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Chapter 154 - Heavy price
🕑 Added 2020-12-11 13:00:03 +0000 UTCThe guild's mood made a complete 180, while before everyone was celebrating the defense, drinking, and preparing a party. Now everyone moved quietly. Some even helped Team C recover their loot. Life in the MAZE was dangerous, and everyone was aware of that. Two people would die in Brinefront every year during their adventures, be it due to an accident or for biting more than they could chew. However, no one could remember when something in the first layer killed twelve people at once, especially when over thirty explorers were fighting it.
Hera considered helping, but there were already more than enough people lending a hand. The only thing she could do was carry the loot from their defensive position, and that was a long walk. She was still exhausted, especially since her group only rested for ten minutes before the rampage ended. Unsure what to do, she asked if Cass needed some help. Receiving a negative answer, she headed to the showers to get in line.
Unlike the other days, where they had to hose down their weapons and armor, today, the guild offered a full clean up service for everyone's gear. Hera wanted to put her gear there soon since she had no idea how long it would take to clean all the blood and grime that got stuck between her armor's metal scales. But before that, she wanted to take a shower and change.
There were only two people in front of her to use the showers, and Hera and her group decided to wait there for their turn. Twenty minutes later, they had already cleaned up and were dropping off their armor to be washed. Hera would take care of her weapons on her own. Helena was helping out the guild with the situation, trying to calm people down and prepare a small ceremony for the deceased.
The guild would still keep the room locked for up to a day while they recovered all the loot, dismantled the traps, and did any needed emergency repairs. But for those who lived there, they were free to return to their homes. Blue and Alex grabbed their things while Hera went to the lab that Helena was using to pack up. She grabbed what she could, but Helena was the one who would be sure that there wasn't anything left behind. Still, it was a way to do some heavy lifting.
They headed out of the guild, going back to their home. The area around the house was intact. It was close to the walls but in the middle of two entrances. Hera walked in, feeling as if she came back from a trip. Blue looked around the kitchen and prepared some instant noodles for everyone. Alex and Hera placed everything in their rooms and headed back to the living room, sitting down to rest.
The three talked about the rewards they received during this small break. Blue got a common elemental material, a piece of a snapping turtle's shell with high electricity affinity. Alex got an uncommon material, a chameleon hide that could camouflage itself to a lesser degree. Hera received the poison crest of a crested newt. It was close to a fin or the back scales of a stegosaur. Not only the crest could give poison properties, but also it could increase the regeneration of poison mana. They all had to figure out how they would use those materials, selling was also an option, but the rewards seemed to be somewhat tailor made for them, or at least, for how they fought right now.
"I think I'm selling mine," Blue said.
"Why?"
"The shell is not enough to make armor or something. I think, at most. I could make some knuckles, which are kind of useless for me. I'm also thinking about getting other types of spells. Focusing on lighting doesn't seem like a good fight for how I fight. I mean, in a battle like this one, my spells did jack shit."
"That's not..." Hera started.
"Yeah, it is. My buffs were up every time I had mana, and they did nothing. It is a good thing for a battle of attrition, but let's face it. The monsters that took a long time to kill were the turtles, and it's not like I could be on melee with them."
"I guess that's valid, and it's early enough to change styles without much issue. Any ideas what you want to do?" Alex put down the fork, having finished her noodles.
"No clue. I want to ask Helena for some ideas later."
"That's a good call. I think I have to see if I want to keep going this poison route," Hera kept fiddling with her last noodle.
"Well, we can experiment. Might as well. Besides, we are probably going to get quite a lot of money from this last haul. It was what? 6k for the last few days," Alex nodded.
"Yeah, plus the 5k from the quest, that's already more than we made in the frog valley, right?" Hera said.
"I think so, well that's without the penalty for the damages. But we still have to wait for that," Blue said.
They finished eating and rest for a while before heading back to the guild. Helena had sent a text about the small ceremony for the deceased. It was a rush job, but that would be mostly for the explorers. The bodies would be sent back to the outside and sent to their families.
Arriving on the guild, Hera was stopped by a man in heavy armor that she recognized. It was the team C leader and one of the men who almost walked off during the Wendigo meeting.
"Excuse me, Hera, right?" the man asked.
"Hi, yeah, that's me..." Hera replied, worried about why he would be coming towards her.
"My name is Joseph. I am... was the leader of team C3. I want to apologize for my behavior during the meeting. Your ideas and suggestions were invaluable for our defense. The fact that you faced one of those creatures on your own is unbelievable. You have my utmost respect," he said, and put out his hand for Hera to shake.
"Oh, you really don't have to be so formal. I just did the best I could to help," she shook his hand and looked at the line of people walking towards the great hall, "I wish I could have done more."
"You've done more than enough, and if we had faced a single Wendigo, everything would have worked out," Joseph replied.
"You guys fought two of them?!" Hera gasped.
"Yes, we killed the one we saw from the beginning, but the second one came from another entrance. A team who didn't finish the job, nor took your advice seriously."
"That's a pretty heavy accusation, Joseph. Can you prove it?" a man with a long black coat approached. Hera recognized that it was the other man who complained during the meeting.
"I can prove that you and your team are a bunch of fucking cowards," Joseph stared the man down, clenching his fist so hard that the veins in his arm popped.
"How are you going to do that, exactly? This was a very unpredictable situation. We all did our best," the man in a long coat replied, not breaking eye contact.
"Fuck you, George! I'm sure you pushed that thing away just to save your own ass."
George shrugged, "We were all doing what we could to survive. Don't blame me for being a better leader than you."
Joseph grabbed George by the collar, "My team would have survived if you had done your fucking job and killed the fucking Wendigo! Their blood is in your hands!"
George didn't even flinch as the burly man got close to his face, " No, it wasn't. If you want to blame someone, blame the Wendigo, or yourself. I had nothing to do with it."
Hera understood what George meant. If a monster kills someone, it's not the fault of the person who let the creature live, even if it was a Wendigo. Still, it was hard to agree with him when looking at him. He had a cocky attitude and a smirk on his face. It felt like he was taunting Joseph with the entire situation.
"You son of a..." Joseph pulled back and was about to punch him when a male voice came from behind him.
"What is going on here?" ten of the team leaders were standing behind the two men.
"Joseph, this is not the time. We should respect the deceased," a man in front of the group stared at him.
"Tell that to this little shit," Joseph looked back at George.
Cass was in the middle of the group with the leader, made a sign to Hera for her to move away. She quietly moved back, not wanting to be in the middle of a situation like that.
"It's better if you go. This might get messy quickly," Cass whispered to Hera as she walked by.
Hera nodded and headed to the great hall. The actual bodies of the fallen explorers weren't there. Every guild branch had a small morgue for situations like this. There was a table with a piece of equipment from each deceased in the middle of the hall. It was just a symbolic thing to represent them. The gear would be either sold or passed along to their family, as long as there was an explorer among them. If not, the money from the sales would go to the families, plus the life insurance payout.
Helena was by the side, along with Blue and the rest. Hera imagined that most people were here to show solidarity. But in reality, about 1/5 of the people in the hall knew someone among the fallen. To her surprise, even Runir and Alex were familiar with one of them.
"That double axe is... was Timmy's right?" Alex asked.
"Yeah... he loved that thing," Runir replied, staring at the table.
"Where you guys close?" Hera asked.
"Not really. We did a few missions together. He was a good guy, even if a bit reckless," Runir said, turning to face Hera.
"And loud. Don't forget that," Alex chuckled.
"Yeah, but that's because he was born in Italy. He said that his entire family was loud," Runir said.
"Isn't that just a stereotype?" Blue asked.
"Well, in this case, it was true," Alex said.
The ceremony began. It was much like a funeral service. Joseph, as the leader of team C, spoke a few words. Very few, actually. When he went to the front and faced the audience, he could only muster an 'I'm sorry.' No one complained or thought he was in the wrong. Rumors about what happened were already circling. Apparently, the second Wendigo appeared after they killed the first one, taking advantage of the small celebration. It started by pulling one of the archers from the ramparts with its frog-like tongue. The archer who fell broke his neck with the fall. He was Joseph's oldest friend, someone who was a veteran of the first layer. Yet, the Wendigo was able to hide from everyone's sight.
The rest of the fight was just as chaotic as the start. They only were able to kill the creature when it tried to eat the dead Wendigo, giving Joseph an opening to deliver the finishing blow. All twelve people died because of the second Wendigo.
After the service, Helena went to the lab to grab the last of her belongings while Hera and her group took a quest to help clean up the traps from around the city. It was a way to distract themselves from the thoughts that were creeping on their minds. What if they were the ones who fought the second Wendigo?
A few hours later, they had not only finished the quest, but Cass sent a message letting them know that the guild had finished the inventory of the materials and they could get their cut and the rewards for the defense.
The list of materials was enormous, and most of the items had some special properties. Hera chose not to buy anything. Not just because she was able to upgrade all of her gear, but she could pay for the healer to take care of Grandma Triss if she got all the money. In total, the rampage quest would give 4 230 gold as the base reward and another 7 380 for the monster kills. While the materials from all the five days were worth 9 250. That was over 20k gold, just for five days of work. A very stressful and dangerous work, but still. Very few people would be able to get that money during the same amount of time outside the MAZE.
"Guys, after this. We deserve a weekend, right?" Blue asked.
"Yeah. I think so." Runir replied, looking at his earning.
"It has been quite a while since I last visited my household," Tom nodded.
"Are you saying this just because you wanna see Quinn?" Alex smirked.
Blue stared at her for a long moment before turning back to the group," So we can take the weekend off?"
Hera nodded. She might as well visit her grandma and see if they can get her legs checked out.
