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Level 9 Sectonia (holding 3 level up) - (49/90)
[b]Location:[/b] The Crossroads > Basement
[b]Word Count:[/b] 1722[/center]

Sectonia hadn't paid as much attention as she should've. Having dismissed the sleeping Grubz Mother as something not worth her time, she didn't pay attention to the Adventurer, Ganondorf, and eventually Nadia who all dealt with it and its spawn that erupted from it upon death in a shower of... Well thankfully Sectonia didn't see what it actually did but she did see the aftermath. And everyone came out of it mostly well, so that was a plus. Well, physically well. But appearance wise? She'd need to clean them up when she had the chance.

Surprisingly Nadia denied Sectonia's request of the Symbol of Avarice. Perhaps she figured the drop in life force was permanent? [color=92278f]"The loss is temporary, as if you got damaged. But I suppose I'll find someone else..."[/color] Sectonia was a bit deflated but undeterred. Nadia hadn't seen what this thing could do, so it did make sense that she wasn't jumping for joy at the possiblity to see what strange and wonderful things she would find. 

[color=92278f]"Still, when we have the chance. I need to get you, the adventurer there, and even our 'king of evil' cleaned and proper. Being covered in... that... can't be comfortable."[/color] Sectonia said, her tone of voice dropping a notable octave when she mentioned Ganondorf, her sense of beauty even outweighing her distrust of the man if for a moment. 

Wanting to get a move on, and with Sectonia's little group in agreement, Bowser's group having gone somewhere else. Sectonia rolled her eyes, [i][color=92278f]"Of course the oaf got himself lost..."[/color][/i] Sectonia thought as she told a couple of her antillions to go and find the koopa king and her other minions that were missing, pointing them in the direction of the strange forest that they had gone. She gave the same orders to the monsters she had 'adopted' through mind control as well. If this place was going to be gross and horrible, it would be best to stay gathered together. With that done, she headed after Nadia as the cat girl made her way to the basement as well.

And considering what happened next with Nadia jumping headlong into a 'chest' that lead to the basement according to her map, this was a much better idea than Sectonia was going to give herself credit for. Having gone ahead on her own again, Nadia found herself being ambushed yet again and needing to take whatever path she could find for an escape, jumping into that chest as a result. Sectonia could only sigh at the cat girls proclivity to find danger, or perhaps, eagerness. The creatures that chased her into said chest were quite the sights, and not for good reasons. Did everything down here have to be sickeningly awful? 

Surprisingly said chest that lead to the basement was incredibly large, so much so that even Sectonia or Bowser looked like they could fit through it without much issue. The miners seemed to ignore the queen bee, but the things that assaulted Nadia did not. Having left one injured, Sectonia decided it would be best to clean up after the feral and make the way down for her other minions or even the others easier. Plus more spirits to loot wouldn't hurt. Sectonia made her move, summoning her Chaos shield before blinking next to the pair of Kindred of Rot and zapping them both with dark lightning blasts as one was helping the other wounded one to its feet. Sectonia didn't stay for very long herself either, blasting the wounded one until it turned to dust even as the other one smacked her with its polearm and its threads. What Sectonia didn't expect was a third that struck her with its threads from range, very angry at the bee queen attaching its friend. Thankfully Sectonia had most of the damage being absorbed by the chaos shield, but with two attacking at full force and a third attacking her at half strength, they got through that Chaos Shield and started damaging the queen proper. She didn't take too much of that punishment though before she turned the weakened Kindred of Rot to dust, grabbed its spirit, and blinked her way into the chest. Still, she could see why Nadia ran, they were disgusting and damaging at the same time.

She soon found that flying down through the chest was a bit of a strange thing, the whole area being a darkness not even she could see through as she flew down for a few moments. Eventually she found herself in the same crusty, smelly room Nadia found herself in. Sectonia could only wretch at the smell coming from this place, saying. [color=92278f]"Why am I not surprised this place is disgusting as well? You would think it wouldn't smell this bad but..."[/color] Nadia or anyone who had followed right behind the Queen could see this actually phased her, the Queen holding her nose until she could get 'used' to the smell, even if she hated it. 

[color=92278f]"Its rare I regret a decision, but this is one of those rare moments... I hate it here."[/color] Sectonia said, grumbling about how they were heading down this way of all places. Still, much like Nadia said, they had to go through, kill everything, and make their way through the floor. Looking at the map Nadia had, Sectonia decided to see what was awaiting them in a bit of a test run, making her way left. Glancing in the nearby room, Sectonia saw a trio of [url=https://bindingofisaacrebirth.fandom.com/wiki/Mulligan#Mulligan]Strange crying blobs of... something[/url] that began to spit out black flies and run away from the Queen as she approached. That was the group of monsters, with the source of some of the smell being seen as a large pile of feces was sitting alongside one of the wall with various rocks sitting about the room. With the size of the room being what it was, Sectonia could still fly over these obstacles, but this was indeed unsightly.

Looking at the things running away from the queen and spitting out flies that flew towards her, Sectonia decided to expend some of her rage on the thing. Letting loose her rings of light that flew around the room, Sectonia made quick work of the slow moving flies and the creature, which upon its death exploded into a group of flies, one of which shot a blood globule at Sectonia before she could dispatch it with her attacks. Not wanting to get hit by something so gross, she blinked out of the way. One of the other Mulligans died to Sectonia's barrage of off target light rings, but this time not summoning anything but normal flies. The final mulligain, seeing it was the last one alive and terrified of Sectonia approaching it, decided to self destruct, releasing all the attack flies inside it which the queen dispatched with her swords.  When the room was cleared, half a beating heart appeared in the middle of the room with the door to the south being opened. [color=92278f]"Hm... That was a bit too easy...."[/color] Sectonia thought, poking the half heart out of curiosity. Just by merely touching it, she collected it, which healed her a little bit. A weird kind of healing item, but not unwelcome. Sectonia grabbed the three creature spirits and made her way to the next room.

She then progressed south into a more bare room that had a few sparse rocks littered about it with [url=https://bindingofisaacrebirth.fandom.com/wiki/Hopper#Hopper] headless creatures[/url] that jumped around alongside [url=https://bindingofisaacrebirth.fandom.com/wiki/Round_Worm#Round_Worm]white worm creatures[/url] that popped up and spit spiraling blood globules that eventually dissipated. Even more strange, but seeing as what she had seen in the previous room, she got to work attacking these things. As the headless creatures leaped near her, Sectonia pulled out her swords and struck at them, finding the creatures died in only a few swipes. Sectonia did find that these creatures required mobility to deal with, as she found when one jumped on her that mere contact hurt, and the pain was a bit odd for how light the impact was. Thankfully unlike the other creature she had fought in the previous room, these did not explode into attack flies. She didn't want to approach the worms shooting blood globules after having touched one of the hoppers, so she just struck them with lightning whenever the surfaced, making short work of them. Much like the other room before, an item spawned in the center of the room, this time being a cartoonish looking bomb which Sectonia picked up. 

Seeing as there were no more connected rooms, Sectonia grabbed the 3 hopper and 2 worm spirits and made her way back to where Nadia was. [color=92278f]"Left side is clear. This place is disgusting, ladies like us shouldn't stay in such a place for long. At least the creatures here are slow and easy to defeat. Just be wary of touching them. Not only are they gross, they do disproportionate amounts of damage. At least clearing a room seems to reward you with items in this dungeon, even if some are unsightly."[/color] Sectonia said. She still had spirits to crush, so the Queen crushed half of the spirits of the creatures she had grabbed. If Nadia or anyone was still around that knew of her Symbol of Avarice, they could see that she didn't wear it when she did this. Anyone who saw the item however could note that the helmet was, frankly, too small for the Queen to wear. 

Overall she crushed a mulligain, 2 hopper, and a round worm spirit to see what she would get herself, while waiting for another one of her allies to come down and try crushing the remaining spirits with the symbol to see what it would give them. She also spent her time trying to remove the foul odor in this room, waiting for the others to clear the rooms ahead, curious as to what they would find. She'd keep up with the party, but she shouldn't be the only one to deal with these vile creatures, even if she wanted to destroy them all. The others should at least learn what they were dealing with after all. 

Thinking back to Nadia's map, there were many rooms with creatures in them, but some with symbols. What could the symbols mean?