Worthy Core

As the party steps onto the platform section of Floor Two, Leyiff turns towards her newest companion. "So, how did you like your first taste of Worthy Dungeon, hrmm? I imagine it must have seemed quite easy for you, yes."

Tizzy has to agree, even if she doesn't have much experience to compare it to. "To be honest, it kinda takes the fun out of it when you already knew where all the traps and ambushes were. I mean...I get not wanting to do things for 'fun' if it's lives on the line, but still."

The party's other Archer, the elf Branwen, nods at the comment. "Yeah, there are some dungeons that change things up a bit more often, but starter floors tend to be particularly stable. They say the boss has been upgraded at least once though, and he definitely makes up for it. I, ah, I'm sure the rabbit's nothing to a Master like yourself, but Initiates can often have trouble dealing with his speed."

"I could see that, given - ah!" Tizzy shouts in surprise as the bulky Metz presses his hand against a large button on one wall, and the platform begins to descend. "What's going on!?"

The gnoll breaks into a fit of giggles, and Hurlash, the team's orc mage, has to stifle a laugh himself as he answers. "Heh, forgive us for not warning you, Master Barrelbottom, but we did want to see the look on your face when that happened. Other than the boss arena, this entire floor moves, you see, and the challenges come to us."

"Funny how you keep trying to be respectful with that 'Master' stuff and then you pull pranks on me." Tizzy sniffs, but eventually her true impish nature shines through. "Ah, fine, you got me pretty good, there! Is there anything I actually ought to know, though?"

Metz nods. "Yeah. This floor did get an upgrade a couple weeks back for the first time in ever. Bigger spiders."

"What? What do you mean bigger - " This time the shock in Tizzy's voice is much closer to that of panic when a quartet of spiders suddenly fall onto the platform, bouncing slightly on their long legs, with each of them being nearly as large as Tizzy is. Beyond that each of them is slightly different - one for example seems to be covered in thick brown hairs, while another is shiny and colorful, with orange and green stripes racing along its body. They all look rather dangerous though, and the false goblin's hands glow with magic as they begin to approach the party.

Despite their lower ranks however the Red Talons seem to take the ambush in stride. The party's two Archers are immediately firing arrows at the more distant of the monsters, while Metz stomps into melee and Hurlash begins to channel a spell through his staff. Within moments one spider falls, pincushioned by arrows, and a second is splattered by the half-minotaur's heavy warhammer. A transparent, green-tinted spell takes the form of a wall of brambles and closes in around a third, leaving only one left to charge the party. As both the spider and the imp coincidentally make very similar squealing noises, Tizzy's prepared spell activates.

The blast of pink-colored energy annihilates the spider in front of her, the corpse of one behind it, and begins to trace a trail of slagged stone down the moving wall before the beam fades out several seconds later.

The final trapped spider seems to be almost too shocked to try and break free from its bramble prison, and so does Hurlash, given that the orc needs a few moments to remember to finish his task and crush the arachnid within his spell. Once he's done however, he quickly turns to Tizzy with a question. "If I might ask, Master...did you not describe your class as 'a magical scout'?"

Tizzy shifts her eyes in his direction, her hands still held out in front of her, slightly shaking. "...Yeah? Why?"

Metz releases a breath he didn't realize he was holding. "I didn't think scouts had firepower like that in their arsenal. Then again, you are a Master, so I shouldn't be surprised...but holy hells, was that a light show!"

"You try facing down a bug your own size and not panicking a little! That thing coulda eaten my face off in one chomp! Those things didn't bother you any!?"

Branwen answers slowly. "...While we haven't gone that deep into the dungeon ourselves, we're informed that there's far worse on other floors. I'm sure you must have faced worse yourself, in the dungeons in your homeland? Or...do you perhaps simply have an irrational phobia of spiders?"

"A phobia of spiders as big as I am is entirely rational!" Tizzy takes a deep breath before continuing. "Also, I uh...haven't done any other dungeons before. I was more into, uh...wild monster hunts?"

The orc raises an eyebrow. "Oh really? I wasn't sure there were still places where the monsters grew thick enough to earn a Master-level rank off of hunts alone, but then I know little of the Old Continents. This is truly your first dungeon intrusion, though?"

"Yeah, I - ah, hold that thought." The mage is again interrupted by a leaping ambush, but given that this round consists entirely of skeletons, she manages to keep her cool quite a bit more effectively. Arcane beams still destroy two of her opponents, but they remain much more reasonably sized, destroying only the creatures' skulls and allowing the rest of them to collapse into piles of bones. "Right, so yeah, this is my first time. Shouldn't be an issue, though?"

Leyiff chuckles. "Well, your firepower seems to be more than sufficient, yes. Did wonder what uses a magical scout would have in a dungeon, a little bit, yes."

"Well, the magical traps are pretty easy for me to detect. I am used to being a little more, uh...wide-ranging than working in a single structure, though. Raided a few ruins, I guess. But I usually gotta be pretty independent, so I ain't been slacking on my defenses or offense, you know?"

"Heehee, I can see. Looking forward to how you handle the slime, yes."

Tizzy has to agree. "Fought slimes before, but never one that was smart like you guys say she is. Definitely looking forward to meeting her myself..."

The rest of the platform ride goes fairly smoothly, with Tizzy quickly pointing out the dart-triggering tripwires as they appear, and the following ambushes fall without much difficulty. With the team being so heavily focused on ranged offense, many of the monster waves don't even have time to begin attacking before arrows and spells are claiming their targets. By time the platform hits the bottom level the party's mood is quite confident, to say the least. Confident enough that there's not too much concern when Tizzy stops to read the sign posted just outside the door to the boss arena.

"Huh? A true challenge? What's this about?"

Hurlash grunts. "Never heard of a Challenge Mode either, eh? Worthy Dungeon's got one, and it's been applied to Lollyp here. If we trigger it, the slime and her arena get mana super-charged, but if we win anyhow we get better rewards."

Tizzy smiles at the mention of rewards. "Oh, is that all? A little extra oomph to some spells? Seems like something we could handle."

The elf Archer doesn't seem so certain. "There is more to it than just the boost to the guardian. Word is, Lollyp also goes a little more gloves-off when someone triggers it. You try it, and she goes for the throat in a way she doesn't normally do. Not that many people have actually tried it, as far as I've heard."

The disguised imp shrugs. "Eh, what's to worry about? You got me here, yeah? And this is still only Floor Two. C'mon, I'll even let you guys keep the loot, I wanna see what a challenge looks like!" She pauses, and then amends her statement. "Well...most of the loot. Maybe we'll see if we get something good for me..."

Even her hedged statement is enough for Metz. "Hells, I couldn't say no to an extra bag of coins or potions or whatever else it wants to hand out. We've got a Master with us so it's practically a freebie, anyhow. Anyone disagree?" Branwen's expression is still a bit concerned, but no one actually speaks up, so the half-minotaur gives Tizzy a nod. "Let's go for it!"

"Alright!" Pushing open the door to the arena, Tizzy boldly takes the lead and steps inside. Once the others have followed, she shouts out to the room. "Hey, we want a true challenge or whatever! Get out here so we can kick your butt!"

The room responds with an excitement that matches her own. "Alright - but you asked for it!"

"C'mon, show me whatcha - " The woman's taunt is interrupted as the room begins to shake as if an earthquake had begun, and the acid pools around the room start to shoot geyser sprays of boiling chemicals left and right. It only takes a moment for her to try and regain her balance, but a moment is all it takes for a heavy, blobby mass to swing out of a crack in the ceiling and knock the light imp into the air.

A flight arc with a terminus that leads to Tizzy landing in a nearby acid pool, vanishing immediately beneath its bubbling, yellow-green surface.

As Lollyp rolls away to recover and prepare her next assault, Metz has time for one comment. "...Fuck. Agggh, whatever, take the slime down!"

As the party begins their assault, Lollyp has to give them credit. In the early days, low-level Archers were hardly a threat to the slime at all, given that traditional arrows tend to sink entirely into her body without doing any real damage whatsoever. These days, even newbies usually scrounged together at least one or two enchanted arrows just for her, tipped with explosive arrowheads, chemical solutions, or the like. And normally, the arrows flying towards Lollyp now would give her a moment's pause.

That's not so much the case when the arena's Challenge Mode has boosted the Elementalist's powers, however. A gust of wind not only knocks every shot away from the slime, but even manages to land one of them into Hurlash's arm, interrupting the orc's first spell. Metz charges forward, hammer ready to swing, but Lollyp doesn't even need to cancel her wind spell in order to blast the man's face with a bolt of lightning from her wand, while simultaneously burning him with flames from her free hand.

When four more slimy red hands suddenly appear from the boss's torso, the Challengers realize they're in real trouble. Doing his best to heal the screaming Metz, Hurlash shouts to his companions. "Okay, shit, the Challenge Mode is way worse than the rumors said! Break her concentration, don't let her cast any more spells! Get in her face if you need to!"

Having seen each and every one of their shots go astray, Branwen and Leyiff nod, pulling out their sidearms. The shortswords aren't much, nor are the Archers particularly well-trained in melee combat, but mages are also not traditionally known for their skill at arms themselves. So when Lollyp pulls a sword and an axe of her own out from hidden caches, they still feel reasonably good about their odds of getting in a few good hits. That feeling vanishes when their blades meet the slime's, and jolts of electricity pass through them and into their bodies.

They don't feel much more than that when an icicle bolt penetrates Branwen's skull from the bottom of her chin and an axe swing separates Leyiff's head from her body.

Giving up on his meager healing attempts, Hurlash switches his efforts into a mage-on-mage battle, sending giant mystical vines swinging and swatting in the slime's direction. One does actually manage to land a hit, but it only manages to knock Lollyp off of her feet for a few seconds. In the meanwhile, the Green Mage soon discovers that mystical plants burn almost as well as real ones, and the orc finds himself pushed back by an inferno which burns away every construct he tries to summon. Distracted by the flames in front of him, the man never sees the spray of acid that slams into him from the side, dissolving his upper torso within seconds.

Soon, the only party member remaining is the crawling Metz, his eyes blinded by lightning strikes and his flesh still smoking from where Lollyp burned him. Even then, Lollyp has to admit to being a little impressed at how the man is still trying to lift his heavy hammer for one more swing. "...This is a Challenge Mode fight, so the rules say I don't gotta go easy on you. But I'd feel a lil bad just offing you like this, so...you want to call it quits? If you're lucky, Deylia might even be able to patch you up after."

The Vanguard's response is a simple one. "Fuck you! Damned beast!"

"...Well, I gave it a shot." With that said she then gives him a shot of a more literal type, blasting the man's brains out with a point-blank lightning bolt. "...Man, that was a trip even for me. I ain't killed that many people that fast in ages!"

The slime beams at herself, but after a moment the smile fades as she notices something. "...Why are the geysers still firing off? Fight's over! Acid pools off! Deactivate - "

The fight is then ended rather definitively as a blast of pink energy disintegrates the slime's head. Followed by two more that handle the rest of the slime's body for good measure. Cursing, a dripping Tizzy climbs her way out of the acid trap where she fell, a skin-tight arcane field keeping the chemicals from her skin although they don't do so well at protecting her robes. Pulling at the melting fabric, Tizzy curses again. "Fuck, I'm gonna need to make myself an illusionary set of pants...again. Well, at least we won, right guys?"

The Arcane Eye pauses to examine the arena, now finally calming down as the Challenge Mode deactivates and the last of Lollyp's spells dissipate. The smile that was forming on the imp's face freezes, and then falls.

"Well...fuck. Looks like I'm gonna need a new party."