Magpie messed around (it was only funny if you were into boomer movies). Klein checked himself for hickies (there were none, thank god). Amulak offered to stick a centipede up in his friends’ spine. A few seconds elapsed since Ames pressed his hand against the white shell and felt something push back. And then, he saw an indentation push outwards from that oval-shape. It was small, perhaps even pointed, the protrusion that emerged from the white surface. The limb of a small child, or the tail of a lamia? Or something else entirely? Would monsters capable of what amounted to organized crime be so willing to leave their children or the fruits of the labor alone, with nothing to guard or protect it?

Raime, crouched by the grooves still, heard something. A high-pitched whining sound, needling into his virtual skull. Almost imperceptible vibrations, increasing in frequency. Not from below, but from around.

The magma from the singular pit in the room made its presence known aurally for the first time. It bubbled and boiled, molten rock frothing and hissing as it moved about.

What was happening?
[sub][@Shovel][@Searat][@Psyker Landshark][@OwO][@Yankee][/sub][hr]
[b]“Umph!”[/b] Bortz grunted in response, his knees bending. As Ari grabbed on, primed to kick off, the warrior hopped up as well, ice cracking off his body as he sent his upper body up out of the stream of ice, just in time for Ari to clear it as well. Even with the combined maneuver, however, the cat girl’s strength was not enough to meet her aspirations. At only twice the physical strength of an average adult human, she had hardly any airtime at all. A mere second, enough for her Maneater’s Sickle to reach the gyuki but not enough for her to survive the vestiges of the icy torrent.

The sickle sliced against the right eye, unable to pierce, but able to bludgeon. The gyuki let out a bleat of pain, rearing back as the last surge of icy breath blasted out. And Ari began to fall.

Into the flesh-cracking ice below.

But from within the torrent of ice, an armored hand surged out, palm up! Ari was no titan of might, but Bortz, even as a second stream blasted him from the other side, was no bitch! The weight of a single catgirl was not enough to cause his arm to even quake as she landed upon the rock-solid platform, granting her safety from the toxic breath of the beast that wrestled still with Droko. She had avoided damage still, but out in the open like this, with only a hand-sized platform to dance around in, Ari would have no safety, and Bortz’s own HP was continuing to drop from the sequential elemental breaths that he’d endured. Vator and Droko looked to be doing a number on the gyuki that breathed out the toxic torrent though, the bear-woman biting into the soft meat of the cow-demon’s lower jaw while the firestepping swordsman made swiss cheese out of its back. If they finished off the creature in time, then the four of them combined should make quick work out of the remaining gyuki.

As such thoughts passed through Ari’s mind, however, the ice-spitter’s form dissolved and disappeared, like a mirage evaporating once temperatures chilled.
[sub][@GreenGoat][/sub]