Worthy Core

Doorman blinks his eyes, certain that he must be seeing things. Then he does it again, just for good measure, but it doesn't seem to help. Try as he might, as he looks out at the walkway before him he finds four Challengers equipped in nothing but their weapons and their underclothes. Two men, a dwarf and a human, alongside two women, an elf and a kobold, all looking as if they'd arrived expecting to find a spa waiting for them. Clearing his throat, Doorman tries and fails to be professional. "Ah, Welcome to Worthy Dungeon, prepare to...okay, no, I really have to ask. Just where in the world are your clothes?"

Grinning, the elvish woman looks up at him. "We figured it out, you bastard!"

An affronted look passes Doorman's face. "What? What did I do?"

"Not you, the dungeon! We figured out your secret, after hearing about what The Miserables went through up here."

The door raises an eyebrow. "Our secret, you say."

The dwarf nods along. "Oh yeah, it's obvious now. The dungeon scales its difficulty based on the quality of the equipment a party brings in! That's why the Field Agent's team all said the place was bloody difficult, and a team of Initiates wearing rust and hand-me-down robes said it was easy as pie! And then when they bought some upgrades for their second day, all of a sudden it's way tougher? So yeah, we know the trick now. Just toss out all the equipment that ain't entirely essential, and it'll be a cakewalk!"

Doorman sighs. "Seriously? Well, at least you're wearing something." His comment only causes the kobold to narrow her eyes at him, though.

"Ah, see that! He's glad we're still wearin' something, cause that means we still take a penalty for it! Toldya it would be even better to go in buckass!"

The human sighs. "Well it's not like we were gonna hike up a mountain completely naked, now were we? But yeah, fuck it, not like there's anyone here to watch us now, right?" The group shares a look and nods, and to Doorman's shock they get to stripping down everything they still have on, other than what's required to keep their weapons and the bottomless bag the elf carries strapped on.

"You...you're really serious about this? Fine, your riddle. ...Is there anything I can say to convince you this is a bad idea?"

The elf chuckles. "Nope."

Doorman sighs. "Well...I tried."

 

---

 

Xenia grimaces as she watches an eyeball drip its way down the rocky wall of BB's arena. "What the hell were they thinking? Like...okay, it's a theory, but test it a little by taking off a bracer or a helmet or something first and work your way down! Ain't no one here heard of the scientific method? I guess I shouldn't complain, but - BB! No! Put that - get that thing out of your mouth!" Rushing over to her rabbit boss, she scolds the monster as it raises a meaty dwarf leg to its mouth.

"Mraw?"

"At what tier does a rabbit start eating meat!? No, BB, this is - this is super unsanitary, and also very bad for our public image! We don't eat the Challengers literally, okay?" Sighing, the boss drops the leg to the ground and returns to his usual nest at the rear of the arena. Xenia grimaces again as she looks over the blood-and-body-part-splattered chamber, but fortunately the image doesn't stay for long as the dungeon 'eats' the remains in the more traditional method, dissolving them away.

As it finishes, Guy hovers over to provide the report. "Well, it was something of a windfall for us, at least. They weren't actually unequipped, as that bottomless bag of theirs seemed to be holding their normal gear. But let's take a look, shall we?"

 

 

 

 

 

Xenia's eyes continue to widen a bit as she looks through the achievements. "All this time and that was our first kill with a rabbit? ...Well, I guess they start at a pretty low effectiveness...wait, hold the fuckin' phone. 'Shameless'!? And there were only four of...oh, wait, I guess Lollyp was kinda nude when she uh, did her thing, wasn't she? But, okay, help me out here Guy, what's this new trap type about?"

Guy thinks for a moment before responding. "It appears to be a special kind of magic projectile trap, which upon hitting, has a chance to remove the equipment it strikes and teleporting it into the next boss chest. If the party leaves or falls, we would then have the choice of leaving it as a reward for the next party, inventorying it, or consuming it as usual. 'Very low success' rate would probably be at about one in twenty chance of working, but given that stealing the right piece of equipment could entirely neutralize an adventurer, it could potentially change the outcome of a delve."

The dungeon master considers the possibilities. "Would also probably provoke em into being reckless too, if we manage to steal something they really want back. ...Might fit in with the succu-dungeon, y'know, thematically, but I'll have to think on that one. So, heh, you think any more parties are gonna try that little trick? Cause while I ain't really aimin' for that one hundred percent kill ratio or anything, I really can't feel bad when they're this stupid."

"One can hope, but I doubt we'd be that lucky."

Xenia sighs. "Yeah, probably. Speakin' of luck, I wonder how 'Team Demon Hunter' is doin' down there..."

 

---

 

Grizza cautiously eyes the arrangement of rune-covered metal shards Beatrice had arranged around the melting ice prison in a roughly hexagonal pattern. "You think this thing will be able to hold a fire elemental?"

Beatrice steps back and looks over her work. "Should do the trick. It's a containment field specifically designed for beasties with energy-based powers. Granted, this is a portable version, so it's not gonna be as long-lasting, but we should at least be able to get in a question-and-answer session. I could use a mana crystal to charge it up, but since you're here wizard-boy, mind doing the honors? Just gotta, like, feed your mana into that rune over there."

"None of these runes make any sense to me, but I suppose I can give it a try..." Tapping the rune with one pointy leg, Grizza closes his eyes and focuses on working his mana into the strange device. "The mana flow is a little rougher than I'm used to, but I think it's working." It takes around five minutes for the object to fully charge up, spawning an orange-tinted energy field that closes up around the frozen crystal in a form shaped like a gem with a shaved-off top. As slow as it was to turn on, the group still has to wait another fifteen minutes more before the elemental finally breaks free of the ice.

Reforming his humanoid shape, the prisoner presses against his new, barely-larger cell before attempting to communicate. "Dammit! What kind of toy is this?"

Beatrice leans forward, her grin hidden by her visor. "We're the one asking questions here, hot stuff. What were you and your friends doing down here, and why did you attack us on sight?"

The elemental moves to cross his arms, though the effect is ruined a bit by the way the arms pass through each other. "Orders. You definitely don't belong down here, so we were just cleaning up the pests."

"That's hardly a good way to treat your neighbors. And these orders of yours - they wouldn't happen to be from a demon named 'Sincere' now, would they?"

The hothead nods, his orders apparently not including anything along the lines of discretion. "You know of the boss then. Then I don't need to tell you - this is his territory now, and you oughtta vacate if you don't want to run into more trouble."

"Should we, now? Why, how many more of you are there down here?"

The elemental seems to smirk, though with a head made out of flickering flame it's hard to be sure. "More every day. An army eventually, at this rate. But hey, he hasn't said anything about invading you top-siders, so I'm sure if you stay out of our way you'll be just fine."

Stepping back to confer with her party, Beatrice sighs. "I think this qualifies as 'a threat to the dungeon and the locals' now, doesn't it? Nobody makes an army of walking disaster zones for fun."

Taly nods. "Yeah, and we need to find out where he's finding all these elemental cores at, if there's as many as this guy's saying. Grizza here was down here for a week and only found one? Even if sparky's bluffing, that was still at least three in not much more time than that."

Beatrice turns back to the prisoner. "Yeah, good question. Where's Sincere finding the cores?"

Instead of answering, the elemental laughs and begins to glow brighter. "Haha, idiots! You gave me time to recover my energy, and now you'll see that no little toy can hold the essence of flame!" He begins to blast the energy cell with flames from both hands, ignoring Beatrice as she begins to shout at him.

"No, stop! If you overload the containment, you won't get out! It'll just - " She's interrupted as the glowing runes on the metal shards begin to spark and die, causing the spell to fail. But the prison cell neither shatters nor fades, but instead - compresses. A look of surprise is apparent on the elemental's face as he's suddenly shrunk to half his size, but as it keeps going he quickly loses the ability to speak. It shrinks further and further, finally wrapping itself around his core, but only for a few seconds. Even that solid object eventually cracks, and only then does the containment spell finally disperse. Beatrice sighs. "...it'll do that. Designed to be fail-safe...for the people on the outside of the containment, that is." She takes a moment to scoop up the core fragments in one hand, and takes one of the rune shards in the other. "Welp, this one's fried. And for the core...Roxxy, I don't suppose these can be like...glued back together, or something?"

The earth elemental shakes her head. "Our energies disperse when a core is damaged that badly. 'Fraid he's a goner."

Taly rubs her chin as she looks at the still-slightly-glowing fragments. "I bet if you fed them to your friend upstairs though, they could still get fire spirits out of them or something." The rogue pauses, her eyes going slightly wide. "Shit! I mean, not that we're trying to make the dungeon harder or anything! Can you uh, just forget I said that?"

Beatrice chuckles as the fragments vanish into her Item Box. "Heheh. Sorry, too late." The warrior looks around, checking out the current status of her group, but with Sely finishing up her self-healing routine it seems as if everyone's back in top shape. "Everyone good? Then let's head down the way they came from. Maybe somewhere down there we'll find a source..."

 

---

 

Later that evening the group had set up camp, having covered quite a bit of ground but not yet having found anything particularly noteworthy. Tents had been set up, more for privacy than any need for protection from the environment, and a campfire provides light and heat for their rations. As usual for the past few nights, the five party members are discussing rather mundane matters to pass the time, but tonight's topic is one that's sure to fluster the party's drider more than a little.

Sely laughs. "C'mon, if you don't like using it, then why did you pack it?"

Grizza attempts to defend himself. "It's dungeon loot! It's one of the most valuable items I own...like it or not, I can't just throw it out!"

The healer scoffs. "So you'll carry it but you won't let us see what you look like with it on, huh?"

"It's embarrassing, is all. I'm not used to, well...thinking much about what other people think about how I look."

Taly raises a finger, and a proposal. "How about we all go around and wear it for a minute to see what it does? I'll go first."

The drider sighs. "Fine, if you really want to." Rummaging around in one of his bags, he eventually finds and hands the topic of discussion over to the rogue - the charisma-boosting pair of rabbit ears. Brushing aside her hood, she places it above her raven-black-dyed hair and looks around. Already a fairly attractive woman, the enchanted object mostly seems to do something about her eyes - they grow clearer and more piercing, any tiredness from the past few days of underground hiking vanishing immediately. She smirks, showing off perfectly white teeth.

"So? How do I look?"

While most of the group provides a scattering of compliments, her sister seems less impressed. "I dunno sis, y'look pretty much the same to me."

Taly scoffs, then hands it over. "Is that so? Well let's see what it can do with you, then." Shrugging, Sely puts it on her head, and despite the fact that the sisters look quite similar normally, the effect it provides is rather different. Her muscled biceps grow even more defined, and somehow her grin grows more crooked in some way, her face hinting at an untamed spirit lurking just inside. Beatrice leans back, chuckling.

"Haha, honestly, it makes you look a little scarier Sely, but I guess I can see how folks might be into that. Some folks, anyhow."

"Heh, I'll take it. How about you, Dragon Slayer?" The healer passes it around, and Beatrice removes her helmet to don it herself. As she puts it on her changes are perhaps the most pronounced of them all so far - the significant scarring covering her face almost entirely fades away, with only a few marks left almost as beauty accents. The years seem to slip away as well, making her look decades younger. Sely whistles. "Wow, all those scars gone in an instant! I bet you there's folks who'd pay a lot for that, if only the hat wasn't so ridiculous looking." Beatrice seems less happy, however.

"My scars? No! I earned those things, dammit! I don't care if they lose me some points in a beauty contest, I'm proud of each and every one of em." She pulls the ears off, and then with a questioning look, passes it over to Roxxy. "You uh...want a try?"

"Sure, why not?" The elemental carefully fits the band onto the rock that passes for her head, and her changes outshine even Beatrice's, and not by a small margin either. The raw rock of her body suddenly transforms into sculpted marble, and her previously only vaguely-humanoid form shifts into something very definitely feminine. While lacking in a few details - her new eyes are blank, and she lacks the more embarrassing shapes of the anatomically correct - Roxxy now has the body of a seven-foot statuary goddess. As the others look on in near shock, Roxxy looks down and reacts with a different form of surprise.

"Why do I have boobs!? Elementals don't need boobs!"

Sely laughs a bit awkwardly. "Well, beauty's all in the eye of the beholder, ain't it? Could be it's adjusting for what the audience wants...and it seems that on average, the audience here likes tits. Or that's my theory, anyways."

"Gah!" Roxxy pulls it off, and quickly passes it on to Grizza. "Please, keep it!"

"Fine, fine." Fulfilling his part of the bargain, Grizza once again equips the cursed ears, with his chin, hair, and bare chest once again shifting to what his 'audience' wants to see. While Roxxy doesn't seem particularly interested, Grizza becomes incredibly aware of the stares from all three human women around the campfire, and chuckles quietly. "I may not be sculpted marble, but..."

Sely interrupts him. "No, no, this is good. Real good. You should keep it on more often, you know?"

The Mage chuckles again, pulling the band from his head and slipping it back into its bag. "Maybe under the proper circumstances, if there are any such things."

The others laugh, and soon the conversation moves on to other topics. But it's not long before Sely catches her sister's eye, passing her a silent message only a sibling would receive. Mumbling to herself as the others begin the shift rotations, Sely gets to work on preparing her tent for the night. "Proper circumstances, huh? Bet we can arrange something like that..."