Hera walked across a small cavern. Behind her was a white doorway leading to Zaxalam, and in front was an opening, one that was previously closed. This is where she had found the giant doors with a snake in the center, blocking anyone from passing. The Naga people had set up the crystallization trap on both ends.
Although, from the little that the Empress had discovered, the version that would have happened inside Deakoshara was different. Instead of just encapsulating the entire area into a dense Mana Crystal by turning everything in the area of effect into pure Mana, the result would be much more violent. The outer layer of crystal would still be created, but everything inside would be ignited, creating a violent explosion thanks to the volatile spell. The energy from that explosion would then be converted back to reinforce the crystal shell until everything in the area had turned into pure crystal.
Luckily, ever since Hera opened the doors, they didn’t have to worry about that trap triggering. It could only do so while the doors were locked. Eventually, the idea was to disarm those traps entirely. The whole idea of them was too destructive. The traps had a considerable range, and especially in the Aerie of the First Flight, that was very dangerous.
There was another fear in Hera’s mind related to those doors. If all the doorways in Deakoshara had a similar trap, and all of them were to trigger, cutting the room completely from the rest of the MAZE, the MAZE itself would create a new doorway connecting to a different place. This would mean that it would be nearly impossible to find Deakoshara ever again.
The Empress walked toward the exit of this small tunnel and, for the first time ever, properly took a look at Deakoshara. The last time she passed through here, there was a lot going on. In fact, even the first time she arrived in this room, her focus was somewhere else. She already knew about the snake door, and seeing another so close to each other made the Empress attempt to return to her friends.
It all happened due to a very big coincidence. The room where she became an Ophidianite had a more or less straight path to the Aerie of the First Flight. And some of the people she saved back then had come here to get a check-up. Once she realized they also had a snake-head door, Hera quickly made the connection, the next room could have a way back to Zaxalam.
All the other times she passed through this room, the Empress was in such a hurry that she couldn’t properly register her surroundings. But now, she could really see the Naga homeland.
It was a beautiful place. A lush, vibrant jungle with hills going on forever. Small dome mountains could be seen in the distance, but near the horizon was a group of tower karsts that were covered by a green fog. The vegetation in the area around the doorway was thriving, with trees growing far beyond what one would expect.
The variety of species in this place was incredible, to say the least. A good number of them had already been classified by the Royal Explorers, but mostly by Shane, who couldn’t wait to find a way around the poison. There were various trees like mahogany, kapok, ceiba, banyan, and even durian spread out in the forest. According to the reports, those were completely mundane. There were no special attributes to them aside from an increased resilience that came with the layer and resistance to poison.
In all other aspects, those trees were completely mundane, no special effects, no type of magical ability. Even the tea brewed from them was just as simple as the tea you could buy in a store, albeit a bit more poisonous. Each of those trees looked just like the ones people could find outside the MAZE. The only difference was their leaves were a more vibrant shade of green, almost as if someone had bumped up the saturation of that color specifically.
But that wasn’t all. There were a vast number of plants that were not so mundane. Thick serpentine vines in a deep iridescent purple, globes with green thorns that pulsed faintly in the dark. These vines grew rapidly and almost anywhere, draping around the trees, hanging from one branch to the other. Even rocks weren’t spared from their grasp. When cut, the sticky sap that leaked from within was able to paralyze those who touched it. Interestingly enough, these Venomthorn Vines were also capable of absorbing some of the poison mist.
Bloodroot Blossoms were tiny flowers with deep crimson petals covered in black veins. If one were to approach a large group of them, they could hear a rhythmic heartbeat created by those plants. A rhythm that every single one of them followed, no matter the distance. These particular flowers seemed to gather in areas where poison would form small ponds. People who gathered a few specimens and brought them back to Zaxalam confirmed that those types of flowers would thrive in highly acidic terrain.
The only other plant that was properly studied was the Gloomshade Ferns. These ferns were a deep, almost black-green with edges that had a faint blue glow. Each root could span hundreds of meters, covering a large area with its leaves, though they could never rise more than half a meter or so. For Hera, that was nothing, but it became a problem for the dwarves who ended up waist-deep in thick foliage. The effects of the ferns were very different from anyone expected. The plants were not absorbing the poison, but repelling it completely. It wasn’t that they were taking the poison and then getting rid of it. The liquid molecules of poison weren’t even able to get into the plants.
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There were a lot of possibilities with that, including making armor that was completely poison-proof. In theory, that was a great asset. Being able to create some sort of armor that could brush away any poison attacks was simply incredible. But in practice, there was very little use for something like that on a personal level. Maybe some long pants to trek through a swamp or some gloves that allowed them to pick things from pools of poison. But an actual suit to protect them would never work.
Another major issue was the presence of poison, mist or gas. Those kinds of things wouldn’t be affected by the suit, reducing its effectiveness considerably. Not to mention that in order for the ferns to maintain their poison-repellent properties, they had to be attached to the root. Once they were removed or if the roots were killed, the leaves could take in poison, just like everything else. So, in order to make armor or any item that could work as intended, the crafter would need to find a way to keep the roots alive the entire time.
But that wasn’t all Hera could see from the entrance. About 200 meters to the left, on the side of a mountain, was the other passage, the doorway leading to the Aerie of the First Flight. Both entrances could be seen from one another, making it very easy to identify where the other doorway would be located. But between those two points, half of the path was covered in a thick jungle.
Back when Hera came here with Typhera, they walked through that forest. According to the Harpy Queen, flying was not a good idea. Anytime they found themselves in a new room, they had to be careful about taking to the air. Usually, any large predators capable of flight would pounce at the opportunity to hunt new prey. The danger of finding a creature like that would almost always outweigh the benefit of crossing an area quickly.
However, Hera came here for something else. She wasn’t just going to test how the poison could affect her, but also to check on the outpost where Shane found the stone tablet. They had yet to find any monsters here, but expecting a room like that to be completely peaceful was naive.
What Hera was struggling to understand was how this, which was supposed to be a solo mission, ended up being a full-hands-on-deck kind of situation.
“Don’t get me wrong, but why are you all here?” Hera turned to the rest of the group. Everyone who was in the meeting yesterday also came along: Alex, Bonnie, Shane, Yerel, Farica, Callena, and Pandora.
“If you get poisoned, I can remove it,” Alex replied matter-of-factly.
“And I’m here in case there’s any poison that actually manages to damage you. Healing that quickly would be the best option,” Yerel added.
“Having a researcher can speed things along,” Bonnie smiled.
“And the two of us are the best translators for the Naga language,” Shane had her tablet out, looking at pictures of the stone slab she found.
“I thought that maybe I could help,” Pandora tapped on her shoulder, from where the small mechanical griffon appeared. “Elpis here can fly ahead and give us an aerial view of the environment. Being a machine, they also don’t need to worry about the poison, unless it turns to acid.”
Hera sighed and looked at Callena and Farica, waiting for their response.
“What? Everybody was going to come. We just wanted to be a part of it,” Callena defended herself.
“Also, Trillian and Legan wanted to come here, but the layer is a bit much for them,” Farica explained. And she had a fair point. Zaxalam was only on the 7th layer, meaning the monsters would be from levels 15 to 18. Strong, yes, but not too powerful.
Meanwhile, Deakoshara was on the 21st layer, one of the strange layers of the MAZE, where monster levels had a massive range. In this case, from level 1 to level 69. There was a rule of thumb for places like that: if the difference between the highest and the lowest creature was too big, then monsters would generally be on the lower end of the scale. The monsters that could reach higher levels were rare and clearly noticeable, as they were able to change the very environment to suit their needs.
So far, no one had seen any monsters here. But the presence of such an intense poison could mean the presence of a powerful monster. Then again, that didn’t seem all that likely, considering all the clues they had found about what was happening here involved some sort of weapon created by those who lived here.
Hera rolled her eyes after hearing the reason why everyone was here. But she didn’t complain. It was nice to have more people to help, even if they would mostly just watch her move through the jungle and test things.
And that is exactly what she did. After making sure everybody was ready to pull her out and Lurize, being a half-Venom Spirit, was by her side, the Empress walked into the jungle. She found one of the areas where the mist was thinner and felt the surrounding poison, not so much because it was trying to get inside her, but because it was just a familiar energy.
But thankfully, that was all. The poison seemed to be unable to harm her in any way. Still, to make sure, she walked toward one of the areas where the poison was denser and took a deep breath. This time, she could feel the poison getting into her body, but her [Ophidianite Poison] skill was stronger than that. Even if it didn’t explicitly increase her poison resistance, being able to produce poison in her own body created a tolerance. And the higher the rank of that skill, the stronger the poison she could create, which meant her resistance also increased.
Once the test was over, she walked back out of the jungle with a large smile on her face.
“Did things go well?” Shane asked.
“It did. I can look around the place. And I kind of want to do that now,” Hera replied.