"Is the wendigo lair near the farmland?" Hera had just put 50 thousand mana in Yarnball. Because of the situation, the guild was allowing her to use some of the batteries they had to fuel her relic.
"Crap, it's not there," Hera sighed in a sleepy voice.
"OK, now you go back to bed," Ogryn said.
"No, no. I'm awake," Hera replied.
"Don't make me use a spell on you again. I'll wake you up in two hours, then you can be up for good. I think Helena already told you, but you are on lair hunting duty."
5 hours ago everyone in the room got the quest about the wendigos. Helena almost had to force Hera to take a lie down since they were exhausted already. Before the quest, they had their 8 hours shift and another 5 hours of rest, but they had yet to sleep. When she finally convinced the explorer, it was only with the stipulation that someone would wake her up every 2 hours so she could use her relic to narrow down the location of the wendigos. That had been the third question. The second one asked if the wendigo lair was in the city proper. Luckily, the answer was also no. There were only two places left, the lake and the tunnel leading to the Sky Ruler's dungeon. There was a slight issue of what the relic would consider the city or the farmland, but after talking with Helena and Rutigan, they agreed to only worry about that when it became an issue.
Hera just nodded and went back to bed. She was staying in a room in the guild to have easy access to the mana crystals. Despite her protest, she was exhausted. Rampages were never easy, and the 8 hours of constant fighting was much worse than running dungeons or searching for anything in the MAZE. In most other scenarios, you could take small breaks during the day and not just stay constantly facing off against monsters.
Two hours later, Helena woke Hera up. Unlike the explorer, she had a proper night of sleep, "Hey, sweetie. Are you feeling OK? Can we start?"
"Yeah, sure. Can I just splash some water on my face?" Hera got up, her eyes still hurting.
"Of course. Drink some water, there is coffee and some food if you want. When you are ready, come to meeting room A. We are going to have a briefing there."
Hera nodded and went to the bathroom. Ten minutes later, she joined everyone in the meeting room. Helena, Alex, Naka, Ogryn, and Rutigan were there, along with the guild clerk currently in charge of organizing the rampage. Without even having a moment to greet each other, Naka started the meeting and explained what was going on. Outside of the mountain, the sky had turned red, signaling that this should be the last day of the rampage. However, because of the quest, they were uncertain if that would actually be the case or it would just be a signal for the last stage of the rampage. On other news, they had completely scoured the farmland and the tunnel leading to the Sky Ruler dungeon. Rutigan and Naka trusted on Hera's relic, but it was better to be safe than sorry, and they were already looking through the field when they got the information that the lair wasn't there. Still, it was better to finish the job. Searching the city would be a problem. Not only that could cause problems with the people since the guard would be basically invading their homes, but they would also take too long to scour the entire place.
This didn't mean they didn't even try to search the other areas. In fact, they had groups looking through the tunnel, the mines, and the lake, but no one found anything. Hera was the only explorer in the room and one of the few people that actually had spells that could locate something hidden like that. Most of those who stayed behind for a rampage weren't the kind to look for secrets in the MAZE, and the dwarves weren't exactly archaeologists.
"Can you ask the next question?" the clerk passed a wire to Hera connected to the mana battery.
"Sure," Hera grabbed the cable and pulled 50 thousand mana to her relic. It was probably overkill, but it was better than using too little mana and wasting the question, "Is the wendigo lair in the lake area?"
The blue and white answer appeared on the screen of her relic.
"So we have to look around the lake," Rutigan sighed with relief. The idea that the lair was in the middle of the city weighed in his mind.
"Why aren't you asking directly where the lair is?" Naka asked.
"Because I don't know how much mana that will cost. I mean, I could pull all the mana from the guild, but that is one of the batteries that is currently powering a lot of things. If we don't have internet, plumbing and other basic infrastructures we could be in trouble. And if I just ask the question using a smaller amount of mana, I would waste the question and have to wait another two hours without having anything that could help us," Hera explained.
"Ah. I see. Sorry, you are doing better than I expected."
"I've learned a thing or two," Hera smiled.
"OK then. Hera, you are coming with me to the lake. We need to find the lair," Helena was already getting up.
"Are you sure you are OK with this? I mean, it's the first wendigo you will see since…." Alex asked.
"Oh, I'm sure. I tried to be all positive and happy, but by the system, I want to splatter those things in the wall," Helena's eyes were cold as she showed a smile that Hera never expected to come from the mage.
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"So… kill it with prejudice?" Hera tried to break some of the tension.
"Extreme prejudice. Just like when you see a cockroach in your bedroom," Helena nodded.
"What is a cockroach?" Rutigan asked.
"I'll tell you later. For now, we are going," Hera turned to Ogryn, "Can you come with us? We might need more of those lights. Something tells me the wendigos are in the lake."
"Yeah, I was thinking that too. It's a great place to hide. We can't see the entrance, and they have a full buffet for them to eat and level up," Alex nodded.
With that, Hera's group headed out to the lager along with Naka and Ogryn. Leo was already there, taking his place among the team who would kill the incoming fish. When they got close, Alex quickly explained what was going on and asked him if he saw anything different in the lake, but the hunter wasn't able to help. Everything here was new to him, so it was hard to tell what was out of place.
Since Hera's questions were all about the areas where the wendigos could be, Naka decided not to ignore the mines just by the lake. Just like with the farmland no one could tell for sure if that place was considered part of the tunnel to the sky ruler, part of the lake, or just its own thing. For that reason, a team of guards and mages searched the mines to see if there was anything there. On the other hand, Hera was sure that the wendigos should be near the lake. Now that she thought about it, it made a lot of sense. The fish were coming in the thousands. If a wendigo had a chance to eat its fill there, it should be able to get really strong really fast.
The first idea was to look around the lake for an alcove or an entrance. To do that, Helena picked a couple of drones from the guild. Such a piece of equipment mainly was used for scouting or events, but in a situation , it could help a lot. Using the drones to scan the lake's surroundings didn't reveal anything useful. All the surrounding walls were just walls, and it didn't look like there was any passage around. Hera even tried to follow the side path that went around the lake, hoping that the rampage used the natural formation of the area but to no avail.
"Could they be underwater?" Ogryn asked.
"That is a possibility. Honestly, I think they are down there, but we will have problems if we try to go underwater," Helena sighed.
"Yeah, there are too many monsters in the water," Hera nodded.
"I might be able to do something about that. I have a spell that creates a barrier around us while we dive underwater. However, it only protects us from the water and gives us some air to breathe. If a monster tries to attack us, the spell won't stop it, but they will fall to the ground since they can't swim inside," Ogryn was scratching his chin.
"How big is the spell? Like, how many can you keep inside it? Maybe Silah can help with her chain net, Daskka can be outside too, and any spells we can cast underwater could work as a way to protect us. Or would that mess with the barrier?" Hera asked.
"It won't. The spell only affects water, so as long as you are using something that is not water-based, we shouldn't have any problems. And I can probably get about five people inside, but it will be somewhat tight. Also, I believe Silah is currently doing some repairs in the guild," Ogryn explained.
"Let's do it then. I can try to cast a spell around us that will hide us from anything," Helena was already moving to the water.
Ogryn followed her quickly, and after a moment, he created a translucent barrier around him. It was almost like seeing the wind covering his surroundings. Hera, Helena, and Alex got closer to him as they started to walk into what was supposed to be water. Helena was in the back, using her spell that made the barrier seem like a pitch-black ball of shadows. The type of darkness that one would see in the corner of their eyes and chalk off as being just a shadow by a wall. This particular spell was the one Helena used to hide her group from the Wendigos during the assault on the wall. If it was good enough to protect a group from level 80 plus monsters, it should be more than enough to trick the level 5 fish in the water.
Unlike what Hera expected, the barrier wasn't capable of making them float. Instead, they had to walk to the bottom of the lake and search for everything. At first, the fish tried to attack them, Helena's spell was able to trick them, but it couldn't change some basic truths. When they were going into the lake, the water was being pushed to the side, and what was once an area where they could swim was turning into land. This made the closest fish attack the group, but they were quickly killed off. Little by little, the party walked inside the lake, completely unbothered by the water. Thankfully, Helena's spell only gave the barrier a slightly dark tint. The main issue was the lack of light underwater. Even with the glowing sphere, they couldn't see their surroundings properly. According to Helena, if anyone tried to use another light spell, it would break the shadow tint that she created. Unfortunately, that was the main drawback of the spell.
"Daskka, go there and try to find any entrances or things that would lead somewhere else," Hera told her companion, who jumped in the water and started sowing. The explorer then turned to Helena, "If I make some noise will it break the spell?"
"It won't break, but some monsters might come to attack us. Why?"
"What Mark gave me. It has a skill called echolocation, and as far as I'm aware, that is something that works underwater."
Helena nodded, understanding what she intended to do, "Everyone, be ready to attack. Ogryn, you can still fight back, right?"
"I can, but I cannot move too fast, or the barrier will break."
Getting the go-ahead, Hera placed one hand on Ogryn's shoulder and started humming. She had to focus on a specific sound for the skill to work, and having something constant would be better than just something random. After a few moments, Hera's humming seemed to get louder and louder, almost echoing in the barrier, but the explorer was the only one who noticed that. Realizing that the barrier should be stopping the sound from moving along the water, Hera asked everyone to stop walking for a moment and stuck her head outside the barrier to continue her humming. Alex and Helena had to kill a few monsters that were getting close so they wouldn't hurt their friend, but little by little, Hera began to have an idea of the layout of her surroundings. Doing so felt very weird. As her humming continued, a picture formed in her mind, but she couldn't tell if it was real or just her imagination. Before her thoughts started to trail off too much, she noticed something different to her right. The picture of a small passage appeared between her thoughts. Pulling her head out of the water, Hera took a deep breath and opened her [Explorer's Map]. Everything that she pictured while humming seemed to match with the map, including the seemingly out-of-place tunnel in the direction of the mines. Hera sent a mental message to Daskka for the snake to check it out as they started heading that way.
The party got to the entrance in a few minutes and saw that the tunnel went straight for a while, then up. Here, there were some small bioluminescent formations on the walls. Before they even got closer, Daskka returned to Hera and sent a single thought as an answer that could translate to: 'I've found them.'