Even after Eridan entered the Ascension area, the Empress kept staring at the doorway. She knew that Tara was taking care of her dad, and she knew that there was nothing to worry about what he was going to do. Eridan was not just protected by the system but helped by it. As a matter of fact, he was likely safer there than he would be anywhere else.
Yet, She couldn't help but be worried about her dad. Not just about what he was doing or if he was going to be okay, but also about all the tiny differences that he would face once he became an Ophidianite.
She was also very worried if he was going to regret it, especially considering it was a very definite thing. Once it changed, there was no going back. For a very brief moment, Hera even considered if her dad would ask about changing genders. As far as she knew, he didn't have any issues being a man. But maybe this was the kind of thing that he never felt comfortable admitting to anyone. Out of fear or something.
And speaking of fear, Hera realized that she couldn't remember if her dad was scared of snakes. What if he was, and he was forcing himself to become one to spend time with her, but at the same time, he was dooming himself to spend the rest of his life as something he was terrified of?
Less than a minute after Eridan vanished, Hera's mind was already spiraling out of control, going through every single possibility of how this could end up badly. It was so intense that even her Court decided to step in to stop her and bring the Empress back to reality.
"You need to breathe. Okay, mum? Do you remember how to do that?" Daskka asked.
"What?" Hera asked, but her voice was barely a whisper since there was no air to come out of her lungs. Even then, she was so confused that she started hyperventilating again.
Hera was worried when she became an Ophidianite, of course she was. But her worry was nowhere near as close to what she was feeling about her dad. Nimbus and the others tried to distract her, talking about random things, but no one managed to find a topic that would be enough to make her stop overthinking things.
For the next 30 minutes, Hera kept staring at the doorway, even reaching the point of enveloping herself in the cocoon made out of [Noble Shroud] and [Blade Accord] and trying to message Tara. Of course, Tara didn't answer. The ancestor was busy with something else and was not going to pay attention to her questioning right now, which was for the best. After all, if Tara had started to reply, Hera would be very worried that something was going wrong.
But that also raised a different question about the Ophidianites. What would happen when more and more people started to ascend? Would Tara be able to keep up with them all, even if there were maybe a dozen people ascending all at once? Or would she have to start scheduling people to ascend on specific dates? If it were the latter, it would take a very long time to reach the limit of how many Ophidianites were required for the civilization to continue by itself.
Conservatively, even if she were to schedule two ascensions per day, it would take several years before they even broke into the tens of thousands. And that wouldn't even be the limit of how many Ophidianites there could be.
There were other possibilities, such as people having children, and that was something that she forgot to warn her father about. Now that he was going to become an Ophidianite, any children he had would be Ophidianites, no matter with whom he had them. But hopefully, Tara would make that kind of thing clear before the Ascension.
All of a sudden, Hera felt something smacking her cheek. She was so distracted by her thoughts that she barely registered the tail slap of a very concerned Daskka.
"Mum," the herald stared deep into the Empress' eyes.
"What? What's going on?" Hera asked, looking around and trying to see if she could find her dad.
"You need to breathe," Daskka replied.
Once more, Hera realized that she was holding her breath for a few moments. She started breathing again and finally paid attention to the Court.
"I don't think it's healthy for you to stay here the whole night. We should go back to our home," Filigree suggested.
"Or we just wake up. We can stay in your private room and have Tara give us a heads up when Eridan is about to come out. That way we are here if he gets out of there," Nimbus suggested.
Hera looked at the Sentinel and nodded. "Yeah, I like that idea. Well, we should still go back to the city to get some food. We came out here empty-handed."
"Like you are going to eat anything," Lurize rolled his eyes.
"Yeah. We don't need to get food," Nimbus said.
The Court turned towards the Sentinel with confused expressions. He was usually someone who was always worried about food. After a moment, they all gave him a look of recognition since the Sentinel sent a message just for them. It wasn't that hard to hide from the Empress since she was too preoccupied with something else at the moment.
They all nodded and ushered Hera towards the doorway, where she touched it and transferred to her private room. Once inside, she called her Court out again, everybody, including the blades, and they quickly put their plan into action. Daskka instead started talking to Hera, mentioning random things about Deakoshara or about her dad in hopes that she wouldn't pay attention to what was happening elsewhere.
Meanwhile, Nimbus quickly and sneakily took her tablet and sent two messages. The first, or 'Plan A,' quickly received a number of replies, all agreeing with his plan. Plan B or more specifically, Plan D. Because a little bit of drama usually made people forget about everything else. And right now, the biggest drama that could affect the Empress was Shane knowing she was not going to be the second Ophidianite.
While the first message received a few replies and things were already in motion, it was the second message that made the tablet go wild. It seemed like the enchantress was out of the dungeon and was now asking 20 questions about how and why Eridan was able to become an Ophidianite before her.
At first, Hera tried to ignore it, but it didn't take long for her to be annoyed with the constant sound of the messages pinging and pick up the tablet with an angry expression. When she noticed what happened, she glanced at her Court, huffing before starting to explain to Shane that her dad got lucky and because his level was so much lower than hers, small gains to his skills caused him to increase the rank on his Ophidianite skills more and more until he hit the necessary rank to ascend.
Shane understood the logic behind Hera's words, but she wasn't having any of it. She continued to complain, saying that she deserved to be the next one, and that it was her right to be an Ophidianite, and a lot of other things that, while they could make sense to the enchantress, were not how reality worked.
They kept arguing back and forth until the doorbell of her private room rang. There was only one group who could do that kind of thing, and only then did she open the Guides group text. That's when she saw the message with Nimbus saying that Hera was stressed out because her dad was becoming an Ophidianite and she needed a distraction, which meant it was time for a party with the Guides. Something that they hadn't done for a while already.
"Seriously?" Hera turned to the Sentinel.
He just had a big smile on his face, "You need some distraction, and that's the best way to go about it. Besides, it's been weeks. I'm sure that you have a lot of things to talk to them about."
"Don't you be mad at Nimbus, honey, we all wanted to be here for your special moment. It's not every day that the species you created starts to grow," Miss Jackie shouted through the door.
"Now, if you'd be so kind as to open this door. The magnanimous me is worried his carefully made delicious sweets are going to melt," Capri's voice followed right after.
Hera rolled her eyes at her Court but opened the door with a big smile, only to see Peaches, Capri, Miss Jackie, Laika, Seth, and Lodi on the other side.
"Greetings and congratulations," Capri said.
"We are all happy for you, kid. Others wanted to come as well, but you know we have some rules about not overcrowding you place."
"I know, but I honestly don't think I would mind today. Maybe I should figure out a way to grow my private room."
"You could probably go to the tower and ask for it there," Laika suggested, gaining an angry stare from Peaches.
"What?" the astronaut dog protested, "People who already know you can ask for upgrades on specific skills if you go to the Tower. It's not a secret that she could do that. If the system is going to say yes, that's an entirely different issue."
"I'll keep that in mind if I ever go there." the Empress nodded.
After she said that, everybody in the room just gave her a blank stare. Hera didn't know exactly what was going on, so she felt attacked by the reaction.
"What?"
"Hera, you are an incredible individual, but you are also a sucker for adventure. It doesn't take an incredible mind such as mine to uncover the reality that—" before Capri could finish his statement, Lodi interrupted him.
"You're going to go to the Tower. Unless something awful happens and you die beforehand, you're going to go there. We all know it. I don't know why you keep acting as if that's not a certainty."
"Sure, an upgrade would be nice, but I'm not that predictable," Hera said, turning to her Court. "Am I?"
Not wanting to answer, Filigree quickly stepped towards the Guides. "So you mentioned something about melting sweets. Do you need me to put them in the fridge?"
Capri turned towards Filigree, who just gave him a death stare. "You shouldn't call women old, my dear," she said while taking the strange chocolate-covered treats that Capri was carrying, glaring at his boots even if everybody knew there was nothing Hera could do to harm them.
The party started quickly as the Court blades made sure to turn on the music and help everybody settle in while the group of Guides started to distract Hera. And the court managed to set up this party in a way that Hera was not alone for longer than a few moments when she stepped out to go to the bathroom. Even then Daskka would generally go along with the Ophidianite, all while saying that she needed a hug or some time for herself.
For the Guides, it wasn't hard to keep Hera entertained. After all, she had discovered a few aspects of the MAZE that they themselves were not able to talk about with people for a very, very long time. As a matter of fact, even Peaches couldn't remember the last time when someone became privy to this type of information.
"Yeah, I wanted to ask this. Did you even exist without rooms?" Hera asked.
"We did," Miss Jackie nodded. "But back then, honey, things were different. We didn't have rooms as much as we had territory. An area that we had to take care of."
"So you didn't have your own, like, Guide room or something?"
"We did not. That only came to be sometime later, darling. And if I could be honest, I prefer how things are right now."
"Really? Why?"
"Well, for one, we had to be constantly on the lookout for anything that could be coming to our room. And without the doorways, we were the ones responsible for filtering mana that came from other places."
"Filtering mana? What do you mean?"
"She means that every time someone comes from a different room, their mana doesn't match the same mana that we have in our rooms. And because of that, some things might get confused. Neighboring territories don't really have to worry about that too much from what I understand, as their mana is close enough that it doesn't cause any problems. But if the mana from one place goes too far away and crosses too many territories, it becomes muddled and hard to understand. It can even become a sort of poison for both the person who is carrying that mana and the environment. That's why sometimes we had to block people from crossing in and out of our territory," Laika explained.
"Is that why there is a crossing limit?"
When Hera asked that, everybody froze and just turned to Peaches, who sighed in response.
"The system is not saying anything about it, so I'm not going to either. Just keep that little tidbit of knowledge to yourself, kid. It's not the type of thing we can really go telling people. When you are in one room and move to the next, the surrounding mana goes through you and filters out to match that room. But if you move too fast or too far away, then things can get a bit hectic."
"I see," Hera nodded, but then turned to Laika. The astronaut dog was somewhat quiet until they started talking about this, "If you don't mind me asking. Were you around back then?"
Laika shook her head, the visor of the helmet shifting slightly, "No. I wasn't. I just learned about that kind of thing"
"That is something that a handful of Guides. Well, a lot of Guides, know, but there's a large number of us who also weren't there to understand how things work," Lodi added.
"As a matter of fact, it's a nice even split between those who were around and those who are new. But we all get along just fine. Even if some of us don't have their own rooms, like our Green Apple friend." Seth said.
Capri stepped closer and stared at Peaches while speaking, "And don't even try to pry information out of him. He refused to explain what happened even to us."
"Was it something bad?" Hera asked.
"No, it wasn't something bad," Peaches replied. "It's not something you have to worry about, and it's not something I have to do again. My job is done, that's why I'm doing something else. Taking care of every single explorer who goes through the test."
The party kept going throughout the night. And Hera, thanks to her attributes, her skills, and the combination buffs that she could gain from the presence of her Court, didn't really feel tired at all. After all, she had already been past the point where a single day without sleeping could make her stop functioning properly. She was still far from being in peak condition, but it wasn't something that would be the end of the world.
She was on the floor together with Capri, Sam, and Lodi, who were still talking about the old days.
"You should have seen how the Cobalt Road was before the MAZE became separated. The place was truly astounding, almost comparable to my own territory," Capri announced.
"I think you're remembering things wrong, hun. The Cobalt Road wasn't there. There was something different back then that looked a bit like it, but it wasn't as it is today."
"I know. I'm referring to the place that inspired the Cobalt Road. Truly astounding. To put it in perspective, it was large enough that you would be able to take someone from your Earth to the Moon."
"There was a place that big? Was it like an absolutely gigantic planet or something else?"
"Something else. You see, the MAZE doesn't really have planets. It's just one thing. But there's the sun and the moons."
"How does that work? There's no space?"
"There is space," Miss Jackie said, "but everything else is just... there are moons." She gestured towards Laika, whose entire room was the moon. "They're just spread around differently across the area."
"Things. I mean, the sun rises and sets. Is that just an illusion? Some sort of magic?"
"I believe magic is the simplest explanation. But you must think about one more thing. When you talk about a planet, you're only thinking about three dimensions. Here, inside the MAZE we're talking about more than that."
Before Hera could come up with a follow-up question, her tablet rang with a message from Tara. Her dad was about to come out.