant that the difficulty of the minotaur was exponentially increased as well, especially if the main task had something to do with the minotaur, other than it being used as an attack timer. A timer that when it went off, Alexa would be forced to defend yourself with deadly force.

Still there was a purpose to this, each stride she took, caused the path before her to grow brighter and brighter. Finally she found herself following the glowing path before her and turning right once, then right again.

Only after a second did she realize she was nearing her start location, which if her mental map was correct was near the back wall of the dungeon.

“There, a traitor to the cause.” A voice calls out in a lilting elven dialect. For a second, Alexa thinks about turning around and engaging the elf who has appeared behind her. Instead she just continues running forward, and instead decides to defend herself by using the dungeon itself as her weapon.

Realizing the elves and orcs both are meant to keep her from completing this course, she decides to do everything in her power to not only keep moving forward on the path, but to keep her current rate of speed, lest the minotaur catch up. It was that last part, the part about the minotaur catching up that sparked the truly malevolent idea.

Alexa didn’t have to outrun the minotaur, not truly, she just needed to ensure she was faster than the elves and likely the orcs that would invariably try to stop her.

With that, she decided to help the poisonous plants, focusing on a section a few meters in front of her, she began channeling a complex blending spell, that fused both Healing and Nature magic together. Focusing on two different sets of the pathway ahead she infused a section of the wall a hundred meters forward with magic that would allow the plants on the wall to grow on her left. Then fifty meters further down, she did the same, but to a patch of maze wall on her right.

The effects were quick, but not so quick that Alexa couldn’t easily dash past the growing obstacles and weave her way down the hallway, back towards her starting location. The second she passed what was her starting location, she felt a mental chime go off in her mind.

Ding.

In a second, she saw the path she had treaded, the loop back lanes, the random paths, they all flared to life in her mind for a split second. But that second was long enough for her to realize she had just run a pattern in the shape of a rune.

In her mind she even knew what the rune was, a type of Warding Against Evil rune, but one that had fallen out of favor, as they were widely seen as unimportant or inconsequential. The runes did little, save for fend off against Death Magic, one of the darker offshoots of Dark magic, but they were still effective. Yet, seemingly because of these runes Death magic fell out of favor for those seeking power, so now Necromancy was the go to power source, with no runes known to completely stop or negate their effects.

Despite this, the ward against evil was all but burned into her mind. With the image she realized she was only one third complete. Now she would need to run the same course twice more in order to complete the process. This time as she ran, there was only one path she could take, the same exact path she had run her first time. Looking at the path she found that this might have been the reason why alternate paths were available to her, even if they were ultimately less effective, they would have still gotten the job done. In this case, the alternate paths now would only cause the rune to be short circuited with power. Somehow, she just intrinsically knew that her running on this path was creating a feed. If she deviated from the path at all, by taking either a wrong turn, or avoiding an incoming attack by darting down a side tunnel, she would have to start over. Worse, she knew that the start over would be of an inferior quality to the rune she just created.

With that insight, she nearly lost focus for a second as so many different thoughts hit her all at once. She also began to understand a bit about runes and their functions from this dungeon. Thinking about it, she wondered if that was the ultimate goal of this dungeon to teach people the value of runes. Showing how runes didn’t just have to be carved into things, they could be created by the very path you took. Here, she was forced to make almost a perfect rune, the maze all but dictating the shape and paths she took. But could she do this in real life? Could she create something similar if given enough time and resources? Honestly, she felt she could.

Just that knowledge alone, the fact that she could create runes by drawing them out with her body made this whole trip worth it. Still, she couldn’t be complacent, as she had a minotaur for a timer, and not one but two different factions of enemies chasing after her. With her mind made up, she charged forward, up ahead Alexa could feel the pull of Arcane energy, but these flows were weakly woven. With her mind and most recent insights gained from the sixth stage of the Trials of Ascension, she realized the design flaws in the spell being woven. If left unchecked the spell itself would be powerful, and deadly, but as it was, the spell was little more than an exposed electrical outlet, and Alexa was a giant glass of water ready to short out the current in its infancy.

Reaching out with her mind, she wove in her own strands of Arcane energy into the spell. This act did two things, first, it infused the spell with power and second, it changed the distance the spell would travel to be a few inches from the caster.

BOOM!

An Arcane Bomb exploded up ahead. Just as Alexa turned the corner, she saw a group of orcs that had all been burned and scorched by an intense burst of Arcane energy. Seeing their layout, it was clear that the orcs had been following the path and speed of the minotaur and set up in a tight corridor where I would have to go.

“Ahh!” Orcs cried out in pain, rolling and stumbling away from each other, only to tumble over and get impaled by the living walls that lashed out and stung at the encroaching orcs. This only caused more panic and mayhem as the now poisoned orcs ping-ponged back into their brethren. At this, Alexa barreled her way forward, making sure to give a strong shoulder tackle to the orc shaman who was missing half their face and most of their hands. Apparently, the distance Alexa let the spell travel was very short.

Wham.

With a tackle that would have made Mr. Vickers wish he had gone with Alexa, over her brother, Alexa plowed forward. The scrawny orc flew mercilessly into the walls of the maze, instantly getting impaled by sharp poisonous needles.

Stomp, rumble.

Alexa didn’t need to turn around to make sure the enemies were disposed of, if their injuries and recent poisonings wouldn’t be enough then she knew the minotaur would be more than capable of finishing off any would be stragglers.

With the initial ambush sights taken care of, Alexa let her mind relax if only for a moment, as she went up did the top loops of the Ward Against Evil variant rune. Then prepared herself for what would soon be the start of her last loop around.

As Alexa drew close, she could once again see the ambush spot where the elves had jumped out and attacked her. Seeing the spot, Alexa realized with some certainty that there would likely be another ambush there again. The spot was almost too perfect, of an ambush spot. It was a section of the maze where she would have to circle back to make use of the path. Also, the path was in one of those hard to see spaces that sort of blended in and hid the entrance if you didn’t know what to look for. Now that she knew, she began making plans. Focusing her mind on the plants by the intersection she began infusing them with magic again, forcing the plants to grow. This time rather than getting the walls to dart out into her main path, she had them seal themselves up together.

“Grr!”

Would be ambushers began giving out fierce battle cries, as they began hacking and slashing their way through the vines. Alexa once again felt a magic caster there, trying to unweave what she had originally cast, but her spell was clunky, loose and full of numerous cracks. Feeling the energy, Alexa once again fused her own mana into the spell, causing the spell to go wild. Rather than damaging the plant, the Nature mage cast a spell that infused the plant with extra durability and thickness, making the plants harder to cut through. This didn’t mean that the plants would be impossible to cut through, rather that Alexa would be well past them by the time they managed to cut their way free.  In fact, Alexa had planned it this way.

Fifteen seconds, that was the maximum distance the Minotaur seemed to give her. While she was certain the minotaur could run faster the dungeon was artificially slowing the beast down to now match Alexa’s fastest speed that she had shown since entering this dungeon. This was of course a fact that Alexa was extremely grateful for, as it meant she could once again use the minotaur to take out her enemies that she had delayed in their attempts to follow her by exactly twelve seconds. Why twelve seconds? Well that was just enough time for them to make their way out of the ambush tunnel as a group, while not being able to get up to full speed before they were overtaken by a rampaging minotaur.

“GRRAHHH!”

The minotaur called out, as a dense burst of flame erupted over top of the maze hedges right from where the minotaur’s hulking form could be seen lurking over the hedges. Only now the rage filled minotaur seemed to resemble a massive dragon as a burst of flames shot out from its mighty nose.

Still Alexa was not done, she had to pass her initial starting point again. The second she did, she felt another chime go off in her mind.

Ding.

With that she could tell that she had drawn the Ward Against Evil rune variant perfectly, once again tracing over her initial route with this second route. A route that served to further reinforce the first layer while also forming a strong base of power for this the third and final layer.

Alexa almost wondered how this could work, but then realized that she was likely leaking mana, and while it might not be enough at first, layering the residue of magic would cause the ward to be stronger. This line of thinking gave rise to many different thoughts in her mind, not the least of which was the way that mana could be used to track someone down. Thinking about that, she realized why Psychometrics, or people that could read the imprinted energy from objects were so important. They could literally read the residual mana someone left behind as they wielded an item or went a particular way.

Realizing that, she also wondered if there was a mana tracking dungeon. One where it would teach her to chase down and capture a serial killer on the loose. But that was a distraction she quickly shook free of her mind. For the moment she had one last lap to make and at least two more ambushes to be concerned with. At least one from the orcs, and one from the elves. Then of course there would also likely be something as she attempted to activate the warding rune. It wasn’t just enough to create and charge a rune, but she had to then go through the motion of activating the rune.

Focusing her mind, she forced her body to breathe. She was going at a near full sprint, but fortunately had the wherewithal to keep her pace just below her maximum speed. Something, a survival instinct made it so she knew to keep that last burst of speed in reserve, as a just in case. That instinct, or whatever it was, was the only reason she was able to stay safe now. Her ability to keep up this pace for hours on end was her only means of making sure she avoided the range of the minotaur.

Then looking ahead, she saw that there was a thin blue wall of mana up in front of her. Seeing the wall of mana, she almost paused, but then quickly regained control over her instincts. Seeing the wall, she realized she could see an orc shaman just on the other side muttering words silently to themselves as they held up the barrier. Reaching back, Alexa let Arcane energy infuse into her fist, as she then punched forward. To her surprise, she shot forward through the blue wall of energy like it was nothing. The shaman who had been channeling their spell stopped as they looked on in shock, while Alexa just barreled forward and slammed her energy infused fist into the shaman’s face.

Pop.

The orc skull cracked open with a burst of blood and viscera flying everywhere. Parts of the blood that made contact with her glowing fist instantly burned and turned to charred ash against her hand. With this attack, she felt the surge and flow of energy rushing into and through her body.

Instantly her mind began to burst to life with emotions and the joy of combat. Blood lust took her and she wanted to chase after the nearby orcs, the ones that waited in ambush just off the beaten path. The orcs that all but dared her to give chase. Chasing them down and slaughtering them all would be easy, almost too easy at this point. It seemed the orcs knew what she was doing, at least what she was attempting to do, and were making every effort possible to stop her from completing her task. Seeing the way they retreated just enough to exit the path, and realizing the rumbling behind her meant that her fifteen second head start was quickly dwindling down, Alexa grit her teeth and let out a flurry of magical strikes as she cleared a path and once again began running forward.

Arcane Plasma Bursts.

Giant balls of heated magma shot out form her body in all directions, as she cut a path of destruction and gore.

Thump, thud, bump.

Alexa was now close enough to feel the minotaur’s powerful strides impacting the earth and causing tremors and vibrations in the ground. With a concerted force of will, she focused her mind and fought through the distractions. Forcing herself to keep up her normal pace, she barreled forward, despite her strides being thrown off ever so slightly by the constant vibrations and tremors. She knew she could once again sprint to regain her list time and distance, but that would be a pyrrhic victory, as it would all but force her to sprint the rest of the way forward.

Still she was close, so close to completing the third and final leg of this mile long trek of a rune. All she had was one last stop point of the elves and their ambush spot. Only, when she looked forward she saw not just one or two elves in her way, rather she saw dozens of the maidens in a phalanx formation, multiple rows of spears draped over top of one another, trying to get Alexa to impale herself as if she was a charging calvary assault, unable to turn around or stop her momentum. Then to add even more complexity, layers upon layers of spells were being woven together. This time it would not be so easy to overpower the spells being woven by infusing them with her own power.

Seeing the obvious trap set before her, Alexa cleared her mind and focused. Then in that moment of clarity a way to get out of this came to her, just as the first volley of arrows began falling from the sky, all but forcing her forward into the death trap. Still despite everything, the thrill of combat surged in her mind, forcing her to dig deeper, as one thought filled her mind.

This is going to be fun.