Alvin, Carlos, and their fellow StuCo members Lesedi and Tim head down to the Labyrinth to rescue the students Ophelia has abducted. Alvin curses himself for not acting before things got out hand, and Carlos tells Alvin to take care of things should he screw up. The Sword Roses are to a person restless about not being able to do anything.
Nanao is actually the most pessimistic, as her battlefield experience tells her Pete only has a 2-in-10 chance of surviving. But before the Roses start fighting further, Chela says it’s time to get back to class. Oliver meets with Gwyn and Shannon, but while they’re planning to join the StuCo, their larger force cannot reveal itself yet.
Even Professor Garland, clearly one of the nicer teachers, tells Katie that faculty can only go to the Labyrinth to search after students are missing for eight days, and that she mustn’t rely on teachers to come to their aid every time. Kimberly is about exercising independence and self-reliance; it’s how strong mages are made.
Chela reports to Oliver that she unsuccessfully appealed to her father to help, as he told her the moment she can’t protect her own friends is the moment she never should have made them. More tough love. So Chela is determined to go down to the Labyrinth. Oliver won’t hear of her going alone.
Their talk is interrupted by Vera, who takes them to Katie, who has offered up her body to Vera for all the research she wants in exchange for her help. Oliver and Chela ain’t about to let that happen, but fortunately Vera is open to a compromise. She’ll accompany them to Ophelia’s lair on the third level of the Labyrinth, and even train them on the way.
In exchange, Katie will become her official research assistant, not subject. The deal is struck, but while Nanao prepared her bag for what she deemed the certainty of Oliver and Chela coming for her, Katie and Guy are simply not strong enough for that part of the Labyrinth, so there are some emotional parting scenes of them.
Vera leaves her pet Milihand in Katie’s care while she’s away, telling her that the hand is also the key to her research, should she not make it back. With that, she leads Chela, Oliver, and Nanao through the looking glass and into the Labyrinth.
In our check-in with a weakened Pete, he finds himself the only one not unconscious or restrained by a creepy red claw thingy. Still, he fains sleep when Ophelia stops by with her chewing gum walk, assuring her sleeping princes that as long as they stay asleep, it will only feel like a bad dream.
Unfortunately, Pete is not asleep. While on the first layer, Vera explains that Ophelia has Succubus lineage, and used her womb to create the chimeras who captured Pete and the others. She’s using their mana in order to create something even greater than a chimera; possibly something closer to her ancestors’ ideal of the perfect being. Vera & Co. stop by the workshop for some potions and find Marco is there, having been ignored by the Chimeras.
Vera makes clear that Ophelia only needs the vitality—i.e. mana—from males for her research. Nanao decides Vera trustworthy enough to tell her that Pete isn’t fully male, or at least not always male, which puts him in even greater danger than the other captives, because he’s in Ophelia’s way.
The StuCo seems to be holding their own on the second level, and even run into an upperclassman in Kevin Walker, who helps in his way by providing a detailed map of the third level.
When Vera’s group comes upon their first chimera just before the entrance to the second level, she shows rather than tells them the proper way to defeat one. They have to assess and know their enemy’s weaknesses, like the Chimera’s poor eyesight that gets worse the more tentacles they sprout. They have to keep moving and not let their foe get a bead on them.
And they must have a plan of action for taking it out: in this case, close-range lightning. Her threefold lessons lay out the three jobs a mage must do, but she makes clear three mages could each take one job. That may be true, but Chela (and Oliver) don’t want Nanao to take on the brunt of the danger. The three of them will each perform all three jobs, sharing the danger equally, all to get Pete back safe and sound.
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