[center][h3]As Above, So Below[/h3]

Therion’s [@Yankee], Sectonia’s [@Archmage MC], Jesse’s [@Zoey Boey], Omori’s [@Majoras End], Ganondorf’s [@Double], Ms Fortune, the Knight

[b]Word Count:[/b] 5912 (+6 exp)

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzudNRKkHj0&ab_channel=Superluigi447[/youtube][/center]

Given the circumstances, Nadia couldn’t help but laugh. Here she was, crouching with her claws embedded in the surface of a raft of flesh and hanging on for dear life, hurtling down the pulsating ventricles of some colossal subterranean superorganism on a raging river of blood like some demented theme park ride. Above her and the others, already so tuckered out from their incessant slog through the Basements horrors, hung a horrendous amalgamation of eldritch organs in a twisted mockery of an unborn child. Its resounding laughter and hair-raising cries shook something loose inside the ailing feral, something already unscrewed by the disease that now plagued her. It was all just so absurd. But in the end she forced down her delirious mirth and settled for a loopy smile. [i]Keep it together, girl,[/i] she told herself, shakily getting to her feet to bare her claws. [i]Just long enough to send this thing back to hell.[/i]

The others didn’t plan to take any chances, and called in some reinforcements to turn the tides. Nadia stared, mouth agape, as the beautifully deadly [url=https://i.imgur.com/Wbfxsl1.png]Sapientia, Cardinal Virtue of Prudence,[/url] arose from the scarlet flood, an holy titan far beyond anything she might have ever defined as an angel. Not knowing from whence it came, Nadia assumed the monstrous salamander to be another enemy and was just about to sink to her knees, ears flat with despair, until it unhinged the great maw on its upside-down head to roar at It Lives instead. [i]Wait, what?[/i] Only when Sectonia used her own Assist Trophy to summon the demonic octopus [url=https://i.imgur.com/1hkK5dw.png]Kraken, Despot of the Sullen Maw,[/url] did it sink in: these fearsome representatives of heaven and hell were here to help. This time, she did burst out laughing. “Nyahahaha!” she guffawed, grinning with palpable relief until her laughter ended in a coughing fit. “I’ll take it! Let’s put this big baby to bed!”

Without delay the Seekers’ new helpers obliged. Sapientia popped open a dozen ports on its back, and from their silos came a flurry of marble-white missiles, their fronts cherubic faces crowned by golden halos. They homed in on It Lives, and as they did Kraken cracked open the tips of its tentacles to spray It Lives with torrents of high-pressure ink, slowing it down. The fetal nightmare reeled, weeping uncontrollably, but before the angel and demon could press their advantage they noticed each other. In an instant they were at one another’s throats, bursting from the blood to slam together in a tremendous impact directly in front of the heroes’ raft. A second later they fell down in a titanic wrestling match, striking the raft on the back side.

It tipped downward into the blood, sending a torrent across its surface. Omori, Therion, Ganondorf, and Jesse got thrown for a loop by the sudden impact and didn’t manage to evade in time, and in addition to almost knocking them off the raft the vile blood infected them with creeping cough (-20% damage), tetanus (-5% accuracy and crit rate), and the red plague (75% more susceptible to bleeding and -10% max health). Nadia leaped over it, but unlike the Knight she fumbled the landing, forcing her to stagger back to her feet. “The hell’re they fightin’ each other for!?” she yelled, her voice hoarse. She watched as Kraken managed to get a firm hold of Sapientia and hurl the great gecko from the ‘water’ in a sideways barrel roll across the raft itself–with only a couple feet of clearance.

[color=92278f]”Hey! Deal with the giant abomination, not the gold trimmed lizard!”[/color] Sectonia snapped at her own Assist Trophy, miffed that hers was another monstrous abomination. At least whenever its tentacles flailed and made contact with her, it did absolutely no damage, so it wouldn’t sully her form. While the three monsters fought, Sectonia didn’t have to deal with the raft or blood river like the others had to, but that also got her closer to the danger itself. As such, while the tumbling of the gecko itself didn’t bother her due to being above that, but she was occasionally smacked by their quarrel, especially given the sheer volume of bloody tears put out by It Lives.

[i]A monster is a monster is a monster,[/i] Therion wanted to reply to Nadia. Instead, he hacked up the tainted blood from his mouth as he flattened himself to the raft's surface to avoid getting hit. Besides the awful aftertaste, there was an unpleasant feeling stuck in his throat and chest that accompanied a full body chill. The muscle fatigue he optimistically chalked up to the long string of battles they'd been through earlier. Whatever kinds of sickness lurked in the blood bath here, he really hoped it wasn't permanent.

 Omori had to cough up the blood that slipped into his mouth as well, but the coughing fit didn’t end there for him. Whatever it did to those that were hit, it made them weak. Dreadfully ill. He could’ve sworn he was going to cough up [i]his own[/i] blood. The boy envied Nadia and Knight at that second, even when the feral lost her footing for a moment she still managed to avoid this crap. Before he could get back on his feet, the latter had yanked him back down so they could both avoid getting hit by the incoming angel. Hopefully Mewo was faring better.

Jesse blew as a raspberry over the side of the raft as she cleared her mouth, coughing. “Yummy.” She said, strained.

[color=Red]”Argh! I’ve had it up to [i]here[/i] with this place!”[/color] Ganondorf barked, angrily shouting in between coughs. But before he could rant any further, he head to drop down and avoid getting knocked clear off the raft by the thrown gecko.

“Holy frijoles!” Nadia hit the deck with her hands over her head and her eyes squeezed shut. Luckily Sapientia tumbled overhead, and after it splashed down and sunk into the blood, the giant demon hefted one of its anchor-tipped tentacles over the raft, taking aim at It Lives. Thinking quickly, Nadia ran up and grabbed onto the anchor, then held tight as Kraken swung the massive golden blade into It Lives’ body. The momentum threw Nadia right at It Lives too, just as planned, and she spent a bar of Dramatic Tension to unleash a Purrge of Vengeance right in its ugly face. “Here’s a drink on the house!” Two more infused bars of Tension swelled the swirling orb to twenty feet in diameter before it detonated point-blank, exploding with enough force to send It Lives swinging on its tubules.

Seeing the big abomination swinging about in disruption after Nadia’s attack, Ganondorf grit his teeth and growled with growing anger. He didn’t care how large this thing was. He didn’t care how tired and drained he was. He was going. To kill. This thing. One way or another. He waited for it to swing close and then used his newfound stronger legs to make a big leap onto the creature.

The Triforce glowed brightly as the Gerudo’s hands gripped the red flesh of It Lives. Ganondorf began to slowly but surely scale the creature’s body. Once he could find a decent footing to stand, the King of Evil remained knelt, gripping the creature’s flesh with his left hand while the right one began to charge with whatever dark energy he could muster. Ganondorf used whatever strength the Triforce could still give him to stay mounted on It Lives while repeatedly hitting it again and again with his Warlock Punch. The whole time, bloody tears streamed from the horror’s very flesh, striking the warlock over and over again. When he felt his dark magic to wane, Ganondorf simply drew the white sword and began hacking and stabbing with it angrily. He racked up a lot of damage, but after a few moments his foe aimed a ventricle at him and blasted him back down to the raft with a rippling crimson laser.

Omori stumbled back on his feet, drawing Revolver out from his backpack. He had no idea how to follow up the onslaught Ganondorf was dishing out at the abomination, but he had to figure out [i]something[/i]! The drawbacks from emotions were riskier with the boy’s current ailment. He had to stay calm and rely on stabbing the stupid thing, that always managed to hit ‘em where it hurts. But first, he gave the Knight a boost up, the nail-wielding bug breaking into a running start soon as It Lives swung close to the raft. It leapt onto and climbed up towards the thing’s tubules to try and cut it down from…wherever it was suspended from. Omori followed behind, pulling the gunblade’s trigger as soon as it sank into It Lives’ flesh for a bit of extra [s]potential[/s] damage. With a free hand he grabbed one of his knives and focused on cleaving into it with no mercy. Without a dedicated focus to actually holding on to it, however, he fell before he could sever one of its tubes. He landed back on the raft with a grunt.

Sectonia decided that, before this accursed thing recovered, she’d make dealing with it much easier. While still mad at it and bombarding it with her dark lightning, she also cast Slow on it, making its movements and attacks slower so everyone else could destroy this thing. At least now everyone was attacking it, so perhaps they could get rid of this abomination. 

After she fell back to the raft, Sapientia pulled Kraken under, smacking the raft once more in doing so. Not sufficiently stabilized after her landing, Nadia got flung onto the blood, though that meant she managed to avoid It Lives’ retaliation. The monster aimed four tubes down at the raft and unleashed streams of blood like crimson lasers to sweep back and forth across its surface.

Therion had been focusing solely on keeping out of harm's way and above water while the other Seekers went at it. He wasn't keen at all about getting between any of the three giants, unlike some of the others. It was hard work just staying afloat with harsh rapids and the three way battle going on.

He considered shifting into his beast form for its greater mobility and balance, but on the off chance that he did get flung into the river of blood it would be a hell of a bad time to learn how to swim with four legs. Thankfully his two human legs had never failed him before, and he nimbly weaved around the hoses' paths. At one point he jumped up to hitch a ride on the queen bee flying overhead, grabbing one of Sectonia's wings to dangle there in safety before landing back on the platform once it was mostly clear.

Sectonia, being the residential flier, found it fairly easy to dodge the attacks of It Lives as it attacked the platform itself. This let her hit it with a single blast of lightning. Of course, being such a large flying object meant that one of the more agile members of the group decided to use her as a way to dodge the attack with Therion using her lower wing as a handhold so he could dodge over the lasers. Having her wing suddenly pulled did cause Sectonia to stumble a bit and look down at what caused it. Noticing Therion, she grumbled at him as she shooed him away. When she looked back up, It Lives had ceased its laser discharge and begun instead to unleash a torrential deluge of bloody tears, filling the air with them. Sectonia, being too busy dealing with Therion who had decided to use her to dodge an attack, wasn’t paying as much attention to that and got hit, breaking her Chaos Shield with this and the other attacks she had taken finally overwhelming it.

By that time, the other elephants in the room returned with a vengeance. Their submerged battle suddenly erupted from the surface, causing the raft to rock precariously. Kraken had opened up its giant, bulbous head into a four-pronged jaw like unzipping a massive bag and snapped it shut on one of Sapientia’s forelegs. It swung it’s tentacle at the angel’s unguarded head only for it to open its own yawning maw and snap shut on the tentacle. With a mighty crunch it severed the enormous golden anchor, which descended upon the raft like a massive guillotine. It embedded partway into its surface, its cutting edge spanning from about the center to seven o’ clock. Kraken howled in pain and let go of Sapientia, and the two parted parallel to the raft. Eager to press its advantage, the angel unloaded a swarm of relatively slow-moving cherubic missiles at Kraken that flew past the raft directly in front of it at a variety of heights.

The Knight saw an opportunity to get back to It Lives. It leaped into the air and, using its nail, pogo-jumped off the missiles to quickly gain height. After just a moment it drew level with the unborn monstrosity and cast Vengeful Spirit to blast It Lives right in the face.

“What the hell is even on our team at this point?” Jesse asked, looking at the mess in front of her. “Whatever. I’m just gonna shoot the baby.” She charged up a Pierce shot and fired her sniper Service Weapon towards the monster.  Seeing the missiles pass in front of their raft, she went about redirecting them towards the real target, It Lives, using Launch. The heavenly ordinance exploded against the big baby’s fleshy body just as happily as they would have against Kraken’s, and It Lives thrashed around in agonized rage, firing bloody tears left and right. All too soon Sectonia’s summon retreated beneath the crimson flood, and in response the missile barrage came to an end.

[color=BC8DBF]"Just assume none of them are."[/color] It was what Therion was doing, after all. He did notice that the octopus and the lizard never directly attacked them unlike the demonic fetus, but their sheer size made friendly fire a very real possibility. After getting clear of the axe dropped onto the raft he moved around to the other side of it, using the flat head as a barrier between himself and the heavenly missiles. Curiously, he didn't feel any heat or force from those that did explode against the axe. So... what, was that reptile actually the thing that he'd tried to summon out of the trophy earlier, and its attacks wouldn't hurt him? Therion didn't feel like testing the theory so he stayed in cover, keeping an eye on the action.

[color=92278f]”Of course they attack everything in sight. Everything in this dungeon has pros and cons, mostly cons.”[/color] Sectonia said, blinking away from some of the missile attack herself as she moved to attack It Lives alongside the others with her own ranged attacks, although her Rings of Light much like they normally do had weird movement patterns. The fact that they were all moving and she had to essentially fly backwards however at least made that less of an issue. The boomerang projectile getting a double hit for once. She couldn’t hurt her own assist trophy, but seeing as the other assist trophy kaiju was an enemy and she wasn’t having any of this infighting, she damaged it too with her attacks.

For once, things weren’t going the insect queen’s way. Despite her vast magical output, It Lives actually outstripped her both in sheer projectile amount and consistency, forcing her to spent more time dodging than trying her luck with randomized projectiles, only allowing a single Ring of Light before she had to continue to dodge. Inflicting damage to Sapientia pissed it off, triggering Galeem’s influence, but for now its focus remained on It Lives since the freak had landed many more shots on it than Sectonia had. Announcing its intentions to smite the abomination In the alien language of Enochian, the bizarre angel grabbed hold of the raft with one claw, steading itself. Its head bent backward as if on a hinge, and from its neck extruded four huge, meaty stalks. The eyes at their ends began to glow, charging up a quadruple laser bombardment of biblical proportions.

Then Kraken struck from below, bursting up beneath Sapientia to ensnare it with its tentacles. For a brief moment the two titans struggled, rocking the raft back and forth, but the leviathan had the advantage. It bodily shoved Sapientia backward just in time for the colossus to smash into a gargantuan spar of bone protruding from the bloody waves, and with its foe temporarily out of action the demon moved to assist. Turning upside-down, it reached upward with its myriad tentacles and wrapped them around It Lives in an attempt to pull it down, but the tubules that connected the abomination to the ceiling wouldn’t be stretched out so easily. As it lowered It Lives towards the raft Kraken actually lifted itself up as well, providing a bejeweled demonic climbing wall for anyone who wanted to get up close and personal with the boss.

Unfortunately, It Lives wouldn’t be taking this lying down. All across its body, [url=https://i.imgur.com/4o0isva.png]bloodshot eyes[/url] popped open, and once they looked in the heroes’ direction they began unleashing a plethora of thin lasers no wider than soda cans, yet plenty damaging to anyone who didn’t stay mobile.

Omori was forced to keep evading the onslaught of attacks as he began moving towards the Kraken. [b][color=gray]”I. HATE. IT. HERE.”[/color][/b] The kid’s complaint earned a quick, dry laugh from Therion. Gritting his teeth, Omori swapped out Revolver for his Boltok Pistol and began firing at It Lives’ eyes. Hopefully damaging them would deal with the lasers, even temporarily. He just wanted to stall them long enough for any of the others to approach safer. Luckily, taking out the eyes cut off their respective lasers just as he hoped. Once he climbed back up to melee range he was back to hacking away at the creature’s repulsive flesh, occasionally sending out mocking red hands to deal further damage.

…He [i]really[/i] needed to sort his inventory later, ‘cause juggling weapons like this was getting freaking tiring.

While angry, Sectonia did have enough wits about her to dodge attacks from It Lives, not wanting to get hit by the fetus monster. This still was a tall order, as while she could blink around, her large size meant she would still get hit on occasion. Using her other shield ability, she spawned her shields from the Pipe of Insight, which gave everyone some shields that let them take a laser attack or two before it disappeared. Still, Sectonia would be getting hit by more than just a few.

It was at this point that Therion actually moved toward the demonic infant rather than avoiding it. The end of the rapids of blood was nowhere in sight, and if this battle between giants lasted for much longer not even the fleet footed thief would be able to stay completely out of harm's way. Since he couldn't escape the situation like his instincts wanted him to, he figured he'd try and help bring the fight to a close as soon as possible, trading places with a more winded ally.

He transformed, the quick and lithe beast form weaving through the thin lasers and sprinting up the kraken's body. When he reached It Lives, his claws tore into it for only a brief amount of time before he turned back to his human form in a wink of light. Most of the other Seekers he knew had more raw damage potential than he did, so instead of wasting his time hacking away the thief leaned into his class specialty of debuffing. Shackle Foe and Armor Corrosive decreased the demon's attack and defense respectively, no matter how large it was. Not planning to overstay his welcome, Therion backed off with only a few quick swipes of his sword, backtracking to the precarious raft.

“All right, here!” Jesse moved to the part of the raft foremost towards It Lives. After taking another shot with Pierce to get more damage in, her sigil activated and pieces of the tunnel around them began to circle her to absorb nearby projectiles. And she raised both hands and constructed a paranatural Shield of energy to further block enemy attacks. She floated a little above the raft and slowly made adjustments on her position to catch attacks with her Shield. The intent here was to give her allies a breather. Literally they wouldn’t have to run around so much, and strategically speaking they could prepare their own countermeasures.

With Jesse and Sectonia providing protection, which at this juncture the ailing Ganondorf needed in particular, the stab-happy Seekers hurried to take advantage of Kraken’s grappling before this window closed. Omori, Therion, and the Knight all got in a handful of blows, taking a manageable amount of laser fire in return. This opportunity wasn’t going to last forever, though, and It Lives quickly poured on the retribution. Bloody tears eked out of its skin to inundate anyone still attacking at melee range, quickly shattering the Pipe of Insight shields and becoming far too much to bear. A mere moment later, brilliant beams of holy light heralded the end of Kraken’s time in the limelight as well. Sapientia’s lasers, fired as the angel cruised down the raging river after the raft like a wild gator, blasted into Kraken’s body with a vengeance. They burned through two more of its tentacles, weakening the demon enough that it relinquished its hold and plunged into the blood.

The angel wasn’t the only one rushing through the rapids. “Heeeey!” The familiar figure of Nadia Fortune could be seen as she clung to Sapientia’s shoulder, skating along the frothing viscera’s surface with the power she’d gained from the shipgirl Massachusetts. After falling way behind she’d hitched a ride to return to the action that much faster, and also because she felt pretty bad. “I’m straight-up not havin’ a good time!” she yelled at the others, not really expecting them to hear.

Sapientia’s head snapped back into place, and with something between a laugh and a roar it dove beneath the surface. Nadia was forced to let go and surf along under her own power lest she be dragged down along with it, and by stooping forward like a skier she managed to pick up speed. A tense moment later Sapientia erupted again, lunging toward It Lives before it could lift itself fully back to its original height. It reached up and snagged the feculent fetus out of the air, its strength and weight combined enough to yank It Lives down on the tubes that suspended it. Like a seraphic basketball player Sapientia dunked It Lives straight down onto the raft, and though bloody tears and eye lasers issued in vast quantities from its body, the Seekers’ enemy was within arm’s reach at last.

Zooming in across the blood, Nadia pulled out her Bait Launcher and prepared to make up for lost time. She lobbed steak after steak at the big baby, her bad aim a non-factor since the meat didn’t need to actually hit her target for the tigers to appear. Sure enough, a series of ferocious felines appeared one after another, eagerly mauling It Lives with their massive claws.

Jesse floated above her allies and then Evaded directly into It Live’s face, grinding the Shield against it with a bash. For a few moments she absorbed many of the eye lasers and tears, clearing a large portion of the raft of danger.

As Jesse felt the Shield’s strength weaken she shotgun blasted all of the debris forward into its face at high speed. Then she Evaded to the side and began using Shatter to pump damage into It Lives, hopefully to help make its unspoken name factually wrong once and for all.

 Omori’s patience was running thin, but at least now he didn’t have to climb his way up to It Lives this time! Seeing Nadia use some weird steak-firing gun to sic tigers on it, he quickly pulled out his Boxing Glove gun to follow up. It looked unorthodox, but better now than never to try it out right? He aimed for the abomination’s head and fired at will. The Knight joined him, venting all its leftover Soul to unleash a barrage of Vengeful Spirits. Sectonia also fired what dark globule she could, but she was getting tired from all this fighting and injuries, being unable to tough out her injuries any further and showing signs of being wounded.

The dogpile came to an abrupt end as Sapientia suddenly timed out, disappearing with a flash of prismatic light. It Lives was free, but by now, the once-terrifying abomination was in a sorry state. It had been carved up and perforated, leaving gaping gashes and giant holes in its body, and several of the cords it hung from had been severed. It could barely dribble out bloody tears now, and yet still it ascended, like a limp marionette pulled on from above. But Kraken wasn’t about to let it get away. It split its head into four jaws and came up below the raft, clamping down on each of the diamond-shaped platforms four sides. Then it rose from the water, quickly lifting up the raft to level with It Lives. Having failed to board it in time, Nadia could only watch from below in awe as her whole time rose into the air. After a brief moment Kraken smashed the raft’s back end into the nightmare’s battered body. Not only did this just about cut It Lives in half, but it also launched all the heroes atop the raft straight towards It Lives’ head for one final all-out attack.

At this point, the King of Evil didn’t even have any idea how he managed to find himself back on top of It Lives - in spite of having to abandon the position a little while ago. Maybe it was the Triforce, maybe it was divine intervention, or maybe Ganondorf himself was just that lucky? He didn’t know, and frankly he didn’t care. This thing needed to die, and it needed to die, like, yesterday. And that was when he took note of the cords it was hanging from, and got an idea. Through gritted teeth and aching muscles, Ganondorf climbed his way closer to the thing’s head and began hacking at the cords with all his might. It took some doing, but sooner or later the creature would end up plummeting down into the lake of blood it had summoned itself.

[color=Red]”Go! To! HELL!!!”[/color] Ganondorf roared as he inevitably plummeted downward with It Lives. He used the last remaining bit of energy he could spare to charge one last Warlock Punch that he would bring crashing down into the creature thanks to the momentum from the fall. No tricks or complicated maneuvers. Just a very angry Gerudo man putting all he could into one last punch and letting gravity give him the rest of the momentum for it. On impact, It Lives exploded like a rotten tomato, its chunks scattered far and wide. As Kraken began to disappear as well, the raft descended back to the blood’s surface, and a blood-streaked mask fragment dropped by the Seekers’ feet. Ganondorf’s unconscious form, meanwhile, could be spotted floating in the blood and would need to be recovered by someone else.

Sectonia, being unable to really capitalize on the platform flip like her allies due to needing to dodge out of the way of it and her allies, was instead relegated to catching duty on those she felt she could reliably catch. This meant Omori, Therion, and Jesse as they were much smaller than, and lighter than, Ganondorf and Nadia.

“Nyahah, woo!” Nadia laughed, now giddy as well as loopy from all the rip-roaring excitement. She sidled up to the raft and clipped it, clumsily tumbling aboard. When she rose her gaze was not, however, fixed on her fellow victorious Seekers. “Ya know, I’d be fe-lyin’ if I said that wasn’t badass, but uh, we might have a little…mm, purr-oblem…”

The giant tunnel had begun to even out, the current of its scarlet riverway slowing. Up ahead lay a slightly larger open space shaped like a giant drum, and at its bottom lay an enormous vortex, a whirlpool of blood lined with teeth. For a moment Nadia worried that the team would need to finish the exhausting, literally sickening boss battle with a carefully-timed jump or die, and naturally the thought of being eaten almost compromised her, but luck might be on the heroes’ side for once. The teeth in question were molars, and spaced closely enough together that they’d catch the raft as it floated toward the vortex. By the time it drifted in, its speed had decreased to the point where the impact didn’t even send anyone flying. “...Huh. Not so bad,” she breathed, still pretty nauseous.

It was the end of the road, but they were safe. Nobody was dead. And in the stomach lining on the opposite side of the vortex, accessible by anyone fit enough to use the teeth as stepping-stones, lay a chitinous doorway.

Sectonia was just as worried as Nadia, but it ended up being ‘thematic’ for this dungeon for whatever that was worth, with Sectonia putting her passengers down on the now stable raft. The queen herself was too tired to rage anymore. Aches all over her body, and while the spiciness of the pepper she had eaten had died down a bit, it still was unpleasant.

[b][i][color=gray]”This better be the way out…”[/color][/i][/b] Omori grumbled in exasperation, an angry, tired look on his face. Though he felt like crap, he took advantage of the moment of peace to check on Mewo. He slipped his backpack off and unzipped it enough for the black cat to pop her head through.

[i]”Meow.”[/i]

The boy huffed out a relieved sigh. She was alright. [b][color=gray]”Everything’s going to be okay…”[/color][/b] The Knight meanwhile, had approached the bloodied mask fragment and picked it up, inspecting it closely.

After that horrible experience, Therion had to agree with Omori. If the doorway they were looking at wasn't the final exit, he didn't know what he'd do. Or how any of them would even find the strength to keep fighting on. He and the rest of the Seekers were sore, tired, wounded at various levels, and absolutely covered in reeking blood. Compared to some, Therion had come out of the fight pretty well thanks to mostly staying out of it in the first place. He had noted that at least one among them had been rendered unconscious, and he'd thrown his grappling hook at Ganondorf's body so as to drag it along face up on the surface of the river while the raft moved. Maybe he wasn't a nice enough guy to actually fish the sure to be heavy water logged King of Evil out, but at least he hadn't left the man to drown. Now that the ride had come to a stop, Therion tapped Jesse on the shoulder and then hooked a thumb toward where Ganondorf floated so she could use her psychic power to lift him into the raft assuming that she could.

Jesse was picking some miscellaneous goo out of her hair and turned around. “Hmm? Oh.” She looked at Ganondorf. “Good idea, but…Launch is pretty violent. It’s why it’s called Launch and not Lift.” She cleared her throat and spit some blood onto the ground. Unfortunately, it wasn’t her blood.

 “Maybe Sectonia could do it? What do you think, Queen Bee?” Jesse asked.

 Regardless, Jesse approached Ganondorf and called upon the alchemist to deploy healing waters underneath the King of Evil to, at the very least, prevent his wounds from being too severe. Ideally it might even rouse him.

[color=92278f]”I am not touching him.”[/color] Sectonia said. However looking at the King of Evil not rousing after being healed, she summoned some green antillions to carry him until he woke up. Something she could hold over his head perhaps. [color=92278f]”There,”[/color] She said.

Leaving the ladies to figure it out, Therion coughed, intent on taking a breather before any movement towards the path of teeth and the doorway. Idly he glanced at the kid's cat and the Knight's... wait. Was that what they'd come here for?

[color=BC8DBF]"All that for just a [i]piece[/i] of a mask,"[/color] he said, exasperated.

[color=92278f]”We did need three masks after all...”[/color] Sectonia said, doing her best not to touch any of the disgusting scenery as she summoned an ice antlion for herself and the others and used one as a cold pack. She then glanced at the spirit of It Lives, and with a tone that exemplified what everyone was feeling, said. [color=92278f]’So… which one of you wants to see what that abomination can give, if anything… Either way, I am not carrying [i]that[/i]”[/color] There was also the matter of the other spirits of the mini bosses they had all fought, with everything before that left behind in Mom’s chamber. Pulling out the symbol of avarice she said. [color=92278f]”We can crush them later, but don’t forget to use this. Maybe there is some kind of power that can be salvaged, but I doubt it.”[/color] She then looked at the mask fragment the Knight had picked up and concluded. [color=92278f]... Or perhaps these spirits need to be dealt with in order to get more fragments…[/color] Either way, she was far too tired to do much other than pontificate.

“Ugh, who cares about the spirits?” Nadia had summoned her Rapturous Cultist striker for some restoration, but even after a top-off from its eldritch blessing she barely felt any better. Despite this place’s hideous humidity and warmth, she was shivering, and her ears drooped miserably. Almost everyone else had gotten sick as well, and if the symptoms hadn’t manifested yet, they would soon. “Can we purr-lease just get the fluff outta here?”

There was no argument from Sectonia, who summoned an additional antlion to collect the It Lives spirit so she didn’t have to touch them before flying over to the other side.

The Knight promptly set off hopping along the teeth that circumnavigated the great gullet’s perimeter, and Nadia followed after him one step at a time. Behind them, Therion took up the middle of the group. And having settled on carrying Mewo in his arms, Omori carefully followed behind the thief as well. All made for the door on the other side of the vortex. While it reminded the Feral of the Ruins with its dark blue shell-architecture, she also reasoned that no matter what lay on the other side, it had to be better than this.