Worthy Core

"You haven't been using your skill library!? Why? You've just been letting it all go to waste!" Halith grips her head with both hands as she stomps - or, well, skitters heavily - around the core chamber, she and Xenia having relocated there from the rather more cramped meditation room in Xenia's quarters. While a tour of the dungeon had been brought up, Halith had wanted to start things off with a basic overview of Xenia's design style and methods, and she did not appear to be a fan of what she was hearing.

"I've told you most of my bosses are reincarnated Challengers, right? They've got their own personal skills from a lifetime of doing shit, y'know? We've experimented with a few things, but mostly it just seems to get in the way of their natural instincts. I did give BB Bard skills for the inn though, so there's that." Xenia crosses her arms, feeling a little defensive about her strategies.

"Oh, well if you've been using them to entertain the Challengers, then that's alright." The dungeon master turns her demonic drider-like avatar around so that she's facing back towards Xenia, a move that takes a few seconds considering her impressive size and many legs. "Only about half of your guardians are reincarnates, though? What about the others? How effective have they actually been in battle?"

Xenia has to pause and think on that for a moment. "Uh, well, the armor duo on Floor Three have been told to go a little easier on folks...but I guess when I think about it they haven't actually been hitting their quota. DEATH's had a few here and there, not for a while though. And uh...the temp slime bosses I had on Floor Seven never actually scored any kills, I suppose." Halith simply raises an eyebrow in Xenia's direction, causing her to defend herself a little more strongly. "But the other guardians have been more than making up for it! Our killcount's still above average, you know? From what I hear, anyways."

"I can't believe what I'm hearing! You're letting perfectly good Challengers walk out of here alive, because you're doing 'good enough'? A dungeon developing as fast as you have, I thought I'd be talking to someone with a lot more fire!"

"Oh, I got fire." Pausing, Xenia begins to eye her fellow dungeon master suspiciously. "Just how much did the Dragonlord tell you about me, by the way?"

Halith waves a hand. "Oh, only what I need to know, as usual. You've caught the attention of the Goddess of Fertility, somehow, you've been breaking all sorts of records, you've proven your worth to the Dragonlord on several occasions...there's obviously much I haven't been told, I can tell, but I know better than to pry. The Dragonlord sees a lot of potential in you, obviously, so that's enough for me."

The suspicious look remains. "Potential for what, exactly? They keep giving me all this attention, and it sure doesn't feel normal, you know?"

"I'll say it isn't!" Halith leans down so that her face is closer to Xenia's. "You know how long it's been since I've gotten to speak to another dungeon over one of these links? Sixty. Years. We don't go setting this up for every new dungeon that comes around. Certainly, you being located on top of the old Great Dungeon's a factor, but it's clear there's more than that. I'd wager you're a big part of their plans."

"What plans?"

The drider gives Xenia a look as if she ought to be able to figure it out herself. "The only plans they ever have, dear. Reconquest of the continent. It's been their only goal in life for centuries at this point, since before I was born. Now if you want specifics, I'm afraid I can't tell you, but it's clear that the Dragonlord sees you as being useful."

Xenia turns away, shaking her head. "Hearing that kinda makes me want to not be useful. I'm not interested in any of that shit, you know?"

"Then just don't worry about it! Worry about what's good for you. And right now, what's good for you is me."

The reincarnator snorts. "Feeling a little full of yourself, are you?"

"You don't get to be as old as I am and not learn a few tricks. I'm the second oldest dungeon in the Domain, I'll have you know, and the third deepest as well! Thirty-four floors! Of course, it's not how many floors you have, but how you use them."

Xenia frowns as she considers that number. "Is that all? I've got nine in like a year - I know that's a little fast, but after two hundred years...I mean, soul store purchases alone could probably get you there in a few years, yeah?"

"What did I just say? It's quality, not quantity. How many Challengers actually run all of your floors in a row over and over, hrmm? None, I'll wager. Challengers delve up to their personal limits, until they reach a point where they don't feel safe to proceed, and then they mostly stick there until they've trained up. Only a handful of Master and Supreme-level teams ever try my floors past twenty-five...well, more than once, anyhow." Halith chuckles at the last bit, and Xenia does as well, despite herself.

"So if you're third, what's the record, then?"

Halith scoffs. "That would be Endless Abyss, at fifty-eight. Abby - the master over there - hates ever redoing or redesigning anything, and just keeps making new floors every time a new idea crosses their mind. Half of them hardly ever even get used! It's an enormous waste of resources, and it wouldn't even help them that much if someone ever really decided to go for their core. The floors have so little investment that it would only slow a cracker-team down."

"Huh." While she's still a little uncertain about the original intentions behind all of this, Xenia has to admit that talking with Halith has some value simply in the gossip alone. "That's just in the Domain? Do you know much about other dungeons?"

The red-skinned woman has to sigh at that. "I'm sure the Dragonlord or the Association has a file on such things somewhere, but we dungeons tend to be a little out of the loop ourselves. It's not like I've ever spoken to a Rainlands dungeon before, let alone any from outside the New Continent. For the most part, I only hear about things that a dungeon shouldn't do, things that typically get them cracked open."

"Oh, such as?"

"Such as leaving their guardians half-baked! Now stop distracting me, we were talking about how to make your unreincarnated guardians more murderous, weren't we?"

"I mean, I guess we could talk about that..."

"We should! Now, this 'armor duo' - tell me about their fighting style."

Xenia takes a seat at her conference table as she organizes her thoughts. "Well, Tank is a heavy shield user, to take the hits, and Dips does the damage with a sword and javelins. On top of that, I've also got these Terror Tentacles - a slime-ghost crossbreed - that pop out of the floor and grab on to people to pin them down. Oh, suppose I should mention they're possessed armors, so they literally are armor."

Halith claps her hands twice. "Oooh, possessed armors, I like those, never used them for guardians before, though. That does give them a fair bit of resistance to many attacks...but it sounds as if they only do mundane, physical damage themselves?" She taps her lips before offering her advice. "Magical damage and utility would certainly help, death and shadow types being thematic, of course. I don't suppose you've killed yourself any necromancers, by any chance?"

"Can't say I've even seen one, no."

"They are much harder to find these days, it seems." Halith sighs, but Xenia does have a few alternatives to offer.

"I do have a couple Shadow-type classes in the library, and a...Spirit Mage? That guy could bring forth copies of dead souls or something like that, was a real problem for me at the time."

The visiting dungeon master's eyes go wide and her voice again reaches peak volume. "A Spirit Mage? You got yourself a gods-damned Spirit Mage and you haven't been using those skills!?"

"Well...I mean, I do use the spells every now and then to make sure that if another Spirit Mage comes by, they won't be able to summon up copies of my own guardians to get their secrets. There's apparently a cooldown on how often copies can be made, so I figure if I do it, another Spirit Mage wouldn't be able to, yeah?"

"Another one? I haven't even gotten one! I've only heard about them! You could use them to summon copies of dead Challengers!" Halith puts her head in her hands again as she paces around the room at a rapid speed, before suddenly coming to a halt and facing back towards Xenia. "I'll trade you."

That offer certainly gets Xenia's attention. "What? Trade? Explain, please. We can exchange skills we've collected?"

Halith nods. "It's an exchange through the dungeon link, not a copy, unfortunately. Spirit Mage...that's an Advanced-level class, if I recall correctly?"

Xenia chuckles, knowing full well that dungeons have perfect memories. "Yeah, so not really all that special, I'd think, especially for someone at your level?"

The drider scoffs. "Pfft, as if that matters, when I add it into a guardian with Master or Supreme-tier abilities already at play. I'll grant you a...a Master-level skillset in exchange. What's your overall theme, again? Getting mortals pregnant?"

The human avatar blinks at that for a few seconds. "Uh...more like, rabbits, I guess. And I'd like to say slimes though I've really only got the one main one. What, do you have a Rabbit Mage class or something?"

Halith waves away the attempt at humor. "What, like summoning rabbits? No, not a Mage. But I'm guessing you haven't had many beastkin 'guests' here yet? They are rare, but they come by now and then. And their melee classes are often specifically suited to their anatomy, you know."

Xenia raises her eyebrows. "So you got yourself a Rabbit...?"

"A Leaping Blademaster, is the title, a rabbitkin class. That BB of yours, you mentioned they were a Rabbit Rogue? And your Lagomorphs are at B-tiers?"

She nods. "Yeah - isn't that basically the same sort of thing his dungeon monster skills already give him? Going by the name?"

Halith shakes her head. "At a B-tier your 'Rogue' is at likely fighting at an Advanced level, maybe an Expert, but I doubt it. After all, the monster skills are supposed to be the baseline that you add to, you see? With a Master-tier class squeezed into his head, he'd be like...an S-tier monster in fighting ability, although he'd lack the physical improvements that come with it. It'd be a straight upgrade, and of a class you're unlikely to run into yourself anytime soon. So, trade?"

Xenia has to take a moment to think that over. Now that she thinks about it, summoning the spirits of dead Challengers in the middle of a fight does sound pretty cool, and she's rather disappointed that she didn't think harder about it earlier. But a rabbitkin fighting class would certainly be more fitting to her dungeon's theme - BB and Trush could both potentially benefit from it, perhaps even Deylia if she ever needed fighting skills for some reason. And it is true that she hasn't seen a single rabbitkin so far, let alone one with a Master-tier class specifically designed around rabbit-like bodies. But mostly...she'd like to start off her relationship with Halith on a solid foundation, despite her reservations concerning the Dragonlord's motivations, and a trade of a skill set she wasn't even using seems like a low price to pay for that purpose.

"Alright, yeah, I can see that value in that. How're we doing the trade?"

"One moment." Halith looks off to the side, perhaps at her own dungeon guide somewhere, invisible to Xenia, and makes a few gestures with one hand. A moment later a screen appears before her, with a simple interface.

Xenia taps on the YES, and while she's plenty used by now to the sensation of new spells and fighting skills suddenly appearing in her mind, this time it's accompanied by the much odder feeling of some of her knowledge suddenly vanishing. It's an odd sort of absence, if it weren't for the fact that she's still aware of the trade she just made, Xenia would think that she'd never known any Spirit Mage spells at all. "Huh, freaky. Well, do hope you're right about me not getting more Spirit Mages in here, though I guess if one does come along, it'll just give me a chance to re-collect that one, heh."

Halith claps her hands again, much more excited than before. "Oooooh, I am going to have so much fun with this one. Oh, I'd love to spend all day trading and bartering, but the link can only be used for so long before it needs to recharge." Her eyes grow intense as they lock on to Xenia's. "How about we do that tour?"