cancry | Avaritia Underside Log

Avaritia Underside Log

AVARITIA DUNGEON LOG
Once the Executors have steeled themselves for the confrontation with Greta (or whatever Greta might have become now her Authority has been reclaimed) it's time to descend into the Avaritia Underside. For those Executors new to the team, this is going to seem like a terrible trecharous climb down, but don't worry! The real danger waits down on the Underside below. And going by the lights and noise drifting up to meet you, it's not going to be any more welcoming than the Layer that came before...
THE UNDERSIDE
♪♫ MagiCatz – Sakuzyo Descending into the Avaritia Underside is like willingly throwing yourself into the deepest, darkest pits of sensory hell. The Greed Layer has never been a particularly friendly looking place but with it distorted into a labyrinth of flashing neon signs, oversized casino machines and Revenants swarming the streets, it's as though everything that makes Avaritia unbearable has been turned all the way up to eleven. It's... not a fun place to be! To make matters worse, things are loud here – as well as all the noise from the casino machines, music blares from an unseen source and the Revenants laugh and chatter and babble between themselves even as they fight and kill for the grubby Nova coins that can be found scattered around. It's a deeply unpleasant place to be, but this is where Greta has ended up and if you want to proceed then you have no choice but to plunge into this neon-drenched hellscape. AREAS OF INTEREST ⚝ Main Street: There are many other clusters of activity around the Underside, but the main street that makes up the center of the Underside is certainly the biggest and the busiest. Whatever buildings might have made up this street before are long gone, some crushed and destroyed by the regular outpourings of coins from the giant slot machines and some having been ravaged and destroyed in some fight or other between Revenants. The street is lined with grubby, battered novas that have changed hands so often that the metal has worn smooth. Even so, the Revenants here fight over the money viciously, biting and scratching and killing over even a single coin. The more novas any individual Revenant is able to keep its hands (or, uh... claws?) on, the stronger it appears to be. And lurking at the mouth of main street is an absolutely enormous Revenant, lording over a horde of coins bigger than any you've ever seen before – and it doesn't seem inclined to share them with you. ⚝ Fort Nyx: The already labyrinthine layout of Fort Nyx's underground vaults has somehow managed to get even more confusing with the transition to the underside. The upper layer that once housed the bank has vanished entirely, leaving wibbly wobbly corridors that snake down deep into the depths of the vaults. You'll want to move fast as you travel through here, as the vault doors will occasionally burst open and a particularly aggressive Revenant will burst out, intent on protecting whatever meager treasures it's managed to collect and keep in the safe. Press further in and you'll eventually find yourself at the Underside's equivalent of Vault #0. Greta isn't here to greet you, unfortunately, but you do at least have another Revenant to occupy your time with! ⚝ Et Voila Casino: See for yourself. HAZARDS ⚝ Sensory Overload: Avaritia's Underside is, unbelievably, even worse than Avaritia itself in terms of apparently doing everything it can to send you running with a migraine. Lights flash, neon signs blare and the noise is almost unbearable. With all this on top of the natural distortion to the Underside's geography, this makes trying to navigate extremely difficult and can be dangerously disorienting when it comes time to fight. ⚝ Structural Damage: Many of the buildings around the city have fallen into disrepair due to the presence of the Revenants here. Most concerningly, many of the signs have some degree of damage to their wiring or electrical supply and may spark or flicker or even shock Executors who get too close. Be on your guard! ⚝ Avalanche!: Occasionally, the oversized slot machines that line the streets will hit on a prize and immediately pour an wave of novas into the streets. On top of the danger posed by the rush of Revenants that will come hurrying in to claim the coins, there's a very real chance of an unlucky Executor being crushed under the tidal wave of metal, causing horrible injury if not outright death. ⚝ Revenant Types Present: Ficino, Rigaud

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While she's a little too high up to be in reach of Medic, Ruin's fireball scores a clean landing – clean enough to deal a critical blow's worth of damage. Nice!

Mammon reels and then very evidently runs out of patience. Trying to scatter them hasn't done very much so now she'll have to really teach them a lesson. She throws her head back, sucking in a whistling breath... and then choking up a stream of shining liquid gold that spills from her mouth in a grotesque waterfall. It splatters thickly against the ground and then begins to spread out quite quickly towards the Executors.

Hey, uh... is it getting a little warm in here or is it just me?

Either way, I probably don't have to tell you that letting the molten liquid gold touch you in any way whatsoever is a bad idea.

[Medic frowns, contemplating her lack of reach, and comes to a conclusion:]

[Sometimes, when people won't throw you, you have to throw yourself.]

[So she backs up a few steps, dashes forward, and pulls a move she's tried before in training- using her closed scissors to pole vault.]

[She's launching herself through the air in an arc that aims to collide right with Mammon's side. If she takes a hit, then she takes a hit- even one from that molten gold, the sight of which earns the delighted gasp she reserves for a test subject doing something new and interesting. She's definitely taking samples of that stuff later.]

[If she manages to make contact with Mammon, even for a brief moment, she'll use her power for a two-point Durability drain. Ideally, she'll be able to grab on... but even if she can't, she just needs to touch her once.]

[Oh.... Oh Sweet Sothis that is sure fucking happening huh?

He starts out trying to guide Llamrei away from the torrent of molten metal. Only to skid to a halt when he sees Medic literally vaulting towards the stupid bird thing!!!!

At which point he turns around and rushes back into the mess, hoping Llamrei can hold out long enough for him to be able to catch her when the reckless idiot comes crashing back to the ground... y'know likely in a pool of gold. Like an idiot.

Of course that means he's standing in the puddle of gold too. Like the idiot he is.

It's fine. He's got this.]

Medic!! ARE YOU INSANE!?

[ Achilles is getting as far away from that shit as he can thanks, he still remembers how fucked up he got with poison last time and he ain't risking that shit again. But when he sees Medic jumping at Mammon and then Ruin going back into the molten gold to catch her when she comes back down he scrambles for something.

...What he ends up coming up with is summoning his sun shield again but placing it hovering just above the gold, in the best position he can manage from this distance. His intent is to let it serve as a stepping stone to at least mitigate the damage for a little bit. If it's big enough to shield their little trio then hopefully it's big enough for Llamrei? ]

Step on that when you catch her!!

I can't believe y'all are throwing yourselves right into the molten metal. Thank god Achilles has some self-preservation!!!

The strength of Medic's YEET carries her up and over the liquid gold, landing her squarely on Mammon's back. The Aberrant immediately starts writhing and throwing her body around, causing splatters of hot gold to fly everywhere. Medic does manage to drain two points of Durability though, before Mammon throws her off.

While all that nonsense is going on, Ruin's going to be having a rough time making his way over to catch Medic. The gold is so hot that Llamrei almost immediately dematerializes under him, taking that extra point of Durability with her and causing him to slosh into the stuff himself. Even with his Executor armor, that's some extremely hot stuff and it immediately knocks off three Durability before he can make his way on top of the shield provided by Achilles.

That's just in time to catch Medic who comes nyooming over after being thrown off by Mammon. With Ruin catching her, she takes no damage from the landing... but now they're stuck on top of the shield in the middle of all that gold.

[Medic has just enough time to catch sight of Ruin's current predicament- and her own impending one- as she's flung headlong through the air. The end result is that by the time she lands she's already been making frantic battlefield triage calculations in her head for those couple long, adrenaline-stretched seconds spent in flight, and reacts to being caught by Ruin by immediately pressing one hand firmly but gently to the side of his face with a brisk:]

Nope! [She's just going to go ahead and dump those tasty two points of Durability she stole off Mammon in the tank for him- he's taking everything else she has, why not keep going- along with her own power, healing him for a total of four points of Durability.] Nope nope nope! Not on my rounds, we don't!

[You died once already, you can get in line for round two later. She pauses and looks around.]

...I am open to suggestions on getting down from here.

[For a fleeting moment Ruin actually just squeezes her a little. He doesn't say anything because if he does it'll be something stupid and sappy but ensuring she's okay is definitely a reassurance for him. Though the fact that she's dumping all of her healing into him is a little worrisome too.]

Okay... now I think throwing you might be the best option.

[What the hell else are they going to do?]

[ Shit now, they're stuck there uh....

He tries to think fast... and only comes up with one solution. That hopefully doesn't get them hurt but... yeah what other options do they have? ]

Hold on, I'll - brace yourselves!!

[ And then holding his harp out like it can control the shield, he manages to make the shield move--

...and throw them across the area, in a direction away from all the molten lava.

YEET. ]

Y'all heard the man. YEET.

With the shield propelling them, Ruin and Medic are flung across the room, landing in a graceless heap in front of Achilles. Thankfully, no one is hurt during the great yeeting, but both of them sacrifice a point of Movement for this turn to get themselves back up and ready to fight.

While they're recovering, Mammon gives another one of those horrible screams and continues to vomit that grotesque stream of gold across the floor. The stream is much more forceful now and the molten gold is spreading much quicker and much further...

If you aim me at her again, I could try to- [Medic is abruptly yeeted midsentence and cuts off with a noise like a squeaky toy that just got stepped on.]

[But she shakes herself off on landing and gets back up again, bracing herself to leap away if that molten gold gets any closer and trying to take a hard look at Mammon with her sensor powers. She keeps pulling out surprises, maybe she can see the next one coming.]

[Ruin is a lot less graceful about the landing and the noise he makes sounds more like he's been gut punched but he was, at least, intelligent enough to dismiss the Lance while they were airborne so no one ends up stabbed.]

Ugh.... th...anks?

[Not sure he really wants to be thanking Achilles just now but hey, he's alive. Before he even tries to stand, though, he's firing off another fire spell, though the aim on it is a little haphazard since he's focusing more elsewhere. As he's dragging himself to his feet, though, he's carefully watching the spread of the gold, trying to see how the floor itself is faring (is the marble tile a lewk or actual stone?) as well as the bases of the machines that are still scattered around.

If the floor is going to give out that's important information to have and if it's not... is climbing onto the remaining machines a feasible escape?]

S-Sorry! It was the only thing I could think of!

[ He tries to see if he could summon the shield again to help them once more but.... dice. That was the last use of it that he can manage for now. Frick. ]

...And it also looks like that was the only time I'm going to be able to pull that one off. So I am open to anything you can think of right now!

With Medic's special eyes, she manages to get a decent impression of Mammon's condition – she's flagging, badly. If th Executors manage to get another few solid hits in, the battle is as good as won.

Of course, the actual issue is going to be uh, getting that hit in.

With the gold spreading like it is, the floor isn't really a good place to be standing anymore. Thankfully, hupping up onto the slot machines gives a bit of safety for now, but eventually, the machines are going to give out under the heat as well.

What's the plan, Executors?

[Yeah, Medic's just bouncing up off the floor and onto the slot machines like a cat that saw a weird bug. Not sticking around here, no thank you. She's going to dash along the top of them and try to parkour her way closer to Mammon, snapping the blades of her scissors at her tail if she can get in reach.]

She's in critical condition, keep it up! [World's most intense game of "the floor is lava", PVP edition, go.]

[Ruin stands his ground long enough to chuck more fire at her though he's, honestly, surprised it's doing much considering she is also vomiting burning hot metal. But if Medic says she's in critical condition then he's not about to question it.

Then he turns to start ushering Achilles towards the nearest machine.]

C'mon! I'll give you a leg up. [And then Achilles can pull his heavy ass up, hopefully. Though he does grumble as this is happening-] just had to trade wings for horns didn't ya?

[ Oh he will gladly accept that help and return it as well, harp tucked under his arm as he reaches down and helps pull Ruin up. At hearing that grumbling though he smiles a little sheepishly. ]

W...Would it help at all to know I couldn't fly with them even when I had them?

[ Fucking Feathereds and their semi-useless wings man.

Once he's got Ruin up though, he's eyeing Mammon again. ]

My harp can do projectile damage so we have that at least... it's just a matter of making sure she doesn't hit us with any more surprises... and that we don't melt.

[ To that end he takes the harp and strums it again, dealing another slash attack to Mammon. ]

Both Achilles and Ruin's attacks strike true, with Achilles dealing a critical blow's worth of damage to really bring it home. The combined damage finally disables one of her wings and Greta goes crashing down, right into the boiling gold she'd been pouring out across the floor.

As she crashes, both Ruin and Achilles see brief flicker of disconnected images - hard to make out but clearly originating from Mammon. It seems to be the same phenomenon experienced by Monarch, last time.

... so which one of you wants to strike the final blow and find out for sure?

[Sorry, did you say "fuck around and find out"? Medic has you covered.]

[Reflexively, she heals herself back up to full, knowing that if it goes wrong she's not going to want to try and fight her way out of this while already injured.]

[She eyes the great, maimed dragon carefully, mentally reviewing everything she knows about the relevant anatomy- reptile and Revenant. She readies her scissors, aiming for a precise spot, a place at the back of the neck where she thinks she can sever Mammon's spinal cord without drawing the process out too much.]

[First, do no- unnecessary- harm.]

[She aims. She leaps. And she makes one last cut.]

The good doctor's blow strikes true and there's only a moment of feeble resistance from Mammon before the blades close and the fight is at last over. Mammon's eyes slide close and in the instant it takes for her final struggles to ease, the liquid gold rapidly cools until it's merely warm and brittle under Medic's feet, like a puddle in winter that hasn't fully frozen through.

Of course, she only gets a fraction of a second to appreciate the relatively solid ground under her feet before her vision and her senses are completely taken over by something else.

The first thing that registers amidst the cannon blast of information straight to the brain is an almost crippling sense of claustrophobia.

A young woman, with tired eyes, who looks as though she hasn't had a good night's sleep in far too long crammed into a tiny cubicle in an office flooded with identical spaces. There's no sense of time here, just the sense that this day is a drop in an ocean of identical days, weeks, months. Years. Her life poured down the drain to earn the pittance she needs to make sure she can get from one paycheck to the next. She manages to keep a roof over her head, but that's it. There's no point in hoping for anything more than that.

But then one day – completely out of the blue – she wins some money. Not a fortune. But a decent amount. Enough to spring for a vacation for her and a friend to visit a place they've always daydreamed about going to see one day. Vegas is just as bright as she's always thought it would be and of course, if they're in Vegas, they have to gamble. Greta doesn't mind putting down a hefty bet, just for the fun of it.

And she wins again. And again. And again.

Enough that the casino eventually ask them to leave.

Her friend asks her what her secret is.

Greta replies that she's just lucky, with a smile, and decides to keep the cheating to herself.

The money is enough for her to finally quit. Walking away from that shitty office building is like being reborn. She can finally live the life the deserves to live, no more wasting all her life as an office drone. She can't get past the high of walking out of the casino with a hefty few hundred thousand to her name, so she returns to Vegas again and again. She's gravitated now from the same old casinos on the strip to smaller bars, smaller games, bigger stakes and bigger payouts. She learns new tricks, she gets richer, she gets smarter.

Unfortunately, so do some of the people she's playing against.

The last thing Greta remembers is the voice of her opponent, telling her in silky tones that it's truly impolite to try and heat a friend out of his rightful winnings. She feels the hard, cold press of a knife sliding between her ribs with no resistance and then... then she feels nothing at all.

Nothing but the savage fury of having her victory taken at the last moment.

... just like this one was.

Medic opens her eyes with a throbbing headache that her healing abilities can't quite rid her of and the last ghosts of Greta's desperate greed thrumming along with her heart.

But moments later... even that fades, leaving only the gold and the body of the enormous dragon.

EXECUTION COMPLETE

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Avaritia Underside Log

cw for etemo imagery

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RUIN REMAINING DURABILITY: 2

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etemo imagery 2: electric boogaloo

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1/3

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