After a few more final words for Linda Cogswell, the party collects their winnings and does a last check of their dungeon charms and tokens. They are now up to ninety-five of the rabbit-profile tokens, with seven charms spread across the four survivors. Just enough to reach the required one hundred with a few spare, assuming each of the four plays some role in the battle with the Core Guardian - and with their party so depleted, Thaddeus can hardly imagine finishing it with anything less than their full efforts.

The exit turns out to be close to where Yulia made her appearance, a gap in the wall hidden by an optical illusion created by the architecture and shadows. As they exit the floor they remain in as defensive a posture as they can manage, with Thaddeus and Nalain in front and Tizzy and Reed watching the flanks, and with Tizzy and Nalain both keeping their personal barrier spells active and as strong as they can hold them. There's no ambushes waiting for them when they enter the core chamber, although they do pause for a moment to take it in. Giant statues representing some of the floor guardians stand in each corner of the room, holding the ceiling up like pillars, while a gigantic clamshell statue sits in the center. Reports are uncertain as to whether or not the dungeon currently hides its core within that statue, but it's the man standing in front of it that demands the prince's immediate attention.

Although they've never met, Thaddeus can't fail to recognize the demon whose description he's already heard. "Core Guardian Sincere, yes? I imagine you know why we are here, of course."

The demon tilts his head in acknowledgment, although his expression remains passive. "To make a proposal you already know my mistress does not wish to accept. With, I assume, the intention to steal the core away if she doesn't come willingly?"

"We intend her no harm! I know this my be hard to accept, but I believe Xenia will be thankful for our efforts once she sees what we can do for her!"

Sincere sighs. "This belief that you know her heart better than she does really does make all this more difficult. As does the fact that you failed to actually collect the one hundred tokens required for the Reincarnator Extraordinaire to agree to hear out your petition."

Thaddeus's heart drops. "What!? This delve is not yet over! We're here and prepared to fight you if we must - you cannot deny us our final rewards!"

The guardian scoffs. "And who did you imagine you would negotiate with after you slew me? Did you expect Xenia to burn her limited avatar time on you? Her schedule is quite busy, after all."

Tizzy, just as worried as her leader, speaks up with a nervous voice. "Even if she doesn't spawn an avatar, I know she can hear us! And she can communicate with signs, can't she? Or - or bring in one of the Floor Five staff!"

Sincere shakes his head. "We have no need to make extra accommodations for you. Even making the offer of tokens for an audience was more than we had any obligation to do. I'm afraid your petition for an audience is denied."

Reed steps forward next, his eyes looking a little wild. "Then if there's no audience, then there's no negotiation! We'll take the core and be done with it - or will you fight us then, you coward?"

That insult does make Sincere smile. "While combat is not my preferred pastime, it is not cowardice that makes me hesitant to attack you. As Core Guardian, it is my duty to be the line of last defense. As long as the dungeon has other defenders, my primary responsibility is to see to the safety of the core itself."

Nalain looks around the chamber in a bit of confusion. There are the statues of guardians to be certain, but she's...pretty sure they're not about to come to life and attack them. "It sure looks like you're the last line of defense to me, demon."

"Then perhaps you should look again, warrior." Sincere gestures with his left hand, and suddenly...there he is. As if he had been standing next to Sincere the whole time, the party now notices a man who should have been impossible to miss. The bulky fellow is a head taller than even Nalain, and his grinning face is framed by shoulder-length blue hair. That's not to mention his frankly barbaric style of dress, which leaves his chest nearly entirely bare and his legs covered in a sort of battle kilt. He does wear a strap across one shoulder which holds the sheath for a massive blade, and as they watch on he draws the massive weapon with a single hand. Despite the crude nature of his attire it also seems remarkably well-crafted at the same time, with his sheath, kilt and sandals all made of some mixture of white and yellow fabric that they can't begin to identify. It's clearly magical, given the it almost seems to glow when they don't look directly at it.

The half-orc swallows, keeping her eyes on the man as she asks a question of her party. "Tizzy...who the hells is this?"

The man in question answers for her, with a sad look yet a happy tone. "Wow, my celeb status is fading already? That's rough man, it's only been like a century or so, y'know?" He eyes each of the party before turning to Sincere. "So these are the dweebs causing homegirl so many probs? Xen-girl wants me to rough them up a bit?"

Sincere raises an eyebrow back at him. "There is a reason we've been granting you so many free drinks at the lounge Bill, you know. And feel free to do more than rough them up - we've offered them many, many opportunities to fall back already and they've chosen otherwise. If they're choosing to press forward now, there's likely little hope left for them."

The giant blue-haired man stretches his arm and neck. "Well, alright - though I don't like whacking hotties, y'know? So we'll see how this shit goes. You four sure you wanna try me?"

Thaddeus readies his blade and lifts his shield-arm, thankful that Tizzy can keep at least that spell still up and running. "If you stand between us and our goal, then try you we shall."

"Great! Been ages since I got to cut loose!" The man grins but his next statement is a literal roar as he charges at the party, blade swinging. He moves the massive piece of metal faster than should be possible even for a man of his size, but his attack is far from subtle and it's easy for Thaddeus to duck underneath it. As he tries to stand back up however he feels a sudden cut on his forehead, and realizes something is wrong. The blade took on a blue sheen as Bill swung it, a typical sign of a magic blade - but the sheen remains behind as an arc in the air as the sword moves. A cutting energy is left behind in the air itself, and the prince is glad that the strength of it doesn't seem to match that of the actual weapon itself.

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"The sword leaves an after-effect behind it - don't touch the glowing air!"

Bill chuckles as he moves on to Nalain, making the woman grunt as she tries to block his attacks with her shield. "I was a Supreme-tier swordsman even before I died and became a Paragon, yo. You think I ain't got some gnarly-ass tricks up my sleeves? Well, if I had any sleeves. How'd you like the look, by the way? Be honest." Nalain blinks at the question, but Bill doesn't actually wait for her to answer. Instead a single sandal-clad foot kicks into her shield, sending the woman flying into the wall twenty feet behind her. "Shit, didn't think of how the kilt works with kicks. I ain't tryin' to flash you as a battle strategy or nothin', f-y-i."

Reed is the next to jump in, and it should be obvious from the outset that the young fencer is outmatched. Bill probably outweighs him by twice as much, and the reach of his attacks approaches Reed's entire height. Yet at last, finally, Reed finds an opponent in the dungeon who is a good match for his own skills. The man's agility proves up to the task of avoiding Bill's telegraphed swings, even with their blurry aftereffects, and considering Reed trained to find the weak points in armor fighting a foe who wears none seems like a dream come true.

At least, until Reed's rapier scores a hit across Bill's chest and leaves not so much as a scratch.

"Oh-hoo, that tickles. You playing with Baby's First Sword there, bucko? C'mon, I ain't showing off the guns just to show off to the ladies. You wanna get through my divine protection, you're gonna need to try harder than that!"

While Reed looks for a better angle of attack, perhaps upon an eyeball or two, and as Nalain climbs back to her feet, Thaddeus quickly consults with Tizzy. "Do you have anything that can get through the man's defenses? Ideas would be appreciated."

Tizzy grins, a spell already forming in her hands. "High physical defenses usually come with mental weaknesses. And I get the feeling I already know this pig's particular flaw..." With that said she casts her spell, and a quartet of illusions suddenly fill the space between her and Bill. They're not the physical forms she'd created with Linda's help, but they're effective enough considering their appearance. The man had mentioned several times his appreciation for the ladies, and given he's probably acquainted with the women of the dungeon already...

"Wow, Bill, starting a bare-chest fashion in the dungeon? Suppose I oughtta join in, then!" Bill's eyes grow wide as Taly pulls off her leather armor, revealing dusky grey tits beneath. His attention is soon pulled to the woman next to her however, as Valkyrie Brightsky lets her pants fall to the floor.

"Oh my, I am so clumsy. I hope no one takes advantage of my vulnerability as I bend over to pick these up."

At this point Bill just completely shuts down, jaw dropped as his eyes flicker between Taly, Brightsky, Lollyp and one of the more attractive lounge bunnies. It's not until all three of the melee combatants in the party strike him at once, actually wounding him, that he suddenly comes back to himself. Watching on from next to the clamshell statue, Sincere can only groan.

"Bill, please take matters more seriously."

"Ow! Shit! I mean, don't blame me! You know how crazy this dungeon is! For all I know maybe Lollyp does wanna cheer me on with some ass jiggles or some shit!" Bill does get back into the swing of things, to an extent, but it's clear that his rhythm has been entirely undone by Tizzy's spell. He manages to push his attackers back, yet every time he steps in to deliver a final blow another illusion steps forward to display one aspect or another of its anatomy, and the man completely whiffs. Before long it's clear that the battle is turning into one of endurance - can the adventurers whittle down the Paragon through his defenses before he manages to actually land a swing on them? Going by the number of cuts appearing on his bare skin, the odds don't seem to be in his favor.

Sincere certainly seems to feel that way, at least. "Bill, I would like to let you enjoy yourself as you requested, but if things continue on like this I may need to step in."

"I got it, I got it! No more Mr. Nice Bill!" With that exclamation Bill begins swinging his sword in wild circles, creating a barrier around himself that no one can dare to touch. He even cuts through a few of the illusory guardians in the process, although in their case it mostly just seems to make their remaining clothes 'fall off' in unlikely ways. This time he remains focused however, and works on eliminating the obstacles in his way one by one. Reed ends up tripping over Thaddeus in an attempt to dodge a blow, while Nalain takes a hit to her helmet that's so hard it nearly knocks her unconscious despite her own magical barrier. Bill ignores them all however, and focuses on his true opponent.

"Alright, short-stuff! It's been funny, but the show's over!"

"Shit! Shit!" Tizzy slightly begins to panic as the massive human charges her, with two of her mid-strength blasts seeming to do little more than bruise his skin. As a last-ditch effort she attempts to cloak herself in invisibility, despite her lingering soul wound...which has positive and negative benefits. The positive actually being that it causes her so much pain that she collapses, neatly dodging a swing aimed for her head. The negative being that it nearly burns out her mana channels, making it impossible for her to cast another spell for at least a few minutes.

With her collapsed at his feet, Bill's instincts kick in and he quite literally punts the half-imp into the nearest wall, actually wincing when the sound of breaking bones is rather audible. "...Shit, didn't actually mean to hurt her that bad. Tiny bones, yeah? She is kinda cute, but - " His thoughts are interrupted as Thaddeus dashes in, his enchanted boots pushing his speed to the maximum as he slashes his blade against Bill's back as many times as possible. Bill attempts to catch him with a swing but instead manages to catch only Reed, sending his rapier flying along with the hand holding onto it. Seeing that his four opponents have been reduced to only one who's still on his feet Bill grins...but that grin fades as at last one of Thaddeus's thrusts actually finds its way into his gut.

"It doesn't matter if a barrier is arcane, divine, demonic, or of any other sort. Any energy has its limits." The prince's blue eyes blaze as he withdraws his sword, twisting it on the way out, and Bill stumbles to one knee as some of his internal organs follow after it. "And yours has run out - just like my patience."

His sword swings back down, aiming this time for Bill's neck, but rather than the sound of flesh being cut open the chamber rings with the echo of magical steel meeting magical steel. Thaddeus blinks, wondering if perhaps the demon had indeed stepped in with a blade of his own, but he quickly realizes the black eyes set within the alabaster face in front of him belong to a very different figure.

"Well, I guess we have that much of a family resemblance, at least." There's no humor in Xenia's expression as her black-and-white avatar steps back, preparing for the next round of the battle. "Because my patience ran out a long time ago."

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