Worthy Core Chapter 428: Going a Round Underground

DAY 831

"Where's Sevastion!?"

As Yulia dashes past Pizola, the succubus-shaped woman gasps out a response. "Torn apart by that spatial mage. I believe two of the slower prisoners whom he was defending have been recaptured."

The eight-limbed woman curses. "Damn - we still need to collapse these tunnels, we'll just have to pray that it doesn't crush anyone we like." She makes her way back down the escape route alongside the Floor Nine guardian, and gestures to a nearby earth elental to begin closing the path behind them. "Too bad you're not in your Arachne Queen body, I bet you'd give them a much better fight."

Yulia scoffs. "All we'd have to do is spend an extra six months digging tunnels large enough for my form to fit through, yes?" She examines her red-skinned hand and her nails painted black. "But I shall admit, I should have perhaps practiced combat more in this form. The spells grandmother gave , I know, and this body I wear fits as if I'd worn it all my life...but put all together and put into a fight?" She sneers at herself. "I am no match for that demon who harries us."

"Yeah, how the hells is she following us this far? This is the third tunnel we've collapsed already!"

"I believe she found an earth mage or two among the garrison. An elentalist, at the least. Combined with her own twisted magics, it seems to be enough to tunnel through loose stone fairly easily. I suspect solid rock would prove much more difficult, though..."

As the pair catch up to the main body of escapees, Pizola eyes the other elentals escorting the group. "I think our rocky friends can seal stone up over ti...but it does take them longer. I'm not the expert on elentals, though." Finding the drider she's looking for, the woman gives a shout. "Hey, kid!"

Grizza's face turns back, soon showing a hint of embarrassnt that he answered to such a title. "Ah - Mada Pizola, yes? How might I help?"

The Floor Ten guardian gestures at the elental mbers of his team, studded with magical gems. "Your boys and girls are all enhanced up from all of those trinkets, hrmm? Do you think you could seal up the next break point nice and tight? That arcane lady doesn't seem inclined to be discouraged from her hunt."

Grizza nods, but they're both surprised as a silver-haired half-elf steps up to join them. "I could assist with a few runes, if you require. A sealing rune would help strengthen the barrier, and if we have ti I could plant a few traps to provide a little more...'discouragent'."

Pizola smiles at the offer, but Yulia steps in with a shake of her head. "No! You are important, grandmother has said this! We are not to put you at risk! The drider child will be sufficient."

Cursing his youthful looks, Grizza speaks up in his own defense. "I'm twenty-one, and I've been leading a Challenger party for quite so ti now, thank you very much. That said, we do have quite a bit of power here and there weren't that many pursuers. Perhaps a full-fledged ambush would settle this more permanently."

This ti it's Pizola's turn to frown. "We're damn lucky we got out of the Fort before that entire raid party of Supres showed up. Every five minutes that passes is a chance that the rest of them might join in and catch up, and if they do that then not only do you all get to go back to that prison of theirs, but we risk them getting a back door into the dungeon! It's more important that we lose this pursuit than that we make them into corpses, kid."

Grizza's response is forestalled by Tassa as she places a hand on his shoulder. "Let's not underestimate Supres, either. I think you and I know how well we'd do against one of those, don't we?"

Thinking back to the display of swordswomanship the dungeon spirit had given them quite so ti ago, Gizza has to give in. "Alright, alright - we don't have the ti to debate this now, anyhow. I would certainly appreciate Lady Highbranch's assistance, though. You have my word we'll help see to her safety."

"Fine." Pizola points ahead with one of her longer, back-mounted legs. "The next collapse point is about a hundred ters ahead, there'll be so rested Challengers waiting there to help bring it down. Looks like just about everyone's already through, so - "

Her comnt is interrupted by the sound of vibrating stone coming from behind them, boulders and pebbles grinding together in an unnatural way, and the monstrous champion groans. "Already? Shit. ...Yulia?"

The False Mortal succubus turns to her, already knowing what she's going to ask. "We are expendable, yes?"

"More than the rest of these sorry bastards, at least. Taly's already gone through with her prize?"

Gilda nods affirmatively. "Her...very noisy and wriggling sack, yes. Are there any other dungeon guardians with you?"

Pizola shakes her head, even as she gets to casting magical webs across the hastily carved-out chamber. "A couple of the others are posted at fallback points, we didn't want to risk everyone getting caught up in an accidental collapse. This wasn't exactly all dug by professional dwarvish engineers, you know." She chuckles before waving the noblewoman onward. "The two of us should be able to buy you the ti to seal things up nice and good, though. No worries about us - we'll probably make it back before you do, aha."

"I'll see you at the Fiver's Lounge, then." With that said the Rough Gems and the last few forr prisoners make their way down the next set of tunnels, and the floor guardians turn towards the one they'd left behind them.

The two won share a look, although neither voice their concerns. Away from their ho floors in the dungeon their powers are much reduced, and Yulia's best abilities had usually been tied to her prepared arena. Holding back a Supre or two for even ten minutes would be quite a feat...but leaving a mark on their pursuers would at least be a nice consolation prize as well.

It does take another minute for the collapsed tunnel to open up, with so of the fallen stones pushing their way forward like a rather chunky river, while others seem to compress or even flatten against the walls. The guardians don't have much ti to admire the unusual sight though, as a kobold wielding a shield quickly pushes his way forward with half a dozen Domain soldiers following behind him.

"Aha, hey, we caught up to a couple more of em! Hey there ladies, don't suppose you've seen a bunch of strays pass this way, eh?"

Although the cavern is dim, illuminated only by a few torches and magical crystals that had been left behind, the frown on Yulia's face is plain to see. "Pah! You hunt what does not belong to you, little lizard man! Turn back, or be turned!"

"Mrmmm...nah, I think I'll take my chances. You lot take the spider-woman, I'll handle the demon!" With his orders given, Grenwald charges towards Yulia with a warhamr raised high. Her window of opportunity to strike the man is rather slim - Xenia granted her the basic set of elental spells along with a few others, most of which work best at range, and while her current form possesses wings there's virtually no room here to leap let alone fly. She does blast the man with a bolt of lightning from her right hand though as her left pulls together a shield made of stone.

Unfortunately, the man's enchanted shield seems to shrug off the blast as if it hadn't even happened. On the other hand, with his shield raised high, Grenwald never notices it as he steps into one of Pizola's magical webs. Faceplanting in a rather inelegant manner, the kobold's tone indicates that his pride's been wounded worse than his body. "Gah! The hells did I step in!?"

"Your doom, little lizard!" Yulia pumls him with spell after spell, rotating through her options to find one that may work better than the others. Fla, ice darts, stone shrapnel, a beam of white light, even a spray of acid. Even pinned down by one foot, the Supre-tier warrior proves his skill by weaving and rolling out of the way of the worst of her attacks, deflecting the others with his armor. The acid spray does leave a bit of a sizzle as it lands on his armor, but Yulia's conjured alchemicals are weak and dissolve into nothingness in less than a minute.

By ti that happens, Grenwald finds a new way of freeing his trapped foot - manipulating the stone so that the sticky potion of it turns into a new boot wrapped around his limb. It's still a bit unbalancing but he does at least regain his mobility, and once again Yulia finds herself playing for distance.

Pizola anwhile is having a bit more luck, as the opponents she's facing are much lower-tier even if there are half a dozen of them. Her arcane webs trapped two of the soldiers almost imdiately, and a flare spell blinded another quickly. The latter attacker didn't have long to lant their condition as Pizola took quick advantage of the mont to slit his throat with one of her chitinous limbs, although she looks less than pleased about her victory. "Ugh, hand-to-hand fighting. Or hand-to-leg, as you might call it. I signed up for epic performance pieces, you know! Illusions to dazzle, acrobatic feats to amaze! Yet here I am getting - ugh - covered with blood."

Indeed, despite her complaints the guardian seems to be quite adept with lee fighting. The four sharp-edged limbs attached to her back allow her to fend off all of her remaining attackers at once, even as her primary hands remain free for spell-casting. Given that the woman had never gotten much opportunity to actually fight in a to-the-death scenario up to this point, she finds herself actually taken by surprise with how good she is at it. The natural instincts granted to her by her new form easily keep the low-tier soldiers at bay, and as she catches more of them in webbing that their swords cannot cut they beco all the more vulnerable to her natural armants.

Just as the last of her enemies falls, dead or disabled, a new opponent steps through. The arcane demon causing them all of this trouble growls at what she sees, the ire of a woman woken in the middle of the night and not happy about it. "Bah, a delaying action? Our elentalists are running low on mana, Grenwald, we can't let them keep closing tunnels on us!"

Pizola laughs at the Warp Mistress while preparing her next batch of spells. "Ahh, does the baby need her napti, hrmm? Haha! Seems soone's cranky! Don't worry, Mistress Pizola will tuck you in nice and tight. Isn't that right, Yulia? ...Ah."

Her bravado fades sowhat as she looks over to see the kobold advancing in her direction, the smashed corpse of Yulia already fading away behind him. At least it's a rather awkward advance - aside from the stone boot sealing his right foot, his left has been encased in ice and it appears that at so point Yulia splattered the man's helt with mud, nearly blinding him. Still, Pizola does not much care for the odds of facing two Supres at once. "Hrmm, seems like you could use a rest as well."

Grenwald scoffs. "How about I send you back to your dungeon so that you can tell your friend I'm not a damn lizard! Co and get - oh, co on!" The man's charge is again interrupted by a magical snare, although he does at least succeed in distracting the Arachnos Champion for a mont. By ti Pizola turns back to face Tiffany the hovering woman is already flinging spatial scythes at her, and it's only with all of her eight-limbed agility that she's able to dodge them.

At least, until she suddenly runs out of room to dodge to. The chamber was never very large to begin with, but Pizola would have sworn that she had at least another ten feet behind her to work with. Instead she suddenly slams into a stone wall, injuring two of her legs in the process, and completely throwing off the aim of her next spell. "Ah! Oh my, it's almost as if I've grown a bit tipsy..."

The two Supres smirk at the comnt, and Pizola realizes that the pair have combined their magics. Ripples of stone emanate from Grenwald's feet while waves of spatial distortion shoot forward from Tiffany's outstretched hand. Combined, Pizola finds herself unable to find her feet, her sense of balance, or even exactly what direction she ought to be facing in. The guardian swings wildly, firing spells when she can, but none of it spares her from the short sword suddenly planted in her chest. A mont ago the blonde arcane demon was twenty feet away, but within a blink she's standing right in front of the champion, smiling as the life fades from the monster...although she she quickly finishes Pizola off with a point-blank blast of warped space, not wanting to give the arachnid woman ti to pull off any last tricks.

With a sigh, Tiffany turns back to Grenwald and inspects the state of his armor. "Going to be a pain getting all of that off you, but if you stay still I can manage the worst of it."

The kobold shakes his head. "That's great - but even after that's done, where do we even go next?"

Looking around, the demon quickly realizes the issue. As far as she can tell every wall of the chamber is natural stone, and even her ability to sense empty space fails to penetrate deeply enough to find any hidden exits. Even as more reinforcents rush in behind them, the hunt is already over.

"Damnation. I just hope we didn't lose anyone too important to the war effort..."