Worthy Core

Lollyp cries out. "I'm sorry! I panicked!"

Xenia leans back and sucks in a breath. "Panicked how? You are like, literally immortal now. Who was that woman, how did you know her?"

The slime takes a moment to consciously attempt to calm herself. "...Right, right, so uh...that was Alizz. She works for the Challengers Association...not like, super high up, but high up enough to basically run things out in the field. That was probably her doing her inspection run of a new dungeon...and, uh, probably checking in to see what happened to that other party we wiped out earlier."

Xenia forms herself a chair and takes a seat, as Lollyp continues to reconstruct herself in her hammock. "Pretty powerful? In a physical sense, like. The way her team handled themselves reminded me a lot of you and Cerise's party. By which I mean, way too fucking overleveled for what I've got to work with."

Lollyp nods. "She's a Master like Lady Cerise, yeah. A Mana Wrecker, it's a class that specializes in things like, undoing enchantments, counterspells, things like that. A really magical creature like an elemental or massive skeleton would fall apart like a toy to her, though she doesn't do a lot of direct combat. The rest of the team are Experts, the last I knew. Kelsey's a Warrior of Flame, basically a heavy armor class with fire spells. I never met the other two, but I think the one in black was a Midnight Shadow, a Rogue class, and the other was a, um...a Divine Masochist."

The dungeon master snorts. "A divine what?"

"Ah-heheh. It's a special Cleric class from those who worship the God of Pain. They absorb pain and wounds, and can either convert them to other forms of energy or redirect them via a, like, Pain Touch I think it is. Not real common outside of some demons, as far as I know."

"A God of Pain exists. Nice. Wonderful. Okay, so that's who Alizz is at work. Who's Alizz to you?"

Lollyp takes another deep breath. "Right, so. The Challengers Association is a neutral party, given that they're, uh...alllmost like a church in a way, given that their stated goal is to help Challengers reach divine favor, even if the majority of them are just doing it as a day job and never expect to get that far. Even the Dragonlord lets them do their thing, if with a bit of extra paperwork and restrictions. Y'see, one thing we have down south is a lot of dungeons we've worked out deals with, kind of like you, Collaborator Dungeons we call them. They let us carve out space for our own uses, I lived in one myself. But it's not free, the dungeons need Challengers as much as Challengers need dungeons, so there's times and places where outsiders can come in. And like, almost a decade ago now, Alizz was the one doing the annual inspection of the dungeon I lived at."

"Hrmm. And you met and became best friends?"

The slime shakes her head. "No, actually, I didn't even meet her that time. But uh...my older brother sure did. They really hit it off, and met up every time she was in town for the next while, and eventually they went and got themselves vowed. So, to make a really long story short, Alizz is my sister-in-law."

At that, Xenia raises an eyebrow. "Really? That's an...interesting pair. Your brother, is he still...?"

Lollyp sighs. "No, he died of old age four years ago. They were only married about four years, and slimes and kids are...kind of complicated, so they never managed any. Still, they knew that going into it, and felt it was worth it. Since then we've still kept in touch, letters and all that, and met up maybe once or twice a year when she was in the region. I met Kelsey that way too, the kobold, though the others weren't part of her team yet the last time she was in town."

"Okay." Xenia takes a moment to process the new information. "So what does that mean for us? And for you?"

The slime scrunches up her face in thought. "Well, she knows how the Dragonlord works, and she's not stupid, so she's obviously going to know you made a deal for upgrades of some sort. Me being here, as myself, is gonna throw her a bit, none of our other dungeons can do anything like this. But I don't think that changes the big picture any. I'm hoping she won't tell anyone about my situation, but she's definitely going to start warning people to be more careful in here. I don't know if that means she'll put a level restriction on the dungeon, probably not though...a level restriction on a two-floor dungeon would be like, unheard of. Still, she might make our job harder."

"Guess we'll just have to up our game again, then. ...Lollyp, I want to be mad at you for throwing a fight like that, but...I get it. But please, for the love of god, don't do it like that again. I don't know how it felt but watching it was awful. I think you might'a slightly traumatized your sis-in-law, for that matter."

Lollyp grimaces. "Shit. Right. Didn't...really think that part through. Sorry!"

"All slime gore under the bridge. Though speaking of upping our game, it's really time for me to start on opening up that third floor. I finished my new monster creation while you were out, I'm callin' em 'Hippity Blobbities!'"

"...You really need more oversight, boss."

 

---

 

For the several hours it took to get back to the temporary Challengers camp, Alizz had been in a daze, moving almost on automatic. When Lollyp exploded it was as if the emotional part of her mind cut out, and the analytical part took over. Without regard for the rest of the dungeon she'd taken the scraps of Lollyp in her hand and began a ritual on the spot, because she had to know. She needed to know. Was that really Lollyp? The analysis ritual did confirm one thing at least: whoever or whatever that slime had been, she'd been created entirely from dungeon mana. She was indeed an actual dungeon boss.

But that didn't explain anything. The group had awkwardly claimed their prizes from the core chamber and left - some coins, a pair of healing potions, and an unusual pair of slime-material gloves that Alizz was able to identify as being water, fire, and acid-resistant - but for the entire walk home the same cycle of questions just kept running through her head. How could a dungeon boss look and act like Lollyp? There's illusion and shapeshifting spells, those could perhaps be used to make a dungeon boss look like a real person, but why would it look like her specifically? And how could a dungeon of this tier have a boss smart enough to act like her?

She knew that it was common for older slimes living in the Domain to give their lives to the Dragonlord's dungeons, and she knew Lollyp was getting old...a tinge of regret strikes her there, she'd been meaning to make at least one last visit at some point, but it had slipped her mind and she only realizes now that it might have been too late for that.

Had the Dragonlord figured out a way to bind people directly to a dungeon, without killing them in the process? But that didn't make sense either - something like that would be tested in the Domain's friendly dungeons, and probably would have been noticed by now if they'd been doing it for a while. Testing it in an unproven dungeon in hostile territory wouldn't make any sense. Certainly the Dragonlord was involved somehow, there was almost no other way Lollyp could have gotten here, but what exactly were they up to? Or...had Lollyp somehow figured out a way to bind herself to a dungeon and done this on her own? Alizz shook her head at that thought - Lollyp was good for her level, but a new magic like that would be way beyond Advanced tier. Unless she found an ancient magical artifact, or...

Alizz screams. "Ahhhhhh! What the fuck is going on!?" Feeling the pat of Kelsey's hand on her back, she looks around and realizes finally that they did actually make it back to camp. She also realizes that there's at least two dozen construction workers and other support staff giving her odd looks, but Kelsey begins leading her to their main tent.

"C'mon, boss, let's, y'know...have a sit and clear our heads, yeah? You two, check in on the staff and make sure shit's goin' good here, alright?"

The sisters nod, uneasily. They were a bit put off by the experience themselves, but they could tell that Alizz was affected the most heavily, and hadn't been sure how to bring up the topic on the way back. Sely takes a look around at the forming camp. "I'll check in on the medical tent. Taly, you wanna check in with the hunters and kitchen?"

With the sisters wandering off, Alizz and Kelsey make their way to the most expensive tent in the camp, and Alizz nearly collapses onto her sofa-slash-bed. "Kelsey. I'm not going crazy, right? That was Lollyp. She was a dungeon boss, but it was also still Lollyp."

Kelsey nods, pulling at one of the whisker-like growths dangling from his snout. "Don't see how I can say that it wasn't. In my experience most slimes are a little crazy like that, but if it weren't her then it was definitely at least some other slime girl doing a really fuckin' good impression. And a dungeon slime wouldn't be able to pull off even that. So I think, y'know, workin'-assumption-like, we should probably assume for the moment it was really the girl, yeah. Which leads us to the next question - we gonna do like she asked and not tell anyone?"

Alizz sighs. "We can't say nothing. Let me ask you this: given that party that vanished two days ago, how many of them do you think were due to her?"

The kobold scoffs. "Girl was almost Expert, wasn't she? And that party was mid-Initiate? I don't know what her fighting ability's like now, but until she recognized ya, I think think she was seriously planning to try and take on the four of us on her own the best she could. I can't rule out the chance she could've taken out that entire party of newbies all on her own, though the dungeon did have enough surprises it coulda thinned 'em out some first."

"Right. We send in more parties like that without a warning and we're sending them to their deaths. I think...we at least need to warn people the dungeon has a unique, magic-casting slime boss and to use extreme caution on Floor Two. We can keep her name out of it for now, at least until I'm more sure about what exactly is going on."

The kobold groans as he begins to move his weapons and armor to a nearby storage rack. "Do you think we need to put on a restriction?"

The field agent vigorously shakes her head. "People would go nuts if we tried. You know who new dungeons attract - beginners and Firsters, those people who want to set first-time records and that sort of nonsense. If we put on a restriction, that would leave only the Firsters who could use the place, at least until it was confirmed strong enough to attract the higher class parties. I think for now we have to stick to a strong warning on the second floor...and if we do lose any more parties to it, at least people would understand then why a restriction was needed."

Kelsey sighs and walks over to the tent's open flap, examining the camp outside. "Yeah, guess that makes sense. What does that make our next move, then?"

Alizz climbs off of her sofa and finds her way to the trunk containing most of her reading material. "I need to do some more research on...I don't know, more esoteric dungeon magic I suppose, though I doubt I have anything with me that will shed much light on our situation. After that, I think I need to go back there and, well...actually talk to her, or whatever she actually is. And try and convince her not to explode next time."

The kobold laughs. "Heh, yeah, sometimes the direct method is the best one." He pauses, then narrows his eyes at something outside. "...Hey boss...you know those Firsters you mentioned? Guess who just wandered into camp."

Alizz makes her way over to his side and feels her mood drop yet again, as she spies a dwarvish woman walking alongside a pair of elvish men. "No. Those three? Seriously? How do those weirdos always get around so fucking fast? Is one of them a secret Space Mage?"

Kelsey laughs again. "Well, what can I say, boss. Sometimes Challengers can do anything if they've got the right motivation..."