Lollyp briefly grins at the sight of her boss back in action, but the pleasant mood doesn't stay for long. "Wait, so what happened this time? You seemed kinda, uh, furious about something?"

"Nothing to worry about, just saw a guy I killed a long time ago and really wanted to again, but the pocket dimension or whatever didn't really play out in my favor this time. I can tell you the story later, maybe." Squinting, Xenia points at the wall behind the slime with her sword. "Hey, where's that door go?"

Turning around, Sincere and Lollyp spy a heavy wooden door set into a stone wall, not far from where they arrived. Sincere moves to pull at the metal ring serving as a handle, but nothing seems to happen. "False door, I believe, it's like pulling at the wall itself. I believe this may have been the entrance to the floor long ago, but here it represents one edge of our current reality. If we want to get out, we'll either need to subdue the floor, die, or...well, perhaps the Dungeon Master could pull us out at will, but we should perhaps test that another time."

"Right." Turning around again, Xenia finds another door on the opposite wall, but pauses to examine their current chamber before approaching it. "So...this chamber seems about as wide as the big fuckin' hallways we were seeing before, but the walls and doors are new. I guess originally they weren't hallways at all, but just...really linear floors? And now all the walls splitting it up have evaporated? Feels a little uninspired."

Lollyp smirks. "We might wanna see more than one room first before we go passing any judgments, yeah? Hrmm...three skeletons, didn't seem to be equipped with anything fancy, but then if this place is like three hundred years old or whatever, weapons and armor might've just been shittier back then. Still, doesn't feel like the difficultly level of this floor should be too bad."

"Yeah, unless it starts off the floors with something easy. Anyhow, back to the formation we planned. Tank, take the lead, Dips, you and I hold the flanks, Sincere and Lollyp, handle ranged and support? Good? Then Tank, take us through."

"As you commmaaaaaaannnd." With a brief nod the armor steps towards the next door and then considers it, the shield it holds in one hand, and the giant axe it holds in the other. Rather than put something aside and attempting to open the door normally, instead the armor chooses to smash the wooden door with his weapon before charging into it shield-first, splintering it into kindling and running into the room ahead. Watching, Xenia can't decide whether to laugh or grimace.

"Well, that's one way to do it, at least. Keep up!" Following Dips into the next chamber, Xenia finds another space of about the same size but with large stone blocks set up as obstacles throughout. A foot high or so each, some are little more than trip hazards, but others are stacked several high into being partial walls. They do little to hide the threat ahead however, as seven kobold archers poke their snouts above walls of their own and fire shots in the party's direction. Xenia quickly ducks behind a stack of blocks while attempting to get a better read on the room.

"Really? Some sort of paintball course with chest-high walls and shit? Where's the artistry? The spirit of adventure? You can't make a dungeon and then just plop some monsters in a room!"

Lollyp quickly blasts a skeleton with a bolt of lightning before taking cover of her own. "Why are you complaining? I'd figure 'a bunch of monsters in a room' would be exactly your sort of thing!"

"Should make for a decent workout, I'll give it that!" With a laugh the woman hops over her cover, as a thrown javelin from Dips reduces the enemy count to five. Most of the fire is directed at Tank to no effect, as not only do the arrows bounce harmlessly off his shield, but even if they hit his armor directly it seems unlikely they'd be able to damage the monster. Even so Sincere waves a hand and reduces their rate of fire to zero, forcing several of the undead kobold to reverse their movements and place their arrows back into their quivers rather than firing them at the approaching warriors. Once Xenia and Dips reach the final row of blocks and get to work the slaughter proceeds quickly, with a half dozen swings of their swords proving sufficient to destroy the rest of the enemy squad.

Looking down at her final kill, Xenia feels a pouting expressing begin to form on her face. "Okay, I take it back. This isn't even a workout! God, now I feel extra dumb for dying to these idiots so quickly last time. Sincere, any ideas on the dungeon design going on here?"

The demon tries and fails to keep a smirk from his face. "Well before I analyze the dungeon, I might first look at ourselves. I am Supreme-ranked, Lollyp here would likely qualify as Expert at this point, and while our armored friends are perhaps only Advanced in skill level, their durability compared to mortals likely qualifies them as Expert-level combatants themselves. And then there's you: although you may be lacking in magical skills or equipment, from what I've been told and have seen so far your swordsmanship may well be Supreme-level as well. In other words, if our first foray into the Great Dungeon actually did pose us with a serious challenge, I would be very concerned about our ability to proceed further."

"...Alright, that's true. Suppose I'll check out a few more rooms before passing too much judgment, I guess." The swordswoman does pause to mumble a bit under her breath. "I could totally make this way cooler, though. Oh, uh, Dips. How about you get the door for Tank this time, huh?"

Nodding, the sword-wielding armor steps forward and opens the next door, with Tank once again charging through the moment it's clear. Dips goes in after, followed by Xenia, who this time shouts with a bit of cheer. "Whoo! Got some beasties this time!" While the room itself is much the same as the previous two, the occupants are entirely new. The floor is clear but the ceiling swarms with what seems to be a crossbreed of small, red reptiles and bats. Leathery wings sprout from their backs as if they were very tiny dragons, the unusual ears growing from their heads the only clear sign of their mammalian genetics. As they scurry across the ceiling surface on all four legs they don't look to be much of a threat, being no more than a foot long apiece including the tail, but before long they begin to take to the air.

That's when their true danger reveals itself. Dodging the first swings of Tank's axe, several of the 'batiles' open their mouths and begin to spit globs of corrosive fluid at the team, several landing on Tank himself while Xenia dodges a few others with a roll. "Ugh, they were kinda cute before they started doing that! Eh...this isn't the dungeon trying to invent dragons like it did elementals, is it, cause that would make things even weirder."

Lollyp laughs as she glides in, blasting a flier with a lightning bolt from her wand before answering. "No way. I mean, how would the Dragonlord invent themselves, right? And there are other dragons out there, too, not even counting the draconics."

Xenia steps to the side to avoid another volley before flicking out a pair of throwing knives, bringing two enemies to the ground. "So the Dragonlord is an actual dragon, then? I feel like I've been maybe assuming that but never actually asked."

"Oh yeah, for sure. Ancient dragons can shapeshift though, so they're almost always a draconic in their public appearances. A really fancy one, though." Lollyp takes a hit from a glob of spit, then decides to stop dodging when she realizes it's actually less corrosive than she is. "I'm not actually sure what they look like in their natural form. You hear rumors, but I'm not sure they've really used it in the open since the first wars for the continent."

Hopping through the room, Xenia quickly sweeps away several more of the critters, their flying ability not doing them much good considering the relatively low ceiling. "And uh, is the Dragonlord a boy or a girl dragon? Been kind of ambiguous on that too."

Lollyp gives a bit of an embarrassed cough. "Uh, well...from how I hear it, no one's...no one's ever had the balls to ask 'em."

Sincere gives a light laugh. "The shapeshifting does tend to lead towards ambiguity. Also, the Dragonlord earned their title by either killing or driving off any other dragons who attempted to live here, so there haven't exactly been, well...mates to compare against, either. Not that I've ever met the individual, of course, but I rather get the impression that the constant wondering amuses them in some way."

At last the final squeaking batile is zapped or swatted out of the air, with no injuries to show for it beyond a few burned pockmarks on Tank's frame. Taking a moment to recover her thrown blades, Xenia considers this new insight. "A bit mischievous, huh? I'll take that as a good sign, better when a leader gets their kicks out of trolling folks than by torturing them."

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Sincere shakes his head at that analysis. "I'm not sure where trolls come into the equation, but I should point out that the Dragonlord does keep a staff of slaves even to this day. Inherited-class slavery was banned a bit after the Valleylands rebellion, but criminals in general and enemies of the Dragonlord in particular can still find themselves with the sort of employment that involves a large number of chains and whips. Not exactly the most lighthearted ruler one might imagine."

"Guess I'll keep that in mind, in case I ever happen to be playing tourist down in the Domain somehow. Alright Tank, you know the drill - next room!"

With his orders given, Tank and Dips once again lead the way through the next door. The room beyond is quite unlike the ones so far, however - at least three times larger in each dimension and rounded off, the chamber screams 'boss arena' even before Xenia sees the monsters inside. Those at least are somewhat familiar in form if not in size, as on half a dozen square perches up around the ceiling there stirs a larger cousin of the reptile bats, each the size of a lion before accounting for the wings. Xenia curses as she readies more of her throwing knives. "Shit, the boss fight already? After just three rooms? That's some first floor shit!"

Lollyp shouts out a response as she begins tossing fireballs up towards the ceiling. "Hey, I've seen dungeon floors where the entire floor is just one big room! That was a bit straightforward, though...no traps or anything?" As the party gets to work, the six flying beasts begin to take something of a formation. Three of them remain up near the ceiling, lobbing spitballs the size of Xenia's head, while the other three begin to swoop down at the party, attempting to gore them with both their fore and hind claws before leaping back up into the air. The latter group has little luck, as between the armors' thick shells and the barrier spells Sincere can provide to the rest of the team, even when they aren't immediately driven away the monsters find themselves unable to do much damage.

As for the ones remaining in the air, while they prove a bit too large for Xenia's blades to seriously hurt, the same isn't true for Dips' javelins. Impressively, her hurled bits of steel-tipped wood are even faster and more difficult to dodge than Lollyp's elemental blasts are, and two of the fliers are down within the first twenty seconds of the fight, impaled through the chest or neck. While Sincere is focusing on safeguarding Xenia and Lollyp however, the remaining flier decides to engage Tank with its corrosive fluids, and this time a hit scores much more damaging than a simple armor blemish. As a blob hits Tank directly on his helmet, the metal begins to steam, and then drip, pieces of it slowly wearing through. Although he shows no signs of pain, the ghost does shout out a warning. "Agh! My shell, it...it weakens! Nooooor can I see our enemies!"

Dropping his axe for a moment, the armor lifts a hand to try and wipe some of the fluid from its face, but that proves to be a terrible idea. Weakened by the attack, as soon as his heavy gauntlet impacts the helmet an entire piece of it breaks off. That causes the monster to flail even more, and within moments the entire thing's fallen to pieces, destroyed by the ill-advised wiping motions. A loud clang follows after that as Tank himself falls to the floor, an eerie glow drifting from the now-exposed collar and indicating his elimination from the dungeon raid. Xenia grimaces, even as she finishes hacking through the neck of one of the dive-bombers. "Fuck! Okay, that spit's no joke! Dips, make sure you dodge that shit!"

The advice is well-heeded, and the group faces little difficulty from that point on. While Dips and Lollyp eventually manage to bring down the final high-flier, Sincere manages to use his temporal magics to pin the others in place long enough for Xenia to finish them off with some old-fashioned stabbing. As the last one falls, the team leader whoops in victory. "Woo! Score one for Team Worthy! Uh...Tank probably could've done a little better with his shield work at the end there, but he'll respawn when we get back...right? Yeah, right, definitely. So..." Sheathing her sword, Xenia looks around in a bit of confusion. "That it, then? Do we...get a chest? Or some sort of popup? Fuck, I hope we don't need Guy in here for the dungeon interface to work or something."

Shrugging, Sincere lifts a hand to point out the door at the other end of the arena. "Perhaps we should see what awaits us further on, shall we?"

"...Yeah, suppose we should do that. Shit, if that wasn't the boss fight then the actual one might be really tough. I'll take lead this time." Grabbing the handle, Xenia opens the door to find a smaller chamber, the same width as the previous rooms but much shorter. In the center of that chamber, patiently awaiting the raiding party is an earth elemental. It looks up at Xenia from behind the desk it's sitting at, quill in its rocky hand and parchment placed out in front of it. A grumbling masculine voice emits from it, speaking in accented Draconic.

"Come in, come in. Sooner we fill out the survey, the sooner you can get your payment and move on to the next one."

Sword kept at the ready, Xenia cautiously steps into the room as the others follow. "The survey, you say. This like...gonna involve any stabbing or fireballs or something?"

Though the elemental's face isn't the most expressive, it still seems a little confused. "Surely they didn't require combat demonstrations on the other floors or something of that nature? No, no, just a few basic questions." As Xenia cautiously sheathes her sword and the rest of the group finishes stepping inside, the elemental nods and begins reading a prepared statement. "Alright, then. Congratulations on completion of Experimental Floor 17, Crossbreeding Division. I regret wasting your time on the kobold skeletons, we haven't finished enough variants yet to populate all of the rooms, I'm surprised you were sent in here at this stage to be honest. But in any case, you have now encountered and defeated two variants of the Spitscales-Cave Bat crossbreed which we are currently calling 'Spitflaps'. Any general impressions on the monster type to start off with?"

Xenia stares at the elemental for a moment before blurting out the first thing to come to mind. "Yeah, that name really, really sucks. Please don't call it that."

The elemental grumbles as it makes a note. "I'll mark down the suggestion. How about the performance? The boss-type did eliminate a party member, I note, but it did take half a dozen of them, which isn't ideal. My condolences by the way, rest assured their kin will receive their full pay."

"Noted - but hold on, hold up. The final boss of this floor is a survey taker? What the frick's going on here?" As soon as the words exit her mouth however, the entire room seems to go into a brief rewind, and the next thing she knows Sincere is whispering into her ear.

"If I might suggest something, we should probably play along. We'll probably learn more that way than from a fight - and no worries, I used a stronger version of my reversion spell, only you and I recall your last statement."

Xenia eyes the demon briefly before trying a different approach. "Uh...noted, thanks. But uh, nothing wrong with using multiple monsters as a boss, I guess? The little ones were just nuisances though, twenty's not really any more effective than like, five."

Lollyp speaks up with a suggestion. "Also, I think slimes are basically totally immune to them. The spit didn't do anything and I doubt the claws would have much effect either, you know?"

The elemental nods. "True, given that Spitscales do originate from the same locales as slimes, I suppose that's to be expected. Perhaps we should try for something with an elemental breath. Anything else to add?"

The party leader scratches her head. "Well, uh...the floor layout was a little bland, I guess?"

To that point, the elemental just stares at her. "Well we're not in the Traps or Arcane Physics divisions, now are we? I mean about the monsters, of course."

Dips raises a hand. "I liked the noises they made when they were impaaaaallled by my weaponry."

This time the elemental just sighs. "Right, noted. Well, if that's all then, here's your pay." Leaning over, the elemental picks up a small treasure chest and plants it on the desk, facing Xenia. Taking the invitation, she steps forward and opens it up, reaching inside to pull out a number of slips of paper.

"Eh? This is...payment vouchers?"

"To be redeemed back at the division central office, of course. Thanks again for your contributions to our work here at Mount Faralis, I hope we'll see you again." The elemental's tone of voice doesn't quite match his words on the last part, but before Xenia can ask further questions her vision begins to blur.

"Wait, what? The hell is all - "

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

After a brief flash of light, the group finds themselves once again in Xenia's core chamber, Guy flitting around and Xenia's hand empty of any payment vouchers. "Well...not exactly what I expected, I guess. And I suppose it would've been too much to hope that we'd get actual dungeon rewards out of that, huh?"

Guy answers her first, with a rough sound to their voice. "I'm not quite sure what you saw in there, ma'am, but I think - ahem, I think there may be a reward of some sort coming just now." With a few hacking noises, an organic, black-colored screen suddenly emerges from his own.

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TRIPLE CURSED DUNGEON:

YOU HAVE SUBDUED THE ENERGIES OF THE LOST GREAT DUNGEON OF MOUNT FARALIS, CENTER OF THE WORLD: EXPERIMENTAL FLOOR 17. ADDITIONAL FLOOR UNLOCKED.

UNIQUE MONSTER CROSSBREED UNLOCKED: SPITFLAPS(SPITSCALES/CAVE BAT) - C

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

As she reads the message, Xenia's mood improves significantly. "Well! That's sure something, at least!"

"...But Guy, please tell me we can change that name."