Worthy Core

Xenia matches the drider's stare. "...I really need to start shutting up more."

"Wait, what do you mean the cur-" Grizza's question is cut short by Xenia grabbing on to his arm and marching him over to the portal.

"Sorry! Question time is over, time to get the..." She trails off for a moment, then sighs. "You know what, I don't want to go getting a rep as an utter asshole dungeon or nothin'. One min. Lollyp, I gotta borrow back some of your allowance for today." Reaching out an arm, she summons a new item into her hand. It's an odd construct of leather, wire, and fur, but Grizza can't for the life of him imagine what it's supposed to be. He can sense as the dungeon avatar focuses her mana into it for a moment, before she turns around and places it onto the man's head, where it holds fast by gently squeezing the sides of his scalp. "There, your dungeon loot. Alright, now get the fuck out of my house."

Bewildered, the drider Mage can only think to do as she asks, and activates the portal to the exit.

Despite the fact that the entire encounter lasted less than five minutes, when quiet returns to the room it feels as if it's returning for the first time in days. Or perhaps that's just the feeling Xenia is getting from the way Guy and Lollyp are staring at her, shocked, in their own respective ways. Lollyp finally pulls herself back to her pseudo-feet, willing her wounds closed, before shouting out a question to her new boss. "...The hells was that!?"

Xenia shrugs, tossing the sword in her hands. Then, experimentally, she summons two more and begins to juggle them. "...Like riding a bicycle...anyways, what was what? Toldya I been doing this shit for a couple hundred years now, at least. You think I been around the block this many times and ain't learned a few tricks? There's more to Xenia Worthy, Reincarnator Extraordinaire, than sitting around playing home decorator." Though as if that reminds her, she unsummons the swords mid-air and then turns around, pointing a thumb at the tunnel leading downward from her core chamber. "Speaking of home repairs though...any thoughts on what that's all about?"

Grizza reappears in something of a natural alcove on the exterior of the mountain face, not far from Doorman's position, where he's immediately greeted by Tassa and Roxxy. Tassa nearly grabs up the man in a hug before she stops herself, looking a bit awkward in the process. "Grizza! You took so long, we were worried she was doing something to you! ...What the hells are those leather ears on your head, and why do they make you look so handsome?"

"...They make me what?" Grizza pulls off the odd headpiece, and Tassa frowns.

"...Put them back on." The Mage does so, and she frowns again. "...Don't take this the wrong way, Grizza, but you are remarkably better looking with that bizarre thing on your head."

Grizza sighs, and shrugs, and leaves the rabbit ears where they are. "I think I may need to consider the fact that everything I've ever heard about dungeon spirit behavior is wildly incorrect in some way. But hold on now, are you okay?"

As if reminded of her own behavior, Tassa goes silent for a moment before responding. "I used First Aid a few times, I'll be fine. But...I did it again. I fucked up again. Grizza, Roxxy, I am so sorry. I could have gotten us all killed. The dungeon avatar, the way she moved, the way she fought...I was totally helpless. I've never seen anyone move like that before..." Grizza shakes his head though, and pats her on the arm.

"If that were any other dungeon, at least one of this age, that would have worked. There's no way we could have predicted that the dungeon would somehow have an avatar already, and that some random adventurer would...wait." Grizza's gaze drifts off, and Tassa shifts to catch his attention again.

"Grizza, what is it?"

Concerned, he looks back at her. "Tassa, I don't think that was an adventurer. I think that slime was a dungeon Boss." At that, the minotaur scoffs.

"Grizza, she spoke, casted magic, came on her own to the core chamber and fought wildly better than any boss monster a dungeon this size could hope to spawn. I don't even think slime monsters can cast magic like that, though I'm no expert." The drider shakes his head, however.

"There's more. After you left, the avatar spoke to her, said she needed to borrow the slime's...'allowance' before she crafted that...whatever it is. She and the slime were sharing mana in some way." Tassa and Grizza both fade into silence, considering the possibilities, until Roxxy speaks up.

"So like, what does that mean, exactly?"

Grizza looks up. "I think that wild guess from the other day was actually correct. I think the Dragonlord is doing something here. It's utterly impossible for a dungeon with only a handful of floors to have advanced so quickly, if at all. ...Also, don't ask me how, but I think the dungeon might actually be cursed in some way."

Tassa sighs. "Well, we can theorize later. We've got a long hike back home...I really hope some of our supplies are still where we left them, though if not then at least we can try some hunting and foraging out here. Come on."

The group agrees and sets out, making their way around the north side of the mountain, but when they reach their old campsite an hour later they find a problem. While there is still a campsite there, it's now staffed by at least eight armed Rainlanders. Worse, one of the guards spots them as they make a turn around the mountain face, and even as they duck back behind the turn they can hear the guard shouting. Tassa yells in frustration. "Shit! Shit! There's too many of them, and...fuck! My axes!" Looking around at herself, she realizes suddenly that she's down to only a pair of throwing axes and her hunting knife, having completely forgotten the fate of the others while she was lost in her thoughts on the hike.

Realizing they have no chance of fighting off the Rainlander patrol, Grizza turns to Roxxy. "Roxxy! You can hide within the mountain stone, right?"

The elemental is a bit confused, but nods. "Pretty much, yeah, but just me! If I try to dig something out for you two, they'll see you, putting stone back takes a lot longer than digging it out!"

Grizza shakes his head, though. "Just worry about yourself. We'll...we'll have to surrender, but someone needs to get our report back to our commanders. Once we're gone, you'll need to head west for a few days, until you find Camp Shieldstrong, or any other Valleylander settlement. Can you do that?" Roxxy begins to shake her head, but Tassa backs Grizza up.

"We're relying on you, Roxxy! Please...don't let this all be for nothing."

Defeated, Roxxy nods. "...Alright. I'll make sure they come back for you two, though! I won't forget you!" With that she presses her back into the cliff, merging into the mountain and losing her humanoid form. While traces of her different coloring can still be seen, unless one was specifically looking for a hiding elemental they would never notice she was there. And just in the nick of time, as moments later half a dozen rushing Rainlander soldiers come racing around the mountain, weapons drawn. One of them, apparently an elf commander, approaches closer with a spear held ready.

"Well, well, a minotaur and a...ridiculously handsome drider." There's some chuckling from the group, but another agrees.

"They make driders like that?"

Embarrassed, Grizza attempts to change the topic to something more comfortable, like the immediate risk to their lives as he practices his rusty Rainlander. "Thank you for the compliments. We, ah...we surrender?"

Xenia chuckles as she inspects the very short intrusion report. "That lady really liked her axes, huh? Hope she won't be missing 'em." With those notifications out of the way, she turns back to the tunnel entrance the others are peering into. It had closed up again when the intrusion ended, but out of curiosity she'd manually opened it back up for at least the time being. "Man, it's way too dark to see shit down there. Annoying that none of us can just, fuckin', walk down there and check it out." On hearing this, Lollyp gives her a smirk.

"Actually, you can! For like, at least another half hour or so. Those runespell orb avatars run off of their own mana supply. It's not enough to like, go down to the nearest pub for a drink or anything, but if you wanted to hop on down there real quick, it'd work for that."

The dungeon master raises an eyebrow as she summons herself a torch. "Well, how about that. I'd hate to waste any of this thing's charge, so let's see what we got then." She heads on down into the darkness, not finding much of note at first. The tunnel is rough and cramped, carved out by the earth elemental merely as a temporary passage. Eventually though, after a long downward climb, she does come out into a much wider space. Space which is filled by...absolutely nothing. It appears to be something of a very wide hallway, but once she starts going down in one direction her summoned torch suddenly evaporates. A bit of light remains from the way she came in, but very little.

"Guh. Guess I shoulda splurged on a permanent one, though we are still pretty low on mana for the day..." Xenia peers into the darkness as best as she can, but there simply seems to be...nothing. Failing that she makes her way over to one of the hallway walls and runs her hand alongside it, somewhat confused by its regular yet imperfect shape. "I've gone into a deepway or two before, but they usually at least got like, runes, and spots for magical lamps and torches even if they're all dead. The hell kind of empty-ass dungeon is this supposed to be?"

Before she can continue talking to herself, Xenia hears the sound of Lollyp calling for her from back up the tunnel. Rushing back, after stumbling once or twice in the darkness, she finally makes her way into the core chamber. "What's up?" Lollyp simply points at Guy.

"I think there's...another...gods, I hope this is the last one..." One more time, Guy uncomfortably produces a black and white notification screen for Xenia to review.

Xenia sighs, and collapses into her old chair while summoning up a mug of D-tier beer while she can still enjoy the full experience of drinking it. "Annnnnd there's the fuckin' 'attracted to danger'. Lucky fuckin' us indeed..."

DaScoot

While I'm not currently planning to divide the story into volumes or books or such (being personally too fond of linear chapter number schemes), I feel the need to mark off Chapter 26 as the end of Worthy Core's 'Introductory Phase'. Coming up soon: The Challengers arrive!

Thanks for reading!