[center][h1][color=bf7300][u]L a n d o n[/u][/color][/h1][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][hr][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent]  • The Dungeon - Frost Slime Room • [/center][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][hr][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent]
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 [i]looked[/i] 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.

[i]This is terrible, I can't get many shots through this crowd!  I need a higher angle...[/i]  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...