Worthy Core

Team Demon Hunters had followed the trail to their quarry, and fittingly enough found him inside of what was probably once a boss's arena. Unfortunately, the state of the dungeon had actually made it somewhat more difficult to quietly assault - whatever doors had once secured the arena had long since vanished, meaning it was impossible to closely approach the chamber without giving themselves away. Instead, as soon as they had seen signs of light and their captive water elemental 'Slooshy' had confirmed it was their destination, they had once again hung back and let Taly do her roguish duties.

Huddling at the next hallway intersection back, the group alerts when the woman-sized shadow again returns. After resting her prisoner's bucket on the floor, Beatrice turns to debrief the scout. "So, what we got? Demon, I hope."

Taly nods. "Yup. He's got some sort of whole camp set up, he must have been carrying an assload of bottomless bags when he came down here. He's also working on...something in the middle of the chamber, I'm not sure what, but it's not a dungeon core. It looked like a big ball of blue light, bigger than a core, and not exactly solid either."

Sely leans down to question the prisoner. "So what's he working on there, squirt?"

The elemental lifts a pair of shoulders out of the upside-down helmet to shrug with. "Um, magic stuff?"

Beatrice grunts. "Definitely gonna need to try for live capture, to be sure we can ask some questions about all this afterwards. Anything else?"

This time, the rogue frowns. "Yeah, some more elementals...and this time, they're lightning. Three of em. Think I saw a few more cores on a table, too."

Speaking up, Grizza offers some hopeful advice. "Well, those at least shouldn't be a concern. It takes full concentration to awaken an elemental core, so it's not really something to do in the middle of a fight."

The leader nods, and considers their options. "Lightning...shit. My armor can probably handle a jolt or two, but I don't think I really have any special tricks for taking those out. Only thing I can think of is how Roxxy's been handling the fires - just get in there and smash em before they can hurt us too much. Or, well, maybe we won't have to worry about that? Might be worth trying to talk first this time, just in case it was all just a question of bad wording with his orders to his patrols." She thinks for a moment, then gets to the specific orders. "Okay, here's the plan. Roxxy and I go in, show of strength, but try and see if we can talk things out peacefully. The rest of you follow up behind in one of Taly's shadow cloaks - if shit goes bad, Roxxy and I handle the elementals, you three try and pin down the demon - but alive, got it? Slooshy, you stay put here and don't say a word. If you make trouble, we'll be using you for bathwater, got it?"

The elemental makes an 'eep' sound and nods eagerly. As the rest of the group agrees, Beatrice leads Roxxy out towards the arena while Taly re-establishes her cloak. Given Roxxy's extremely unstealthy footsteps the group ahead notices their arrival before they even enter the room, and the trio of elemental guards move to block the way. Even more so than the immaterial fire elementals, the lightning elementals rarely seem to have a humanoid form at all - most of the time they seem to exist only as a larger ball of energy centered around their hovering cores, with only brief flashes of lightning bolts outlining the form of a limb or head. Noticing the movement, Sincere himself steps towards the center of the room and Beatrice spies something Taly failed to either notice or mention: the demon is entirely naked. With his red skin illuminated by the blue light in the center of the chamber and the occasional yellow flashes from the guards, everything is on display - his thin tail, notable wings, slight horns, and a final appendage which is frankly perhaps even more impressive than the rest.

Beatrice freezes in her tracks, muttering under her breath. "...Holy shit, that man is armed and dangerous."

Roxxy looks at her in confusion. "Huh? He looks unarmed to me!"

Before Beatrice can answer, the owner of said weapon calls out to them. "Who's there? Present yourselves properly, now, if you don't want to become target practice."

Collecting herself, Beatrice finishes passing through the chamber entrance. "Lady Beatrice, and my companion Roxxy. I assume you're the one who goes by 'Sincere', yes?"

The demon nods, clearly surprised. "I am. Don't tell me the Challengers actually organized a rescue operation on my behalf? It's entirely unwarranted, I assure you."

"That wasn't exactly our concern, no." Beatrice points towards the sphere in the center of the room. "Mind telling us what you're doing down here?"

Seeing the focus of her interest, the demon's expression now turns to one of scorn. "Oh, so that's what this is all about, then. More mercenaries, sent by someone who thinks they understand my research? Well, I'm afraid that once again, your paymasters have wasted their coin. Guards? Kill them."

Disappointed but not surprised to see that 'negotiations' have collapsed so quickly, the pair immediately rush towards the elemental trio. No signal is required for the rest of the team, as the others await only for the guards to be fully occupied before revealing themselves. Roxxy takes the vanguard - as the party member most resistant to lightning attacks, she moves to try and hold the focus of two of the sparking sentinels while Beatrice goes for the third. As jolts of lightning are traded with swinging sword and fists, their supporting cloud of darkness pushes its way into the arena after them.

Half a dozen shadow-aspected arrows fly towards non-vital parts of the demon, escorted by a pair of magical Light Bolts, but all are deflected or absorbed by the barrier spell that appears around their target before they can land. Scoffing, Sincere turns his attention towards the backup group. "Light Bolts? Seriously, Light Bolts? I feel as if I should be offended. Surely I deserve higher-class assassins than that!" Seeing that the direct approach is failing, Taly decides to shift to blinding the spellcaster first, summoning a cloud of darkness around him. Which works...briefly. Within seconds the cloud vanishes, shrinking away in a reversal of how it had grown around him, having accomplished little more than allowing Sely to get a little bit closer with her mace at the ready. Sincere nearly seems to ignore the cleric though, mostly keeping his focus on her sister as he smirks. "You must be a Midnight Shadow, yes? An invocation-heavy focus for a Rogue-derived skillset, impressive. But far out of your element here, skulker." With a wave of his hand, Sely goes into reverse almost in the same fashion the cloak of darkness had, running backwards until she's back at the entrance to the chamber.

The heavy hitters were having slightly more luck, but only slightly. Roxxy had repeated her now-tested strategy of using overhead swings to smash the elemental cores into the ground, successfully shattering one of them. The others learned from their fellow's mistake however, and soon swapped to keeping their distance, focusing on engaging the pair at range using lightning bolts. Beatrice managed to shelter behind her shield for the first few shots, but before long she found herself sheltering behind the better-grounded earth elemental for cover instead. "Gah! Shit! Think my left arm's growing a little numb...how're you holding up, Roxxy?"

Two more bolts hit her before she can answer. "Nng! It - it tickles, mostly, except it's hard for me to move after I get hit! And then they hit me some more!"

"Hmm...okay, I got an idea, just cover me as best as you can for a little longer, okay?" Thinking about the prisoner they had left behind in the hallway, Beatrice pulls out yet another spare helmet from her Item Boxes, along with a number of waterskins. Fortunately their search was a little ahead of schedule so she could afford to use up a few of their supplies for this long-shot maneuver, but the monster hunter is mostly just wildly hoping at the moment that this will pan out. Pouring out the water into the improvised bucket, Beatrice sheathes her sword and takes it in hand. "Okay! I'm gonna try and go for the one on the left, if this works, smash them as soon as you can, got it?"

Roxxy nods, and with that Beatrice dashes out, helmet in hand. Dodging lightning bolts was exactly as hard as she expected it would be and the warrior takes a hit before getting far, but her enchanted armor allows her to mostly shrug off at least the one shot. Swinging her arms forward, the bucket releases its watery payload onto one of her elemental opponents, and fortunately has more-or-less the response Beatrice was hoping for. Sizzling, the lightning elemental finds itself unable to fire off more bolts for a short time, or even to move very well, its immaterial legs almost being pulled back towards the puddle at its feet as it tries to move away. It's a short-lived effect, but with Roxxy having conserved her strength for this moment, she's able to charge ahead and catch the floating core before it escapes, crushing it in one hand.

The trio facing Sincere meanwhile find nothing but reversals and frustration for their efforts. Every ranged attack they make is either entirely ignored or easily blocked by the demon's barrier, and every time one of the group tries to move into melee range, a moment later they find themselves exactly back where they started. Taly growls. "Is this...time magic? Shit, that's gotta be at least a Master-level spell, right?"

Sincere chuckles. "And this is why you always do your research first, children. Hmm, but speaking of children, it appears as if I'm losing some of mine. Forgive me, but I'll need a moment to acquire a few more. Please hold, and I'll see to your slaying shortly." With a larger burst of power the arcane demon reverts all three of his opponents back to the chamber's doorway, then summons a barrier to keep them outside. Seeing that Beatrice and Roxxy are still distracted, having trouble repeating their water-fight technique with the final lightning elemental, Sincere makes his way to the sphere at the center of the room.

Working quickly, Grizza does his best to analyze the barrier trapping them outside of the fight. "Gods, this barrier must be twenty feet wide! The good news is, that means it's weaker, the bad news is, I'm not sure it's weak enough for us to break through in time for whatever he has planned." Watching Sincere, the drider takes notice as a flow of mana begins to emerge from the central light, making its way to the spare elemental cores placed on a nearby table. "Shit, he's going to be able to awaken the others! Beatrice! You need to interrupt the awakening ritual!"

Catching up on the events occurring on the other side of the room, Beatrice makes a few quick calculations. "Shit, shit. Okay...this is going to hurt, but I think I got something. Roxxy, on my signal, throw me at that electric bastard, okay?" Again sheathing her sword, Beatrice this time pulls a different weapon from her Item Box storage - a warpick, pointed on one end and hammer-shaped on the other. Grasping it firmly in hand, she takes a deep breath. "...Okay, go for it!"

Turning around and picking up the warrior in both hands, Roxxy waits for another bolt to splash mostly-harmlessly off her back before swinging back around and launching the slayer through the air. Unable to charge a second shot in time, the elemental fails to react before Beatrice is on it, smashing the core with the flat end of her new weapon of choice. While it cracks the core, the damage is only a secondary objective. More importantly the core, and its attached elemental, gets launched through the air - up until it passes through the glowing sphere Sincere is currently drawing his mana from.

The effects are immediate - the core becomes stuck in the mass of magical energy as if it had landed in solid muck, and the elemental's electrical energies begin to drain away along with the raw mana Sincere was directing into his spare cores. Which would be bad enough to start with - except as it happens, the unused cores were of the water elemental variety. The conflicting elemental energies quickly destabilize and Sincere's eyes go wide. "What! Do you know what you just - I have to - " Presumably about to attempt another time reversal trick, on this occasion the demon is too slow. With a bright flash the blue sphere detonates in a blast of magical energy, destroying the elemental trapped within and plunging the chamber into darkness, save for a handful of torches scattered around the walls. Sincere himself is knocked back, landing a good ten feet away and with the wind knocked out of him, though with no apparent wounds on his body.

Before he can even begin to think of climbing to his feet, the demon soon finds a rogue's dagger pressed against his neck. Taly looks down on the man, her grin once again returned. "Think you can cast a spell faster than I can cut an artery, troublemaker?"

Sincere almost seems to be considering it, but eventually sighs and lets his body relax back on the floor. "So this is how it ends, does it? I was so close...so close! And to think now I'll just become another part of these ruins..."

Groaning, Beatrice dusts off her armor as she makes her way over. "Stop being so dramatic. We've just got a few questions, okay? I mean, I won't entirely rule out stabbing you if your answers are bad enough, but honestly I'd say your odds are still pretty good, considering all the trouble you've put us through."

Sincere scoffs. "Will you at least tell me which third-rate mage is trying to steal my research this time? I ought to at least know what intelligence level I'm dealing with."

Taly rolls her eyes. "We're not working for any mage, idiot. We took this job from the dungeon! Y'know, the one upstairs?"

This, Sincere was clearly not expecting. "The...the dungeon? Explain your meaning."

Beatrice leans in. "Meaning the master of Worthy Dungeon knows how to play nice when needed, and when to play hard. She - they want to know if you're a hazard to the folks around here, and they don't mind hiring in experts to see just what in the hells you're up to down here."

The prisoner doesn't respond at first, and when he does begin to speak, it's more of a mumble to himself. "...already making outside dealings? Intelligent enough to hire mercenaries, at barely over a month old? Unprecedented..." Refocusing on Beatrice, his tone again grows strong and defiant. "I may be willing to answer questions - but only if I'm allowed to speak to the spirit of the dungeon myself!"

Beatrice sighs. "Fine, was planning to take you back upstairs anyways. Although, I've got one question I've definitely got to ask right now."

She takes a moment to look the man up and down before continuing. "Where in the hells are your pants!?"