Sonya didn’t move an inch from her seat, her eyes fixed on the dungeon gate. Amos had already set up around it and was taking readings with his instruments and had even offered to send in more drones with flight pns. Sonya had turhe idea down, giving the expnation that she didn’t want to risk it. Holy, it really didn’t matter and she could have even brought in a crew to mihe enormous wealth inside, but that would be basically broadcasting that the crystals inside were valuable way too early. It was again, disappointing, but what could she really do about it? She’d sidered calling in Shark and his team to ‘raid’ the dungeon behind Firestorm in order to get the materials but there was no way that wouldn’t scream ce.
She frowhe searg eyes of that detective popping up in her mind again. He’d had good instincts, even refusing to shake hands with her. Her fiwitched and she leaned back, crossing her arms and watg the portal carefully. It had barely been an hour since Firestorm’s team had gone inside. Will they really be okay? Should I send Marta in anyway? Hmm…
“Just let them have their time,” Marta said from her side, not even gng her way.
Sonya let out a huff, “Am I that easy to read?”
“I’m tempted to buy you a hat that says helicopter parent,” Marta teased, elig a snort of ughter from Amos oher side of the room.
Sonya clicked her tongue and looked away, a little embarrassed. “They…” She sighed, “They’re just what I want to see from the heroes. I want them to set a pret. Not end up like Duong.”
“He officially became Vietnam’s top hero yesterday, started a guild with his fiance,” Marta said after a pause, not hiding the approving smile on her face. She shrugged and looked over at the portal, “They’re setting a pret now. Whatever’s in there, it’s important, isn’t it?”
Sonya looked up at her friend and noted with her sehat the aides that had e with them had already left for a short break. It was just the three of them. She hesitated for a moment before nodding, “...yes.”
“More of that mysterious knowledge of yours?” Amos asked with a grin, gng away from his equipment for the first time.
“Yes,” Sonya said simply, “It’d be better to see for yourself, to be ho, but suffice to say that it isn’t hard to figure out once you go inside. You ever py Shaded Spirts, Amos?” She asked and stretched her legs out, crossing them at her ankles.
He bli her in fusion, “Uh… yeah? Why?”
“There you go,” She said with a dismissive gesture, “You put it together on your own.”
He looked away with a furrowed brow for a moment before fling and rounding on her, his eyes wide, “Are you serious? That’s what’s in there? Are they going to be okay? Wait…” He looked at his fingers for a moment, “So you’re saying it has to be cleared or…”
Sonya made a mock gesture of an explosion, “Pshhhh,” She eborated with a bit of a goofy smile.
He closed his eyes and pressed his fingers into them before looking up at the portal, “Good luck guys, we’re ting on you.”
–
It turned out that the bde devils weren’t all that hard to kill. The trick, it turned out, was direct precision attacks. I damage or spsh damage did very little to their frail looking bodies and the only reason Firestorm’s fmes did as much damage as they did was because of the raw power behind them. He had e to refer to it as the separation of tiers, there was simply a qualitative differeween the firepower of a heroic like himself and someone of the epic tier, for example. Then you had to take the uraits of the monster or enemy into sideration.
Boiling it dow the impression that the little devils were barely unon in strength, hardly a match for a party of four heroics, but still a threat in numbers. The bde devils were unon as well, going down in a si sometimes from one of Bandit’s dark arrows, his btant overkill of the first notwithstanding. Firestorm’s problem was that he had been ag in the role of crowd trol, dealing with rge swaths of enemies rather than fog on single oppos, because of that, the bde devils barely noticed his attacks despite the tier disparity.
After his initial blitz, the ground floor turned into a killing ground on a simir level to the first floor they’d entered. The only real dangers being nearly a dozen bde devils hiding throughout the room, their disturbing bodies torted in on themselves and hiding in po natural thing should be able to hide in. At one point one even came out of an air vent, attempting to cut Lifesaver to ribbons as he passed it. It had been riddled with bolts of blue light before it even got close, Bluestar’s own attacks having growronger sihey’d arrived.
After clearing the floor, they’d heard a in the distance, alerting them that they could tinue going up. They’d half expected to have to asd the building by the stairs and had been pleasantly surprised at the streamlined way this ‘dungeon’ haraversing its various floors. Ohing they did notice though was that the service elevator they had e out of had dimmed and bee unusable. Uhey literally burhrough the floor, there was n babsp;
As they asded to the sed floor, they discussed their strategy. An initial blitz by Firestorm seemed like the best option and they weren’t about to deviate just because they wao shake things up. This was a live-or-die situation and they didn’t know if there would be even more types of monsters i was best te as much as they could in the initial tact before assessing the situation further. These monsters were in no way ied in talking, and his team was fih that.
The door chimed as it reached his destination and Firestorm held out his palms, trating on another explosive burst of fme just as they opened. As before, the entire floor was filled with fire in a matter of seds, his hands spreading out as he took a step outside to force the fmes across the floor and pursue any of the little devils that had been waiting for them. The screams of dying monsters was evidenough that their pn was a good ohat was until they got a good look at the interior.
This floor was less open as the ground floor, looking more like the interior of an office building. It kind of surprised Firestorm that the walls themselves didn’t catch fire, but he supposed that was a urait of this pce. More important was the thing standing amidst the burning corpses of its rades. It was at least three times the height of one of the diminutive little devils, standing almost shoulder to shoulder with Firestorm himself. It had the same reddish skin and cloven hooved ied legs, but that was where their simirities ended.
It looked more like a saytr if he had to put a name on it. Its horns were fully grown pared to its kin and its eyes had a gleam of intelligeo them. It wore very little, just like the others, but he supposed it dressed ‘better’. It wore a fur lined sash of some actual design and quality that hung down like a loincloth between its legs. It also held a on, a big step above the other creatures. A steel mace was gripped tightly in its right hand, the metal gleaming against the sea of fire that surrou. It tilted its head and s Firestorm, flexing the fingers on its free hand.
“He is way more dangerous,” Bandit said for everyohinking it, already knog an arrow on his bow. The creature’s eyes shifted towards Bandit and seemed to dismiss him before he turned his gaze on Bluestar. That was when things got uling. Its smile turned cruel and its eyes glittered with barely restrained delight. It held bore its teeth, looking in her dire before they could eve, a glow fshing from its eyes. Firestorm moved to get in her way, throwing up his arms to block whatever attack was ining only to blink when… nothing happened.
He gnced over his shoulder at Bluestar and she looked equally fused, looking herself over a little and scratg her head.
They looked back at the creature and it just frowned, its eyes narrowing, “Mago.” It snarled and ged tactics.
“They talk?!” Was Bandit’s first rea before a ball of fire was hurled in his dire. He raised his bow to intercept it with an arrow only for the fme to wink out of existence. He blinked and looked up at Firestorm, the team leader’s face set in a deadly scowl. “Uh…”
“He’s mine,” Firestrowled, stepping forward into the room, “Clear out the bde devils.”
“Are you sure?” Bluestar asked, “He didn’t do anything I don’t think.”
“He sure as hell tried to, I’m pretty sure I know what we’re dealing with here,” Firestrunted and stepped out into the open space where the thing he identified as some kind of incubus waited for him. It made a disgusted face, waving its hand dismissively at him befng lecherously in Bluestar’s dire. Firestorm raised his head and looked down on it, “I don’t know if you uand me, but you just crossed a line.”
It turs eyes ba him and though there was no gleam of uanding his words specifically, the meaning had e across loud and clear. It s him and the ma its hands ignited only to immediately wink out. It blinked and looked down at its on in fusion, it was like it had never had this problem before. “Performance issue?” Firestorm asked with a grin, tilting his head. The creature scowled and looked up at him just in time to get a fist in the face full of fme. Not the weaker spread out fmes he’d used to deal with the little devils still littering the floor in the room, but a trated fme hot enough to bend iron.
It hurtled back almost three meters, letting out a shriek of pain as it clutched at its fad scrambled to its feet, juring another ball of fire in its palm. Firestorm just willed the fire to vanish and gave it a desding look, “Looks like you just met a bad match-up.” It looked up at him with more fusion than fear, as if it had never met something that could simply overpower it in its life. Had it always been an apex predator? Among the bde devils and little devils, probably. But now it was faced with a heroic-tier who had more trol over fire than it could have ever imagined possible in its life.
The fight went quickly after that, the corpse of the thing ying on the ground in a matter of minutes after Firestorm finished with it. He turned away and found his friends waiting for him, Bluestar giving him a bit a weird look, “What?” He asked.
“You didn’t have to do that,” She said, “It didn’t have any effee.”
He frowned and looked down at his hands, “Yeah, well, I felt like it…” He said with a bit of a flush to his fad rubbed his neck, “On to the ?” He asked, noting the defeated bde demons scattered around the room.
“Aren’t you fetting something?” Bandit asked.
He bli his friend, “Huh? What?”
“Loot, brother! Loot! My god have you ever pyed a video game before? That mace looked sick, man,” Bandit excimed, getting a tired look from Bluestar and a ugh from Lifesaver.
Firestorm frowurning bad pulling the on out of the creature’s broken grasp. He looked it over, “It’s not that impressive,” He said with a frown and began to el heat into it, “See? It…” Nothing happened. He eled more heat, “Wait a sec…” He scowled and the fmes on his fingers began to turn white, he trated, squeezing the on tightly before he finally let it go with a gasp, looking at the on with a bit of wonder now. “Holy shit, it’s fireproof.”
He gnced up at Bandit who was giving him a smug look from beh his hood and couldn’t help but appreciate the guys insight. He held it out, “Do you want it?” He asked.
Bandit sighed dramatically as if he was expining something to a child, “Your kill, your loot, more importantly I’d say it’s a perfect fit. That whole boxing thing earlier looked kind of dorky.”
“It wasn’t dorky!” Firestorm protested.
“If you boys are done bickering, the elevator is waiting,” Bluestar said with a small ugh, passiweewo of them, Lifesaver in tow. “I’m going up, what are you going to do?”
Firestorm and Bandit exged looks before he ultimately gave up on the argument. He looked down at the on in his hands and clutched it by the grip. He pursed his lips and sidered the on for a moment before the wicked-looking head of the silvery on ignited into intense yellow fmes. He swung it around a few times and leased to see it wasn’t that hard to maintai the fming head of the on in the palm of his hand and gnced up at Bandit who was giving him a smug look.
He grunted, “Yeah, yeah, it’s nice,” He grumbled and hurried to follow the other three as they made their way to the elevator and crowd inside.
Bluestar stood o the button and they got bato formation. “Ready boys?” She asked.
“Let’s do it,” Firestorm said and the doors closed in front of him.
The four floors went about the same, just with rger o be ho. It seemed like the primary creatures of this pce were the bde devils, little devils, and the incubi ag as some kind of leaders. At one point things got a little hairy as one of the incubi and a crowd of little devils mao escape Firestorms initial blitz and mounted a solid ter-attack. It seemed like the incubi were some kind of anders, able to keep the little devils anized during a fight and make them signifitly more threatening, but ultimately they were no match for the party of heroic-tiers. While they ignored most of the bodies, they did make an effort to gather the ons of the incubi, the material they were made was something Amos would be very ied in.
It was as they were getting into the elevator and began heading towards the eighth total floor that things began to feel different. The button had ged from the usual illuminated yellow to a dark red.
“The boss, you think?” Lifesaver asked, his arms crossed.
“Seems likely, but we’ve only gone up eight floors, the building is way bigger than that,” Bluestar said thoughtfully, “Though based on the windows, it does seem like we’ve been skipping floors now and then.”
“Windows?” Firestorm asked.
“You haven’t been looking out the windows? They’re right there, you see the city,” Bluestar said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. The three men looked down at their feet and she let out a sigh, “Anyway, Sonya’s waiting for us, so let’s get this over with,” She said and hit the button. The doors shut, and the team of four, full of fidence, began their final ast.
