[center][img]https://i.ibb.co/rHBxLGZ/therionbanner.png[/img]
[color=BC8DBF]Word Count: 822 (+2 exp)(+collab below)
[u]Level[/u]: [b]5[/b] - [u]Total EXP[/u]: 51/50 
[b]Location[/b]: The Under[/color]
[color=gray]𝙱𝙿[/color] [color=gold]●●●[/color][color=gray]●●[/color][/center]
The nature of the "Basement" meant that the Seekers were doing a lot of stop-and-go. It was a weird experience, not being able to just blaze through the area's weak, disgusting monsters. Therion supposed that was exactly why it was designed that way - to force people to go in alone, possibly becoming overwhelmed, and perish; thus stopping a group's advance in it's tracks. Their momentum was slow going, but so far there hadn't been any worry that someone would end up dead. [i]Yet,[/i] anyway.

What would turn out to be the final door way was decorated a little differently than the others, suggesting the inside would be different too. Therion did not enter, but judging from the sounds filtering through from the other side he could only guess what was going on in there. 

When the battle was over and the doors slid open, Nadia, Jesse, and Ganondorf stood victorious. Therion slipped inside with the rest of them, standing around the opening in the floor while Sectonia's little bugs gave everyone a quick rinse.

[color=BC8DBF]"..."[/color] So there were more floors below this one. He supposed it shouldn't come as a surprise. But how deep exactly were they going to go, and more importantly how were they going to get back up? When they'd come through the chest, it had acted more like a magic portal than a real hole in the ground. They'd just have to hope for another portal out, once they were finished here.

Ms. Fortune led the way into the next area, and one by one the rest of the Seekers followed. The general stench of the place didn't lessen so much as change, a moistness being present here that wasn't up above. 

Now that they'd "cleared" the first area, they knew what to look for: a more ornate doorway than the rest of them. To that end the group split up once more. The room to the North contained maggots, maggots, and more maggots. [i]That one will be easy,[/i] Therion thought. In one of the last rooms he'd fought through, the maggots did little else but crawl around. The thief was quick to claim this one, expecting no resistance from the little monsters. The doors were sealed once he'd stepped through them, alone.

His sword was already in his hand. [color=BC8DBF]"Let's make this quick,"[/color] he said to the room at large.

The closest maggots were blindly dragging themselves across the room's floor, easily put to their end with one swift stab. The others would soon meet the same fate, or so Therion thought.

The soft squeals of fellow larva dying drew the attention of the those with faces - some frowning and some smiling, and staring. Therion raised a brow. [i]What, are these monsters going to start talking and try and guilt trip us too?[/i] But though the smiling maggots did open their mouths wide, they did not speak. The thief felt his hair stand on end. With shocking speed the chargers rushed teeth-first at Therion, far faster than they'd been crawling just a moment ago. 

They missed him by a hair's breadth, unable to turn due to their speed they only kept going forward when Therion threw himself out of the way. Three of them had come charging, then slowed down when their prey left their line of sight in order to turn around and charge again. There was a pair (or perhaps four?) of dual faced maggots that took their shot afterward, coughing up what looked and smelled like blood cots that they spit towards Therion. His hope for a simple, easy room clear was dashed now that he had to spend his time dodging the eerily happy chargers and the attacks of the conjoined spitties. 

[i]Great,[/i] Therion thought, swinging his blade to catch a blood shot and getting splattered as it burst. The most annoying thing about [i]that[/i] was that it seemed any little contact hurt just as much as getting hit dead on. It made the situation painful and stressful, and if he were a less confident man he would have worried about becoming overwhelmed just as he'd thought the dungeon was designed to do. 

He made a quick decision to focus on the chargers, not wanting to risk a bite from them. He let the little buggers line up and rush toward him all at once, standing his ground and sweeping his sword in one motion. Their own momentum meant that the chargers sliced themselves apart on his blade, while staying put in one spot in order to end them meant suffering the sting of the spitties' blood shots. [i]No problem.[/i] With one of the danger sources gone, the other would be no trouble at all to take care of - there were only two of them, and their shots were slowed than the chargers had been. Besides those, only a few of the harmless maggots remained.[hr][center][img]https://i.imgur.com/gMyScwy.png[/img]

Level 7: 34/70
Word Count: 1826
Location: The Under
Points Gained: 3
NEW EXP balance--- Level 7: 37/70
[@Zoey Boey][/center]
When the room’s doors slid open again, it revealed the usual piles of ash and spirits, with a Therion painted red in the center having already claimed the prize. Beyond him was the only other exit which led to yet another dim and dingy room, where the sound of monsters scuttling around could be heard. Therion hadn’t moved toward the other door yet, though his ears flicked at the noise - and then flicked toward the sound of another person joining him.

[color=BC8DBF]"This is getting to be a pain."[/color]

Jesse strolled in, taking in the ‘sights’. One of which was on her hand. She examined the new insignia marked into her palm as she walked forward. “I dunno. Going from one sparse room to the other, killing monsters and then moving on…it’s almost nostalgic.” She said, finally looking at Therion. 

“You don’t seem any worse for wear, though, Therion. Wanna take this next one together?” She asked, nodding her head over to the entrance to the next room.

[color=BC8DBF]"Nostalgic, huh?"[/color] He wondered what kind of weird pre-patchwork world past Jesse had, but honestly he had no real desire to find out. With her suggestion of taking the next room on together, the thief shrugged his shoulders. [color=BC8DBF]"Why not?"[/color]

As the two of them prepared to squeeze through the opening before the door slammed shut, Therion paused and cocked his head to one side. He was fairly sure what they'd find on the other side. He glanced at Jesse.

[color=BC8DBF]"...you're not afraid of spiders, are you?"[/color]

“Oh, deathly.” Jesse said flatly, nodding her head. “Why do you ask?”

[color=BC8DBF]"That kid was too, I think. And I've got a good idea that's what we'll find in... there..."[/color] The thought that Jesse was fucking with him occurred to Therion, and his glance turned into a sharper, scrutinizing look.

“...I guess I’m not as funny as I think I am.” Jesse said at Therion’s reaction. She held up her gun at her elbow. Jesse stepped off the ground and floated above Therion’s head. “We can go in together like this. We could strategize but we can probably just wing it and be fine.”

He nodded, finding no issue with winging it and having gotten too used to Primrose's teasing to humor Jesse's, well, humor otherwise.

When they entered and were sealed inside, the plethora of spiders waiting for them did not take them by surprise.

Jesse dropped down in front of Therion, taking point. She didn’t know exactly what tactics he used, but she did know that she could create psychic forcefields and was more than comfortable being the target of an entire room full of monsters. Though what took her by surprise was the sigil in her hand. It pulsed a blue light that then encircled her. Seven chunks of stone were plucked from the ground and began to slowly rotate around her. 

“Woah.” Jesse glanced down at the light around her and her glowing ‘tattoo’. “Badass.” 

She walked forward into the room, her gun switching to Shatter. A shotgun to obliterate fast moving enemies that wanted to get in close. Like a room full of giant spiders. The spiders weren’t bigger than Jesse, but they were perhaps, a little bigger than her shoe. They scuttled around randomly in great number, some bigger, some with longer legs. Jesse started blasting, carving out chunks of stone and turning spiders into ash. 

One spider came near her, and Jesse watched as one of the seven stones in her new circle zipped down and squashed it. The stone exploded into debris along with the spider. “Sweet!”

[color=BC8DBF]"Watch the rocks,"[/color] Therion said, flashing out from behind Jesse and keeping space between her sudden orbit of debris and himself. His own strategy was extremely simple in this situation: kill as many at once as possible. For that he again used his long sword, the blade able to catch a couple at a time.

The spiders were more of the same that he'd faced with Omori earlier - along with some much larger ones. Those paced quickly around the edges of the room, about three times larger than their brethren. These Therion kept an eye on while he slashed away. There didn't seem to be one of those gray spiders that were spawning the rest, so once they cleared the room that would be it.

He felt the sting of something colliding with him and bursting on impact. [color=BC8DBF]"?!"[/color]

He hopped back instinctively, feeling another [i]something[/i] graze him while a third went flying passed. They were bloody red globs, hurled through the air at high speed. Despite the second only glancing him, it felt like he'd taken a direct hit - the same as when he’d faced the spitties alone just before this. He turned in the direction the shots had come, finding a stone-colored creature clinging to the wall, half-hidden in the dark corner of the room. Its mouth gaped open, showing off a quartet of teeth, and its single large black eye stared back.

[i]Foom foom foom.[/i] The wall creeper spit another three blood shots. Therion dipped back towards Jesse, giving her a quick, [color=BC8DBF]"Heads up,"[/color] as the shots sailed towards her orbit.
“Yup.” Jesse said, pointing her gun down and focusing on evasion. She stepped to the side. One of them got close. But after it passed her, it turned around and began orbiting with the six remaining stones.

“I’m very pleased.” Jesse said, smiling. She ripped a nearby boulder from the earth and flung it at the wall creep, crushing it flat and into dust. 

Jesse switched to Spin and began barraging distant spiders with projectiles as she closed in on them. Even the big ones only took a moment more to pop. “It looks kind of hard to stab spiders with swords, I gotta admit.” Jesse commented to Therion as she passed him. 

[color=BC8DBF]"Not hard,"[/color] he said, [color=BC8DBF]"just annoying."[/color]

He was tangling with one of the larger spiders, alternating between stabbing it and crushing the smaller spiders under his boot. Like before, it was their numbers that was the main issue. Their bites, and even the spines on their legs caused pain, but individually they were weak.

Therion slashed the dog-size arachnid apart, grimacing as he watched it's halves reform into a pair of smaller spiders. It was true that blades weren't ideal here, but unless he tried his flame spell again he didn't have much else at his disposal... or did he?

[color=BC8DBF]"...I'm still getting used to the whole 'weird spirit stuff,'"[/color] he said, backing up towards Jesse again to give him some room to summon his striker in front of him. It was basically a living wrecking ball, so once it got to rolling any of the spiders still on the ground would be crushed under its steel body.

Jesse watched it go. Some spider got too close and got clobbered by one of her circling stones. “It’s pretty weird, yeah. I got a crazy old guy with me. I hope it’s not a fate worse than death or anything. I mean, he [i]seems[/i] okay with it.” Jesse said, sweeping up the rest of the spiders. 

[i]Must've been that guy in the shaft,[/i] he thought, the one that saved Ms. Fortune from splattering all over the ground. Therion hadn't thought at all about how a sentient person would fare as a striker.

[color=BC8DBF]"He's still...?"[/color] He wasn't sure what he was going to ask. Alive? Able to think?

By the time junicorn's time ran out and Jesse finished up, there was nothing but ash covering the ground and blood stains on the walls where the remaining creepers had missed their shots. The wall creepers had been spared from the carnage on the ground, but with their earlier cover blown it was easy enough to avoid the blood globs they spat up - especially since the volleys of three were always shot in a straight line. These got a taste of their own medicine, a few throwing knives embedded in their circular bodies.

[color=BC8DBF]"I figured they were just mindless ghosts,"[/color] Therion continued as the last of the enemies crumbled.

Jesse strode up to Therion’s side as the doors opened. “My guy listens to me and laughs and stuff. Whatever it is, it’s definitely not a full existence. We basically have total control over them, right? They know exactly what we want them to do.  But it’s like I said, he doesn’t seem to mind. So at the very least, he’s not ‘there’ enough to care.” Jesse said. 

“Maybe it’s just…I dunno. An imprint. That’s why we have to ‘talk’ them into it.”

[color=BC8DBF]"Hmm."[/color] The specifics of whatever was at play with the spirits, whether it was magic or some other phenomena, were way over Therion's pay grade. He was neither a scholar nor a philosopher, so thinking about it too hard would only serve to give him a headache. Then again, if they were chaining some poor sap's soul to themselves and forcing them to fight, that seemed important to know - but it didn't seem like that was the case.

[color=BC8DBF]"If they are still all 'there' and didn't want to do it, they'd just say no,"[/color] he reasoned. [color=BC8DBF]"Otherwise they're just... shadows, I guess."[/color] He didn't have much more to speculate about with the strikers.

 “If you’re a little hurt, I can have the alchemist heal you up a bit.” Jesse offered. 

[color=BC8DBF]"I'm good,"[/color] he said, holding up a hand to pass on her gesture of kindness. [color=BC8DBF]"Everything in here likes to spit blood, so. Looks worse than it is."[/color]

“Okay, good.” Jesse nodded. “‘Cause, you know, I didn’t wanna say anything, but.” She gestured at him and the remnants of the blood attacks. 

[color=BC8DBF]"I know. But it's either this or turn into a cat and risk getting fleas down here."[/color] The wry tone of his voice suggested he wasn't really worried about it. He knew he looked like an art project gone wrong, and he lifted his arms to spread out the fabric and show all the red staining his orange and ochre shawl. When he did, his nose wrinkled at the metallic odor his new feline sense of smell picked up.

He nodded to the ring of rocks and single blood clot slowly orbiting around Jesse. [color=BC8DBF]"If that's something you picked up here, I'll gladly trade you."[/color]

Jesse scratched at her palm where the sigil was inscribed there. “Sorry, Therion, no dice.” She held it up to him. “I touched it and it just wooshed right in. Coulda been worse- coulda been on my face or something. That’d just be distracting.”

She unsummoned her Service Weapon and glanced around. “We should get back to the others before they move onto the next level. Come on.” She jogged back the way they had came, where she knew there weren’t any monsters. That way they could meet up with the others. Sheathing his long sword, Therion trailed after her.