Haunted & Hunted

"I can ask my master for some," The tentacle monster said. "I have my own set of armor and weapons, plus a few spare sets. Not sure whether they'll be the rignt size or if there will be enough of them, but it's better than nothing." Maggie whistled.

"Friends in high places, huh?" Maggie teased him.

The zombie started playing a sick guitar solo. His favourite song, his favourite part of it.

"Hope I can get something in my size" Lillith wondered."Man, that zombie is jamming! He should be our background music guy for the heist. That'll surely surprise them. HA"

After several minutes of silence accompanied by the zombie's tunes, a small pile of weapons and gear appeared on the ground.

Azzar took his equipment – shoulder pads, a chest plate and a helmet, all of them just light armor. For his weapon of choice, he chose the spear.

Lillith looked at all the things on the floor. "I don't know what to choose. What's best suited for me?" Lillith honestly didn't know. She'd never used armor or any other weapon apart from her whip.

"Well, we need someone to soak up some damage, someone to heal us and the rest can easily just attack with their weapons," He explained. "Whip's a good weapon and since you probably like being light on your, go with either no armor or light armor."

Maggie chose the heavy armor set and instead of wearing them over her clothes, she took them off instead. Even then, the armor only covered everything above the waist.

"I-uh, don't you want to cover yourself proper with something?" Azzar asked and sbe gave him a stern no via a headshake.

The voidwalker didn't say anything, but her started to bleed.

"Ha! You're right! I don't even need  armor! I can just regenerate limbs if I lose any." Lillith looked back to see Maggie with no clothes except for the armor. "Well it's nice to see you all natural again" Lillith honestly didn't mind.

"The thing is, they only hit where you have armor," Maggie said. "Mostly, anyways."

The voidwalker didn't take anything from pile, having already established herself as the squishy mage with her own spellbook and a staff.

"I can only heal you by sucking out the life force out of something and giving it to you," the voidwalker told them. "So, when you're wounded, just leave someone alive, okay?"

Lillith nodded at Maggie's point. "Leave some things alive... Got it. So exactly what's the plan? I don't really know that much about the place. Like are we going to go head on or distract tem?" 

"We formulate a strategy, say who's gonna do what," said the voidwalker. "The first one's a brute, large, hits hard, has armor that neither of our weapons or spells can penetrate from the front, so someone will have to bait him. But before that, there's a strench of platforms ascending and descending, appearing and reappering. How are your jumping skills?"

"I need to coil up first, as I have no legs," Maggie said. "If anyone's gonna slow you down, its gonna be me."

"I'm capable of teleporting short distances – blinking," the tentacle monster tells them. "If it comes to the worst, I'll be there to catch you."

The zombie stopped playing, got on all fours and demonstrated he too, can jump with ease.

"Does the big guy need to breathe or is he not a living thing? If he needs to breathe I can just ooze through a crack or little space in his armor and make him drown in my ink." Lillith out her hand on her cheek. "I'm pretty average when it comes to jumping." 

"I-I never thought about that," the voidalker said. "Tell you what, we try once we get there, okay? I only tried drowning him in water and it didn't work. So fat he floated."

"Now, the good part," The voidwalker opened a rift to another dimension. Jolts of lightning sparked from it, but were just for the show – they did no damage whatsover.

"Flashy," Maggie noted. "Since when you can just open portals?"

"You're half snake, I'm mostly tentacle, that girl's capable of inking all over everything and the portal's the weird thing?" Azzar teased her, handwaving the fact that the voidwalker indeed did not have portal creation in its description. "Be real."

"Be human." The tentacle tried to think of a comeback, but he had nothing.

That hurt.

"Oooo! A portal. Looks cool!" Lillith looked back at Maggie and Azzar. After what Maggie said, Lillith went next to Azzar. "Are you going to need ice for that burn?" She made a fake steam noise when she poked him.

The tentacle monster said nothing and just looked as calm as ever.

He wasn't. 

The anger was boiling within him and under different circumstances, he would have killed Maggie, right here, right now.

"Oh and one thing before we go," the voidwalker lectured them. "Don't. Die."

Lillith started to laugh. "Yeah because we all needed to know that. Ha ha!" Don't die" PFFFTT HA! Man, that is a good one. Because we TOTALLY wanted to die in the first place!"

The zombie stared at the portal. "Whe...re?" it asked. "Why?" Took it long enough. Made one wonder if it even listened to their plan.

"Won't get more ready than this," the tentacle monster asked. "The rest of you guys?"

"Ready." 

"Prepared."

"Guess that zombie wasn't listening completely" Lillith listened to everyone do there little is everyone ready check. Lillith smiled but didn't say anything. She just walked into the portal.

The zombie jumped after her immediately, as she was its mistress.

"I wonder," Maggie begun. "Is she that brave or just that foolish?"

"Neither," Azzar defended her in her absence. "She just doesn't like waiting and doesn't care about consequences in general." The two of them and the voidwalker checked their equipment to make they had everything they need and then left.

Thankfully, in case Liela and Kit came back, Maghie had the bright idea of leaving behind a note.

Lillith came out from the other side. She really didn't recognize her surroundings. The zombie came right after her. "Why is everyone else taking so long?" 

The rest of the group followed shortly.

Lillith was now in a long corridor, with the platforms moving up and down, appearing and reappearing. The floor below was some green sludge.

The thing that voidwalker forgot to mention were platforms with crushers.

"It appears I have omitted a fact or two," she said. "Complete accident, I assure you."

Lillith looked at the ground. "What in the world is that green stuff?" She then heard the extra details the void Walker said. " It's never going to be that easy right?"

Lillith watched as Maggie be the first to jump. "Never seen someone so eager to die first." Lillith teased. Liela was behind Kit and had followed her to the main room. When she saw no one was there. " I cant believe this! I can't leave anyone in charge! Now where in the world are they at?"

Maggie continued onward and the rest of the group followed after Lillith.

When the monster girl made another jump, the platform just disappeared and she started falling.

"Allow me." The tentacle monster blinked away from his platform, caught her as she was falling and teleported back.

"You're... heavy," he said as he held her. "What do you keep in that tail, devoured prey?" Maggie slapped him where his face would be with the tip of her tail.

"First of all, rude," Maggie started. "Second of all, a simple 'you're safe now' would have sufficed. The only reason I didn't scream was cuz I knew you would catch me. Also, thanks." The voidwalker giggled. The two of them argued like a couple after twenty years of marriage.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

"They left a note. You should be the one to read it." Kit handed Liela the scrap of paper.

"Why don't you teleport us one by one, Azzar? Wouldn't that be easier?" "Yes because a note is totally going to calm me down." Never had Liela's voice sounded that sarcastic.. She took the note and read it.

"No, it's not that reliable" he said. "And besides, I'm sure we'll run into something that'll cancel out all magic sooner or later."

"Starting with the crushers, magic just plainly stops working," the voidwalker said. "In theory, the final room should let us use mage again." That lazy-eyed... why was she withholding crucal information like that.

"Any other important fact you'd like to share? I swear, if I die here,I'm gonna haunt your forever." The voidwalker smiled, but said nothing.

Despite it being a bit problematic, Azzar did his very best to get each and every one of them to the last safe platform before the crushers. Thankfully, it was quite large and allowed them to pause for a bit, of neccessary. Azzar needed the rest for sure. Getting them across that quickly? No easy feat.

The note read.

"We went on a heist for the companion book to the Book of Summons, the Book of Dungeons. Will be back soon.'

Tap. Tap. Tap.

"Well, what's it say?"