A-Maze-Ing

Author note: I am back! I hope you all had a great holiday and NewYear, we will continue with our weekly dose of Little-John until April (when my next break is scheduled for)

After making her way into the orchard, Ellie quickly captured a goblin using [Ebony Ichor]. After the goblin stopped struggling, Ellie was able to use a pair of scissors to cut several patches of hair from the creature and then tagged it.

Opening her bag, she removed the mortar and pestle, quickly cleaning them before adding gum arabic, mana-infused charcoal dust, sodium nitrate, dried catnip and finally the hair of the goblin. She mixed all the ingredients while having the volcanic wyrmlings surround the mortar and heat the mixture, drawing out any moisture.

Once that was complete she pulled mana from them and infused it into the powder, before removing a small jar from her knapsack. She poured the powder into the jar, tamping it down before asking Candle to spit a tiny flame at the surface; the fire caught but quickly dissipated as embers formed, glowing red, and a plume of smoke began emanating from it.

Replacing the lid, Ellie took the container by a long chain walking through the orchard gently swinging the censer in order to spread the smoke. Ellie smiled remembering the [Observe] she got when she made this incense for the first time.

Pied Piper’s Secret

(Incense)

This incense can be made in several ways and its primary use is to enchant weak-willed or unintelligent creatures, the type of which is determined by a catalyst.

Creatures enchanted by this incense will become non-hostile and will follow you in a zombie-like state.

Walking through the orchard Ellie amassed a small group. Following her were thirteen gremlins, five goblins and two nasty-looking barghest, all of which she tagged before the incense had burned itself out.

Once she’d exited the orchard on the other side, she looked around. The area behind the palace was huge, large enough that she assumed transport would usually be needed to get to the furthest reaches and back. There were quite a few landmarks and features she could see across the landscape, all encapsulated by a large stone wall that bordered the area. Something, in particular, caught her attention though; maybe two-thirds of the way to the back of the land, Ellie could see a giant hedge maze.

“If that isn’t a prime spot for secrets, I don’t know what is,” Ellie said smiling. “Right, so there are a few places I can visit on my way there… Oh, actually I have one [Leaps and Bounds Potion] but probably don’t have enough ingredients to make another in the lab. I think it’ll be worth it though, it’d save me the hour or so walk there, and then I’d be able to go to the other key parts of the land on the way back.”

She pulled out a test tube-like bottle filled with an unappetising murky yellow liquid, popped the cap, and tipped it back, swallowing as quickly as she could. Retching at the foul taste, she made a mental note to add something next time to mask it. She replaced the cap and stored the empty bottle back inside her bag.

Jumping a hundred metres at a time was thrilling to say the least, though her first jump did have her stomach turn. Each leap gave her a great view of the landscape around her, and before she knew it, she’d arrived at the entrance to the maze.

Wasting no time, Ellie took off speed walking. She followed the hedge on her right, something she’d learned from one game or another. She began speeding up as she delved deeper into the maze, feeling as if she was getting more lost with every turn. She came to an abrupt stop when text appeared in her vision.

Player 4 has entered the game

“What the fuck does that even mean?” she complained. “Maybe I should turn back and try to regroup with the others.”

She turned back and began quickly walking the way she had come until the hedge began moving. The way she had travelled closed up while another path opened. “Oh, fuck no!” she fumed. “I don’t think so.”

She walked to the hedge wall and began to climb. It wasn’t the most stable surface but she managed to scale the hedge. She’d focused on finding handholds and places to put her feet, when she realised she’d been climbing for a while. Looking down, she was roughly three and a half metres up, when the hedge had only been a couple of metres, to begin with.

Realising that climbing out wasn’t an option, she got back down. Looking down the open paths and deciding that her only choice was to try and push forwards.

As she moved through the maze she noticed something small and spiky in the corner of her eye. She turned to look as it vanished under the hedge. She put her hand into her bag and pulled out one of her [Ebony Ichor] bottles before following where she thought she saw it vanish.

Curiously, there was a small gap at the bottom of the hedge. She used her hands to pull it apart more and was able to climb inside.

Ellie would have assumed the hedge was maybe half a metre to a metre wide, but climbing in, she came to a small den, which reminded her somewhat of the place Nox had shown her but seemed much older and like it hadn’t been occupied in a long long time.

On a small hedge stump, there was a love heart with Elyon plus a scratched-out word that she assumed was a name. Movement caught her attention again and she spotted a little hedgehog squeezing itself into a wooden doll house.

She sighed realising she’d followed it for no reason, but a place like this could easily contain a secret or two, so she began looking around. While looking she found a small music box, and when she opened it there was a glowing coin with a compass on one side. After picking it up, the coin vanished and a window appeared.

Secret Location Discovered! Elyon’s Labyrinth retreat
Reward: Observe Upgrade - Minimap + 10 points

Ellie blinked several times before willing her [Observe] tome in front of her. Opening it she found a page which had a black circle spanning a two-page spread. After a second the paper began crumpling and shifting. In the centre was a small compass-shaped icon which as she turned seemed to spin with her. The paper had taken the shape of the maze around her, and as she watched it, she saw the maze shift in different locations, having one path blocked off while a new one opened.

Ellie exited the little room and made her way through the maze, occasionally looking at the map but ultimately following her intuition due to the constant shifting. Eventually, she heard chanting, and she followed it, coming to a large gate that she couldn’t see through.

Opening the map she could see a small clearing on the other side of the gate and dozens of dots, which by the sounds she assumed were goblinoids. The dots varied in size slightly but one stood out, it was in the middle of a crowd and was much larger.

“Nope,” she said as she walked away. She continued through the maze, and while searching for ways out, she found several secrets. The first was an area with an easel; her reward was an alchemical recipe for [Labyrinthian Chalk],

Labyrinthian Chalk

(Magical Chalk)

To use this item draw two shapes on a flat solid surface. The two points will be connected by a smoke trail through the shortest route a large humanoid could follow.

The second spot was a picnic area where she found a recipe for [Dust of the Spectre].

Dust of the Spectre

(Dust)

A small pearl, which when crushed will cause a shimmering dust cloud to envelop you. For the next 20 seconds you gain the ability to traverse like a ghost.

The third secret was a small single-person observatory; inside she found the recipe to make a [Ghost Sight Lens].

Ghost Sight Lens

(Crystal)

Pressing this against a solid surface allows you to see through thirty centimetres of material. The lens will shatter after 10 seconds of use.

“For fuck’s sake!” Ellie cried out as she reached the centre of the maze. The area was pretty big, and from what she could see, it seemed to be a party venue. Opening the map she could barely see the other side of the clearing. It seemed to be roughly twenty-five metres square and was littered with tables and chairs, buffet tables, a gazebo and what looked to be a bar.

“Okay, Ellie, calm down. It’s been like twenty minutes or so and there hasn’t been any message to say that anyone has gotten hurt or anything… Wait, I just realised, I’m an idiot. We told the hunter guy that we know Cynthia, so she probably found the barrier in the tower. It’s the only thing that makes sense; if it was someone malicious, surely the notification would have been that an intruder had gotten into the barrier or something.” Ellie sighed with relief, “I can’t believe I just panicked like that… What am I? John?”

She laughed to herself and figured she’d look around the area. The bar was empty, though there were obvious placements for barrels on the shelves as well as a wine rack for display. The gazebo was empty save for some chairs which each had lecterns in front of them. Finally, Ellie searched a small area that had a changing room with a set of outdoor lockers. She opened several of the lockers before finding a glowing pair of boots. She reached in and pulled out the boots which triggered a prompt.

Secret Location Discovered! Maze Centre
Reward: Boots of the Travelling Elementalist + 10 points

She looked at the boots; they looked great. Brown suede boots with stitched seams, they reminded her of any other pair of boots except they had shiny metal soles and a glowing rune on the side of the heels. Deciding she’d looked at them long enough, she cast [Observe].

Boots of the Travelling Elementalist

These ever-comfortable boots are perfect for anyone who likes to hike or travel. Slip them on; they will conform perfectly to your feet and will provide you with excellent support, perfect for long walks in all terrain.

These boots have two levels of effects and include the cost of the ability as a percentage of your full mana pool. Some abilities may include durations or cooldowns.

When using these boots you can choose to use the base effects or allow the mana type you supply it with to alter the abilities.

Base Abilities:
Blink [10%]: This allows you to teleport to a spot you can see within 2m.

Return [50%]: Standing in a space you can choose to designate it as a return spot. You are able to make three of these spots at one time and they will not fade unless you dismiss them. So long as you are within 25m of one of these spots, you can teleport back to it. If there are no return spots within range, you will teleport 25m in a random direction to a solid surface.

Ellie felt giddy getting yet another new magic item to try on. She planted her ass on the floor and unceremoniously pulled her shoes off, before pulling the new boots onto her feet.

She stood and knocked them against the floor feeling them out and couldn’t believe the comfort she felt despite the seemingly rigid metal soles. She looked at a spot she guesstimated was on the edge of her two-metre range and pushed mana into the boots and her body lurched almost instantly moving her from one location to another.

“Nice! If only I had these when I first entered the maze and made a return spot there…” she thought out loud. “These are gonna be pretty helpful and the percentage thing is cool, as it means I know I can use the return thing twice and blink around about ten times. They’ll be pretty good in a pinch too, though a random direction isn’t amazing, I could end up teleporting into danger or into a wall cavity or worst case in a vault or one of those walk-in freezers that don’t have a way out, probably best to only use Return without a destination in emergencies.”

She looked down and tried to focus on making a return point. There didn’t seem to be any indication that it had been set, but she took a step back to see two glowing footprints which faded until they had vanished.

“Okay, that’s cool,” she said. Pacing around to get a feel of her new footwear, she decided to take a look at the map. When it was open she noticed a light blue footprint on the map, it was obvious it was marking her return point. Looking at the spot on the mark, she took a second to focus on it and the mark on the map vanished.

“I need to move on, I’m not earning points like this,” Ellie thought for a moment before walking in the direction she’d entered the maze centre. “If I had either of those ghost things I got recipes for, I could probably make some headway in escaping…”

She stepped towards the hedge where she entered and suddenly it shifted. The walls opened up and she could see a straight path from where she stood to the edge of the maze. She broke out into a sprint not wanting to give the maze a chance to change its mind.

Once out, the maze closed behind her. She took a moment to catch her breath, looking over the now solid hedge wall, then began walking back in the direction of the palace.

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