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MAZE - Chapter 1094 - Experiments
🕑 Added 2025-08-07 03:45:19 +0000 UTCOnce Hera got back to the guard tower, she spread out her court and asked Nimbus to stay in the sky just to be sure that the ghosts were not around right now. There were still a couple of things she wanted to prepare before their arrival, and they were all very important for her safety and to learn more about what the specters would do in various situations.
Hera used a stone shaping spell to create a couple of pillars on the ground and placed the roots tied on top of them. That way, if a ghost was going to approach it, it would be forced to touch it. She also prepared similar traps and spread around the guard tower. The most complicated one was a pulley system that she placed inside the guard tower that she could control herself to see if she could use one of the roots to attack the ghosts.
The Empress wasn't trying to hurt them, just to see if they would actually try to get away from the root or not. Because of that, she left the root that came from the very tree that was protecting the guardhouse for the pulley system. The rest were a mix of the ones she and her court found and the ones that felt like good ideas.
By the time she finished that, the sun was still out. If she were doing it by herself, it would have taken a lot longer, but thanks to Filigree and the entire court, any small project like this could be finished in no time at all.
With that out of the way, Hera walked into the guard tower one more time, checked to see if there were no monsters on any of the floors, and put up her tent again. She was going to eat and sleep right away to wake up soon after the ghosts appeared and have some time to try to learn more from them.
The Empress was preparing some meat that she had hunted before coming here when Parade spoke up. "Can I ask you a question?"
Hera paused and stared at the gaudy lance. "Sure"
"Is this what we are going to be doing all the time?" Parade asked.
"What do you mean by this? Finding ghosts? Can't say it's something that happens often. Honestly, that's maybe the second time I ever saw them or something like that," Hera said after taking a bite.
"No, I don't mean that. I mean, is this how life is going to be? We're just going to be running around trying to figure out mysteries and getting back here to be safe?"
Hera paused, trying to understand what Parade was asking, but instead she got a feeling coming from the blade. It was longing, although not related to a person or a place. It was longing for something. A longing to fight. Not in a battle-frenzy kind of way, but more in a way that a boxer might want to go back into the ring, or well, an explorer might want to run into a dungeon.
Hera shook her head. "No. Usually, we would be fighting a lot of monsters, then going into dungeons and doing all that kind of stuff. But this is something that I've been working towards for a long time, so yeah, for now until we actually find something that wants to kill us, we're probably going to have a more calm time. Or at least that's what I'm hoping."
"I see," Parade replied, his voice clearly somewhat upset.
"You wanted to fight?"
Hera heard a rustling sound, and she turned to see Mock approaching, "We do. sorry about that."
"You don't need to be sorry. You never fought before, I mean, have you?"
Mock shook her entire body in an attempt to say no. "Not really. It just feels like that's the type of thing that I was made to do, you know? Honestly, Empress, all of us feel like we were made for fighting."
Saying that a weapon couldn't fight was like saying that water shouldn't flow or that fire shouldn't burn. It made sense that their very essence yearned for that type of thing. But at the same time, it could be a problem for the future. If Hera was in a situation where she wanted to retire and the blades still had those feeling. It would be complicated. She would have to either leave them even though they were upset, or she had to change the entire court into tools that were not made for fighting, like cooking knives or something. So instead, she figured they should try to understand a bit more about them.
"Okay, let me ask you this. Do you feel the need to fight? Is it something like if you don't fight you're going to go crazy, or is it something more like 'I could really go for a fight right now'?"
Parade and Mock shifted to look at each other before saying, "I think it's more of the second. We could go for a fight, but it's not something that we feel like we need to do tonight. It will just make us a bit happy."
"And what if you were fighting each other? I know that you can do that kind of thing inside the Empress Palace."
They nodded. "That helps, but it's not the same thing. We miss the idea of fighting monsters."
"Monsters, huh?"
Hera paused and turned to Daskka. "Hey, can you enter the palace? What if you fight with them?"
"Then it does help, but it doesn't scratch the itch that they are talking about," the herald explained.
"Odd. I figured you in your snake form would be close enough to a monster to let them let out some steam."
The Herald paused for a moment and said, "Honestly, I don't think it's something that's going to keep happening over and over again. It's more about the fact that they never fought. Remember how you got Dao?"
Hera frowned "What does Dao have to do with anything?"
"I mean, you kept him away for a very long time, and then when you called him, he was off, right?"
Hera gave a half nod. "He was just struggling a little bit."
"Exactly. Because he hadn't been fully integrated with the court. I think it's a similar thing. They have not been fully integrated with their bodies, and they need to properly stretch themselves in a more controlled environment to do so."
"But this is not the first time that I spent so long without fighting a real enemy after changing court members."
But Nimbus interjected and continued the conversation. "True, but at the time we were practicing with others. Even if you were not fighting, you were sparring with your friends. That might be enough. I think what they are yearning for is not simply a fight, but a fight with you by their side. A sense of command that you give, which goes beyond simple combat."
Daskka stared at the Sentinel for a moment before starting to chuckle. "Look at you using big words. Our little bird has grown up."
He stared daggers at the Herald. "Keep talking and I'm going to eat you like a worm."
"Do you want to go, beak boy?" Daskka shifted into her silver snake form, getting taller than the Sentinel.
"Okay, okay, stop this before you two start fighting," Hera pushed the two aside.
Feeling a sense of annoyance coming from the new blades, Hera quickly turned towards them. "They can fight, just not here, not right now. They can solve this in the morning, but we can't afford to cause that much noise here, and I really don't think this place is going to survive if the two of them start brawling."
Hearing that seemed to appease the court, but Hera still rubbed her eyes. She wasn't expecting to have to take care of the blades like that, and in a sense, it reminded her of an old virtual pet that she used to have on her computer. Dealing with its mood and cleaning up after it was a really annoying part of the game. Still, she enjoyed this version of the court.
The blades didn't feel as stiff as some of the previous members. They were more alive somehow, with the fact that they were starting to complain about what they wanted to do. It wasn't as if Hera herself didn't understand them. She also wanted to fight, and she wanted to see them in action. There were just other priorities on her mind right now.
Despite that conversation, everybody agreed to continue staying there for the night, and in about an hour, Hera was already sleeping, asking Filigree and Vulcan, who stayed up this time, to wake her if they saw anything.
It was sometime after midnight when Filigree gently approached Hera and shook her awake. "Empress, I believe it's time for us to see how well the tree traps will fare against the ghosts."
"Thank you."
She quickly got up and paused. "Is it weird that I don't feel that tired?"
"Your attributes are rather high, and between the court there are quite a few of us with abilities to recover our strength. Maybe this is just the result of all the passives working together due to [Army of One]?"
Filigree suggested, and Hera felt that was as good a theory as any. As a matter of fact, ever since she became an Ophidianite, everything felt easier. Not easy per se, but her body was better in a way. And that really made sense. After all, this was quite literally tailor-made by her, and there were some attributes that she placed in the body of an Ophidianite hoping to get this exact effect.
Putting those thoughts out of the way and allowing her to wake up properly, Hera stepped towards one of the windows of the guardhouse. Just like it was before, the ghosts were already roaming around, seemingly in their own world, ignoring all the others.
Hera watched as one of the ghosts walked through a pillar that had one of the roots wrapped around it. But the ghost seemed unbothered by it. Quickly pulling up her tablet, she made a note that the root was not useful. Not that one specific root, at least. This was not from the same type of tree that was on the top of this building and was instead one of the random pieces of vegetation that they found on the plateau. Marking that trap number four as not working properly, the Empress turned to the next one she could see.
So far, it was strange. Most of the roots did not have any effect on the ghosts. But there were a couple that caused them to react in different ways.
One of them, the one that Lurize suggested bringing that belonged to a very similar version of the tree that was protecting the guardhouse but had a smaller density of mana, caused an adverse reaction. But it wasn't on the same level of intensity as what the root surrounding the guardhouse would do. Instead, it was as if the ghosts were smelling something foul. They would shake their heads and walk away, but it didn't seem like they were being hurt by anything.
There was another, this one something that Vulcan picked up. It was a strange variation of the tree that was protecting the guardhouse, but instead of the regular wood mana, this particular version had a strange type of fire mana. The result was that it created an angry version of the ghosts. Those who interacted with that particular root started to move more frantically until they couldn't take it anymore and attacked whatever was nearby. In this case, they attacked another specter, almost as if it was the first time they ever seen each other.
As strange as the reaction was, this particular symptom of the root was what Hera found the most curious. How were those ghosts not seeing each other? They were clearly moving around in front of one another. It made no logical sense for them to be incapable of seeing or recognizing the rest of the ghosts in the area.
Yet that seemed to be exactly what was happening. In hindsight, it made all the sense. Even the previous day, Hera never seen two ghosts interact with each other. Every single one of them moved as if they were a singular unit, not as if they were part of a whole. Maybe this had something to do with their true nature, whatever it was.
The third root that was mildly interesting was one from a completely different tree. This one was a birch tree with green spots along the root. Hera had confirmed that wasn't some sort of disease or anything of the sort. It was just how the roots were supposed to be. What they did was make the ghosts dance.
No matter which specter touched it, the moment they did so they would start to sway back and forth in a strange rhythm that seemed to be unique for every ghost. This only made her believe that this was some sort of dancing root for the ghosts. Funny, yes, but also useful. They wouldn't chase after her while still dancing, although she wasn't entirely positive if the dance would supersede any other reaction they might have.
Then came the last of the traps, the one that had the roots of the tree protecting the guardhouse on a pulley system. Hera had set it up in a way that for as long as she pulled down a rope, the root would go back and forth over the street. That was exactly what she needed.
Pulling the rope, she made the root start to travel down the street and watched as ghosts, who were moving slowly and being very lethargic, suddenly burst into life. The moment the root approached them, they would start moving quickly away from it. Most of them just did it out of instinct, but there were a couple who even stared at the flying piece of vegetation before looking spooked and running away.
Indeed, it was able to protect her from the ghosts and likely could be used to make some sort of armor. Hera already had the crafter role, but she never tried to make something like that. There were a few very basic gear that could be useful. For one, a bracelet and some greaves, maybe even a belt. Yes, it would take a lot of material, and no, she had no idea if those pieces of the root, once they were treated, would have the same effects.
But if she managed to make it work, she would have a small set of gear to protect her from whatever those ghosts were capable of doing. Even if they didn't work, it would still be enough just to have some of those pieces of root with her so she could try to protect herself, maybe even using them to make a ring around her. That way, she would be sure that none of the ghosts were going to attack her during the night when she was in a location that wasn't as beneficial as this one.
She also made a mental note of coming back here and taking some pieces of the root back to Zaxalam when she was ready to return. She might not be a crafter, but there were a large number of dwarves who could do something like that. With their expertise, she was sure someone would figure out what type of skill this root had and how it could be replicated on other pieces of equipment to make a more permanent solution for the presence of the ghosts.
Those experiments lasted most of the night, but it was still around 4:00 a.m. when she felt that she had done everything she wanted to do. The best thing she could do now was to sleep so she could wake up early in the morning and continue exploring this plateau.
#### Author's note ####
What do you think is the deal with the specters?
Comments
NessaroseDyer
Not quite sure what is causing the spectors to roam about, but willing to bet that whatever is at the root (heheh) has something to do with how the Naga went extinct...
