Setting up the teams

#### Author's Note ####

This one was supossed to have come out yesterday. Sorry about that.

Also this week I'll be back with Energy Eater, and Like I explained we will have a slightly different schedule. 3 MAZE chapters and 3 EE chapters every week. Maze on Mon-Wed-Fri, and Energy Eater on Tue-Thu-Sat.

Sunday's will be my day off cause I need the rest lol.

You can find links to Energy Eater on the discord, or look it up on Scribble Hub or Royal Road

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Once they arrived at the settlement in the Thornspire Vale, they first decided to find a place to stay. According to Pandora, it would take some time for them to get the poison resistance drops and since they were bound items, they wouldn't have the opportunity to buy it from someone else. Unless they got another extremely rare drop in order to unbind one of the items from the dungeon. Alternatively, they could also check the free market of the room to see if anyone was selling what they were looking for. It would be a tall order since they would need either the Unbind Tether, or the poison resistant gear while it was being unbound. But that was even harder to find than the actual Unbind Tether.

The settlement was located on top of a large group of trees, making it almost like a gigantic network of tree houses. Or at least, a large part was like that. There was a base camp where people would bring the monsters they hunted across the room as well as the various crafting stations. But the areas where people would live and stay were all on the top of those trees.

It didn't take long for the group to understand that it truly was a place made for harpies. A lot of the stairs going up and down were very narrow or a bit uneven. And many of the buildings and structures had entrances made for people who could fly.

Which wasn't really a problem. Hera could have Nimbus carrying people over. Bonnie was able to transform Ruby into various shapes and although the Giant Eagle wouldn't fit here, she could use a mixture of a spider with an octopus to grab onto the tree and bring herself up. Farica and Callena had some spells that allowed them to jump great distances and Shane could enchant the branches themselves to bring her to her room. The only two who didn't have any options besides taking the stairs were Alex and Yerel.

But in the end, they all decided to go to one of the hotels that were more non-harpy-friendly. Especially since Pandora already had stayed there previously.

"Hello and welcome to the Treetop Paradise. What can I do for you?" a triton wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a straw hat greeted the group as they walked into one of the few structures built inside an actual tree. "Oh? Pandora? You're back already? I thought you said you're going to be a few months before you get back here."

"Yeah, we kind of need something from this dungeon. Do you have room for all of us? For eight," the dwarf asked.

"I'm afraid not. There are a couple people who are having a long stay here. You probably know a few of them, the Hervarth family," the triton explained.

"Dude, they're still here?" Pandora gasped.

"Yeah. I think they are still trying to do something. I don't know what, they don't want to share, and I'm not going to press," the triton shrugged.

"So, how many rooms do you have?" Yerel asked.

"I can offer you five. And at the end of the week maybe a 6th," the triton explained.

"So, what do you all want? Go to another place to see if we can get rooms?" Farica asked.

"Or we can double up. Are there rooms with two beds?" Callena turned to the triton.

"We can make that work. Every room available has a double bed. But I'm a crafter and I can turn that into two beds in just a minute," the triton smiled.

"I don't mind going somewhere else, but this is the best place in the settlement. At least for us."

The triton at the reception puffed his chest. "You're damn right it is. I pride myself on being the best in what I do. And I assure you, we have the best facilities in this room. I'm number one in most recommended, best service, and most comfortable rooms. No harpy, dwarf, elf, or beastmen can beat me in what I do. Just don't ask me about my position among the tritons."

Bonnie frowned. "Does that mean you suck compared with the other tritons?"

"What? No! We just like, get very competitive when we're talking about who is the best in the hospitality business. If you ask a group of tritons who's the best hotel manager or receptionist or whatever you're asking to start a fight."

Everybody nodded with understanding. Dwarves had a similar topic they get really heated about. Who could handle the most booze. It was a bit stereotypical but sometimes those kinds of things were right. Dwarves also had a very strong natural resistance to poison, meaning that they took a lot longer for them to get drunk.

"I'm okay staying here. Worst-case scenario, I can go back to the doorway every night and stay in my private room," Hera suggested.

"Callena and I can share a room, so that's 7 that we need," Farica said.

"And if you want, Hera, you can stay with me," Pandora suggested.

Alex was about to say something else, but she just let it be. It was clear that Pandora was very interested in spending time with Hera, and it didn't seem like she had any strange intentions with that. Not to mention the assassin was friends with the Ophidianite for a long time. She didn't have to hog the Empress all to herself. Instead, she offered, "Bonnie and I can stay in another room. That makes five, right?"

"Yep," the triton replied.

"Okay. So let's set everything up in our rooms, then we can eat in a restaurant while we plan for the dungeon run. Does that sound good?" Hera asked the group.

Everybody nodded, and the triton in charge of the place quickly helped them while introducing himself. His name was Malcolm, and made sure everybody settled in their rooms. Not that they were carrying too much stuff. Each one of them only had a single backpack with any supplies they might need for traveling.

About half an hour later, they all met at a different establishment. A restaurant that served exotic foods made out of ingredients people could find in this room. As soon as they sat down, they started talking about how their dungeon run would be here.

"So, Pandora, you are the one who knows the most about the dungeon. What can we expect?" Shane asked.

"Hang on. I have a different idea, if you don't mind. The monsters here should only get to level 35. And everybody is already above that, right?"

Almost everyone nodded, but Yerel spoke up, "I am at 35."

"That should be fine," Hera nodded, noticing that Pandora was about to say something, but she continued. "So let's use this as training. We split up into groups and make sure that we all work together in this strange new place. I think the best option for that is to not have the entire setup of the dungeon. That way, we don't spoil it for us," Hera turned to Pandora. "Unless there is something really dangerous that we need to be on the lookout for."

The dwarven explorer thought for a moment. "I don't think there's anything more dangerous than everything else. The boss can be a bit tricky if you don't understand what it's doing, but that's all. Everything else should be in the same realm as any other issue you might find in a dungeon at this level. The one thing you have to keep an eye out is we're fighting giant monsters. With one exception, but it's still a pretty big monster. It's just not a giant one."

"There you have it. Aside from fighting the boss, we don't have to worry about anything. What do you think?" Hera asked the group.

Alex and Bonnie looked at each other.

"We never did get a chance to properly practice using our legacies, did we?" Alex asked.

Bonnie shook her head. "I think the closest thing to actual practice was the vampire dungeon. But we were only doing that when we had a chance. We were not, like, actively doing stuff."

Shane nodded. "It's been a few months since I took the time to improve my enchantments."

"I do have a few interesting spells I'm working on," Farica added.

"Yeah. We've been kind of busy with Zaxalam and didn't get a chance to stop and train. Train for real," Callena smiled.

"And I do miss those training sessions we used to have. I'm down," Yerel said.

"Perfect! I was thinking maybe Bonnie, Alex and Shane form one team and Farica, Callena, and Yerel form the other," Hera explained.

"Hang on. You are splitting us into legacy holders and non legacy holders?" Callena frowned.

"To be fair, that wasn't my intention. My train of thought was that Alex and Yerel should be on different teams. That way, if someone gets poisoned, both groups have someone to get rid of it. And since we going to a new dungeon it makes sense to make groups that already know how to work . But, it is also a chance for you to show that you can finish up the dungeon aster without legacies than a group of people who have them," Hera smiled at the dwarves.

"You know I kind of hate that you know us well enough to know this worked," Farica huffed, but she had a smile on her face.

"See if we are going down!" Callena cheered.

"I would love to see you try to beat us. Just so you know how badly you're going to lose," Bonnie said with a smile.

"I don't really care about the competition. I'll be focusing more on figuring out things about the monsters," Shane replied.

"That is also part of the competition. This is not just fighting practice. But full exploration practice. So I expect everybody to have a full report talking about each monster's characteristics and what ways you have to fight them if you ever meet them in the wild. That is part of the training, knowing how well you can figure out the details about a monster while fighting them," the Empress explained.

"What about me? You didn't say what I was supposed to do," Pandora asked.

"You'll be coming with me," Hera smiled. "I never saw you fighting and I want to get a look at your abilities. Don't worry. I just want to get a feel for what you can do. Between me and the court, there is nothing that should give us actual trouble in the dungeon, so yeah, that's the plan."

Pandora blinked slowly. "You're going to be my personal trainer?" It was clear she was holding back a smile.

"Technically, Lurize is going to be your personal trainer. I'll be just following it up with the rest of the things," Hera added.

Everyone sounded happy with their teams, but continued eating nonetheless. It was always a good idea to go to a dungeon with a full stomach. When they left the restaurant, the group stopped by one of the shops so they could get more traps, as Pandora had suggested a while back. By her recommendation, they got snare traps and pocket pitfalls that were quite large to carry but became almost 10 meters wide once unraveled. Apparently, inside the dungeon, you had the option of asking other people to bring those traps to the right locations.

With all that out of the way, they walked towards the entrance, which was located at the base of the settlement, and joined the queue to enter the dungeon. There were quite a lot of people there. Mostly harpies, but there was one large elven family that greeted Pandora as they passed by, leaving the dungeon.

"That's the Hervarth family. Pretty nice, but don't try to ask what they're doing here. They get very serious and refuse to talk to you if you do that. They are great at fighting, though. From what they told me, they specialize in hunting large monsters," Pandora said.

"If they are that secretive, how do you know about their fighting skills?" Callena asked.

"I joined their dungeon runs a couple of times. For one reason or another one of them couldn't participate and they didn't want to do that with one less person. Even if I was mostly carrying their bags."

They continued waiting until the groups entered the dungeon one by one. First Bonnie, Alex, and Shane, at the dwarves' insistence, then Callena, Farica, and Yerel. Leaving Hera and Pandora for the last. All they had to do was walk into an opening inside a massive tree and be greeted by a scorching sun on the other side.