WORTHY DUNGEON, 8:30 AM
"Ugh, I hate these kinds of teams." Sable grumbles as she watches the door open to the first chamber of the dungeon, allowing the all-elf team of the Briar Thorns to make their way inside. As she stares through a viewing slit placed up near the ceiling, none of the team members notice their audience, and a barrier spell helps to muffle the sound of her voice. Watching beside her, Lilly gives the Paladin an odd look.
"Elves? Sable, I never took you for a prejudiced woman! Don't you have a number of half-elf cousins in your family, even? You seemed...fine with my presence, at least..."
Sable looks back at her, missing the sight of the first barkbirds beginning to fall. "What? No! I don't mean elves, I mean - theme groups! It's not that they're elves, it's that they're...so elves!"
"I'm not sure you're making a better case for yourself, here."
The Paladin shakes her head and points at the group, or as best as she can through the tiny slit, at least. "Look, you see that? The Mage has a wooden staff, sure, that's normal. Same for the Cleric. The Rogue is firing wooden arrows...except they're all wood. Head, shaft, even the fletching is carved from wood. And the leader! Wooden swords! Wooden. Swords."
The elvish Priestess examines the party. "Yes, that's enchanted heartwood. Magically strengthened, even able to hold an edge. An elvish specialty, surely you've heard of it?"
Sable rolls her eyes with a sigh of frustration. "Yeah, yeah, it's great and all. In the right situations. But this party's put all their wooden eggs into the same wooden basket, cause they feel like they gotta go all 'ooooh, we're the Thorns, we're elves and we like trees.' And then what happens when you run into a boss Fire Sprite? Or a Putrid Undead? Not only would those barely cut into the fat of one of those things, but it'd rot those blades if they tried!"
Lilly seems unconvinced of the issue. "But...Worthy Dungeon doesn't have either of those things."
"But it could. I asked, they've got access to sprites and just don't use them. Yet. And the only reason Xenia doesn't use fleshy undead is because she thinks they're gross, which, yeah, they are. Plus, not all monsters live in dungeons, you know. There's still a bit of wilds between the dungeon and the Association trail, a monster attack could still hit a party in transit at any time."
"Is it really so bad to use weapons of the same material? When a Fighter and a Rogue both use steel weapons, that doesn't seem like an issue?"
The Paladin shrugs, but doesn't answer right away. The Briar Thorns had finished clearing the first room and moved on, and Sable hops through the shortcut portal leading to the 'backstage' area of BB's arena before continuing the conversation. "At their level, sure, it's whatever. But this is the stage when you start building your adventuring habits, and that's a bad habit to get into. The higher up you get, the more diverse your toolset needs to be, and these jokers are probably gonna end up selling off a lot of decent loot equipment just because it doesn't fit their 'wood' theme."
Lilly sniffs a little, smelling hypocrisy. "Didn't you discard a quite decent shadow-blade the other week or so back, when it didn't suit your theme?"
"Sure, my theme! But if all five of us had been dealing out holy magic, you bet your butt I woulda sucked it up and kept the thing. At least as a secondary arm." Lilly considers that in silence as the two continue to watch, eventually getting to see the party take on BB in a fight. Their equipment is quite good for a lower-level team, and they eventually take down the monster rabbit with only minor injuries, but to Sable's disappointment the party takes their winnings and leaves rather than continue.
"Wait...you've gotta be kidding me. Those have to be Advanced class at least, to have gear like that! They're leaving after just one floor!?"
Lilly gives a nod as she explains. "It's the slime - Lollyp. I spent some time talking to some of the newer teams before we left, and, ah...I think many of them are scared of her."
Sable gives a look of surprise. "What? Lollyp? But she's so sweet!"
"Sable...she has the single biggest body count in this dungeon. Including an Expert-class soldier! Low-level teams don't travel from dungeon to dungeon, clearing ten or fifteen floors in a go and then moving on. They raid a dungeon day after day, until they earn enough Association credit to advance their training. Even if they beat her once, how many times do you think they could repeat the trick before Lollyp got one in return? Especially considering she learns as well as any Challenger does."
Sable swallows, looking a little glum. "Guess that's true. I'm impressed, though - you're learning dungeon info pretty quickly already!"
Lilly shakes her head, looking even glummer. "I told you - I may not have delved dungeons myself, but I did work to heal teams that came out of them. You always worked with well-equipped and trained Church parties, did you not? I've...seen the results of Initiates and Advanced with patchwork equipment too many times to count. I won't gainsay the risks you've taken in your career, but the average beginner Challenger has a very real chance of not returning from each and every intrusion."
The other watcher nods along, not being able to disagree. "Well, that does take some of the fun out of it. I've actually never lost someone to a dungeon, you know? A few middling injuries, lost fingers or ears or the like, but no fatalities. Paladin-training programs don't fuck around." She stretches, then heads for the next portal out. "Still, hope we see a few bolder Challengers while we're here. I have to admit, it's a treat getting to see how other folks do their work..."
WORTHY DUNGEON, 1:00 PM
"Sable, calm yourself! ...You're spilling the snacks from the bowl."
"Sorry, sorry, I just wanna see how this bunch handles things. Finally, someone taking on Lollyp in her arena!" This time the pair watch from a hidden position within the walls of Floor Two, the viewing slits again kept near the ceiling to keep them away from eye-level. A party of five steps into the chamber below them, a group made up of two gnolls, two dwarves, and a male drider. Although Sable doesn't recognize the party she can quickly tell they're more diversely outfitted than the Thorns, with the dwarves both being different kinds of frontliner-heavies, the gnolls performing backline support, and the drider being some sort of healer-mage combination class.
Once they make their way to about a quarter of the distance inside, Lollyp's taunting voice begins to echo around the cavern. It's muffled for Sable and Lilly, the barrier effect working both ways, but they can still make out her words. "Nice axe, dwarf, maybe I'll add it to my collection! And watch out, gnoll - you might want to hold that bow a little steadier if you expect to hit anything!"
The dwarf with the two-handed axe shouts out a response, but only gets halfway through - exactly the sort of distraction Lollyp was attempting to provoke. While the party leader is shouting at the walls in front of him, Lollyp is already making her way out of the ceiling and down onto a crossbow-wielding gnoll. She zaps the man with a bolt of electricity just before landing on him, and while it doesn't kill him, it does leave him completely stunned. Hidden away, Sable applauds.
"Not even two seconds in and one's already down! He might recover, but odds are the fight's going to be over before he does!"
Lilly attempts to shush her excited companion. "Quiet, they could still hear us!"
They don't, of course, given that the entire party is a little distracted by Lollyp's antics. She freezes a dwarf woman in heavy armor in place before bolting away, eventually diving into an acid pool to avoid arrows and magical bolts flying her way. The drider moves closer, attempting to determine her exact location, and finds out a moment too late why that was a bad idea. When the slime leaps back out it's with a broadsword in hand, and the acid-coated edge sweeps its way through three of the man's front legs, severing them immediately. Sable's soft cheering comes to a slow halt as she notices the injury.
"Oh, fuck. They...those could get re-attached, but it's not a for sure thing, especially with the camp so far away. That, uh...that could be a career-ender right there."
"That's what I was telling you! Lollyp doesn't play around! I've talked to Challengers down in town bearing her marks, she - oh, Palain!"
As Lilly exclaims, Lollyp continues swinging her blade in the direction of the standing gnoll, this one a woman carrying a more traditional shortbow. Lollyp picked her first target for a reason, though - the crossbow user had come equipped with a number of specialty bolts, while the archer's main expertise appeared to be trap-detection - her arrows were entirely mundane. Which is to say, almost useless against a slime of Lollyp's strength. As the audience watches, Lollyp continues swinging - and the gnoll's head goes flying through the air.
"What - oh fuck! She killed that Rogue in one hit! You - you really weren't kidding..." Sable watches on, wide-eyed, although the battle doesn't go on much longer. Although the Challengers may not know it, Lollyp's quota had been reached, and the slime slows down just enough to take a retaliatory hit from the axe-wielding dwarf. She still puts up a decent fight of it, of course, but after a few more blows from both of the dwarves and the recovering Ranger, Lollyp eventually goes down.
As the party collects what they can from their fallen companion, as well as the drider's severed limbs and the room's loot, Sable takes a moment to adjust to what she'd just seen. "Fuck...I've heard tales of gladiator fights, you know? Especially from the Age of Warlocks, a lot of demons died in those. I always wondered what it must have been like, to watch people get killed in fights like that...I think I'm having an even harder time now understanding why folks enjoyed that." She shakes her head, trying to clear her thoughts. "Somehow, thought maybe they'd go a little easier on things while we were here watching."
Lilly pats Sable on the shoulder. "If anything, I wouldn't be surprised if they were going in the other direction. They want to discourage people from this life, or that's the impression I gathered. Someone who lives here, as a boss...they may have to kill Challengers like that gnoll Rogue every single day. Maybe multiple times a day." She sighs as she considers the thought for a moment herself. "It's going to be...difficult finding someone who can live like that, without being a crazed murderer at the same time."
"Yeah..." Sable sighs as well, before stretching out. "Think I'm gonna take a break for a bit...but you gonna join in this afternoon? I heard Taly's actually got something fun lined up."
Lilly eyes her suspiciously. "Fun, or your brand of fun?"
Sable smirks back, but if she has a flirty comeback, it seems to die away as she notices again the bloodstain on the rocky floor in the next room.
WORTHY DUNGEON, 4:00 PM
"Pull!"
Sable turns towards Taly, a confused look on her face. "Pull? Pull what? The trigger is a push-plate!" As she stands next to a slime cannon placement on Floor Six, a dragonet flies by through the open abyss.
"I don't know! That's something Xenia kept saying when we were setting this up! I think it means...target incoming? Ugh, whatever. Just fire the next time it comes around. If the things fly too far out they disintegrate, so it won't take long to turn around." Taly peers into the darkness, but Sable and Lilly have less luck as they try to follow her example.
"You realize, Taly, that you have both Midnight Shadow darkvision and the eyes of an undead, now? I can barely see the things until they're practically in front of us." Lilly sighs as the dragonet once again flies by, unslimed.
"Yeah, that's fair, the wall-mounted torches don't really do a whole lot." She pauses, her head turned to the side, before continuing. "Hey, Xenia's here and she says she has an idea. Wait one minute."
As the trio watch, a number of oddly-shaped boxes suddenly appear around them, formed out of polished metal and with one side open, facing the abyss. As Sable stares into one a bright torch suddenly lights it up from within, and the Paladin finds herself blinking. "Gah! How's that help?"
"She calls them 'spotlights'...oh, hey, she's moving them for you, check it out!" Sure enough, the four odd boxes start rotating to face towards the flying dragonet, illuminating it even within the darkness.
"Huh...helps that she already knows where it is, that is a neat trick, though. Alright, let's see how this goes. Um...pull!" Sable tilts the slime cannon towards the flying monster, and as it passes her by, she slams her foot down on the pressure plate placed next to it. With the sound of compressed gas escaping a net of acidic slime flies though the air...and flies off into the darkness, missing the dragonet by a good ten feet. "...Right, I forgot how fast they move."
"Heheh. I got one on the first try, but then, I am an Expert markswoman. Lilly, you're next!"
"Ah! Okay, one moment, one moment..." Aiming her own cannon, the elf waits for the monster to loop back around before firing off a shot. To her own surprise, it hits, causing the creature to fall with a squawk. The noise doesn't last for long, as the monster disappears long before it hits the distant bottom of the cavern. "Yay! Uh, and, pull!"
"Well, you got the spirit! Nice shot!" Taly takes a moment to applaud the Priestess before looking down to consider the tiny cannons. "We're still trying to figure out how exactly to use these, to be honest. Static traps in an enclosed environment are easy, but hitting fliers in an open space means aiming. Maybe we'll get self-aiming traps one day, but for now that means they need to be aimed manually. And we've tried skeletons, shades, rabbit monsters...they're all way too slow, hells, you can hardly get the rabbit beasts to understand how to fire the thing."
Sable shrugs, not seeing the issue. "Well, 'Expert markswoman', this is your floor, right? Why don't you just aim the things and then take a shortcut portal back to the arena when they get close to the end?"
Taly smirks. "We considered that, of course, but then the question is...why bother with the slime cannon at all? I'm way deadlier with my bow. But if I get that involved, then we're basically starting the boss fight right at the start of the floor, and that just feels...wrong, somehow."
Lilly furrows her brow. "Is that a dungeon rule? Bosses must wait at the end of the floor?"
"No, it just feels like bad design, you know? Guess we're all traditionalists around here...well, maybe. Maybe we will start off a floor with a boss fight one day just to fuck with people's heads." The woman chuckles at the thought. "But for me, I want to have a proper arena fight."
Sable watches her cannon as it magically reloads. "So what's the option, then? Just set up twenty of the things and fill the air with slime?"
"For the moment, we're actually putting Sincere in charge. Not like he has much else to do, and he'd have plenty of time to skip back to the core chamber before someone beats me. Challengers can't see who's up here either, so they'd never suspect the Core Guardian was firing off traps manually."
"Suppose that works well enough. Any bets on how long til someone actually tries this floor?" Sable fires off her next shot, grimacing as it misses the second dragonet to appear. "Ugh, just need to get the timing right..."
"Not tomorrow, I'm sure. But maybe this month? Now that Floor Four's been cleared and there's even more loot to collect, I think Experts are likely to start showing up in more numbers relatively soon." Taly smiles as another dragonet goes hurling into the abyss, wrapped in slime. "Another nice shot! Maybe we'll just make Lilly our designated cannoneer."
Lilly chuckles, a little uneasily. "Well...let's just hope our week is up before you have need of me for that particular task..."
WORTHY DUNGEON, 8:00 PM
As Lilly and Sable are relaxing in their suite, taking advantage of the dungeon's library of reading material, they're a bit surprised to hear knocking at their door. After Sable calls for their guest to enter, the door opens to reveal Taly stopping by once again. "Evening, you two! Getting cozy?"
Sable grins. "I'm not a big reader, but you've definitely got a few interesting choices here."
"Indeed - this book based on Lollyp's knowledge of the Domain is quite intriguing! What was it you were reading again, Sable?"
Sable looks at the cover. "Yeah, this one's based on her knowledge of the Domain too, I think. 'A Hundred and One Nights: A Tale of the Thirty-Succubi-Orgy'."
"Sable! You've been reading - reading explicit smut right in front of me?"
The Paladin grins again. "Sure - but I could do other things right in front of you, if you'd rather..."
"Wow, that's an incredibly appropriate segue." As Sable gives Taly a somewhat disbelieving look, the banshee explains. "Xenia and I have been working on the 'Floor Six'-themed section of Floor Five, and...we were wondering if one or both of you would be interested in testing it out." Before Sable can respond, she tacks on one more bit of information. "Also...Xenia's avatar spell has recharged, and she's looking forward to, ah...participating."
"Sign me up! How about it, Priestess? You know this is the chance you've been waiting for."
Lilly narrows her eyes at the part-demon. "I've been waiting for it, have I?" She then pauses in thought, and bites her lip. "...Have I...?"
DaScoot
It's been a long dry spell, but smut returns again next time!
Enjoy!
WORTHY DUNGEON, 8:30 AM
"Ugh, I hate these kinds of teams." Sable grumbles as she watches the door open to the first chamber of the dungeon, allowing the all-elf team of the Briar Thorns to make their way inside. As she stares through a viewing slit placed up near the ceiling, none of the team members notice their audience, and a barrier spell helps to muffle the sound of her voice. Watching beside her, Lilly gives the Paladin an odd look.
"Elves? Sable, I never took you for a prejudiced woman! Don't you have a number of half-elf cousins in your family, even? You seemed...fine with my presence, at least..."
Sable looks back at her, missing the sight of the first barkbirds beginning to fall. "What? No! I don't mean elves, I mean - theme groups! It's not that they're elves, it's that they're...so elves!"
"I'm not sure you're making a better case for yourself, here."
The Paladin shakes her head and points at the group, or as best as she can through the tiny slit, at least. "Look, you see that? The Mage has a wooden staff, sure, that's normal. Same for the Cleric. The Rogue is firing wooden arrows...except they're all wood. Head, shaft, even the fletching is carved from wood. And the leader! Wooden swords! Wooden. Swords."
The elvish Priestess examines the party. "Yes, that's enchanted heartwood. Magically strengthened, even able to hold an edge. An elvish specialty, surely you've heard of it?"
Sable rolls her eyes with a sigh of frustration. "Yeah, yeah, it's great and all. In the right situations. But this party's put all their wooden eggs into the same wooden basket, cause they feel like they gotta go all 'ooooh, we're the Thorns, we're elves and we like trees.' And then what happens when you run into a boss Fire Sprite? Or a Putrid Undead? Not only would those barely cut into the fat of one of those things, but it'd rot those blades if they tried!"
Lilly seems unconvinced of the issue. "But...Worthy Dungeon doesn't have either of those things."
"But it could. I asked, they've got access to sprites and just don't use them. Yet. And the only reason Xenia doesn't use fleshy undead is because she thinks they're gross, which, yeah, they are. Plus, not all monsters live in dungeons, you know. There's still a bit of wilds between the dungeon and the Association trail, a monster attack could still hit a party in transit at any time."
"Is it really so bad to use weapons of the same material? When a Fighter and a Rogue both use steel weapons, that doesn't seem like an issue?"
The Paladin shrugs, but doesn't answer right away. The Briar Thorns had finished clearing the first room and moved on, and Sable hops through the shortcut portal leading to the 'backstage' area of BB's arena before continuing the conversation. "At their level, sure, it's whatever. But this is the stage when you start building your adventuring habits, and that's a bad habit to get into. The higher up you get, the more diverse your toolset needs to be, and these jokers are probably gonna end up selling off a lot of decent loot equipment just because it doesn't fit their 'wood' theme."
Lilly sniffs a little, smelling hypocrisy. "Didn't you discard a quite decent shadow-blade the other week or so back, when it didn't suit your theme?"
"Sure, my theme! But if all five of us had been dealing out holy magic, you bet your butt I woulda sucked it up and kept the thing. At least as a secondary arm." Lilly considers that in silence as the two continue to watch, eventually getting to see the party take on BB in a fight. Their equipment is quite good for a lower-level team, and they eventually take down the monster rabbit with only minor injuries, but to Sable's disappointment the party takes their winnings and leaves rather than continue.
"Wait...you've gotta be kidding me. Those have to be Advanced class at least, to have gear like that! They're leaving after just one floor!?"
Lilly gives a nod as she explains. "It's the slime - Lollyp. I spent some time talking to some of the newer teams before we left, and, ah...I think many of them are scared of her."
Sable gives a look of surprise. "What? Lollyp? But she's so sweet!"
"Sable...she has the single biggest body count in this dungeon. Including an Expert-class soldier! Low-level teams don't travel from dungeon to dungeon, clearing ten or fifteen floors in a go and then moving on. They raid a dungeon day after day, until they earn enough Association credit to advance their training. Even if they beat her once, how many times do you think they could repeat the trick before Lollyp got one in return? Especially considering she learns as well as any Challenger does."
Sable swallows, looking a little glum. "Guess that's true. I'm impressed, though - you're learning dungeon info pretty quickly already!"
Lilly shakes her head, looking even glummer. "I told you - I may not have delved dungeons myself, but I did work to heal teams that came out of them. You always worked with well-equipped and trained Church parties, did you not? I've...seen the results of Initiates and Advanced with patchwork equipment too many times to count. I won't gainsay the risks you've taken in your career, but the average beginner Challenger has a very real chance of not returning from each and every intrusion."
The other watcher nods along, not being able to disagree. "Well, that does take some of the fun out of it. I've actually never lost someone to a dungeon, you know? A few middling injuries, lost fingers or ears or the like, but no fatalities. Paladin-training programs don't fuck around." She stretches, then heads for the next portal out. "Still, hope we see a few bolder Challengers while we're here. I have to admit, it's a treat getting to see how other folks do their work..."
WORTHY DUNGEON, 1:00 PM
"Sable, calm yourself! ...You're spilling the snacks from the bowl."
"Sorry, sorry, I just wanna see how this bunch handles things. Finally, someone taking on Lollyp in her arena!" This time the pair watch from a hidden position within the walls of Floor Two, the viewing slits again kept near the ceiling to keep them away from eye-level. A party of five steps into the chamber below them, a group made up of two gnolls, two dwarves, and a male drider. Although Sable doesn't recognize the party she can quickly tell they're more diversely outfitted than the Thorns, with the dwarves both being different kinds of frontliner-heavies, the gnolls performing backline support, and the drider being some sort of healer-mage combination class.
Once they make their way to about a quarter of the distance inside, Lollyp's taunting voice begins to echo around the cavern. It's muffled for Sable and Lilly, the barrier effect working both ways, but they can still make out her words. "Nice axe, dwarf, maybe I'll add it to my collection! And watch out, gnoll - you might want to hold that bow a little steadier if you expect to hit anything!"
The dwarf with the two-handed axe shouts out a response, but only gets halfway through - exactly the sort of distraction Lollyp was attempting to provoke. While the party leader is shouting at the walls in front of him, Lollyp is already making her way out of the ceiling and down onto a crossbow-wielding gnoll. She zaps the man with a bolt of electricity just before landing on him, and while it doesn't kill him, it does leave him completely stunned. Hidden away, Sable applauds.
"Not even two seconds in and one's already down! He might recover, but odds are the fight's going to be over before he does!"
Lilly attempts to shush her excited companion. "Quiet, they could still hear us!"
They don't, of course, given that the entire party is a little distracted by Lollyp's antics. She freezes a dwarf woman in heavy armor in place before bolting away, eventually diving into an acid pool to avoid arrows and magical bolts flying her way. The drider moves closer, attempting to determine her exact location, and finds out a moment too late why that was a bad idea. When the slime leaps back out it's with a broadsword in hand, and the acid-coated edge sweeps its way through three of the man's front legs, severing them immediately. Sable's soft cheering comes to a slow halt as she notices the injury.
"Oh, fuck. They...those could get re-attached, but it's not a for sure thing, especially with the camp so far away. That, uh...that could be a career-ender right there."
"That's what I was telling you! Lollyp doesn't play around! I've talked to Challengers down in town bearing her marks, she - oh, Palain!"
As Lilly exclaims, Lollyp continues swinging her blade in the direction of the standing gnoll, this one a woman carrying a more traditional shortbow. Lollyp picked her first target for a reason, though - the crossbow user had come equipped with a number of specialty bolts, while the archer's main expertise appeared to be trap-detection - her arrows were entirely mundane. Which is to say, almost useless against a slime of Lollyp's strength. As the audience watches, Lollyp continues swinging - and the gnoll's head goes flying through the air.
"What - oh fuck! She killed that Rogue in one hit! You - you really weren't kidding..." Sable watches on, wide-eyed, although the battle doesn't go on much longer. Although the Challengers may not know it, Lollyp's quota had been reached, and the slime slows down just enough to take a retaliatory hit from the axe-wielding dwarf. She still puts up a decent fight of it, of course, but after a few more blows from both of the dwarves and the recovering Ranger, Lollyp eventually goes down.
As the party collects what they can from their fallen companion, as well as the drider's severed limbs and the room's loot, Sable takes a moment to adjust to what she'd just seen. "Fuck...I've heard tales of gladiator fights, you know? Especially from the Age of Warlocks, a lot of demons died in those. I always wondered what it must have been like, to watch people get killed in fights like that...I think I'm having an even harder time now understanding why folks enjoyed that." She shakes her head, trying to clear her thoughts. "Somehow, thought maybe they'd go a little easier on things while we were here watching."
Lilly pats Sable on the shoulder. "If anything, I wouldn't be surprised if they were going in the other direction. They want to discourage people from this life, or that's the impression I gathered. Someone who lives here, as a boss...they may have to kill Challengers like that gnoll Rogue every single day. Maybe multiple times a day." She sighs as she considers the thought for a moment herself. "It's going to be...difficult finding someone who can live like that, without being a crazed murderer at the same time."
"Yeah..." Sable sighs as well, before stretching out. "Think I'm gonna take a break for a bit...but you gonna join in this afternoon? I heard Taly's actually got something fun lined up."
Lilly eyes her suspiciously. "Fun, or your brand of fun?"
Sable smirks back, but if she has a flirty comeback, it seems to die away as she notices again the bloodstain on the rocky floor in the next room.
WORTHY DUNGEON, 4:00 PM
"Pull!"
Sable turns towards Taly, a confused look on her face. "Pull? Pull what? The trigger is a push-plate!" As she stands next to a slime cannon placement on Floor Six, a dragonet flies by through the open abyss.
"I don't know! That's something Xenia kept saying when we were setting this up! I think it means...target incoming? Ugh, whatever. Just fire the next time it comes around. If the things fly too far out they disintegrate, so it won't take long to turn around." Taly peers into the darkness, but Sable and Lilly have less luck as they try to follow her example.
"You realize, Taly, that you have both Midnight Shadow darkvision and the eyes of an undead, now? I can barely see the things until they're practically in front of us." Lilly sighs as the dragonet once again flies by, unslimed.
"Yeah, that's fair, the wall-mounted torches don't really do a whole lot." She pauses, her head turned to the side, before continuing. "Hey, Xenia's here and she says she has an idea. Wait one minute."
As the trio watch, a number of oddly-shaped boxes suddenly appear around them, formed out of polished metal and with one side open, facing the abyss. As Sable stares into one a bright torch suddenly lights it up from within, and the Paladin finds herself blinking. "Gah! How's that help?"
"She calls them 'spotlights'...oh, hey, she's moving them for you, check it out!" Sure enough, the four odd boxes start rotating to face towards the flying dragonet, illuminating it even within the darkness.
"Huh...helps that she already knows where it is, that is a neat trick, though. Alright, let's see how this goes. Um...pull!" Sable tilts the slime cannon towards the flying monster, and as it passes her by, she slams her foot down on the pressure plate placed next to it. With the sound of compressed gas escaping a net of acidic slime flies though the air...and flies off into the darkness, missing the dragonet by a good ten feet. "...Right, I forgot how fast they move."
"Heheh. I got one on the first try, but then, I am an Expert markswoman. Lilly, you're next!"
"Ah! Okay, one moment, one moment..." Aiming her own cannon, the elf waits for the monster to loop back around before firing off a shot. To her own surprise, it hits, causing the creature to fall with a squawk. The noise doesn't last for long, as the monster disappears long before it hits the distant bottom of the cavern. "Yay! Uh, and, pull!"
"Well, you got the spirit! Nice shot!" Taly takes a moment to applaud the Priestess before looking down to consider the tiny cannons. "We're still trying to figure out how exactly to use these, to be honest. Static traps in an enclosed environment are easy, but hitting fliers in an open space means aiming. Maybe we'll get self-aiming traps one day, but for now that means they need to be aimed manually. And we've tried skeletons, shades, rabbit monsters...they're all way too slow, hells, you can hardly get the rabbit beasts to understand how to fire the thing."
Sable shrugs, not seeing the issue. "Well, 'Expert markswoman', this is your floor, right? Why don't you just aim the things and then take a shortcut portal back to the arena when they get close to the end?"
Taly smirks. "We considered that, of course, but then the question is...why bother with the slime cannon at all? I'm way deadlier with my bow. But if I get that involved, then we're basically starting the boss fight right at the start of the floor, and that just feels...wrong, somehow."
Lilly furrows her brow. "Is that a dungeon rule? Bosses must wait at the end of the floor?"
"No, it just feels like bad design, you know? Guess we're all traditionalists around here...well, maybe. Maybe we will start off a floor with a boss fight one day just to fuck with people's heads." The woman chuckles at the thought. "But for me, I want to have a proper arena fight."
Sable watches her cannon as it magically reloads. "So what's the option, then? Just set up twenty of the things and fill the air with slime?"
"For the moment, we're actually putting Sincere in charge. Not like he has much else to do, and he'd have plenty of time to skip back to the core chamber before someone beats me. Challengers can't see who's up here either, so they'd never suspect the Core Guardian was firing off traps manually."
"Suppose that works well enough. Any bets on how long til someone actually tries this floor?" Sable fires off her next shot, grimacing as it misses the second dragonet to appear. "Ugh, just need to get the timing right..."
"Not tomorrow, I'm sure. But maybe this month? Now that Floor Four's been cleared and there's even more loot to collect, I think Experts are likely to start showing up in more numbers relatively soon." Taly smiles as another dragonet goes hurling into the abyss, wrapped in slime. "Another nice shot! Maybe we'll just make Lilly our designated cannoneer."
Lilly chuckles, a little uneasily. "Well...let's just hope our week is up before you have need of me for that particular task..."
WORTHY DUNGEON, 8:00 PM
As Lilly and Sable are relaxing in their suite, taking advantage of the dungeon's library of reading material, they're a bit surprised to hear knocking at their door. After Sable calls for their guest to enter, the door opens to reveal Taly stopping by once again. "Evening, you two! Getting cozy?"
Sable grins. "I'm not a big reader, but you've definitely got a few interesting choices here."
"Indeed - this book based on Lollyp's knowledge of the Domain is quite intriguing! What was it you were reading again, Sable?"
Sable looks at the cover. "Yeah, this one's based on her knowledge of the Domain too, I think. 'A Hundred and One Nights: A Tale of the Thirty-Succubi-Orgy'."
"Sable! You've been reading - reading explicit smut right in front of me?"
The Paladin grins again. "Sure - but I could do other things right in front of you, if you'd rather..."
"Wow, that's an incredibly appropriate segue." As Sable gives Taly a somewhat disbelieving look, the banshee explains. "Xenia and I have been working on the 'Floor Six'-themed section of Floor Five, and...we were wondering if one or both of you would be interested in testing it out." Before Sable can respond, she tacks on one more bit of information. "Also...Xenia's avatar spell has recharged, and she's looking forward to, ah...participating."
"Sign me up! How about it, Priestess? You know this is the chance you've been waiting for."
Lilly narrows her eyes at the part-demon. "I've been waiting for it, have I?" She then pauses in thought, and bites her lip. "...Have I...?"
DaScoot
It's been a long dry spell, but smut returns again next time!
Enjoy!
