[center][h3]Winterhold College - The Forgotten Commune[/h3]
Word Count: 6,377 (+7 exp)
[color=salmon][b]Ace[/b] - [u]Level[/u]: [b]9[/b] - [u]Total EXP[/u]: 513/90[/color]
Level 7 Heismay (52/70)
[sub][@Lugubrious][@Yankee][/sub][/center]

[color=salmon]"I don’t hear anything,"[/color] Ace said once they’d left the poor woman to her wallowing. His brows pulled together as he clarified. [color=salmon]"I mean, I don’t hear anything weird. That I wouldn’t expect to."[/color]

The creak of wood, the soft splashing of water, the groans of the monstrosities moving around and their own footsteps amid other little ambient noises. To the Cadet there was no noise strange enough to pinpoint, so he was willing to bet that the woman was either suffering some affliction that tuned her in to something only she could hear, or that she’d gone mad a while ago. Ace glanced down at Heismay, particularly the eugief’s ears before meeting his ruby eyes. [color=salmon]"Do you?"[/color]

“You mean, the ‘blackness’?” Although Heismay shook his head, he subconsciously kept his voice down. “No.”

[color=salmon]"In the other room I did hear some noise I thought was weird, but I couldn’t find where it was coming from. Probably not the same thing-"[/color]

[i]Oh right, the other room![/i] It was almost funny how easily it had slipped his mind after the surprise of running into another Seeker so quickly, stepping into the alchemical laboratory, and then going right back out of the lab into a whole shanty town. 

[color=salmon]"You said the rooms shift around, right?"[/color] Ace turned his eyes up to the wooden crossroads they’d come from, rubbing at the back of his head. [color=salmon]"I didn’t even think of it ‘til now, but this definitely isn’t the room I came from! I was in a bunk room. So every time we open a door, we’re gonna get a whole new place, even if it’s the same door?"[/color]

The realization prompted a raised eyebrow from Heismay. “Truly? Then there is no navigating this place. We might be here a while.”

The hunter groaned. [color=salmon]"This really giggisux."[/color]

Just when he was starting to get used to all of the magic wantonly used by his teammates, now they'd all had to get sucked into this magic labyrinth. How were they supposed to get out of here if every door led to a random area, one that wasn’t even guaranteed to be a ‘room’ at all, like where Heismay and Ace found themselves now? 

The Cadet suppressed a shiver, slapped his palms to his cheeks once, and then looked back at Heismay with a little more of his normal go-getter attitude showing. At the very least, this put into perspective the importance of thoroughly investigating each place to get every item and clue possible, in case any of it could help them find a way to leave. 

[color=salmon]"Alright, let’s just grab the bull by the fangos! When you’re ready we’ll have a real look around this place - but I think we should start with clearing out anything dangerous first."[/color]

Which meant the multi-limbed pustule carriers that crawled through the levels below them as the most obvious dangers, but anything else that might impede their search as well. 

Heismay gave a curt nod and readied his blade. “Let us begin.”

On the way down to the next level, the first of many surprises reared its ugly head. A Forgotten emerged from the hut at the far side, registered the Seekers as they creaked across the rotten planks, and charged. As it plodded toward them on all fours, strange spores broke free from its bulging boils, but Heismay’s first thought was on the foe ahead of him. “Hup!” He hopped forward with a somersault, his longsaber flashing in a vertical circle as he cut into the Forgotten from above. When he sliced clean through one of the pus-filled tumors, it popped, exposing a section of raw, unprotected flesh. The monster stumbled, gurgling in pain, and almost fell off the bridge.

Only when Heismay landed did he truly observe the spores as they floated down, their vile green glow rapidly intensifying. “Look out!” He hopped backward just before the spores exploded, which proved to be more punishment than the feeble bridge could handle. The blast broke it in half, and splinters flew as the Forgotten plummeted down, down, down into the gunky pool below. Though very aware that he might have just leaped into an ambush, Heismay chanced a quick look back to make sure Ace didn’t take a tumble as well. “Hunter?”

[color=salmon]"I'm good!"[/color] Ace called back. He was currently swaying over the hole blasted into the wood, suspended by a short chain that connected to the slinger on his arm. He definitely hadn't expected the spores to be explosive - he'd figured poisonous if anything, and had gone in to follow up on Heismay's attack, leading to this. True to his word though he was still in one piece, if a little singed. 

His anchor point protested the weight. The whole place being made of wood eroding from moisture made it even more precarious than it looked, and the shanty town already hadn't appeared particularly sturdy. Ace gripped the chain and swung over to land on the remaining planks before the beam above him could snap. 

[color=salmon]"Guess it'll be trickier than I thought, but no problem."[/color] It just meant melee attacks would be riskier, but ranged ones probably still worked - and there was a shiny new bowgun on the hunter's back just waiting to be used. He glanced down to see if he could tell if the creature had survived the fall before looking back at Heismay. [color=salmon]"Think they can climb?"[/color]

After confirming for himself that Ace seemed to be in good shape, Heismay began to search the immediate area for any more hostiles. “Better to assume they can,” he reasoned. Although the Forgotten had managed to startle him, both with its sudden appearance and its explosive payload, Heismay felt better than before. The anticipation always turned out to be worse than the actual enemies involved, and since he’d been expecting mages in Winterhold College, explosive crawlers weren’t that big an issue. He did feel bad for whatever these monsters used to be, though, and he couldn’t help but wonder if their proximity to that alchemy lab -with all those freaky jarred specimens- was a coincidence. Only after thinking this did he remember what the Cadet said about opening doors in here. That would take some time for him to wrap his head around.

Heismay couldn’t see any more Forgotten in the immediate area, but there were a couple more lurking farther down in the shantytown towers. Their presence gave Ace just the chance he’d been looking for to put his new Crab Buster to use. Though not as accurate as his other bowgun, the glowing pustules on the backs of these mutants were hard to miss. While he took potshots at the Forgotten, the eugief tentatively poked his head into the hut that the first creature emerged from. This one seemed bigger than average, so he carefully checked each corner of the first floor, but nothing jumped out at him. Among the decrepit furniture here, only one table had stood the test of time, and upon it sat a green cowboy hat. It looked stylish, if a little damp, and definitely too big for Heismay’s head. Nevertheless he picked it up and stuffed it in his pack, reasoning that someone else might want it. Then he made for the stairs to the basement. 

One step at a time, Heismay creaked down into the lower level of the hovel. Only a little torchlight filtered through the gaps between the wooden slats to reach this dismal place, but the eugief could see relatively well thanks to his night vision. What he saw, before he even reached the bottom of the stairs, was a grotesque, slouching mass of oily, viscous green slime…or was it paint? A random assortment of malformed limbs and bulging eyeballs surrounded half of a human face, its melting, ichorous flesh exposing a rictus grin. On such a horrendous visage, the emotion of fury looked especially appalling.

“[b]Aarrrgh!![/b] I could FEEL victory in my GRASP! You [b]TOOK[/b] the hat! But just... DIDN'T PUT IT ON!! WHY?!” Heismay froze at the sound of a twisted voice, abysmally deep and awfully wet, like a demon with a phlegm-filled throat. “You just... put me away in the bag. Didn't even try it!? Not for a [b]MOMENT.[/b] You are [b]INFURIATING.[/b]”

Heismay’s mind raced. Hat? The hat he picked up? A chill shot down his spine as he felt something in his bag squirm. From the way this thing referred to that hat as ‘me’, was it a mimicry born of this monster somehow? Although the situation alarmed him, Heismay couldn’t help but find it odd how preoccupied this being was with its trap not working out, purely by accident. “I didn’t think it would fit me,” he offered as an excuse.

“BULLSHIT!” the monster snarled. “It would TOTALLY fit. You made no attempt.” With a growl, the abomination writhed horribly. “[b]ARGGGGH.[/b] Nothing is going my way. What am I going to do now?! This was my SHOT. Forcing some [b]idiot[/b] to kill the others for me. I'm just stuck with voices in my head, now?! Forever?! [b]NO.[/b] No way. I can still do this.”

Heismay turned to go, running up the stairs to the first floor. “Ace! I need a hand!”

“I just need to try again on the next idiot…” [url=https://i.imgur.com/byfjzMl.png]Toxic Fred[/url] continued from below. The next moment, the floorboards burst and the monstrosity hoisted itself up into the shack. Only with a corkscrew bullet jump did Heismay evade its grasp. “And instead of a hat, your [b]CORPSE[/b] will be the bait!”

The shouting easily passed through the wooden walls, reaching Ace in the quiet pauses between bursts of gunfire. Every malevolent creature taken out now was one less they would have to deal with later, so leaving the scouting to the actual scout and picking off what he could only made sense. But as soon as he heard the start of rising voices the hunter blinked and turned towards the shack, and at Heismay's call he wasted no time in sprinting to the eugief's side. He made it to the door as the angry slime was breaking through the floor, and though the Crab Buster was already aimed and ready to fire, the sight of this Fred made Ace hesitate. He'd seen a lot of unusual people, monsters, and monster-people, but nothing quite like the thing in front of them. 

He had no idea if bullets would even work on a viscous enemy like this, but he was about to find out.

[color=salmon]"What's with him?!"[/color] he asked as he pulled the bowgun's trigger. Unlike Heismay, Ace hadn't spared a thought for the Forgotten's original forms, simply assuming they'd always been that way, but now he wondered if this guy had suffered some transformation down here - or if he was just a monster that Heismay had set off. 

The bowgun bolts, even those that directly hit one of Toxic Fred’s eyes, did not elicit quite the response that Ace expected. These were not true organs, after all, but painted simulacra meant to mimic the real thing. Instead of getting wounded, the monster’s oily body merely parted, leaving holes behind. Still, every little bit of paint separated from the whole and splattered across the planks was one step closer to victory, and the hits were definitely registering if Fred’s reaction was anything to go by.

“GAAAH! Another one, even MORE annoying, somehow! Get over here and get what’s coming to you!”

If Fred wanted to be up close, Heismay did not want to let that happen. With his flashing longsaber he hacked at the horror’s myriad limbs and deflected their clumsy swipes. Fred had a lot of arms, though, and this wooden platform did not offer Heismay much room to maneuver. After a frenzied few moments, a hastily deflected paint arm managed to scratch one of Heismay’s long ears, leaving a little green muck behind. Within seconds the eugief could feel a foreign substance pushing through his veins like fire, weakening him from within. “Hngh. Poison!”

“AHA!” Emboldened by his success, Fred sent a half-dozen arms at Heismay in a vicious lunge. Of course, Ace knew as well as anyone that Heismay was neither as small nor as weak as he looked, at least not all the time. The hermit transformed, alight with orange energy as he assumed the form of the Assassin. A cleaving swipe from his curved greatsword scattered Fred’s limbs in splotches. With a spin, Heismay then brought a Lurking Nightblade down on the main body’s head.

Fred gurgled angrily. “Urk!” Realizing that Ace and Heismay were a match for him in this state, he allowed his painted form to change. “Heh heh heh heh... I don't need to fight you alone…” he chuckled. The next second, he violently split into [url=https://i.imgur.com/QDxtAgi.png]three parts[/url] connected by tendrils, his green paint hardening into the more solidly defined form. “[b]HEH HEH HEH HEH…[/b] MUCH better.”

His glee came to an abrupt end when Heismay cast Mudo in his face and a dark explosion erupted amongst his eyes. “Augh!” Still using his Assassin Archetype, the eugief jumped forward with a wide swing to catch all three parts in one slash, then reverted to his normal form and leaped away from a fusillade of angry kicks.

The three segments taking more distinct physical forms was a boon for the bowgun, or at least it felt that way as once Heismay was clear and the monster hunter opened fire once more each landed shot punched solidly against the hardened paint conglomerate. Ammo chewed through the fragment on the left until it collapsed back into a puddle. Ace half expected it to reform, but it only seeped through the gaps in the floor as the two remaining sections attempted to make up for the loss. 

They swelled together for a moment, upper and lower jaws connecting to spit blobs of toxic paint at the Seekers. Then the pieces charged through the gunfire with their limbs lashing. Ace dodged out of the way of the projectile and fired the slinger's hooked claw at the right section of Fred. Before it connected the Cadet jerked the chain up, forming the anchor shape at the end that wrapped the chain around the segment and drove the sharp end into it. It stopped Fred in place, the middle section flopping over at the sudden halt. 

Even like this the right fragment shuddered and attempted to throw poisonous pieces of itself about, though another twist of the chain as it was reeled back carved the anchor through it, and the follow up from the Crab Buster was more than enough to melt it. The center section remained, but deprived of its legs Fred would have to use his tentacle-like arms to maneuver - and he was not quick enough to escape the eugief's saber.

“This is it!” Heismay jumped, sprang off the hut’s outer wall for extra height, then brought his sword down in as heavy a cleave as he could manage. A plunging thrust might have worked, but against a sentient paint mass without vital organs to penetrate, separation made more sense to him.

With Fred’s center mass already softened up by plenty of bulletholes, Heismay’s finisher sliced clean through. The monster’s many eyes bulged, his half-mustache frayed in almost comical fashion, and after a second its lips curled for one final snarl. “This is bullsh-”

The two halves of Fred’s abominable head split apart like banana peels melting into colorful gunk.

Heismay let out his breath. He could still feel his foe’s toxic parting gift inside him, but while the poison would probably continue to rankle his insides for a while, it wouldn’t be enough to keep him down. “Well done,” he told Ace, a little breathlessly. “You cleared out the swollen ones, yes? Let’s get to the bottom of this place while we still can.” With so many monsters in here, there had to be something worth protecting.

[color=salmon]"Yep, all that I could see - and good work you too."[/color] Ace offered the eugief a fist to bump, though it didn't occur to him that Heismay might not recognize the gesture. [color=salmon]"I might have an antidote in my bag if that thing got you good. Potions too."[/color]

Without Blazermate or Sandalphon to rely on it would probably behoove them to stay as healthy as possible as they explored, but then again saving such single use items for when they really needed them might be smarter. 

“If it does not subside soon, I’ll accept your antidote,” Heismay decided. If his system couldn’t counteract the poison, it could spell his doom no matter how manageable it might seem at first.

A minute later, the two reached the bases of the shanty towers. They ringed the fetid reservoir that Heismay and Ace saw from above, and now that they were down here, the odor was abysmal, though it stank of rot more than it did sewage. Heismay wrinkled his nose, his eyes narrowed in distaste. “Tis lucky indeed that my sense of smell pales in comparison to my sight and hearing.” With how things had been going so far, he half-expected something truly wretched to lurch out of the stagnant basin, but if there was something alive in there, it took long enough for the tension to fade. Once he judged that the moment had passed, Heismay took a better look at his surroundings. Though the cistern’s bottom featured mossy stone brick walls, interspersed with gnarled roots and streaks of crusty saltpeter, it did offer two rounded tunnels opposite one another, dirty but mostly dry. At the end of each, Heismay saw a [url=https://remnant2.wiki.gg/images/Befouled_Altar.jpg?6d2d2a=&format=original]foul altar[/url] of wood, bone and rope, with multiple corpses tied up in ritualistic fashion. Purple light shone from the eyes of the dead, and an unpleasant, almost scratchy hum emanated from them.

“Some form of grisly occultism,” Heismay ventured after a moment, his voice low. “For what purpose, I cannot fathom. Yet I am quite sure that we would be better off without them.” He peered at Ace. “Shall we split up and dismantle them both at once?”

[color=salmon]"Split up..."[/color] Ace repeated quietly, looking between both paths. It wasn't that the hunter was afraid to go off on his own, but staring down the corridors into the face of, as Heismay put it, [i]grisly occultism[/i] threw a heaping amount of doubt onto a plan that otherwise Ace wouldn't have thought twice about.

[color=salmon]"I guess that would be the fastest... just hope it doesn't turn out to be a 'grave' mistake."[/color] He said the last part mostly to himself, thinking up some macabre wordplay to make himself feel better. A moment later Ace held up a hand to stop his own thoughts from starting to rush. With the same hand he hitched a thumb down the tunnel on his left. [color=salmon]"Okay, destroying them at the same time probably is the best option, so let's do it. I'll go this way. After a sec to raise my spirits."[/color]

His words prompted Heismay’s big ruby-red eyes to linger on him a moment longer, ever-so-slightly uncertain. He wasn’t aware of Ace’s disinclination toward magic, but he was picking up on some doubts, and if the hunter himself wasn’t confident it might be better to stick together. Plus, not being a pun lover, he took the wordplay a bit more seriously than he probably should have. “Hmm…”

The two parted ways, with Heismay vanishing into the shadows. It was only a short walk for Ace to the end of his designated tunnel, and getting close to the witchcraft didn’t make him feel any better. The air in here practically crawled; he could [i]see[/i] tiny, itchy black distortions, subtle but unnerving. [color=salmon]"This is giving me Bazelgeuse-bumps..."[/color] he said to himself.

Still, nothing happened while Ace hesitated in front of the creepy set up. Briefly he turned to look back down the tunnel he'd come from. Nothing continued to happen up until he attempted to damage the altar, drawing his sword this time. The whole thing let out a loud, startling creak, and both the dark distortions and purple corpse-gaze intensified. Dark magic blossomed in the corners of the room, churning like oceanic whirlpools, and from them came four [url=https://remnant2.wiki.gg/images/Sunken_Jumper.jpg?1fac5f=&format=original]sunken jumpers[/url]. Seething with volatile fluid, the ritual-twisted wretches began to leap, and with each froglike bound they planted a gelatinous mine where they landed. A moment after the pandemonium began, however, one of the four jumpers disappeared into the darkness and did not re-emerge.

Already wound up, the noise and the sudden summoning made Ace flinch just long enough that the first Jumper out of its portal collided with him. They went down to the ground, the creature swiping until Ace got his boots between himself and it, kicking its glowing chest hard enough to throw it off and rolling to his feet. He didn't even notice that one went missing as he tried dealing with the other three. His sword was drawn but he was not in the right state of mind to parry - evasion then? The next one leapt and Ace dodge to one side, slicing along the pustules on its back with the blood drawing Sakura Slash. He could tell these were a fair bit more durable than their green cousins just from the feel of the blade against them. 

Then of course he stepped into one of the piles of slime that one of the Jumpers left behind as he did his best avoiding them in the small space, triggering its detonation. He staggered, back hitting the wall, barely lurching away as a Jumper slammed into the brick beside him. 

Ace turned the Yato's blade and drew up in an underhanded swing that caught the next Jumper across its face and flung it back before jamming a hand into his field pouch to feel for one of the utility bombs in it. The creatures might not even have regular senses to take advantage of, but if they did then living in a dark, dank place like this would probably make them susceptible to sudden bright light - and he had to try something! The Cadet pulled a flash bomb and threw it at his feet where it erupted and engulfed the room a moment later.

For a split second, every shadow vanished and pure, chemical light blasted the oubliette’s depths. All three jumpers gave an agonized, gurgling shriek as they blindly flung themselves away from the baleful glare. The flash bomb also illuminated -and stunned- Heismay, the unseen slayer of the fourth jumper who’d decided to join Ace stealthily to make sure there were no problems, unbeknownst to the monster hunter himself. Heismay’s sword clattered to the ground as he groaned, holding his eyes with both hands. One of the jumpers, already wounded by the eugief, turned its attention toward him upon recovering. While blinded, though, Heismay wasn’t deaf. He leaped to the side to evade the leap, then transformed into the Gunner and took aim at the sound of the jumper landing. His Sleep Shot struck the monster and knocked it out like a light, just long enough that its own gel bomb went off and blasted it into a wall.

Naturally any triumph that Ace might have felt at driving the Jumpers back long enough to regroup was completely negated by the unfortunate surprise that he'd caught his comrade in the flash as well. Though Heismay couldn't see it the hunter grimaced and followed with, [color=salmon]"damn, sorry Heismay!"[/color]

Though his apology would be better if he made use of the opening he'd made for himself, which he got right on doing. The sound of Ace moving was totally different than the Jumpers, the clinking of his metal equipment and brushing of his fur armor distinct from the fleshy impacts of the mutants. While Heismay transformed and took aim at one, Ace squared off against another that was blinking the stars from its purple eyes. His weapon bit deep into its extra set of arms that it hastily raised to protect its head, but when it scrambled back and reared up on its legs with intent to slam the ground and set off the rest of the mines around the room prematurely, Ace followed swiftly with his sword. With a jab it sunk into its middle, twisted, and ripped up through the glowing chest. Pieces of what was probably viscera and whatever explosive bile they spread gushed out as the Jumper toppled backward, defenseless against the fatal blow that came after.

With one left Ace spun in the direction he'd seen it last, lashing out with a wide lateral slash as it tried leaping for the new enemy in the Gunner archetype that it'd heard fire at its kin. When the blade connected it sent the Jumper to the ground, leaving yet another dangerous puddle behind as it popped back up and got ready to jump again. The Cadet's eyes flickered from it, to the remaining gel mines, to Heismay. He slammed the long sword into a sheathed position at his side, taking an iai stance. Only once the creature came at him did he move again, blade flashing out to catch the Jumper mid-air. And he estimated that it would land again... [color=salmon]"One hundred centimeters in front of you, fifty-two to your left!"[/color]

That wasn’t very far, so while Heismay wasn’t confident he could shoot that way while blind, he had other options. “O, power of kings!” Switching archetypes, he became the Assassin and lashed out with Lurking Nightblade in a wide horizontal sweep. The heavy slice finished the jumper off, leaving just the vile altar.

As the eugief’s sight returned to him, he narrowed his eyes, then launched his metal frame at the ritualistic monument. “Begone!” His blade scattered bones and body parts, cracking the framework, but it wasn’t enough to destroy the profane thing. That honor, it seemed, would go to Ace. At that point the hunter wanted this over with as soon as possible. He swiped his sword at the base of the structure, weakening it more than enough for it to collapse. It broke apart along the fractures Heismay had created when it fell, though for good measure the Cadet made sure to slice apart the wheel that was its foul centerpiece. 

Strange violet flame raged through the fragments of the altar, consuming the materials and corpses in seconds. When the flash fire died down, only one thing remained: the bone shaft of a macabre weapon of some kind, expertly made but lacking any kind of blade.

Heismay padded over to Ace as he cleaned his blade. “One down, one to go.” After he blinked the last few fleeting stars from his eyes, he offered the hunter a conciliatory smile. “And fret not about the bomb. I should have better communicated my intent to join you.”

[color=salmon]"I'm glad you did,"[/color] the Cadet told him, returning a smile of his own after wiping a hand over his clothes to make sure nothing was sticking to them, real or imagined. The explosive slime would be a pain, but those dark distortions in the air had been particularly off-putting. After waffling for a few moments about whether to take the bone handle he eventually ended up grabbing it, though he packed it away rather quickly. Then he turned back to Heismay. [color=salmon]"Fur real. Been at this Seekers of Light thing for a couple weeks now but this kinda thing's still out of my element. Feels better to have somebody Wacha-ing my back, though. Rest assured I've got yours too!"[/color]

At the opposite end of the sewer system lay a similar room, its befouled altar slightly different in appearance but no less loathsome. This time, Ace and Heismay stood united, ready to face whatever came. In addition the eugief had an idea. Given the jumpers’ explosive tendencies, he’d collected their spirits, and now he crushed them in rapid succession. The first cashed out a few coins, the second a strange eyeball, and the third a hex wreath formed of seabird bones, but the fourth gave him what he’d been looking for: a grimy round bottle packed with heavy, oily, and very flammable-looking grease. Heismay tossed it up and down in his hand. “Got a light?” he asked.

Ace opened his mouth to answer with an affirmative, but when he actually thought about it he stalled. It was a little funny that with all of the tools he carried a simple fire starter was not among them. There might have been one with the camping supplies, though it was lost or on the Avenger. There was also that portable grill, but... well, regardless of the fact that he'd have to remember to pick one up, he did have something that should work.

In the ammo section of his field pouch there were different types of bullets, nearly indistinguishable save for the colors of their casings. The Cadet had made as many kinds as he could back when he could as they weren't quite as easy to craft as the standard rounds given the materials they needed. Now he withdrew a clip of red ones.

[color=salmon]"Flaming shots,"[/color] he answered happily, already on board with the eugief's plan. It took not a moment for him to unload and replace the heavy bowgun's ammo with the incendiary rounds. Then he hefted the weapon up. [color=salmon]"Ready to fire!"[/color]

“Here it goes!” Heismay pitched the tar bottle at the altar. It shattered, its contents splashed across the profane structure, and the next moment Ace’s special shot ignited the whole thing. In an instant the whole thing began to shake, its corpses writhing as their inner glow surged. The intensity of the response frightened Heismay for a brief second, but the sight of miasmic portals galvanized him into action.

Instead of sunken jumpers, however, the burning of this altar beckoned forth [url=https://remnant2.wiki.gg/images/Sunken_Witch_%28Elite%29.jpg?d98d44=&format=original]the Sunken Witch[/url] cackling madly as she dragged a huge, heavy anchor behind her. 

”The ringleader!” Heismay guessed, brandishing his saber as the witch charged. She swung the anchor high in an uppercut, which the eugief dodged with a sidestep, then brought her bludgeon down in a massive slam that Heismay leaped away from. As he slid to a stop by the tunnel entrance, he assumed the Gunner’s form and nailed the witch with a Poison Shot. “A taste of your own medicine!”

Slower to move was the Ace Cadet, but move he did, not about to let Heismay fight alone. With the Crab Buster already equipped and ready for more action, the hunter followed the Poison Shot up with gunfire of his own. The remainder of the clip of Flaming Shots ripped from the bowgun towards the witch, followed by a hail of the normal ammo on hand with only a brief delay between them.

The gunfire perforated the witch’s black attire, staggering her for a second or so. Rather than attempt to return fire with any hexes or familiars, though, the witch just charged at Ace. She swung her anchor in a loop, intercepting enough shots that she could close the distance with a leaping smash, though not without Heismay’s longsaber slicing across her back the moment after she landed.

Ace had rolled out of the way of the slam as the witch came down, and though she was too close for the bowgun's optimal damage range he didn't risk swapping out the weapon while she was focused on him. That anchor suggested that she preferred to get up close and personal like this, which honestly suited the hunter just fine. He'd much rather deal with that than spell slinging, but he remained on guard anyway, not ruling that possibility out. He backed up, feeling for the edge of the room with his heel so he'd be able to tell how much room he had to maneuver as he kept the pressure on with his shots. 

Heismay’s distraction gave Ace the brief window he needed to make some space, while the eugief himself darted away from the witch’s swings. Given the damage already done to him by Toxic Fred’s poison, Heismay could especially not afford to take a clean hit from the mad hag’s anchor. His goal wasn’t to do damage, but to divide his foe’s attention and give his ally as much time to shoot her up as possible. [i]Thank goodness I did not attempt this alone,[/i] he thought wryly.

After a few seconds, Heismay backpedaled a little too far, close enough to the burning altar to feel the heat on his back. The corpses’ clawing grasp reached for him, raking his coat, and he hurriedly batted at them as he hopped away. By the time he returned his attention to the witch, though, she had already reached the Cadet. He wasn’t quite cornered, but one wrong roll and he would be stuck between the wall and the witch’s weighty steel prongs. “Over here!” Becoming the Assassin, Heismay lobbed a Mudo at the witch’s back, but the dark magic might have just as well been a mosquito for all the effect it had. Realizing his rushed mistake, Heismay broke out into a run to try and race to Ace’s aid.

Though riddled with holes at this point the dark clothed woman did not slow down. Ace had a general grasp of his spacing as she swung at him, and the hunter continued to pull the trigger in between dipping, dodging, and side-stepping the iron anchor. It was hard to keep focus though, and when the spell burst on the witch it verged on breaking as Ace's gaze flicked to the impact spot while the witch did not even flinch. 

She whipped her arm back and brought the anchor over her shoulder with a heavy swing. Poor timing on Ace's part meant he'd missed a window to reposition and could only duck as it slammed into the wall where his head had been, wedged deep into the stone. The witch did not let her weapon remain stuck for very long, grasping it in both hands and forcibly yanking it free while chunks of brick rained down on the Cadet. Being pelted with rocks was nothing he couldn't weather, but the situation in general wasn't good. He knew he could survive if struck but enduring that for a counter attack was preferably a last resort - so how to get out of this before the witch brought the anchor down again?

Ace dropped the bowgun first. He hated to treat his equipment that way but stuck in this close of quarters he'd need to swap weapons after all. It clattered to the ground as one hand flew to the hilt of Yato once more, but without something to throw the witch off he wasn't sure he'd be fast enough to intercept her. Something, something-! He discarded the options that came to mind for various reasons until he felt the soft weight around his neck as he shifted. That was something. Something he could control. Ace's other hand grasped the pendant as a vision of a skeletal wyvern manifested, flying up through the witch as she hefted the anchor for another swing and taking her aback. It didn't deal her any damage, but distracted her long enough for Heismay to arrive and for Ace to surge up out of his crouch while the wyvern circled back towards him. 

Weakened to take more (and deal less) damage the witch screeched as Heismay's blade sunk into her back. At the same time, a slightly more empowered Cadet stabbed his own sword into her front. Skewered, the witch tried flailing her weapon at both of the Seekers until she could no longer hold it, then clawed at them while her body gave out and she eventually slumped over. When the blades were pulled out she fell to the ground and began to disintegrate. As she fell, the last of the foul altar’s strength gave out and the flames consumed it. Quickly the orange flames turned violet, ravaging the wreckage until nothing was left save a curved and wickedly sharp blade, a perfect pairing for the black-wrapped bone recovered from the other altar.

[center][hider=Item Obtained][b][url=https://remnant2.wiki.gg/images/Ritualist_Scythe.png?4aa253=&format=original]Ritualist Scythe[/url][/b]
An awkward but lethally sharp instrument of merciless death. Its blade carves all the quicker based on how many different statuses the target is afflicted with, ensuring a quick end to their suffering. Dran ritualists are zealots to the core, dedicated wholeheartedly to those arcane arts that require an especially honed tolerance for depravity and the stench of death. Though the power and resources their acts garner is tempting, there are more comfortable and less pungent ways to make a living.[/hider][/center]

Heismay let out his breath, the tension slowly eking out of his muscles. “Twas a brief but bitter struggle,” he summarized. “Hopefully, that is the last we’ll see of this occultism. And with any luck, the labyrinth will be that much easier to depart from.”

Ace nodded in agreement, taking a moment to let himself lean against one of the still intact walls and catch his breath. [color=salmon]"Yeah. One hex of an experience, but we got through it."[/color] The hunter was definitely grateful that he'd run into Heismay so quickly, as ending up in a place like this one without a friendly face would have been much, much worse. Recovered after said moment, he withdrew a small pouch of powder from his bag and tossed it up into the air. The lifepowder scattered around the room, healing himself and Heismay. A sort of consecration of the area if one were inclined to think that way.

Then Ace collected the bowgun, properly stowing it away before moving on to the scythe head to complete the piece. He'd wielded something similar earlier on in the Seekers' campaign, although this one looked a little more rustic in addition to ritualistic. Hard to tell if it was a magic weapon, and after a moment of scrutinizing it Ace looked over to see if the eugief was interested in their hard won reward. It could be handled similar to a long sword, he reasoned, or at least that was how he and fellow monster hunters tended to use scythes. It'd take some learning to get used to but it wasn't as far off in fighting style as it might have looked.

Once that was settled and the two of them made it back out onto the cistern's edge where they could see the rest of the shantytown again, Ace pointed straight up to the cross bridge a ways above them.

[color=salmon]"Now that it's cleared out let's scour this place for anything we missed, then see where the next door takes us!"[/color]