Worthy Core

Early the next morning, Doorman opened his eyes to find an odd warrior standing before him. Not that the door was sleeping, of course, but he did like to rest his eyes during the long periods of nothingness between intrusions, and given that he could sense the arrival of guests it was hardly like he was going to be caught napping. Until now, at least. It was if the walkway leading to the dungeon had been empty one moment, he had blinked, and then there she was. Well, no matter, she was here now, so it was time to get to work. "Welcome to Worthy Dungeon, challenger! Are you prepared to face the test of my riddles for entrance?"

The warrior tilts her armored head up at him and watches for a moment before responding. "I'm not a Challenger, but yeah, I'd like to see the place. Hit me, I guess."

"Very well." Doorman clears his throat, or his magical equivalent of such a thing. "What is...the Moon?"

The woman takes a few moments before answering. "...What's a moon?"

Doorman raises an eyebrow. "Not a moon. The Moon. Come on now, a child could get this one."

"Sorry, dude, I'm from out of town. Never heard of the Moon. Can I get a hint?"

At this, the door sputters. "What difference does that make!? It's the Moon! Every town can see the Moon! It's gigantic!"

The woman turns around, scanning the horizon from the mountain's excellent viewpoint. "Is the Moon here now?"

"What? No, it mostly comes out at night! Mostly. That's your last hint!"

With a hint of certainty, the woman nods. "Ah, gigantic and only comes out at night. The Moon's a monster, then?"

Doorman looks down at her incredulously. "Absolutely not. ...I hope. But you have failed the test of my riddles. Begone! You may try again tomorrow."

Rather than leaving, the woman shakes her head. "Hrmmm...nah. Think I'll just use my key."

The door sighs. "The keyhole is just decorative! I don't actually have keys, sorry."

The warrior chuckles as she walks up to the door. "Oh, I've got one. It's right here, in the shape of my boot!" With that she launches a kick at the door, immediately breaking it open and spinning it hard enough to slam against the wall, nearly tearing it from its hinges in the process.

"Ahhhh! Ah! That hurt! What the hell!?"

At the door's screams, the woman pauses again. "...Uh, sorry. I didn't think you'd actually like...hurt from that."

"Well, I do! How'd you like it if I kicked you like that, eh!?"

"Sorry, sorry! I'll uh...help fix you up later?"

Doorman sighs. "Whatever, I'll repair when you're done. Go on then, I hope the slime melts you."

The woman takes a moment to bisect a few attacking barkbirds with her sword before answering. "...Right. Sorry. Moving on!"

The rest of the first floor was dismantled with more or less the same tactics, or lack thereof. The warrior went to collect the key in the water slime's puddle, was caught, and the falling rocks simply cracked into pieces against her back. Upon reaching the first arrowslit in the Bone Maze the woman grabbed hold of one of the iron bars built into the opening, pulled it off to tear a hole into the upper level, and used it as a shortcut to the end of the chamber after massacring all the ambush monsters waiting on the top side of the labyrinth. Even BB was cut in half on his first leaping assault against her, earning only a brief comment before the woman moved on.

"Wow. That is the ugliest fuckin' rabbit I've seen in my life. They've got some weird shit around here for sure."

The elevator trip down Floor Two turned into little more than target practice for her. While the orc skeletons were easily dismantled by her blade, the warrior was able to generate a form of telekinetic force attack from her gauntlets, and she apparently made a bit of a game out of using it to shoot every spider and bat that showed itself, each of the low-level monsters splattering into gore on contact. It wasn't until she reached the sign outside Lollyp's boss arena that she showed any real interest in things. "Ah, this is that challenge mode, right? And the boss that kept killing all those newbies? Alright, this one might be fun. Hey, boss! I cry out for a true challenge!"

As the acid pool geysers begin to fire up, a voice echoes around the room. "Thanks! I was really hoping you'd say that!"

Skipping her usual attempt of trying to knock the woman into a nearby pool, given her apparently very heavy armor, Lollyp drops down in the center of the room instead and immediately fires off two blasts of magic. A lightning bolt from her wand and a blast of flame from her left hand race towards the woman, but in the blink of an eye a shield appears on the warrior's arm to block both attacks. "What? Where the hell you'd get that from!?"

The warrior chuckles. "Item Box, never leave home without it!" With that she charges the slime, sword swinging, but Lollyp compresses herself down to little more than a puddle to dodge the attack. As she begins to turn around the warrior steps into a spray of acid, and pauses to look down at the smoke and steam that sizzles off of her boot. "Huh, that's some nasty shit, ain't it? Suppose that does make this a little more interesting." She starts to move again in Lollyp's direction, swinging her sword as she goes to shatter a trio of ice bolts the slime sends her way. She is taken slightly by surprise when the slime follows it up by punching her in the chest with a tentacle, but mostly due to the fact that the impact does no damage to her whatsoever. When a splash of acid falls down around her, she realizes what the boss was up to - she was simply pushing her back a step to line her up with the environmental hazard. "Gah, this stinks like rotten eggs! Okay, getting serious now!"

She charges again, blocking several more elemental attacks with her shield and finally getting close enough to the boss to slice her in half with a single swing. Kicking the top half into a nearby pool, she pauses to watch as Lollyp's bottom half dissolves on the cavern floor. "One hit, huh? Guess this is still something of a newbie gauntlet." As she examines the remains on the floor however, she fails to notice as the next explosion of the geyser launches a fluid glob into the air which twists itself in her direction. When her helmet is suddenly encased in red slime, the warrior stumbles back. "Whab? Fub...geb...off!" The woman tears at her face, fingers simply sinking into Lollyp's remaining mass without any success at pulling her off. At the same time, the slime finds herself unable to slip into the woman's armor, the apparent slits in the visor being blocked off by additional magical reinforcement.

A second feature of that magical reinforcement reveals itself a moment later when the woman's armor electrifies itself briefly, sending Lollyp splattering to the floor. It doesn't kill her, but it takes her long enough to reform that the warrior has plenty of time to have her sword pointed at Lollyp's face when it emerges from her blob. "Gotcha."

Lollyp closes her eyes, waiting for the killing blow...but it never comes. Finally opening one back up and peering at her opponent, she hazards a question. "...Waiting for something?"

Oddly, the warrior sheaths her sword and stores away her shield once again. "Well, you know, honestly I'd usually kill something like you, especially with a body count like yours. But from what I hear, you'd just respawn after I left anyways. And the spider-lady down the mountain made me promise not to wreck the core, so, y'know...don't really see the point? It's kinda cool that you can talk actually...wanna join me for the rest of the dungeon? I could use the company."

As Lollyp reforms as much of her body as she can, she tries to use the time to formulate a response to the odd request. "You talked to Alizz? I, uh...that's not normally how it works? I mean, even if you're not gonna mess with the core, I'm definitely not gonna help you out with the traps or anything, you know?"

The warrior steps aside to dodge a splash of acid from the still-firing geysers. "Sure, I get it. But you seem interesting, and I'd like to hear more about the place. And you know Alizz too, huh? Things definitely work differently around here." As Lollyp watches her through narrowed eyes, the warrior chuckles. "And tell you what, you can even try and wait til I'm distracted to try and stab me in the back, huh? Should keep things interesting!"

Not really seeing any reason to turn down the opportunity, Lollyp cautiously nods. "...Sure?" With a bit of concentration the boss turns off the arena's challenge mode manually, something she wasn't actually ever expecting to have to do.

"Great! Looking forward to seeing what else you've been up to down here!"