Chapter 839: Solidarity

“So, where are these puzzle games?!” Lifre asked, her tune having completely changed after Dana told her the details of the puzzles in the Meeting.

Dana simply chuckled, looking around. “They’ll be around here somewhere. I think you’ll really like this one.” She said, focusing on getting a certain game to appear. Like how Tsubaki was showing Keliope a game that she had gone through in a previous meeting, Dana was doing the same with Lifre.

Sure enough, a door appeared along a nearby wall. Above the door was an arcade style sign with flashing lights that said ‘Maze of Wonder’. Dana’s lips broke out in a grin as she saw that, dragging Lifre over. “Alright. Now, for this game, there are two modes for multiplayer. We can either race against each other, or we can work together.”

Lifre looked like she was about to immediately choose one, but stopped and pursed her lips. “Which option offers more points?” She asked, recalling that they were here to get the Keeper’s wedding present, not simply to have fun.

Dana blinked in surprise at Lifre’s decision, before her smile turned more gentle. “I don’t really know. I’ve only done this single player before. Tsubaki was busy with other games by the time I found it, and I couldn’t find Aurivy to ask her. But, it does show you the special prize list for each mode before you choose. If you manage to beat a certain time in either solo or race mode, you are able to win a free attack ticket.”

“Since there’s not something like that listed for cooperative mode, I think it might offer more points in exchange. Or else it’s saying that playing solo is just that much harder and deserving of extra points.”

When Lifre heard that, she tilted her head. “If each mode has special prizes, there should be something for cooperative play, right?”

“Well, there was, I just don’t qualify to see it.” Dana shrugged her shoulders. “It says it’s restricted to two different Keepers playing in cooperative mode. Since that’s the case, I never really worried about it.”

“Alright, then what’s that attack ticket?” Lifre asked, trying to get herself pumped up for the challenge by learning of the potential rewards.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

“From what I’ve learned, it will let our boss choose his opponent in those weird matches between Keepers. So if he gets set against someone that he thinks would really put us in danger, he can change it. But they expire eventually, so they’re only good for emergencies.”

Lifre nodded her head, bouncing on her heels. “Alright, let’s do the race! If it’s got rewards that good, the points can’t be too bad!”

Dana smiled a bit wider, nodding her head. She led Lifre over to the door, opening it and pulling her through. Once they were inside the room, everything seemed to go pitch black. Lifre couldn’t see Dana anywhere. She couldn’t even feel her hand on her wrist anymore. “Dana? Did you let go?” She asked, looking around.

“Huh? Oh, neat, it seems like we can talk to each other.” Dana’s voice spoke back to Lifre, though it seemed to be in through a tunnel. “There should be a menu if you think about wanting it. There, you’ll get to choose the gamemode you want. I don’t know what kinds of differences there will be between this and solo play, so good luck!”

“What, I don’t get a helpful guide on what to expect?!” Lifre asked in shock, though her smile was almost unnaturally wide as she summoned the menu. She quickly selected the Race game mode, choosing Dana as her opponent.

“You’re a slime. Your whole thing is about adapting rapidly. If anything, I’m at a disadvantage already!” Dana retorted, though it was clear she was having fun as well. “Ready up whenever you’re good to go.”

Lifre nodded her head, practically smashing the ready button. Almost immediately, she appeared within a dark, stone maze. She felt her connection to mana cut off, and even her ability to fluidly manipulate her body had been removed. Almost like she was being locked in a standard form.

Welcome to the Maze of Wonder!

Your objective is to find your way through ten different puzzle-type worlds. Throughout your journey, you will come across special items. These items can come in one of three forms. The first is equipment, which can be worn like armor or a weapon. The second type is vehicles, which can be piloted in larger worlds. The third final type of item is a power.

Powers will be your greatest key to win. Upon finding a power, you will gain one ability at random. If the power takes the form of a complex technique, you will temporarily be given the knowledge of how to perform this technique. Otherwise, it will be up to you to learn how to wield your newfound powers to break through the puzzle worlds.

Puzzle One - Shifting Maze

“Shifting maze?” Lifre asked with a chuckle, shaking her head. Mazes were always easy if they were static. However, a shifting maze implied that the layout changed under certain circumstances, preventing someone from simply finding the way out by hugging a wall.

“You got the Shifting Maze?” Dana asked in surprise. “It looks like our puzzles should be matched up then, to provide a fair race. Though, the items we get will probably still be randomized. Unless this is a completely identical seed. Honestly, I could see the system going with either option.”

“Well, then may the best girl win!” Lifre said, charging into the corridor. She immediately took the first turn available to her, before hearing a faint click beneath her feet. Before she could react, six arrows pierced her head and chest from the side, causing her eyes to go wide. Arrows weren’t supposed to hurt her this much!

You have died.

Lifre looked down at the message, once again standing in the starter room. The arrows were nowhere to be seen, but she could distinctly remember the pain of being pierced. “What was…?”

“You died?” Dana’s voice spoke up, still sounding relaxed. As if she hadn’t even started moving yet. “Yeah, I thought it wouldn’t take long. All of the puzzle worlds in this game that I’ve seen have some form of imminent danger. If you die, you get teleported to the start point of your current level. But… you lose any items that you gained on that level, and they won’t spawn the same way again. This isn’t just a maze, remember. This is an adventure puzzle.”

Lifre blinked at that, nodding her head. She had always been all but impervious to pain. The number of times that she had truly suffered physical torment could easily be counted on one hand. As a slime, this was simply a fact of her existence. The only pains that she typically dealt with were mental ones, such as boredom or anxiety. This was why she had always loved adventure so much.

She took a deep breath, slowly walking out into the hallway again. Almost immediately, she was able to confirm that the path she took previously was no longer there. Instead, she kept going straight, her body low and eyes watching for anything that she may be triggering. Sure enough, she was able to see several squares on the floor that almost perfectly blended in with the rest of the stone.

As soon as she saw those, she grew more confident, avoiding them before creeping further down the hall. Just as she turned her fourth corner, she heard Dana’s voice again. “Yes! Fireball!”

“Wait, you got a power already?!” Life asked in astonishment, having not even seen a basic item yet. Had Dana just gotten lucky, or was she moving far faster than Lifre while being careful?

“Yeah. Some traps are red herrings, and will open up secret treasure chests. The trick is to study the traps to find their mechanism. If you see a tripwire, follow it to figure out what kind of trap you can expect. If there are creases along the walls, it might collapse on you. Holes could shoot poison, fire, or arrows. Things like that.”

Lifre clicked her tongue, knowing that she was behind now that Dana had obtained her first power. “How did you even figure that out?”

“I got mad the first time I did this, and went with human wave tactics. I thought that if I reset enough, the puzzle would eventually randomize into an easy pattern. I think I died like fifty times before I triggered a treasure chest.” Dana said, sounding rather calm about it, though Lifre just blinked in astonishment.

The slime girl stopped at the next trap, taking Dana’s advice to study the pressure plates. There were no markings on them, so that was out. There wasn’t a line for her to trace, either, as the mechanism was entirely under the floor. Instead, she had to examine her surroundings. As she expected, there were circular indentations along both sides of the wall, though it took her over a minute of searching to find them.

Clearly, this puzzle had been made specifically for Lifre, as the highest indentation was at perfect eye level with her small figure. The lowest, on the other hand, was as low as her knee. With that in mind, Lifre laid flat on the ground, her body tensing tight. One hand braced beneath her while the other reached forward to slap the button.

As soon as she heard the click, her bracing hand pushed her back in a quick slide. Although she saw the indentations, she couldn’t be sure that the button didn’t trigger something else instead. However, she soon heard the sound of arrows whizzing through the air, clicking against the stone walls on the other side.

When the arrows fell to the ground, Lifre grinned, picking them up. “These will come in handy.”

“What, did you find an item already? You couldn’t have checked many traps by now.”

“Something like that.” Lifre said in response to Dana’s question. She eyed the arrows, and the nearby buttons. As part of her training in the dungeon world, she had learned to deal with a wide range of throwing weapons. Both natural ones and those produced from her own body.

Lifre held the arrow, fingers pinching the fletching, and stared at the next button. Instead of taking the time to inspect this trap, she whipped her hand outwards to throw the arrow at the button.

The first arrow missed, striking along the ground next to the button and skidding, making her click her tongue. Still, she threw the second arrow, having collected a dozen from the previous trap. This second arrow struck the button straight on, causing it to click.

There was a brief rumble, and a stone block slammed down on the floor where the button had been, as if the entire ceiling had decided to crush anything unlucky enough to be beneath it. Lifre’s eyes went wide, and her steps slowly withdrew. Ten left… she muttered to herself, making a note to collect her arrows in between attempts in the future, just in case there was a similar trap.

Using this technique, she was able to disable most of the traps in her path without needing to properly investigate them. For pressure plates, she would throw her arrows with enough force to ‘trick’ the plate. For tripwires, she would throw the arrows to cut or trigger them. When possible, she would retrieve the arrows after she was done, while some traps were generous enough to provide her with more.

It took roughly twenty minutes before she was walking along and found another tripwire. By now, her arms were loaded with arrows, and she was getting more and more confident with hitting her shots. She backed away to a safe distance, throwing her arrow to trigger the trap, and watched as a door seemed to open along the wall.

Lifre held her arrows at the ready, prepared to throw them at any monster that dared to walk out of the room. When nothing emerged, she slowly crept forward, seeing a lone treasure chest sitting at the center of the room. Lifre’s eyes narrowed, and she began throwing arrow after arrow at the chest in an almost wild frenzy.

After the fifth arrow, the chest seemed to have been angered, its lid opening to reveal rows of nasty teeth. “Knew it!” Lifre shouted. “You reminded me way too much of my cousin Gary! From one mimic to another, you were obvious!”

“Wait, what?” The treasure chest paused, eyes blinking open from where the studs were along its metal bands. “You’re a mimic, too?! Wait, how was I obvious?”

Lifre huffed, keeping her arrows ready and walking into the room. “Okay, first of all? You didn’t copy the dust properly. Look at this place! It looks like nobody’s set foot here in years, and yet there’s a pristine treasure chest right in the center of the room?”

“That’s another thing. If you want to really trick people, you don’t put yourself right in the open. Make them have to work to find you.” Lifre crossed her arms, lecturing the mimic as if she were a disappointed teacher.

“But, if I’m tucked away, they’ll just pass me by if they don’t find me, right?” The mimic asked, clearly confused by Lifre’s logic.

“Well, yeah. But, anyone that can’t find a tucked away treasure chest isn’t going to be coming into a room like this to begin with! Know your audience, man. Listen, if you can only get into a secret room by triggering what looks like a trap you’d want to avoid, and then you have to search that secret room before finally finding something that looks like a prize, would you question it? I mean, it’s like you said. Nobody in their right minds would put a mimic where it’s not going to be found easily. That’s why they’ll never expect it!”

“That… makes sense.” The mimic shifted, its lid nodding. “But this is a big, empty room. Where would I even hide?”

Lifre hummed, looking around the room. “Yeah, that does pose a problem. Let’s see. We just want you somewhere that you’re not immediately obvious. Tucked into the corner next to the door would work. That way, even if they don’t seem like they’ll be able to find you, you can always attack them while their back is turned. From what I can tell, it would be pretty rare for people to come here and be able to sense something moving behind them like that.”

“You have a point.” The chest agreed. “You know I still have to eat you, right?”

“Hey, I thought we were becoming friends?!” Lifre asked, aghast at the chest.

“I don’t make the rules. Though, I do appreciate the pointers. Nobody’s ever taken the time to just talk to me.” The mimic said, before its lid opened once again, the rows of jagged teeth joined by a long and sinister tongue the seemed larger than the entire chest itself.

“Oh, so you’re that kind of mimic.” Lifre said, eyes wide when she saw the monstrosity before her. “Then, thanks for showing me where your eyes are!” With a wicked grin, she threw her arrows at the studs where the mimic’s eyes had been revealed, two more going into the very corners of the box to pierce the very base of the tongue.

The chest let out a blood curdling scream as it was pierced through both the eyes and the tongue, sliding back in agony. “My kind of mimic is the slime variant. We just make ourselves look like chests. Yours is the organic type, right? You’re like some mass of muscle and bone that reshapes itself to copy items. I never got why you guys decided to turn into treasure chests instead of doors or something.”

Lifre spoke calmly as she walked forward, ducking beneath the whipping tongue. She could see that it had some kind of adhesive substance on it, so she was being wary of that. “This maze likes to bring people back, so let’s talk again next time!” She spoke in a cheery tone, before slamming one arrow like a dagger right down the frontmost center part of the chest. From her knowledge of mimic anatomy, this was the likely location for some brand of vital organ.

The chest let out another pained scream, Lifre rolling back to avoid the sticky tongue falling to the floor. “Score one for the slime girl.” She said, pumping her fist. However, she soon saw a curious item lodged between the mimic’s teeth. One she was sure was not there a moment ago, looking like a jagged blue stone with a gentle glow.

Assuming that was her prize for victory, she walked forward to pick it up. As she did, a window appeared in front of her.

You have found a Power item! Power contained: Shapeshifting

“Oh, this game just got so much more fun for me.” Lifre grinned wickedly as she accepted the power, already able to feel her natural fluidity returning.

“Did you seriously stop a mimic from eating you, just to teach it how to be a better mimic?” Dana’s voice echoed through the halls, causing Lifre to laugh.

“Hey, us mimics have to look out for each other!”