Worthy Core

Xenia Worthy, Reincarnator Extraordinaire, stares down at the center of her 'Slip'n'Slide' chamber, now much less slippery as she's turned off the magical water faucets. "So...you think they're still alive down there, somewhere?"

Guy's emerald screen floats out of the core chamber to follow. "As of right this moment, almost certainly. That's not to say that they might not die of their injuries any moment now, of course. And only two of them I should say, given that the last orc appears to have left in one piece, we can reasonably assume that one of those who fell was our 'out of bounds' mortal."

Xenia carefully treads around the center of the room, as if her non-existent physical form might still somehow crack the floor open. "Soooo...how do we get them out?"

"I'm...rather afraid we don't, is the answer. Neither you or I or your creations can leave the bounds of the dungeon. If we were to re-open the hole and drop a rope construct, it would begin to dissolve within a few meters of our border unless you spent mana to make it a permanent 'loot' type object, and from what I saw...it would need a dreadful amount of rope. And I somewhat doubt anyone down there would be in shape to climb up it. The only way to truly expand our reach is through the creation of more floors."

Xenia slams a fist into an open palm. "Let's do it then! Bust out the shovels!" Before she can actually open any construction menus however, Guy quickly flies in front of her.

"Actually...I would recommend we not do that. You saw what lay beneath the floor, yes? And by that I mean, the complete lack of anything at all beneath the floor?" Xenia's head tilts.

"Yeah, but uh...so? I can just like, magic up some stone or whatever, yeah?"

Guy's screen does a slow side-to-side roll. "Yes...and no. Dungeons don't exactly obey the normal laws of physics, thanks to your high density of mana and divine purpose. But there are limits. We're probably approaching those limits now, having built ourselves on top of such a chasm...and even the existence of such a chasm in the middle of a mountain is probably also the result of some other past or present magical concentration. But my point is, you can only support so many tons of stone without any actual supports to a certain extent. As you gain access to spells like 'levitation' or more magical materials, or simply increase your mana levels, your ability to break physics will increase. But if you attempt to build directly downward right now, I suspect everything you create will eventually collapse sooner or later."

The dungeon master growls. "Grah! So I got a second floor unlock but I can't even use it? ...Wait, fuck, am I totally screwed now? Stuck at one floor forever?"

The guide quickly interjects on this line of thought. "Not at all! 'Floor' is more of a...generic term for a semi-self-contained system, providing stability to a certain amount of magical energy which is used to sustain constructs, creatures, challenges and so on. There is no physical core to a floor, but you could imagine that on a more, say, metaphysical plane, unlocking a floor means you've received a new sub-core to stabilize your magical energies. Floors can be horizontal, vertical, or with spatial magics they can even overlap. I don't know the details, but I've heard something about one dungeon with temporal magics actually managing to make a single physical space act as half a dozen different floors at the same time..."

Xenia taps a finger against her chin. "Well, we're not at the peak of the mountain, so I could go up for sure...maybe sideways a bit, but I'm not even sure how wide I can push this floor yet. ...But that doesn't solve the question of, how the hell do I get the adventurers out of our basement?"

Guy sighs. "To be honest, I think the answer is...we don't. Either they'll find their own way out, down below, or they'll starve to death or die of their wounds or whatnot. I wouldn't give them more than a week, and honestly I don't see how we could dig that deep in that amount of time even if adventurers were lining up to fall to our traps."

Xenia gives a sigh of her own as she returns to her core chamber and the bunny-petting-and-brooding chair contained within. "Thanks, Guy. I can always count on you for your depressing realism."

"It's what I'm here for."

ONE HOUR EARLIER

Driders do fairly well for themselves in the dark, indeed they're rather notorious for it. Their darkvision is excellent, and they're remarkably good at judging slight cavern drafts and echoes to determine the shape of the space around them. But there are limits, and plummeting through complete darkness with two screaming companions at your side is very much beyond them. Grizza tries his best to orient himself as the trio fall, but the light from above failed quickly and the only thought that really comes to mind is 'we should have died by now'. Given that they aren't dead yet, the Mage does what he can.

Like spiders, driders are capable of spinning strands of web. It's not a great amount, particularly given their body size, but right now Grizza is willing to take whatever he can get. Focusing his body to try and produce a strand, he hooks part of it into a slight parachute form and tosses it as far to one side as he can, hoping it will catch on something, anything. Next he turns to see to his companions - Tassa is the easiest to reach, though in her panic she almost manages to kick him off as he moves to hold on to her. "Tassa! Hold still! We need to keep together!" She doesn't answer, but does at least stop moving so much, and Grizza is able to more or less tuck her in under the legs and arm on his right side. Then he turns to grab in the direction of Pusht's yelling.

The next thing Grizza knows, his mind is blanked out by the sensation of burning, tearing, and screaming from the rear third of his body. His web did indeed catch on something, halting the combined momentum of both himself and Tassa with a speed and force far beyond anything he was prepared for. Immediately they swing away from the sounds of Pusht, and within moments the pair slam into a rocky wall. Grizza's body spasms against his will, releasing more web strands for another dozen feet or so, but then with another wave of pain his body releases the strand entirely, dropping the two down the side of the cavern. It seems to Grizza that they spend almost as much time falling as they did before, but it's broken up this time by periods of bouncing and sliding across the rock, trading momentum for new flashes of pain every few seconds.

At last though they finally come to stop, rolling down onto some more-or-less even patch of floor. Expending a bit of his remaining strength to check that Tassa is still breathing, the Mage finally allows himself to relax, and soon his mind is filled by a darkness to match that around him.

Some time later, Grizza jolts back into wakefulness. The pain seems to have subsided somewhat, but only a little, and the moment the man tries to move again he finds himself yelling out. "Ahhh! Fuck!" Within moments, he feels Tassa's large hands grasping for him in the dark.

"Easy! Stay still! You've been injured, I don't know the extent. I forced a healing potion down your throat earlier, and I bandaged what I could and used First Aid, but there's some sort of...crack in your shell, and I don't really know how to treat that."

Grizza releases a breath. "Cracked, shit. That's going to be a pain." He stops for a moment and allows his mind to catch up to his circumstances. "...Pusht. Is he..."

He can't see Tassa's face, even his darksight failing him in this complete darkness, but he can guess her expression. "...I found him about twenty feet in that direction. He...didn't survive the landing." Grizza sighs.

"If only I'd had another second or two...though perhaps I would have snapped in half had I actually reached him."

Tassa is silent for a moment before responding. "...No, this is on me. You tried to stop me, physically even, you tried. I lost my head, I didn't listen, and now I've doomed our entire party." Grizza reaches out, giving a reassuring pat on whichever part of her arm it is he finds.

"Don't write us off just yet, now. And Laksha surely survived."

"Do you think she...finished the job? Could the dungeon already be dead?"

The drider shakes his head, then remembers to verbalize his answer. "It's possible, but probably not. For a recon or scouting party, standard procedure in a sole survivor situation is to immediately fall back and report. She couldn't risk her information being lost if something else unexpected happened." He can tell it's not the answer Tassa wanted to hear, but she just changes the topic instead.

"I don't suppose you have any torches or the like on you, by any chance? I should have thought to prepare some."

"I can do even better than that." Grizza lifts a hand, and soon a pale blue glow emanates from his palm, slowly drifting until it's foot or two above him. It's a minuscule amount of light, but compared to the pitch black of before it feels like being under a new sun in comparison. A quick look at Tassa's kneeling form shows some slight wounds, already bandaged, and a look on her face that he suspects will be far harder to heal. For the time being though, her concern is for him.

"A magic light? How long can your mana sustain that?"

Grizza smirks, and feels happy to have something to smile about, at least. "Forever. It's the first spell any drider learns, when we're children. A lot of people theorize that the reason we're so good at magic is because we tend to use it constantly. Builds magic muscle, you know."

"Heh. Good to know...make sure you rest a little though, okay? I'll scout out what I can for now and see if there's anything here we can use."

The Mage nods, and despite the discomfort he finds himself in, with his satchel as a pillow he quickly finds himself returning to sleep.