[center][abbr=Therion][img]https://i.ibb.co/rHBxLGZ/therionbanner.png[/img][/abbr]
[color=BC8DBF]Word Count: 2299 (+3 exp)
[u]Level[/u]: [b]6[/b] - [u]Total EXP[/u]: 63/60 
[b]Location[/b]: The Under - City of Tears[/color]
[color=gray]𝙱𝙿[/color] [color=gold]●[/color][color=gray]●●●●[/color][/center]
With the Seekers in the Under split up within the city, most headed to the Soul Sanctum, Therion descended into the Royal Waterways once more. He knew there were valuables to be found there, things he didn't get to see when he, Ichiban and Omori were chased from the hoaders' treasure trove. It was filled with plenty of literal junk, yes, but during his first foray he'd snagged some jewelry he was able to sell for a decent price. If he kept digging he was sure he would find more - and there was no telling just what exactly was stashed in those great towering piles. Maybe there were literal treasures buried until all of the rubbish.

The route they'd take yesterday was a simple one, so once Therion had climbed down into the sewer it was easy enough to recall the same path. Unsurprisingly he saw the same flies buzzing around, which he promptly swatted. At the crossroads he kept to the right, eventually coming upon the balcony where they'd met Dazzle and the hermit before. Today only the hermet was found there, and she looked at Therion with the same blank bug face. Normally she would have unnerved the thief, but he'd seen much worse things in the basement and the womb, so he gave her a casual wave which she returned. He moved to the edge of the balcony, checking on the state of the Junk Pit. It looked pretty much the same: full of piles of stuff. He could see that the razor wire that had blocked their easy escape last night still remained, taut across the doorway that lead into the area. He'd find another way in, either the exit they'd ended up using after the chase or... well, he could just climb down from here.

He didn't see any sign of either Scrapbeak or Avarice. Since the Junk Pit was huge they could be on another side of it, which would be great, but he also didn't hear anything that might sound like them. If one of them had killed the other after they'd escaped yesterday that would be all the better but if both were still alive they would still be fighting it out due to Galeem or whatever, right? Therion wasn't confident that that was the case, so he decided to err on the side of caution and assume there were still two psycho killer-hoarders roaming the area. 

[i]And why did I come back down here, again?[/i] He thought to himself as he tied a roped around the iron fence surrounding the balcony. The answer came quickly when he caught sight of a few shiny things just begging to be stolen within the piles. [i]Oh yeah, treasure.[/i]

He turned to the Fluke Hermit. [color=BC8DBF]"Once I'm down there I'll tug the rope a few times. Then you untie it and throw it down to me, okay?"[/color]

"Gla gla...?"

[color=BC8DBF]"Untie,"[/color] he repeated, pointing to the rope, [color=BC8DBF]"when I get to the bottom."[/color] He then pointed to the floor of the Junk Pit. 

The Hermit gurgled in a way that Therion hoped meant she understood. It was for her own good anyway; he wasn't going to return this way, and if the rope was left hanging there it might lead to the hoarders following it up to the balcony. 

Therion threw the rope down and hopped over the ledge. The rope was loosely wrapped around his unbangled wrist as he made his way down. Nothing ambushed him when his feet made contact with the stone floor below. [i]So far, so good.[/i] When he tugged on the rope he was glad to see that the length was thrown back down to him.

Quietly he crept around the Junk Pit. Hundreds of loose items were pushed against the pit's walls and stacked on top of each other, making it hard to tell what was actually the edges of the area, but Therion kept closer to what he assumed was the edge. There were several more of the [url=https://i.ibb.co/v49HMcK/ER-Icon-material-cracked-crystal.png]crystals[/url] he'd picked up in the mines throughout the area, which he scooped up and tucked away. He maintained that if there were people mining them, they had to be valuable - and failing that, at least useful. Similar twinkles of light drew him to other junk piles, but he ended up finding more garbage than anything else. Rifling through the items without making too much noise or disturbing the piles enough to collapse them took time, and for every useful little [url=https://i.ibb.co/202Z83L/ore-scrap-monster-hunter-rise-wiki-guide.png]scrap[/url] he pocketed there were dozens of broken bottles, fake pieces of jewelry, or worthless twisted metal bits. 

He moved deeper in, taking his time as he walked. He treated this more like he was browsing a shop, peeking at everything around on offer while keeping an eye and ear out for the keeper. Another glint of light drew his attention, and he pulled the [url=https://i.ibb.co/VHdgrzJ/PH-Telescope-Model.png]item[/url] out from among the rest of the stack. [i]Ooh, nice.[/i] He held the spyglass up to his eye, withdrew it and rubbed the lens with his poncho, then held it up to his eye again. Though it was dim in the Junk Pit, he could see the far side of it from where he stood. Sure that it would come in handy, Therion retracted the spyglass and placed it into his bag. 

He'd been making out well so far, but a sense of pessimism told him it probably wouldn't last. He didn't want to stay too long - every minute spent in the pit was another chance he'd run into trouble. After briefly taking on his beast form to climb a mound of broken up furniture and get his bearings, he gradually started to make his way toward the exit that he, Ichiban and Omori had ended up using last night. He kept his pace slow and careful while he searched for anything else that he wanted to make off with. A few things called out to him, not least of all the hilt of a weapon. Curious, he pulled the [url=https://i.ibb.co/nPwJ211/Equipment-Bronllavyn.png]dagger[/url] free from an otherwise empty kitchen knife block and tested its weight. Though far from some kind of weapons expert, the thief could tell it was a high quality dagger. It felt nice to wield after a few test slashes, and the blade itself seemed sturdy. He flipped it around a few times in one hand, then back and forth between his right and left before stowing it next to his Stinging Dagger and throwing knives. 

[i]Wonder if I can find a better sword?[/i] he thought to himself, brushing his fingers over the cheap scabbard that held his current one. It was just a basic short sword, nothing he was attached to. In some situations a sword served better than a dagger was all. He walked a wide circle around the same assortment of items, scrutinizing it for any other useful weapons.

"Oh...?" Came an evil purr from somewhere behind Therion. He froze in place, heart speeding up now that he'd been caught. Either being thrown into so many crazy, unfamiliar situations was effecting his skills, or he was just losing his stealth edge. Hopefully it was the former. Therion slowly turned around, finding [url=https://imgur.com/WoSMAls]one[/url] of the feuding lords of the Junk Pit sitting atop a sturdy pile of trash and grinning down at him. The goblin's eyes glowed in the dim light.

"You were here yesterday, weren't you? Playing with the bird." He tapped a gnarled finger to the side of his head. "Yes, I remember. Unfortunately, I also remember you and your friends didn't pay the entrance to fee to [i]my[/i] hall of treasure."

Therion's hands shifted subtly under his cloak. [color=BC8DBF]"Oh yeah? And what's that?"[/color]

Avarice's ever-present grin sharpened, his mouth stretching wider. "...your life."

The sin personified launched himself from his perch and straight toward the intruder, though by the time Avarice hit the floor with enough force to make a small crater and topple the item piles around him Therion was already on the move. He sprinted away, watching his footing as he skirted around objects large and small laying around the area.

[i]I have [/i]got[i] to start making better life choices,[/i] he thought to himself as he ran through the dangerous underground junk pit pursued by a homicidal hoarder for the second time in as many days. 

Therion looked over his shoulder when a shifting noise caught his ear to find Avarice pulling a huge iron gear from somewhere and hurling it at the thief. Alarmed, Therion whipped around, cloak billowing out as he put the Greed Shield between himself and the gear. When it struck, the force sent vibrations all the way up his arm and knocked him right off his feet and back into a mound of items. The pile fell apart, spilling over Therion like a wave. He struggled to free himself before Avarice reached him, but with one leap the goblin was already there. He reached into the collapsed pile and grasped Therion by the front of his shirt, yanking the thief out. 

In one hand Therion still held his shield, and in the other he'd grasped for anything that might be useful. He came away holding a [url=https://i.imgur.com/7KBOOqR.png]treasure[/url] whose colors shifted and changed with the light. Both he and Avarice were momentarily distracted by the item until the thief chose to pocket it.

"That's mine!"

[color=BC8DBF]"Finder's keepers!"[/color]

Avarice lifted him higher up with intent to smash him into the ground, but Therion ripped himself from the sin's grasp. He landed, backpedaling away from a swipe of Avarice's claws. [i]If you want something shiny, play with this.[/i] Therion lifted a hand and a magic circle swirled into existence nearby. From it, a golden gundead shelleton emerged as Therion tested his new power. The shelleton's eyes glowed and a hail of bright bullets shot out toward Avarice in a wave. The hoarder jumped up and out of the way, coming down on top of the summoned minion, though Therion had already abandoned it in order to escape. [i]Nifty power, though.[/i]

He beat a hasty retreat, sprinting across the last distance between himself and the exit. Behind him, he could hear the hoarder getting closer to him with each leap. Avarice stopped only once to pull a massive animal skull from one of the Junk Pit's largest piles, dragging it with him to try and smash the thief before he got away. The makeshift weapon slammed down in front of the exit just after Therion had slid through, dislodging a hefty amount of dust and completely blocking the door. Therion coughed, waving the dust away. The adrenaline in his body wanted him to keep moving, but he lingered a moment to see if the skull would move. When it didn't, he realized that it would probably cut off this entrance to the Junk Pit indefinitely. [i]I'd really be pushing my luck if I came back down here a third time anyway,[/i] he thought before trudging up the short staircase that would eventually take him to a wider area. From there, he could make his way back into the city itself. [hr]
Like most cities its size, the Home of Tears had plenty of shops and other businesses that would both buy and sell items. Therion had already been to a couple of them earlier that morning, offloading some of the things he'd been carrying in exchange for the region's currency "geo." The Puzzling Trapezohedron he'd absconded from the Royal Waterways with should fetch a good price, so after finding another umbrella he headed towards the commerce areas.

Not far from Vamos' smithy sat a slightly different kind of establishment, one that catered to the city's inhabitants that sported less humanoid body types. It also just so happened to be the first place Therion had spotted that morning that would purchase the random hunks of ore and rocks he'd been looking to sell, and since he noticed it up ahead he ducked under the awning to trade in some more while on his way. 

[url=https://i.ibb.co/NY8fcb8/Monster-Hunter-Rise-Sunbreak-Buddy-Smithy-Bis-850x478.webp]Bis[/url] and an assistant cat were working the forge, and their ears perked up when Therion approached. The thief still looked a little mussed up from his encounter with Avarice, but since he was dumping a bunch of ore, scale, and metal scraps on the table they didn't ask.

[color=BC8DBF]"These are the kind of things you said you'd buy, right?"[/color] Therion asked, and Bis nodded enthusiastically. 

"Yup, they're purrfect! Sometimes it's just easier to work with smaller pieces when mew are making smaller armor."

Therion nodded, not that it mattered to him what it was used for. As Bis separated the scraps to categorize them and total up their worth, Therion's gaze drifted across the completed works for sale at the smithy. There were helms and cuirass in many shapes and sizes, from felyne-size to some with multiple arm holes or spaces for horns and long ears to fit through. After some moments spent just looking, a thought came to his mind.

[color=BC8DBF]"...hey,"[/color] he said, drawing Bis' attention. [color=BC8DBF]"Could you guys make armor for a..."[/color] he stopped, realizing what he was about to say as the cat person in front of him tipped his head curiously. [color=BC8DBF]"...a lion, or tiger, something like that?"[/color]

"Of course! That'd be kitten's play!" Bis laughed. "Do mew have their meas-purr-ments?"

That led to some awkwardness on Therion's part as she shifted into his beast form and let the felyne smiths examine him, take his thoughts on armor, and then bid him return later to collect the finished product. 

After securing a buyer for the other odds and ends he had on him, Therion headed back to the heart of the city with no real goal in mind besides potentially rendezvousing with the rest of the Seekers.



[center][h2]Those Who Rave in the Dark[/h2]
Word Count: 10,678 (+11 exp)
[i]Starring Bowser, Rika, Therion, and Barnabee[/i]
[sub][@DracoLunaris][@Yankee][@Lugubrious][/sub][/center]

Bowser had made his way down the tower via lengthy cat scratch, leaving a trail of kitty claw marks all the way down the outside of the soul sanctum. Once at the bottom he had regrouped at the bottom of it with the rest of the troop, finding them happily snacking on the free brie Jr and Rika had acquired. He happily scarfed down the sizable chunk they had saved for him, and then they got to some scheming about how to pull off IGV’s plan all sneaky like. 

With the Troop reunited, Barnabee joined what seemed to be the biggest group. Having disappeared while the others delved deeper, he’d evidently been keeping lookout from the entrance. “Tis good to see you all escaped that place unscathed!” he told those who’d ascended through the Soul Sanctum. “Not that I doubted thee for a moment, but that dread aura we encountered within… well, I certainly do not want for valor, but as Her Majesty’s one and only Hive Knight I could not afford to gamble my life for a mere meeting! But if there is evil afoot amongst the smallfolk of this fair city, my blade is yours. Huzzzzzah!”

While they were at that, a certain bee queen passed by as part of her own descent, and before she could hover off to go mingle with high society, Rika intercepted her.

[color=Aqua]”Hey! Hi hi! Could we borrow that hat again? I got some random spirits while transporting cheese, it was this whole thing and the pay was bad, and I wanted to make sure we have, you know, every tactical advantage for when we go about this whole covert ops thing”[/color] she requested, holding out a hand and showing off the rat and cheese based spirits she had acquired.

Sectonia wasn’t in a big hurry, but considering it hadn’t been more than a couple hours since their last crushing session she gave Rika a one eyed glare, although this was more the way she looked at everyone considering her size. [color=92278f]”I suppose that's fine. King Koopa and his court mage paid for the usage of the day, so here you go.”[/color] Sectonia said, pulling out the helmet for Rika. Considering the plans for her and Jr. It would be best if they get some kind of decent equipment. 

[color=Aqua]”Thank you, thank you!”[/color] Rika said gratefully, before accepting the hat and, with jr on standby for healing, got to crushing.

[hider=Rika gets]
You have acquired:
[b]Geo[/b] x845
[b][url=https://i.imgur.com/cUT5omK.png]Delicious Mushroom Cheese Pizza[/url][/b]
[i]Restores a lot of health upon consumption[/i]
[b][url=https://i.imgur.com/WtCeeaZ.png]Cheesecake[/url][/b]
[i]Restores health upon consumption and very slightly raises Luck[/i]
[b]Fan of Knives[/b]
[i]A weapon mod forged from the silver fragment left behind by Tian the Assassin, the bloodstained blade of the ratlike Urikki race. Charged by dealing damage in battle, it can be unleashed to manifest and throw a fan of seven knives that cause Bleeding[/i]
[b][url=https://i.imgur.com/6vQtIsb.png]Sparkle Time Cheese Hat[/url][/b]
[i]A rare piece of collectable headwear that can be sold for a remarkable sum of 2500 Geo. Worth its weight in gold![/i]
[b][url=https://i.imgur.com/5C6rh0W.png]Blood Vial[/url][/b] x3
[i]Special blood used in ministration. Restores HP. Once a patient has had their blood ministered, a unique but common treatment in certain rumor-shadowed places, only successive treatments can reproduce that same sublime feeling of invigoration[/i]
[b]High-quality Bandages[/b] x2
[i]Useful for stopping Bleeding and temporarily increasing Bleed resistance[/i]
[/hider]
The results were ironically not at all useful for Rika’s intended usage of aiding the mission, and yet at the same time very useful in a longer term. Or would be, once they worked out what two of them.

[color=Aqua]”Oooo, shiny”[/color] the ship girl cooed as she examined the golden cheese hat, which she had no idea what it was for, other than looking equal parts expensive and silly. As for the rest, the Geo was stashed, the food and healing items went with Bowser. That left the fan of knives, which somehow seemed to be more the idea of a fan of knives than an actual set of knives, which they found very confusing.

[color=DeepSkyBlue]”We may need an expert for these, I have to admit. At least we are in a city where one might be found rather than out in the middle of nowhere”[/color] Kamek said, before passing it back to Rika [color=DeepSkyBlue]”you should hold onto this for when you have the opportunity to pop by one.”[/color]

Sectonia looked over the items the group had gotten, and besides the massive amount of Geo they had gotten, wasn’t really interested in any of them. Perhaps she should’ve charged them for this use, but what's done is done. She did notice that when crushed, much like what she had gotten, there were those blood vial things, yet no vial of indiscriminate liquid she couldn’t identify. 

[color=92278f]”Hmm… On a whim I crushed what I had found up there as well. It seems that those bandaged abominations didn’t drop much of worth. Although I did come across this vial I can’t identify.”[/color] Sectonia said, presenting the vial of liquid determination she had found. [color=92278f]”Most curious… I haven’t seen anything like this before.”[/color]

[color=DeepSkyBlue]”I don’t exactly trust anything but the bandages, considering the state of that place,”[/color] Kamek admitted, as he examined the vial, and then glanced at the vials of blood. Sectonia could only nod, having no trust of any of that stuff either. Even the bandages could be a bit strange as well, potentially. 

[color=92278f]”Well, I suppose this ‘blood’ will be sold. Something about it feels wrong, but not in a cursed way, just… conceptually.”[/color] Sectonia said, putting the blood vial she had gotten earlier into the koopa troop’s pile of loot, not wanting anything to do with it. She’d just charge them what it's worth next crushing session.

With that all sorted, people started to go their own ways, off to perform their respective sneaky assassinations, eventually leaving just those who were going to raid the Agarthans’ secret base.

[color=FD0000]”Alright, let’s see who we’ve got!”[/color] Bowser declared, before looking over his troops.

[color=Aqua]”Well I’m still here! Oh, oh and I got bullets again! Plus Kamek left me this oversized beetle”[/color] Rika reported while patting the massive horned [url=https://pwimages-a.akamaihd.net/arc/ac/9f/ac9f30bb45ea4d59ad74ec6847c9c83f1494966018.jpg]Stag beetle[/url] on the noggin, eliciting 0 response from the magical construct, before she also informing him that: [color=Aqua]”It’s good at breaking down walls or gates, and also for digging through stuff, so it should help us break into wherever this place is!”[/color] 

[color=FD0000]”Good thinking there, from both of you”[/color] 

Barnabee puffed out his fuzzy chest, his hands placed heroically on his hips. “Braver than the brave, faster than the fast, stronger than the strong, and of course, humbler than the humble, hoho! Until such time as your cohort may assist in the reclamation of the Hive, its truest Knight is in your service.”

[color=FD0000]”Great boasting Barnabee”[/color] 

Not realizing they'd be doing a roll call, one of the Seekers' two cat burglars (the less friendly one) nonchalantly raised their hand. Therion had recently returned from the city's literal underbelly and happened to run into the large group, and after everything was explained to him he was roped into the plan more by the Seekers' enthusiasm than from volunteering for it. Still, he didn't mind helping out. [color=BC8DBF]"Alright, let's do this."[/color]

[color=FD0000]”Yeah, let's go do this thing!”[/color] Bowser concluded the role call, pointing a finger onwards to where he thought their objective was, only for Rika to physically move his pointing finger about 45 degrees to the right so it was actually pointing towards the royal quarter.

[hr]
Once the assembled Seekers arrived in the Royal Quarter, their search actually went a lot smoother than they might expect. Luxuriant extravagance, lavish detail, and masterfully crafted appearances were the bread and butter of this grandiose place. The rich green of well-kept mossbrush and the polished, silvery gleam of the chitinous masonry here contrasted quite sharply with the predominantly black, blue, and gray of the rest of the city’s architecture, and though the district looked as distinguished as it did lovely, the relative uniforming of its style brought any exceptions to the rule into sharp relief. That was true for Gallo Tower, of course, but a few other buildings broke the mold, and if they happened to be quite large they were all the more noticeable. As such, it didn’t take long to identify a sizable structure not so far from the sorcerous clock tower, half-hidden in the darkness between the tower and the cavern wall behind it. This structure was tall and angular, its surfaces sheer and metallic, and mostly vertical glowing blue lines adorned it in a strange blend of medieval citadel and futuristic facility. When the heroes approached, they soon found that -in addition to featuring a number of ominous-looking statues by the main door- that it seemed to require some sort of keycard.

[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/MIF1F6E.png[/img][/center]

[color=FD0000]”Not bad, not bad at all”[/color] Bowser nodded to himself as he took in the looming structure [color=FD0000]”Strong lines, dark colors, nice highlights. All around a half decent evil lair, from the outside at least. Maybe it could loom more, and it does kinda blend in a bit. Still, guess seeing as it’s a minion base it wouldn’t do to have it be flashier than the main man’s big tower. Main boy. Whatever”[/color] 

[color=Aqua]”So. How are we thinking of breaking in? Frontal assault, some kind of sneaky flanking thing? Oh oh, or we could get up on the roof maybe? Smash a hole and drop down on em?”[/color] Rika, riding her living castle wall breaker asked, perhaps underestimating the durability of whatever metal the structure was made of. 

[color=FD0000]”First one’s a classic, all bravado that one, but smashing through a skylight is super dramatic entrance wise too, hmmm”[/color] Bowser said as he considered the options, apparently wanting to leave an impression most of all.

[color=BC8DBF]"I doubt this thing has a skylight. There's no sky. Doesn't look like it's got windows at all, nor a proper door with a lock,"[/color] Therion pointed out, a bit annoyed about all of that. On the way over to Shambhala he'd quickly realized who exactly he was working together with: people with more brawn than brains. The thief was no scholar himself, but some of them made him feel like one. Apparently he'd have to talk some reason into them.

[color=BC8DBF]"Unless you think you can make it up to the roof without being spotted and make a large enough hole in one shot - which I doubt you can - that plan is a no-go. I might be able to sneak inside and let you all in, but I can't be sure without doing some reconnaissance first."[/color] He tucked a fist under his chin, thinking.His tail swished back and forth. [color=BC8DBF]"A distraction may work to slip inside during the confusion. Or if we had some explosives..."[/color] His gaze slid towards the dragon-turtle and Rika’s gauntlets, not actually sure that they [i]didn’t[/i] have any.

Barnabee eyed the Consul’s stronghold nearby. “Hmm…as much as I favor the bombastic approach, given our proximity to yonder tower, would it not be prudent to bee a little more…discreet? T’would not do to provoke our quarry ahead of time.”
The thief gave a half-hearted shrug. [color=BC8DBF]"No need to convince me, I'd prefer that. Just wondering how we're supposed to sneak [i]this[/i] anywhere,"[/color] he said, gesturing to the Koopa King.

[color=Aqua]”So not explosives then?”[/color] Rika, who was halfway through pulling out the last of her forearm arm sized torpedoes out of her gauntlets, double checked.

[color=FD0000]”Eh, one of the kid’s big things was that he didn’t pay attention, no way he’d notice a thing”[/color] Bowser retorted with a bit of a growl, only for Rika to point out that [color=Aqua]”But the guard fish ladies might, and they are nice, so I don’t wanna have to shoot them”[/color] which got him to back off and begrudgingly agree [color=FD0000]”Fine fine, we’ll do it your way”[/color] 

[color=FD0000]”So what’s your sneaky scheme then”[/color] 

[color=D34C25]"First we have to see what we're working with. How many entrances, how to get into them, how many people use them..."[/color] Just from the short time they'd spent looking at the place it seemed to only have the one entrance, but Therion couldn't say for sure if it was true or not. And there weren't any people at all going in or out of it. The only thing he noted was some kind of terminal, similar enough to the one on the railway gun and the ones used in the metro to accept passes that he could conclude it had something to do with getting the door to open. The thief clicked his tongue.

[color=BC8DBF]"It's unrealistic to come up with a 'sneaky scheme' without more info, but for now we can either find a way through this thing that opens the door,"[/color] he indicated the keycard scanner as he spoke, [color=BC8DBF]"we can wait around until someone else opens it and duck inside, or my pick: see if there's another way in."[/color]

[color=FD0000]”Alright. In that case, while you wait and see if you can ambush some schmuck, we’ll go that way”[/color] Bowser pointed to the right of the building, [color=FD0000]” and see if there’s any back doors to this place. Would be a pretty bad base design if there was, but hey, not everyone’s as good at this as me”[/color] he gloated while cracking his knuckles, before setting off stomping, with Rika riding along atop her beetle at his side 

[color=FD0000]”Yell if you run into trouble!”[/color] he called back before the Troop’s brutes vanished around a corner. Considering they hadn’t seen a soul yet, Therion didn’t think that was likely. He waved the others off all the same. 

Barnabee joined the group effort to survey the structures perimeter. He went ahead of Bowser and Rika, moving speedily, zipping from spot to spot in a series of dashes. “No back doors,” he buzzed to himself halfway through his second rotation, trying to spot anything he might have happened to miss last time. “Nor windows. Must be damnably stuffy in there.” After another minute or two he couldn’t help but concede that this place was like a bunker, devoid of almost every feature that defined an ordinary domicile or workplace. Once he dashed up onto the roof, however, he finally found something. It couldn’t rightfully be called a chimney, being more of a industrial pipe that eked an acrid, malodorous smoke. But it was something.

“Huzzah!” he exclaimed. Waving down at the others, he shared what he’d found. “I’ve discovered a strange chimney, no doubt connected to some manner of kitchen or hearth! Hasten to the front entrance, this won’t be a moment” This pipe featured a cap above a three-way vent for dispersal, but a quick application of the bee’s sawblade lopped the top of and opened it up, albeit for someone much smaller than himself. The Hive Knight puffed his cheeks up. “[i]Huck…blech[/i]!” He spat out a little hiveling, and to his delight found that the itty bitty bee could squeeze into the pipe no problem. “Now, my boon companion, I shall need thee to brave yon noxious fumes, delve into thine enemies’ stronghold, and navigate thy way to the forward portcullis. There must be some manner to open it from within! Canst thou do it?”

The hiveling saluted, then dove into the pipe. Barnabee waited. And waited. Then a particularly foul clump of smog wafted up from the chimney, prompting a wincing grimace. “Egads...poor fellow. This may take a little more time than expected. And a few more bees…”

Up by the front door, the Seekers joined Therion and waited in hiding for a good while. Eventually, despite the thick walls of the structure, they became aware of some sort of hubbub from within. After another minute the front door suddenly slid open, and out spilled a throng of panicking [url=https://i.imgur.com/CVLzpQS.png]imps[/url] covered in stings. Along with them came at least two dozen hivelings, some on fire, some not. Inside, the servants’ quarters -which seemed to occupy this above-ground part of Shambhala- were in a state of commotion due to aforementioned bees. Only two non-imps were present: a crow-masked [url=https://i.imgur.com/NgP5RHG.png]sorcerer[/url] and a veiled [url=https://i.imgur.com/WM1jNjQ.png]witch[/url] who’d been brewing concoctions together in the kitchen when the bees first arrived, and who now were attempting to control the chaos despite being stung themselves.

Barnabee dropped down from the roof to join the Seekers, breathing heavily as he wiped both rain and sweat from his brow. “As… promised!”

Therion patted the knight on the shoulder in lieu of actually bidding him a job well done aloud. While the door was open he darted through it, easily weaving around the imps that rushed out the other way. He took it that the rest of them knew to follow before things were under control and the door slammed shut again.

Rika used her grappling hook to launch herself over the crowd using one of the tall statues as a midpoint of a two grapple leap. Bowser meanwhile simply rode the beetle through the crowd while using his shoulder cannons to extinguish flaming bees via water blasts, and loudly insisting he was from the fire department while doing so.

Their less-than-subtle entrance caught the attention of the two Agarthan dark mages. “Intruders!?” the crow-masked one exclaimed, so surprised that he tripped over the hem of his robe as he backpedaled in a panic. He fell on top of the woman in the midst of her attempt to extinguish the alchemical fire in the kitchen nook and toppled her like a domino, driving the wind from her lungs as she got squashed against the floor. “Danae!” he gasped. “Forgive me!”

“Guuuuhh!” the lady gasped, uselessly pounding the tile with her gloved fist. “Get off…me…you…lummox!”

“R-right!” As the sorcerer tried to rise, however, a passing bee knocked a hanging pot off its hook. It fell dang and promptly smacked him in the head with a loud [i]DOONG[/i]. “Oogh!” he yelped, instinctively ducking forward. This put him into a headlong stumble until he smacked mask-first into a prep table.

“Stavros? What happened?” Danae got to her feet a little too fast. A combination of lightheadedness and her own veil obstructing her vision led her to slip on a rolling pin immediately afterward, flipping backward so fast her high heels comedically flew straight up into the air as she too disappeared behind the table.

[color=FD0000]”Bahahaha, what a buncha shmucks!”[/color] 

As he entered Barnabee kicked the last couple imps through the door to allow it to slam shut behind the team. He peered in the direction of the kitchen to find the two Agarthans relegated to kitchen duty in a half-conscious heap. “That solves that, I suppose.” He turned his attention to a magitech lift in the center of the structure, surrounded by railings on three sides. A passageway descended diagonally downward into the dark, where Those presumably slithered.

[color=Aqua]”Huh, looks like it goes down more. A lot more”[/color] Rika said as she peered over one of the railings, trying to spy just how far they would need to go down before commenting  [color=Aqua]”Must be real inconvenient to have to elevator food all the way down there huh?”[/color]

That said, she did get it, it would be a real blunder to have an exhaust pipe that went deep into your base after all. 

[color=Aqua]”So, are we just gonna ride down, or?”[/color] she asked, before turning to the others and finding Bowser had helped himself to what had been cooking while she’d been looking down and Barnabee had been clearing out the last of the riff-raff

[color=FD0000]”What? Do you want me to leave it all burn”[/color] the still beetle riding king said, affronted by the possible waste as he accepted an entire roast chicken from a summoned hammerbro striker, and then popped it in his mouth.

[color=Aqua]”I guess it would make leaving kinda hard if the kitchen did catch fire behind us”[/color] she agreed, having missed his intention 

[color=FD0000]”Uh, yeah, that”[/color] he agreed, before showing the striker duo off to go turn off all the ovens and stoves.

[color=FD0000]”Aaaaanyway. Ride down. Sounds good. What else are we gonna do, ride  my shell all the way down the ramp at high speed?”[/color] he asked, and then looked to be considering it for a moment.

[color=BC8DBF]"Please tell me that was a bad joke,"[/color] Therion said from over his shoulder where he was hunched down, literally tying up their loose ends with some excess rope. He did not relish the idea of being impaled on those spikes if their ride down went wrong. After frisking the two bumbling mages and relieving them of anything that looked dangerous or important (or valuable), Therion returned to the others at the lift.

[color=BC8DBF]"I don't hear any alarms, so as far as we know these two are the only ones who know we're here. Why don't we keep it as quiet as possible while we can?"[/color]

After gathering everyone together on the lift, Bowser smacked the conspicuously large button on the console, and the team began to descend. Quick, uneventful, and smooth, the trip took a lot less time than the elevator back at Alcamoth did for Rika yesterday, though at the end of this ride she and the others didn’t get to enjoy a breathtaking, region-spanning vista. Instead, the platform came to a stop in front of a huge futuristic hallway, its darkness illuminated by streaks of turquoise light, revealing immaculate architecture that seemed well beyond the design sensibilities -and perhaps even the means- of mankind. Even Bowser could walk comfortably through those arched doorways with a couple feet of headroom to spare. This underground sanctum had ‘highly advanced ancient technology’ written all over it. Though it was, in a sense, magnificent, Barnabee could not call it beautiful; instead, it felt ominously alien in aspect.

[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/cYRVKy4.png[/img][/center]

The decor, however, appeared to be more familiar. Stationed against the walls toward the end of the first hall were two [url=https://i.imgur.com/PQCNKwC.png]towering colossi[/url] with the height of six men, armed with massive shields and push-daggers bigger than the average person. They were heavy metal golems animated by ancient artifice, and though terrifyingly huge they stood still for now, their looming presence lending more credence to Therion’s previous suggestion.

Down the hallway, however, one more machine stood smack-dab in the center of the path, facing the entrance. While as enormous as its peers [url=https://i.imgur.com/iG67oaK.png]this one[/url] sported a more mage-like design. Try as they might to remain out of sight, this wide-open area featured few places to hide, and it wasn’t long before the golem’s burning red eyes locked onto the Seekers’ least stealthy members. [b]”Intruders”[/b], it rumbled, apparently intelligent enough to recognize friend from foe. With a sudden jerk it lifted up its arms and put its palms together, conjuring a giant fireball. It raised the swelling pyroclasm above its head and slammed its hands together. Its conjuration detonated noisily, and on the heels of that tremendous [i]bang[/i] the fallout from the blast detonated on the floor like handfuls of firecrackers, making quite the racket.

A moment later, a magic circle appeared, and in a flash a projection of [url=https://i.imgur.com/9NhwvRS.png]Thales[/url] appeared. With skin, hair, eyes, and beard all white as bone, he might’ve been mistaken as a ghost if not for his heavy red armor, burgundy feather collar, and satin cape. He raised a scruffy eyebrow at the sight of the newcomers, sneering at them with the callous imperiousness of an undead warlord.  “Whoever you are, you are fools to come here,” his ethereal voice pronounced. “This place is forbidden, yet you trespass upon the hallowed halls of Shambhala? You are then our enemies, the [i]Consul’s[/i] enemies, and your sentence is… death.”

[center][youtube]https://youtu.be/rka-JL9H8OM?t=0[/youtube][/center]

He turned suddenly, calling to people the Seekers couldn’t see. “Remove the binding spell of the Titanus! Initiate all that remain!” In reply, magic surged through the circuits of the giant golems, and as their eyes lit up all four Titanus lurched into action to join the Golem caster in battle. “Let their metal bodies be drenched in blood!” Thales roared, his projection disappearing as his voice echoed through the halls from deeper in. “Damn any who stand against the Agarthans to oblivion, away from the world of the living!”

There went any hope of a surprise attack the Seekers might have tried - though to be fair it was a long shot in the first place with the ragtag group of four that invaded Shambhala. Outnumbered by one by heavy metal machines, they'd be in for a rough time. Therion grimaced, displeased but not surprised at this turn of events. His opening move was to help even the odds a little by summoning the junicorn and pointing it at what would probably be the most troublesome enemy: the mage golem.

[color=Aqua]”Good idea, let’s shoot the shooty one!”[/color] Rika called out in agreement, while also suggesting they [color=Aqua]” spread out so it doesn’t explode us all”[/color] 

Then she used her grappling hook to pull herself up into the air and away from the core of the party using one of the side columns, and then launched a volley of shells from her rigging turrets at the head of the mage titan. She held off on using her main guns due to their lower caliber, which she expected would be rather futile vs the heavy armor, and low range, respectively, in-order to conserve ammo. 

Bowser, still riding the oversized beetle, moved out as well, riding parallel to the enemies so he could bring three sets of his guns to bear on them, the king being a lot less tactical or ammo conserving as he indiscriminately volleyed the mage with both explosive shells, and an arching volley of spike missiles.

As he fired, he called out [color=FD0000]”Marie, help me blast that thing!”[/color] over the din, summoning up the former skullgirl, who appeared floating in the air above him.

“Hmmm. Big” she noted, before sweeping a hand across the corridor, summoning up undead soldiers to act as cannon fodder or, depending on the armaments the had on them got, possibly adding some anti-tank weapons fire to the mix. Then she raised the hand up above her and began showering the mage with a barrage of skull projectiles of her own.

With bold allies like his and his striker subbing in, Therion himself could start his attempts to disappear from the golems' line of sight. That would make it much easier to try and soften the constructs up with his defense decreasing debuff. That, and see if on the off chance there was a way to squeeze by without having to deal with all of these in the first place. The goal was just the one guy, Thales - if they could take care of him and then get out they would succeed in their mission after all. 

Everyone focusing on the Mage Golem dealt some appreciable damage to it from afar, although the punishment piled up on its outer shell didn’t impede its function. Like a massive, needlessly elaborate arcane turret it stood its ground and answered in kind with enormous fireballs. After a moment, however, the straight shot to the giant caster closed; the Titanus were on the march. Their formidable shields shrugged off almost everything thrown at them as they lumbered forward, bodyblocking for the mage. In just a few strides they reached the Koopa Troop and began to mow through the skeletons Marie summoned, with the former Skullgirl herself timing out and disappearing before the juggernauts arrived. Rika’s grapple meant she could skirt around the Titanus to press the attack against the mage, and hail-mary projectiles could be more or less blindly arced over their defenses, but Bowser couldn’t get around this problem. With only a handful of skeletons left and their numbers thinning fast, he and his beetle were forced to take on the Titanus.

Barnabee saw the wisdom in Therion’s approach, namely discretion. Shambhala’s fortifications and defenses were no laughing matter–this place was built to withstand a siege. An entire army of soldiers would be hard-pressed to make inroads here with guardsman like those, and the Seekers numbered but a few. He darted around the Titanus to take advantage of their sluggish attacks in the hopes of finding a critical weakpoint he could carve into with his sawtoothed sword, but these machines were cleverly built and he made little progress against their barriers. “This may be one brawl we cannot win this way!” he cautioned the others. “Perhaps we can outpace them? That blaggard Thales called to someone before these colossi came to life. It may be more feasible for thee to oust whoever’s controlling them!”

[color=FD0000]”I’m not going to back down without a fight!”[/color] Bowser yelled back, even the stubborn brute, but that didn’t mean he was just going to charge the titans on beetle back. Insead, he dug into his bag of strikers once again and declared [color=FD0000]”Going up!”[/color] as beneath his steed he summoned his [url=https://ssb.wiki.gallery/images/3/34/Trowlon.jpg]Trowlon[/url] minion. 

The spade/flying carpet meant to lift the unwary to the doom instead ascended the king towards salvation. Not that he was content to just hold on to his steed riding steed, and instead the king charged up power in his mawn and then, once he rose up above the heads of his foes, unleashed upon one of them a mega fireball, blasting it near point blank with an orb of flames several meters in diameter wide.

Neither talking nor charging were a free action, and gathering firepower for an explosive burst right in one’s face carried a certain element of risk with its reward. When Bowser unleashed his fireball point-blank, it detonated against his targeted Titanus’s mighty shield mere feet away. The enormous mass of thick armor plating soaked up the firebomb’s explosive force, and though the flame washed over the Titanus, a sweeping swing scattered the blaze far and wide to reveal the huge automaton almost none the worst for wear. Its response came in the form of a ruthless lunging punch to plunge its blade into Bowser’s body and sling him to the floor. The other Titanus followed up with mechanical precision, raising its shield to pound the floor with Titanomachy. The sheer force of the multi-ton strike created a localized shockwave powerful enough to send even the heaviest foes flying.

The king had, fortunately, already been preparing to leap, because while the trowlon was a useful transport, it only really did up well. Unfortunately, as his steed leaped forwards and onto the very shield that had been raised overhead to block his attack, this did leave the striker behind, where a moment after the king abandoned it the sword blade scythed it in half, opening up a sympathy gash along the king’s side as he roared in pain.

Rika for her part had already grappling hooked over the shielded foes, and was still trying to focus down the mage titan to stop it from doing some kind of magical nonsense. To that end she had switched to her much ammo richer Grizco blaster, and was performing the equivalent of fly-bys on the golem with her hook, tapping into her more limited reserves of electric goop to give the large ink explosions a shocking edge, the prokinetic blast she aimed at the arms and face of the mage titan leaving the impact sites covered in shocking slime that would keep on crackling and zapping till it could be cleaned off.

[color=Aqua]”How do you like that!”[/color] she taunted, before calling out a question of [color=Aqua]”Magic robots don’t like being shocked as much as actual ones right?”[/color] 

If she thought her offensive would meet with no resistance, she’d be disappointed; the mage golem’s eyes had been tracking Rika’s every move from the outset. Respectable though the Abyssal’s overall DPS might be, she was just one attacker against a construct meant to hold off an entire platoon, and it had the power -and health- to prove it. The golem soon began its attempts to intercept her, whether by swatting her out of the air with a metallic backhand or by hurling a firebomb at the grappling hook’s impact site. When she coated its eyes, the golem changed tactics. It began to spin with its arms outstretched in a massive, almost whirlwind-inducing lariat, its head spinning to gradually dislodge the goop in the process. Still, while powerful it was ultimately an untargeted attack.

Rika tried to grapple away, only to find herself being dragged in by the vortex and the torque of her grapple to not be able to outpace it entirely [color=Aqua]”Oh come on! Pull you whoreson of a rope!”[/color]

Maneuvering thrusters fired on her back, giving her more speed, and at the same time she emptied out all of her remaining torpedoes into the vortex, as much to to lighten her load as to try and hurt it more, because the latter seemed like a rather futile task. 

Up ahead, Therion maneuvered his way around the fight and through Shambhala’s halls. This place seemed to feature a roughly square layout, with two more layers of nested squares inside. It made sense that the Agarthans’ leader would be within the most fortified central compound, so he delved deeper in until he reached a massive gate. Finding no way to open it, he prepared to take a side path in the hopes of another opening. Just a few seconds into his detour, however, the gate rumbled open on its own to admit two more towering Titanus machines. On the other side of the aperture lay the [url=https://i.imgur.com/XmGIkQf.png]innermost layer[/url], where Thales and the handful of supplicants he had on hand had rallied together. His lackeys included an axe-wielding [url=https://i.imgur.com/T8bStYu.png]Berserker[/url] and [url=https://i.imgur.com/pqyyVZh.png]War Cleric[/url], a spear-wielding [url=https://i.imgur.com/42GDeqG.png]Rider[/url] atop a strange [url=https://i.imgur.com/8VJo8IR.png]shelled reptile[/url], a bow-wielding [url=https://i.imgur.com/ehVTBkb.png]Sniper[/url], and a claymore-wielding [url=https://i.imgur.com/CgHTGc2.png]Knight[/url]. In special magic circles stood the four [url=https://i.imgur.com/j1AMws9.png]sorcerers[/url] puppeting the Titanus.

[i]Now how am I gonna handle this?[/i] The thief thought to himself, hidden from sight for the moment with Barnabee not far behind. If he stayed put it would only be a matter of time until he was discovered, so he had to thank fast. Obviously he couldn't take on everyone in the room at once, so the target now had to be those casters. He didn't have much knowledge of complex sorcery, but surely if the magic circle was disrupted it would allow his companions to find and join him. Unfortunately for Therion the mages were not only spread out into the room's corners, they also appeared to be armored which would make things a little harder than just sticking them with some throwing knives - though he prepared a few anyway.

He wasn't seeing any other way to go about taking down the sorcerers with what he had other than just getting in there and then dealing with the fallout that was sure to come with that plan. Therion took a deep breath, held it for two seconds, and then dashed forward. He needed to strike quickly while he still had a surprise advantage, and he needed to ensure he took down at least one mage before the rest of the enemies in the room mobilized against him, which meant he would be getting up close. His speed easily carried him to the closest sorcerer. Therion leapt at the man, one hand tearing the helmet from his head and the other stabbing his new dagger through the bottom of the caster's chin. The blade slid down its victim's throat before exiting, and with one sudden assassination down Therion whirled around to set his sights on the next.

“HUZZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” With a terrific uproar, Barnabee made his entrance to try and wrench away some of the enemies’ attention now that Therion was making his move. He spat out a swarm of twelve hivelings to buzz straight for Thales’ regiment, unafraid to throw their brief but violent lives away if it meant keeping the Agarthans of the assassin’s back. While the armored soldiers shrugged off the bugs’ feeble attempts to bite and sting them with ease, their stubborn headbutts made it hard enough to pursue their target that they focused on slaughtering the hivelings first. The rider in particular fought to bring his mount under control as it snapped at the bees buzzing around it.

That left one major problem: the Sniper. As Therion closed in on his second target, the archer took aim with his compound bow. Rather than face the Berserker and the Knight head-on, Barnabee dashed across the room to appear beside the Sniper. His blazing sword sang as he swung it at the sniper’s head in a blistering sideswipe, but the man’s reaction time was as keen as his reflexes. He ducked down, pivoted to the side, and swiftly loosed his arrow into the Hive Knight’s middle as his swordblade sheared through the air overhead. “Eugh!” Barnabee went flying backward in an uncontrolled backflip, came to a stop against the wall, and sprang off in a blur before a second arrow could lodge itself in a more critical spot.

By that time, Therion reached the second sorcerer. Aware of the disturbance in Shambhala’s sanctum, he’d released his control of his Titanus in order to try and defend himself, but his efforts were too little, too late. Yet this wouldn’t be an easy kill. Knowing his enemy’s intention and destination, Thales himself charged and unleashed Death Γ directly on top of his own sorcerer’s position the moment Therion would arrive. As blackest shadow befell the area, anyone crushed beneath the malefic eruption would suffer its high critical rate.

Before he could even see the spell, the energy of its forming caused the hair on the back of Therion's neck to stand up. Whether intuition or a sixth sense honed by a perilous life, Therion felt the incoming danger. He drew up short of the mage with just enough time to avoid the spell, though the force of its blast sent him staggering backward.  

[i]What a bastard, he doesn't care about sacrificing his own guys.[/i] More than just cruel, that made Thales all the more dangerous. Now that Barnabee had joined him, they'd both have to be careful since strategic positioning would not help them avoid the man's attacks. Following the Hive Knight's example, Therion summoned his own reinforcements to distract the enemy units. Two shelletons appeared, one charging its sweeping laser and the other scattering its shots at the Agarthans while the junicorn made a reappearance and barrelled towards Thales as a living wrecking ball. And as if the situation in the central room wasn't chaotic enough, Therion was on the move once more in beast form, focusing on disrupting the Titanus control spells in as quickly a time as possible.

Just when it seemed as if Those Who Slither in the Dark were getting things back under control, more minions appeared to keep the discord alive. Thales scowled as he pulled the Knight in front of him to to take the blow from Junicorn, and though the defender broke through his disorientation to strike back at his attacker, neither juggernaut succeeded in hurting the other before Junicorn timed out. Nevertheless, with his summons and strikers adding to the havoc sown by Barnabee and the hivelings, Therion managed to finish off the weakened sorcerer and move toward the next. That meant two Titanus inoperable; this was getting out of hand. Thales extended his hands, palms downward, and summoned a much larger magical circle. It was time to bring the hammer down on these impudent interlopers.

“...Quake.”

An uproarious shockwave exploded outward from his position, quickly traveling the entire breadth of Shambhala’s sanctum and beyond. Thales’ mighty Quake Σ spell struck the whole map and every non-flying enemy on it, dealing a strong enough physical blow to their legs to send just about anyone to the ground in a heap. This time his allies enjoyed immunity to it, which the destruction of the shelletons only added to. The spear-wielding Rider atop his turtle and the axe-wielding War Cleric moved to obstruct Therion’s path, eager for their blades to bite deep into his mangy hide.

The spear wielder struck first, weapon shearing through fur and flesh while Therion scrambled to right himself after the quake threw even his feline form to the ground. Once back on his paws he leapt away from the Rider, preferring to take his chances with the cleric rather than the man and beast team. She swung her axe and only managed to nick him in the side as he turned and swiped at her. The war cleric pulled her weapon back and deflected his claws, and she was readying her next blow while the rider strode with his spear poised to strike. Therion snarled and pounced, the strength and weight of his wild cat form knocking the cleric onto her back. Then, he took off past the two of them, felt the sting of the rider's spear just grazing his hind leg as Therion abandoned the battle with them and ran toward the third puppeteer.

A handful of giant magic fireballs rained down and exploded upon the ground in front of him. By this point the sorceress had already let go of her Titanus and set herself up for a magical slugfest with a special circle of power. After she splurged mana on an exorbitant amount of fire, she switched to ice magic to refuel.

Thales did not appreciate this. “Bias! He’s too close, retreat now!”

“No way I’m leaving my ley lines! I can cast fast enough to keep him out!” the sorceress barked back. However that turned out not to be the case. The wild cat weaved around the icy blasts and struck with claws extended, slicing deep into the caster's unarmored areas. Her spell was interrupted and she staggered, but she remained within her circle. Undeterred she swapped back to fire once her mana returned to her, slinging a plumes of flame at the circling cat. Once the spells struck and the fire cleared, there was so no burned beast to be found. Therion had used the fire's cover to slip behind the sorcerer back in his human form, and with a dagger in either hand he stabbed the woman in her vulnerable spots. She gasped while her vitality flowed away from her, Therion's HP Thief skill mending some of his wounds before she collapsed.


“These idiots and their ley lines,” Thales snarled. Tome in hand, he moved forward to sling dark magic at Therion himself.

Instead Barnabee intercepted him, appearing in front of the fell arcanist with a blink-dash. Though wounded, the legendary Hive Knight had already felled the Sniper and crippled the Berserker, and he didn’t mind adding the Agarthans’ leader to his list. “En garde!” he roared, his saw-toothed blade singing as he swung it. Though he caught Thales somewhat by surprise, the man was unshakeable, and his Agarthan Technology skill reduced the damage of Barnabee’s swing such that he managed to catch the blade on his gauntlet. “What ho!?” He could only balk in shock at the malefic blackness that swirled around Thales’ other hand before the man unleashed a point-blank Death Γ. With a buzzing cry the Hive Knight sailed away and slammed into the far wall, his chainsaw sword fallen from his grasp. Not even pausing to smile, Thales scooped up the weapon and charged at Therion with the Knight in tow, the Rider and War Cleric coming at the thief from the other side.

The Hive Knight lay where he slid to the ground against the wall for a moment, then stirred to life with a cough. “Majesty…” he gasped. “I shan’t…fail thee!” Puffing his cheeks up, he unleashed a final swarm of twelve Hivelings to aid Therion in his hour of need, then slumped over.

[i]Shit.[/i] Despite the tiny back-up fighters, Therion wasn't sure he had a chance with Barnabee down for the count and four enemies bearing down on him. If he played it right he might be able to just slip out from being surrounded and grab the unconscious Hive Knight before scramming. His own fire spell flared to life in his hand, Wildfire fending off the two closest Agarthans while he tried to calculate a way out of his. His striker wasn't ready to be summoned again, so trying for any opening he could create Therion raised an arm to summon more shelletons to his aid. He'd intended for a couple, but managed only one before his mind was suddenly spiraling from an unforeseen consequence of his spirit fusion earlier that morning. Even his vision spun for a moment, and he barely had time to think [i]Oh, no,[/i] in confusion before the plans he'd been making were flushed from his head.

The gundead he'd summoned let loose a wave of bullets that peppered the Agarthans, but was quickly overwhelmed and reduced to a pile of shining bones. Then would have been the perfect time for reinforcements, and with timing befitting a hero, or in this case a very determined villain, a voice rang out.

[color=FD0000]”Fast-ball support special coming through!”[/color] came a cry from the grand halfway, followed by a “[sub]waaa[/sub]aaaaAAAAaaaa[sub]aaaa[/sub]“ as Bowser hurled Heel the rabbid supporter over heads of the remaining fighters so the striker could lend aid to the fallen knight.

Far behind him lay the still forms of the three Titanus Therion had disabled, and the fallen form of the mage golem whose body was ringed with claw and crush marks from a brawl with the mighty Scylla, and who’s faceplate had then been caved in by repeated kinetic strike module punches to the face. To his side stepped Rika, who leveled her fully stocked assault rifle and then opened up on the rider and cleric, spitting generous helpings of poison tipped lead their way. The latter scattered, but the mount of the former took so long to get going that it took a boatload of direct hits, so the Rider jumped off his shell-backed steed to use it as cover.

[color=Aqua]”Sorry we’re late, we had to stop for pizza”[/color] Rika called out, which was a truth that hid the fact that she’d more or less had to shove a mushroom pizza into an exhausted and beaten Bowser’s maw to get him going again.

Of course, behind the reinforcements came the fourth Titanus, whose proximity to the sanctum entrance they’d used to open the door in the first place. That left Rika and Bowser sandwiched between the giant knight and several Agarthan fighters, but it split their attention and got some off Therion. One unexpected boon came from the direction of the fourth artificer, though. Rather than focus on the enemies at hand, the sorcerer directed the last active Titanus over toward his own corner to protect himself. That meant that Bowser and Rika could challenge their real target and his honor guard without fear of a metal giant attacking from behind–they just needed to steer clear of that fourth of the room.

The two members of the Troop reacted to the initial sandwiching by engaging their chosen targets aggressively, Rika via grappling hook and Bowser via Beetle steed (though it itself was admittedly on its last legs).

The ship girl pinged a few more shots over the rider’s living cover, before shooting her grapple at it and sliding across the ground as it reeled her in. Then she kicked off the beast and backed up the half meter she needed to be at the perfect range to have the short ranged inky flack grenades of her grizzco blaster detonate over the cover taking the rider's head when she fired them over the bestial barrier. The man wasn’t equipped to deal with this kind of threat and toppled to the ground, head ringing and agonized by elemental affliction.

As she did that, Bowser rode forwards, opening his maw wide and unleashing his vacuum breath in conjunction with super sonic sound waves from his two shoulder cannons, both in a bid to stagger the cleric’s retreat so he could run her down. Instead she turned and charged him back, addled but not overwhelmed by the sonic assault, and on the way the heavily-armored Knight joined her. With axe and claymore they struck at the legs of Bowser’s bug mount, swinging for the joints to immobilize it beneath the overgrown Koopa’s weight while Thales took aim.

“Meddling fools.” Thales glowered at the marauding pair. “You’ll never see the sunlight again!” A geyser of dark magic erupted as he cast Death Γ. Taking damage from any of his spells, made all the more likely by his Hit +20 skill, inflicted both Seal Strength and Seal Magic to turn the tides in his favor.

With the Troop's appearance drawing the enemies away, Therion's closest target was the mastermind of Shambhala himself. After trying to hold his brain together he discarded both stealth and caution due to being temporarily overcome with madness, and rushed toward Thales with his Stinging Dagger poised and ready to cut. In a right state of mind the thief might have aimed for the man's vitals while his focus was elsewhere, but was it were his dagger just flashed forward aimed at anywhere it could find purchase.

Though for a moment it seemed as though Thales had been effectively pincered, the warlord quickly realized that Therion wasn’t thinking straight. He lurched and stumbled like a drunkard overcome with bloodlist, and with neither a steady hand nor keen wit to guide it to the vulnerable gaps, that knife in his hand wouldn’t do the thief much good against a man in plate armor. “Imbecile,” Thales spat as the Stinging Dagger glanced off his cuirass. He lifted his leg to deal the smaller man a swift kick and send him sprawling for a two-handed finisher from his stolen blade.

Barnabee, having only just now risen to his feet after the heal from Heel, reached out his hand. “Sir Therion!”

As if on cue his swarm of hivelings bulled into Thales, packed together tight enough to strike him with appreciable force. With a snarl he slashed through the swarm, scattering burning bug parts in a spray of acrid smoke, but it was the momentary distraction the Hive Knight’s friends needed.

Bowser was not able to take that opening, the King brawling atop his now fallen steed, magma hued lines of power slitting his shell and boosting his power to counteract the sealing of it the mage had inflicted upon him. At his sides were his hammer bro strikers, there to keep one attacker at bay with their hammers while the faster but more vulnerable king used his energy buckler and rocket powered fist to go after the other. His blunt-force pummeling proved rather effective against the Knight’s heavy armor, denting the plate that would otherwise be nigh invulnerable to slashing and piercing damage. More mobile and powerful, Bowser overwhelmed the juggernaut and knocked him onto his back, stunned. Meanwhile, the War Cleric fought desperately against the Hammer Bros, her confusion from the sonic waves making it a lot harder than it should be. She managed to carve her axe into one, and then the other, only to take a parting shot to the noggin that left her crumpled on the ground.

Rika, however, had dropped her cloyster on her own target to finish him off, while she herself came first swinging and then jet boosting in right in time to take advantage of Barnabee’s strike, arm reeled back to deliver a weighty left hook with her blaster armed gauntlet. Weakened by Thales’ Agarthan Technology skill, however, the mage sustained the sucker punch. “Ngh!” he huffed as he dodged away, forced to cede the spot where Therion had fallen. In doing so he also noticed the members of his personal guard in rapid decline. Honed to a lethal sharpness by the realization, he said not a word, but cast his next spell. Quake Σ rippled outward from his position as a massive shockwave, hitting all enemies in the room. Those on their feet got toppled, while those on the ground got launched for a painful fall back to the metal floor.

The bout of madness faded away from Therion, but his head was still spinning especially after being thrown by the quake and crashing back onto the ground. One hand was pressed to his forehead, and with his mind returned to him his survival instincts pushed him to stand up, back off, and assess the situation. One sorcerer and Titanus huddled defensively in one corner of the room, Thales in the center letting his spells loose, and the rest of the Agarthan forces incapacitated or reduced to ashes. They could finish this.

This time when the thief went on the offensive, it was from a distance. He only got close enough to use his Armor Corrosive on Thales, otherwise throwing his knives with much greater precision than when he'd been attacking in his maddened state. When doused, Thales threw his arm and cape up to protect his unarmored face, and the corrosive solution worked its magic on his equipment. The thief’s daggers, hurled from beyond the effective range of Agarthan Technology, forced him onto the defense. His spells could deal massive damage to Therion, but only if they hit, which was proving to be a problem.

Behind him, Rika had been toppled to the ground by the point blank earthquake, and was in the midst of pushing herself up off of it, thankful that the thief had engaged before the mage could take advantage of her prone state. A fair bit behind her, Bowser had just enough neurons in his thick head to do the pattern recognition necessary to work out how to react to being on the receiving end of one if his moves, the king doing a Mario and hopping up into the air before the Quake hit.

Conveniently, his foes were launched skywards alongside his jump, something he took advantage of by driving a [url=https://ssb.wiki.gallery/images/a/aa/BowserBAirSSBU.gif]rocket kick[/url] into the War Cleric to pay her back for the wounds she had given him via striker sympathy, before using the recoil to fly towards and grab the knight and delivering a [url=https://ssb.wiki.gallery/images/9/96/Bowser_SSBU_Skill_Preview_Side_Special.png?20190306032336]flying slam[/url] to make his landing as hard as possible.

While Bowser occupied himself with beating on the downed enemies, Thales continued his face-off with Therion. After a few moments a monkey wrench was thrown into the mix, however, as the Berserker -slashed and left indisposed by Barnabee earlier- rejoined the fight with a roar. His huge axe swung with timber-felling force.

As focused as he was on both evading Thales' magic and returning fire, Therion would have been nearly blindsided by the warrior if it hadn't been for the battle cry. He threw himself to the side to dodge the heavy blow, only to roll to his feet and find himself facing down another casting of Death. He launched himself backward as the magic exploded in front of him, followed by the Berserker who was raising his axe once more. The tables had quickly turned on him, pushed to exert his energy on avoiding the combination of melee and magic attacks. He wouldn't be able to dodge forever if the two-on-one continued while the other Seekers were preoccupied. It would be difficult to handle one while the other was pressing on the attack, and dealing with both at once would take an act of divine intervention.

[color=BC8DBF]"...!"[/color] There was [i]that[/i] which Therion hadn't tried using yet: the gift granted by Aeber to thieves. He had a feeling if he used it now, it would work.

Therion's body began to glow, the intensity of the light increasing as he Boosted himself thrice to use the divine skill. To the savvy it would be clear that the thief was preparing something, but there would be only seconds to do anything about it before Aeber's Reckoning rushed through the area. The conjured daggers shot out from behind Therion to strike at all foes remaining in the room, ripping through the very air with their speed and power.

As the sheer atmospheric force of the imminent divine skill struck him, Thales abandoned all pretense at fighting to hunker down on full defense. Then Aeber's Reckoning tore through the air of Shambhala's sanctum, its flying blades cleaving streaks of light through reality like the claw marks of some divine beast. The Berserker didn't know what hit him, and with his low Resistance, he never got the chance to find out. Instead he sank to the ground, his body scoured by holy blades, and his monstrous helmet hit the floor with a clang, the impact a note of dreadful finality as he -and the severing light- died out.

Thales himself fell to one knee, gasping. Combined with his reduced defense and the damage he'd already taken, things were looking dicey. No more peons remained to aid him–where were Kronya, Cornelia, and Solon? "After a thousand years, living only for vengeance," he growled. "How could this be? [I]This[/I] is our inglorious end!?" Gritting his teeth, he glared up at Therion and the others. "Why!? Who are you people? Surely not servants of that vile goddess…? Will it truly take our eradication to appease you?"

[color=Aqua]”Your boss’s friends got in our way”[/color] Rika replied casually as she dusted herself off from her date with the floor, revealing just how impersonal and tangential to their actual goals this attack was. Then she leveled her rifle at him to bring it to an end.

Thales wasted no time talking; not when another turn of the clock brought a certain spell within reach. With explosive suddenness he unleashed the fell sorcery he’d been gathering, giving rise to a purple gravitational maelstrom in front of him that lashed out with bolts of arcane lightning like lunging serpents to nearby targets. Bohr Χ, the highest tier of dark magic, crushed those caught in its deadly grasp with fundamental force, leaving them at just 1 HP. Then, with the cooldown complete, he prepared to cast his wide-ranging signature move Quake Σ to finish them all off in one fell swoop. “...For the new dawn!”

The Seekers had just one crucial moment to act, and this one was for all the marbles.

A new dawn bloomed, but not one that Thales wanted. Instead it came in the form of a beam of light lighting up the room as it lanced over the head of the crushed and re-floor introduced Rika, one fired from the maw of the koopa king, who’s occupation with beating on the downed enemies had left him clear of the gravity well.

“Grrragh!” The attack knocked Thales flat on his back. Bowser’s laser left a smoking hole in the warlock’s weakened chestplate, and the scorched insides did not bear mentioning. He twisted and writhed as his body seized up, then released his last breath as the world faded away. “Ohhhh…”

Finally, after a hard-fought battle, the Seekers were triumphant. The humans that survived the fight were in no condition to fight back. With the bulk of the Agarthan forces elsewhere they struck at the heart of their stronghold, and their leader was no more. Though many of the vaults here featured biometric locks tailored to their owners, whatever the victors could find was theirs for the taking, from pouches of coin to arcane remedies to knowledge-packed tomestones. Of note, a [url=https://i.imgur.com/jUQRTMU.png]black coffin[/url] lay within a special ritual circle in the room’s forward focal point.

After being laid out by the Bohr spell, Therion popped the cork on one of his potions of healing and took a breather once Thales was finished. He was spooked the man had been holding onto a spell like that the whole time, but thankfully the Seekers had all made it through. He hadn't gotten a good look at the room since his focus had been on the enemies inside it, but now the thief glanced around. Besides the cursed looking coffin, he was certainly not above ransacking the place after the ordeal they'd just been through.

[color=BC8DBF]"Let's take what we can carry and get out,"[/color] he suggested. A quick retreat was his preference, but not so fast that they couldn't line their pockets first. Coins and other obvious valuables were Therion's first priority, keeping most that he got to first but tossing a few to Bowser, Rika, and Barnabee as part of their share.

The troops first priority meanwhile was to have Rika eat a slice of cheesecake to get her off of death’s door. The second was however also looting, though with Therion already on the case of working out what was and what wasn’t valuable money wise, Rika focused on nabbing spirits of whichever humans had ended up dead rather than down, while Bowser found himself looking at the coffin at the center of the room.

[color=FD0000]”Hmmmm. Hmmmm”[/color] he hummed as he pondered as to whether the coffin was cursed, contained an ancient evil, or was just plain valuable before shrugging, grabbing it, and hauling it over his shoulder, assuming that it had [color=FD0000]”Got to be some kind of valuable right?”[/color] if it was such a prominent centerpiece. 

[color=BC8DBF]"Or it's just a desecrated corpse,"[/color] Therion pointed out, giving Bowser and the coffin a wide berth. Who knew what fucked up rituals they could have been performing with it.

[color=FD0000]”What no way, they wouldn’t leave something like thought in the middle of the room taking up space! Gotta be some ancient evil or something in here. Watch,”[/color] Bowser insisted, before going against his earlier judgment of not opening it now and cracking open the lid of the coffin just to prove he was right. Barnabee looked on as he continued to steady his breathing, his gaze dubious, but he said nothing.

For a moment, there was silence. Then a booming [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wsTWT7tA7s&ab_channel=ScarySoundEffects]guitar riff[/url] resounded through Shambhala’s sanctum, emulating a classic snippet of organ music. Then the coffin lid shattered into a hundred wooden fragments, flying at high speed, thanks to a handful of strange black drills. From the coffin’s shadowy insides rose a demonic figure, horned and winged, strumming a blue electric guitar. She rose higher and higher, floating without any flaps from her membrane-devoid wings as more shadowy drills formed in the air behind her, until with a final stroke all the drills launched straight upward like a wrestler’s pyrotechnics.

[url=https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/vampire-survivors/images/d/da/Animated-Concetta-2.gif/revision/latest?cb=20221021193538]Concetta Caciotta[/url] held the pose for another dramatic second, then took a deep breath and opened her eyes. They were orange, a brighter and more fiery orange then her giant fluffy ponytail. “Thank you, Bowser!” [url=https://i.imgur.com/Vmz8gZp.png]she[/url] announced, her voice cast in a thick Italian accent. “But the vampire is in another coffin!”

[color=FD0000]”See, told you so”[/color] Bowser gloated, indicating to the guitar wielding demon. Therion raised an eyebrow, gradually relaxing from the defensive stance he'd taken when the mystery lady emerged. [color=BC8DBF]"Alright, I stand corrected,"[/color] he muttered.

Bowser then turned actually addressing her to check [color=FD0000]”Are we going to have a problem or are we as cool as that awesome intro of yours?”[/color] the king having been genuinely impressed by the display and apparently not at all going to question how she knew who he was. 

“Yeah, I’m pretty awesome!” Concetta beamed before the other part of his statement registered with her, which left her blinking. “Huh? Problem? Why? You got a problem?” A sudden rumble echoed through the room, and Concetta clasped both hands on her stomach with a groan with her guitar hanging from its shoulder strap. “Ughhhhh…” Drifting downward, she landed in a sitting position on the edge of the coffin, doubled over with her face a pitiable grimace. “I’m so hungryyyyyy…”

[color=FD0000]”I mean hanging out in a coffin would do that to you. Want some uh”[/color] Bowser checked his pockets and realized they’d already eaten the food they had gotten earlier. [color=FD0000]”Uh.. Oh, wait, there’s probably some stuff left in the Kitchen if you want to grab something on the way out. Probably”[/color] he had eaten most of the obviously good stuff but he was sure there would be something left over.

“Molto bene!” At the mention of food, Concetta literally launched herself at Bowser, flying through the air to grab him around the neck in a giant hug. “What are you waiting for, then? Get me out of here!” Kicking off him, she hovered through the air, looking every which way. Unfortunately for her, the halls of Shambhala looked all the same. “Gah! Which way!?”

[color=Aqua]”Over here! Come on, let's move before they regroup!”[/color] Rika called from the way they had come, having gone out to inspect the fallen titans to see if she could get one to spirit-ify or not. Unfortunately, as they were not dead -just inanimate- they offered no such rewards.

[color=FD0000]”Alright alright, let’s move it people! Time for a victory feast!”[/color] Bowser declared, before starting to haul tail out of there with the rest of the group.