Worthy Core

The next morning for Team Demon Hunters was rather awkward for most of the group, excepting the two sisters. Although Beatrice and Roxxy had set up their watch as far away from the camp as they felt was safe, in an enclosed environment like these caverns there was still the matter of...echoes. Aside from that, Grizza was noticeably sluggish on his feet for most of the morning, and Beatrice was forced to take each of them aside and gently inform them that, given the real risk of death around every corner, they would need to wait until they were at least on their way back up before indulging in any more 'training sessions'. Taly retained her usual pleasant mood regardless though, while Sely was perhaps the most cheerful person in the party for most of the day, despite Beatrice's talking-to.

By the late afternoon however things had largely returned to their previous drudgery, as hours went by with no further trace of anything out of the ordinary. It wasn't until just before the group was planning a rest for dinner that they picked up the sound of voices coming from ahead, and Taly was sent forward to scout things out. Twenty minutes later she returned, a mobile shadow that eventually lifted to reveal the woman inside. As usual, the rogue gave her report with a smile. "The bad news is, there's more elementals up ahead. The good news is, we've got the drop on them, if we want to, anyhow."

Encased in her armor, Beatrice's response betrays no emotion, only a professional interest in the challenge ahead. "Do we? What's the situation?"

"It's one of those collapsed sections up ahead, and we've got the high ground. There's four of them down on the lower level; two earth elementals, a fire, and a water. Get this, though, the water one is riding around inside one of the rocks like it was a giant teacup or something, hehe."

The team leader considers their options. "I'd hate to just attack without warning, but if they'd turn on us as quickly as that other group did, it'd be stupid to give them the initiative. Hmm...Roxxy, do you think there's any chance they'd be more likely to listen to you?"

The elemental gives a shrug. "Not like I know them, but it's not as if elementals are just the type to automatically try and kill everyone they meet, you know? Well, us earth elementals aren't, I guess I can't really speak for fire-types. But I'm guessing they were hostile cause that was their orders, and not just cause they really hated you or something, right?"

The warrior taps her foot as she thinks. "If we send you out alone, one versus four, that's a lot of risk even with us hanging out close by. On the other hand, I do hate to kill four people just because they're in the way. Um." She pauses for a moment, trying to consider her next question. "Just to check, elementals are like...people, right? Not just dungeon monsters or something? Not that I think that you're not, I'm just...not familiar much with your species?"

Roxxy seems unoffended as she responds in her usual cheerful tone. "Oh, definitely! We've got hopes and dreams, and deep inner lives of our own! For example, I think it'd be really cool to start a gemstone collection when things settle down a bit, yeah?"

"Right...you don't mind fighting other elementals though, right?"

Roxxy nods. "Not a problem! Smashing people to bits can be fun too, and it's even better when they're not made of gooey, messy insides like you are! Cleaning up can be a real pain sometimes."

The rest of the group goes silent for a beat, until Beatrice pats Roxxy on one shoulder. "Glad to know you're so enthusiastic. Alright then, we'll go with Plan A: Smash First, and Plan B will be: Ask Questions Later. It's a bit of a rough matchup, but I think we've got a good shot. Here's what I'm thinking..." Huddling the group together, Beatrice begins to outline a plan.

A hallway ahead and a rockslide down, two earth elementals are continuing an old argument. "I'm just saying, it feels like you're not stepping up to do your part." A gruff tone makes its way from one of the pair, accompanied by sloshing sounds from the watery passenger he carries in the open portion of his stony back, jostled as he shifts in place.

An unimpressed woman's tone answers him from the other rocky figure, nearly identically shaped save for the lack of an add-on compartment. Arms crossed, she almost seems to mock her partner. "I am doing my part. You're the one who's trying to decide that the part you volunteered for is also my part."

"Well I didn't know it was going to be permanent, now did I? I thought I'd only have to carry her for few minutes, not that she'd be literally moving in!"

The woman laughs. "C'mon, reforming a body is a major pain in the ass and you know it. I'm not doing all that just so you can saddle me with her, literally."

Another woman's voice joins in, sourced from the headlike shape emerging from the watery pocket the first elemental carries. "I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be a burden, you know! There's just, like, not any water down here for me to set up in! I bet if we explored some more, we could probably find some?"

Finally the fourth member voices his opinion, as the fire elemental leaning against the entrance to a nearby hall speaks up. "Wish we could, puddles, but the boss said this is where we need to set up a security post. I don't know what he'd do if he found out we wandered off, but...hey. You hear something?"

The first earth elemental grumbles. "How can I hear anything with all this damned sloshing every time I turn around!" The other shushes him though, and this time only partially out of irritation.

"No, I feel some vibrations, I think - gah!" Before she can finish her thought, a quintet of arrows sink into the ground around her, all of them joined together by a thick net of spider webbing. "Some kinda...net? Ugh, what a joke!" She pulls at the webs, expecting the arrows to easily pry loose from the floor, but is surprised when they hold firm. Taking a closer look, the arrows seem to be made of a darkness that matches the shadows present all around the chamber, almost appearing to be stuck in the elemental's own shadow more than they are the stone.

The fire elemental begins to close the distance between them as she struggles. "Don't worry, I'll burn that shit off! You two, watch the - oh, now what?" As a loud rumbling sound begins to build up from above, vibrations shudder through the ground to such a level that even the nearly-immaterial fire elemental can sense them. Looking to his right, the torch has just enough time to spot a rolling boulder coming at him from the nearby hill of collapsed stone. "...Aw, crap."

As the man is knocked aside by several hundred pounds of rolled-up earth elemental, the passenger-vehicle pair are surprised by a small stone being tossed into the pocket containing the watery guard. The rockman holding her tries to turn his head around. "What was that? Did someone throw something into me?"

The woman in his back starts to panic. "Yeah, I'm not sure what, but it's cold! Wait - agh!" In a sudden flash, half of the water elemental's form crystallizes into solid ice, while a smaller portion of her still-liquid mass is ejected from her seat. Her ride doesn't fare much better, as the sudden expansion sends cracks throughout his torso. As the water elemental tries to slip away, a mere fraction of her original size, a silvery knight emerges from the darkness to attack her friend. Although there's a sword at her waist it remains sheathed, and shockingly, she moves in close to begin brawling with the man of stone instead. As the fight begins, it turns out to not be as suicidal as it first appeared: despite her armor she's able to dodge most of the swings the elemental throws at her, while every blow she lands on his center of mass with her plate-covered fists expands the cracks even further.

Eventually a counterattack does land, though, and knocks the woman off her feet, rolling her across the floor. As the rocky combatant moves forward, aiming to stomp on her skull and end the match, the warrior sighs. "Guess I'm burning some more of the charge on these babies..." Rolling back a little further to place herself into a crouch, the warrior aims both her fists at her opponent moments before barely-visible blue-white waves of energy begin to shoot out, directly into the elemental's chest. Every impact of the telekinetic waves hits as hard as her own fists did, and in an attempt to cover his cracking form, the elemental turns away to take the blows on his back. A fatal mistake, as it turns out. Having been weakened the most by the ice bomb, the blows first destroy the outer shell of his passenger seat, followed by the frozen crystals within, and finally the relatively unprotected skin covering his core. Almost without warning, a final blast penetrates just deeply enough, shattering the sphere at the center of the sentinel, and the former giant soon collapses into gravel and dust.

The fire elemental barely lasted any longer, the rolling-boulder-turned-woman apparently knowing exactly how to pin down and destroy a burning elemental's core, and the cavern enters a new level of darkness as the flames go out. Despite that, the second earth elemental shouts with some success as she finally frees herself from her webby prison, though those cries soon take a different turn. "Alright, now you done it! Fuckin' light, as soon as I can find one of you, I'm smashing you to bits! ...Pfft, is one of you trying to stab me? Blades can't do shit to rock, idiot, I'll get - agh! Did that actually cut - fuck!" Her shouts turn to wordless expressions of rage and pain, broken by the sound of metal scraping against stone, until finally the silence is broken only by the sound of another rocky form crumbling to pieces. As the cavern grows quiet, magical lights re-illuminate the chamber, summoned by a drider at the top of the nearby rockslide. Standing where the earth elemental once stood is now only a woman garbed only in black, wielding two short daggers, glinting in the blue light.

Beatrice laughs out loud as she climbs back to her feet. "Wow, Taly, you actually did it? I was sure you were joking when you said you could cut through granite with those little things."

The rogue in question scoffs as she sheaths her weapons. "And you let me try it anyways? I had to wait for the right moment, is all. The darker it is, the deadlier my weapons get, and you don't get much darker than the inside of a mountain with no lights for miles around. Though we didn't get all of them - Roxxy, watch your feet."

"What? Oh!" Roxxy half-jumps in surprise as she realizes a water elemental was attempting to hide behind her leg. It almost pulled it off, given that despite the fact that it has the proportions of an adult woman, the elemental is currently no more than a foot and a half tall. "I can handle this one!"

"Wait!" Beatrice raises a hand, rushing over. "Time for Plan B. You there, squirt - you surrender?"

The elemental looks around, counting the remains of her three fellow guards, and the five adventurers now closing in on her from all sides. "Um...yes?"

Taly leans down to look at her a little closer to eye-level, pulling back her hood and giving the toddler-sized elemental a bright grin. "Good to hear! So, first off - we're looking for a demon named Sincere. Can you point us to him?"

The watery figure turns to point down the hallway the group had been guarding. "That way, maybe an hour or so walk! Uh, there's some turns and stuff, but no branches or anything, he posted us here cause cause this chamber's the first one in this direction with multiple ways in and out."

Taly continues. "Cool! Good start! Next: what's he ordering you guys to do? Other than guarding places, that is?"

Her interrogator's roguish grin aside, the elemental still seems rather nervous as the rest of the group gathers around her. "Well, uh, he told some groups to go and patrol for 'pests' and stuff! I think he was worried about, like, wildlife or something, but I don't think anyone's actually seen anything yet!"

Beatrice frowns. "He didn't say anything about attacking random adventurers or other people?"

The elemental needs to consider the question for a bit. "...I dunno. Are adventurers pests?"

Sely chuckles. "Sometimes, heheh. So, could be he didn't actually mean to tell the flamebrains to try and cook us, but not entirely sure I'm gonna give him the benefit of the doubt. So what's he up to down there, that he's got you all setting up security for?"

The liquid woman spreads her arms wide. "He's doing something with a big magic core! And making elemental cores from it! I don't really know more than that, though."

Grizza finally speaks up, this having caught his attention. "Making elemental cores? Including water cores, even though there's no water source present? I wasn't entirely sure even a dungeon could do that, but seems I was mistaken. I wonder if that's just a side effect of something he found here, or his primary purpose..."

Beatrice pulls out a large helmet from one of her Item Boxes, and flips it upside-down before presenting it to the elemental. "Closest thing I've got to a bucket, if you need something to get around in. You promise not to start any trouble if we take you with us?" The elemental nods eagerly, and Beatrice continues. "Good to hear it. Alright, folks - rest and eat up, cause tonight, we're catching ourselves a demon."