They arrived in a massive cave that was mostly dark except some lava falling from the ceiling and some pools of it on the ground. Where they were brought in, there was a pillar that was projecting a shield from the top. The pillar had a timer on it counting down from an hour with a hand print indentation below it glowing red. The shield was blurry but mostly clear allowing them to see how the room was set up. They were on a raised platform surrounded by lava and stone, the platform was about 150 feet in diameter and only the center 50 feet or so were covered by the shield barrier. It was hot, everything was hot, the ground was slowly melting their boots and the hot wind was making it difficult to not feel like you were melting. The salt desert on the previous floor had been old earth desert hot, like 140 degree fahrenheit, but this floor was closer to 200.
Beau used earth magic to make a stone dome that was two feet in the ground and covered three quarters of the top, blocking a lot of the heat and the wind. In the small dome, Beau, Cody, and Lucy were exhausted from the previous floor and wanted to wait until the timer ran out before moving. Eli touched the hand print and put a little magic into it, the timer reset to one hour and started counting down again which made them all relax, except Eli who felt a bit of his magic flow underground to a larger pillar in the center of the whole cave and feed a barrier there. He reached into his inventory and took out the worm skin, then took everything off himself except his ape underwear. His underwear only protected his modesty, so it was basically indestructible since his body took all the damage that would hit it.
Bethany stood in front of him with her hand on her hips, “You don't think I'm letting you go out there alone do you?”
“I just need to check things out,” Eli started to say, but was cut off.
“No!” Bethany yelled, surprising everyone. Bethany took a breath and focused on Eli, looking him right in the eye with as much determination as she was able rather within herself. “I will be by your side, you do not get to sideline me to protect me anymore.”
Eli let out a long sigh of resignation and nodded his head. He handed the worm skin to Bethany who unashamedly stripped naked and used it to wrap around herself providing the barest sense of modesty and protection. They both stepped out of the shield barrier easily enough and got a clear view of the massive cave they were in. The platform they were on was one of six total smaller platforms around the outside edge of the cave with a larger platform in the middle of the room. All six of the smaller ones had a shield like theirs going, which seemed to be feeding the shield barrier on the larger center platform. It would be better if they could go opposite directions but Eli wanted to see how strong the monsters were first so they both went to the right when facing the center platform and jumped from their platform to the next.
The platforms were not close to each other and they were separated by jagged rocks and streams of lava, but with both of them being as strong as they were, the jump was not a problem. With the exception that Eli’s body was so heavy that he crushed a good section of the platform he landed on. Neither of them had weapons out since they didn’t want to burn themselves on a weapon that got too hot. They slowly walked toward the shield on this platform and saw blurry glowing red spots inside, then the red spots started to swirl around. Preparing for a monster to jump out or maybe a spell to be launched in their direction, they both braced themselves, but they were not prepared for what was launched at them.
A reasonable person would see the surroundings and expect the monsters on this floor, in the massive cave of lava, sharp rocks, and heat, and expect lava attacks to be sent their way. Well this attack was at least lava-themed. A small eight foot tall 3 foot wide tornado of wind, volcanic ash, and six inch long lava piranhas came moving out of the shield. The piranhas were magic constructs made of lava instead of additional monsters and once they had dodged the slow moving attack, their magic didn’t hold for long and dissipated. Bethany and Eli looked at each other in confusion, the attack was slow moving and easy to dodge.
Eli suddenly got a goofy grin on his face, “I just had an idea for a movie,” Eli was snickering while talking and Bethany was literally facepalming. “It would be called ‘Pirhan-ado’ and it would be about a bunch of guys who get beaten up because their attacks are too slow.”
At this point, Bethany was shaking her head at Eli, but he could see her smirking so he continued. “There's nothing wrong with slow attacks,” he said as if explaining himself to an audience. “But you have to use them tactically in order to make them effective, like so!”
Just as Eli finished speaking, everything inside the shield barrier exploded. His air detonation spell was difficult to make effective as it took so long to charge, but with the enemy monsters all crowded together, and the ability to cast 4 of them almost on top of each other, the effects were devastating. After the ringing in their ears stopped, they both walked over to inspect the destruction. It looks like the detonation was partially contained in the barrier for a split second before it exceeded the barrier's ability to contain it. This seems to have increased the damage by crushing most things due to the brief but rapid increase in pressure.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Everything they saw was wrecked, crushed, mangled, torn, and burned. Eli was thinking that the heat of this place should mean that fire does not have as much of an effect, but since his spells pulled in already hot air and burned it, he guessed that the result would be even hotter than usual detonations, so it kind of made sense. The stone pillar that was operating the shield was destroyed, seemingly adding to the explosion he had caused. Bethany was fishing around in some metal that looked vaguely like it may have been some kind of leg enhancing prosthetic, when she picked up what seemed to be a pile of burning hot, glowing red, shark teeth. They were burning her but not very badly so she was quickly adding them to her inventory.
“More things for you to put on the supposed system auction?” Eli said, still smirking from his movie name reference. He always had thought he was funnier than people gave him credit for, which made him frown, since now it would be hard to tell if people were laughing at his jokes because they were funny or because they were scared he would kill them with their own arms if they didn’t laugh. He chuckled to himself at the cartoonish image of removing someone's arm and slapping them with it. His emotions were kind of up and down, he realized, but he decided that since it was just him and Bethany, he would let it out and go with the flow. Since he was feeling like he needed an audience, he invited Bethany to join him as they finished collecting what they could and moved on to the next one.
This time, Eli wanted to see what monsters he was fighting so they both ran to the barrier right away and tried to shove their way in. At first the barrier held, neither of them were making a concerted effort to get in but they were still surprised that it was holding, and that Eli couldn’t sense what was going on inside. More out of curiosity than anything else, Bethany yanked a spear out of her inventory and poked a hole in the barrier, it was just big enough for her to peak one eye inside and what she saw was so confusing that she felt like her brain just couldn’t take it all in. When she stood there frozen after peaking, Eli had to have a look so he peaked inside as well but he just used two fingers coated in a bit of chaos magic, he could feel that a large part of the barrier's magic was order so he figured his chaos would make it easier to poke through.
Looking inside, he saw the pillar that was making the shield barrier just like the one they had where they entered the floor, and he assumed it was just like the one at the previous platform that they had destroyed. The part that made him understand Bethany’s reaction was that the monsters inside were in steampunk mech suits, brass and iron colored metal with steam coming out the top that was just dissolving magic. The monsters in the mech suits were sharks, not even big sharks, just 4 foot long red sharks with an extra set of eyes just above its normal set. Other than the human level of intelligence and fear that he could see in their eyes, they just looked like red sharks. After his mind was putting it together, he realized that they were all channeling magic into the pillar, which was why he couldn’t see or sense anything inside the barrier and why it felt more sturdy than before.
With a mischievous smirk on his face, and Bethany simply mirroring his smirk this time and not shaking her head, he blinked both of them to the inside of the barrier. This turned out to not be such a good idea, to get through the magical protections of the barrier he had to burn about half his magic reserve, and with the quarter of it he spent on those air detonations previously, he was running low. Not letting any of that show on his face, he motioned for Bethany to take the attacking lead, and as she stepped forward and brought out her spear, the mech-sharks stopped channeling and positioned themselves around the pillar. They seemed to understand that her choice of weapon would be difficult to use in such an enclosed space, especially with the pillar in the center of the shield bubble.
What they did not notice was that her spear was flexible, far more flexible than a normal spear, she was an expert at moving fluidly and flexibly. In the next fifty seconds she gave them a class on speed and flexibility that left three of the five dead and the other two barely breathing on the ground with their mech suit in shambles. The fight that Eli had just watched had been very impressive, he was chastising himself for not noticing how far she had come in fighting skill. Also for not noticing how unbelievably sexy she was when she was fighting, it was like watching a graceful dancer, only she was covered in sweat and blood wearing only some leather armor that seemed to be loose in certain places. He wasn’t sure the looseness was to give him a show or if it was required by her fighting style.
Either way, his interest in her was growing very strong and from the way she seemed to be enjoying how he was looking at her, it was all going according to her plan. Eli’s draw to her physically was just starting to peak, but his emotional draw to her had been on a steady rise since she held him. Her presence had such a calming effect on him, and not that he wasn’t grateful or appreciative, but some part of him didn’t trust that feeling. Almost like he could sense that just a little bit of the way their relationship was developing was part of system interference, which he didn’t trust. However, that was no reason for them to deny each other's company, especially since he could feel their imminent physical relationship getting close to its beginning and he knew it was going to be something absolutely insane.
