Waperath Jungle was a room considered out of the norm for one simple reason. It was massive. According to the guild, the room had an area of approximately 213 794km², and most of it was part of a rainforest. Rivers and lakes were peppered around the jungle, and there was a huge diversity of creatures here. Bugs, monsters, birds, even so animals that were supposed to only exist on earth were here. They had the level to match the room, but the animals were complete copies of those outside the MAZE. People had already found over 100 dungeons in this room, and that still felt like barely a drop in the ocean of trees and vines that existed here. To add to the strangeness, there were only three doorways, and they were all close to each other. Close for the standards of this room, at least.
Each doorway was between 2 and 5 kiloters away from the city that was ho to the beastn. A long ti ago, the first beastn was born here. Then, because of a threat that existed in the jungle, they fled to other rooms. After a few hundreds of years, they returned, stronger and ready to face the dangers that chased them away. However, the threat was gone. No one could figure out what had happened. So believed that whatever made them run never existed in the first place, while others thought that soone must have co to the room and destroyed the threat. Because they ran from it, and at the ti, their civilization wasn't exactly proficient at record-keeping, the true form of this threat was a mystery to this day. Archaeologists found traces of a large fight near the city, but they also found fossilized parasites that carried a particularly deadly disease. There was also a group of scientists that, through studying the rings on the oldest trees, realized that there was a massive spike in the temperature at so point in the distant past. In theory, no humanoid race would be able to withstand that heat unless they had the proper skills for it, and it made sense for an entire civilization to run away because of that climate change.
However, those were all purely hypothetical. No one knew the true reason why the people fled the room. More importantly, no one knew if the danger could return at so point. Despite that, only a small group of the beastn who lived in the city were actually worried or even aware of the possibility that soday, things could go south. For the rest of the people, this was just a wonderful place, aside from the bugs. The central city of Waperath was called Waperath Kingdom. Not very creative, but it did the job of telling anyone who was here that this was the main hub of the room. Not just because of the size, but because of the unique location near the doorways. Since most of the room was just a vast expanse of jungle and dungeons, not many people took the ti to explore the room. Almost everyone who ca here stayed within a day's travel or two of the main city. So smaller settlents existed. However, the rampages in a place like this were particularly nasty. Because of the massive size of the room, the number and variation of monsters that could appear was staggering. To circumvent that, any city or village built here had to have fortifications in place before even starting to build the first house. On the bright side, since the room was so big, there were situations where so of the monsters would start appearing on the opposite corner of the room and would march without stopping to the closest city. By the ti the creatures got there, they would be exhausted and sleep-deprived.
There was the fear of a wendigo being around to top things off. With a room this big and filled with places to hide, it was more than likely that a monster like that was sowhere. Even worse, no one had ever reported the sight of wendigos in the room, which ant that either there really wasn't one or, there was one hiding sowhere and growing stronger. At least people had established that wendigos had similar growth rates to regular people. For a while now, the guild had been studying the monsters, and after capturing one, they managed to test so theories and ca to those conclusions. For instance, even if they stayed for years in a low-level room, they wouldn't end up getting to level 80 out of nowhere. Even if they sohow managed to kill several high-level explorers, they would level up the sa way as a person. aning that when they gathered enough experience, or whatever was the equivalent of that for them, it was only for that level. If it went over what they needed to level up, the extra experience would vanish, and the next level had to be started from scratch.
The clerk that ca with Hera and Alex had to stay behind by the doorway while the duo moved towards the city. Unfortunately, they would have to walk through the jungle in the middle of the night, but unlike the previous room, this place was brighter, and their destination was in plain sight for anyone coming from here. Looking from the top of this hill, the Waperath Kingdom was like a lighthouse in the darkness. They started walking away as the two clerks by the doorway tried to appease the small crowd complaining about the situation. Even if rampages were sothing that everyone who lived in the MAZE knew about and was used to, they would still complain about these issues. Hera was hearing things like 'I have a delivery coming,' 'my friend is in another room,' and even, 'just keep it open for a couple of hours. I can reach the other side.' That last one made her feel weird. Essentially, this was exactly the sa thing that she did. Sure, it was Avery who told them to co, but still, it made her slightly uncomfortable.
Alex didn't seem to mind at all, and the two of them continued their journey to the city. The path leading to the kingdom was made with a special type of tile that warded off monsters. It worked almost perfectly, except for the weak level 1 mosquitoes always flying around.
"Man, I forgot to get bug repellent," Hera slapped her neck after feeling a sting.
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"Do we have to worry about diseases?" Alex asked.
"Oh yeah, that's sothing we need to be on the lookout for, but the guild in the city offers checkups, and inside there, they have so sort of spell always running to stop these kinds of bugs from getting inside. It's like a zapper barrier that only affects monsters at level 1, if I'm not mistaken," Hera explained.
"What about people who were born here?"
"I don't know. Maybe they die if they try to leave, or, the more likely option, the spell is not strong enough to hurt a person," Hera shrugged.
As they walked along the path, Hera tried to look at the city. It was already dark out, so parts of it were obscured by shadows, but there were so many lights all over the place that she could see most of the shape without any issues. In the middle of it all, there was what looked like a stone ziggurat that should be at least 50 ters high, split into 5 layers. On each terrace, several structures were close to the edges. So looked like houses, while others looked like restaurants and hotels. That wasn't even the entire city. On both sides of the ziggurat, there were two massive stone columns that almost looked like two ribs pointing up. More buildings could be seen on the outer part of those rock formations going all the way to the top, where both had lines connecting to the top of the ziggurat. On the bottom layer, several large trees and houses were built not just inside, but on top of the vegetation is a mix of modern architecture with sothing you would expect to see in a tribal setting. Despite the looks, everything was modern on the inside with sewer systems, electricity, and all that soone living today could need. That part of the city could not be seen from Hera's point of view. Instead, she could only see a massive 5-ter tall wooden wall with several scout towers and large pillars holding so sort of mana stone on top. Before that, there was also a 20-ter wide moat with a 5-ter drop before reaching the water. From what Hera could tell, the only way to enter the city was through a tal bridge facing the sa direction as the staircase of the ziggurat.
Everything had a fantasy feel as if it was sothing made for an epic movie or a drawing from a concept artist. However, the nurous lights, billboards, and screens that kept playing advertisents quickly shoved that feel away.
"This is… sothing. I'm just not sure what," Alex said as they got closer.
"Yeah…" Hera couldn't think of anything to say, especially after seeing a billboard for the most famous soda in the entire world right in the middle of the city.
"We are in the right place, right? We didn't take a wrong turn anywhere, did we?" Alex turned to Hera. They were still about 10 minutes away from the city, but now they could only see the wall and the top of the structures.
"I think so. I an, I was talking to a few people who were here in the library, but no one ntioned this. And the pictures I've seen from here don't have so many…." Hera paused.
"Ads?"
"Yeah. Well… now that I think about it, the official ones don't. But if I looked on social dia, there were so strange lights on the background of the pictures. I just figured those were filters or random people using spells, not billboards," Hera sighed. It was weird that they went as far as changing the official pictures, or at least turned all the advertisents off just for that. Then again, a good graphic designer should be able to do that easily, but Hera couldn't tell why they would bother doing sothing like that.
"Is anyone waiting for us? Or are we just going in and saying, 'hey, we are here to look into your old files?'" Alex asked.
"There is no one waiting, but I did put in a request for a specific file, and they already have approved. Well, they gave a preliminary approval. I still need to give so identification, show my guild card, and things like that. Also, I don't know how long it will take to find what I'm looking for, so feel free to hang out in the city or do so dungeons. Apparently, there are two of them inside the city."
"I'll do that, but I think I'm taking a day off. I an, we have been traveling for almost a week without stopping. Even if we were pacing ourselves, I'm still tired."
Hera nodded, "Tell about it. The few tis I went on a long trip, I had to take a day off before even starting to enjoy the place I was in. And those tis it took what. Five hours or sothing."
"Yeah. It's just a sha that we can't stay in a triton hotel. I loved that bath and those pillows? It felt like I was sleeping on a cloud."
"I would agree. If I didn't think of that before we left Boothudurn," Hera smiled.
"What do you an?"
"Well, I know we were going to stay here for a few days at least. So I took the liberty to make a reservation in the only triton hotel in the city, and since I got the room for a week, they tossed in a spa day for two, breakfast included for the whole stay and five complintary massages," Hera showed the reservation on her tablet.
Alex stopped for a mont, stunned by the announcent. She picked Hera's tablet and read the information about the reservation before turning back to the explorer, "Can I hire you to plan my trips?"
"Are you sure you can pay my rates? After all, I'm a rich businesswoman now," Hera chuckled.
"Don't I get friends and family discount?"
"That's why I'm charging you extra."
"Is it cheaper if I make you hate then?" Alex scoffed.
"Maybe, but you will never know," Hera replied as they reached the tal bridge. Entering the city wasn't an issue, even if it was already late in the evening.
Both Hera and Alex wanted to explore the city, but they needed so rest after traveling so much and running for so long. The city would be here in the morning. There was no need to rush.
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