"They weren't us." Smoulder tossed the entire pot towards Spike, though its contents seemed to cool even as it twirled, detaching from the inside and becoming a molded jello despite the lack of a mold.
Spike caught the wriggling treat, the pot fading back to Smolder's ready hand in the same instant. "Right, eat it," he replied to the order that hadn't even been said yet. With a great chomp, he discovered it was just as gelatinous as it appeared, but also tasted strongly of tart lime. He slurped the rest of it down, wiping his face clean. "Alright, what does that… do?" He noticed his arm had stretched far past where he had intended it. "Woah."
Smolder gestured at him, although not too closely, with her knife. “It won’t last very long, so get to work.”
Garble came down with both hands, splattering the last of their gelatin-based foes just at the crescendo of his song. "Don't get too happy, the next wave's already coming."
Just as he had said, the gates leading elsewhere were open wide, allowing hulking golems of crystal and stone to lurch onto the field. The announcer was all too happy to describe them, "The mashers of dreams, the illuminators of weakness. Put them together for the Crystal Crushers!" The crowd shook the arena with stomping and clapping, calling for the spilled blood of everything involved in the fight.
Their enemies were far fewer but with each shuddering step they took, Sandra felt certain they were more powerful. Her area-affect spirit felt worthless in that moment. "How are you so unflappable?" she whispered towards Smolder, watching Spike charge forward with strangely bouncing steps. "You just got this job and you look like a pro."
"I have no clue what I'm doing," rapidly confessed the she-dragon. "I am terrified, but there's no time for that. We fight, or we get squished. I can finish being scared after we get out of here." She turned her cooking knife on Sasha. "Say, are these things spirits?"
She threw her hands wide just as Spike caught the bone-smashing swing of one against his shield, but his bones refused to be smashed, instead sending him flying backwards several feet to bounce forward with a mighty cry. "They're awful solid if they are spirits."
"Your owl seems pretty solid when he's here." She turned the knife upwards towards Aiden. "Maybe you could get a big solid buddy? It'd also mean one less crusher trying to crush us."
"If... they qualify, they'd be earth, right? What else would they be?" She took a slow breath, shuddering as it was with fright. "Just an earth spirit..." She tried to reach into that mental space she accessed once before, when she was searching for Aiden. "Don't you want to be friends, see more than just this arena? It'll be fun."
A massive stone slab with crystals jutting out of it, sharp and deadly, slammed down just next to Sandra as it howled at her with obvious fury, its other hand rearing back with obvious ill intent.
"I think it might be working," stage whispered Smolder before dashing out of the way, in case she was wrong.
"Working..." Her eyes darted to where Spike and Garble clashed against a golem, driving chips of it free in teamwork, even if mostly involved Garble attacking it while Spike kept its attention. It was working; unlike her... "Hello, earth spirit. Don't be angry." Aiden suddenly vanished in a flare of fire. A good sign, or a bad one, Sandra wasn't sure. "I'll show you new places."
The golem before her howled with what seemed to be unchecked fury, its fist coming down towards her, ready to splatter her broken body across the sands of the arena floor. In that instant of impending death, her life flashed before her eyes. Wait, no, that wasn't her life. She could see a dozen presences inside the golem, and one of them, just one, wasn't screaming with fury. One of them was watching her with naked curiosity, perhaps attracted by her offer. Just one out of so many.
Feeling strangely calm, she reached for it with her mind, her hand raising to grasp at nothing. The presence timidly stepped out of formation with the others, trying to reach her.
The whole thing came apart. The titanic hand broke free and hit the sand just behind her, knocking her forward to the ground, but not empty-handed. She was hugging something close. It was hard and jagged, but it was hers. "We'll take care of each other, right?"
"See new things," agreed the crystalline earth elemental she was holding. The golem it came from as re-assembling itself, creating new order from the spirits still locked inside itself. The elemental sounded like a curious little boy. "You'll keep me safe?"
"You have to return the favor." She scrambled to her feet, carrying the heavy stone companion with her. "Your old friends are angry."
"Not friends." The earth elemental jumped to the ground, flashing with a burst of light as it grew new arms and legs. It became a new elemental, just as craggy and crystalline all in one. It wasn't nearly as large as the one it came from, but appeared just as solid. The time for words was over as it surged forward.
"What is this?" excitedly spoke the announcer. "They've taken some of the enemy over to their side. Is that cheating?" The sound of rustling paper was heard as if the unseen announcer was checking the rules. "Mmm, nope. A valid play. What an upset!"
Cheers and jeers were in almost equal abundance as the crowd reacted powerfully to the team's new member entering a melee brawl with the same creature it had been pulled out of. Garble came down on the larger one's back, driving his sword into its stony flesh. "No idea what you just did, but keep doing that." He wrenched his blade free of the tough stone and jumped free just as a hand came seeking where he had been. "We got this under control."
"Snacks up!" Smolder tossed rock candy to each of the living members of her party, created quickly from the very golems they were fighting. "We'll get out of here, and they'll regret fighting dragons." She snapped the fingers of her right hand. "Or their human friend."
Spike thrust his staff forward, white magic smashing into an already dizzy golem and knocking it to its knee before it crumbled the rest of the way, falling into heavy chunks of stone and gems. "These things look, oh hey!" He grabbed the rock candy from the air and smashed into it with his teeth, grinding it up as if it were chewing gum. "Mmm, they taste just as good as they look."
The flow of battle had changed in their favor and they reduced the golems to bits of rubble and sweet candy.
The next set of monsters, furry almost-demi-humans with great claws and slavering teeth, were fierce with good teamwork and a taste for flesh, but they were not the only hungry ones in the field. Smolder plunged her dagger into the back of one that was trying to get its teeth into Spike. "Time to see what you taste like." Smolder drew her knife to the side in a cruel swipe, turning the wound from terrible to lethal before grabbing the beast by the scruff and pile driving them into a cauldron that hadn't been there a moment before.
Neither their claws or teeth could do much against their new golem friend, desperately scratching at it as it pounded them into the sand one by one.
"It seems the challengers have this well and under control, and we can't have that. Perhaps it's time we jump straight to the final round!" The crowd cheered its approval of the idea. "The only thing worse than one adventuring team, is two!" Rising from the floor, a set of six people came into view, blinking in the harsh light of the arena. "Only one of them will be getting higher in the tower. The other's going straight down!"
Spike blinked at the other team, comprised of humans, not monsters or even demi-humans. "Uh, are we... supposed to fight them? They have guild chains."
Sandra grit her teeth powerfully as her hands flexed. "It doesn't happen all the time, but you can run into other groups, and here they are. You heard the announcer, only one team gets to go forward."
Garble swung his blade, blood driven free of it with the rushing wind. "So we pound them like everything else, got it."
Smolder stirred her great pot, sticking a finger in to test her creation. "Mmm, almost done. Look, the way I see it, they're probably huge racist jerks that think we're easy targets. Let's stomp them and show them how wrong they are. Six of them, bet they think they have the advantage."
One of the humans, dressed in gleaming metal with a big phoenix-like bird heraldry on his chest plate, stepped forward. "We have been instructed to fight. We will not be turned back here, so be ready."
"I'll show them ready," sneered a male magician, lightning gathering between two hands in crackling fury. Without missing a beat, he thrust them out, a crackle of lightning striking Garble across the chest, blowing him back.
“Damnit, I wasn’t ready,” complained one of the people from the side, a somewhat older man wearing worryingly low amounts of armor, or clothes for that matter, who was looping a strap from a club onto his hand clumsily, as his other hand already had a club in it.
Garble pulled himself up to his feet, only to find the phoenix-clad man already swinging his sword. Garble pulled his sword just in time for the two to clash with a ring of steel, the battle began in earnest.
Sandra pointed forward, her new golem lumbering forward. It was struck by a bolt of lightning, which left a small scorch mark, but didn’t seem to usefully stop it. Sandra grinned. “Go! Get the wizard!” It swung its arm forward, not claiming any hits but driving back the wizard a little.
The wizard leaned over, and pointed at Spike, who had engaged the mostly naked man with clubs. An arc of lightning shot from his fingers, arcing directly back to the craggy lightning monster, creating another smudge of smoke, but nothing else.
Sandra watched as the lightning wizard struggled to get around the lightning-attracting-and-immune summoned monster, and she wondered if he bought the lightning element caster class. Could this have been her, she thought. Uselessly trying to throw fireballs at some fireball immune monster? A bit of pride in her own decision swelled inside her. She did a good thing.
She folded her arms, watching her summon distract the monster, and even the man in the shining armor start to try to chip away at her monster. She thought, he didn’t have a name, did he? She would need to give him a name.
And at that moment, she saw a tiny curl of smoke, curling around her. She wheeled around, finding a somewhat short masked woman with two daggers, crouched at her. Sandra backed up and cried out, or she would have cried out, only the sound of her crying out was more of a muted dull noise.
Ignorant of the clash, Smolder suddenly kicked her cauldron over towards one of them that thought she was an available target. "You're not invited!" A loud scream was the reply as scalding hot fluid poured over them even as it gathered into portions for her team. "Get your own food." She licked over her lips with a cruel smile, perhaps wondering at the taste of her latest victim.
The assassin’s eyes smiled with mischief, surging forward towards Sandra with their daggers gleaming in the light, the crowd roaring with approval at the violence soon to come.