Worthy Core

After once again fighting their way through the relatively easy trials of the first floor and the Worthy Dungeon's moving platform, Warrior Mason Yarro Tossrock paused to take a final stock of his current team. It was a mixture of two different squads who had come over the mountain in recent days, with Sapper Tinsel and Sniper Kalasha representing the remainder of the first team and rejoining for their second attempt on the dungeon. The fallen Cleric of Frost Tanno had been replaced by Haylizt, a drider Priestess of Night in service of the god Ol. While filling the necessary role of the group's healer, the Priestess was quite different from the Cleric in pretty much every other respect. Rather than flashy, gem-studded robes, the woman was garbed in a cloak of deep purple made of a fabric which seemed to meld into shadows much better than the color alone would imply. Her face was painted in black as well, feathered wings crossing each of her eyes, representations of the dark god's spiritual messengers.

Meanwhile Vanguard Mesht, who had received severe injuries to his legs and still needed more time to properly heal, had been replaced by Jantana Breakstone, a minotaur Rampager. Rather than make use of the heavy armor worn by Vanguards, Rampagers learned a form of self-healing regeneration magic which allowed them to shed the extra weight and focus more on speed and offense. Tossrock personally wasn't terribly convinced of the wisdom of the tradeoff, having always been a big believer in strong defenses himself, but given that Jantana's 'uniform' involved showing quite a bit of skin including her bulging muscles he had a hard time complaining. She had certainly served well enough against the skeletons and the rabbit monster they had faced so far, but he only hoped her strong offense would still see them through when they finally faced the still-unknown third floor boss.

Yarro had stacked the deck with an extra card just in case however, and also brought on Nash of Tash'Narc, an Elementalist who could hopefully provide the team with a bit of additional magical expertise. Garbed in robes of green, the man carried a short wand crafted of dark orcish steel and capped by a rainbow gem, its colors shifting with the light. Six members was starting to get a little larger than the Mason would have preferred for a dungeon party, but after the first attempt was crippled by a single casualty, he didn't want to take any chances on their second.

Looking over the group he saw that they were in good spirits, and he felt it was time to disabuse them of that, at least in moderation. "You have all done excellent work so far! I give special credit to you, Jantana, the way you dismantled that monster upstairs was quite the piece of work." The minotaur smiles, but he moves on before she can get too proud. "That said, what we have done so far is the easy part! To our knowledge, the boss ahead is responsible for more deaths than any other part of this dungeon, including that of Cleric Tanno Longpull just a few days ago. Beware of ambushes, both from above and below! Sapper, Elementalist, you two are our best suited for disposing of the slime, the rest of you, provide cover and ensure that no one wanders too close to the acid pools! Now, are you ready!?"

The party shouts out their response, and the minotaur leads the group forward with Jantana at his side. When he enters the chamber however he finds the slime managed to surprise them once again, this time by not attempting an ambush at all. Standing before the door at the far end of the acidic cavern, the boss twirls a wand before shouting out to the group. "Hey! I got a deal for ya!"

Extremely wary, but not willing to lose the opportunity to potentially learn something about the dungeon and its unusual bosses, Tossrock responds. "A...deal, monster? I doubt we would be interested, but we will hear it."

The slime grins. "The mousekin gets a free pass. If she wants to head on through and wait on the other side, I won't fight her."

Tinsel steps out from behind the Rampager, an angry look on her face. "What!? Is this just cause I killed you last time, slime?"

The boss pauses. "...No?"

Tossrock snorts. "Whatever the reason is, we will not be so foolish as to split up our party. Team, forward!" At his command, Jantana begins to charge up the chamber center while Tossrock flanks to the right, leaving the left to Kalasha and Nash. Rather than running away or casting magic however, the slime simply pulls a bottle from her vest.

"Let's see how this one handles in action, shall we?" Smashing the glass vial onto the ground before the Rampager, an oil-like fluid spreads across the floor, almost eagerly so, covering more area than would seem natural for the force of the toss. Jantana attempts to stop herself before getting too deep into it, but that perhaps only makes it worse - the fluid seems to turn even the rough stony floor frictionless and the minotaur slides off her feet, her large double-sided axe swinging wildly as she flails for balance.

As the slime dodges a crossbow bolt from Kalasha and an ice shard from Nash, Tinsel attempts to strike with the power of trash talk. "Ha, you call that alchemy!? What was that, Potion of Soapwater?"

In response the boss displays a devious grin. "No, the slipperiness was a side effect. Mainly I made it to do this." With a snap of her fingers - or at least, an attempt at one, with her lack of bones apparently diminishing the effect to a large extent - a spark of flame shoots into the oily pool and sets the entire area on fire. Including of course, Jantana, who was not only still in the middle of the puddle but now partially covered in oil as well following her attempts to climb to her feet. Yelling in pain, the woman leaps away, casting her healing magics as she goes. Seeing the minotaur's escape, the slime sighs. "Ugh, you hornheads are just too damn hard to kill!"

"Harder than you are, for sure!" Kalasha taunts her as she fires off another fire-crystal-tipped bolt, missing again, but distracting the slime while Haylizt steps forward.

Raising a staff tipped by an obsidian crow's skull, the Priestess begins to chant. "Oh Ol, show us your anger and smother the light!" Waving the staff in a circle three times, a cloud of darkness covers the part of the chamber lit aflame, including Jantana, and within moments the flames are extinguished. The effect seems to piss off the slime even more than the direct taunts had done.

"Out already? Jeeze, tough crowd!" As crossbow bolts and blasts of elemental energy continue to hound the boss, she grows increasingly frustrated. "C'mon! I gotta kill at least one of you!"

Tossrock growls out a response. "Blasted slime! If only we could put you down for good, we would - " The leader's statement is cut off as a thrown glob of slime manages to lodge itself into his open mouth, making his eyes go wide and causing his breath to grow short.

"Ha! Suck on that, lung-haver! Now for - ah!" The slime's own taunting is put on hold when one of Nash's fireballs impacts her side, slowing her down long enough for an enchanted crossbow bolt to blow off one of her arms. She attempts to escape, but having been caught off-balance once she's now an easy target for followup strikes, destroying or separating her from more of her own body mass with every blow. Finally Tinsel dashes by, and in a repeat of their last engagement tosses in a chemical vial that reacts explosively with the boss's fluids, finishing the battle.

Tinsel waves her hands in victory. "Ha! Two-for-two! Suck it, slime! You just got Tinseled! Now, how about that chest, where's - " As the mousekin turns around, her gloating is interrupted by a shout from Haylizt.

"Help! The Mason, he's - he's not breathing!" As the party turns around they spot the drider leaning over the collapsed minotaur, whose lips are turning a rather concerning shade of blue. The Priestess is frantically digging into the man's mouth with her fingers, but apparently having little luck at her revival attempts. "I think he swallowed some of the slime, and it's in his throat or lungs! I can't get it out!"

Kalasha runs over and kneels down, quickly beginning chest compressions. "So heal the man already, Priestess!" The orc practically growls at Haylizt, and the woman quickly snaps back in an angry tone of her own.

"'Healing' doesn't work like that! If it's doing acid damage to his lungs, I can repair the damage, but I can't 'heal' the slime out of his throat, or 'heal' air into his arteries!"

"Dammit!" The Sniper continues her compressions while Haylizt does her best to scoop out any slime she can reach, but as one minute goes by followed by another, it eventually becomes clear that there's nothing more they can do: Warrior Mason Yarro Tossrock, the leader of their party, is dead. The group falls into silence for a moment, even Jantana, her own harsh burn wounds slowly stitching closed under her own power without a whimper.

Finally, as the healer on the scene, Haylizt takes charge of speaking the obvious. "The Mason is dead. Who...who here has seniority?"

The group looks around at each other for a bit, but eventually Kalasha points at Tinsel. "Sapper. You're level eighteen, yes?"

The mousekin nods. "Yeah, why? ...Wait, you're all what, fifteen to seventeen? But that doesn't mean anything though! Being the highest leveled member doesn't make me an officer!"

Haylizt shakes her head, agreeing with Kalasha. "This isn't a normal unit, there hasn't been a chain of command established. In light of that, basic seniority makes you the party leader until we finish or abandon the mission. Which I believe would be your first call. Do we abandon the mission, Sapper?"

"Gah!" Tinsel almost squeaks in frustration. "Stupid Mason, choking to death on a boss monster, whoever heard of...a..." The woman trails off as she starts to notice the glares from the rest of the team, and attempts to settle herself. "...Okay, one minute, let me think. We, ehh, we don't have any other high-ranking officers planning to swing by anytime soon, do we?"

Jantana groans as she adjusts her partially-burned clothing, ensuring it stays in place. "There's supposed to be a third squad following a few days behind us, but I didn't hear anything about anyone of the Mason's rank being included with it."

"Dammit! Okay, so that means by time we get word back and they find a replacement, it's probably gonna be at least like almost two weeks before one gets out here. And they're not gonna want us to just sit around on our asses at the local tavern for a couple weeks, so...fuck. I guess I gotta keep the mission running, don't I?" She sighs, coming to a conclusion. "Which I suppose starts now. Guess we know the drill by his own order by now...collect the Mason's potions and any personal effects, heal up at the fountain ahead, and...get ready to proceed to the third floor."

As the team follows her orders and collects the boss loot, Tinsel finds herself glaring at Tossrock's remains, her small hands balling into fists. "...And this time, we're finishing the mission."