The Domain party had thought that they had seen impressive floor entrances when they'd first made their way into Floor Four, but somehow the nothingness that greeted them as they exited into Floor Six stunned them even further. Always the first to try and add color to a moment, Lionel spoke for the group.
"Astounding. Stories have been told around the Lucky Bastard of the void within the mountain, and of the Valleylanders who were lost here. We did also see glimpses of it, through those windows placed along the second floor's shaft. But actually standing out here with nothing but chilled, stale air around us...I don't know whether to call it beautiful, or horrifying." The incubus takes a few steps forward, although his movement is limited - the entry platform only extends about ten feet out from the tunnel exit, and there's not a single guardrail to be seen protecting him from the blackness beyond.
As Passy looks around, she has a rather different concern. "Um, I...I don't get it. Where's the actual floor? A dungeon can't require that its Challengers can fly, right? I haven't heard of even ancient ones doing something like that!"
Wetears rolls his eyes, and lightly bonks the green-scaled kobold on the head before pointing to their right. "Turn your head, Mage. The path's that way, along the wall." When the group looks over they can see what he means, although calling it a 'path' is perhaps overstating matters a little. There's a gap between the entry platform and the next outcrop of stone, after which there's a twenty-foot tall rock face with a crude ladder carved into it to climb. That section blocks their view of the rest of the floor, but as they peer around they can spot hints of further platforms along the way. As he looks down over that edge of their current position, Barny breathes a sigh of relief.
"Ah, thank the gods - there's a safety net down there, if we miss the jump." To that, Wetears rolls his eyes a second time.
"Are you crazy, kobold? You trust that's not a trap? Jump on down there and see if the thing actually catches you. Hells, the place might even have illusions for that sort of thing."
Lyota steps forward, taking charge of the situation. "Whether it's genuine or not, ideally we should not put the matter to the test in the first place. However, we have one advantage - me. I can fly, and while attempting to ferry the team might be a bit much, I can at least scout out the path we're meant to take. Hold your position - Passy, can you generate some more light? This should only take a moment."
The kobold does so, generating a pair of miniature suns within the void, one perhaps twenty feet away and another at her maximum range of over a hundred feet. While they still fail to light up the whole of the cavern, it does supplement the occasional dungeon torch fairly well, and Lyota feels confident as she takes into the air. She soars upward, getting a good glimpse of the next few sections, but within moments she catches the sudden whiff of a familiar scent, although she can't quite place it. That brief second of warning however is enough to put her into alert as the first slime net flies her way, and the fury demon is lucky - only one of her wings gets caught.
Unfortunately, like most flying creatures, fury demons require two to stay in the air. With a sudden yelp the demoness plunges down, only to be caught by the safety nets she'd been warning her team about half a minute earlier.
Sable can barely keep her lips sealed as the giggles try to escape her mouth, even despite the panicking elf hissing into her ear. "Sable! We're here to observe! You can't - you could have killed that woman! What's gotten into you!?"
"Oh, chill, Lilly! She's fine, besides, 'sliming a fury demon' is the kind of accomplishment I wouldn't mind putting on my tombstone, haha!"
"And you're going to have one of those sooner than you're expecting if Elance finds out you were attacking Challengers! Besides, what if they decide to climb up here and stab you for it?"
Sable considers whether or not a fury demon might be the type to hold a grudge enough that they would climb their way up a sheer cliff wall to stab someone, and slowly nods. "...Might have a point on that, yeah. Alright, let's portal out of here. Sincere, you can manage the slime cannons."
The Core Guardian finds himself unable to keep the smirk off his own face as he nods. "Of course, Paladin. I shall do my utmost to perform as effectively as you've demonstrated yourself."
Below, the extremely irritated fury demon finds herself barely mollified to find that convenient handholds were carved into the wall, allowing her to climb her way back up to the rest of her party. It still takes her several minutes more to clean the slime off of her wing, and her party members are shocked to find the marks the gooey net leaves on her skin - despite the acid burning away at her, Lyota barely let out more than a growl as she climbed her way back. Again, Barny takes charge of healing her wounds.
"Gods above, Silverstar, that looks nasty! And what a trap! I mean...what was even the trigger for it? A magical field? Usually a dungeon of this age should be limited to physical, mechanical triggers, don't you think?"
Lyota continues her growling as she responds. "I have my doubts that it was a traditional trap. I sensed an intention behind it...I get the feeling that it was one I've felt before, but the overwhelming stench of the dungeon core is muddling my senses. I'm uncertain who it could have been."
The goblin heavy rubs his chin. "Might've been the floor boss herself. You ever met her before she, you know, got this gig?"
The party captain shakes her head. "That occurred shortly before I arrived. Perhaps we met somewhere else in passing, but if so I do not recall it." She pauses, flexing her wing to check Barny's healing work, then turns back towards the path ahead. "Well, it matters not. The important thing seems to be that we must challenge the floor as designed. I will lead, let me know if anyone has issue with the leaps or climbs, perhaps I can still manage a short flight if needed. But do not fall - that net's supports creaked horribly as I climbed out of it, and I still do not trust the thing."
The group felt a little more confident after the next twenty minutes, as no surprise traps like the slime nets made their appearance. The first few jumps and climbs were a bit of an exercise, but nothing too difficult even for the kobold mages among the group. On the second climbing section a wave of dragonets attempted to assault the party, but to little effect - a flare spell from Passy blinded and disoriented the monsters, used to living in the dark, and that bought Lionel enough time to play a simple lullaby which lulled the creatures to sleep. Which in this case, caused the fliers to fall right out of the air and into the gaping void below.
As they reach the next section however the floor takes a turn - literally. Rather than more climbs or leaps along the cavern wall a tunnel digs into the mountain instead, leading to a room further in. Before anyone can take a step inside, Wetears lifts his shield. "Alright, hold now. My goblin senses are telling me there's a fight ahead, you lot stay behind me, yeah?"
Barny gives him a disbelieving look. "Your...goblin senses. You mean your eponymous ears, perhaps?"
The man shakes his head. "Got the name for another reason, maybe I'll tell the story later. But nah. Goblins got a sense for death, y'see. Natural selection - goblins used to have real short lives back in the day." He shoots the Healer a grin before making his way down the tunnel, shield held to block off most of the space despite his smaller stature. Once they enter the room ahead Lyota quickly moves to cover their flank, but the team barely has time to take any sort of formation before the monster within is revealed. Or rather, monsters plural, as four different creatures of bone begin to stir. They move on four legs, tails whipping behind them, but odd spikes seem to jut from their front limbs.
Quickly summoning his mystical support, Wetears shouts out an identification. "Bone Wyverns! Small ones, but they still got a bite on them! I'll cover, you blast!" The enclosed nature of the tunnel makes for a perfect choke point, and with his ghostly goblins at his side Wetears is easily able to block three of the monsters as they rush forward, jaws and claws scratching at his shields. Mystical blasts of light and flame begin shooting over his shoulders within seconds, but Lyota takes a different tack.
Unable to properly use a whip with so many others around her, the fury demon rushes to the left side of the room, drawing a single undead wyvern along with her. There's still not much room to move, and the chamber's single flickering torch barely illuminates the space, but the experienced warrior makes it work for her. Rather than turn around and lash the monster with her whip, Lyota manipulates the magical weapon into leaving a lasso's loop lying on the ground behind her as she runs. Within moments the wyvern's stepped within it as it chases her, and it's only then that the demon spins around. With a swiftness no physical lash could match, the whip ties itself around the undead's ankle, and as the woman turns her momentum is carried through the apparently flimsy ribbon of light. The force is enough to send the creature slamming into a nearby wall, and before it can right itself Lyota turns the other way, flinging it into the crowd of its compatriots.
The skeletons were only being lightly damaged by the party's quickly-summoned magics, with Wetears' axe doing little more than keeping the monsters focused on him, but it was still the Challenger's fight to lose. The wyverns seem too weak to actually break the goblin's shield wall, and when Lyota's attack turns the mass into a jumbled heap the encounter is practically already over. It's a matter of moments for the group to score killshots on the stumbling monsters, blasting their skulls into fragments, and as the last one falls Passy actually seems rather disappointed.
"That was it? That was an undead dragon-type monster! With wings! And breath attacks, if light ones! How'd we take down four of them so quickly?"
The goblin chuckles as his summons once again fade away. "Don't get fooled by appearances, now! Yeah, they were Bone Wyverns, but there's grades, y'know. Dragons need magic to fly to start with, but if all you got for wings is bone then you're entirely reliant on magic to get off the ground. Same for breath attacks. Give the dungeon another three or five years and that might be something to worry about, for now they just look scarier than they actually are."
Lyota nods in agreement. "Indeed. They were quite small for their kind, as well - even as nothing but bones, it should have been far more difficult for me to toss one around. It looks as if everyone is well - shall we proceed?" As the party nods, Lyota leads them onward, taking a second tunnel that leads back out towards the cliff wall. There more leaps and climbs awaiting, along with a second swarm of dragonet attacks, and eventually another chamber containing a swarm of hovering fire and earth sprites. The latter fight actually proves the most damaging to the team, as despite the sprites' relatively lower power, Wetears finds himself having trouble blocking ranged attacks from creatures that hover at a height taller than he is. The few bruises and burn wounds caused by flung rocks and blasts of flame prove well within Barny's ability to heal however, and the slowest part of the floor is simply the caution of moving between challenges one at a time, keeping a strong watch out for ambushes.
Eventually the party reaches a part of the floor unlike any other. It's halfway extended out into the void, half dug into the stone, a semicircular platform jutting out on one side while a large dome's worth of space has been carved out on the other. It's clearly more treacherous than the other platforms they've faced, as obvious trap door arrangements are placed across the floor - with these leading to no safety net below that they can see. Beyond that, there's an oppressiveness to the darkness in the area, with the torches lighting up the space seeming far dimmer than they ought to given their size. Although the meaning of it is clear to all, Lyota takes on the burden of speaking the obvious.
"The floor's boss arena awaits us ahead. Again, prepare your magic and your shields, all - I suspect that the one that awaits us now is the most dangerous foe we've faced yet."
DaScoot
Lyota has special Domain leadership training on making Dramatic Statements.
Enjoy!
The Domain party had thought that they had seen impressive floor entrances when they'd first made their way into Floor Four, but somehow the nothingness that greeted them as they exited into Floor Six stunned them even further. Always the first to try and add color to a moment, Lionel spoke for the group.
"Astounding. Stories have been told around the Lucky Bastard of the void within the mountain, and of the Valleylanders who were lost here. We did also see glimpses of it, through those windows placed along the second floor's shaft. But actually standing out here with nothing but chilled, stale air around us...I don't know whether to call it beautiful, or horrifying." The incubus takes a few steps forward, although his movement is limited - the entry platform only extends about ten feet out from the tunnel exit, and there's not a single guardrail to be seen protecting him from the blackness beyond.
As Passy looks around, she has a rather different concern. "Um, I...I don't get it. Where's the actual floor? A dungeon can't require that its Challengers can fly, right? I haven't heard of even ancient ones doing something like that!"
Wetears rolls his eyes, and lightly bonks the green-scaled kobold on the head before pointing to their right. "Turn your head, Mage. The path's that way, along the wall." When the group looks over they can see what he means, although calling it a 'path' is perhaps overstating matters a little. There's a gap between the entry platform and the next outcrop of stone, after which there's a twenty-foot tall rock face with a crude ladder carved into it to climb. That section blocks their view of the rest of the floor, but as they peer around they can spot hints of further platforms along the way. As he looks down over that edge of their current position, Barny breathes a sigh of relief.
"Ah, thank the gods - there's a safety net down there, if we miss the jump." To that, Wetears rolls his eyes a second time.
"Are you crazy, kobold? You trust that's not a trap? Jump on down there and see if the thing actually catches you. Hells, the place might even have illusions for that sort of thing."
Lyota steps forward, taking charge of the situation. "Whether it's genuine or not, ideally we should not put the matter to the test in the first place. However, we have one advantage - me. I can fly, and while attempting to ferry the team might be a bit much, I can at least scout out the path we're meant to take. Hold your position - Passy, can you generate some more light? This should only take a moment."
The kobold does so, generating a pair of miniature suns within the void, one perhaps twenty feet away and another at her maximum range of over a hundred feet. While they still fail to light up the whole of the cavern, it does supplement the occasional dungeon torch fairly well, and Lyota feels confident as she takes into the air. She soars upward, getting a good glimpse of the next few sections, but within moments she catches the sudden whiff of a familiar scent, although she can't quite place it. That brief second of warning however is enough to put her into alert as the first slime net flies her way, and the fury demon is lucky - only one of her wings gets caught.
Unfortunately, like most flying creatures, fury demons require two to stay in the air. With a sudden yelp the demoness plunges down, only to be caught by the safety nets she'd been warning her team about half a minute earlier.
Sable can barely keep her lips sealed as the giggles try to escape her mouth, even despite the panicking elf hissing into her ear. "Sable! We're here to observe! You can't - you could have killed that woman! What's gotten into you!?"
"Oh, chill, Lilly! She's fine, besides, 'sliming a fury demon' is the kind of accomplishment I wouldn't mind putting on my tombstone, haha!"
"And you're going to have one of those sooner than you're expecting if Elance finds out you were attacking Challengers! Besides, what if they decide to climb up here and stab you for it?"
Sable considers whether or not a fury demon might be the type to hold a grudge enough that they would climb their way up a sheer cliff wall to stab someone, and slowly nods. "...Might have a point on that, yeah. Alright, let's portal out of here. Sincere, you can manage the slime cannons."
The Core Guardian finds himself unable to keep the smirk off his own face as he nods. "Of course, Paladin. I shall do my utmost to perform as effectively as you've demonstrated yourself."
Below, the extremely irritated fury demon finds herself barely mollified to find that convenient handholds were carved into the wall, allowing her to climb her way back up to the rest of her party. It still takes her several minutes more to clean the slime off of her wing, and her party members are shocked to find the marks the gooey net leaves on her skin - despite the acid burning away at her, Lyota barely let out more than a growl as she climbed her way back. Again, Barny takes charge of healing her wounds.
"Gods above, Silverstar, that looks nasty! And what a trap! I mean...what was even the trigger for it? A magical field? Usually a dungeon of this age should be limited to physical, mechanical triggers, don't you think?"
Lyota continues her growling as she responds. "I have my doubts that it was a traditional trap. I sensed an intention behind it...I get the feeling that it was one I've felt before, but the overwhelming stench of the dungeon core is muddling my senses. I'm uncertain who it could have been."
The goblin heavy rubs his chin. "Might've been the floor boss herself. You ever met her before she, you know, got this gig?"
The party captain shakes her head. "That occurred shortly before I arrived. Perhaps we met somewhere else in passing, but if so I do not recall it." She pauses, flexing her wing to check Barny's healing work, then turns back towards the path ahead. "Well, it matters not. The important thing seems to be that we must challenge the floor as designed. I will lead, let me know if anyone has issue with the leaps or climbs, perhaps I can still manage a short flight if needed. But do not fall - that net's supports creaked horribly as I climbed out of it, and I still do not trust the thing."
The group felt a little more confident after the next twenty minutes, as no surprise traps like the slime nets made their appearance. The first few jumps and climbs were a bit of an exercise, but nothing too difficult even for the kobold mages among the group. On the second climbing section a wave of dragonets attempted to assault the party, but to little effect - a flare spell from Passy blinded and disoriented the monsters, used to living in the dark, and that bought Lionel enough time to play a simple lullaby which lulled the creatures to sleep. Which in this case, caused the fliers to fall right out of the air and into the gaping void below.
As they reach the next section however the floor takes a turn - literally. Rather than more climbs or leaps along the cavern wall a tunnel digs into the mountain instead, leading to a room further in. Before anyone can take a step inside, Wetears lifts his shield. "Alright, hold now. My goblin senses are telling me there's a fight ahead, you lot stay behind me, yeah?"
Barny gives him a disbelieving look. "Your...goblin senses. You mean your eponymous ears, perhaps?"
The man shakes his head. "Got the name for another reason, maybe I'll tell the story later. But nah. Goblins got a sense for death, y'see. Natural selection - goblins used to have real short lives back in the day." He shoots the Healer a grin before making his way down the tunnel, shield held to block off most of the space despite his smaller stature. Once they enter the room ahead Lyota quickly moves to cover their flank, but the team barely has time to take any sort of formation before the monster within is revealed. Or rather, monsters plural, as four different creatures of bone begin to stir. They move on four legs, tails whipping behind them, but odd spikes seem to jut from their front limbs.
Quickly summoning his mystical support, Wetears shouts out an identification. "Bone Wyverns! Small ones, but they still got a bite on them! I'll cover, you blast!" The enclosed nature of the tunnel makes for a perfect choke point, and with his ghostly goblins at his side Wetears is easily able to block three of the monsters as they rush forward, jaws and claws scratching at his shields. Mystical blasts of light and flame begin shooting over his shoulders within seconds, but Lyota takes a different tack.
Unable to properly use a whip with so many others around her, the fury demon rushes to the left side of the room, drawing a single undead wyvern along with her. There's still not much room to move, and the chamber's single flickering torch barely illuminates the space, but the experienced warrior makes it work for her. Rather than turn around and lash the monster with her whip, Lyota manipulates the magical weapon into leaving a lasso's loop lying on the ground behind her as she runs. Within moments the wyvern's stepped within it as it chases her, and it's only then that the demon spins around. With a swiftness no physical lash could match, the whip ties itself around the undead's ankle, and as the woman turns her momentum is carried through the apparently flimsy ribbon of light. The force is enough to send the creature slamming into a nearby wall, and before it can right itself Lyota turns the other way, flinging it into the crowd of its compatriots.
The skeletons were only being lightly damaged by the party's quickly-summoned magics, with Wetears' axe doing little more than keeping the monsters focused on him, but it was still the Challenger's fight to lose. The wyverns seem too weak to actually break the goblin's shield wall, and when Lyota's attack turns the mass into a jumbled heap the encounter is practically already over. It's a matter of moments for the group to score killshots on the stumbling monsters, blasting their skulls into fragments, and as the last one falls Passy actually seems rather disappointed.
"That was it? That was an undead dragon-type monster! With wings! And breath attacks, if light ones! How'd we take down four of them so quickly?"
The goblin chuckles as his summons once again fade away. "Don't get fooled by appearances, now! Yeah, they were Bone Wyverns, but there's grades, y'know. Dragons need magic to fly to start with, but if all you got for wings is bone then you're entirely reliant on magic to get off the ground. Same for breath attacks. Give the dungeon another three or five years and that might be something to worry about, for now they just look scarier than they actually are."
Lyota nods in agreement. "Indeed. They were quite small for their kind, as well - even as nothing but bones, it should have been far more difficult for me to toss one around. It looks as if everyone is well - shall we proceed?" As the party nods, Lyota leads them onward, taking a second tunnel that leads back out towards the cliff wall. There more leaps and climbs awaiting, along with a second swarm of dragonet attacks, and eventually another chamber containing a swarm of hovering fire and earth sprites. The latter fight actually proves the most damaging to the team, as despite the sprites' relatively lower power, Wetears finds himself having trouble blocking ranged attacks from creatures that hover at a height taller than he is. The few bruises and burn wounds caused by flung rocks and blasts of flame prove well within Barny's ability to heal however, and the slowest part of the floor is simply the caution of moving between challenges one at a time, keeping a strong watch out for ambushes.
Eventually the party reaches a part of the floor unlike any other. It's halfway extended out into the void, half dug into the stone, a semicircular platform jutting out on one side while a large dome's worth of space has been carved out on the other. It's clearly more treacherous than the other platforms they've faced, as obvious trap door arrangements are placed across the floor - with these leading to no safety net below that they can see. Beyond that, there's an oppressiveness to the darkness in the area, with the torches lighting up the space seeming far dimmer than they ought to given their size. Although the meaning of it is clear to all, Lyota takes on the burden of speaking the obvious.
"The floor's boss arena awaits us ahead. Again, prepare your magic and your shields, all - I suspect that the one that awaits us now is the most dangerous foe we've faced yet."
DaScoot
Lyota has special Domain leadership training on making Dramatic Statements.
Enjoy!
