Worthy Core

Outside the dungeon, Cerise Darktouched and her bodyguard are enjoying a comfortable cup of tea, sitting down inside of a gilded tent which blocks the mountain chill. Looking around as she holds her cup in both hands, Lyota Silverstar repeats herself for the third time.

"I really can't believe you carry all this in your bottomless bags."

"This and much more. It's important to be able to make a good impression under any situation, and besides - not only does this tent shield us from prying eyes, but it's pre-enchanted to keep any sound from leaking out. If needed, we can discuss strategy without worrying that Doorman or Xenia might be able to hear us at this distance."

"Discussing strategy, hrmm?" Lyota again looks around at the well-decorated tent. There's enchanted heaters, a couch, a full cabinet full of various refreshments and drinks, but no maps - or military officers, for that matter. "I'm not a soldier, but I feel like strategy planning usually involves something...more, I don't know. Or being in front of the troops, making a good example, that sort of thing."

The succubus chuckles. "Fortunately I am not a soldier either, and so I don't need to fit into that stiff-necked mold. The plans have been made and set into motion, and I'm not about to start micro-managing individual squad behaviors. Given the lethal results of our last visit, I doubt they need much in the way of motivation to do well, either. When something notable occurs - "

With excellent timing, a draconic officer pushes the tent flap aside and peers in. "Emissary Darktouched! Floor One has been secured! Two guardians were defeated in the final room, targets 'BB' and 'Trush'."

"Excellent!" Cerise sets her cup down and focuses on the officer. "How about casualties? Both theirs and ours, if you please."

The gray-scaled woman seems uncomfortable as she answers. "Squads One and Two took heavy casualties, and Squad Four had a few injuries. We...lost Squad Three. As for the dungeon, beyond the monsters we can't confirm any kills. A Paladin of the Church of Bounty aided the guardians in the final defense, but she seems to have fled rather than risk defeat."

"Not ideal - especially that we haven't inflicted any permanent losses on the defenders yet - but a victory is a victory. Let the survivors of those squads know that they will be well-rewarded for their efforts."

"Yes, ma'am! Shall we give the order to begin advancing on Floor Two?"

The demon quickly shakes her head. "Hells, no. Assuming Floor Two creates the same number of casualties as the first - and given that Lollyp is its defender, I would not be that optimistic - we would require all of the remaining forces we brought here today to do so. Worst case, we fail and leave Floor One to be weakened and retaken, leaving all of our very expensive armor behind to be captured and analyzed by the dungeon. No. Direct the other squads to reinforce the first floor, and have them focus on eliminating any remaining traps and searching for more hidden passages. This is a march, not a race, and we will bring in more troops later for the next push."

As the officer leaves to relay the orders, Lyota looks on with a bit of confusion. "Ma'am, if I might...I've been a Challenger for a long time, so I know a few things about dungeons. But I assume I don't know all of their secrets, so I'm not saying you've made any...unwise decisions or anything like that. But I'm not sure if this will actually work?"

Cerise simply smiles in response. "Oh? Well, every plan could use a critical eye. Please, tell me what concerns you."

The fury demon starts counting on her fingers. "First, can't Worthy just claim any armor from a squad she's defeated right away? Squad Three's gear might already be in her...hands, or whatever a dungeon takes equipment with."

Cerise shakes her head. "Exactly how dungeons assign 'groups' and 'parties' and 'raids' can be somewhat ambiguous, especially in cases where someone might spend a long time in a dungeon or switch between different groups. But a large grouping like ours would be classified as a raid, by whatever divine rules govern dungeons, and if we had the soldiers we could keep pouring more people into this raid until midnight, at which point they would start counting as a second one. Such numbers are only usually involved in core-cracking large dungeons, so I'm not surprised it hasn't come up in your experience. In any case, we have plenty of time to recover the...remains of our fallen heroes before Xenia can."

She pauses for a moment before continuing. "This does make that abyss more of a danger though, along with the design of Floor Two. If a body ends up somewhere beyond our ability to recover it, then we would indeed eventually lose that equipment to the dungeon."

"I see." Lyota counts off another finger. "I had another concern though. Like you said, dungeons get a 'reset' at midnight. Damage gets repaired, guardians and traps respawn, and all of that. Isn't keeping our troops on Floor One indefinitely just asking for them to get massacred later tonight?"

This time the question makes Cerise smile. "Oh, we are well-practiced at this sort of thing. Well, on paper at least, we don't actually have to use these tactics that often. But to answer the question, there is certainly a risk but it is a manageable one. Most of a dungeon's traps and monsters cannot respawn in a way that would cause immediate harm to an intruder. And, with sufficient numbers of prepared troops, respawning monsters can be slain in moments before they've even had time to recover their senses. On top of that the simple presence of our soldiers inside limits Xenia's ability to modify Floor One. She cannot change the path in a way that would even temporarily leave someone without a route to either the core or the exit, nor can she add new traps in a way that could cause immediate harm. The real concern I have is those soldiers and Challengers defending the place."

Lyota considers that before nodding. "That's why you don't want to thin out our troops? In case there's a counterattack?"

"They would be foolish to leave a force squatting in their dungeon if they had the power to easily remove it, yes. Especially given that a dungeon spirit has perfect knowledge of their interiors and can know exactly when and where to strike. The only positive is that such a counterattack would necessarily be mostly mortals, and forcing a battle with them would be to our benefit."

"...Should we try to provoke something like that, then? Draw them in with a false opening?"

Now it's Cerise's turn to consider an idea. "...Hrmm. We might be able to set up something..."

---

Inside the Worthy War Council chamber, Xenia seethes. On the table in front of her is carved a map of Floor One, and as those in the room watch on it becomes covered in more and more pieces representing Domain soldiers. Although only her guardians can see her, the others present can still get a good idea of the situation.

Prince Thaddeus is the one to state the obvious. "That would appear to be virtually all of the troops you described as coming up the mountainside - perhaps one or two squads left outside as guards. But they still haven't sent so much as a scout into Floor Two? We have ambush parties well-prepared for their arrival."

"Probably why they're not going down there, yeah." Tinsel stands up on her chair, giving the shorter beastkin a better look at the map. "Either they're prepping for another try at flying down into Floor Six, or they're holding position until reinforcements come. At least that won't be quick - with the time it takes to march that many people through the woods and up a mountain, we're probably looking at their second push being tomorrow."

"They're not doing anything with the void space, no - seems like they're busy tearing apart the walls, looking for traps and tricks." A second Tinsel hops up onto the table directly - or rather, Emma wearing the mousekin's face, for reasons known only to her. "Xenia's already shut off all the shortcut portals, so they shouldn't find anything we need to worry about."

Raylin pounds his fist upon the table - although at a respectable volume. "Is there anything we can do before they've set up defenses? Bathe the floor in fire? Spawn in a fresh wave of monsters?"

Xenia gives Emma a denial to pass on, although most of those who work for the dungeon already know its limits. "If we could directly kill an intruder like that, we would've been doing it already! As for respawning BB or the others - yeah, Xenia could spend extra mana to manually bring a monster back without waiting for a reset. As things are though, BB would probably just get killed again in about five seconds, and that mana would be better spent making food, weapons, or buffing up Floor Two."

The reincarnator does muse a little, mostly to herself. "I could...annoy them in a bunch of ways, maybe. Fuck around with the lights. Make fake traps to freak them out. Draw pictures on the wall of me fuckin' their mommas."

Emma turns back towards her boss and blinks. "...Okay, I definitely vote for that last one. Feels like there's gotta be something more we can do, though."

Xenia shakes her head. "I do have a mental list of more psychological shit I could pull, but Floor One's not a good place for it. Besides, I don't wanna burn all of my tricks this early, they still haven't sent in even a single heavy-hitter yet. I think I'd rather play the long game, yeah? Like, I can probably make sure they don't get any good sleep tonight, at least. Then if they try Floor Two tomorrow they'll be in shitty condition."

Listening in with her enchanted helmet, Beatrice curses. "What if their reinforcements have more of that armor you described? It seems to be powerful gear - I wish I knew exactly what it was."

"I don't know about that anti-fall bit, but I'm almost certain they're using that reversed luck trait of mine against me." Xenia scowls. "From what I've heard, blessing stuff to be lucky is real difficult for non-dungeons to do, but there's all sorts of specialists that can curse shit. We actually had a team of minor nobles try that once way back, but they got cocky and the water elementals got them despite it. Still, I wouldn't mind getting my hands on a sample just to be sure."

Emma relays that statement to the others, which leads to a suggestion from Thaddeus. "That sounds like a viable mission, I would say. Reclaiming the floor might be...difficult. Cramped quarters mean we wouldn't be able to overwhelm them easily, and we'd either have to risk our Supremes or sacrifice the lives of many of our common soldiers and Challengers. But perhaps it might be possible to whittle them down a little? Take a few prisoners and escape back down?"

Xenia grins at the idea. "Guerrilla warfare, I like it. ...Kinda makes me wish I had gorillas. Meh. We'll give them time to settle in and lose their edge...maybe hit them when everything resets at midnight?" The dungeon master shakes her head in response to her own question. "Nah, they'll know that's coming and everyone's gonna be on peak alertness for that. Make it a two or three in the morning kinda deal. I'll see where their watch is weak, carve out a little hidden chamber somewhere and plop a portal ring inside it. Can't have too many people, if I carve out something too big their earth mages will probably notice it before we can move in."

She looks up towards Emma. "Tell Tad to put together a squad of half a dozen or so. Goal will be to take a couple captives, alive if possible, dead and with their gear if not. We'll also need to make sure some backup squads are ready in case shit gets out of hand."

The enchanted mirror relays the message, and Thaddeus nods solemnly. "I'll get right on it. We'll make sure they won't be getting any sweet dreams tonight..."