It would have been extremely useful had someone drawn some lines in the sand, or at least the stony cavern floor. Or failing that, perhaps handed out some color-coded flags or armbands ahead of time. As it was, when Holes issued his command no one seemed entirely sure what exactly the sides at conflict were. The adventurers were one, of course, as was Holes, who clearly intended to claim leadership of the elemental band. The elementals in question however seemed entirely less certain about things.
With a few exceptions, of course. The moment Holes shouted out his order to attack, two fire elementals and one earth elemental immediately leapt into action. As they quickly revealed themselves through their movements, the adventurers responded first by establishing their defenses. As before, Sable pushed forwards to block the earth elemental coming their way, while Kelsey kept an eye on one of the flames and Sincere prepared his barrier spell. Beyond that, however, things soon fell to chaos.
As Cinder leaps into the frontline and fires off a burst of flame in Holes' direction, many of those around the room metaphorically hold their breaths to see what fire might actually do to harm a 'divine' elemental. What they don't expect is for the man in question to hold the lightning elemental Zappy in front of him like a shield, deflecting the attack. While the flickering woman wouldn't do much to block a more mundane attack with swords or arrows, her heavy density of magical energies manages to disperse those of Cinder, though not without cost. "Ahhhh, Cinder, stop! My core's already scratched!"
Shocked, Scorch turns to yell again at the man beside him. "You're using us as shields? You're off the team, Holes!"
The giant eye in Holes' chest turns to stare at him. "I am the team, and Zappy has proven this to be her best use. Those who wish to earn their place, follow my commands! Destroy them, and Cinder as well!"
That's when things quickly devolve into what Sincere would probably technically define as a 'clusterfuck'. Several more elementals move to attack the adventurer party, but others, disturbed by the treatment of Zappy and Cinder, soon move to intercept them. This is quite an issue for the adventurers thanks to a simple fact: in the chaos of a battle within a poorly lit cave, elementals of the same type tend to look almost exactly alike. Spotting the issue, Alizz shouts out orders to her team.
"Move back! Back into the hallway! If we charge into that we risk encountering friendly fire!"
"More like extremely unfriendly fire!" Kelsey swings his sword at the elemental trying to get around him, but the kobold has few options for effectively threatening it while also backing up. "What are we gonna do, fire elementals got a ranged advantage on most of us!"
Taly curses from within her masked hood as several of her best shots barely chip the skin of a pair of earth elementals. "There's another problem! The core's right in the middle of all that! Are we just gonna let it sit there until someone decides to take a crack at it?" As she speaks Cinder leaps into the fray, tackling one of her kin, and within moments the party loses track of which elemental is which.
Sincere nods as he turns an advancing earth elemental into a statue, temporally slowing him down until he's making almost no movement at all. "I agree! That is our primary concern right now! I recommend we have someone keep that Holes distracted while someone else snatches the core!"
"I'm good at distractions!" Sable pushes back against her opponent, although having already divinely enhanced her strength once before today, finds herself hesitant to try it a second time so soon. "Rogue, you want the snatch job? Anyone else who's got ranged, give us cover!" After a few quick nods among the group Sable pushes past her opponent to literally leap into the center of the melee, jumping over a pair of squabbling, rolling earth elementals to get there. The quarter-demon nearly gets swarmed within moments, but vines trip up one angry rock coming her way, while ritual runes burn their way onto a fire elemental's core, sealing her mana and causing the stony object to fall to the floor. As others turn to intercept, they find themselves confused by a darkness that suddenly fills most of the chamber.
Not as complete a darkness as Taly may have hoped for, unfortunately. Of course, the many fire elementals all give off their own light, magical to an extent and thus somewhat resistant to Taly's mystical skills with shadow. The main difficulty however is Holes himself. Zappy, still being held in one of his clawed hands, becomes almost impossible to see in comparison as the divine elemental's own light begins to shine like a beacon across the room. Eventually becoming aware of this himself, the elemental begins to laugh.
"Haha! You think to hide your actions, like vermin crawling out of cracks? You fools overestimate yourselves. LET THERE BE LIGHT!" Like a lantern, Holes' giant eye opens wide and blasts the room with light, burning away the shadows. For a moment, at least. Then Zappy pokes him in the eye.
"Take that, you bast - ah!" As her lightning-formed hand jabs its way into the oversized ocular organ, the divine light turns from a lantern into a strobe. In alternating cycles Holes' light and Taly's shadows battle for dominion over the chamber, and if the battle had been confusing a moment before, now it becomes nothing more than absolute chaos, an orgy of elemental violence. Even the flame blasts shot off by the fire elementals have no impact on the blurred vision of the room's occupants, and movement becomes impossible to discern. As two earth elementals grapple with each other, no one watching can tell one second to the next which one is which.
A problem for which Sable has an elegant solution. "Crack em all an' let Kahlia sort 'em out!"
"Sable! No! We - some of them may be friendly!" Lilly scolds her teammate as she does her best to restrain her opponents, hurling chilly alchemy bottles at fire elementals to douse their flames. Beside her, Alizz does her best to seal as many elementals as she can, but the drider is panting as she does so.
"I've - I've never had to cast this so many times in a row before! Mana potions aside, I'm not sure I can keep this up!"
Sely grabs hold of her shoulder, draining some of her exhaustion. "Just go for the bright bastard, yeah!? He's the one stirring all this up!"
"I can't! I've never even seen divine mana before, I don't know how to seal it!" With a groan she fires off another stream of runes from one of her wands, turning an earth elemental into a pile of inanimate stone.
"ENOUGH!" With a shout, the chamber's lighting once again returns to normal - or perhaps rather a bit dimmer than it had been before, with a number of fire elementals having been either sealed or destroyed in the melee. Holes raises a fist, now empty after Zappy managed her escape in the confusion. "Enough! If you do not understand power, then I shall claim it from this core and show it to you!" The elemental turns towards the stone pedestal standing next to him - and freezes as he realizes it's now empty. From the rear of the adventuring party, Taly shoots him a grin and raises a palm, Xenia's core sitting comfortably atop it.
"Yoink."
Holes simply stares at her, saying nothing - then raises a hand in her direction. Faster than anyone present can react, a focused beam of light blasts from his palm, and impales the Midnight Shadow through the chest. As Sely cries out, Holes' voice runs cold.
"That core is mine. Retrieve it, and kill them all."
"Bastard!" Pushing forward again, Sable begins to slice away at the elemental with her blade. "You call yourself divine? You're a monster! Why do you even exist!?"
The elemental almost seems surprised as Sable's holy blade actually appears to have some impact on him, but his voice remains calm as he begins to fight her off. "Such preconceptions in a Paladin? Divinity is not good. Divinity is not evil. Divinity is naught but will. Will and power! The will to shape the world in your image! To have the masses kneel at your feet! You wish to serve the divine? Then serve me!"
"Will!? Power? You think wanting something gives you the right to take it? You're nothing more than a thief! And I will show you will." With that statement the Paladin of Bounty drives her blade directly into the eye on Holes' chest, impaling it deep, and for a moment Holes shudders in pain. But only for a moment, before his hand grips her blade and begins to push it back.
To his shock however, before it budges an inch his arm briefly fades into nothingness before returning. "What!? What are you doing to me, organic?"
Sable grits her teeth, and the fighting around the room nearly comes to a halt as all of the elementals turn to observe their battle. "You might be born of divine energy, Holes. But it's directionless! Purposeless! Not even the basest of gods seeks power merely for power itself! Your heart is as empty as your name! But me? I've been channeling divine energy for decades." With another push her sword sinks a little deeper, and soon the sword itself is glowing as brightly as Holes. Then her arm, then the rest of her armor. At the same time, the divine elemental seems to...diminish.
"You - stealing the power from an elemental? Impossible! I am divinity, in its rawest form!"
"Exactly. Raw. Shapeless. Useless." With a shout, Sable turns her head to the sky. "Kahlia! I offer this power to you! In your name, I struggle! In your name I bleed! Shine upon us and show us the true meaning of power!"
With that declaration a skylight seems to open in the chamber ceiling, shedding white light into the room below. But only for a moment, and then that light seems to...reverse. Instead of hitting the floor, Holes' form begins to stretch and tear, pouring away and above towards the ceiling. The elemental attempts to swing at the Paladin before him, but his arm rips away before it can land. "Impossible! This is - I am divinity! I am - !"
With a final flash the light illuminating the chamber vanishes, and an elemental core marked by glowing white lines drops to the ground. Sable glares at it for a moment, before lifting her boot and slamming it back down, shattering the stone into pieces. "You are dust." Looking around, she sees the other remaining elementals staring at her. "Any of you got a problem!? Anyone else want to pick a fight!?"
Flickering forward, Zappy reappears before bowing her head. "Uh, nope! Nope, I...think you made your point pretty clear! You're in charge!"
"That's great and all but WE NEED HELP OVER HERE!" Sely's voice pulls Sable out of her moment, and the Paladin quickly turns to rush over to where the Divine Masochist is kneeling over the form of her sister. She's moving, but blood covers the hallway floor.
"Is she - can you heal her?"
Sely looks up to meet Sable's eyes. "She's got a hole in her chest, big enough to pass a quarterstaff through! I can - I can numb her pain, and keep her organs alive, but I can't patch up something that big!" She turns to look at Lilly as well. "One of you get over here and, and call a blessing already! I don't have one big enough!"
Sable's red skin goes pale. "I - I can do minor cuts, bruises and the like, maybe help her hold on a little longer, but...Lilly?"
The elf doesn't look much better. "I...I'm sorry. If Elance were here, she's far better at healing than I..."
Tears stream down Sely's face as Taly's hand weakly grasps her own. "There has to be something we can do! Anyone!?"
Sincere steps forward, and catches Sely's eye. "I can briefly put her into stasis, maintaining her more safely than continuous healing spells. And aside from that?" The demon sighs. "We can run."
"The elementals are taking my - uh." Xenia halts mid-sentence as she realizes she's no longer in the Floor Four conference area, but her core chamber, and that her core now seems to be returned to the statue where it belongs. "Oh! I'm back! Whew, good work guys!" Looking around the room, Xenia pauses as she realizes none of the Challengers are looking her way. "...And my avatar spell ran out. Great."
Lollyp rushes forward, waving her hands. "Xenia, you're back! And I can see you - and it's good to see you, too! From what I hear, well...it was a pretty rough situation down there."
"I bet. I feel like shit, too...really hope I never go through that again, ever. Just gimme a minute to recover though, and I'll whip up a party to celebrate, these guys deserve it if they got me back here." Xenia looks around again, and realizes something is a little off. " Uh. Lollyp? Why's everyone look like it's their birthday and their parents just got a divorce?"
While Lollyp attempts to puzzle that out, Guy hovers forward. "Well, ma'am...perhaps you ought to take a look at this." With that said, an intrusion report screen appears.
| ------------------------ NEW CONSTRUCT PATTERN QUALITIES ACQUIRED/UPGRADED: LIMITED ITEMS OBTAINED: KNOWLEDGE OBTAINED: |
| ------------------------ AN INTRUDER HAS PERISHED WITHIN YOUR BOUNDS WITHOUT RECEIVING A SINGLE WOUND WHILE WITHIN THE DUNGEON. YOU NOW HAVE THE ABILITY TO HEAL A TENTH OF A MORTAL'S HEALTH AND MANA UPON ENTRY TO THE DUNGEON. |
| ------------------------ YOU HAVE SURVIVED AT LEAST ONE HOUR OUTSIDE YOUR DUNGEON BOUNDS AND BEEN RESTORED. 'ACCESSIBILITY' DIFFICULTY ALLOWANCES INCREASED BY ONE LEVEL. |
Xenia reads over the report quickly, and then again, needing a moment to accept what it means. When she does, a gasp escapes from her lips. "Oh...oh, fuck."
It would have been extremely useful had someone drawn some lines in the sand, or at least the stony cavern floor. Or failing that, perhaps handed out some color-coded flags or armbands ahead of time. As it was, when Holes issued his command no one seemed entirely sure what exactly the sides at conflict were. The adventurers were one, of course, as was Holes, who clearly intended to claim leadership of the elemental band. The elementals in question however seemed entirely less certain about things.
With a few exceptions, of course. The moment Holes shouted out his order to attack, two fire elementals and one earth elemental immediately leapt into action. As they quickly revealed themselves through their movements, the adventurers responded first by establishing their defenses. As before, Sable pushed forwards to block the earth elemental coming their way, while Kelsey kept an eye on one of the flames and Sincere prepared his barrier spell. Beyond that, however, things soon fell to chaos.
As Cinder leaps into the frontline and fires off a burst of flame in Holes' direction, many of those around the room metaphorically hold their breaths to see what fire might actually do to harm a 'divine' elemental. What they don't expect is for the man in question to hold the lightning elemental Zappy in front of him like a shield, deflecting the attack. While the flickering woman wouldn't do much to block a more mundane attack with swords or arrows, her heavy density of magical energies manages to disperse those of Cinder, though not without cost. "Ahhhh, Cinder, stop! My core's already scratched!"
Shocked, Scorch turns to yell again at the man beside him. "You're using us as shields? You're off the team, Holes!"
The giant eye in Holes' chest turns to stare at him. "I am the team, and Zappy has proven this to be her best use. Those who wish to earn their place, follow my commands! Destroy them, and Cinder as well!"
That's when things quickly devolve into what Sincere would probably technically define as a 'clusterfuck'. Several more elementals move to attack the adventurer party, but others, disturbed by the treatment of Zappy and Cinder, soon move to intercept them. This is quite an issue for the adventurers thanks to a simple fact: in the chaos of a battle within a poorly lit cave, elementals of the same type tend to look almost exactly alike. Spotting the issue, Alizz shouts out orders to her team.
"Move back! Back into the hallway! If we charge into that we risk encountering friendly fire!"
"More like extremely unfriendly fire!" Kelsey swings his sword at the elemental trying to get around him, but the kobold has few options for effectively threatening it while also backing up. "What are we gonna do, fire elementals got a ranged advantage on most of us!"
Taly curses from within her masked hood as several of her best shots barely chip the skin of a pair of earth elementals. "There's another problem! The core's right in the middle of all that! Are we just gonna let it sit there until someone decides to take a crack at it?" As she speaks Cinder leaps into the fray, tackling one of her kin, and within moments the party loses track of which elemental is which.
Sincere nods as he turns an advancing earth elemental into a statue, temporally slowing him down until he's making almost no movement at all. "I agree! That is our primary concern right now! I recommend we have someone keep that Holes distracted while someone else snatches the core!"
"I'm good at distractions!" Sable pushes back against her opponent, although having already divinely enhanced her strength once before today, finds herself hesitant to try it a second time so soon. "Rogue, you want the snatch job? Anyone else who's got ranged, give us cover!" After a few quick nods among the group Sable pushes past her opponent to literally leap into the center of the melee, jumping over a pair of squabbling, rolling earth elementals to get there. The quarter-demon nearly gets swarmed within moments, but vines trip up one angry rock coming her way, while ritual runes burn their way onto a fire elemental's core, sealing her mana and causing the stony object to fall to the floor. As others turn to intercept, they find themselves confused by a darkness that suddenly fills most of the chamber.
Not as complete a darkness as Taly may have hoped for, unfortunately. Of course, the many fire elementals all give off their own light, magical to an extent and thus somewhat resistant to Taly's mystical skills with shadow. The main difficulty however is Holes himself. Zappy, still being held in one of his clawed hands, becomes almost impossible to see in comparison as the divine elemental's own light begins to shine like a beacon across the room. Eventually becoming aware of this himself, the elemental begins to laugh.
"Haha! You think to hide your actions, like vermin crawling out of cracks? You fools overestimate yourselves. LET THERE BE LIGHT!" Like a lantern, Holes' giant eye opens wide and blasts the room with light, burning away the shadows. For a moment, at least. Then Zappy pokes him in the eye.
"Take that, you bast - ah!" As her lightning-formed hand jabs its way into the oversized ocular organ, the divine light turns from a lantern into a strobe. In alternating cycles Holes' light and Taly's shadows battle for dominion over the chamber, and if the battle had been confusing a moment before, now it becomes nothing more than absolute chaos, an orgy of elemental violence. Even the flame blasts shot off by the fire elementals have no impact on the blurred vision of the room's occupants, and movement becomes impossible to discern. As two earth elementals grapple with each other, no one watching can tell one second to the next which one is which.
A problem for which Sable has an elegant solution. "Crack em all an' let Kahlia sort 'em out!"
"Sable! No! We - some of them may be friendly!" Lilly scolds her teammate as she does her best to restrain her opponents, hurling chilly alchemy bottles at fire elementals to douse their flames. Beside her, Alizz does her best to seal as many elementals as she can, but the drider is panting as she does so.
"I've - I've never had to cast this so many times in a row before! Mana potions aside, I'm not sure I can keep this up!"
Sely grabs hold of her shoulder, draining some of her exhaustion. "Just go for the bright bastard, yeah!? He's the one stirring all this up!"
"I can't! I've never even seen divine mana before, I don't know how to seal it!" With a groan she fires off another stream of runes from one of her wands, turning an earth elemental into a pile of inanimate stone.
"ENOUGH!" With a shout, the chamber's lighting once again returns to normal - or perhaps rather a bit dimmer than it had been before, with a number of fire elementals having been either sealed or destroyed in the melee. Holes raises a fist, now empty after Zappy managed her escape in the confusion. "Enough! If you do not understand power, then I shall claim it from this core and show it to you!" The elemental turns towards the stone pedestal standing next to him - and freezes as he realizes it's now empty. From the rear of the adventuring party, Taly shoots him a grin and raises a palm, Xenia's core sitting comfortably atop it.
"Yoink."
Holes simply stares at her, saying nothing - then raises a hand in her direction. Faster than anyone present can react, a focused beam of light blasts from his palm, and impales the Midnight Shadow through the chest. As Sely cries out, Holes' voice runs cold.
"That core is mine. Retrieve it, and kill them all."
"Bastard!" Pushing forward again, Sable begins to slice away at the elemental with her blade. "You call yourself divine? You're a monster! Why do you even exist!?"
The elemental almost seems surprised as Sable's holy blade actually appears to have some impact on him, but his voice remains calm as he begins to fight her off. "Such preconceptions in a Paladin? Divinity is not good. Divinity is not evil. Divinity is naught but will. Will and power! The will to shape the world in your image! To have the masses kneel at your feet! You wish to serve the divine? Then serve me!"
"Will!? Power? You think wanting something gives you the right to take it? You're nothing more than a thief! And I will show you will." With that statement the Paladin of Bounty drives her blade directly into the eye on Holes' chest, impaling it deep, and for a moment Holes shudders in pain. But only for a moment, before his hand grips her blade and begins to push it back.
To his shock however, before it budges an inch his arm briefly fades into nothingness before returning. "What!? What are you doing to me, organic?"
Sable grits her teeth, and the fighting around the room nearly comes to a halt as all of the elementals turn to observe their battle. "You might be born of divine energy, Holes. But it's directionless! Purposeless! Not even the basest of gods seeks power merely for power itself! Your heart is as empty as your name! But me? I've been channeling divine energy for decades." With another push her sword sinks a little deeper, and soon the sword itself is glowing as brightly as Holes. Then her arm, then the rest of her armor. At the same time, the divine elemental seems to...diminish.
"You - stealing the power from an elemental? Impossible! I am divinity, in its rawest form!"
"Exactly. Raw. Shapeless. Useless." With a shout, Sable turns her head to the sky. "Kahlia! I offer this power to you! In your name, I struggle! In your name I bleed! Shine upon us and show us the true meaning of power!"
With that declaration a skylight seems to open in the chamber ceiling, shedding white light into the room below. But only for a moment, and then that light seems to...reverse. Instead of hitting the floor, Holes' form begins to stretch and tear, pouring away and above towards the ceiling. The elemental attempts to swing at the Paladin before him, but his arm rips away before it can land. "Impossible! This is - I am divinity! I am - !"
With a final flash the light illuminating the chamber vanishes, and an elemental core marked by glowing white lines drops to the ground. Sable glares at it for a moment, before lifting her boot and slamming it back down, shattering the stone into pieces. "You are dust." Looking around, she sees the other remaining elementals staring at her. "Any of you got a problem!? Anyone else want to pick a fight!?"
Flickering forward, Zappy reappears before bowing her head. "Uh, nope! Nope, I...think you made your point pretty clear! You're in charge!"
"That's great and all but WE NEED HELP OVER HERE!" Sely's voice pulls Sable out of her moment, and the Paladin quickly turns to rush over to where the Divine Masochist is kneeling over the form of her sister. She's moving, but blood covers the hallway floor.
"Is she - can you heal her?"
Sely looks up to meet Sable's eyes. "She's got a hole in her chest, big enough to pass a quarterstaff through! I can - I can numb her pain, and keep her organs alive, but I can't patch up something that big!" She turns to look at Lilly as well. "One of you get over here and, and call a blessing already! I don't have one big enough!"
Sable's red skin goes pale. "I - I can do minor cuts, bruises and the like, maybe help her hold on a little longer, but...Lilly?"
The elf doesn't look much better. "I...I'm sorry. If Elance were here, she's far better at healing than I..."
Tears stream down Sely's face as Taly's hand weakly grasps her own. "There has to be something we can do! Anyone!?"
Sincere steps forward, and catches Sely's eye. "I can briefly put her into stasis, maintaining her more safely than continuous healing spells. And aside from that?" The demon sighs. "We can run."
"The elementals are taking my - uh." Xenia halts mid-sentence as she realizes she's no longer in the Floor Four conference area, but her core chamber, and that her core now seems to be returned to the statue where it belongs. "Oh! I'm back! Whew, good work guys!" Looking around the room, Xenia pauses as she realizes none of the Challengers are looking her way. "...And my avatar spell ran out. Great."
Lollyp rushes forward, waving her hands. "Xenia, you're back! And I can see you - and it's good to see you, too! From what I hear, well...it was a pretty rough situation down there."
"I bet. I feel like shit, too...really hope I never go through that again, ever. Just gimme a minute to recover though, and I'll whip up a party to celebrate, these guys deserve it if they got me back here." Xenia looks around again, and realizes something is a little off. " Uh. Lollyp? Why's everyone look like it's their birthday and their parents just got a divorce?"
While Lollyp attempts to puzzle that out, Guy hovers forward. "Well, ma'am...perhaps you ought to take a look at this." With that said, an intrusion report screen appears.
| ------------------------ NEW CONSTRUCT PATTERN QUALITIES ACQUIRED/UPGRADED: LIMITED ITEMS OBTAINED: KNOWLEDGE OBTAINED: |
| ------------------------ AN INTRUDER HAS PERISHED WITHIN YOUR BOUNDS WITHOUT RECEIVING A SINGLE WOUND WHILE WITHIN THE DUNGEON. YOU NOW HAVE THE ABILITY TO HEAL A TENTH OF A MORTAL'S HEALTH AND MANA UPON ENTRY TO THE DUNGEON. |
| ------------------------ YOU HAVE SURVIVED AT LEAST ONE HOUR OUTSIDE YOUR DUNGEON BOUNDS AND BEEN RESTORED. 'ACCESSIBILITY' DIFFICULTY ALLOWANCES INCREASED BY ONE LEVEL. |
Xenia reads over the report quickly, and then again, needing a moment to accept what it means. When she does, a gasp escapes from her lips. "Oh...oh, fuck."
