The Babel Monsters

The Atronoch

^^The Atronoch's beginning and end form, fighting Rain

--- Rains POV ---

F62-69 were all lava fields, all seven levels, of different types.

Some had <Lava Newts>, some had <Wyrms>,(dragons made solely of Fire, very tricky to kill), and some even had <Flame Atronochs>, which were the real bitch to kill.

Atronoch's stones moved around, never settling in one place, so it was hard to know where to strike, because the only way to beat one is to rip out its stone.

It was good practice though, for the F75 we had to face soon. It took us a full month to map all seven of those floors, twice what it should've, but we had to fall back to F61 when Riviera was wounded badly by a <Wyrms> claws.

The fire got in her blood stream, and the only way to save her was to pull out the shards of flaming stone directly, a very potentially lethal procedure.

Most would pronounce her dead, but I wasn't most.

I created a bypass vein in each place there was a shard, and simply removed the piece of vein with the shard, clamping it so no blood spilled, therefore not letting her bleed out.

I passed out for a few hours, and she was laid up for a week, but we both recovered fully.

We continued on again, and reached F70, where the terrain changed from 'lava field' to 'Volcanic Plain'.

The difference between the two was random geysers of lava and the monsters popped up randomly, growing from the lava itself.

After the third day on the plain, we finished mapping it, because of how simple it was, it was just a big circle with a volcano in the center.

Then on the fourth day, when we neared the exit, the volcano erupted, and I said "Aw Fuck..."

Doc hadn't seen it yet, and I pointed. She looked at it, and her eyes widened. She scooped up Arthur and Jack, sprinting.

I grabbed the stragglers, and we booked it to the exit, dodging falling blobs of lava, and dove into the tunnel separating it from F71.

We looked back, and the entire floor was covered in lava, after about 20 minutes.

All the monsters on the planes were buried in lava, and then the lava hardened, raising the floor level almost ten feet.

The door was half as big now... "Galahad, get rid of this hardened lava for about thirty feet around the doorway.

It won't be visible next time that volcano erupts..." I said, and started hammering the stone with my fists, as he complied.

We cleared the way, and then made a small clearing near the opening. The ground was almost marshy with semi-cooled lava.

We went on, and set a small view finder that transmitted to my portable terminal to see when it erupted again, and if it had any pattern.

F72 was another Flame Floor, but this one had no floor. Surprise. The entire room was a Fox-Fire Illusion, cast by said foxes who waited slow for adventurers to eat.

Oscar pulled Lu Gongzhu out of the Dagger, and he saw the illusion and nodded. "Very interesting... Yes... I can fix this." He said with no preamble,

He'd been invaluable on the illusion floors, so far. He'd snap his fingers, and the pretty dryads would turn into flesh eating parasites. Not fun.