Magus: A Supernatural LitRPG Saga (Apocosmos Book 2) by Dimitrios Gkirgkiris (romantic love story reading TXT) 📕

doubt, if we weren't on a quest, he'd want to map the whole labyrinth. My train of thought was interrupted when we reached another intersection, this time with five additional branches.

"Mark this down, half-Celt," Rory commanded as he continued taking notes. "This is intersection B. Elf, mark the path we came from as zero and I'll number the rest."

"Yes, sir," I said mockingly and rolled my eyes, but Rory didn't seem to notice it at all.

Both Leo and I did as he bid us while he used a dagger from his inventory to carve the number of the paths into the gravel.

"On we go," Rory said merrily, starting to walk down another path. "B1."

We followed him down yet another path that twisted and turned. The walls, the ground, the sky, were all exactly the same as in the previous corridors and I had no doubt we'd already be lost if we hadn't adopted the system Louie suggested. This was so boring and wonderfully mundane. Almost as if it had been designed to exhaust our minds on the same level as our bodies. Soon, I realized I was walking without even thinking about it and my eyes were blinking more slowly than usual.

At what point does it stop being slow blinking and move into falling asleep territory?

I opened my eyes, realizing I was almost passed out while walking and shook my head.

"Guys," I said, and stopped walking. "We need to get some rest."

"I thought that too," Louie agreed, while Leo was looking at Rory's notes. "But not yet. It won't be safe."

"Well I don't see anything changing," I said and retrieved a flask of water from my inventory. "There won't be a good time to rest anytime soon. Let's rest at the next dead-end we find."

"No, not a dead-end, lad," Rory said, looking at me strangely as I poured some water on the back of my neck to help me stay awake. "It needs to be an intersection."

"Exactly," Louie added. "Preferably a small one that's a bit deeper into the maze so that there are fewer chances we'd stumble upon anyone. It should be one where we've made sure its paths lead to dead-ends."

"Do you really need to rest that bad?" Leo asked.

"Of course we do, man!" I exclaimed. "How the fuck do you still have so much energy? I was supposed to be the sporty one."

"You always assumed you were," Leo retorted and then turned to the dwarf again. "Then let's make haste to an intersection that's a bit more suitable."

We carried on with what little strength we had left in us. Louie was not used to staying awake for so many hours at a time and I could see it in the way he was walking. When I leaned down and picked him up, he didn't offer any complaints but simply let his tongue loll out of his mouth, looking forward.

We passed through one intersection after another, seeing similar paths all the time. Since the sky was stuck in perpetual dusk, the only sign of change was our progress through the alphabet as we named each intersection. We reached intersection Z and then another after that, which became AA, then AB and so on until I stopped paying attention. I was mechanically petting Louie who was falling in and out of sleep in my arms while Rory was drafting the map and Leo carving the names and numbers of our routes.

Intersection AF turned out to be a lot more complicated than the previous ones. AF1 and AF2 made a loop, while AF3 brought us back to the AD3 path of a previous intersection.

"I know you said we should make it a bit further in," I said once Leo had carved a line between paths one and two, "but maybe we can stay on a path that leads to a dead-end. We know nobody will be coming that way."

"Ye're tired, half-Celt," Rory said with a hint of compassion in his voice, "but we don't want to corner ourselves there."

"Then let's do it on the two paths that loop," Leo proposed. "These two need to be on their best form, and if someone comes one way we'll be able to run the other."

"I guess it can't be helped," the dwarf sighed and we headed down one of the interconnecting paths.

I lay on the ground and Louie barely opened his eyes when I rested him on my chest. The eerie silence of the labyrinth and the perfectly still sky made for a much more unsettling atmosphere than if we had been able to hear night critters flying about or crawling between the bushes. I lasted only a few seconds after Rory said he'd take the first shift before I fell asleep.

Without being sure if I'd been asleep for hours or seconds, I heard Louie yelp in my ear and I immediately jumped up. Rory and Leo were running my way while Louie's hind legs, as well as my left arm, were tied up by some kind of vines. The sounds of creaking wood tightening and pulling us into the bush-walls were only matched by Louie's panicked yelping.

Instinctively and before any of our companions were able to reach us, I retrieved one sword from my inventory with my free hand and slashed at the vines pulling at Louie, not caring one bit whether we'd fail our quest. As soon as his small body was free, he charged at the vile plants that were trying to devour me, biting them and pulling as hard as he could with his small jaws.

"Move aside, boy," Rory said.

Louie stepped back, as I was pulled further toward the vast complex of branches and leaves.

With incredible accuracy, Rory brought down the spiked side of his war hammer on the thickest of the vines that were pulling me in. Once that was severed, Leo made short work of the rest with his sword. I picked myself up and to my amazement, saw the vines pick up the pieces we'd cut