After the skirmish between the two sides of the mountain's abyss and the tumble of rocks that ca afterwards, the Domain's experts took a few minutes to rest and recover. Aside from the three fatalities there were a fair few minor injuries that needed healing, and a rest to restore a bit of mana was always welco. Pretty Thing himself needed a few minutes to refocus after what he saw in the final monts, but as far as anyone could tell the mysterious flying demon had fled the scene. With no more clues as to her nature at hand he eventually settled for returning to his original goal for the day: conquering Floor Six.
Aside from the damage done to the ledges by the falling rocks, which was easily bridged, proceeding further actually proved to be rather uneventful. There were still so more mundane dungeon traps waiting for them as well as more dungeon monsters, but it seed as if the dungeon had expended most of the floor's monster budget on supporting the ambush. There were a few more attempts to crush the Domain expedition with falling stone, or in one case to explode a ledge from beneath their feet, but those attempts proved ineffective. Without other distractions the Supre and Master-tier adventurers were more than up to the task of protecting themselves and the rest of the floor was crossed without further injury.
Still, as they approach the guardian arena section of the floor Pretty brings his squad to a halt. "Now if I'm not mistaken, this is the mystery fight of the dungeon, is it not?"
Grenwald furrows his brow. "Mystery? I an, I'm sure they've all got surprises."
Tiffany shakes her head. "He ans because they've got the floor guardian locked up back at the fort. Which...I didn't think that was a thing you could actually do, but apparently they pulled it off. Anyways, the point is we don't know what sort of monster is defending the floor right now...or if there even is one at all."
"Perhaps not a monster, but mortals at the least." Pretty taps his chin. "This dungeon grants nothing for free. We do need to consider how to approach this regardless. With the narrow ledge leading to the arena floor we cannot simply all rush in at once, and given that half of the arena floor is a ledge over the canyon, I suspect bad things would happen if we did all stand there at once."
The kobold frowns at the analysis. "So what, you wanna go in with just the three of us? We're tough but we ain't the most balanced squad these days."
"No, you're right - we should bring one other squad with us. Two squads with the rest on standby should be sufficient without fully leaving us exposed to potential traps." Pretty turns back and waves forward the group behind them. "Catapult Carrie, would you mind bringing your team up here?"
It's a bit of a tight squeeze but two more kobolds, an arcane demon, and the lone elf of the expedition eventually join Pretty's group. Their leader, a red-scaled kobold mage nad Carrie, greets her commander.
"What now, ya fancy ponce? Bringing us up here to gargle your balls a bit before the big fight? Give you a recharge? If so I'm sure there's a whole squad of succubi back there that'd be happy to dive right on it."
"Delightful as always, lady Catapult. As tempting as it sounds to have your team gargling my balls, no, I was hoping to enlist your squad's aid in the battle ahead. Simply yours and mine, so as not to over-expose our mbers." Pretty raises a hand before Carrie can speak. "Please, spare any 'expose your mber' puns, it's overly predictable. I hope we can work without getting in each other's way?"
Carrie harrumphs before poking her head out to look at the arena. "It looks empty. The banshee's in chains, what if there ain't even a fight waiting for us?"
"Then we'll be done with this quickly. Is your team prepared?"
Carrie nods, although Grenwald has a question of his own. "Remind , who's on this squad of yours? Wanna know what shit to expect. We all know about you, Catapult - if yer gonna be launching rocks at anyone, try not to pull out the ones from under our feet, yeh?"
The red-scaled kobold harrumphs yet again before gesturing towards her team. "Demson here's our healer, an Agnostic Cleric. The demon's Scarlot, she's a leer, a Blade Whirlwind. And the half-elf's an oddball on loan from the Emissary, Randall the Problematic, or whatever. He doesn't like to explain his deal."
Tiffany raises an eyebrow at the green-scaled kobold male that Carrie pointed out first. "I knew you were one of our healers, but a Supre-tier...agnostic? How do your spells work?"
Demson shrugs. "The churches don't hold much sway in the Domain, as I'm sure you know. Rather than calling upon the gods for their blessings and aid, I summon the help of the spirits of nature. Or the world in general." He pauses. "It depends on who you ask. Personally I think the power cos from a group of ultra-powerful beings treating this world as a sort of very complex ga board, but as long as it works, I don't complain. I did once have a colleague who - "
"Sorry I asked." Tiffany shakes her head before looking at the elf. "Blade rogues are obvious, but what is your deal, anyhow? You're a Rainlander, aren't you?"
Randall dips his head. "More of a free agent, really. I'll solve problems for anyone, provided they can pay my fee."
"Great. So glad to have you all watching my back." She shoots them a positive gesture before turning back to Pretty. "You know, I bet we could take it with just the three of us."
"Pleasure shared is pleasure doubled, Tiffany! And that's not just a sex demon saying, you know. Co! Grenwald, you take the lead, Tiffany, be prepared to shield us as we go in. If we're all ready?"
The two teams murmur their agreent and Grenwald charges in first, leaping across the final gap to the boss arena. Scarlot and Randall head in next, followed by the others, but none of them find any imdiate threats. Tiffany keeps a shield of distorted space around the group, but still finds the focus to ask a question. "They say normally the boss here uses shadow magic to hide their exact location. There's no shadows, but...still no one here. Carrie, you picking up anything hidden behind the walls or anything?"
The earth mage shakes her head, but Pretty narrows his eyes as the man develops a suspicion of his own. "I can sense tension...and not just our own. Soone is definitely in the arena with us, multiple soones, but I cannot pin down their location."
Randall grins at his confusion. "If a Supre like yourself is finding your senses distorted, then ntal influence must be at work. But any challenge can be overco - with the sufficient use of force!" Shouting out the last few words, the esoteric rogue flinges a trio of throwing knives across the arena. All three of them seem to deflect off of thin air, until that air distorts and reveals a number of waiting foes. Most of them seem to be mortal, but Pretty recognizes Trush and his squires from their previous encounters, and the arachnid-bodied man standing behind them is certainly no drider. It's not their appearance which seems to disturb Randall the most, however.
"Not even illusions can stand as an obstacle to...eh? None of you are hard?"
The young man in front tries his best to respond in a confident voice, although he doesn't entirely manage it. "What else do you expect, if you throw them only at our shields? Er, I an - we have you now, intruders! Miserables, attack!"
It's really for the best that Pretty hadn't brought forward the other squads, as the normally spacious arena is already filled to capacity by all of the combatants now on it. Four mortals, five rabbit-eared warriors, the monstrous spider-man...and as the battle begins, a half dozen more hound-sized spiders which crawl out from hidden spaces beneath the overhanging ledge of the arena. With the seven Domain soldiers currently present the entire space becos a confused lee within monts, and many of the magic-focused combatants find themselves having trouble keeping a safe distance from their enemy's blades.
Of course, Warp Mistress Tiffany never has much trouble maintaining her personal space, and the arcane demon laughs as a trio of spiders try to leap at her and miss. "You might have the numbers advantage, but all the spiders in the world won't stop ! In fact, let's skip these minions and squash one of the big ones, hrmm?" With that said she turns her wand on Slinz of the Miserables, briefly panicking the young drider, but the concern seems to be for naught as Tiffany's spatial distortion blast goes wide. "Eh!? How'd you deflect that spell?"
Slinz swallows before shouting back. "Maybe you just need to work on your aim! But - you ss with space, don't you? You buy yourself ti to dodge an attack? Well - try dodging a sunbeam!" The Solar Arcanist raises her own staff in response and for a brief mont the black abyss of the mountain is lit up by a tiny sun. Many of those present find themselves blinking their eyes, but Tiffany curses a little harder as a concentrated beam of heat sears her left side.
Indeed, many of those present find themselves having a rather hard ti hurting the young mortals leading the charge. Grenwald rushes to et Bank, the Vanguard Charger, with a shield rush only to trip over a pitfall. Scarlot moves to test her daggers against those of Nalaney Greengrass, the Backstabber Rogue, only to find that the young half-elf is easily able to keep up despite the twenty levels of difference in their Challenger ranks. As her brother Nalaff calls down blessings from the Goddess of Storms, Demson attempts to shield his companions from the divine wrath only to find his own spells oddly ineffective.
Keeping an eye on things, it doesn't take Pretty long to notice the pattern. "The mortals have so sort of extra protection on them! Focus on the monsters first, and thin their numbers!" He takes care of part of that himself, slicing one spider with his blade while causing another to tangle itself in its own legs, its proprioception distorted. Carrie anwhile turns her focus on the archer squires, firing off massive rocks at them which force them to dodge with all of their rabbity agility.
Aside from the minions of the wandering bosses however it takes so ti for anyone to suffer anything more than a minor wound. The Miserables are well-boosted by their twisted curse, but it barely puts them on an even footing with the much more experienced Supres. There turns out to be one more trick for the dungeon to pull though and it's Scarlot who falls for it first, cursed by her own skills of observation. As she pulls back to take a breather, the demon notices a shimr in the air as an invisibility spell fades away, revealing an elegantly crafted web.
"Eh? Is that a...weaving of a demon getting struck by lightning bolts? Made in spider webs? Weird sense of decor, but - "
The rest of her comnt is drowned out by a cry from Sevastion. "She has seen the curse which awaits her! Thunder Priest, call your goddess now!"
Nalaff does so, and the curse triggered by the sight of Sevastion's 'Tapestry of Death' takes hold. The summoned cloud hovering above the half-elf's head erupts in thunderbolts, sending three of them zipping Scarlot's way, and as fast as the woman may be it's not nearly quick enough. The first bolt strikes the Blade Whirlwind solidly in the chest, flinging her against a stone wall where she's an easy target for the next two. The smoldering rogue is still alive as her body crumples to the floor, although she may not wish to be should she manage to regain consciousness.
This ti it's Randall who spots the danger. "Those webs - they're drenched in curse magic! If they reveal any more, don't look at them!"
Pretty turns to find his arcane companion. "Tiffany! Webs are fragile - blast those walls, break any more before they appear!"
She's not the only one to hear his command, and the dungeon's hidden illusionist attempts to display all of the remaining tapestries at once before they can no longer be used. Most of the Domain adventurers avert their eyes in ti, but Demson does make the mistake of glimpsing one showing a man being consud by spiders - only to feel the sting of a spider's fangs on his ankle a mont later.
Grenwald manages to thrust his sword into the gut of a spear-wielding squire, but it doesn't improve his mood. "I ain't a fan of fair fights, and we're taking as well as we're getting in this one! What do you say, Pretty - pull back? Or call in more squads?"
Before the commander can respond, Randall narrows his eyes at the Solar Arcanist. "Hold on...there's more curses going on here than just those in the webs."
His smile turns sinister. "Let's see if we can fix that problem, shall we?"
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