Worthy Core

"Ahhhhhhhh!" Trush twists and yells in pain, before suddenly realizing that he's no longer on fire. As he looks around he's somewhat embarrassed to realize that he's been respawned inside Xenia's office with most of the other dungeon guardians watching.

Lollyp gives him a worried look. "You doing okay, big guy? It's fine, now. You're safe!"

"Right, right. Sorry. That was just...intense." He searches to find Xenia herself, and finds her sitting behind her desk with a worried look of her own. "...Went worse than we hoped, I suppose. I've been burned before of course, but that was...that was worse."

The dungeon master nods along. "I don't get a number scale of temperature or anything - if you guys even have a scale like that here - but I could pick up that those flames were hot. Like, liquefy metal on the spot hot. If I'd known that one of them could sense dungeon portals, or that they could pin you down like that, I would've split you up or made decoys or something. Sorry for that."

Sincere gives a small, encouraging smile to the group. "Well, that's what we were hoping for, is it not? To learn things, I mean, no one was hoping for Trush to get a early cremation of course. Fortunately we do have some time before they make their way down the shaft of Floor Two, but we should review things quickly before Lollyp needs to consider launching an attack of her own. Mind giving us the highlights, Xenia?"

Xenia begins counting off on her fingers. "Right, so, pretty sure all of that raid group is high-ranking, but they seem to have a lead squad of four people. The one who detected the portal was a demon chick named Tiffany, she seems to be some sort of space mage? She was doing portals of her own, and making space bend in a way that gave me a little bit of a headache."

The first description makes Sincere furrow his brow. "Spatial magic? That's a specialization as rare as my own. In fact, you generally don't become a Supreme as a spatial mage - you have to work to that level and then learn those skills. The handful of spatial mages I've met make a fortune working in the capital cities of the world, teleporting the wealthy and their goods for large sums."

"We'll have to be clever about her, for sure. The firebreather at least is straightforward, just strong. A draconic named Fidelia. I can..." Xenia sighs as she rubs her face. "I can try and put together some flame-resistant gear, and potions from Lollyp here or Tinsel, but they won't last as long as they would against most pyros. If she's a draconic she can fly too, so range might not be that helpful. Even assuming she can't just fling fireballs across the room."

Lollyp doesn't seem too thrilled by the news. "I'm a generalist, so I'd probably lose out against a specialist if I try to match her flames head-on. Maybe if I can come up with something indirect, that she can't just burn..."

"Keep me posted if you have any ideas. As for their tank, it's a kobold with earth magic named Grenwald. No projectiles or ranged stuff that I saw exactly, but he was able to fuck with the floor pretty badly. Maybe..." The reincarnator's eyes narrow in thought. "Maybe if I make them have to cross an icy lake or something? Fire would melt it, and earth magic wouldn't work. Gotta make sure they can't just fly over it. Or...teleport across. Dammit! Too many mobility skills in this bunch."

Pizola raises a hand. "How about their support? Does their party have a healer we could target?"

"I like where your head's at! I think there's one or two focused healers in the larger group, but their team leader was...maybe one? He was able to cause pain in BB directly, without hitting him with an obvious spell or anything. I've seen medic-types that have anatomical control skills like that before. The guy's a demon named Pretty, apparently. He's...an alright looker, I guess? Flamboyant, I'd say."

The name causes Sincere to freeze. "...Pretty, you said? Is his full name Pretty Thing, do you think?"

Xenia raises an eyebrow. "Uh, yeah, think I heard someone call him that once. Bit of an odd one, but I suppose I've heard weirder. You've heard of him?"

The core guardian clears his throat. "We, ah. Used to date? For just a few years." As every head in the room turns to face him, Sincere clarifies further. "...Twelve, maybe? Less than fifteen, I'd say."

His boss snorts at the revelation. "Damn, Sin-man, didn't take you for the type to settle down for that long! So I suppose you can tell us all about Mr. Thing, then?"

Sincere looks a little awkward under all of the attention. "Well, he wasn't nearly a Supreme-tier when we met, although neither was I, of course. This was a long time ago, you understand. We're both survivors of the Age of Warlocks and its collapse, although we didn't meet until it was over. We took the same ship to this continent, actually. We spent some time traveling, mostly in the south and west of the New Continent. It was almost all wild back then, you know. The colonies were just under construction, and the Domain didn't have any true cities in those days."

Lollyp clears her throat. "Ahum, that's definitely real interesting and I'd love to hear more, but I've got about ten minutes before your ex is in my boss arena! So I don't suppose you can tell me what he's all about in a fight?"

"Ah, right, of course. Well, Xenia is correct on him being an expert in anatomy, and in manipulating the body through magic. He can heal to a limited extent, although it may be greater than I recall now. But primarily he learned his skills for, ah. Carnal purposes."

The slime narrows her eyes. "...I don't think he's going to jill me off to victory, Sincere."

"Well, no, that rarely actually works. But he can create pain as easily as pleasure. It's actually..." Sincere grimaces. "It's actually something of a feedback loop for him. Incubi feed on pleasure and pain, you understand. Normally they can make their own 'meals' through physical effort, of course, but doing it directly through magic is much more efficient. At his current tier, I imagine Pretty would never have to worry about running out of mana under most normal circumstances."

Xenia chews on that. "So why doesn't every succubi and incubi go for that as a skillset, then?"

"Ah, well, the originators who created that school of magic and taught it to the demons were all killed by those same demons when our bonds were broken. Those who had learned the spells were generally rather averse to teaching them to others, which means largely the only practitioners are those who learned it firsthand. There's perhaps only a few dozen left in the world, and most of those didn't continue using those skills as Pretty did. It might not be pragmatic, but there's...well, personal reasons behind the decision."

Lollyp takes a breath and heads over to the shortcut portal that will take her back to her apartment on Floor Two. "Well, that's all real interesting, but I need to sort out how to turn that into strategy. Anyone wanna back me up? Trush?"

The Rabbit Champion looks to Xenia, who gives him a nod. "I don't have time to respawn your squires, but if you're up for another round this quickly, go for it. If they make it to Floor Four I'll bring you back for that one, too."

"Very well, then. ...Lollyp, maybe you can take the draconic this time."

As the pair each step onto the portal ring and vanish, Xenia turns towards the rest of the group. "We're not in a position to do a good ambush on Floor Three, so unless they get real tired fighting those two, they're almost definitely going to hit Floor Four within about an hour or so. I'm open to ideas, because if we just throw the mortals at them, this is going to get bloody..."

---

Although Domain earth mages had stripped away the walls of Floor One, and had begun to do the same on Floor Three, Lollyp's boss arena on Floor Two had received a somewhat different treatment. Knowing the slime's penchant for ambushes from above the Domain had instead sealed the chamber up with extra layers of stone. On the plus side it meant that Lollyp's apartment was generally secure from discovery, on the downside it meant that she could no longer slither down cracks for an easy surprise assault.

However, it's not only the arena which her apartment borders.

"C'mon, Grenwald! Just like, six more jumps and you can do it!"

The kobold glares at the demon hovering a few feet away. "Just gotta rub those wings of yours into my face, eh, demon? I'll get there on my own time!"

"Well, I did offer to carry you if you wanted..."

"The day I become a bag of luggage is the day I hang up my shield! I - hold on, now..."

As the kobold puts one hand against the side of the Floor Two shaft, Tiffany flies in a bit closer. "What, sprained something?"

"No, the dungeon's shifting the stone - watch out!"

The warning is barely enough as the last layer of wall explodes, each stone block flying outwards with a blast of elemental energy. Tiffany does manage to deflect the majority of it with a spatial shield, but a few smaller chunks do manage to shoot through the membranes of her wings and the demon begins spiraling towards the floor. Fidelia, who had already flown down to the bottom, and Pretty, who's currently a few platforms down from Grenwald, both look up at the noise.

"Ah, a surprise! Grenwald, tell us what's coming out up there - ah, nevermind." Pretty's question is made moot as Grenwald gets a face full of rabbit foot, the impact sending both him and his attacker hurtling through the air. Trush has no particular aerial capabilities but given that he can recover from a broken neck while mortals have a slightly harder time of it, it seems that the wandering boss has decided to go bold. Fortunately for the Stone Stalwart Fidelia is quick to react, and her wings spread wide as she soars to catch the falling soldier.

She does turn to breathe a quick blast of flame at Trush as he falls past her, but doesn't get the chance to complete her attack as a quint ball spell slams into the side of her head. She and her passenger both display impressive durability, as the explosive blast of elemental magic which had torn apart teams of Advanced-tier soldiers mostly only serves to knock the draconic into a wall, otherwise unharmed.

As Pretty watches all three of his primary teammates tumble through the air, he sighs. "Well, this is embarrassing. First, let's make sure that rabbits don't land on their lucky feet. I'm sure you recall this sensation very well, don't you?"

Trush had managed to catch hold of one stone platform, preventing him from falling all the way down, but the man screams as his arm suddenly ignites in flame. ...Or at least feels like it does, as the knight realizes that his arm appears to be just fine. That knowledge isn't enough to calm him though as he feels his meat cooking through, his bones charring to ash, the sudden sensation of feeling nothing at all -

The man falls a bit further when his grip fails, but a gust of wind pushes him onto the next platform down, relatively unscathed. Poking her head out of the hole in the wall, Lollyp glares at Pretty. "Torture magic is kind of fucked up, you know."

The demon shrugs. "I'm kind of a fucked up person, you know. How do you like the taste of flame?" He reaches out his hand, and at first, Lollyp laughs at him.

"I got rid of my nervous system for this fight, ha! Would suck if I had to climb, but I can just blast you from...what? Fuckin'...what are you doing?" The elementalist's arm begins to ripple, her wand slipping between her liquefying fingers as she stares at her limb in horror.

"I feel like I've just gone over this, you know. Who needs physical nerves?! Even slimes have a mind, and any mind can feel pain. Of course, slimes have a different weakness. Did you know?"

Lollyp turns to aim her other hand in his direction, casting an unassisted fireball spell, but the projectile goes far off track as her left arm suddenly falls off. "What the fuck!?"

"Proprioception. A wonderful word, isn't it? The sense of where your own body parts are in relation to each other. For most people, it's a 'nice to have'. Your arm isn't going to wander off if it falls asleep. But for slimes?" Pretty gives the mage a shrug. "Every drop of your mass could be in a different location from one moment to the next, and it's important for your mind to keep solid track of where each component is. How can it tell a glob to be a hand or a foot if it doesn't know if that glob is on an arm or a leg?"

"You - fuckin' - assmmmmph!" Lollyp's shouts fade out as her mouth dissolves away, and her height appears to be rapidly shrinking.

"So really, all you have to do is just...turn that sense...off. And the mind completely loses track of where anything is! Which is quite lethal for a slime. As I see you're experiencing." Pretty glances across the shaft to check on Trush and his condition, only to see that it was altered rather suddenly while Pretty was distracted. Specifically, by a spatial scythe from Tiffany which removed the rabbit's head from his shoulders. "Ah, efficiently done. And I suppose better than being burned to death twice in one hour. I think that man owes you a debt of thanks, really."

Tiffany grimaces as she inspects some of the small holes in her wings. "Yeah, I'm real charitable. You gonna patch up these scrapes of ours, or do we gotta start hitting the potions?"

"Ah, you know me. Always happy to lend a helping hand..."