Back on the inside of the elevator, Argent noticed something she hadn’t before. The three buttons for the three levels of this tower crawl were color-coded. The one she was on now was green, but had gone dull. The remaining two buttons were Red and Blue respectively. ”Hmm… if that was a Shelter level, then these must be for Gift and Melody anchors, yeah? Then that means…” Slamming her button down on the Red button, the elevator began to move again.

When the doors opened to the next level, Argent was immediately met with a wave of heat. She stepped into the room, noticing a couple of red emergency lights beaming down for some ominous lighting. Large vents hummed from across the room, seemingly from heaters that were cranking up the heat in here.

[Gift Slime Den]
[Objective: Defeat both enemies]

”LET’S GOO I WAS RIGHT!” Her assumption about the anchors being color-coded was correct, meaning that this level would have some Gift enemies. Since her Lunar Assassin class was also a Gift based class, that meant that she and the enemies would be neutral to each other. If there were only two here, this level should be a breeze!

The two slimes for this level emanated a light glow as they spawned in. Both were red with a core inside that looked like solid-lava, but one had little fairy wings while the other was much bigger and had a massive jaw. ”Let’s dance!”

The bigger slime charged at Argent as the woman did the same, aiming her lance to stab straight through it and crush its core. As she did so, however, the slime crushed down its maw, biting on her lance to hold it in place. ”What the?! HEY!” She tugged to try and get the weapon back, but as she did that, the other slime flew into action.

It spat a fireball out from its mouth, something that Argent moved to dodge–but the fireball wasn’t headed her way. Instead it collided with the bigger of the two slimes, causing it to get a noticeable amount bigger. ”Oh, so you got a support buddy, huh?!” This made things a bit more complicated. She could attack this slime with her dagger, but she really needed to get the other one first. Argent knew if she did that, though, that the bigger slime would take advantage and be able to attack her. She couldn’t throw her dagger here either; without the lance, that would make her almost defenseless!

Argent leapt back as the big slime chomped at her. Just because this was a tricky situation, didn’t mean there wasn’t away out of it. That damned sorcerer slime was such a pain for her, so she needed to deal with it first. Think… think… ”BINGO!” Flipping her dagger around in her hand, Argent strifed to the side a little, angling her attack before SLASHING at the massive slime’s face. ”HYAH!” …Completely missing the monster’s core.

As she swung, however, Argent activated the ability of the sorcerer’s pendant that swung around her neck. Her slash missed the core of the bigger slime, but the added laser beam that followed the attack went straight through the oozing body of the monster–and straight into the core of the winged slime behind it.

Without the risk of exposing herself to another enemy, Argent gave her full attention to the remaining slime. She ran around the big monster, using its massive size to her advantage to place herself right behind it. ”Crescent Slash!”

That attack, with the bonus damage for attacking the monster from behind, sliced the monster cleanly in half. Seeing the gap between its sides as an opportunity, Argent leapt in between the towers of red-hot slime. Just as the slime began to seal itself together again, she reached its core. It was a race against time as she plunged her dagger into the monster’s life-source… right as she became completely enveloped by the slime.

”What?!” The icey armor completely stopped Argent’s attack from hitting the boss, and now that she was right next to it, the monster had no plans of letting her escape. It hit her point blank with another beam of bubbles- an attack that usually would be weak, but was basically a shotgun from this range. The woman flew across the room and slammed into the wall behind her.

”D-damnit..!” As she struggled back up to her feet, Argent wasn’t disheartened by this failure. No, instead, she had a new fire of determination fill her eyes. She had tried to think of some kind of advice Auri had given her in the past that might help her come out on top in this situation, but now, it was something else that came to mind.

Instead of something he told her, Argent remembered a conversation she had with her twin. He had been disheartened about something that she couldn’t even remember anymore, but she was able to reconcile him with one fact. ”You think I’m done?! Failure doesn’t mean it’s over, it just means I have more experience to learn from! I don’t make the same mistakes twice!”

Argent ran across the room as the Boss followed her with a beam of bubbles. She only barely managed to duck out of the way of the attack, sliding over an earlier puddle to move out of the way and reclaim her Lance. Her dagger wasn’t even able to scratch the monster, but her lance…

”EAT SHIT!” Argent hopped up onto the desk in the room and tossed her lance at the slime from in the air. The slime hopped to the side to dodge the attack, so Argent used the silk strand to reel the weapon in again–only this time, instead of bringing the lance to her, she zipped herself to the lance! The slime showed a look of surprise as she spun, twisting the lance around her to slap the slime with it. Only the tip of her attack managed to land, but with the DEF-ignoring attribute of that attack, a small crack had appeared in the boss’ armor.

Argent immediately tossed her dagger at the crack. It hit the spot, but the crack wasn’t enough to pierce deeper into the slime and shatter its core. As it suddenly found itself next to argent, the boss ran away once more, leaving yet another puddle of slime behind it. ”Oh no you don’t!” Again, Argent used the puddle to her advantage, slamming her lance into the ground and pushing off of it to launch herself at the slime. ”DIDN’T YOU LEARN?!”

As flew toward the boss, she could see another layer of ice form around the outside of the monster. Only the handle of her dagger was sticking out now, completely stuck in the frozen slime. Exactly where Argent wanted it. ”PREDICTABLE!” Panic formed on the boss’ face as the woman grabbed the handle of her weapon. Her sorcerer’s pendant glowed as it came off cooldown and was immediately used for another attack. ”MOOONLIGHT CRAAASH!”

The tip of her dagger glowed from within the ice, as it suddenly fired off two boosted, DEF-ignoring lasers deep within the ice. Argent could see the light of her attack pierce through the other side of the boss, and after a moment of suspense-

The ice shattered.

[DEN CLEARED]
[Now Ejecting…]

”Goddamn. Good fight, slime thing… But you BETTER not pop up again! I swear, if I EVER hear about your piece of sh-” With a flash of light, Argent was teleported out of the Monster Den.

[EXIT]