He winces, and nods again. "Sorry again, Abyssia. Like I said. Feel free to hit me if you want?"

"No." Sigh. "Apology accepted. Let's just - move on."

She stuffs the giant flank of meat in her backpack.

"Glad to see we can settle our differences with civilized folk. Now let's get going, I don't like standing around in a dungeon."

They get going.

The second floor is a little tougher. Ken lives up to his promise to 'facetank'. He seems to be taking out his frustrations on the dungeon monsters. Though he ends up nearly suffocating under a frost slime clinging to his head when the dungeon manages to spring a moderately cunning trap on them, by suddenly creating a slippery floor and knocking the party over with monsters throwing rocks. They take a break after that one.

"Close one, but I think we're doing pretty well. Any thoughts on the second floor boss?"

"We've come this far. We have healing potions. Let's take it on."

"Yes," Dalton agrees. "I'm getting pretty eager to burn something that's actually vulnerable to fire..."

"Any ideas for strategy, since it's a ranged attacker?"

"Make Ken stay right up in its face?"

"Prepare to do a lot of dodging?" Ken adds.

"Just kill it as fast as possible," Dalton says firmly. "I've been saving my burst shards. Suffice to say I can make a lot of fire, but only twice."

"Seems like a workable strategy. Alright, let's do it."

They go in.

The Giant Needler is essentially a small treant without a face. It, thankfully, moves fairly slowly, and doesn't just shoot giant needles in all directions. It has two limbs that look something like arm-cannons, which it points at whatever it intends to shoot, and makes a loud rustling noise for several seconds before loosing a shotgun blast of razor needles.

Ken spends his time right up close to it. trying to slash at the limbs and 'feet', and getting needled and kicked for his trouble. At least he's wearing a helmet.

Abyssia stays a bit further back, shooting and trying to knock the arm cannons aside when the boss gears up for .

Dalton pelts it with those blue blasts, and shouts out that he'll wait for a good opening then yell at everyone to get clear.

(Two small Frost Spiders appear between gaps in the room's 'wall' of foliage. The other three don't appear to notice them.)

Thorn lands a shot on one of the Frost Spiders. The other's closest to Dalton; she calls. "Dalton! To your left!"

"Wha- Shit!"

Dalton knocks it far away with a blast of wind, then has to sprint to the side to avoid the tracking of a pinecone-cannon.

"Need help?!?" Bys shouts without looking back, still swinging her harpoon - jerking it out where it got caught on a branch.

Thorn reloads on the move, tracking the spider as it scurries back. "OK!" She snaps off a shot.

Is that 'OK' as in 'I don't need help' or 'OK' as in 'Yes, I could use some help'?

She risks a glance, takes in the situation, and decides that Thorn is handling it. Then as she's turning back, the Boss lifts her bodily into the air by the harpoon, caught on one of the larger branches. She shouts in surprise and kicks and squirms, holding on to the harpoon out of reflex.

She gives a firm TK yank to the harpoon and trusts Bys to make the fall gracefully.

She rolls when she hits the ground. Just in time for Dalton to shout, "Clear!", wait one second for Ken to jump backwards, and unleash a flamethrower of an attack that lights up the whole room and makes sweat break out on everyone from the heat.

The Giant Needler writhes. It would be screaming if it had a mouth.

The second Frost Spider is still there, it's going for Abyssia now, her being the closest.

"Bys, right!" She's reloading and TK would be too obvious. 

She jukes right, then ducks under a wild (flaming) swing from the boss. Ken rushes back in to occupy it, takes a branch straight to the shield with a grunt.

Can she finally nail the damn spider with a shot?

It's dead. Now all she has to worry about is the big guy. Dalton is apparently reloading his magic gauntlet after that big attack.

Good! She reloads, dodging another burst of needles, and continues to watch for more pesky adds.

No more pesky adds make themselves known. Ken receives a face full of needles when he dodges too slowly, and Abyssia learns that chainmail still has small holes, which needles can go through, if not very deeply.

Then Dalton hits it with another burst of fire and it collapses.

"Ken, Bys, you okay?" 

"Just out of breath. And slightly poked," Bys says, sitting down.

"Ow." Ken replies. "Someone help me with these needles? They're kind of on my face."