Worthy Core

The next two days at Worthy Dungeon passed by in relative quiet. Another Initiate party came by, attempting only the first floor and leaving without showing off any particularly fancy (or suicidal) tricks. Lollyp and Beatrice both did a bit of sparring practice with the Possessed Armor bosses, but on the second day Beatrice left to pay a visit to the Challenger's camp. Officially she was heading down to see about getting the paperwork started on a Challenger's membership, if it was an option, but with the secondary goal of checking to see if any parties were planning a late-night intrusion for that evening. Given that Beatrice hadn't rushed back up the mountain with a warning it was taken as safe to assume that none was forthcoming. So it was that after dark fell that night, Xenia's core chamber was filled with both dungeon monsters and an air of excitement.

Xenia and Guy were present of course, as were Lollyp and Sincere who were holding a spirited conversation in one corner about the advantages and disadvantages of wand-based magic. Tank and Dips meanwhile were standing together in the center of the room and somehow managing to look awkward as they did so. It was the first time since their 'birth' that either of them had left their boss arena, and it was the first time either of them had seen wonders such as chairs or bunnies. In fact, Xenia was delaying the start of their expedition almost entirely so that she could amuse herself by watching them, particularly the way they seemed to grow nervous whenever Sir Flopsy hopped closer to sniff at their boots.

Eventually though it seemed like it was time to get down to business. With a snap of the dungeon master's fingers, the black-dyed fabric she'd been wearing for most of the past few weeks was replaced with what she'd been calling her 'battle rattle'. The base of it was light leather armor, but with scale metal reinforcement over the most vital spots along with an open-faced steel helmet to go with it. On her hip was sheathed a longsword, while a bandoleer of throwing knives crossed her right shoulder followed by another holding potion bottles over her left. In truth it was all extremely basic gear - the C and D-tier armors that the dungeon had unlocked only seemed to match up to what a low-ranking soldier would be equipped with. Despite that, the fact that it was custom-tailored to Xenia to such an exacting degree combined with her apparent practiced ease at moving around in the equipment meant that she somehow managed to look far more dangerous than any raw recruit could ever hope to match.

The impression was strongly backed up by her first words to the gathering. "Alright, think I'm ready to go! Hey Sin-man, I'm not gonna die to the first thing that pokes me in there, am I? I'm a fragile little soap bubble these days, you know?"

Sincere shrugs in response. "I have absolutely no idea. My suggestion would be: don't get poked." The man himself seemed to be wearing little more than a simple fabric robe, but such looks were deceiving. It had been enchanted to boost the demon's magical reserves as much as possible, and although he came down on the 'wands are a crutch used by second-rate sorcerers' side of the fence he still had a few mystical toys and accessories hidden away under there.

Xenia sighs. "Thanks, Sin-man. Good universal strategy." Clearing her throat and standing a little straighter, Xenia starts again. "Alright, so it's been a few lifetimes, but as it happens I have actually led an adventuring party once or twice in my time. So as Master of Worthy Dungeon, I appoint myself team leader. Aside from that, my personal preference is the blade, but since we apparently can't risk me taking like...any hits whatsoever, I can't be our frontliner. Tank, that's gonna be you. If something comes at us, make sure it hits that massive-ass shield of yours, alright? Dips, you and I will be backing him up, covering the flanks and flinging pointy metal at anything just out of reach." The two ghostly armors nod, and Xenia turns next to her magicians.

For her part, Lollyp had arrived to the party mostly equipped in her usual combat gear - a magic wizard's hat, a vest strapped with glass bottles, and a wand. She'd broken out the prize of her collection for the job though, bringing along the wand that had once belonged to her brother rather than the mere D-tier weapons Xenia usually made for her. She's holding it in her hands when Xenia calls her name, apparently lost in thought until she jolts to attention. "Lollyp, you're our primary ranged support. If you run dry on mana you can try and mix it up, but otherwise keep to the back ranks, got it?"

"Got it, boss! Honestly that's how I was trained to fight anyhow, so it'll be good to go back to basics for a while." As she slips the wand into her vest the slime gives a devious grin, presumably at the thought of getting to burn something alive tonight.

"And Sincere, you're basic support, including healing. Not your specialty, but other than potions you're all we've got for that. Otherwise, y'know...shields, time shit, big fancy words, toss around whatever you think will be helpful without draining yourself too much. Good?"

"Of course, Dungeon Master. If it comes down to it, I suppose I do have a few lectures on ritual circles that could potentially put our enemies to sleep."

Before Xenia can respond to that, Lollyp asks a question. "So, just to confirm, we've still got no idea what we're heading into, yeah?"

Xenia waggles a hand. "Sort of. We can say this: it might be the closest floor to us, but it sure wasn't the first floor of the Great Dungeon, wherever the fuckin' entrance was supposed to have been at. So don't expect it to be easy. Second, the halls we've seen have all been wide and empty...it's possible there was more to it that melted away, but that kind of implies a lot of combat to me, rather than traps. You wanna bunch people into narrow corridors for that stuff after all, right? But do keep your eyes open anyhow, obviously. And third...well, this is just a wild-ass guess on my part, but I'm gonna assume there's gonna be a lot of dragon and lizard-type shit in there. The other mortal races weren't anywhere around when the Great Dungeon was in operation, so we shouldn't be seeing any undead from those groups, at least. But other than that, your guess is as good as mine."

"Yeah, that makes sense. Last question then: you know how to actually trigger this?"

"Yeah! Probably. I mean, if I think about it I kinda get this feeling, right? Just didn't want to test it until we were all ready, you know? Which we are now. Right?" The dungeon master scans the group one more time, and when no one disagrees, she nods. "Right! So...here we go, then."

Guy chimes in with his support. "Best of luck to you, ma'am! Show that dungeon what for, eh!"

"You got it!" Bringing up a menu screen, Xenia finds the third curse in her list of achievements, and focuses on it. As she closes her eyes words begin to form in her mind, and almost unbidden her voice speaks them out loud. "Great Dungeon of Mount Faralis, Center of the World! Lost and ruined, quiet and barren! Let your secrets be bared, your energies subdued! Breathe now your last, and open your gate!"

When Xenia opens her eyes, she realizes that something's gone wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong. Her sword is already in her hands, although she can't recall having drawn it, but there's no grim dungeon around her. No swarm of monsters comes to meet her.

She's in a house. A simple wooden kitchen table sits to her left, and as she looks across the sitting room to her right she can see the beams of a morning sun pouring in through the windows. Her eyes flicker across all of it, the cushioned chairs, the blue-green rug, the white lace drapes - "No." The word escapes her lips without it meaning to, and she can feel a tremble begin to take hold of her sword hand. "No, this is...this is a dungeon trick. One of those mind control traps, that's what this is."

She closes her eyes and counts to ten, and when the house remains afterwards, she begins to shout. "Lollyp! Sincere? Are you here!? Can anyone hear me?" A voice answers her a moment later from outside, drifting in through an open window, but it's not one she was expecting.

"Xen? Are you in there? What are you shouting about?"

Xenia's eyes widen. "No. Nononono, this isn't real. It's not real." She begins to move through the house, hoping perhaps one of the doors will be an exit from the illusion, but they only lead to more peaceful scenes of a pleasant spring day. The kitchen, the master bedroom, the guest room that used to be - "No! This isn't real! You're not fooling me!" Turning quickly as if a wall might attack her, Xenia's sword swings left and right at the air. "I'm on to you!"

"Xenon? What in the world are you doing in there?" The voice is closer to the house now, the - the doorknob to the front door is turning.

Xenia's vision begins to go dark, not because of any change in the room's lighting, but because she can feel the blood draining from her. "No! Take me back! No! No - "

"NO!" Xenia feels hands grabbing at her as she shouts and realizes her head is practically between her knees, crouched as she is on a stone floor. A voice comes to her, although it takes her a moment to place it.

"Xenia!? What's wrong? Are you okay!?" Lollyp's face meets hers as she kneels down, her worry written all over it. "We all got here fine, Xenia. Did something happen to you?"

Again Xenia closes her eyes and begins to count, but this time stops at five - this is potentially hostile territory, after all. "I was...there was an illusion trap, or something? Did it just hit me?"

Sincere and Lollyp share a look, and Lollyp answers. "No? You finished your little poem, the lights went out and then we were here and you were screaming. What did you see? Are you sure you're alright?"

Forcing her body to her feet and a grin to her face, Xenia gives the slime a thumbs up. "Never - never better, Lolly Pop! Now how about we show this dungeon - "

"DUCK!" Sincere shouts out a warning, but it comes too late as an arrow suddenly appears in Xenia's right shoulder. If anything though the impact only seems to make the woman calmer, her gaze drifting down to the wooden shaft as if it were nothing more than a gnat that had landed on her.

"Oh, hey, look at that. Got hit and I didn't die right away! That's good to - " Her sentence is interrupted as another arrow suddenly sprouts from her right leg, and her eyes narrow. "...Ow. ...OW! Fuck, that hurts!" Finally looking up, she spots a trio of skeletal kobolds heading their way, their white bones illuminated by the flickering of torches along the sides of a wide stone tunnel. One carries a sword while the others wield the bows responsible for Xenia's new appendages, and Lollyp begins shouting at Tank to do something about them.

"Tank! Do your thing! The big shield thing! Stop them from shooting us already!"

The possessed armor nods, as if the idea hadn't occurred to him until just then, and the lumbering hulk begins to put himself in between the archers and the party. Far too late, as it happens. As Xenia looks back down at the arrow sticking out of her shoulder a third plants itself right between her eyes, nailing the gap in her helmet, and everything goes black once again.

The next time Xenia opens her eyes she finds herself lying back on her bed, Lollyp once again leaning over her, but Xenia finds her expressions hard to read despite the close distance. "...Well, boss, I've got good news and bad news."

Blinking, the dungeon master takes a second to check her apparently arrow-free shoulder before answering. "...Good news?"

"The good news is, apparently if you die in the pocket dimension we don't all immediately die for real, which was, y'know, a slight concern. So we've settled that at least! Though it did kick us all back out with you. Guess you're kinda key to the whole pocket dimension thing or whatever. The bad news is...Xenia! What happened to you!? I've seen you in a fight before, it was nothing like...like that!"

Standing a little further away, Sincere nods in agreement. "Frankly, that performance would have been appalling even by Initiate standards. Just what did the dungeon do to you?"

Taking a deep breath, Xenia closes her eyes and rubs them before responding. "I just...I don't want to talk about it."

This time the look on Lollyp's face is definitely one of concern. "Xenia...c'mon, let us help."

"Maybe...maybe later. But tonight's a bust, sorry guys. We can talk...tomorrow, I guess. Just, mind heading out? I think I need to rest. Takes some time to recover from an arrow in the head, am I right?" She gives a raw-looking grin, but Lollyp has a hard time arguing against her.

"...Sure thing, Xe. We'll talk tomorrow, okay? So get some rest, and we'll sort everything out later." Sincere nods in agreement, and leads the two ghostly armors out of the core chamber when they seem uncertain as to what they should be doing next. Lollyp leaves last, following Guy and closing the door behind her as she goes, but the sound she hears as she does so seems to remain with her even afterwards. She stands there for a minute, and then another, before finally opening the door again and stepping back inside.

Xenia doesn't notice her until she's standing by the bed, and although she quickly wipes her face, the tears are impossible to hide. "Lolly, really, I just need - "

"Shh." Shushing her as she climbs into the bed, the woman doesn't say a word until she's lying down next to Xenia, an arm wrapped around her waist. "We can talk about it later, that's fine. But for now...I'm here."