The second trial was instantly apparent the moment the pair entered the next room, but Roc leapt into an explanation anyway “It is time to test your combined courage, resourcefulness, and cooperation with the ‘Terrible Maze of Teamwork Tasks!’ …Okay, I’ll admit it’s somehow still a working title even after this long. The goal here is the same as any maze, just reach the end! …Oh, but let me know if you need some help, okay? It’s not against the spirit of the trial for me to give you two buds tips if you need them!”
The maze walls were made of metal bars that raised high in the air, although they did not reach the much loftier ceiling. The gaps between the bars allowed Reece and Tress to see through the walls of the maze, which confirmed the maze with fairly big, and took up the entire room past the entrance. However, no path that led ‘inside’ the maze got further than a few feet in before reaching a dead end, which made starting a seemingly difficult task. The only thing that could be reached was a lever, which Tress unceremoniously flipped without a second thought. Immediately, some walls of the maze sunk into the floor, while new walls elsewhere rose up from the ground.
Tress nodded sagely upon seeing the maze’s trick. “Oh, it’s one of these. Alright, not the worst…” Tress had seen these kinds of mazes used before in other ruins
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Mazes were behind puzzle rooms in staples of ruin design in Tress’ experience. They usually had some kind of gimmick, but she felt like she’d seen every kind of gimmick several times each. Only so many ways to spice up a maze, she supposed., and it didn’t seem to be an especially complicated one given how few switches she could see, but she still dreaded the amount of back and forth that’s normally required for these...
Getting an idea, she pulled Reece over to take a closer look at the bars. Unsure what specifically she had on her mind, he began to take an analytical eye to the situation. He noted the gaps between the bars were too thin for either of them to pass through, at least from a glance. With most of Reece’s body being gelatinous, just sliding between the bars might warrant some further consideration, but still his shell would almost certainly get stuck here. He often felt his shell was a bit vestigial, given how malleable or otherwise resistant to damage the rest of his body was. He did appreciate it giving his torso a solid form, but it was a curse as often as it was a blessing.
Failing to find anything really worthwhile, he turned his head to look at what Tress was doing. Surprised to find that turning his head was insufficient, looked up as well to see she was already well above him, pulling herself up the vertical bars.
“Um.” Reece said, drawing Tress’ attention and getting her to pause her ascent. She hung from the bars with a single hand as she turned to face Reece, in a casual demonstrating a frankly impressive amount of upper body strength.
Looking down at the slime-bug, Tress realized the complication. “Oh, wait, can you not climb these?” Tress asked. She had done this sort of thing so often that it was easy to forget it didn't work in a group.
Reece humored her with a demonstration and tightly gripped the bar as high above his head with both hands. He jumped up, putting his full faith in his grip, which was instantly betrayed as he fell back to the ground nearly instantly. His tightly gripped hands slid cleanly down with the rest of his body and left trails of smooth slime on the bars.
Tress nodded slowly and compassionately after jumping back down to the ground. “Ah. Okay, yeah, not an option. Let’s do it the normal way then.”
Reece silently nodded, internally relieved somewhat to actually have to engage with the maze. He like mazes, something about doing them felt productive when he had little else to do. So being honest with himself, having to do this maze actually sounds pretty goo- Wait, no, I'm being selfish aren't I? Tress clearly wanted to skip the maze, why should I be happy having to do the maze then? Reece lightly slapped his forehead for the way he felt.
Tress, meanwhile, only barely contained how utterly thrilled she was to actually have the chance to show off her puzzle and maze knowledge. “Okay, so it looks like there are two different paths from which we can enter the maze proper. Taking that stupid name of this maze as a hint, I’d assume we’ll have to split up and take separate paths. Call out when you reach a dead end or a switch, and we’ll see what we can do.”
The two of them made their way through the maze. Despite the name “Terrible Maze of Teamwork Tasks!” the maze didn’t really live up to the “Terrible” moniker, and in fact, it was actually uneventful. The two of them never seemed to be in danger of getting lost, and the switches only barely changed the layout in practice. There was even stealthy color coordination between the switches and the tiles that the other person should stand on when the switch is flipped, a fact that Tress picked out about halfway through the maze. Still, there was some fun in solving even a boring maze, and there was some stimulation in having to call out across the room.
After a few minutes in the maze, Reece reached the end of his path and pulled the final switch. With a SHUNT, all the maze walls sunk into the ground and the door leading forward opened up.
Tress looked a bit sheepish as she saw at the end state of the maze “Oh huh, if we knew that it would just open up from a single switch, I guess climbing over myself would've worked...” Tress said this more as a fact than anything else. She was surprised to see she didn't really regret not trying, since the maze had been more engaging than she’d normally expect.
“Oh, sorry,” Reece said, but he nearly winced from his own weak apology. Even as he said the words, the guilt inside him doubled down, then grew even more as he realized he was feeling more guilty about his apology than his incidental prevention of Tress skipping the maze. And before Tress could respond with a comforting “oh, it’s not your fault,” or “no, this was fun!” she was interrupted by Roc’s voice booming out.
“Oh, wonderful, wonderful!” His genuine excitement was vividly heard in his voice. “The two of you exceeded my expectations with your bonds of friendship! Surely you two buds could overcome any obstacle if you put your minds to it! I must say it’s an honor to be able to watch you two. Come on, the next trial awaits!”
Putting aside the conversation Roc had interrupted, the pair started to head to the next chamber. The hallway in front of them seemed pretty long this time, which gave Tress a chance to ask a question that had been on her mind. “So, what’s your read on Roc’s whole deal?” She asked quietly, silently banking on the hope that Roc couldn’t hear literally everything. Given Roc didn’t immediately speak up to offer his own thoughts on her question, she might’ve been correct.
Reece took careful consideration of the question before offering his answer, “He’s weirdly focused on friendship, I guess? But I can’t tell if its sincere. I do wonder why someone so goofy seeming would be given whatever political powers come with the title of mage…” If the title of Mage of Friendship meant anything at all, political or otherwise, and wasn't self-appointed, it'd certainly come with responsibilities, and it'd probably be given to the person who was best suited to said responsibilities, or at least puts up the impression of such. And being totally honest, Roc hadn't been giving him the vibe of someone who was really the best choice for any responsibilities, especially not anything political. Perhaps this really was some elaborate ruse...
"Political powers?" Tress asked confused, “Oh, wait, you don’t know? 'Mage' is just a fancy word that means he can create magic items."
Reece chuckled at this suggestion. “I know that’s the common meaning of the word, but there really isn’t much evidence to suggest that any magic item was ever ‘created.’ Based on current evidence I think the 'mages' from the Order of Mages were just–”
“No, I’m certain, Roc can make magic items.” Tress insisted matter-of-factly, with a level of self-assuredness that made Reece decide it was not worth the effort to debate more, “But on my question about his ‘deal,’ I was actually asking about the friendship thing, I guess. It’s just that the way Roc has been pushing it feels…” Tress paused to try and place her words together. The words presumptuous and obsessive came to mind, but so did desirable, pleasant, comforting… “I guess weird is the best word for it.”
“Yeah, I can agree on that,” Reece said. Honestly weird is an understatement.
Tress left the conversation at that, but she couldn’t stop herself from thinking about it more. She really did need more friends, in all honesty. It’s hard for her to really meet or talk to anyone new given her lifestyle. When she does meet someone, they mostly want to “capture her” for being a “criminal” with a “bounty on her head” or whatever it is that they always say. Plus there was a lot she just, couldn’t talk to any random stranger about, at least for her mother’s sake. But Reece… well, at least they had known each other in the past. That gave her something to latch onto for trusting him, even with how little the time they’d spent together actually was. Maybe she should… ask to hang out with him more sometime? Once they were done here at least. No sense asking this exact moment when the very concept of friends was muddled by Roc’s insistent commentary on the matter.
The conversation having fully fizzled out, the two of them entered the next chamber to see what trial awaited them there.