[center][img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/221005/7d7c778891f3387ab231a2bbd26f2d1e.png[/img]
[img]https://i.imgur.com/tfV5JeK.png[/img]
Level 7 Jesse: 27/70 [@Zoey Boey]
Level 2 Ganondorf: 5/20 [@Double]
Level 10 Nadia: 60/100 [@Lugubrious]
[b]Word Count[/b]: 6946 (+7)
Location: The Under
Points Gained: ?
NEW EXP balance--- Level 7: 34/70 (Jesse)
NEW EXP balance--- Level 2: 12/20 (Ganondorf)
NEW EXP balance--- Level 7: 67/100 (Nadia)[/center]
    [hr]
    
    Jesse watched the interaction with the cartographer, arms crossed. When asked for money, she just shrugged. Fortunately, Therion had some. Jesse would have to work on getting some gold on her. As for Sectonia’s offer, Jesse would consider it later. She didn’t need to get injured while she was down here and to be honest, ‘loot’ wasn’t particularly appealing to her. She liked to travel as light as she could, even with all this crap in her pockets. 

    They encountered some kind of fucking gross ass bug thing. Jesse pumped bullets into it from a far and with one big punch from Ganondorf the thing died. Or at least, went into a perma-coma. Which gave it just enough time to give birth to dozens of awful little creatures. “Dark.” Jesse said, switching her gun to Spin and sweeping streaks of machinegun fire across the field, preventing any from reaching her or the allies near her.

    “Pretty hostile for a bunch of newborns.” Jesse said. “At least all the gross things we kill turn to ash right away. Usually gross things are even grosser when they’re dead.”

    Afterwards it was just a trek- “Onward and downwards.” Jesse said. “Just like the good old days, right Polaris?”

    Polaris shimmered encouragingly as they went deeper into the depths. Whatever secrets Polaris wanted Jesse to uncover, the Director trusted her instincts and wisdom as much as she trusted her own. 

    As they followed Nadia down, they encountered some pretty gross monsters with threads, which injured Nadia (she’d probably be fine) and Sectonia took care of while Jesse fired at miscellaneous hostile critters. 

    They dropped down into the basement, where there was a variety of directions to go. Jesse was just gonna guess, but every time someone went ahead of her, the doors slammed shut and she heard fighting inside. 

    “Uhh. Huh.” She was reluctant to use No Collide, not sure how the rules of this place worked. The doors opened up shortly thereafter and she figured Omori and Therion were pushing ahead, clearing the rooms of monsters.

    She made sure to get ahead of the pack once the pace slowed down a bit.

    “All right, wait up. I’m going in on this next one, I haven’t gotten into any real fights since the big monsters. I’m fresh. I could probably take the next few rooms alone but if anyone else is itching for a fight and doesn’t need a break they can come with.”

As Jesse volunteered for the next round, Nadia stepped up to accompany her. “Let me join ya,” she requested. “I’m the one who dove headfirst into this place after all, it’s about time I got up off my tail and lent a hand.” That said, the feral couldn’t help but have mixed feelings. After catching up with the frontrunners through the rooms they cleared, that repulsive odor that hung heavy in the stale, musty Basement air didn’t get any better. With the sudden lockdown. the moment any challengers stepped inside, she didn’t get a chance to see what kind of monsters awaited the group either, but she did hear some rather choice sounds with her ears pressed up against the doors. Two at a time seemed practical, but it also meant fewer allies to fall back on if they ran into a troublesome gimmick.

[color=Red]“Fine, I’ll make it three then.”[/color] declared the King of Evil as he observed the workings of this Basement. Each room appeared to hide ambushes and other surprises, not unlike the ancient Temples that dotted his home world of Hyrule. If that upstart Hero could conquer dungeons, then so could he!

“Okay!” Though she’d known the burly warrior for only twenty minutes, Nadia felt pretty confident in her assessment of his strength. “Full team ahead then!” Of course, her nose wrinkled at the room directly before theirs. “Ugh…a hero’s ‘duty’ is never done?”

[center][youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1KfWsg44bo&ab_channel=SuperRayman001[/youtube][/center]

The trio hastened through the malodorous poop room to the new exit and on a count of three, squeezed through the door. With Jesse floating above and Nadia hitching a ride on Ganondorf’s back as he barged in low, they all managed to make it before the door slammed shut. As Nadia dropped down she blinked in brow-raised incredulity at the grotesque monsters that awaited them. Eight [url=https://i.imgur.com/DH1Mk1v.png]floating heads[/url] hung motionless in the air around the room, their cheeks slick with ruby-red blood on account of gouged-out eyes and their mouths slack in a nerveless expression of agony. Half as many [url=https://i.imgur.com/YirrdQX.png]three-foot humanoids[/url] stood in a cluster, and as they turned to face the newcomers Nadia could see tears of blood wept around a creepy smile. The Horfs began to shoot globules of wretched blood across the room, while the Gapers ran toward the trio like children seeking the comfort of mothers’ arms.

    “Jesus.” Jesse said, raising an eyebrow as she took in the entities coming towards them. The globules were a type of attack familiar to Jesse, she strafed to the side, avoiding them as they attempted to track her. Figuring her two fighty allies could take care of the Gapers, she focused her attention on the distant floating heads. The good news was, as long as she hit, it couldn’t [i]not[/i] be a headshot. She lined them up in her sights and began popping them out of the air with well timed and even-tempo pistol shots. With each shot they popped like balloons made of ash, except for the ones that just kind of wobbled there and stopped shooting. Those, she had to shoot twice. Who knows what anatomy they have going on in there?

[color=Red]”How… grotesque.”[/color] was all Ganondorf could really say about the things they encountered in this room. They reminded him of several of the horror stories he had heard about the Well in Kakariko Village, and the atrocities that were said to have been committed in the Shadow Temple. But he had never let a few horrors stop him before, and he wasn’t about to start now. The man’s hand grasped the hilt of the White Sword he carried and he pulled it from its scabbard. While the floating heads remained stationary, the full humanoids instead moved around. As Jesse took her shots at the heads, Ganondorf bounded forward in long strides with his tall legs. With but a few mighty swings of the sword, Ganondorf managed to sweep its blade through a majority of the humanoids, save for a single one that managed to avoid it.

“Yeesh.” Nadia’s instinct to get out of the way at the last moment turned out to be a good one, as her new ally obliterated almost all the Gapers in one go. She watched the last one nearly trip as it stumbled away from the giant slash, then charge toward her. “Almost feel bad for ‘em.” The Gaper jumped at her, but she intercepted it with a five-claw thrust to its oversized head to stop it in its tracks. She steeled her arm to keep the dead weight aloft as it dangled, then brought her other hand around in front of her head. “Sorry chum, maybe necks time.” With one swipe its body hit the floor, and she flung its head away like a beach ball. “Yeugh…”

A blood globule hit her, which really stung, and Nadia turned to glare at it only for Jesse to pop it the next moment, and with that there were no more Horfs. While distracted, however, the feral didn’t notice that the headless body of the Gaper she decapitated stood back up, becoming a Pacer. “Whoa!” she yelled, hopping back as it began to toddle her way. She lashed out with an extended kick to send the little body flying, although touching it with her foot had one other effect. “Ow!? It hurt me just by touchin’ it?” Incensed by the idea of contact damage, she rushed the Pacer down and dispatched it with a downward slash. Meanwhile, two of the Gapers that Ganondorf killed rose again as well, one as a Pacer and the other as a Gusher, a fountain of burning blood exploding from its neck as it staggered the warlord’s way.

[color=Red]”Back for more?”[/color] scoffed the Gerudo when two of his fallen enemies rose back up and without their heads. He noticed the blood shooting from one of them as if like a projectile, and some of that blood threatened to splash his way, but instead would hit the Pacer. In a quick moment of decisiveness, Ganondorf had grabbed the nearby Pacer with his right hand and used it to shield himself from the incoming splash of blood. Grabbing the Pacer sent a stinging pain in his hands, but the King of Evil merely gritted his teeth and endured it until the splash ended. Whatever devilry this was would prove no match for the Gerudo’s resilience against it.

With a grunt, Ganondorf put his body weight into hurling the Pacer’s body once the splash ended. He sent it careening into the Gusher, his Triforce of Power giving him the strength to smash both of the creatures into a nearby wall and reducing them both to little more than a bloody smear upon it. He glanced at his slightly singed right hand and clenched it into a fist with defiance, [color=Red]”Persistent little abominations, aren’t they?”[/color]

“If you put both types of them together, you’d get a whole monster.” Jesse said to Ganondorf as she looked around the emptied room. 

As the doors both unlocked, there came a flash in the very center of the room. A single coin appeared from nowhere and began to fall toward the ground. “MINE!” Nadia yowled, throwing herself at the money head-first. She caught it in the palms of her extended hands before splatting down on the floor. “Oogh,” she grunted, wincing a little, but the weight of coinage in her hand brought her smile back quickly. The feral stood up, pocketed the coin, and joined the group grinning like she hadn’t just winded herself for a single cent. After seeing that, Jesse made to run over to it. When Nadia secured the coin, she snapped her fingers in defeat.

“Darn. Almost had it.” She said flatly, smiling. 

Seeing the way they came, she then made for the exact opposite door from that one. “Not that the piggy-back strat isn’t the best idea we’ve ever had-” She began, cutting herself off. “Nah, it’s fine, it worked. Ready?” Jesse floated into the air and entered the next room.

[color=Red]”Hmph.”[/color] was all the Gerudo responded with before walking through the door and into the next room after Jesse.

Once again the three squeezed inside. This room featured two doors, one straight ahead and one to the left, and unlike the last one a number of yawning pitfalls in the floor. Scattered around were twelve [url=https://i.imgur.com/RVUdsTY.png]Clotties[/url], little more than sacks of flesh the size of stuffed-full trash bags with varying amounts of protruding bone, eyes, and mouths. They sloshed around the room and hopped in place to attack, which sent out blood tears in the four cardinal directions.

Nadia looked displeased, like she’d just found a hair in her food. “Guess this is where hot dogs come from,” she quipped. As projectiles flew her way she stepped side to side to dodge them before drawing out one of her anchors. “Meat your maker!” she cried, and with a big swing she brought what was practically a chain-axe down on a Clotty, her hand detached and extended along with the chain. By doing this she could easily yank the anchor back, then go for another round from a comfortable range.

Jesse touched down and kicked off, making to stay in the air to take advantage of the space said giant holes in the ground provided her. From above she once again fired pistol shots at the Clotties. “They’re giving up so much blood already- I guess we’re just damaging their structural integrity?” She said aloud, briefly pausing her gunshots to line up another hopping target. 

Ganondorf rotated his torso to one side to avoid one of the blood shots, [color=Red]”What next, a walking pile of bone meal?”[/color] he scoffed, still not really taking these enemies very seriously. But with projectiles like that and pitfalls to watch out for, remaining at a distance was the ideal strategy here. Well, Ganondorf may not have wielded some fairy bow like certain heroes, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t attack from a distance. It was all just a matter of… sending someone else to do it for him, [color=Red]”Very well then… appear before me and prove your worth!”[/color] he commanded, concentrating a large amount of dark magic in his hands and holding it out before him. This almost appeared to rip open a dimensional hole in front of him, and from it stepped forward… himself? No, it was not him. It was an [url=https://legendsofz.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/phantom_ganon_guide.png]armored phantom[/url] that looked nearly identical to the Gerudo, save for the horned mask it wore on its face and the long spear it carried as a weapon.

[color=Red]”Serve me well, and I may yet forgive your previous failure, now go!”[/color] the Gerudo King ordered with a threatening point of his finger. The Phantom he had summoned nodded his head and obeyed its master’s orders. It stepped forward a couple of steps before lifting itself up with some kind of levitation magic. After this it floated around, using its ability to move through the air to easily avoid the shots of blood while occasionally dropping down to skewer Clotties with its wicked spear. As for Ganondorf, he simply stayed back and watched. Sectonia was not the only one capable of commanding minions.

While Ganondorf had his phantom run amuck, Nadia kept practicing with her chain anchors, trying to get used to their weight and balance in order to improve her aim. Using them to deliver solid slashes and slams was tricky, and she missed more than a couple times, but at least these foes didn’t pose much of a threat. After lodging one anchor into a Clotty across a pit she dragged it into the hole, then reeled in the anchor to shake it clean. “Shame it’s not gonna stay this easy,” she predicted. By the time the others wiped the Clotties out she got just one more kill for a grand total of three. Less than average? Maybe. But being a contact fighter, she wanted to be touching these little horrors -and getting their blood near her own- as little as possible.

Rather than choose between the two doors, Nadia readied herself for another coin. Instead a [url=https://i.imgur.com/QB3V6mx.png]bomb with a weird smirk[/url] appeared, already lit. “Whuh!?” Panicked, the feral backpedaled as fast as she could.

“Whuh!” Jesse reached out with Launch and flung the bomb against the wall of the nearest pit. The explosion echoed from the pit, the weird little prank failing. “...I guess that’s not that much weirder than a [i]coin[/i] appearing out of mid air, is it? Not sure why I only question it now that it’s something bad.” 

Jesse landed on solid ground and looked around at the door. They had a couple options. Once again her instinct was to just keep pushing forward in the opposite direction of where they came, instead of turning now. “Eenie-meenie miney that one?” She pointed at it and floated above so they could do their signature technique, which Jesse found amusing every time.

Once in, she raised her gun and prepared for enemies, only to not see any. 

Ganondorf dismissed the Phantom with a wave of his hand and simply decided to follow Jesse’s lead. With this group already split up it was probably best not to split it up even further. He was equally surprised to not see any enemies in the following room, [color=Red]”Wrong direction, then?”[/color] It did, however, have something interesting. Across the room, between two campfires, sat a stony, petrified figure with its head rolled back and its mouth agape. In front of it lay three items, each with an amount scrawled out next to them in chalk. Five cents for a beating metallic heart, five for a normal bomb, and fifteen for a shiny red heart with an arrow through it inscribed with the letters ‘BFF’.

“Oh, I guess it’s a shop?” Recovered from the bomb jump scare, Nadia looked at the merchandise but came away with her ears dejectedly flat. “I don’t have enough money.”

“Aww. It’s like a creepy lemonade stand.” Jesse said, endeared by the little doll that’s been left there.  “Hellooo?” She walked up and waved her hand at the doll. “Anyone home?” She waited for a beat. Nothing happened.

“Maybe it works on the honor system?” Jesse asked, smiling at Nadia who had been defeated by the little chalk sign security system.  

The feral looked back at her, perturbed by the smile. Was Jesse asking Nadia to try to rob the store? Well, she would, but not because Jesse wanted her to. Unfortunately, when Nadia crouched to grab the bomb her hand went straight through it as if it didn’t exist. “Magic,” she snorted.

[color=Red]”Did you expect anything less?”[/color] said the Gerudo with a slight chuckle, [color=Red]”With all the trickery and devilry in this Basement, an enchanted shop should hardly come as a surprise.”[/color]

“I can’t believe you violated the honor system.” Jesse said, shaking her head in shame. Nadia stared at her like she’d been stabbed in the back.

To the left lay an interesting room. It was long and narrow unlike the rectangular ones before it, and featured a number of big, bulky rocks and blazing campfires arranged along its length to interfere with forward movement. Inside, a couple [url=https://i.imgur.com/gmYtSrc.png]Fatties[/url] patrolled it, heaving their naked bulk around while glowering. Even more distasteful were the the pale, blood-soaked [url=https://i.imgur.com/GoAdc2K.png]Blubbers[/url] that wandered aimlessly among the rocks, spewing showers of blood tears, and the equally headless Hoppers that jumped erratically around. Those that happened to jump into a fireplace [url=https://i.imgur.com/CXC37Tf.png]burst into flame[/url], their hops becoming much farther and faster.

Ganondorf wasted no time. It would still be a bit of time before he could summon the Phantom again so for this room he’d have to get his own hands dirty again. He drew out the White Sword and charged forward, setting his sights on the two Fatties. But he was no fool, the King of Evil noted the similar appearance of the Blubbers, and quickly surmised that it was likely the Fatties would resurrect as Blubbers if he did not also destroy the bodies, [color=Red]”Let’s see you rise from THIS!”[/color] he held the weapon straight up and came down on the first Fatty with a mighty leap that put all his momentum into a single, giant slash that vertically cleaved the Fatty into two halves. He quickly locked onto the location of the second Fatty and lunged for it, this time attacking it with a pair of diagonal strikes that would cut it in an X-shape. Of course, that left the head intact. But the Gerudo took no chances, even if merely touching it caused him pain as before, the King of Evil grabbed the dismembered head with his hand and used the strength of the Triforce to crush it into a bloody pulp. He flung some of the blood from his hand, the rest of it being burned away by the glow of the Triforce.

A third Fatty emerged from behind a rock, announcing its presence with a big fart. At the same time a Blubber came at Ganondorf from a different angle, spewing blood. 

Ganondorf had to think fast for this one. The best he could do was cover himself with his cape and let it take the bloody spray so that it wouldn’t directly burn him. The moment it was over he flung the cape back behind him and lunged forward, skewering the Blubber all the way through. Hearing the Fatty approach from behind, Ganondorf lifted the Blubber up on the blade and proceeded to bring it all the way and up and over his head and eventually slamming it down on the charging Fatty. The King of Evil’s strength was tremendous, enough that both of the fat opponents burst into bloody stains on the floor upon impact. Just as he predicted, none of his corpulent foes got the chance to return as a Blubber or Half Sack.

Jesse rolled her shoulder and once again took to the air. This time, she picked up one of the big boulders with her mind and Launched it towards one of the Blubbers, crushing it into dust. Next, she took a moment to do away with several of the campfires, scattering the one nearest to the Hoppers with launch since the little guys seemed to like the fire. That was all the Power she could use for now, except for Levitation which was free.  

By that time, three of the flaming Hoppers had gotten close. Two of them bounded over the rocks toward Jesse and Nadia, but the third took a different tact. It sprang off one wall and into the other, back and forth in a hard-to-hit zigzag until it came flying at Jesse from the side just as its fellow jumped up in front of her.

Waiting, Jesse anticlimactically blasted them both at the same time with a flashing shock of psychic energy. They landed on the ground in a heap, and Jesse kicked up dust and stone around each of them as she Shattered them with her shotgun Service Weapon.

As the third came for Nadia, she leaned back and lifted her knee, grabbing her ankle at the same time. The middle section of her leg burst out with two blood-jets’ worth of thrust to smack the miscreant mid-leap. “Knee deep!” She then pulled off that same forearm to juggle the monster with a blast of hydro-infused blood. Vaporize occurred, laying on the pain as the critter’s fire went out, and Nadia finished by jumping and bringing her forearm down on the hopper nails-first like a dagger. “MYOW!” Pierced through the middle, it disintegrated, and Nadia shook off the ash as she stuck her hand back on. “Alright, that one was fun!” Three Hoppers down, three to go. She took off running and pounced on one as its jump came to an end.

“Good job, you two.” Jesse encouraged, seeing the melee fighters go to town. Try as they might, Jesse figured the Hoppers weren’t smart enough to take cover, so she predicted where they would land and sprayed the area with Spin, shredding the stone and the undead creature into pieces.

That stone happened to be of a different shade than the rest, slightly darker, and bearing a small scratch mark shaped like a cross. When Jesse broke it, a metallic blue heart fell out, just like the one she saw in the shop earlier. After Nadia finished decimating the last Blubber with her anchors, she looked over. “That the reward?” To her surprise, a tarot card manifested in the center of the room as well. “Aw, shweet. I was just thinkin’ this wasn’t excitin’ enough.” She picked up the card and flipped it over to reveal a grisly illustration. “The Hanged Man.”

[color=Red]”Hmph, what is this, a dungeon or a game?”[/color] scoffed the Gerudo.

Nadia shrugged. Just by holding the thing, she felt a strange urge to rip it in half, which made the hairs on the back of her neck rise. “I got no clue what the hell this does, if anythin’. Either of you want it?”

[color=Red]”Very well, I’ll take it. It does not frighten me.”[/color] Ganondorf offered, and he was duly given the card. He was no stranger to curses and dark magic. He’d basically grown up around it his entire life.

Jesse studied the metallic blue heart shaped heart. Not like the organ, like the drawing of a heart, thankfully. She didn’t want any curses, but when Polaris didn’t object, she nudged the heart with her shoe and then went to pick it up. Upon touching it she absorbed it, gaining an extra bit of impermanent armor on top of her existing barrier.

The next room was big, easily four times as large as the typical dungeon chamber. Much larger pits lay in the four corners, and one in the center with a little platform in its middle–upon that platform, a glittering dime. In addition to rocks, piles of actual crud festooned the place, and there were at least a dozen flies around. Their round little bodies flashed red whenever anyone got close enough to provoke their pursuit. There seemed to be more Gapers as well, two groups of five, and two [url=https://i.imgur.com/VtIljeX.png]Full Flies[/url] flew around ready and willing to explode into radial shots on death. Nadia grimaced, her face one of absolute disgust. “Aaaaugh. I knew I shoulda stayed home today.” The nearest Gapers turned at the sound, and hustled on over.

[color=Red]”There goes any element of surprise we might have had.”[/color] said Ganondorf as he readied the White Sword, [color=Red]”Try to destroy them as thoroughly as you can. Otherwise they’ll just rise back up as floating heads or headless enemies.”[/color] he advised the other two Seekers, sharing with them the discovery he’d made in the previous room about destroying the bodies before they could resurrect.

He took a step forward, deciding not to charge ahead this time due to the enemies being more clumped together into what could be dangerous groups. Instead he let the Gapers came to him and did not hesitate to slice up the first two that came in his direction, again being careful to slice up the bodies as thoroughly as possible to prevent any resurrections.

“Or!” Nadia footstooled off Ganondorf and blasted her arms down to sink her claws into two more monsters. She executed a front flip that yanked them off the ground and abruptly dunked them into the room’s central pit. “To hell with ‘em!” Before the last one could grab her she jumped and airdashed to the central pillar to grab that shiny dime, leaving that Gaper and the nearby flies to the others.

Jesse kept on Spin and fired many bullets at the flies, so she didn’t need to have enough accuracy to literally shoot the wings off a bug like some kind of cowboy legend. The spray of machine gun fire traveled to the last of the first group of Gapers and shredded it up the middle. Then she refocused on the flies, as when she popped one it exploded into blood. Jesse figured that made her the most qualified to quickly take care of them out of the three Seekers there. She floated into the air to get a better angle and to free her friends of worry of friendly fire, bursting the bugs from above with controlled sprays of bullets. 

Meanwhile, Ganondorf had moved forward. He maneuvered around the central pit and then made a charge for the last group of Gapers. When he got close enough he managed to get a surprise attack on one, using his Gerudo Dragon technique to strike it with a dark-magic-infused uppercut that knocked the head clean off and sent it flying upward and splattering onto the ceiling. He then grabbed the headless body and hurled it behind him into the central pit. Two more Gapers moved toward him but were met with by the White Sword and promptly chopped into bloody bits. But the remaining two Gapers had maneuvered around the first pair in such a way that they threatened to attack Ganondorf from his flank. He’d been keeping an eye on them and whirled around with a spin slash that kept them from getting close. Then he used his tremendous strength to kick one of them into the wall and then Warlock Punched the other, exploding it with dark magic.

In a much less impressive turn of events, Nadia was being bitten by flies. “Ow, ow, ow!” she yelped, swiping at the bugs furiously. The air current created by her movements, however, kept brushing the flies just out of her attacks’ way. While Jesse had taken care of plenty of them already, these ones just wouldn’t leave Nadia alone. “Uuuugh! I’ve had it up to here!” She jumped into the air and clapped her hands together. When she drew them apart, a swirling orb of condensed Hydro power formed between them, and once it swelled to ten feet in diameter Nadia hurled it straight down. The orb burst in a watery explosion, killing the rest of the flies outright, and once Jesse gunned down the stragglers the room was clear. A silver key popped into existence on the central spire, and the doors flew open. “How much farther?” Nadia muttered, shaking herself off.

Up next lay another normal room, albeit one stuffed with yet more flies. “Oh, joy,” Nadia groaned. Eight [url=https://i.imgur.com/nN3JREi.png]gray-bodied Pooters[/url] -so sluggish they did not even deal contact damage- and six bloated [url=https://i.imgur.com/JHHAkUo.png]Suckers[/url] flew slowly over arrays of floor spikes, occasionally shooting shots. 

“Just keep on truckin’.” Jesse said, strafing to the side as one of the shots splashed against the wall behind her. She plucked one of the spikes from the distant floor and pulled it towards her, stabbing through one of the Suckers. Lining up a shot, she ripped through two more with the spike. After that, it was machine gun city, Jesse zapping these flies out of the air with a spray of psychic lead. 

With the situation almost perfectly suited for her, Nadia and Ganondorf didn’t need to do much but watch Jesse mow the flies down. A red heart appeared in the center of the room, and after she’d hard her breather the feral busied herself navigating around the spikes without stepping on any. Touching the heart replenished some of the blood she’d lost or spent, allowing Nadia to breathe a sigh of relief. What did concern her, however, was the bigger, more menacing door on the left wall, adorned with a skull aglow with red light from inside. “He-hey, maybe this is it!” she declared, perking up after a moment.

Ganondorf was also not against giving himself a breather. In fact, this allowed enough time to pass for him to be able to summon his Phantom again if needed. And perhaps he would need to very soon, judging by the door that waited for them at the end of the room. Ganondorf stared at it almost as if the sight of it were familiar to him. If this Basement were anything like the Temples of his home world, then something much stronger waited for them beyond it, [color=Red]”Perhaps we should make sure we’re in good form first before blundering into that room? I sense something a little… bigger is waiting for us inside.”[/color]

“I think I’m okay,” Nadia ventured. “I guess I could run back to that shop and get somethin’, but I kinda wanna get it over with.”

“Ready when you are.” Jesse said simply. 

One final time, the trio pushed through the door. Metal gates slammed down behind them, but all eyes were on the [i]thing[/i] up ahead. A bulbous mass floated in the air, larger than a wrecking ball, its stain-riddled flesh sutured together. Instead of eyes it possessed mere craters, alongside a smorgasbord of protruding, eking pustules. Drool leaked out across rotten gums full of missing teeth, and within its cavernous maw buzzed the eponymous swarm of the [url=https://i.imgur.com/cxXUmig.png]Duke of Flies[/url].

Nadia blanched. “...Holy hell.”

Jesse whistled appreciatively. “That is re[i]volting,[/i] huh?” 

“For real. I’m blankin’ on fly puns…” Nadia furrowed her brow. “...And it’s really buggin’ me.”

The Duke began to move diagonally, happy to bounce off the walls. Flies emerged from its mouth both to orbit around it, blocking shots, and to chase its opponents down.

[color=Red]”Then let’s just get straight to the point, then.”[/color] Ganondorf temporarily sheathed the White Sword in order to free up both his hands. Like he had done a few rooms ago, he channeled a great deal of dark magic to open another dimensional hole. But unlike before, this time his Phantom came riding in on an equally ghastly steed, [color=Red]”Obey my command! Help me crush that disgusting abomination!”[/color] and obedient as ever, the Phantom Ganon galloped forth on his horse, aiming to attack the Duke of Flies with a full speed charge with his spear. But he did not stop galloping, and instead disappeared into a dimensional hole only to reappear again to charge the Duke from a different direction. And this would be his role for this battle, to repeatedly charge the Duke with straight on or glancing blows while his master fought it alongside the Seekers, while the numerous attack flies whittled down his vitality.

As for the King of Evil, he wasted no time in once again drawing out the White Sword. His Phantom would provide occasional surprise blows to the Duke and could even serve to draw the attention of some of the flies. And that at least allowed Ganondorf to attack the Duke himself. His first attack would be an upward slash of the sword, trying to time it to coincide with an incoming charge of the Phantom.

Jesse watched the magical attack, scratching her head. She wondered if that would be enough to do it. In case it wasn’t, she decided to go on the ever noble task of fly-shooting duty, getting a good angle on them and gunning down their number to clear a path for the party. 

While Ganondorf and his doppelganger took the monstrosity head-on, Nadia flanked around to the side with her anchors in hand. It looked like the Duke wasn’t content to sit still and be punished; not only did it move incessantly, but when struck it rebounded the opposite way, evidently not caring where it went as long as it could spew flies and wallop anyone it ran into. Nadia swung her chain like a lasso to deal sweeping slashes from out of fly range while Jesse zapped the bugs, although the feral needed to keep her distance from Ganondorf to make sure he didn’t get a faceful of steel, either. To take blows and bullets like this, this Duke must be pretty chunky. But it had to have a weak spot, and it sure didn’t look like the nightmare’s eyes or mouth.

Torn and bleeding from stabs, slashes, and Service Weapon fire, the Duke blithely kept up the flood of flies, spawning so many that its body just about disappeared in a living veil. From there, larger attack flies flew out to pester the three from different angles. Luckily this problem had an answer Nadia used before. “Right, I’m up,” she declared, moving in. She guarded her head against the flies until she got close enough to cash out her tension on another Purrge of Vengeance. She bumped the Hydro orb upward, them somersaulted after it to spike it down and wipe out all the Duke’s orbital flies in one go. “It’s open!” she called just before the Duke rammed her with its vile mass, flooring her momentarily.

A superheated psychic bullet tore through the Duke and out the other side, leaving a red hot bullet hole in the wall on the other side of the room. Any flies inside the duke and in the path of the bullet would be turned to dust even if they weren’t in the World of Light. Jesse stood at range, Service Weapon shimmering with heat.

After Jesse’s psychic shot finished, Ganondorf took the opportunity to get in a devastating blow of his own. He lunged forward, slicing cleanly through the Duke of Flies just as his Phantom used the last of its vitality to skewer it from a perpendicular angle. Once it vanished, Ganondorf used his right hand to charge up the strongest Warlock Punch he could muster in order to give the grotesque one more final oomph of an attack from him.

Before he could land it, however, the badly-wounded Duke floated out of range across the room, and the Warlock Punch hit nothing but air. As it drifted away, Nadia hopped to her feet, her eyes bright with mischief. “I got a great idea!” She ran toward and around it, predicting its movement, then called upon one of the aces up her sleeve. “I’ll stop it’s movement!” Her ghoulish striker Idea appeared to catch the Duke with its gangly arms, then further ensnare it with over a half-dozen muscular tongues from its array of heads. Nadia pulled out her anchors as she dashed toward the monster, slid underneath it, and jammed both weapons into the sutured flesh on the Duke’s belly. “Hey Muscles. Here!” As Idea faded, she closed in on Ganondorf to toss him the other ends of the chains, but he was only able to catch one of them. One of them floundered unluckily, twisting closer to Jesse. With a flick of her wrist she telekinetically lobbed the chain back towards him, assuming he needed both to execute whatever idea Nadia had- unless the only idea was the pun. Now with both chains in hand, Ganondorf had a feeling he knew what Nadia had in mind. Using the raw strength granted to him by the Triforce, the King of Evil spun himself around, consequently whirling the monster around as well. He put every ounce of his mighty strength into bringing the captured Duke around into a giant slam into the Basement’s floor.

The massive impact squashed the Duke of Flies like a water balloon against the ground, and the stitches in its underside ruptured in a wave of pulpy flies. The gruesome, deflated husk could only moan hideously as the swarm inside it drained away, and after a moment it too crumbled to ash. As its spirit came to rest in the heap the doors flew open, including a previously-unseen hatch in the floor. Just as expected another reward appeared as well, but instead of a mask, it appeared to be an odd [url=https://i.imgur.com/iJf6Qmx.png]floating sigil[/url], like a blend between the lowercase letters ‘t’ and ‘h’.

Breathing a little heavier than she expected, Nadia reeled her chains back into the drum on her waist. “I guess gettin’ the first mask within half an hour woulda been too easy.” She made her way around the sigil, peering at it dubiously, then crouched at the edge of the hole.

[color=Red]”This place is called the Basement, yes?”[/color] asked the Gerudo as he knelt down at the newly formed Spirit and proceeded to claim it for himself, [color=Red]”That suggests to me that this is likely but one of multiple floors. We’ll likely find the mask in whatever the final floor is.”[/color] he examined the Spirit for a moment, considering his options for what to do with it. Ultimately he decided simply to hang onto it for the time being. He was told these things would fade away in just a few short hours, but that still at least gave him some amount of time to think it over.

Jesse smiled, satisfied with a job well done. Err, so far, at least. “The good news is, and I don’t wanna jinx us, I doubt we’ll be seeing an amount of flies greater than what we just encountered. Unless there’s like…two giant flesh balls of flies in the next room.” Jesse said.

Jesse went over to the podium and observed the floating sigil. “What do you think this is? Some kind of Object of Power? It’s very…two dimensional.” She walked around it in a circle, trying to observe its properties. 

Carefully, she reached out with her parautilitarian abilities and with her hand, too, looking to grab the sigil. It flashed when she touched it, inscribing itself painlessly onto her palm. A faint ring appeared around her a few feet in diameter, softly shining like a distant belt of stardust, then went away.

[hider=For Jesse]You have acquired:
[url=https://i.imgur.com/iJf6Qmx.png][b]Saturnus[/b][/url]
When faced with combat, a dim ring of light appears around Jesse. Seven small chunks of debris are torn from the environment to orbit around her, moving slowly along this ringed path. They can be used to hit targets, which destroys them, be pulled from orbit to be thrown, or potentially block shots. Slow-moving projectiles that aren’t too strong can also be caught or deposited in the orbit if they touch the ring, making them Jesse’s[/hider]