An Owl's Rise

Nevertheless, the closer they got, the more quickly the maze shifted and prevented them from reaching their goal.

For one moment a path straight to the center may have been open, but the next it was closed off and led in the compete opposite direction. This led to one frustrating situation after the next.

Eventually they managed to make some progress, but not in the way that they had been expecting.

The three of them had backtracked a fair distance from the center where the maze was not as prone to change, hoping to find another path to try, when they came across a large, sealed door.

This was the first time Evelyn and Aralee had come across one, though Otis mentioned that this was the third one he had seen since their initial arrival in the maze.

However, this was not just any door, but one that had carving on it that resembled a wooden dragonfly.

'Perhaps.' Evelyn thought, pulling out the key she had obtained from the bramble dragonfly.

The moment she brough it out the key began glowing and the giant lock on chain sealed lock on the door began to rotate until all of the chains came loose, and it fell to the floor with a loud clang.

The door then began to slowly open inwards with a loud scraping sound as it brushed against the ground.

Inside the now open area was one of the terminals that could be accessed to obtain items from the domain or activate traps, but this one was clearly different.

Not only was it a different color, being a brilliant silver color, and it was also not a pyramid as the other terminals were. This one was a slowly rotating dodecahedron with each of its faces protruding outwards into points.

"Whoa! What just happened?" Otis said, looking between Evelyn and the open door. Naturally he was surprised to see one of these mysterious doors open for the first time, and unlike Aralee he did not know about the key beforehand.

Evelyn swiftly explained how she and Aralee had fought a particularly nasty monster in the maze and received a key for defeating it.

"Oh, I was wondering what the patterns on these doors were meant for. So that is it." Otis said in a moment of realization.

Apparently, he had actually come across the monster depicted on one of the doors he had come across, but the creature had been too difficult for him to defeat so he fled from it. He had already passed the corresponding door at the time, and figured it was a warning about a dangerous creature rather than indicating the monster that the key could be obtained from it.

"I suppose that if we are unable to find a path to the center of the maze soon, we can backtrack to that monster and see if collecting a certain number of keys is a necessary requirement. There is just still so much we do not know about this place." Evelyn said, more frustrated with how difficult the maze had been rather than happy about their new discovery.

However, after passing through the door and accessing the silver terminal Evelyn realized just how amazing the discovery they had made was.

This terminal was not like the normal ones that they might come across that had a small list of items that could be obtained by trading tokens, this one had a massive catalog of items Evelyn had never even heard of before. Each of the items was also about eighty percent cheaper than they would be if found in a normal terminal.

'I can't believe there is something like this in here.'

As she was scrolling through the seemingly never-ending list Evelyn came across a certain item that would make their lives far easier.

For just five hundred iron tokens she would be able to purchase a one-time use warp pad that would take a single individual directly to the center of the maze. Completely bypassing the difficulties of reaching the area.

It would certainly not be cheap to buy three of these items to let them all reach the center of the maze, but they had enough after fighting through the maze for so long and Evelyn was feeling fed up with constantly having to turn back and being stuck at dead ends.

'There are many other powerful and useful items that we could get here, but meeting up with all the others is our first priority. It is not that I am just sick of wandering around this maze.' Evelyn thought, justifying her decision.

Before she could doubt herself, she pulled out all of the tokens she had on her and asked Otis to give her his as well. Only when they added everything their party had collected did they have enough to purchase the three single-use warp pads.

"Are you sure that we should have spent most of our tokens on these. The last time we checked in, none of the others had managed to reach the center of the maze. Perhaps we should at least save them until we know someone else has arrived." Aralee suggested.

With how difficult it was to actually reach the center of the maze; she was worried that they would spend several weeks simply waiting around for the others to reach the location. It was even possible that obtaining these warp pads was the only way.

"It has been over a week now since we returned to the first floor to check on the information the others have left behind. Going to any of the checkpoints we know about would take us a fair amount of time, but we can return to the first floor immediately from the center of the maze if we do not find anyone else there and tell them about what we have learned. I believe it is in our best interest to go right now." Evelyn said.

She understood her sister's point of view and perhaps if they had not been wandering through the maze for so long she would have agreed to it, but she was tired of not making any concrete progress. Their goal was now accessible, and she did not want to wait any longer.

"I think that Evelyn is correct. We can get more done from the center of the maze. For all we know the others could already be waiting for us. Or perhaps we will be able to reactive another amp upgrade that will make it easier for us to find them. The possibilities are endless." Otis said, naturally backing Evelyn up.

He did not really have much of an opinion either way as he had already found the person he cared most about and considered locating the others a secondary objective. He was only supporting using the warp pads now because it was Evelyn's idea.

Aralee, faced with overwhelming opposition, relented on her plan. There were numerous unknown variables that could make either choice better.

"Now, let us head to the center of the maze. If we are lucky, the others will already be there waiting for us." Evelyn said before setting down the three single-use warp pads.