Golden slowly walked down the hallway, each step a deadly chance of fate, as there seemed to be a trap everywhere they stepped. Though this time the hallway was not filled with one kind of trap but multiple, as burning green goop fell from the ceiling and beetle traps came from the walls, and to add to the variety further, a new trap showed itself as stone beetle heads started coming down from the ceiling trying to take him out.
It was a dangerous dance he found himself flowing from one step to the next as he tried to follow the strange rhythm the hallway of traps held. For a long while he went down the trap hall, growing sure he would take one misstep and/or dodge the wrong way, and that would be his end. Though instead of a game over screen, he found himself once again alone in a large chamber, as he had somehow made it through the gauntlet.
He would usually look around as he had done before in the two previous chambers, but he didn't, as all his attention was held by the one single being in the center of the room. It was a huge shiny beetle that stood before a giant door made out of the beetle of a carapace. As he looked at it, its purple stats screen appeared, showing how Golden his rather abysmal odds of taking it alone were.
Guardian of the carapace door - tier three- undead construct- sentenial zombie - Trait: the protector of Listex catacomb- this beetle is the final protector of the catacomb and ruler to all previous guardians only subservient to Listex himself as such it can use all the previous guardians abilities.-description- a giant blitzer beetle made out of diamond with millions of blitster beetle corpses trapped within it.
"While I didn't want to fight the Lord Listex's bodyguard only, I guess that's what I'm doing." Golden said with a bit of a bitter tone as he brought his shield up and charged forward to meet the guardian. He didn't get close as the giant diamond beetle let loose exploding beetles upon him while beetle heads came bursting from the ground to get him.
He couldn't get close enough to hit the thing, much less fight it. As it used all the other guardians abilities to keep him constantly at a distance and on the back foot. Golden stood on his feet, which were hard as beetle traps came flying from the walls and burning green goop came down at him from the ceiling. But he stayed in the fight, Keith trying to get closer no matter how helpless it seemed.
Though he was soon blindsided as the guardian beetle suddenly closed the distance after he had just dodged another spray of burning green goop that had come down from the ceiling. The sudden charge from the guardian beetle's diamond body had sent him flying and slamming into a wall. "So that's how you want to play." Golden said, rage and pain filling his voice as he realized the situation he was in.
He needed to close the distance to fight, but the creature wouldn't let him; instead, it would decide when they would engage, of course when he couldn't fight back as well as when it could do maximum damage. So he was effectively at the thing's mercy as if it set the tempo of the battle. Though for the moment Golden had to accept it and soon got up but found himself hurting and couldn't move fast enough to dodge the incoming exploding beetles, so he blocked them with his shield.
But the force of the explosion sent him off his feet and rolling to the side, and just then a new beetle head formed, ready and willing to cut him in half with its mandibles. "Guess you win, ass." Golden choked out, still reeling from the explosion and unable to defend himself at that moment.
Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Asher brought his giant iron mace down, destroying the beetle's head before it could finish off Golden. Then Distil and Puff were helping Golden up while Asher watched the guardian wearily. "Sorry we're late, Golden. The traps in that last hallway were a bit intense going downward." Asher said with a bit of guilt for having left Golden to face such a dangerous opponent alone.
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"It's alright. You're here now." Golden said, getting his shield and mace back into a firm grip. "Now let's deal with this beast." Golden said in a firm voice, to which the others nodded their agreement, and so the once again united four adventurers charged at the guardian beetle to destroy it so they may finally face Lord Listex himself.
Though the guardian beetle was not going to make that easy for them and defended itself against the four just as it had against the line Golden. So the four had to deal with a room coming to life at the will of the guardian, as it seemed every piece of the floor suddenly gained a beetle, and every wall tile had a beetle trap to spring at them.
Not could they go two feet without green goop coming from the ceiling or exploding beetles charging at them from multiple directions. But slowly and surely, through sure perseverance and grit, they coded the distance to the beetle guardian. Though it did not get any easier once they were within range of their foebas, he used his diamond mandibles and carapace to great effect.
Time and time again in the melee against the guardian beetle, they would seize the beetle's mandibles only for it to try and smear them against the walls with its diamond bulk. Though eventually, after what seemed like hundreds of strikes with their giant onion maces, the weapon's ability to do far more damage than it should, that being the only reason they could hurt the guardian beetle, the final blows were finally given, and they were now just looking at some crushed diamond.
The four heroes stood there, breathing heavily, bleeding, and burning from multiple wounds. Golden looked around for a moment at their group before giving his order. "We're testing here." Golden stated simply before sitting down that the other three heroes looked shocked at what Golden had said, but they agreed, so they sat down and rested to recover before they would continue on to Lord Listex's chamber.
"While the security crowd will be happy they got some good intel on how merging the different security systems would look like." Simon said he was happy to please the audience, as that always had them coming back for more, which was good for ratings.
Robert, meanwhile, wasn't focused on what Simon was saying. He was more focused on how the three had reacted to Golden's command; it had something to do with the situation, a clue on whether it was a brainwashing conspiracy or not. Simon noticed that Robert wasn't really listening and so asked what had gotten him.
"So Robert, penny for your thoughts." Simon said rather loudly, causing Robert to jerk in surprise, but then turned to where Simon's voice was coming from and looked at the empty space with a raised eyebrow for a second, then replied.
"Yeah, I think I just saw a clue he was looking for." Robert said, obviously referring to their search into the possible brainwashing conspiracy, Simon didn't reply, but he could feel Simon's eager anticipation on what the clue was. "When Golden gave out his order, the others were surprised, like they expected him to do something else, even though it was a logical thing to do." Robert said, rubbing his chin with his razor-sharp talons in thought.
"Ooh, so the plot thickens; we have more signs of something going on here. While we best not leave the conspiracy waiting. We have investigators and security people waiting to see how this goes. So to the chamber of Lord Listex we go." Simon said, his voice filled with excitement, Robert rolled his eyes seeing the clear rating chasing as usual before he followed Simon in focusing his attention back on the dungeon raid.