Priorities

Since the tunnel had collapsed, Skyler and Vash used their echolocation spell one more time to see if they still had a way to go deeper through this entrance or not. Luckily, despite the cave-in, there was a new path to the side from where a group of Behemoth Bunnies appeared. Another benefit was the lack of any response from the monsters inside. Maybe after that initial fight, they had cleared out every creature in this territory or scared away the ones who lived here.

This time, Hera didn't walk in ahead. Instead, she waited for Flint's signal for them to start moving. The dwarf was the oldest member of the group and the one with the most experience when fighting, which made them all agree that he should be their leader in this kind of situation. Still, everyone followed Hera's buddy system idea, with each titled blade moving along one of the party members. Hera herself had Daskka and the rest of the court close by. For around 25 minutes, they continued walking, scouring every area of the tunnels and trying to locate some markings or a signal of the wendigo, but to no avail. Before every corner, Hera, Viper, and Crimson would lick the air to see if there was anything nearby. For the two half-Naga, this was a natural thing to do, while the Ophidianite was still learning the ropes of doing that.

On a couple of occasions, they noticed a scent of something more than just the surrounding stone that indicated a living creature. This triggered another small fight. This time, the numbers of the Behemoth Bunnies were significantly smaller, being in groups of five at the most. Only one or two would be fully grown to make things even easier. The others were babies that barely would put up a fight. Even so, the party had no choice but to kill them. On the occasions when they tried just to move away, the small monsters continued chasing after them and crying for help. This resulted in another larger fight, but again, only against three grown Behemoth Bunnies. The rest were more of the small ones.

They looked through the entire map that Vash and Skyler revealed but found no traces of people or the wendigo. Following what Hera had discovered with her skill, they were now walking towards the E6 area on the map. It was a bit hard to do that since they didn't know when a tunnel would curve or reach a dead end, and this made them spend another hour before it looked like they were making some progress.

Eventually, they reached a pair of tunnels that went deeper inside the cave network. On the left, there was some dried blood and footprints. To the right were claw marks that didn't fit what the Behemoth Bunnies would create. These were thinner but much deeper and in sets of eight.

"Hera, can you ask your relic where we need to go? In which of those two paths is our target? I mean," Flint turned to the explorer.

"I can try, but just to make it clear. What is the target? The wendigo or the person who might still be alive?" Hera asked.

"The wendigo," Flint replied, but Neria said something else at the same time.

"The missing person," the triton paused and turned to the dwarf, "What do you mean the wendigo?"

"That is our mission. Finding and killing the wendigo," Flint replied bluntly.

"Someone is hurt! They need help. Are we just going to abandon them?" Neria gasped, her eyes flaring up in anger and her ear fins showing tiny spikes at the tips.

"No, we are not. We will kill the wendigo and then go help them."

"They might be dead by then!"

"And the wendigo might kill someone else while we chase after this person who may or may not be alive," Flint replied.

"I'm with Neria. I vote to help them first," Vash said.

"This is not up to a vote! We need to kill the wendigo first. If we go after this person, we will help them and then have to bring them back to the city. During that time, the wendigo can move and make any tracks we find useless. We already wasted too much time in this place," Flint continued.

"So? We will just have to spend more time to find it. Using Yarnball, Hera can pinpoint its location. It might take a few days, but eventually, we can catch it. It's not like the wendigo can change rooms," Neria continued.

Flint turned back to the Ophidianite, "Hera, you are our wendigo specialist. Can we do that without making things significantly worse?"

The Empress thought for a moment, "It's hard to say. Wendigos are… odd. They evolve, and I don't mean just the small changes that they go through when they eat something. Their claws can get a little bit bigger and sharper, their skin can slowly change colors, and their muscles might grow a bit, but all that happens just after they devour their prey. But after one of them eats enough, it will go through a more significant change. An evolution. They will change their bodies and become stronger. Think of it like phase 2 of a boss fight in a game. They not only have their basic attacks but something else. The problem is, as far as anyone can tell, there isn't a limit on how many times they can do that. Because each time it evolves, it becomes significantly harder to kill. I remember reading about one that was confirmed to have evolved at least four times. At first, it was just that white and red thing, but weak and ran away. The second form was bothersome, but no one got seriously injured. Its third stage already posed a danger to the area, and people had to be weary of moving outside the city. When it reached the fourth form, the monster became a serious threat. It could attack the city itself, even with all the defenses and people in there. It took 50 people who were at least ten levels higher than the room they were in to kill it. Even then, five were killed by the wendigo."

"How do they evolve like that? Do they just shed their skin or something?" Skyler asked.

"No, they turn into a sort of cocoon. It's kind of like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. It's just more… Fleshy. There are some pictures online if you want to look them up," Hera replied.

"So what you are saying is that we might have an opportunity to find it in a vulnerable state before it can grow to destroy the city?" Flint smirked, feeling that he had won the argument.

"No!" Hera shot his idea down, "I am telling you what happened in one situation. The fact is, we don't know how the wendigo got to that point. And the variables are wildly different. It was a much larger room with a more diverse biome. We also don't know if it truly only had those four evolutions. Maybe it had 5 or 6, hell, maybe it had 20 forms before that last one. Those were just the ones that people saw. We are lucky that other explorers confirmed that only one wendigo can appear in a room at a time. But that doesn't mean they won't be able to figure out a way to cross doorways or reproduce. Another thing, this happened after the guild opened its ranks to civilians. This means that the death rate was at an all-time high everywhere across the MAZE. Including the room where that wendigo was. Does that mean every single death was caused by it? I don't know. Maybe, or maybe just a few. My point is, wendigos are fucking weird and extremely dangerous. We don't know what to expect, but the longer they stay alive, the worse it is."

Roan frowned, "So you are saying we should go after it?"

"No. I mean, we need to go after it, but I don't know if it's that urgent. Then again, it's already killing people. There is no right answer here."

Neria stepped closer to the Empress, "But what do you think we should do?"

Hera let out a long sigh, "Look. I really hate those things. They hurt a very good friend of mine, and I think every single wendigo should be killed on sight. Also, we don't know who is lost in the tunnels and what is their state. But if they managed to run away three days ago and are still alive, they should be stable enough to last a few more hours. If we can't find the wendigo by today, then yeah, we should find that person before heading back. But now, we should go after that monster."

Neria looked down, processing the information, but that didn't take long. She understood where Hera was coming from, and the longer it took for her to make her peace with the decision, the longer that person would suffer.

"Let's go then," the triton started walking towards the tunnel with the claw marks.

"Hang on. Let me ask Yarnball if this is the right path," Hera stopped her. She took the relic from her waist and asked, "Between the two tunnels that are ahead of us, which one should we take to find the wendigo?" she pumped two million mana into the question. A part of her wanted to give more, but she couldn't risk being tapped out if they were just about to face that monster.

The screen went black, and the answer appeared for her, 'The tunnel on the left.'

"Isn't there where the person should be?" Neria asked.

"Maybe the wendigo is chasing after them," Roan suggested.

"It's a possibility. Let's keep moving," Flint took the lead with Viper right behind him,

Just as they started moving, Neria approached Hera and gave her a mana potion, "This is the one made by my staff. It can recover about 15% of your maximum mana."

"How much does it cost you to make it?" the Ophidianites asked as she took the vial and drank it.

"About 20% of my mana. But my recovery is faster than yours. It will take less than a minute to recover that. And like I said. I also have a very large 'extra mana pool,' but that takes a while to recover."

"How large? I don't remember you telling us the actual numbers."

"It's about ten times my regular mana pool. But it takes about four days to fill up completely, and only a few specific potions can help me recover that. Those are back in the hotel."

"I see," Hera nodded, "I have more questions, but we can talk later. And thanks for the top-up. It does make me feel better."

The group continued walking for a few minutes. Each step echoed in the dark tunnel, lit only by their spells. In this part of the underground, the wind howled across the passage, making them hear ghastly screams from all directions. Suddenly, they heard someone crying for help, begging anyone who could hear them. Neria tapped Flint's shoulder, who just nodded in response. It was one thing to actively search for someone who might or might not be alive, another to ignore someone nearby who was clearly in a bad situation.

Everyone triggered their stealth skills and moved along, following the increasingly worrying screams. What started as just a desperate request for help was turning into what could only be described as someone being eaten alive without being able to fight back. The party moved quicker and quicker, eventually dropping the stealth completely in hopes of reaching this person before it was too late.

They finally arrived at a large cave where the sound was coming from, but there was no one to be seen. The voice was still there, screaming and asking for help or to die so the pain would stop. Everyone was looking around, but it was a light that brought them answers. A small hole in the ceiling was covered by a pyramid-shaped beak that was currently open, creating that voice in place of whatever sound it was supposed to be making. When the beak started screaming louder, a small hole on the back of it opened, showing the sky outside. However, it was clear that it wasn't a crow who was doing this. On the ceiling, they could only see the beak without anything else attached to it.

"Did… did the wendigo figure out how to use a crow's beak as a trap?!" Vash turned to the party with wide eyes.

Before anyone could answer, the wendigo appeared from the wall to Hera's left, slamming its front paws on her shoulder and pushing her to the ground. The monster came at her with too much force, and the Ophidianite was mid step, which led to her falling back. She braced herself for the impact, but as her body hit the rocks, it just continued to move, passing through it as if it were water. This all took less than a second. Less than a second for Hera to vanish together with the wendigo into the rocks. Even her court was gone. After a brief moment of shock, the rest of the party started to move, hoping they could find the Empress before it was too late.

MAZE