Chapter 565 - Things get weirder (Patreon)

Hera's Status

"Why dungeon hunting? Shouldn't we be looking for a doorway?" Hera asked as they started walking toward the fountain, "Actually, do you know what happened with the one we used to get here? I completely forgot about it."

"According to my map, there is nothing there, but we can check that area first if you want," Shane replied.

"I think we should. At least to know if there is anything in there," Hera nodded.

They turned around and started heading back to the cabin where they spent the night. This time, Alex wasn't outside, and they could hear some noise coming from inside. Nothing that sounded like a problem, just people talking. Passing through it, they reached the edge of the raft. Without the rain, they could tell this was very close to the corner of the boat. However, when looking beyond it, Hera couldn't see anything besides the reflective water.

"We are in the right place, right?" Hera turned to Shane.

"Yeah… at least according to my map. The doorway should be there," Shane pointed to a random spot in the water.

"That is a problem," Hera sighed.

"Yeah…." Shane pulled the spyglass from her pocket and looked around, trying to see if it would show the location of a doorway or, at least, a dungeon in that area. Unfortunately, nothing came out of that. Even looking down at the ocean didn't give any signals to the item.

"Well… we are moving. So it makes sense that the doorway wouldn't be in the same location. Maybe we will go around the room and reach there later," Hera tried to find a silver lining.

"That is only considering the doorway is in the same place. I can't say for sure, but I think I saw that island or whatever it was moving away last night. Then again, between all the rain, our rush, and the whole mess, I don't trust what I saw," Shane looked to the side, trying to see if there was something in the distance.

"I really want to call the guide right now," Hera looked around, trying to make sense of this place.

"I get that, but what would you ask? Just the things about last night? Let's see if we can, at least, find something about this place first. Then again, this is just my suggestion. It's your turn to call them first," Shane smiled at Hera, who just nodded in response.

They walked back to where the fountain and the greenhouse should be located while discussing theories about the room. Hera thought that there was land somewhere. After all, they had to get wood and stone somewhere. Shane, on the other hand, believed that this place had dungeons to give anyone the supplies they needed.

As they approached the fountain, they heard voices coming from the building. They were loud enough to understand that they weren't happy ones. As they got closer, they finally made out words.

"I fucking hate those things! How are we supposed to tell when it's one of us or one of them?" Blue yelled.

"Ok, ok. Calm down. We just got here, and we are figuring things out," Helena's voice had her regular calm tone, but Hera noticed a hint of laughter in the middle.

Turning the corner, they saw Blue and Helena sitting by the fountain. The controller was soaking wet. Somehow, it looked like she was even more waterlogged than the previous day.

"What is going on?" Shane asked.

"Those fucking slimes. They have a spell that makes it impossible to get dry," a cloud formed around Blue's waist, and a heavy gust of wind started blowing. It was a localized wind, but it didn't take long for her clothes to dry. However, just as the water left her pants, small bubbles appeared all over her body and exploded, splashing her with more water, "See? This is fucking ridic...." before she could finish that sentence, another bubble burst right by her face, covering Blue's head in seawater.

"Crap, is that permanent?" Shane asked.

"It doesn't seem like it. She can see that debuff in her status window, and it says it lasts for 20 minutes," Helena explained while starting to dry Blue's hair again.

"How long do you have left?" Hera asked.

"Fif..." another bubble exploded above Blue's head, and she stopped speaking as the equivalent of a bucket of water was dropped on her. Even Helena took a step back, not to be splashed by all the water that appeared, "...teen minutes. I hate this."

"Wouldn't it be better to just be wet until it's over?" Shane crossed her arms.

"No. If I do that, this happens," Blue pulled her right arm to the side. It was still soaking wet, and she let another bubble explode on top of it. The new batch of water wrapped around her arm like a slime and started to slowly drip to the ground, "If I'm already too wet, the water just gets stuck, so I can actually drown with this," she just shoved the water out of her arm and continued drying herself.

Hera and Shane watched, completely baffled by this.

"What type of slime did that to you? I killed a white one a few minutes ago, and it didn't do anything like that," the Empress asked.

"It was a green one," Blue stopped for a moment and looked towards the explorers, "Please tell me that they don't have different skills depending on their color."

"Honestly, that's how slimes work. Even two with the same color might use what they have in very different ways. I fought against a red one that kept throwing fire at me and another that made a whip of fire to attack. The second one was also red," Shane explained.

"Really? When did that happen?" Hera looked around, trying to see if there weren't any other slimes nearby.

"Oh, that was during the test. The explorer's test, I mean. For some reason, those two stuck to me."

Helena continued to help Blue but turned to Hera and Shane, "And how about you guys? Where are you going?"

"We were going to look for dungeons, or doorways, whatever we find," Shane showed Bonnie's spyglass.

"But we wanted to stop here first to get some water and eat something. Alex talked about a greenhouse that was full of fruit. I'm guessing it's that," Hera pointed to a large glass building behind the fountain. She could barely see the inside through all the overgrown vegetation that covered the windows.

Helena nodded, "Yeah, that's it. If you are going there, be careful. There are roots everywhere in the ground. I almost tripped and fell more times than I can count."

"Is it really that bad?" Hera asked.

"The worst part is that it's impossible to know if you're about to fall down a hole or not. You can't tell which roots are stable and which are not, so it's easy to stumble. At least the ground under there seems to be deeper than the rest of the raft, so you shouldn't end up falling into the ocean," Helena continued.

"Do you think this is how they kept the greenhouse going? By using the moisture from the surrounding area to keep the plants alive?" Shane rubbed her chin.

"Can that work? I mean, don't plants need fresh water?" Hera asked.

"Generally, yes. Even in the MAZE, it is hard to find plants that live off seawater. Well... land plants, you know. I'm not talking about those that live in the ocean," Helena changed the spell she was using. Instead of using a random wind spell, she switched to her shadow grabbers to remove the water from Blue. Instead of just having the wind dry her, using that spell, she would focus only on removing the slime-like bubbles that grabbed onto Blue. Doing things that way was much less mana-heavy, which meant that the mage could spend some mana trying to dispel that effect.

Shane pulled the spyglass again and started to look around and mark the directions on her map, "Hera, could you grab me some fruit? I want to see how many signals I can get with this."

Hera nodded, "Sure. Anything you don't like?"

"Mangos and grapefruit. Never liked them," Shane was looking towards the greenhouse and stopped to mark down another line on the map.

Hera went inside the greenhouse and sent out her court to look for food. The entire place looked like a jungle. Each of the plants was growing wildly. The strawberry bushes took over an entire wall, the watermelon had its own territory on the left of the greenhouse, and some pineapples were peppered around the entire building. All the way in the back, the greenhouse became much higher where the trees were located. However, she could only find bananas and coconuts in that space. It was amazing to see how all those different fruits managed to find a way to coexist. It didn't take long for Hera to come out with a large watermelon that looked amazing and a few bananas.

When she came back, Helena, Shane, and Blue were looking up at the sky as if they were looking for something. Hera looked up too, but she could only see some clouds, the sun, and the blue sky.

"What are we looking at?" the Empress asked.

"The spyglass had a reaction when I looked up. Towards that large cloud, to be precise," Shane pointed at the largest cloud in view, "We are trying to see if there is something there."

"A doorway or a dungeon in the sky? Really? That sounds... kind of odd," Hera frowned but kept looking up. After a few moments, she noticed a small distortion in the air. Almost like a mirage, but it was being pulled to a specific point, behind the cloud that Shane pointed to.

Hera tried to find whatever that was, but all she could see was the cloud itself. Turning to Daskka, she asked, "Do you think you could get that high?"

The snake shook her head, "I can't. I can, maybe, get, like, 2 meters high, but that is the best I can do. That bird brain might be able to get there."

'Nimbus, did you wake up?' she asked the Sentinel inside the legacy.

'I have, Empress. My apologies for sleeping so much.'

'You don't have to apologize. Could you come out? We have a situation, and I want your opinion on the matter.'

Mist started to form by her side, and soon it took the shape of Nimbus, the humanoid griffon. He kneeled down in front of Hera, "I am at your command, Empress."

Hera let out a long sigh, "First. Stop that. You know I don't like when you act like that. Second, we are thinking that there is something inside that cloud. Do you think you would be able to fly up there?" she pointed to the area where she thought the signal was coming from, but Shane grabbed her wrist and moved it to the right spot.

Nimbus looked up and thought for a moment, "Maybe. In all fairness, we never tested how high I am able to fly. Mostly because you have to be with me, Empress. I never felt like I had a limit to how high I could go, but then again, if we consider birds, they too have their own limits."

"I don't think it's a good idea to have you going up there to check, Hera," Helena spoke.

"Me neither. Don't get me wrong, Nimbus, but if something happens to you, you can come back. Hera, on the other ha…" a bubble exploded behind Blue's head before she continued with an annoyed expression, "She can't."

"I agree. It is too risky," the Sentinel nodded.

"I'm honestly more worried about the distance. I mean, this raft is moving. What if it's moving faster than Nimbus can fly? Then I have no way of coming back," Hera sighed.

"That's also a valid point. It would be great if Nimbus could move far away from you. Then he could check, and if he couldn't keep up with the raft, he could just return to your legacy," Shane sighed.

Hearing that, Daskka perked up and jumped in front of Hera's face, "Now it's my time to shine, mum!"

"Do you have a plan?" Hera asked with a smile.

"No, but I have something better. New skills that may help here!"

"Right, you said I could get a few new skills. I completely forgot about that after everything.  Do you have something in mind?"

Daskka nodded, "Yep, I already made a list of the ones I thought you might like. Open that watermelon so we can talk while we eat!"

Hera nodded and told everyone to gather around. She wanted everybody's opinion on the matter since now they all had to work together to find a way home.