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MAZE - Chapter 1062 - The dark lighthouse
🕑 Added 2025-05-27 12:01:30 +0000 UTCHera pressed yes and Atlas followed her right away, both of them entering the dark lighthouse dungeon. But unlike the name suggested, the entrance of the place was anything but dark.
They were in a room where a blinding white light was shining through, covering pretty much everything. And now, Hera was able to see the world in that black and white shade, as did Atlas. For inside the dungeon, no other color existed. Even looking down, even calling her court or casting a spell didn't change the fact that you could only see in shades of black or white.
"Great," she sighed, "You just threw the Wendigo on what's likely the best place for it."
"I just... look, I'm sorry. I didn't think it would—" Atlas started, but was quickly interrupted.
"Yes, you didn't think," Hera huffed, but she paused and let out a groan, "Sorry. I know you didn't want to do that. We're going to need to find the monster and kill it. Screw the dungeon quest and screw the rewards. The priority is the Wendigo, got it?"
"Got it. Then let's start moving." Atlas replied with a determined face.
They walked around the lighthouse and noticed a trapdoor on the ground. The moment they touched it to open, a notification appeared in front of them.
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You have found the dungeon quest.
There are only two lighthouses in this room. However, the creatures that inhabit this place learned to mirror its effects to lure unsuspecting travelers towards their doom. Locate the only other real lighthouse and escape the domain of those creatures.
First time rewards
500 000 gold
Dark Lighthouse supplies
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"Oh great, not only do we have to worry about the Wendigo, but also about a bunch of other monsters that could attack us from anywhere. This really was a crappy place to bring that thing into," Hera grumbled.
"Sorry," Atlas replied, looking down once more.
"I'm not angry at you. It's just a crappy situation. Let's go see if we can find that monster already," Hera pulled the trapdoor open, revealing a spiral staircase heading down. The rest of this lighthouse also was mostly white. All thanks to the glowing crystals on the sides of the wall. But there were dark shadows peppered around the area, giving the place an ominous look.
"Yeah, but how are we going to leave?" Atlas turned towards the part of the wall that they came from. Now it was just a glass dome.
Hera cursed under her breath and called her court to see if anyone knew about this dungeon.
"So, what do we do here?" Atlas asked, and Crimson was the one to appear in her titled form forward, as the Empress already called her court, all the weapons floating around them.
"It's basically what the request said. When we go outside, there's going to be a bunch of different lights trying to lure us towards them, but only one of them is going to be the truth. If we go to the wrong one, we're going to end up fighting a monster, and if we find the right one, we can get out of here. But since we're looking for the Wendigo, we're going to have to go chasing after the lights, anyway."
"What about using our own sources of light? I mean, we have magic. We could use some spells to show the way," Atlas questioned.
Crimson shook her head, "That works, but the light will be really weak. I read about this one guy that came here and used the spell Solar Flare that was supposed to be able to blind people in a large area for several hours. But after using that spell, the effect was basically the flash of a camera in a very narrow range. With that in mind, we can use fire or any sort of light to get a handle of our surroundings, but it's going to be like using a candle in the middle of an empty field," Crimson explained.
"So it's not going to be easy, that's what you're saying. Especially since we have to find the Wendigo here. I really wish we had brought one of the devices Helena made." Hera rubbed her temple. This quick trip here to kill off a Wendigo was becoming much more complicated than she was expecting.
"Can't you see where the Wendigo went?"
"Not in the same way that her device can. I can more or less get an idea of where something is if that something is nearby. But I can't track it or recognize the trail that it left behind."
"But what about your eyes? Do you think you'd still be able to see even in the dark?" Atlas asked again. He had realized the Ophidianite had some ability to see things differently, but wasn't entirely sure how.
Hera paused and thought for a moment. The infrared sight shouldn't be affected by light and dark. So if the creatures who lived in this area actually gave off any sort of temperature, she would be able to recognize that and act upon it. But this was something she couldn't test right now. When she did. Everything was blown up as if she was staring at an intense source of heat.
"Let's hope that works," Atlas said, and the group stepped out of the lighthouse.
The light from behind them was still there, but unlike what one would expect from a lighthouse that had those long beams cutting through the darkness, this didn't happen with the place they were leaving. Instead, it just emanated enough to cover the surrounding area, but beyond that, there was only darkness.
They all stopped for a moment, trying to take in the environment, when another light source appeared in the distance, far away from their location to the left. And this time, it was like a proper lighthouse, a beam of light cutting through the darkness and spinning. Although the light wasn't able to reveal anything more than just the ground where it was touching, it seemed like there were no structures, vegetation, or anything in the way between here and this new lighthouse.
But Hera also felt really suspicious about the light. The dungeon said that monsters would be trying to trap them, and it made sense that the first light that appeared would not be the one they would be searching for.
Now that they were outside of the initial lighthouse, Hera took a moment to activate her [Ophidianite Sight] once more and see if there was anything she could grasp in the infrared light. To the skill's credit, there was.
She could discern a few shapes hidden in the dark, much smaller shapes than the ones that she was expecting for monsters capable of creating such intense light. They also somehow felt weaker, almost as if they were not the real danger of the room. But the shapes were there nonetheless, even if they were still in black and white.
Despite using the infrared sight, which generally gave her a mix of red, greens, and blues to understand her surroundings, everything was black and white, even on her skill. Out of curiosity, she opened the system window only to see it all color had also been removed from it. This dungeon was affecting everything, not just the environment. It was almost as if inside this place, color did not exist.
"This is so weird," the Empress shook her head.
"What is it?" Atlas turned towards her.
"Everything is black and white, even the system."
"What?" The man gasped and opened his status screen. "Holy crap. What's going on here?"
"It's probably just the gimmick of the dungeon. Don't think too much about it. I seriously doubt that the Wendigo was able to do something like this. Either way," Hera pointed towards the light that was slowly feeling towards them, "there are some monsters in that direction. Or what I'm assuming to be monsters. They are in the dark, and maybe they are going to attack us as we pass by."
"Does that mean that's the right direction? Monsters could be protecting the exit."
"They could also be watching out for the people who are lost after the light passes by. I honestly don't know if that is the right direction or not. And I don't think we're going to know that unless we go there. Actually," Hera turned towards Crimson this time, "did it say anything about how to find the right lighthouse in the data you got?"
Crimson paused for a moment, thinking about the question, before shaking her head. "Not really. Apparently, this is not a very popular dungeon. People who come here only come to finish off the room, so to speak. Running the last dungeon that is available here. Beyond that, people don't really like coming here since they say it's so annoying, and the lack of colors makes things too difficult for pretty much everyone. I can't really blame them for that."
"But is there any more information about how to end this, how to finish this quest?"
"No. People generally go for trial and error. According to the information available, there's no set pattern, or if there is, people still don't know about it. Could be the first one that we see, or it could be the last. The light that comes from the real passage is also a mystery. The consensus is that there is something else that people are missing when they come here. But so far, no one was able to figure out what."
"Can't it just be a random thing?" Atlas found himself asking.
"It is possible, but random events are usually more common on the hard mode of a dungeon. On the normal mode, usually there is some pattern or some way to consistently beat the dungeon. Either way, let's start. The longer we stick around, the worse things might get for us."
Hera made a chain line with her blades, all attached by the [Blade Accord] so they didn't lose anyone if something bad were to happen. Not wanting to risk too much, she also made sure to keep her titled blades nearby. They were also in their weapon forms, but closer to her and not completely trapped by the chain of her legacy. It was just as a safeguard in case the Wendigo or whatever other creature decided to attack out of the blue.
Once she sent out the court into the darkness, she started feeling a lot of attacks coming from various directions. But each individual blade was more than capable enough of handling the monsters here. Wendigo aside, the creatures should not be past level 23 or 24.
Another thing that Hera was able to notice was that towards the right, away from the lighthouse that they were heading, was a strangely empty area. As if any monster that was there had been killed, or maybe they were never there in the first place. But something told her that it was the former, not the latter. Something went through, something passed by that wiped out all the monsters in the area.
She was a bit worried about Atlas, since the man was being brought along by her, and she couldn't be sure if he was strong enough to deal with the Wendigo. But at the same time, he had a legacy, and he was supposed to be part of the Soldiers of Strength project. The New Dawn was only taking people of a certain level to that. He should be strong enough to at least handle himself.
"Let me know if things get too much for you to handle. Otherwise, we're moving there." Hera pointed in the direction that she wanted to go. The pitch black darkness that seemed to swallow everything.
Atlas just nodded, unsure if he could do anything to help or if his actions would just make things even worse. Still, he was determined to figure out a way to help the Empress. Even if this was mostly his fault, he wasn't going to let that kind of thing hold him back.
They continued moving deeper and deeper into the shadows, being aided only by the lack of monsters on this specific path. Every time they would find some other creature that they couldn't see, Hera's court would quickly dispatch them, allowing the Empress and the human to shift directions so that they were able to go along the trail of that body. Or more specifically, the trail of loot.
Even though at first they were unable to recognize if there were indeed monsters present in those dark corners of this dungeon, they eventually started finding small pieces of leather or coins on the ground as they walked. In this black and white world where every step echoed as a splash of water, they continued diving deeper and deeper into the shadows, searching for a creature that could grow in a race against time.
Would they be able to find the Wendigo first, or would it become powerful enough to become a real threat to them? That was a question that kept going over their minds over and over again. As the smell of salt water and the candle light created by their light spell were the only things they could sense.
