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MAZE - Chapter 1071 - Age of Stone
🕑 Added 2025-06-12 02:31:39 +0000 UTCTwo days later, Hera, Insomniac, and Valera were all approaching a doorway. A doorway that was going to take them to the 23rd layer. That was not just one of the highest layers in the MAZE that people could have access to, but also a place that was full of danger and incredibly powerful monsters.
Yet, as dangerous as that sounded, Hera was excited. It had been a while since she faced a creature that really pushed her to her limits. A battle that she genuinely feared for her life. While the feeling of being near death was not something she yearned for, the struggle of fighting an enemy that was powerful enough to push you to your limit was something that the Empress missed dearly.
She was getting pumped just by looking at the doorway, which was placed on a beach, one that was overlooking the ocean. By all accounts, this spot would be the perfect place for a wedding if it wasn't for the fact that there was a giant white door.
"Okay, I know you want to fight on your own, but I do feel like I have to say one thing. Just to give you a small heads-up about what you are about to see there."
The Empress nodded. "I'm fine with as much or as little information that you want to give me."
"I believe that giving you a middle-of-the-road amount of information would be enough. The room that we are about to go to is called the Age of Stone. But for the most part, we will not be seeing any stone monsters unless we go to a couple of different dungeons, which won't be the case. The name is more related to the types of weapons you can find here. Funny enough, you find some very rudimentary things. Spears with rocks tied on the tip to become edges, and hammers made out of stone, sticks, and stones."
"What? Are we going to some sort of prehistoric room?" the Empress frowned, but the answer came with a nod.
"Exactly. We are going to a prehistoric room, or at least a room that has a prehistoric theme."
Hera just blinked slowly and asked, "You are shitting me, right?"
"I'm not. The monsters you will fight are dinosaurs."
Hearing that, Hera became both worried and excited at the same time. Fighting a dinosaur was something that many explorers had dreamed of, but at the same time, it was something dangerous. Yet, there was one specific question in her mind.
"Say, are we going to see real dinosaurs or Hollywood dinosaurs?"
"I don't know why we would make that distinction. Those are real dinosaurs no matter how they look. But I know what you're asking. The room has Hollywood dinosaurs. Lizards without feathers."
Hera nodded. She knew that the overall understanding of dinosaurs wasn't perfect. As a matter of fact, it was widely agreed that the ways people saw dinosaurs were most likely wrong. There were even tests made to confirm that. Some people were given skeletons of living animals, elephants and hippos, and asked to recreate them the same way they did with dinosaurs, only to come up with creatures that were completely different from the animals' true form.
"Okay then, is there anything else I need to know about? Are the dinosaurs giant or whatever?" the Empress asked.
Insomniac and Valera looked at each other before shaking their heads. "Not any bigger than you might expect a dinosaur to be. Still, I would give you a small piece of advice. All monsters in this room have some sort of power that is related to rocks."
Hera found that information very odd and frowned. She let the gears in her mind turn for a moment before asking, "Are you saying that they all have different types of rocks as their weapons or attacks? Like from clay to obsidian, or are we including salt and sulfur?"
Insomniac smiled, realizing that Hera was able to pinpoint the trick in his speech. "Minerals and chemicals are a good way to put it. You might find some of them using less conventional types of rocks, too."
Hera nodded, but she quickly stopped. "Hang on. When you say other types of minerals, are you talking just salt and sulfur and stuff like that, or are you talking uranium? Because I don't know if I can handle a radioactive dinosaur."
Insomniac shook his head. "No, no, you don't have to worry about the radioactive dinosaur. That's not something that exists in the room, as far as I'm aware. But there are unconventional types of rocks. So be careful with the types of projectiles or attacks that might come your way."
They had started to approach the doorway, but Valera spoke up. "Before the two of you have your little training session, we should first head to the other doorway, just so we won't be stuck somewhere that we don't have a quick escape from."
Hera nodded, agreeing with that decision, and the group slowly walked towards the doorway.
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Would you like to be transported to:
Age of Stone - 23rd Layer
[Yes] [No]
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Confirming the decision, Hera felt the familiar feeling of warm water rushing over her just as she was transferred to the next room.
They were overlooking an ocean on top of a hill, almost as if the location they arrived at was supposed to be on the other side of the doorway they had seen. But the ocean was the only thing that still felt normal. Hera could tell that everything around them was different. It was more primal in a way.
It was hard for her to put it into words, but it was the only way she could describe it. The plants were not just bigger, but they felt more hostile, as if their very existence depended on being able to fend off predators. Which, in a sense, was true for all plants, but these felt more intense. The trees behind her were much bigger than what the Empress was expecting, with ringed trunks filled with shards of sharp bark. And if that wasn't enough, the mushrooms in the area were absolutely gigantic, towering over even the trees. Hera could never have imagined that mushrooms could exist like this.
Insomniac and Valera seemed to be more used to the environment as they just gestured towards the path they should take. While this was a deep layer in the MAZE, it wasn't one of the more untamed rooms. There was a significant human presence in the area, which now was being slowly mixed with members of the Alliance. Places like this ended up being part of the reparations the humans would need to pay. Still having control over the area, but requiring members of the Alliance to stick around.
Not that this was really an issue. The people who tended to live in the deeper layers were more than glad to have members of the Alliance by their side. After all, knowing that there were people willing to help just a few days away was always good.
But before, when this was controlled by the Guild, there were still some people trying to argue that they should keep this a safe haven for humans. What actually happened was that there were some specific resources in this particular room that were very valuable, and they didn't want to share the profits with others. To be fair, Hera also knew the Alliance did that kind of thing. When it came to the greed of the ruling class, neither side was really better than the other.
As they were walking across the room, the Empress felt like she was in a theme park. In the distance, she could see gigantic lizards grazing in the forest. Large dinosaurs moved in packs and larger ones would start chasing after the others, hunting for their next meal. But thankfully, the trio was up a mountain, overlooking those creatures from a cliff, which made them somewhere safe from the grasp of those gigantic beasts. One of them was close enough in their direction that the Empress could trigger her [Observe].
[Grazing Palithicosaur - level 71 - Dirt affinity ]
She wasn't entirely certain if this was how the Palithicosaur was supposed to look or even if there was such dinosaur, but right now, that didn't matter. She was seeing one of them run from another monster. Two dinosaurs attacking and trying to eat each other. The very sight was something that made her younger self scream with joy.
They continued walking through this passage and in just forty minutes arrived at the next step in their journey. A doorway leading to a room in a much, much lower layer. And in front of it was a path heading down into the valley below where the dinosaurs moved back and forth.
"What's the plan?" the Empress asked. "Should I go down there, or are we going to lure them here?"
"I think you should go down there. If you want to lure one here or fight it down there, it's up to you. I won't stop you from doing what you want to do, and I'll only step in if I see that you're about to get killed."
"At least make sure she's not going to be unconscious for too long," Valera added.
"Don't worry, I'll step in before anything like that happens."
The Empress felt a bit annoyed by the fact that they were speaking as if she was for sure getting hurt. Even though she understood the reasoning behind it, she still felt confident enough in her ability to at least not get too injured during the fight against these monsters, which was very much her intention.
With a nod, the Empress started to walk down the path, with Insomniac following behind, leaving Valera close to the doorway. The older woman even shouted, saying that she would be waiting on the other side as she had no intention of playing around with the giant lizards.
Hera tried to ignore the snarky comments, or at least she tried to. But Valera's behavior was really starting to get to her. The woman came all this way to ask for Hera's help, and instead of being at the very least polite about it, Hera was supposed to be bending over backwards just for the sheer opportunity of being helpful to her family. And that was something that really did not sit well with the Empress. She already thought the whole idea of clans was stupid, and Valera only confirmed her suspicions.
Still, she didn't say anything, and they continued walking down. Eventually, they reached the mouth of the valley, which was far enough away from the creatures so that Hera could pick a target. Insomniac was making a point of not helping as he also wanted to see the types of fights that the Empress would go for. He knew that there were some mistakes she could make here, but if he was going to help her, he had to have an idea of how far along, or far behind, she was in terms of experience.
Hera wasn't playing with this. She understood that she was facing creatures roughly twenty levels higher than her. And while that wasn't a massive change when considering what it could be, it was also significant enough to make her worry. That's why when she went looking for the dinosaur that she was going to fight, she didn't want to make any mistakes.
The larger ones were out of the picture. Even if their level was a bit lower, she stopped and looked at a few options in front of her. Clayfaced Brachiosaurs, those had very tall necks and long tails, but the creatures were too big. Even the smallest of them should be around fifteen meters tall, meaning that they would be much harder to kill.
The larger a creature was, the sturdier they were, or at least that was a good generalization. Not to mention that even if they were not as sturdy, it would be harder for the Empress to find a vital spot, as there was too much skin and flesh between the surface layer and the actual organs. The only thing she might be able to do here was aiming at their necks, but even then, it was a bit of a stretch to consider that kind of thing. She had no idea how long it would take a creature this large to bleed out.
She turned to another option, the Obsidian Night Triceratops, and quickly discarded it. The little that she remembered about dinosaurs already told her that a Triceratops was not a good idea. And the fact that they had that name likely meant their horns or shell was made of obsidian, which would be extremely sharp.
Turning to another, she found something that could work. A smaller creature, being just about three meters tall with some spikes on the back and a ball, a spiked ball, on its tail. It seemed weaker than the rest of the creatures, and there wasn't anything about it that sounded overly dangerous. Sure, she would need to be wary of the tail, but as long as she was able to stay away from it, it could work.
But her mind quickly changed once she used [Observe] on it. Sulfuric Ankylosaur.
She refused to even elaborate on the plan that was coming up in her mind. She was not about to deal with something that could spew out sulfur.
There was another. A raptor, or something very close to one, being maybe a meter and a half tall. And it was alone in the middle of the plains, seemingly weak as it struggled to move. It was called Salted Raptor.
If anything, the name sounded more like a dish than a creature. But Hera quickly realized a couple of issues. The eyes were a bit too big for its head, and the skin was too soft. It didn't have the same leathery look that the other dinosaurs had, which might mean that this was actually a hatchling.
Generally speaking, there were only two reasons for a child to be left alone like that, at least in the animal kingdom. First, it had been abandoned by its pack and was now trying to survive on its own. But if that was the case, then one of the many other predators in the area should have already attacked it.
The other option was that it was playing, and its parents were around making sure that nothing messed with it. And on a closer inspection, that seemed to be exactly what was happening. To the left, behind a rock that was overlooking a lake, there was a group of the same types of raptors. Most were drinking water, but there were a couple with their eyes trained on their child.
Not wanting to face an entire pack, she crossed that one off the list.
That's when she saw another. One that was stepping away from a fight, somewhat wounded but not clearly on death's door. So much so that even the other predators seemed to look at it and refuse to go after the wounded prey, understanding that it wasn't quite enough to make it an easy meal.
Hera quickly triggered [Observe] to see its name.
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Stone Head Dichossaur - Level 70.
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The monster had a brown helmet of sorts, surrounded by a crown of tiny rocks. It was one of those head-butting dinosaurs, or at least a version of it. And it seemed to be alone enough that if she would fight it, the creature wouldn't be able to call for backup. Especially since it had just lost a fight against one of its kind, meaning that if their species was the type to protect their own, the pack should have already abandoned this one.
Since the creature was only level seventy, she decided to go for it. Stepping a bit forward while calling her entire court, all in their weapon forms, to lure the beast that way, they could fight in a more open space, a place where the other dinosaurs wouldn't intervene.
She could feel her heart pumping with each step, and once she felt close enough, she held back a smile and fired the spell, knowing that she was about to fight with a dinosaur.
