A Series of Dead Ends

It took them half the day to get to the old village, which they had finally learned was Kiritish and the capital city was known as Cystalis. All things they were learning in time, the map that the King had given them helped that out quite a bit. The woods in which they were heading to were know as Grave Keep forest, not for the amount of graves it had but for the amount of souls it kept within. This gave some of the group the creeps but they had no choice, they rested up at Kiritish, double checking their supplies and eating a nice meal at the bench they always did.

They wanted to get to the edge of the forest before nightfall, so they could set up and be ready to go in by the next morning. So far the trip was quiet, they enjoyed the fresh air and the nature that was so lively there in the world, it seemed the fields weren't filled with many monsters, the occasional slime but they had a rather easy time traveling. Soon enough they saw the forest in the distance, it was ominous and looked as though a evil force had taken it over, oozing a purple smoke from all over and shrouded in a mist that would make anyone turn away.

"Well you can't say it wasn't named well right." A nervous laugh fell from Razah as she spoke.

"It isn't all that scary you guys, you are just over reacting." Arts hands shook, though he tried to keep calm, taking in deep breaths.

"Stop trying to act so tough, we are still doing it, scary or not, Right?" Vixen eyes wondered around the group, making sure everyone was still on board before a deep exhale left her lips and her eyes shuttered closed.

Finally getting to the edge of the forest, or at least as close to the edge as they were willing to get with the sun going down, they decided to set up camp. Art and Vixen were sent to go get the fire wood, which would force them closer to the forest and Fenix was the look out for the camp at the time, making sure no monsters were going to attack while the rest set up the tents. They were all sad to see that Tophuu was in charge of making food tonight, he was great with sweets but when it came to cooking, well no one could ever tell what it was and the taste always threw them off.

"Art, I hope you don't hate me, I know the things I have said lately were kinda mean. But you got to understand we are all scared and you didn't seem to understand that."

Arts head fell for a moment as he leaned down and picked up another stick. "No, I understood and I don't. I got over excited, I wanted to live my dream and forgot that it wasn't everyone same dream. I thought the more you got to see the easier it would be. But you know this isn't how I wanted it. As excited as I am, I didn't want you all forced in."

"I know Art, you tried to convince us and over time with training, we probably would have started wanting to as well. I mean, none of us are potatoes, we would have got bored with just sitting around." She let out a chuckle and continued, "I am glad we are still friends."

"Friends? I thought we were family." Raising a brow and giving her this serious look for a moment before they both started laughing. Vixen had been holding this in for some time, sense the dungeon, but she wasn't one to simply let all her feelings out in front of everyone, she was better with one on one conversations when it came to things like this.

They soon got back to the camp, greeted by a smell that curled their nose hairs and gave them goosebumps all over their bodies, Tophuu's cooking was something no one could get use to, yet to him, he was always thrilled with it.

"Come on, we haven't even started a fire yet, how does it smell that bad." Vixen plugged her nose as they got closer and Art had no words, only laughter as he felt a bit livelier than he did before. They started stacking the firewood in the middle of the tents, looking around, it seemed no one else was pleased with the smell that Tophuu had made either, other than Tophuu who was doing a little dance as he crouched over a large pot stirring it up and humming music.

The fire was started, food was made and not so enjoyed but still, they wanted to keep their strength and spirits high going into their first real quest. They took turns all night, trading watch to make sure the fire stayed going and keeping monsters away. Soon enough the sun started to rise and they started to roll out of their tents with bed riddled hair and a stench on their breath from the food. They got ready quickly, packing everything back up and staring at the mist covered forest that haunted them all night long.

"Everyone ready?" Art, showing a little more care for their feelings and not charging off head long into danger after the conversation he had with Vixen. She was the first to take step forward, not wasting any more time on just standing around. Even if the words weren't said she was kind of excited for the adventure they were about to take as they were engulfed by the mist and purple smoke of the forest.

As soon as they took their first steps in they could hear laughter echoing through the forest, it was as though the forest itself was excited to have new visitors, a new addition to its eternal grave yard. It wasn't long before they were attacked by ghosts, some just floating monster heads, others human bodies that hovered around and all of them attacking. Vixen and Art both had a hard time with them, as their weapons seemed to pass right through them, dealing little to no damage at all. Tophuu was in the same predicament as he couldn't even capture these monsters, this job was left up to Razah as she shined Ra's light onto them, burning them up and turning them into smoke that blew away with the winds. Fenix had gained a low level bird form, giving him the ability to grow wings, though they couldn't lift his body he was able to do bits of wind damage in this form. Gusts of wind shot forth and damaged the ghosts that filled the forest, while Meekle, though unable to attack was able to help, putting a buff on Razah that allowed her to use spells with ten percent less magic than usually and one for Fenix that gave a magic boost to his attacks so he could deal more damage to each one.

They seemed set and were having good luck making their way through the forest, though ghost filled it was beautiful in the spots the light hit, making it look as though the moss and mushrooms were leaking magic into the air. The trees looked less gray and more lively than ever in these spots, just what one would expect in a fairy tail world. These were the spots they checked for the doorway into the dungeon, something that would stand out, they hoped as they searched and searched for it.

"The map says it should be right around here." Meekle stopped and looked around at the floor spun round as he tried to find what he was looking for.

"Well, I don't see anything." Vixen started knocking on trees, trying to find one that maybe was hallow.

"Well, this area looks well rested, meaning no one has been here in quite some time. So, if this is the true placement of the door, we can figure it was on the ground, meaning that it is most likely over grown at this point." Fenix started taking slow steps forward and would then bounce on his toes before repeating this again and again and soon finding that an area would actually bounce with him, making a creaking noise under the soil and grass.

They dug and ripped away at the ground till the found a handle and all at once pulled on it, ripping roots of plants and grass away from the ground and revealing a set of steps that led down into the earth. As they made their way down it got darker and darker and with their final step down into the dungeon torches lit the area, lining the walls. They were faced with a wall that was carved into.

"Those who enter and cannot find the exit will stay here, haunted by the beast till their dying day, till the labyrinth takes them and they will become its serving protectors for all time."

"Great, so we are now stuck in some maze unless we can stop this beast and get the piece of the seal?" Meekle turned and the stairs they just came down were now blocked by a large cement slab that he kicked and punched at, but to no avail.

"Well actually, this isn't a maze, its a labyrinth. So it shouldn't be as hard to navigate through. We will need paper to write out where we have been but we should be just fine." Fenix ruffled through his bag looking for paper and something to write with.

"What is the difference between a maze and a labyrinth anyways?" Tophuu asked.

"Well you see." Fenix was filled with excitement quickly with the question, while the others shook their heads at Tophuu, knowing that really it didn't matter at the moment. "A maze was usually made with random twists and turns, this is the common mistake with them, a labyrinth was made with a pattern of turns, usually in a circular shape, its confusing but a maze could be much worse." He continued to babble as the rest took the paper and pen from him and started forward, first to the left, they decided.

The left lead them to a cross roads, they decided to stick to the left, which led them down a short path to a dead end and as they turned to head back they were blocked in buy a group of skeletons, who had swords and shields equipped. Art did as he always does and rushed in, swinging his sword down on them and then a stab into a spin and swing. This was his most basic combo and gave the group an idea of what would work on the enemy. It did good damage but was nothing like what they were doing to the monsters outside the forest, Razah did a small magic shine spell on them, doing close to the same as Arts sword attack, it seemed that they were equally able to damage them and without the right spell couldn't do critical attacks against these just yet. Still, they fought, rushing in with attacks, it seemed that Fenix was the high damage dealer in this battle, as he could get in more attacks with his speed than the rest. Soon the bones fell apart and laid in a pile on the ground.

They made their way back to the fork and headed the other way, which led them around towards the back of the labyrinth and then rotated them around back the way they were going. It felt like this would be a dead end but Fenix assured them that this was common for a place like this and they should make sure before heading all the way back to the beginning. Along the way they had more fights with skeletons and even a few wolf like skeletons, one of which Tophuu was able to catch as a pet, it seemed much more powerful than his other two monsters, as such it seemed to summon would take more energy, twice as much as it did to summon the slime. For now he saved this as what he liked to call his trump card.

Finally after what seemed like so long of walking through this path they hit a dead end, but it wasn't a total loss as their was a treasure chest at the end. All of them a little sad but also excited, thinking maybe one of them would get a new weapon out of this. As Art leaned over and opened it, it seemed to come to life, biting at his and taking a chunk of health from him.

"Its a mimic." He jumped back, trying to get away before it could bite at him again. It was a vile thing, known to be made when a thief passed, failing to obtain its treasure, now left to try and gain more treasures from adventurers. Hit bounced around, a skeleton and muscles filled the inside of it, while razor sharp teeth lined the trunk of it and three rows, of what looked like teeth lining the whole in the center, known to be the mouth. All of them readied them selves for this fight, Art not wasting much time as he hit it with two of his better combos, one of which was three sharp and quick jabs of his sword, followed by two upward slashes, making the ground spark as he did so. Fenix took his wolf form, which had upgraded, now his forearms much bigger and covered in fer, his claws were longer, his teeth sharp and his mouth more of a maw, with ears on the top of his head, giving him much better hearing. He rushed it with a down ward kick making the chest shut and slam, slivers of wood shot from it, but he didn't stop as his claws scratched into the wood. It bounced around, hitting Fenix's foot and then biting him against his leg, dealing a bit more damage than it did to Art, taking about twenty-five percent from Fenix, while only taking about ten percent from Art, this showed the difference in their defense stat. Arrows rained down from Vixens bow, Meekle added a defense buff to Fenix and a curse to the chest, trying to cast poison on it but it seemed to have no effect. Razah was in the back, chanting for some time before her first attack.

"Ra, I ask for your scorching power, that of the heavens and your home. With the power that I have, please grant me just a little and summon forth a burning sun for me to purge my enemies." She held out her staff and her eyes flashed as a ball of red and yellow grew in front of it, a small sun came forth and shot towards the evil mimic who was dealing good damage to all those close enough. The sun hit it and burst like a small explosion, "Now, I call upon Osiris, ruler of the under-world. Smite this beast into your ever lasting darkness. I beg of thee, from this exploding sun, let your might rip through space and obliterate it from my site." As the sun exploded a small black hole created and tore into the mimic, ripping parts of it into dust and sending it through this black hole.

With the large damage that Razah just did it was done, it bounced about, shutting tight and as it fell to its back the chest opened once again, spilling out gold and jewels for them to split. These jewels were known for upgrading ones stats but without knowing which one they had it was risky to use, but this was information they did not have as they shoved it into one of their bags. The gold split between them, adding one hundred pieces to each of them equally. They all were in such joy about this before Razah fell to her knees, it seemed that magic spell took most of her mana to use, leaving her weak and tired.

"I think its time we rest. It seems safe enough here to spend a little time and regain our strength." Meekle wanted to make sure they were all good to go first, it wasn't just her, Art and Fenix too a lot of damage in that fight and it would not be smart to get caught in another tough fight like that one. They all sat down, knowing that they were going to have to track all the way back to the start of the dungeon to get on the right path. Razah went into her back and pulled out a bottle filled with a greenish blue liquid and started drinking it slowly, feeling her energy starting to come back to her with every sip.

With rest the team regained health over time, with food that time is sped up, its not instant like potions but they thought it best to save those for now, so that they didn't end up like they did last time at a boss with no healing items. With the rest time adding up to about thirty minutes they decided it was time to head back, trying to move a bit quicker, fighting off skeletons as they went and moving at a faster pace to make up for the time they lost they soon found themselves back at the beginning and heading for the right turn and wasting no time at the start, heading right into the turn, with the speed they were going they heard a sudden click, as one of the bricks in the floor slid down and the ceiling opened up above them, dropping slimes all over, there were a total of twenty slimes, but these ones were different, having small sparks of electricity coming off of them as they bounced around and into Tophuu. A shock went through his body and he was unable to move.

"Hey, what is this." small sparks traveled up and down his body as he was paralyzed, his eyes shooting back and forth as drool started down his chin. "Someone help me." His voice muffled and though a serious moment Meekle, Vixen and Art couldn't help but giggle a bit as they tried not to get hit by the slimes that bounced around, hitting the walls and bouncing into the air. Meekle had no curse or spell to help him out of it, nor did Razah as far as she knew, they just had to keep going. Vixen dropped down, her hand hitting the floor as she popped herself up into the air and shot a couple arrows hitting the slimes back. Once on bounced onto it they fell into a whole filled with spikes, this was one of the bigger traps she could do at the moment, but was only able to set one at a time.

That dropped the amount of slimes down to twelve, plus the ones that the rest had done away with, leaving only eight now. Soon Tophuu was able to move and summoned out his slime, he pointed and gave it an attack command, the slime rushed one that had little health left and as he made contact fused with the slime, making Tophuu's slime a bit bigger and it popped with electricity as it bounced in circles now.

"Ah, well that is an interesting feature. It would seem that if you command--"

"I don't command them, they are my friends." Tophuu cut Fenix short of his sentence.

"Quite right, sorry. If you have a slime friend, which you do, it can go for one of the weaker ones and combine with it, essentially letting it take the element it has as well as growing in size, making it more of a great slime now. That may come in handy once we learn all the weaknesses of other monsters." Fenix had more that he wondered about, such as if the slime could keep all the elements and change at will or did it have to tap the element to change, it was questions saved for another day as they had no real way to test it at the moment.

"Finally, from now on we need to move a bit more cautiously." Vixen stepped forward and took the lead of the party, keeping closer to the wall as they moved forward. They finally came to a fork, this time there were three paths to take. It was starting to dawn on them just how long this might take if they keep coming to more and more of these. This time they chose to take the center path and headed down that way and at the end they found a large spiders nest, each one of them started slowly stepping back, this was not the nest of monsters that any of them wanted to mess with. Other than Tophuu who they had to pull away so they didn't get attacked by the mother spider, where ever it may be. This trap was a bit more obvious, as this spider has been there for a very long time and was known for only attacking those who harmed or touched its web and eggs. As they backed up drool fell to the ground, burning and searing it as it did so, with a slight glance up they would see a large spider, much bigger than anyone of them. Art slapped his hand over his mouth to keep from freaking out as he was known for being a bit arachnophobic, Fenix put his hand on Art's shoulder and kept him moving back, assuring him that he wasn't alone. Though no one could blame him for being scared of that spider.

After they got back to the fork in the road they all took a breath and freaked out a bit, Fenix taking the map they had been making and drawing a big "x" over it to make sure they would not ever try that path again.

"Lets go this way." Art's hands still shaking as he pointed down the right hand path, and slowly they all dragged their feat in worry of what could be waiting for them next. Out of all the monsters so far they had to admit that was probably the one that scared them the most. Still they moved forward, feeling like the twists and turns would never end with this labyrinth, they started to understand why so many people got lost, or never made it out alive, with traps around every corner.

It seemed that this path was fairly safe, with small groups of monsters but they were able to avoid any traps it would have had, Razah and Meekle leveled up just before the boss battle, making them level six and the rest at a level five, from the grinding they did back at the capital. Soon they found themselves at an opening. Fenix checked the map and by that it said they should be in the middle of the labyrinth. It was much larger than any of them expected, they could fit the whole of Kiritish into this room, making it down on them just how long they had been walking up to this point.

At the far end of the room was a giant beast, that looked like a troll, its skin was a deep green and brown color. As they walked in, all readying their weapons its head turned, revealing a large bull head, its eyes fixed on them and it roared as it turned and stood up straight, showing it to be seven feet five inches tall and towering over them. It was some mutated Minotaur, with a large bone as a club that it thrashed about, banging it on the ground. They didn't give it a chance to attack first as Vixen let arrows fly and Razah started her small sun spell. Vixen knew that her smaller traps wouldn't work on this like it did against the thief, she had to think of something new without draining all her magic away. Meekle started buffing each one of them for extra defense stats, all except Art, who he gave an attack up stat to, this drained a large chunk of Meekles magic but he gave them a great starting advantage.

Art did a sweeping slash, his sword rising up the Mutated Minotaur, with the extra boost in attack it knocked it back a bit. Fenix came in from behind and started slashing at it with his claws over and over, with how tall the beast was he only reached to its lower back. Arrows stuck in its shoulder but none of this seemed to faze or slow him down as it whipped around and knocked them all back, with a sickening laughter filling the room, a purple smoke leaked from his gaping jaw and covered over the floor, it made anyone close enough to get hit by it feel sick, turning their stomachs and their skin tinting in a purple color. This hit Art and Fenix, causing them to fall down, their health started to drop every fifteen seconds, taking three percent every time. Thankfully they bought a few antidotes that would heal them from this, as they jumped up and moved as fast as they could away and pulled it out, a green liquid in a vial that they both downed quickly.

"Take note of this, when he laughs he will release that poison, so make sure to step away from him and protect yourselves. We don't have many of those vials." Art knew his games well and how to tell patterns from bosses well, this one was easy so far, learning his move set so far. They waited to rush in again, Razah's attack about to be launched, this time she put all her magic into it, creating three suns that shot from her staff and hit two to the chest and one to the face, this knocked it down.

"Everyone go now." Razah gave them the opening and wanted them to capitalize on the moment. Art and Fenix rushed in with their combo attack like they did to the last boss, while Meekle hit it with a slow debuff that he got when he leveled up before the boss and Vixen rained arrows from the sky, this time using a magic skill that multiplied each one of her arrows that she shot into three. Tophuu called forth his skull mutt that he had got earlier, it rushed the boss and jumped onto its chest biting at it and clawing down on it. This did a massive amount of damage to the boss but it then thrashed about on the floor, throwing everyone from it and then bouncing to its feet. It leaped into the air three times, each landing at a different spot of the room, it seemed to randomly pick spots that we were in but one of them was away from all of them, making them confused as to if the patter was random or not.

There was no time to think about it, this was the start of phase two in the battle and he was enraged as he snorted at them. Each snort filling the air with a black cloud that would hover around the room, they did their best to avoid it but it didn't seem to be going away. They had to work around it, finding ways to attack it while dodging this cloud that they weren't sure exactly what it did, but it wasn't long before it huffed out another from its long snout giving them a harder time. Razah was weak, kneeling at the other end as she searched through her bag for a mana potion so she could get back in the fight, she left her guard down and the cloud was coming towards her. Vixen rushed her and pushed Razah out of the way, leaving her to get hit by the cloud that stunned her leaving her crawling with little sparks, just like what happened to Tophuu, only this time when the cloud hit her the boss rushed her and smacked her with the club before he then started his random jumping once again.

Vixen was thrown across the room by the club and hit the wall, her health fell till it was only at ten percent, bringing her so close to zero. Art ran across the room trying to dodge the random jumping to make his way to Vixen, just barely dodging out of the way of the final leap of the Mutated Minotaur, getting hit with a piece of rubble as he did. This wasn't going to stop him though as his health fell to the half way mark, he kept making his way to Vixen, getting closer he could notice her body giving off a red aura, a warning that she was low on health. He ripped open his bag and dropped everything out till he found the red pot and popped the top off and started pouring it into her mouth.

"Come on, hurry, hurry." He kept looking over his shoulder to make sure that he wouldn't be attacked from behind, what he would see is all of them guarding over them, making a barrier so the beast couldn't get to Vixen.

"You are totally crazy, you could have been smashed."

"Shut up, at least I didn't get hit by a giant club." They taunted each other to try and make light of the situation they were in.

"If you two are done over there, lets finish this Minotroll off shall we?" Meekle completely butchering the boss name into a pun of some sort. They got up and Meekle once again cast buffs on them, as they had warn off at this point, this time he put attack buffs on all of them. The boss was seen thrashing about and with a quick look around there were now three clouds floating around the room as the all got ready for one last attack.

Vixen rushed to the around the room and started setting traps, burning through her mana after only three, they were buffed and ready as they rushed in with physical attacks, Vixen shot at it and Razah started another spell. Tophuu burned up his magic to call the slime along with the skull mutt, though it didn't seem to do near as much damage, still every bit helped at this point as he tried his best. The close fighters tried to lead it into one of the traps but it seemed smarter, they were going to have to trick it some how. Tophuu had a bit of a crazy idea as he seemed to be timing something in his head, his focus was no longer on the boss fight but the clouds circling the room, soon he rushed one and jumped into it, causing the Mutated Minotaur to react and rush towards Tophuu, everyone in a panic before they saw him hit one of the traps that Vixen set, its body was quickly entangled into a set of vines that pierced its body with thorns and left it motionless. They all smiled, thinking just how crazy Tophuu was do something like this, but they weren't going to let this moment go to waist.

"Osiris, ruler of the under-world. Smite this beast into your ever lasting darkness. I beg of thee, let your wrath run free against this beast." This was the non combination attack, taking a new spell to summon the magic forth. The black hole pulled open, this one was much larger as it pulled him in, taking the club with it and leaving the beast weak.

"Quick blade." Art shot forward at the beast and released an intense amount of attacks against the beast, using a skill for the first time sense they started. It drained half his mana but left quite the mark on the beast as Fenix rushed in with Tophuu's two pets and opened with a flurry of attacks before he ran up his body, leaping off it and transforming, his wings came out as he released wind attack one after another. Vixen shot arrow after arrow out as she was already drained of mana. Meekle stood back, hitting it with little bits of what looked like a black flame draining what little magic he had left, this did very little but he wanted to help all he could.

The Boss ripped free and stumbled around as they all stepped back, it gave off a few roars but soon fell to its knees and with one last huff fell over, its body started turning to tiny digital squares and floating up into the sky and reforming to make the piece of the seal they were looking for, it floated down and hung in the air for one of them to take.

"I feel like this one has to go to Tophuu for that crazy final move he pulled." Art was willing to give this moment up for his friend. He looked over to Tophuu who was just now started to be able to move around again.

"Hey Vixen, you get that numb tingling feeling all over too." He started laughing as he walked forward, as if he enjoyed it a bit. He reached his hand out and took the seal that they had just won and held it up for a moment before looking at it. "It kind of looks like a horn of some sort."

A portal opened in the center of the room just like the last dungeon, this time there was nothing to loot and they simple walked towards the light and found themselves in the forest or what they believed was the same forest, it was hard to tell as the spirits had all vanished as did the mist and purple smoke. It was clear and the forest shimmered with beauty all throughout. All of them felt so good, they got through their first story line boss and even with everything that happened they felt closer than they had sense they had got to this world.

They stopped to enjoy the newly healed forest and rest before they made their long trip back to Crystalis. Nature had made its way back quickly as well, with small lizards and boars coming into the forest, looking for food and drink. After a short rest and admiring everything around them they decided to make the long journey back to Kirishin and spend the night there. It had taken them a whole day to get through the dungeon and fight the boss and they were all as tired as they could be as they headed back towards the village.

"I can't believe you called it a Minotroll." Art shoved at Meekle as they all laughed.