As everyone talked amongst themselves about where to go, Tiferet scooted back into the middle of the group, hoping to leech off of their body heat a bit. It was starting to get chilly in here, at kind of an alarming rate, and her current clothing was not exactly made for colder weather. The one time I decide not to equip my sweater. The one damn time... While Tif groused and grumbled to herself, she took in the room they were in a second time. Chains hung from the ceiling and walls, seemingly randomly-placed, and the dim sunlight illuminating the crypt revealed practically nothing, not even any dust swirling through the air. Tif felt a thrill run down her spine, independent of the cold. She loved it when game designers had a proper sense of atmosphere.

Her delight was quickly turned to dismay as she noticed frost beginning to form on some of the chains, and a slight breeze starting to pick up. She couldn't help but let out a soft grumble (more like a whimper) at the sight. I'm a Louisiana gal, damnit! I can't deal with temperatures below 60, let alone actual ice and shit! She was really starting to regret not bringing that sweater...

All thoughts of the weather were driven from her mind, however, at the massive CLANG-ANG-Ang-ang... that sounded from practically right next to her. Tif practically leapt out of her skin at the sudden ringing, and looked over to see Tessa, her chains out and active, and the corpse of a rat flying away from her. It wasn't difficult to see what had happened.

Tiferet's metaphorical hackles immediately went up. She quietly readied her fiddle, ready to start playing at any sign of danger. She didn't have to wait long.

The wind picked up incredibly quickly, turning into a gale that just about tore the fiddle from her hands. Frost slimes, the bane of lightly-dressed players everywhere, started crawling out of the trenches, dozens of them. Tif didn't even give herself time to think, but instead launched into a favorite support spell of hers, <Kronos>, granting her allies a bit of extra speed in both movement and casting times. The wind practically covered it all up, but they didn't need to hear the song to benefit, fortunately.

Out of the corner of her eye, she also noticed Ochre, who was suddenly in rapid danger of being frozen. Tif shouted over the wind at him, "Watch those fingers, Ochre!", before aiming her fiddle at the ogre tooth and adding a little flourish to her playing, which cast <Irondust>. There was a brief flash at the pointed end of Tif's fiddle, before it expelled a small pebble with frightening speed. Hopefully, that would be enough to shatter the ice (or the tooth, whichever) and give Ochre enough time to escape.

Landon noticed the cold as it suddenly began to descend, and used this as an excuse to move closer to the nearest warm female body. As Elian and Mirage were both equidistant, the deciding factor in Landon getting closer to Mirage was because she wasn't likely to slap him silly. His bones felt about as old as he actually was in this cold, and he hoped the extra realism didn't include his arthritis reaching through from his actual body to this one. So, really, this wasn't about him being a lecherous old man in a lecherous younger man's body. This was a matter of survival in extreme conditions! Or so he justified it to himself as he brushed up against Mirage, exchanging glances with her and then giving her a wink that she responded to with a smile as she brushed in a way that sent a different kind of chill down his spine...

The sudden rattle of chains ruined the brief moment and made Landon nearly jump out of his skin. He swore as he brought his crossbow up to shooting height and ranged the room, noting that Mirage had done the same with her bow and covered the angles out of his range...only for them to both discover that it was Tessa's chains, not the ones hanging about in the room, that had caused such a stir. Landon swore under his breath, which puffed in a small cloud of fog in front of his mouth in the frigid air, simultaneously relieved and annoyed that the sudden spike in adrenaline pumping loudly in his ears was due to the overexcited reaction to a rat.

The sight of the dead rat did give him pause, however, as he adjusted his anti-fogging goggles over his eyes. Sure, it was just vermin...and vermin inside of a game, no less. But it looked just as real as ones he had seen during his time on the battlefield, and had squeaked in pain just like a living creature before its life had been snuffed out like a candle. How much different were he and the rest of the party from that rat? Would death come to them as quickly and suddenly, just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time?

As if the unspoken question had been heard by fickle Lady Luck as the prelude to a joke, suddenly the whole room got a lot colder as the chill breeze picked up, and suddenly the group was surrounded by slimes of the ice elemental variety. The air crackled with ice as it condensed too quickly on nearby surfaces to even reach the liquid stage before going immediately solid, and the gooey sucking sounds of slimes accompanied this staccato of molecules slowing down all around the cold stone walls and floor of the enormous room. The slimes reared up on their pseudopods as if trying to imitate the humans, yet still remained about as shapeless as water no longer bound by the decree of gravity.

And just as suddenly as they appeared, the team formed up and readied for battle.

"Geez, if anybody was bored, you just got yer wish!" growled Landon as he immediately let loose the explosive bolt he had loaded in his arm-mounted crossbow, aiming toward a small crowd of slimes that burbled toward the group. It was fortunate that he aimed toward the front of the group, for the following blast seemed to have little effect, aside from knocking the slimes backward and in a multiplicity of other directions. The slimes that were destroyed ended up effectively multiplying, as each individual piece acted like a much smaller, but just as hungry for hot human flesh as their big siblings. If Landon hadn't been aiming at the front of the group, but toward the middle or the rear, some of the slimes would have been splattered directly at the group - with awful consequences.

This is terrible, I can't get many shots through this crowd! I need a higher angle... Landon glanced upward at the chains hanging from the ceiling, and got an idea. Sustained by Tiferet's melody, he made a leap for one of the hanging chains and climbed quickly up its rattling length, oddly reminded of the obstacle course he got to know so well during boot camp in his original life. That experience carried over well, and he quickly had a much better angle to see the action and, as suited his slight cowardice, was far enough away from the actual fighting that he was in no immediate danger from being frozen or dripped on. He latched onto the chain with his legs to leave his hands free.

"Hey, front-liners! Fire boost incoming!" shouted Landon above the chaos as he loaded up a bolt with a glimmering red cylinder as the front tip. He had a few of these in his quiver, and while he only had enough for this single encounter and only for the melee fighters, he was more concerned with surviving the present situation than worrying about a hypothetical one down the road where he might have needed these. They were much like his ultra-buff bolts in function, but instead of boosting strength or resistance, they infused elemental fire magic directly into the target in such a way that it would not harm them, but increase their resistance to cold while simultaneously adding a flame tongue to their weapon strikes. Landon still didn't understand exactly how it worked, but that sure as heck didn't stop him from using it to his advantage.

The first bolt struck Graves in the back between his shoulder blades, the impact mostly unnoticeable against the big man's armor, but just enough so that he knew he had been given the boost. The cylinder ends squished together as the magic was compressed and then conducted directly into Graves, forming as a fiery aura that pulsated from his body and weapon.

Seeing that his bolt had worked as he desired, he continued to fire more of these bolts at the other melee fighters. He reasoned that if he gave the meat shields a fighting chance against these things, then he was more likely to survive the encounter.

Unfortunately, he was so focused on looking down at the battlefield, that he was not looking up at the ceiling, where an oozing slime endeavored to slowly drip down the chain toward him, its very touch freezing the metal solid as it approached him from above...

As the ogre tooth dropped into the azure of liquid mass, Ochre kept his eyes on the fluid itself rather than the mid-fall object inbound towards it. His attentiveness was probably what allowed him to notice the coolness of the air, solidifying his every breath while the liquid churred beneath his gaze, and enabled him to begin connecting the dots. What substance could possibly be cold enough to turn air into visible mist, while paradoxically sustaining a liquid state? The epiphany occurred merely moments after the tooth impacted with the mass, the enamel-based object quickly frosted over by the frigid nature of the fluid mass, the frost creeping towards his fingers at a speed he couldn't have possibly accounted for.

Thankfully, that was what party members were for, as a voice quickly shouted out towards him while he was still stunned with shock. "Watch those fingers, Ochre!" the voice called out, before a small, alarmingly fast object smashed through the climbing frost before it could reach his digits. The shatter of ice snapped him out of his daze, and the armorsmith backpedaled at a rate faster than most would have seen out of him in their entire lives until he was a good twenty feet away from the azure channel. A small glance let Ochre recognize the visage of his savior, the musician Tiferet, and he sent her a small nod of thanks, a hint of relief within his gaze. He didn't have much time to thank her further, however, as the mass of flowing liquid began to rise from its containment. Slamming itself onto the stone with a loud thud, Ochre's misgivings were realized as it divided itself into multiple entities.

Frost Slimes. Elemental brethren of the common slime that have gained the ability to generate ice, as seen by the creeping rime that spread itself away from the frozen entities and towards Ochre and the rest of the party. The young man took merely a few moments to take all of this in, breathing deep to calm himself from the previous shock that had overridden his usual demeanor. It wouldn't be very efficient to panic, after all. His future self would only chew himself out for how much energy he had spent on an outburst that could have been conserved for other things. Like the trek towards the comfiest bed possible after this all was over.

At some point, he couldn't tell when, himself, Ochre had closed his eyes, only to reopen them as he moved into action. Resuming his earlier movement of backpedalling, the armorsmith moved to regroup with his companions as slowly as he dared, the latent magic within his form brought to life by his will as it swirled into being. Upon his open palms, a circular insignia formed itself from his magic alone, tiny intricate symbols of an unknown language etching themselves within its boundaries while the armorsmith concentrated on their creation. A mental "ting" echoed within his mind as the magic circles completed themselves, and the young man crouched down momentarily to press them into the flooring at different periods of his retreat, their forms expanding greatly beyond their previous size as they contacted with the stone, only to fade as if they had never existed in the first place. His actions seemed useless, until a pair of the larger frost slimes pulled themselves onto the general location where one of the circles had been placed. Instantly, the insignia flared to life once more around the two entities, glowing with a yellow light before both of the slimes were electrocuted by the magic compressed within it, the glow fading as the two figures lost their form and promptly disseminated across the stone floor.

It was only a paralytic spell trap, not exactly powerful when it comes to dealing damage, but they should at least slow the opposition down while the party thought up a strategy to efficiently defeat their foes. By the time he had reached the rest of the group, he had set about a half-dozen of his traps along the way, aside from the first two that had already been tripped. As he reached the forming circle of wayfarers, a new duo of spell traps were already forming in his hands, their creation speed boosted by the song of <Kronos> Tiferet had buffed the party with. While he did not say much in the case of his small blunder, his grunt of subdued irritation vocalized his annoyance with the situation at hand. Setting his traps just before he slotted himself into the forming circle of party members, his dominant hand unsheathed the Griffzungenschwert he kept at his side, and held it at the ready in the face of the threat surrounding them. It wouldn't do much, really, as slimes were relatively immune to physical damage, but being able to smash the creeping ice before it could affect any of the party is better than doing nothing.

---

@Superboy

As Graves shot Tessa a critical, sarcastic judgment, a wave of guilt hit her that she quickly dispersed with a muttered mantra of, "It's not my fault, it's not my fault..." She set to erecting her zone of protection, enchanting her chains to channel and amplify spells, as well as making them react on contact, like a minefield. Any slime that made it within the radius of her chains would experience primarily a gravitational slow debuff as well as a lightning element damage over time. Any that got too close were whipped away by the chains, the same spell she had used to kill the rat earlier, setting off this whole thing. Of course, it wasn't her fault though.

"F-fall back inside if you need a breather!" Tessa called out to no one in particular, preemptively uncorking a mana potion. Her eyes darted around, confirming that they were surrounded and that all around her sphere of influence, slimes crowded at the border. Her mana pool took a small hit each time one of the slimes triggered her spells by stepping too close, and with so many pressing in like that, her mana was draining at an alarming rate.

@Tergonaut

Deciding to do a quick head count to keep track of all her allies, she scanned the battlefield. Missing Landon, she looked up, onkly to find him dangerously close to an encroaching slime.

"Landon! Above you!" she cried out.

The sound of music drifted to Graves's ear from behind him, barely a hopeful whisper over the howl of the furious wind. The frantic yet utterly precise playing of the strings from their bard caused magic to wash over the party, giving them a temporary boost in power that was much appreciated. Graves felt his limbs lighten, as if the weapon in his hands weighed half what it previously did. He could nary feel more than a dozen pounds of the steel armor clinging to his form. It gave him the added agility to avoid a leaping slime that aimed to wrap it's gelatinous form around his leg- disaster avoided by little more than the skin of his teeth.

Graves responded by lowering his halberd down the slime's center, the sharpened head executing the target like a falling guillotine. Or, it would have, if the target wasn't able to pull itself back together a few moments later.

'Damn it!' He sneered, taking a step back. He could feel the hot breath of Elian upon the back of his neck. Graves couldn't retreat any further without breaking their whole formation. That usually wouldn't be a problem for the tank; standing his ground was kind of in the title. Yet...'We're playing for keeps now.' He needed to trust his healer would keep him alive. Just like the supports needed to trust him to hold the line.

With a grimace, he took his place right next to Rael and Ochre once more. Their blind spots were being covered by the coiling, almost sentient chains from Tess. Graves could hear their disgusting little bodies crackling against the electrified perimeter she'd set. It sounded a hell of a lot like the sizzling the slimes to their front were doing when they ran into Ochre's minefield.

Her magic was incredible, but the mumblings that Graves couldn't make out over the sounds of battle made him worry. She had to hold it together. "Keep it together Tess!" The Blood Knight roared, his halberd singing like a banshee as it cut another enemy in twain. "You break and your little boyfriend's getting swarmed!" They'd all get swamped, but as far as Graves knew, flower boy was the only one Tess gave two shits about besides herself. A little motivation never hurt anybody, right?

His fight got a great deal easier when Landon lent his own unique form of support to the frontliners. Graves felt a slight 'ting' against his shoulder armor right before heat began to rush across his form. It washed over his body like an invisible, second layer of skin, and the cold suddenly became a great deal more bearable. The goosebumps on Graves's exposed pectorals began to fade, though that was far from the most impressive part of the spell.

That came when the Blood Knight cleaved another slime apart, fire flinging haphazardly with the swinging halberd as it cooked the creature alive from the inside. It died in a single cut. "Now that is what I'm talking about!" Adrenaline shot through the muscle-bound tank, filling him with a newfound strength and a confidence he hadn't been able to muster before. Graves began to advance, cutting, stabbing and cleaving away at every frosty creep that lay in front of him.

"Pipsqueak, flower boy!" Graves yelled out the names of the other melee fighters, hoping to draw their attention to him. "You think we can carve a path toward the front exit?!" He jabbed his weapon down into the center of a slime, letting the spear tip remain inside until it stopped struggling. "Put our backs to open air and just worry about letting them funnel in from one direction?!" That would make Sky all the deadlier, he assumed; let her flames move down a tight, single corridor and roast the entire lot of these things in one go. "Hell, we might even be able to force the door closed behind us!" It wasn't a great plan, but he didn't hear anyone else coming up with anything. And moving at all was better than sitting there and waiting to be overwhelmed.

Tiferet kept up her playing as best as she could, concentrating on her fiddle while also keeping an eye out for any slimes she could take potshots at. It was a little awkward to aim at them, considering that the projectile <Irondust> spawned came out of the end pin, near her chin, but she managed. She could, in theory, just stop playing and use her fiddle as a sort of magical machine gun - she'd done it before, mostly when adventuring solo - but in order for <Kronos> to last longer after she stopped playing, she needed to play the whole song, without stopping. Annoying, maybe, but the party's current setup was more than enough protection.

Speaking of, Tif realized that her song was almost over. As she ran through the last few notes, she quickly considered what buff to provide next. <Hestia>? Nah, Landon and Red have the whole fire thing covered... <Ineffabilis> and <Fallen Angel> are both way too powerful to use right now, <Midnight> only works in moonlight, <Imprinting> is pretty much useless here, and <Decay> is way too difficult for me to do on the fly like this. Besides, that one's kinda fucked up, even for me. What to pick, then...?

Fortunately, Graves solved her dilemma right as the last note sang out.

"Pipsqueak, flower boy!" Graves yelled out the names of the other melee fighters, hoping to draw their attention to him. "You think we can carve a path toward the front exit?!"

Tiferet's face split into a wide, giddy, and (it must be said) skeletal grin. She knew exactly what to do here.

"Hey, Graves!" Before the beefy tank could respond, Tiferet's magically enhanced voice rang out through the crypt, accompanied by the sounds of clapping, background singers, and a full swing band, all seemingly emanating from Tif herself.

You remind me of a man! (What man?)
Oh, the man with the power! (What power?)
Oh, the power of voodoo! (Who do?)
Oh, you do, you do! (You what?)

As she sang, the effect of her spell, <Man With The Hex>, filled Graves with a decidedly strange feeling. It felt kinda like eating a Red Hot, or a similar spicy candy, but with his entire body. With that feeling, though, came a feeling of incredible strength, a surge of energy, and a slightly stronger urge to do just what he had said earlier; cut a path through the flood of slimes, making for the front exit as quickly as possible.

Back behind him, Tiferet's grin remained unchanged. Partly because this song was always fun to perform, and partly because she liked pulling one over on Graves. <Man With The Hex> allowed the caster to grant a target greatly enhanced strength and speed, as Graves had just found out. But, as the voodoo line implied, it also allowed them to plant suggestions in the target's head. She was mostly casting it for the buff, of course, and wasn't about to do anything like make Graves turn on the party - that'd be way more harmful than what she preferred, which would be to take out all of these damn slimes, then make him do something mildly embarrassing later. Shame it couldn't target more than one person at a time, pranking three people at once would've been awesome. Ah well. That was a problem for another time, when they weren't in the middle of a homicidal dungeon.

Why had they poked the goo? Honestly, especially with lives on the line for real, always try to approach things from a puzzle-solving standpoint. But too late for that. "Why'd it have to be slimes?" Elian grumbled, snapping her fans open. Tiferet's song made her feel like dancing, or it would have if she wasn't so tense. But she trusted most of these guys. And snarky tween over there is competant, even if she is a dick...and an blinded idiot.

Graves took charge, getting them to close ranks so as to minimize vulnerability. She waved out the cast of an elemental resistence buff, the motion of her fans channeling her magic and strengthening the spell. A wide sweep of her arm encompassed the tanks in front of her, and a few of the others as well. She could do an AoE, but it wasn't as strong. That would be next -- and even with the resistance, the cold was still cold, and hardly comfortable.

And then Landon climbed a chain, and Elian's face snapped into a frown. "Goggles, get the fuck back here!" They needed to move to where they had more cover, and him going all ninja was hardly going to help anyone. "If you lick that damn chain I'm going to leave your tongue stuck to it, and I'll yank it so hard your ass comes out your mouth."

The uptight knight called a warning to Mr. Crouching Tiger Dangling Idiot, and Elian glanced back in horror. Curse it, she couldn't focus like this! Real was no fun at all. Concentrate, girl, or you're gonna get everyone killed. It's just a game. Nevermind that was a lie. She was good at pretending. Performance pressure. You got this. You're a great healer. You don't let your team die. This is no different. Her heart still pounded, but the self-talk was enough to bring her focus back to the moment.

Graves was doing fine for the moment, and the barriers (nice touch, she had to admit. She needed to work with more control fighters) were the best thing she'd ever seen. She could spare the time to rescue Landon's perverted ass. A step, a flourish, and she hit him with the same class of buff she'd given the tanks. That should keep his fingers from sticking to the metal chain, at least. The rest was up to him.

The floor was growing icy, and while she was doing okay it was going to grow steadily worse for all of them. The folks not focused on agility would be the first to go down, and there had to be a way to prevent that. Graves suggested heading for the exit, and she approved. Restrict the angle they had to cover. "Goggles, Pyro, can you two melt the ice and some of the slimes, help clear the way?"

Landon grimaced at the fierce warning Elian leveled at him, but managed to fire back a wink and a quip. "The chain wasn't what I was thinking it would be nice to lick right now!"

Yeah, super A-grade class right there, he thought to himself. He wasn't actually sure if he was being serious or sarcastic about that thought, either, but he had a sudden epiphany that he let his mouth say things without thinking because he was too focused on what he was doing with his body.

Like, hanging upside down from a frigid chain of metal in the middle of a death dungeon...

It was Tessa's warning that got his attention really quickly. The one person in the room that he felt wouldn't mind seeing him die, and she was the one calling out his name. It was so bizarre that it snapped his attention immediately upward, and he saw the slime drip down towards him in a sudden rush as adrenaline pumped into his veins. He swore as he released his legs from around the chain and fell downward, his reflexes kicking into overdrive as he yanked three bolts from his quiver at once. But the first strike was from the slime as it darted down to grab hold of his foot...

Landon cried out from the sudden, intense cold that penetrated his boot, but on a certain level, he knew it should have been much worse. What...?

Then he recognized the warm, prickly feeling of a buff directly under his skin, and realized he needed to thank Elian later. He finished his quick-draw and fired off the bolts rapidly: one that created a whirlwind from a motorized fan built into the tip, a fan powered by a wind crystal, that forced the slime back upward (and off of his boot, to his foot's relief) toward the ceiling and pressed it there; the second was a fiery-tipped bolt that was similar to the flame buff he gave to the tanks, except it imbued the target's cells itself with the enchantment, creating a damage-over-time incendiary effect at the cellular level.

The third was an explosive bolt, set to wide dispersal as a last-second alteration at Elian's request.

The frost slime mass that was pressed against the ceiling suddenly became hot napalm that sprayed out to all sides in a gout of liquid heat. This liquid showered a wide area around the room, more frost slimes becoming melty puddles as they were doused with superheated splatters, and fortunately in a circular wave that hit the area around the party instead of hitting them. This also had the side benefit of reducing a lot of the building frost to sloppy puddles.

Landon had no time to congratulate himself as he continued to fall toward the floor. Another flick of his wrist and fingers, and he popped the cork off of a sky-blue vial and downed its contents right as he approached the ground. He suddenly slowed in his fall to the point where he actually swayed in the air from side-to-side like a feather, and he lightly touched the ground with a flourish as he loaded another explosive bolt, this one loaded with fireworks that he had originally intended as a distraction. But an idea had entered his mind at Elian's suggestion.

"Hey, Red!" shouted Landon, getting Redsky's attention just long enough to wave his crossbow bolt. "Amp this bolt to make it as hot as you are, will ya? Trust me, you're gonna like it!"

And he fired it in a path directly toward the exit Graves had indicated. Redsky jabbed her splayed hand after it like she was attempting to call it back, and fire arced from her hand into the noisy firework, which went from a whistling, snapping shower of sparks to a torrential inferno of shimmering flames that washed the floors, walls and pillars with molten light. It was like someone turned up the water pressure on a mobile sprinkler...except, fire. Slimes and frost alike melted away in the sheer incandescent beam, and it only dissipated after it had traveled from the party's location all the way into the mouth of the exit they were looking at.

"Open, sez me!" quipped Landon as he relit the cig in his mouth that had gone out from an errant droplet of water sprayed from deceased slimes. "That work for ya, Elly?"

"Keep it together Tess!" The Blood Knight roared, "You break and your little boyfriend's getting swarmed!"

"You think we can carve a path toward the front exit?! Put our backs to open air and just worry about letting them funnel in from one direction?! Hell, we might even be able to force the door closed behind us!" It wasn't a great plan, but he didn't hear anyone else coming up with anything.

---

At Grave's quip, Tessa stopped muttering to herself, and tried to remain focused. With her mana draining, she had to consider the option of being more conservative, or just keep downing potions, but how long would that last? Which spells could she do without? Looking out she'd seen some of the slimes jumping around; so she couldn't drop her gravity field, since the slimes could be surprisingly agile at times. She had to keep her chains pushing them out of her circle or else they'd inch close enough to the core of the party. She could drop her electric field if she could trust those around her to kill the slimes quickly enough. Before she could make a decision, she heard Grave's suggestion to move to an exit. Looking to where he was indicating, Tessa saw Landon, with Redsky's help, blast an open path to the door. Eager to get out, Tessa automatically took a few stuttering steps, without warning, towards the door, causing her entire area of control to shift with her the same distance she had traveled. What this meant for the party was that the battlefield had moved slightly; those that were within her protection, but just on the edge in the opposite direction of the door, were now exposed. Realizing her lack of communicating her movement, she called out, "K-keep up, you lot! We're leaving!" Tessa quickly downed a mana potion, surprisingly optimistic that they were going to get out of here before she ran out of the blue stuff.

The party rallied, tearing the initiative away from their attackers as they pressed forward for the first time since the battle begin. They had a plan of attack now; no longer were they simply reacting to the encroaching mob. Graves led the frontline forward, sweeping his halberd through the teeming mass of frozen gelatin. It's flaming ax-head made quick work of individual slimes. Yet for each one the tank cut down, it seemed like two more rose up to take it's place.

Graves felt like his muscles were on fire. He threw his strength behind every harrowing swing, his mind occupied only by the unflinching desire to get the hell out of that death trap. He knew what was at stake- they all did. Death here was no longer a simple inconvenience, but the end of everything. He could give no less than his all.

Even still, he could feel himself slowing. He made less progress with every step. His polearm swung with less and less force each time the digital warrior swept it forward. Muscles cramped and fatigue's deadly venom began to creep ever so slowly into his veins.

Luckily for the brutish tank, he was not alone in this fight.

Assistance came in a call of his name from the fiddle-wielding necrobard. Tiferet's magical music changed it's tune from the precise, elegant and swift Kronos to something...stranger. A swing band of all things began to echo from that damnable device of hers. Quick, powerful, yet utterly chaotic.

The buff hit Graves full-force like a baseball to the forehead.

Every inch of his body was shot full of a pulsating, electric energy. The strength that filled his taut muscles would've been appreciated, if not for the buckets upon buckets of itching powder he felt slipping in every pore, crack and crevice. "I do NOT like this song!" The giant howled.

He poured his irritation into every swing of his weapon that followed.

Energized hands spun the polearm about with surprising dexterity for a man of his size. He spun in his advance, dragging the ax along the sea of gushing slimes from side to side. Great, sweeping brushes preceded each forward step from the titan. Graves set the pace for the other frontliners to follow in the stead of his violent march.

All about him, the rest of the party worked to clear the path toward their chosen exit. Landon and Redsky's combined arms attack washed the enemy in searing malice, burning away a mass of gathered monsters on the ceiling as well as directly in front of them. That burning swath of dead made for an easy push for Graves, Ochre and Rael- they merely had to make sure the rest of the slimes didn't fill in the way in place of their dozens of dead.

"Move! Move!" Landon and Sky's opening wouldn't last long. They had done little to stem the overwhelming tide of creatures still filling the chamber, even with the stream of fallen they trod over; it would not be long before the frost slimes managed to overwhelm them if they did not escape in short order.

Graves reached the other end of the room, his shoulder slamming hard against the gate as he came to a sliding halt. The floor was horrifically slick from squashed slime corpses spilling their innards across the frosty stone. "Through the door, now! Fucking hurry!" From where he stood, the bloodied tank could see the ooze creatures massing at the back of the party. They were flooding forward like a singular, conjoined wave. It was a slow, sticky wave, mind you; but it wasn't something Graves would want to be caught under.

He remained outside the gate, half to keep the monsters back and half to catch anyone that might (understandably) fall thanks the messy ground.

Once the last person was through, Graves slipped in behind them, planting his feet on the stone. "Get this shit shut before they get through!" He barked, his halberd clattering to the floor as he lifted both of his palms up to the gate. Graves pushed with all of his might, forcing the creaking mass to move for likely the first time since it's creation. It took no small amount of effort, but the ooze slipping in between the two great doors was all the motivation the tank needed to continue.

Like a clap of thunder the doors were forced together, and the threshold closed off. A batch of slime attempting to wiggle through was cut in twain by the shutting of the gate, and silence fell over the creeping halls of the crypt once more.

Graves stumbled backward, his back hitting the wall as he slid down onto his rear with a loosed sigh. When he leaned back, the telltale shlick of something cool and sticky drew his eyes to the little beast still clinging unknowingly to his shoulder. "Fuckin' hate these things." He snarled, tearing it off and throwing it away. If it weren't for the stacking cold resistances thrown on him by his supporting allies, that creature might've taken an arm off if the bounty hunter's luck had continued the usual downward trend.

"Anybody dead yet?"

Oh, save us, save us! (Save us, save us!)
Save us, save us!
Save us from, the man with the hex!

As Tiferet's song reached its completion, it was punctuated by the slamming of the massive doors behind the party. The bard was panting and flushed, despite how chilly the air was, leaning against a wall with her hands on her knees after having sprinted through the door just behind the front-liners. She was also starting to laugh, strangely enough. "Hah... hah... Hahahaaa, that was the best use of that spell since I used it to cause a riot one time." She straightened up and then some, stretching her back before looking over towards the others, counting heads to make sure everyone had gotten through alright. "Uhh... Yup, looks like we're all here." Tif gave one of her trademark grins as she faced the party, aimed towards Graves, Elian, and Tessa, especially. They seemed like they needed a bit of optimism. "And that just goes to show! Between all of us, we'll be able to make it outta here just fine." I hope. I really, really hope. If I'm wrong, then...

Rather than continue down that train of thought any further, Tiferet focused on studying the passage ahead, looking for anything that might indicate that the boss was ahead, or signs of more monsters. Typically the encounters were pretty well spaced out, but this place wasn't exactly a "typical" dungeon, was it?

Graves shot an irritated look toward the fiddler, his fingers scratching the interior of his palm as he considered lopping her head off and tossing her back in with the slimes. After a moment's deliberation, he decided against it. Obnoxious as that experience was, Tiferet's magic had proven helpful. It was one of many reasons they were all still in one piece.

"Least one of us is having fun." He half chuckled, his throat still raw and dry from all of the shouting Graves had done in the heat of battle. It took a great deal of effort to keep himself from spiraling into existential despair because a video game was attempting to murder him; humor wasn't coming easily to the less-than-gentle giant.

Tif's overwhelming optimism helped him center himself, even if only a little bit.

It was enough to help him remain steady enough in mind to think critically on the argument Rael presented. He met her gaze, something between disbelief and shock brimming underneath his crimson pupils at the words that slipped from her lips.

Returning into that hellish pit? That was...nearly unthinkable. They had narrowly managed to slip away without one of them being crushed underneath the gelatinous tidal wave and consumed by the slimish horde. They would be testing fate by trying to go back inside. Yet, by that same token, some credence could be given to Rael's argument.

That room was far too well protected to be little more than another ambush. Those inlets were carved with intention; the creatures within were protecting something. The crossroads, perhaps? There were two other doors leading into separate halls. It could have meant this was the center of a spiraling labyrinth, and each hallway led back to this place.

Or it was but a single, near impossible obstacle on the long flight to make it out of this place. Suffice to say, if Graves ever managed to get out of there alive, he wouldn't be diving into another dungeon as long as he lived.

Silence filled the stony room. Everyone was considering Rael's words for themselves, absorbing the fact that they might be diving head first into danger once again. If this were still just a game, Graves wouldn't hesitate. He would be standing right beside Rael, likely spitting insults at the other party members for being so indecisive. Yet now...

Rael chose to break the silence herself. Well aware of the unspoken concerns of her compatriots, she offered a more thorough explanation, pleading with each of them to consider it closely.

Graves's arms went over his chest as he did just that.

He had never been much good at puzzles. Brute force was his primary method of problem solving, and when that failed, he tended to (begrudgingly) rely on others to make up for where his skills were found lacking. Still, he knew how dungeons worked, more or less. He knew they were more than blank halls full of monsters meant to be beaten down in short order. There was a story behind each- one he rarely paid much attention to.

"Well, uh..." Graves sighed, moving to run a hand through his thick locks. "There were four'a these big ass doors. So I'm thinkin' either the road splits off in a bunch'a other directions, or all of 'em lead back in there." It wasn't much that he had to offer, but he wasn't exactly Einstein, either. "The ceiling was grated too, like you'd see on a drain." It could've been to let in natural light. It reminded him of a drainage runoff, however; for what that was worth.

"What, Red, you think those things were guardin' somethin'? Like a way out?"

Tif caught Graves' irritated stare in her direction and gave him a grin she hoped looked apologetic. For once, her quick wit failed her, so she just held the grin and hoped he didn't decide to just cut her in half then and there. He certainly seemed pissed enough.

Eventually, he relaxed - as much as someone could in this environment - and gave her a hoarse chuckle.

"Least one of us is having fun."

Tif's answering giggle was more of a series of exhalations than a real laugh, her exhaustion finally beginning to show, both in her voice and on her face. "Honestly, man, it's either keep laughin' or start cryin'." Privately, as the knot of anxiety in her stomach tightened considerably, Tif realized she probably shouldn't have said that; she had done such a good job of acting optimistic earlier, even when their morale was already pretty damn low. If she broke now...

Tiferet cut herself off there. "If" nothing. I won't break. I will keep my shit together until we get out of here, no matter what, because people are counting on me. This is not a joke, for once; this is serious shit. I will not break. I will not break. I will not break...

Tif took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. Then again. The knot loosened, and Tif allowed herself a small smile. They would be fine. She knew it.

Rael cut in at about that point, with exactly the notion that Tif didn't want to hear: going back into the slime room.

Tiferet sighed deeply (and a little shakily, despite herself). "Speakin' of crying..."

For obvious reasons, Tif didn't want to return to the horrible gooey death trap they had just left. They only had so many fire-based buffs and attacks, even with a mage whose entire schtick was fire on their side. Plus, they had already been nearly overwhelmed; only stacking a bunch of buffs on Graves had allowed them to make it out, and Tif doubted they'd be able to do that for long enough to completely rid the room of slimes. But, at much as she hated it... Rael was right. That room had at least two other doorways to check through; there was no way it wasn't important somehow. Tif tried her best to think up an idea behind the dungeon's layout, but puzzles were never her forte. She had just been about to posit her idea that perhaps there were switches at the ends of the passages that they would have to trigger to progress, when the sound of cracking ice struck all the thoughts from her mind, save one.

Fuck.

As what was almost definitely the boss of the dungeon tore down the only barrier between it and them, Tiferet put bow to violin and started playing. <Hestia> filled the air of their makeshift battleground, raising the ambient temperature a couple of degrees. The entire party's weapons gained an orange-red flickering glow, as all of their attacks became fire-aspected for the song's duration. If the rest of the dungeon was any indication, doing this would almost definitely paint a target on her back, but Tiferet trusted in her allies to shield her from the boss's attacks. She had to.

---

After making it through the door, Tessa doubled over, putting her hands on her knees, panting from the anxiety. Momentarily deactivating her spells so she could rely on her passive mana regeneration instead of constantly chugging potions, which she noted, now had a taste that she was very quickly getting tired of.

"Anybody dead yet?"

"Yup, just gonna, lay down, right here, and expire," Tessa said with a bit of sarcastic triumph. The worst was over right?

“What are the odds we have to go back in there? Or that the room is the key to all of this? Like, I don't want to go back in. I'm just trying to think how we're supposed to handle this. What the goal is outside of killing us. Every dungeon has a goal to solving it. Otherwise there'd be no world to fight in. So, like, what's the purpose of that room? It's too large to simply be a trap, is what I'm thinking.”

"Well, uh...There were four'a these big ass doors. So I'm thinkin' either the road splits off in a bunch'a other directions, or all of 'em lead back in there. The ceiling was grated too, like you'd see on a drain. What, Red, you think those things were guardin' somethin'? Like a way out?"

Tessa knew Rael was right. having spent so much time herself pondering about positional advantages and tactical placement, she knew Rael was right. Tessa's brain knew, but her mouth didn't. She was about to give the redheaded spearwoman a piece of her mind when FUCKIN' VICAR AMELIA Kool-Aid Mans its way through the door. "他妈的鸟!!" Tessa swore, taking a step away from the crashed ope gate. For a moment, the thought to run crossed her mind. These fools seemed dumb enough to engage, so they might buy her enough time to find the exit by herself. She took another step back. Dammit. "Shit, give me some time to get my spells up!" She called out shakily, as she began erecting her auras one by one, starting with the protective ones, then the control ones, and finally the damage ones. She only hoped those on the front could hold out long enough.

Fear crept like frost along Graves's body, it's cold tendrils rooting him in place. His eyes hung wide on the rapidly shattering threshold and the titan forcing it's way through. The dungeon's boss- a monstrous amalgamation of every slime monster they'd fight before- was attempting to chase them down and finish them off.

Their party was running on fumes. They'd had perhaps a minute or two to catch their breath and start regenerating magic points before this thing appeared.

It now loomed over the party's lone musician and bard, dwarfing her several times over. For God knows what reason, be it bravery or shock, the girl had chosen to stand her ground instead of running away. She was moments from being ground into nothing but marrow and gore by that gargantuan thing. Graves should've started forward. He should've already been moving to intercept to try and save her. Ordinarily he would. Graves was a tank; protecting overextended supports was his duty. Yet now as he stared that demonic giant in it's burning gaze, he felt only crippling indecisiveness.

Death was an alien concept. To him, it was meant to be a distant worry; something to mind in fifty years when he'd lived a full life. Here in the safety of his room, in a game of all places, it felt all too close.

Yet despite that, Rael was already moving.

She was half his size and could be crushed just as easily as Tiferet, but Rael moved in anyway.

Because she had to. Because they all had to. They couldn't run or hide in a place like this. The only way to survive the dungeon was to fight against whatever it threw at them with all of the strength, courage and desperation that they could muster. It was what was required of her; it was what was necessary.

"Jesus." Graves snarled under his breath, tightening his grip on his weapon. He needed to pull himself together. He'd given Tessa shit for what he was doing, and even if he was going down in this tomb, he wasn't going to die a hypocrite.

He started forward, his armor heavy upon his shoulders as he reached down to pluck a pair of elixirs from his belt. Ironskin and lifesteal would allow him to go toe to toe with most monsters solo. However, a boss like this would tear him limb from limb if he were to rely just on the potions; luckily for him, he wasn't alone. "Knife-ears!" He bellowed, his boots smacking hard against stone as he moved toward the giant. "If ya let me die I'm gonna fuckin' kill ya!" His throat felt horse and raw. He really hoped she could do this.

Rael managing to stop one of the claws just before it got a hold of Tiferet must've infuriated the boss, because it was tearing at the door in record time. A massive threshold of thick steel and wood was being mangled and broken like it was made of tissue paper. The entire structure was collapsing, even as the hinges groaned and whined in protest to the attack.

Graves, knowing they didn't have much time, ran at the arm Rael struggled against. He needed to draw the creature's attention away the duo, if he could; even if he couldn't, splitting it's attention was better than nothing. His target was the lower forearm, just underneath the elbow. The polearm was barely long enough to reach there and still be effective.

"That all ya got, ya ugly bastard?!" How it had failed to shatter the half-pints guard, Graves didn't know. Either it was far weaker than it appeared or Rael was packing 18 inch Destroyer guns. Either way, the two of them were alive, but there was no guarantee they would stay that way if he didn't act soon.

So he threw himself at Arnaakus, his momentum shifting behind the axhead of his halberd. He swung it down over his head, letting the tempered steel crash against the hardened exterior of the demon with a thunderous clash. The sheer mass of so many slimes come together had made it all but completely solid, frozen and harsh like stone. Attacking it was more akin to smashing ice than gelatin; a fact he could appreciate. It was nice to finally have something solid to stab.

Tiferet's <Hestia> song had gifted his weapon with the embers needed to make headway in the beast's flesh, melting through the ice where an ordinary edge would not suffice. He wasn't able to cut deep, perhaps only two or three inches in, but the wound was visible. And that was enough.

"Pyro, archers!" Graves shouted over his shoulder, hoping they could hear over the sound of shearing metal. He went in for another cut, sliding the ax head along at an angle over the previous cut. This one was much shallower than the last, but it was quicker. "X marks the spot! Light it up and take this thing's arm off!" Concentrated fire from Landon, Mirage and everyone's favorite pyromaniac would hopefully burn straight through the arm. The fight would be a hell of a lot easier if they only had to worry about one super strong claw instead of two.

The loud KZZZH-CHUNK of Rael's spear stabbing into the boss' hand shook Tiferet out of what had been an odd sort of reverie, where the only thing that mattered was that she had been playing. She was playing, and doing her job of buffing the others, and that had been enough, until it very suddenly wasn't. Now that Rael had very likely saved her life, the reverie was broken, and a very unfamiliar emotion gripped Allison Márquez:

Mortal terror.

However, at the moment, there were more important matters at hand - like not getting squished or, God forbid, eaten by the cause of said mortal terror. So, her subconscious filed the terror in the back of her head, to be experienced properly once the boss was dealt with. Her legs, meanwhile, propelled Tiferet backwards as fast as she could manage while still continuing to play <Hestia>, and her mouth stammered out a mangled thanks/apology to Rael as the tiny tank practically flew in front of her. Her mind, however, was temporarily stunned at how close she had just come to being killed, and was now essentially running on autopilot for the time being. So, naturally, the thought that floated to the surface was:

Huh. Rael just called me dumb in Japanese. I guess that was kinda dumb. ...Is she Japanese? I've never asked.

It was overridden fairly quickly with more pertinent thoughts, such as <Hestia>'s almost finished, I'll switch off to <Olympia> once the fire shield's up, but quietly, Tif's subconscious filed the thought in the back of her head, labelled "to be brought up again if I survive this".