With the satisfying sound of metal parting flesh, Smolder spun away, blood running in an arc in the air from the razor sharpened blade that had replaced her spade. "It's like I'm holding three knives." Not that she slowed, cutting, piercing, and cooking her way through the enemies.

"Funny thing." Garble smashed a larger enemy aside into range of Smolder's cooking fury. "These aren't the same guys we smashed last time we went up from fifty. What's up?

"Different party." With a stoutly held shield, Tabitha blocked a blow that had been coming for Garble's exposed head. "You added me, so things shuffle. Lose someone, it shuffles too. Works out fine, a little less chance to get bored, hmm?"

Spike's staff glowed bright green as he soothed the scrapes and bruises of his teammates. "Wow, this is… really a lot easier with five people."

"Don't get lazy." Tabitha shoved the set of armor trying to get past her, forcing it back. "Once we're back on sixty, it will get very real."

Twilight landed beside Tabitha, her glowing horn causing the suit of animated armor to explode into various smoking pieces. "She's looking at me oddly again." Of course, only Sandra heard her mental whisper, only her soft whicker heard otherwise. "What did you tell her about me?"

“Nothing,” Sandra reflected, making sure to project mentally. “I haven’t said anything to Tabitha about other worlds or you being from them.” She pointed outward, and Twilight sent another blast forward to the next armor in the distance. “She still believes Spike and the others are like normal summons. You too, I guess, although Garble has groused about ponies already.”

“Then why did--”

“How did that particular summon’s form get chosen?” Tabitha said, interrupting the conversation she couldn’t hear. “You haven’t really explained a lot about the new class you have…”

“Oh, uh…” They were mid-fight, but as Garble sliced across another armor, things weren’t… really very hard at all. “I find monsters… well, certain monsters. I’m pretty sure I can’t use any of them. Anyway I ask them to come along and bind them to the class.”

“And where did you find this one… Twilight was what you called it?” Tabitha smacked an armor with her shield. “I don’t know about any like… star unicorns or whatever. Certainly not so small.”

“Her name, yes,” she corrected Tabitha, before pausing a moment. “Here in the tower, actually.”

“Oh.” Tabitha said, moving onward.

Spike hurried to keep up. "They're not always monsters. I mean, the first one she got was basically the spirit of a big forest fire! And he became a firebird, which is kinda neat. Reminds me of a firebird I used to know." He let out a wistful sigh of long ago even as he bashed an ogre aside, staff connecting with the monster's cheek. "I wonder how he's doing."

Garble snorted with the finesse only a dragon could have. "She's not a monster, that would be like saying she was big and tough, which she aint."

Smolder hiked a brow at that. "Twilight's punched more demigods than you even know about and she's still around."

Tabitha's mental train was gently derailed. "I'm sorry. You… two know that one?" She waggled a finger from the sibling dragons towards Twilight. "How does that even work?"

“Because, we’re all from the same place?” Smolder said. “She ran the school I went to… Spike was her assistant… Garble hated Spike over some thing during the dragon migration… Garble’s my brother… we all knew each other.” She shrugged. “It’s just a thing.”

Tabitha went from confused to pursing her lips. “Oh. It’s that thing.”

Smolder turned back from the fight. “What thing?”

“Ah…” Tabitha stopped a little, her mouth open. “Aaa thing that Sandra had said. About you two being siblings! That thing.”

“See,” Sandra’s mental voice projected. “I don’t think she believes it.”

Twilight visibly frowned, but her voice was still only in Sandra’s head. “That’s not any good.”

Smolder didn't hear that mental whispering. "Well, yeah, we're sibs." She shrugged. "Two dragons, two eggs, same mom. Kinda how that works. Spike isn't related." She shot Spike a smile. "Even if he's a bro."

Spike chuckled nervously as he hopped up onto, then down off the body of a defeated enemy. "Aw, thanks. You, uh… It's hard to put into words, but you're like a big sis sometimes. I mean, not the same way as Twilight. It's, uh, different, but… appreciated."

"Come here you!" Smolder grabbed Spike, hugging him with laughter as her tail swayed dangerously, nicking a monster that was trying to take advantage of the tender moment.

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Garble rolled his eyes at the exchange, taking out his annoyance in a terrific swing that cut a monster clean in half, the two parts flying off to strike two other monsters that had wandered too close. "This floor is for babies, no wonder Spike loves it so much." With a smile, self-satisfied with his barb, he moved forward all the faster. "Let's get on to the next one."

“No,” Tabitha interjected firmly. “We have to make sure we find all the treasure chests and kill all the monsters on this floor. We don’t know what the most valuable stuff is on these floors so we have to scour the whole place before moving on. We can take shortcuts next time.”

Garble groaned. “I’m sure it’ll be nothing.”

“But we don’t know until we check,” Sandra said, and pointed in another direction. “We haven’t been down this hallway yet, so let’s go.”

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Garble plodded to the next floor. “That was so boring. Please let this next floor at least have a good fight. Maybe a small floor, too?”

The floor opened up to a divided hallway, darkness beyond.

It was not a small floor.

----------------------------------------

Garble and the party plodded up to the next floor.

Smolder smirked and prodded Garble with her elbow. “You gonna hope this floor is small too?”

“Hmph,” Garble shook his head. “I ain’t gonna say it. Bad luck.”

They opened the door to the next floor to one large large room, with dilapidated columns. A huge biped stood in it, four muscular arms, with four fists with bony spikes sticking out of them.

Garble stared up at the huge monster-man, and he started chuckling. The chuckling broke into laughter, increasing in manicness, and he wrenched his sword from his scabbard. “Yes yes yesss.” He broke into a sprint directly at the monster.

“No don’--” Tabitha reached for her own weapons, but not before Garble was batted away by a giant spiked fist, landing on his back. Tabitha darted up, her shield glowing with protective energies as she intercepted the followup attack. “Is this guy always such an idiot?” she groused.

Three slashes appeared on the monster’s fist as Smolder flipped in, getting the strikes where she could. “Yeah, he kinda is.”

“I have to get close so I can cut him!” Garble said, standing himself up as Spike patched his wounds. “I can’t cut him unless I get up close!”

Tabitha made a tch noise, but started chuckling as she repelled the next blow by blasting the giant fist back with her shield. “That stuff isn’t gonna fly past sixty, you know?”

"We're on your side," assured Spike. "Let us set it up so you can knock it down. We're working with you, Garble."

Garble stroked his chin a moment. Phrased that way, it made so much more sense. "Huh…"

"We all have to be looking--" Tabby paused, battered back several inches as the great monster smashed into her shield. "--for ways to maximize each other. We're a team. When one of us shines, we all do."

"Twilight." Sandra gestured forward strongly. "Time for a dazzler. Garble, your chance is coming up, be ready to do your best, I mean worst. Mess it up!"

"Now you are talking my language… The best or the worst, the tide will be reversed. Gonna pound your face, gone without a trace." He stepped in a wide circle, not coming closer, more setting himself up for the perfect spot, droning on as he waited. "Gonna smash hard, gonna move fast--"

The monster’s fist came straight down on Tabitha, who batted it aside instead of absorbing the hit, the monster stumbling down, stopping it’s fall with one of it’s other arms, with its face directly down where Garble was standing.

“--Cause my blade is what you’ll feel last!” Garble cried and he brought his sword up from the ground, a flaming swell blasting upward through its face, knocking the monster up with a cry of its own.

The battle was far from won, but a powerful blow was hit, and the monster roared, putting up its dukes again. Despite it only being one good blow, the tide had changed. The team starting to look for ways to help each other to act at just the right time. "Here!" Smolder tossed a wrapped snack at Spike.

"Huh? We haven't…" They hadn't killed anything in a while. Where had the food come from? Still, chewing it chased away the fatigue he had felt, his magic replenishing. "Awesome, great! We got this guys!"

Smolder had the cokiest grin on her face. "There was a skill I just wasn't even using." She waggled a finger. "You can preserve things, so they last a little while. Just for such emergencies. I thought it was stupid as all get out, but the only stupid one was me." She rolled her eyes at the stupidity of her past self. "I'm over it!"

Garble roared as he knocked the great multi-armed thing back, staggering it into position for others to surge in. "If you can do that. Why don't you always do it?"

"Fresher is better, duh." She smirked at her brother's lack of awareness on food properties. "They have less kick if I preserve them, and I have to make that call when I make them on the spot. No take backs."

Twilight thumped against its chest, magic flaring brightly as she bounced away off of it, leaving hoofprints on its chest. "We should focus on what we're doing here," she sent towards Sandra, curling for a good angle to blast the giant.

“But them getting along is good! Very good!” Sandra accidentally said aloud.

“That is true…” Twilight reflected, while hopping back from an errant swing. “I just… maybe we should take the fight more seriously?”

Smolder and Garble double team slashed at the legs of the giant, who flailed at them and clapped its hands together. Spike glowed with his martyr damage absorb ability, taking the hits from the wave of damage, and he followed up by himself smacking the giant in the shin with his martyr-smite, causing it to fall over in pain. Garble and Smolder both laughed as they went in for more hits.

Tabitha joined in the laughter. "This is more like it. We're a team." She drove her shield down into the face of the giant as she brought her mace around in a cruel arc to bash it across the face. "And as long as we never forget that, the tower doesn't have a chance." She sprang back as the giant picked itself up painfully. "Even if we have to keep reminding it."

With a rough communal cry, they didn't let up, battering the giant back to the ground and not letting it rise again. It exploded in bits of loot and scrap, waiting to be claimed. Tabitha clapped her hands together, her shield and weapon vanishing. "Fantastic! Grab it all up. Our smith will love getting her hands on it all. This is why we came here."

Smolder nudged against Garble. "We bring back all the loot we find getting back up to sixty, then we turn it in, and we're all more powerful." She raised a knife to tap the flat of it against her head. "Up here, and with better swords and stuff."

"Yeah, yeah…" He licked his lips as he collected his earned findings. "I get it. Next time, we're knocking that guy down just twice and he stays down."

"That's the spirit!” Tabitha beamed. “We might need to do some special stuff to get upgrade materials for the furnace, but mostly the mats from these monsters will be enough.”

The team continued up, looking for more loot from the tower.