[center][h1][color=red][u]G R A V E S[/u][/color][/h1][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][hr][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent]  [color=gray]• Tʜᴇ Dᴜɴɢᴇᴏɴ •[/color] [/center][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][hr][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent]

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 [i]thing[/i] 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 [i]game[/i] 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 [i]all[/i] 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.

[color=red]"Jesus."[/color] 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. [color=red]"Knife-ears!"[/color] He bellowed, his boots smacking hard against stone as he moved toward the giant. [color=red]"If ya let me die I'm gonna fuckin' kill ya!"[/color] 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.

[color=red]"That all ya got, ya ugly bastard?!"[/color] 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.

[color=red]"Pyro, archers!"[/color] 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. [color=red]"X marks the spot! Light it up and take this thing's arm off!"[/color] 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 [i]one[/i] super strong claw instead of two.