“So… what do you think she wants to talk to us about?” Diane asked.

“She wants to make sure her dearest daughter is doing ok~” Agathe replied, looking right at Yumi with a smirk.

“I-I’m sure she does this for every group of adventurers!”

“Ladies, we’re meeting with the mayor, show some decorum.” Erica said firmly, as the doors opened…

And the mayor immediately undercut her message by jumping into a hug with Yumi. “Yumiiii, how are you, no lingering after effects right? Although, with how messy your room always was, maybe it’d be fine if a bit of the maid mindset stayed-”

Yumi groaned audibly, although muffled by the fact her head was in her mother’s chest - the mayor was a good foot taller than her. “Mom, this isn’t a social call, I thought you asked us here for business…” she managed after pulling herself free.

“Right, yes, sorry my dear honey bunny~” the mayor said. Then she coughed and tried to straighten up. “Ahem. Now, girls. As we discussed yesterday, your first excursion was, to put it very politely, an embarrassment. When you registered, I was assured that you had adequate capabilities to last in the labyrinth. Evidently, that was not the case.” This drew winces from the assembled women (except Erica, who nodded gravely). “Now, this isn’t for lack of combat skill, but for lack of even the barest experience and a good heaping of pride. We’ve got two options. One is to revoke your licenses immediately, and to be frank, I’d be more comfortable doing that. But. You five, I suspect would find a way around it somehow. So instead…” she whistled.

Through the doors came a trio; two of them were the adventurers who had rescued the party, Orion and Sarah. The third was familiar to all of the girls as well - Johan Stanton, husband of the mayor and guildmaster of the Adventurer’s Guild. Yumi groaned. “Honey, you know that it’s because I convinced you to let them stay. Even with their poor initial performance, I stand by my initial assessment: These girls have potential. They just need help finding it.”

“Pieces of dog poop waiting to be pressured into diamonds.” Orion said sagely.

“That’s not the metaphor.” Sarah noted.

“I know what I said.”

“...They’re like that sometimes.” Johan shrugged. “Now, do you agree to the training, girls? We can’t force you, but well, if you don’t, your licenses will be revo-” he paused. “Who do I think I’m talking to? Of course you do. Show up at 6 sharp in the morning tomorrow.”

“That being taken care of - thanks dear-”

“Not a problem, Aki.”

“You’ll probably want to visit other parts of town before charging off into the labyrinth again. Stop by the inn and say thanks to Nik for not leaving you as you were - he grumbles a lot but he’s probably the most caring man in the town, but don’t tell him I told you that~” Aki said, “Then after that you’ll want to stop by Emerald and Tahvo’s shop. They should have just gotten a lot of new stock in, so you’ll be able to gear up and get some healing items - maybe if you’ve been saving your money, like dad keeps telling you to-” Yumi pointedly looked anywhere but at her dad as her mother continued, “You’ll be able to afford some de-transformation items so that your runs don’t end when one of you gets held down by a maid for too long or something.”

The assembled girls, who had - apart from some snickers from Agathe and Diane at Yumi’s treatment - remained largely quiet and serious, nodded and thanked them, before heading off to do just what was asked. Soon, they'd return to the labyrinth.

--------------------

It was a few days after the guild’s nearly disastrous first venture into the labyrinth, the time spent training and preparing for the next expeditions. Once more the party ventured into the labyrinth, seeking the way to the upper floors. This time, they were cautious; the maids, butlers, and even those ladies did not surprise them. The party made it to the shortcut that they had discovered shortly before the Palace Princess had arrived and fought them, and through it back into the second section of the floor - no need to leave one of their number a statue on the pressure plate this time. Then they retraced their steps, avoiding the dead end that they’d been ambushed at last time, and a few minutes later ended up in the large fountain room.

“Right, we’re back!” Yumi announced as she sat on the edge of the fountain.

“And in record time! Without anyone transformed!” Diane added.

Erica looked between the two. “Because we had a shortcut.”

“Don’t be a downer!” Agathe chided her, “It’s still a record for us!”

“I feel like that sets us a rather low bar. Let’s call it a record when we finish the floor. That sounds much better to me.” Erica said. “Right - we’ve found ourselves a couple dead ends here. Three paths left to go.”

“T-Two actuallly!” Aava chimed in from the other end of the room. “This one path over here’s blocked off by this gate.” The other girls got up to go and check, and indeed, there was a wrought iron gate blocking one of the paths further into the labyrinth. “A-And I think…” Aava adjusted her glasses and squinted - it was hard to see that far ahead of yourself in the labyrinth due to the ambient fog and the twisting turns alike. “Those are the stairs up!” she announced.

“So,” Yumi recapped, “The stairs to the next floor are at the end of the hall behind the gate. Great!” she said, drawing her sword and before anyone could stop her, taking a swing. There was a loud CLANG as the sword bounced off the gate, taking Yumi with it. “That usually works!” she called from the ground on the other end of the room.

“Does it usually work on magic gates?” Erica shouted back.

“No!” Yumi responded.

“Then it doesn’t usually work here!” she turned and studied the gate. “There’s probably a lever or button elsewhere in the labyrinth. Two paths, fifty percent odds.”

Diane produced a Tower Town gold coin from her pocket. “Heads or tails?”

Erica protested, but Agathe merely responded with “Head~” as Diane flipped it.

“Heads it is. This path.” Diane pointed down one of the paths.

“That’s the one leading to a dead end.”

“I mean this one.”

--------------------

The party wandered down the winding pass, battling maids and butlers just like their previous attempt at working their way through the dungeon. It was easy enough going, now that they knew to be careful and not underestimate the enemies just because at first glance they were just humans with knives. This served them well as they encountered new foes, like living topiaries and guard dog statues. Nothing was as it seemed in the Labyrinth, and the very landscape seemed to work against intruders.

While it was not difficult progress, it was tiring; what they’d thought would be a simple jaunt down a side passage had turned out to be a whole new section of the floor, with even more twists and turns than the first. Of course it wouldn’t be so easy to make it to the stairs.

By the time they hit their third dead end, the party was tired and burning through their healing items and stamina at a rapid pace. They decided that they’d go down one more passage and then retreat for the day, having learned the lessons of their previous excursion. The last winding passage was surprisingly quiet, and soon opened into a clearing in the hedgerows. More specifically, it was a clearing that seemed well used.

An elaborate gazebo painted black and white sat in the middle of the clearing. A sign post in front of it proclaimed it as a “Staff Break Area”, for those servants that patrolled the gardens day and night. It certainly seemed up to the task, with cabinets stocked with food and drink visible even from the entrance. It didn’t seem to bethe place they were looking for, but it was a spot where they could take a rest - there wasn’t an enemy to be seen and those refreshments looked enticing.

“Aaaah, teatime~” Agathe sing-songed, walking over to the gazebo.

“I need a break…” Diane muttered, walking with her.

“Hold up!” Erica said sharply, and the two reluctantly slowed and turned to look at her. “We’re in the labyrinth. There are some spaces that look like rest sites that are actually traps, and this seems way too obvious to be real.”

Agathe pouted. “I’ll be careful… but we can’t just leave the place, right? We should at least take a look, dear~”

Erica honestly would have preferred to turn around and leave, but she was so dang tired that she couldn’t say no to at least a few minutes. Even if they didn’t take anything from here, just a moment to sit would be nice. “...Fine. But don’t touch anything.”

There was a chorus of relieved sighs from the four other girls, as they wandered up to the gazebo and took their seats at the table. For a few minutes that was all they did, just sitting and letting their aching legs rest. But Agathe snuck her way to the cabinet while nobody was looking.

Erica managed to catch her just as she was taking a sip. “Agathe, don’t-” she started, but it was too late, and Agathe took a deep draft from the cup. The party waited, tense, for a potential transformation. Agathe made an uncomfortable face, and put a hand to her lips. Her body shook, shuddered, and-

She burped. “Oh, excuse me…” she said, “I think that was too big of a gulp at once, Erica surprised me.”

The party turned to their armored leader - or well, they didn’t have an official leader, but Erica was the nearest thing to one.

Erica rubbed her forehead. “...Fine. Wait five, and if she doesn’t spontaneously combust or turn into a haughty princess, we can have some refreshments.”

Yumi slapped her on the back, wincing a little as she hit armor. “There’s a good girl, you need to lighten up a bit!”

Not too long later, the entire group was drinking tea and eating some of the small cakes that had been left in the cabinets. It seemed to be magical, keeping it all fresh and ready and replacing it when they took some. Half an hour later, at about four hours past noon, the party was already in much better shape than they’d arrived, rested and ready to continue onwards in the dungeon.

As the clock struck four, though, there was a grinding noise. The party leapt to their feet in an instant, Yumi’s sudden motion actually sending the table on it’s side and plates clattering to the ground. One of the hedgerow-walls was moving, grinding open. The party gripped their weapons, ready to fight whatever came through.

Nothing did. Instead, a small alcove was opened in the wall. It was like a small room into itself, from their current perspective - and importantly, there was a lever at the end of that room.

“Hey, could that be what opens the gate we saw earlier?” Diane asked. It made some sense. The party, if their map was about accurate, was rather far from where they’d seen the gate in steps - but not in absolute distance, as the path had looped in on itself more than once. If the map was drawn right then the gate would actually be just on the other side of the hedges from the alcove.

“I-I think so…” Aava said.

Agathe wasn’t in a mood to beat around the bush. There was a lever, right next to the gate. Add two and two. She was a bit overly excited, in fact, and strode off the gazebo towards that lever. Before she got two paces off the steps, she froze in place.

She had enough time to think, “This was a mistake,” as a bolt of purple light shot from the top of the gazebo and into Agathe. The Celestrian’s mind went quiet as the changes rapidly proceeded. The color seemed to almost drain out of her, her pale purple skin gaining spots of a dusky light gray while her hair pulled itself into a ponytail and turned black at the ends. She stood stock still as her figure-emphasizing tight dress loosened and billowed out. As it went from dark blue and gold to black and white, it gained a hefty helping of frills and an apron.

The change seemed to travel inwards from the extremities, and soon most of her skin was that pale gray and her hair was black but for the roots. Any struggle she might have put up in her mind ended as a maid’s cap formed on her head and inserted itself between her ears, and the color draining claimed her face, her blue eyes going blank and colorless. The flirty Celestrian warlock was in the space of seconds tamed, and transformed into a maid of the palace.

Without a word, she turned around and stepped back into the gazebo, towards the party. She curtsied. “I apologize for my earlier behavior, intruders.” she said in a nearly emotionless tone. “I understand now. I was far too careless. But now I understand my place in life. You will soon as well, if you don’t act like proper guests.”

The party blinked and looked at each other. While it was unsettling enough to see the emotionless, color-drained maid-monster that their friend had become, it was even more unsettling that she was not presently attacking them - monsters of the Labyrinth, generally speaking, attacked on sight. “U-Um, M-Miss Agathe-” Aava stammered.

“I suspect you are wondering why I do not attack?” the maid answered cooly.

“I, uh, yeah…”

“It is merely the way this trap works. My job is not to assault you intruders. My job is to serve as a demonstration of what you shall become. If you resolve the trap, I will follow without a fight, although I will certainly not aid you against my coworkers.” she spoke politely enough, but there was venom in her gaze. “Of course, I do not expect that will end up mattering. Intruders are all alike, brutish and unthinking.” Yumi opened her mouth. “I will not assist you here, either.” Agathe said curtly. “You have some time left, but soon it will be break time for us maids, and the others will come here. I suspect they will not be happy to find our resting place ransacked.”

Erica groaned to herself. She wasn’t sure how long they had, but they were on a timer now. “Alright, time to think. What do we know? Well, we know trying to leave got Agathe zapped. We know it’s possible to escape, but not something we’d normally think of. We know she went directly for the lever.”

“Maybe it’s a fake lever?” Yumi suggested. “It’s just a trick trying to get us maided.”

“I don’t think so…” Aava said quietly, “We wouldn’t be trapped if it was going for that  was all that triggered it.”

Diane thought and thought. “Hmm… oh, maybe there’s something on the roof that’s causing it! That was where the beam came from, right?”

Erica frowned. It couldn’t be that simple, could it? “I don’t know. That seems a bit… blunt.”

“Why should we play along at all?” Yumi asked, taking out a small golden thread. “Teleport, Tower Town!” she called out. Nothing happened.

Diane cuffed Yumi over the back of the head. “Of course teleports are disabled! It’s a trap!”

Erica rubbed her forehead, thinking hard. If only this were a simple trap like a spike pit or something, something that it’d be easy to understand.

“Well, we’re short on time.” Diane said. “Like she said, it’s going to be break time any minute and a swarm of maids are going to be coming for us. I’m gonna try the roof.” Diane got up and before anyone could object, walked to the edge of the gazebo. Balancing on the railing, she jumped up, and managed to get her hands on the edge of the roof. She pulled herself upwards, carefully balanced on the slope.

She saw at the very middle of the roof a simple metal post in the shape of an eagle, a symbol they saw many times throughout the labyrinth. It was supposedly a symbol of a “queen” somewhere higher up, she remembered from her brief time as a Debutante monster on the first excursion. And it was smoking slightly, as if it had been recently heated dramatically.

“Bingo~” she said to herself with a grin. Obviously this was the source of the beam, and if she got rid of it, they’d be free. Congratulating herself on thinking of the solution, as simple as it was, she grabbed onto the eagle with both hands, and pulled.

“I do hope she’s not trying to deface the Queen’s symbol,” Agathe said serenely, “That would have consequences, to be sure.”

“...Damnit.” Erica muttered, getting to her feet. “Diane, get down!”

It was far too late for that kind of warning, and Diane pulled hard on the post, trying to rip it off the top. She was strong, and it might have given way if it didn’t start glowing with power, before zapping Diane right in the gut. She staggered backwards, before falling off of the gazebo roof. Erica was there, ready to catch her - and in doing so, she got knocked off the steps and onto the ground. Another lance of light zapped out of the emblem and hit her.

Before they even hit the ground, the pair were transforming. Like Agathe before them, the color rapidly drained from their skin, from their hair. Erica’s armor fell off of her as her clothes beneath started getting fancier and frillier, while Diane’s practical fighting outfit gained a long skirt. Both had their muscular frames smooth out, soften. A maid, if they were seen at all, had to at least be a pleasing sight - and their Queen had no taste for muscular oafs.

It wasn’t long at all before the pair were perfect, monochrome maids, dressed in the nicest maid outfits available. The only thing that really could distinguish them from each other and Agathe was hair style and the latter’s pointy ears. There wasn’t a point to maids having any individuality, after all - they served a singular purpose, and individuality was for those maids personally attending a lady, and only so she might be picked from a crowd.

The two carefully extricated from each other’s grip, standing and returning to the gazebo. “Apologies for my disrespect,” Diane said blankly. “I deserved to lose that wildness well before I intruded upon the Queen’s gardens. My vandalism has been justly punished.”

“I have failed in my responsibility as leader. As I was leading an intrusion, I deserved to fail, but I must still apologize.” Erica said in an equally monotone voice. “I should have stopped us before we entered and vandalized the Queen’s sacred gardens, but I have been justly punished.”

“Oh no oh no oh no-” Aava stuttered, pacing and sweating. Erica was gone, Diane was gone, it was just her and Yumi left.

“Snap out of it!” Yumi said, taking hold of the diminutive brounie by the shoulders. “We have to think, now. You’re the only smart one left.”

“B-B-But…”

“I’ll try and help, but to be honest, all my brains went to the muscles. I trust you.”

Aava gulped, and righted one of the seats - it had fallen over. She dusted it off before sitting on it.

Agathe looked on approvingly. “You have twenty minutes.” she reported.

Come on, Aava, think! Entering the range of the zapper didn’t do anything. It didn’t do anything while they were sitting around eating, so that wasn’t the cause. It only started to do stuff when they left. Taking the thing out wasn’t an option, and just leaving without the lever wasn’t an option either.

Think about the maids, what they’d been saying. The maids… they complained about destruction and vandalism… Agathe had said that they wouldn’t appreciate the place being “ransacked”...

Agathe’s approving look when she righted the seat flashed into her mind.

“I got it!” she shouted.

“What?” Yumi blinked. That had been fast.

“They’re all mad about us making a mess right? Well, they’re maids, too… maybe if we just clean up after ourselves, we can leave? They’ve been going on and on about vandalism and messes, and they say their transformation is a ‘just punishment’ - leave a mess, turn into a maid whose job it is to clean up.”

Yumi looked doubtful. “I don’t know…” As Aava pouted, she continued, “But we don’t have much time and I can’t think of anything else, and like I said, I trust you.”

The pair didn’t have long, but the section the party had been using of the gazebo wasn’t big. Aava and Yumi frantically cleaned up - righting knocked over furniture, cleaning off any spills and crumbs, wiping the whole thing down. There were cleaning supplies in the cabinet next to the food. It took 15 minutes, leaving them 5 minutes before the maids went on break as they finally got the place looking spotless - even better than when they’d arrived even.

There was no magical chime. The maids didn’t spontaneously revert to normal, or offer congratulations. Aava was wracked by doubt - was she wrong?

Yumi patted her on the shoulder. “...Well, one of us has to test it.” she said, and stepped off the gazebo towards the lever. Aava winced.

Nothing happened. Yumi was fine. Aava heaved a sigh of relief as Yumi walked up to the lever and pulled it. Not too far away, a grinding clink clink clink signaled something opening. Aava stepped off the gazebo, and the maids followed her.

“You said you’d follow us without a fight, right?”

“Correct.” the maids said in creepy unison.

There was a dull thump-thump of footsteps nearby, a lot of them - the maids were on break.

“Then come here.” Aava said. The maids did, as did Yumi.

“Still got the Traveling Twine,” Yumi said, taking out the golden thread once again.

As the quintet teleported back to Tower Town, the maids arrived. It was the traditional break time, and nothing seemed out of place - in fact, they asked each other who’d cleaned it, because whoever had done so, had obviously done an excellent job.