Broken

Chapter 45

With a plan established, the joint Chaos and Paladin raid got to work. We stuck to the tree line, walking a silently as possible and following the curve of the walls through the jungle. One of the Paladins was an archer (Liam, as it turned out) and they would fire at lone orcs, luring one or two into the jungle at a time.

I would jump between attackers and orcs, getting in as many hit as I could on the monsters, stacking poison debuffs, and -on very rare occasions- other random effects. my physical strength had improved greatly since becoming Depraved, but I still wasn't up to par for a four-star raider, having sunk so many points into other areas till now, just to survive my own skill.

We were all working well together, each playing their part, and everything was going well. Too well, if I bothered to think about it... Over the course of the day we had managed to take down nearly twenty orcs, all without alerting the main force, while collecting some fairly decent loot. There were quite a few injuries, meaning the Paladin's healer- as well as Alex who happened to have a minor healing skill- had their work cut out for them, but nothing we couldn't handle.

So it was with some satisfaction that we returned to the already cleared section of the maze to get some rest. There was no telling what the actual time was since it was constantly night and earth tech didn't work in the instances or the tower. That being said, I had heard that there were watch making artisans out there who had made traditional analog watches with instance materials. They were outrageously expensive, but at least they were usable. I found it odd that the prestigious Jamie didn't have one. 

"I did buy one, actually." He said after we were all eating a simple meal, surrounded by vines. Chatter wasn't really my thing, but his inability to observe me secretly was getting on my nerves. If he was going to stare, I would like to at least give him a reason to. Plus, maybe I could squeeze random Paladin information out of him too. "But the materials used in the manufacture didn't mesh well with my mana heavy skills... The hands just kept spinning, and it was pretty useless."

Hmm... maybe Yejun could make something better. I could bring it up to him, and maybe Carson could get him in touch with the watch maker. It could be another way for my brother to prove just how great his skills were. Most of Chaos had acknowledged Yejun's talents, but it irked me when outsiders still underestimated him.

Several hours later, and a little more rested, we got back to work. Jamie's echo location skill was incredibly useful in this dark, wide open area, and we relied on it pretty heavily. So when the mage brought us all to a stop at one point, we all froze.

"Too many?" Bryce asked in a hushed whisper. There had been a couple times when the number of orcs gathered in one place was too many, and we had to wait for the group to break up. this didn't seem to be the case this time, because Jamie shook his head. "What then?"

"I see a door up ahead." He stated, staring -not toward the center of the clearing- but deeper into the ring of jungle up ahead.

"A door? Not just another entrance to the maze?" We had estimated that we had gotten about half way around the clearing, so it would make sense for another opening into the maze to be near by.

"No, a literal door. About twice the size of a man and sealed shut. I can just barely sense the mana seal on it from here." Jamie turned to Alex, who was standing next to me. "You can probably see it too?" The words sounded confident, but they were delivered as a question.

Alex stepped forward and squinted into the distance. I saw his eyes light up with mana, as if he were in the middle of a fight, then the light died out. He turned to Bryce and nodded. "I can't see a door, but I can sense the magic he is talking about."