Duty Session 396: Isle of the Terraformers

     Unsure of what to do next with her exploration, and not sure what she can do to prepare for the war, Pela decides to go for one of her standard defaults... that being just working towards generally improving the world as a whole where she can. Having heard of the quest to help protect the divine beasts, she gathered a party to go out on the voyage to the isle, without too much care of faction allegiances. Honestly if they'd offered she might have taken one of the army members from the Palace Lands, even with the chance of being betrayed... it's just how Pela is.

     Regardless, since that /hadn't/ happened, she instead just focused on gathering known relatively trustworthy allies. Such as Jazuhanzu, who would be great on just about any voyage with her navigational skills. And so they had formed their team and shoved off to the island for the quest, left to continue on in long boats, it was... a likely somewhat damp journey, especially with the overgrown, steamy island they were approaching. "...We need a better method of travel than boats. I am tired of boats." Pela comments idly.

"I do not like boats either, but trust me, it beats swimming."

Jazz is stganding beside Pela, of course, musing as she looks out onto the island with her spyglass, one luminous eye peering into it. "Welp, can't see anything alive, but that's sort of normal for this thing." She flicks her finger aagainst the side of her spyglass and then pockets it back into the interior of her long coat.

Schneider has signed up for this expedition because every bit of XP will help in the coming conflict, and he's got no bias for who, from Yamato, he works with. He laughs abouot the sailing, and says, "Would you like to fly? But there are worse than leviathans if you fly. So, we must content ourselves with this." He /sounds/ like he's speaking from expierience, he is, in fact, but he's not sure how far word of his flying experiments have gotten.

In any case, he will wait by the ship's rail and idly fireball anything that looks like it might drop 'Lunch', though without hunting, the drop rate is very low.

    Inrit agreed to come along, and also agreed to help be the 'engine' of the ship on the way to the island. Though he claimed to 'not really be that good at it' and 'being better at Light magic', he's the only caster that doesn't seem to even be trying at all. Just keeping his staff pointed up at the sails as wind erupts from the tip. "I'd love to fly..." He'd comment, more to himself than answering Schneider.

     "It does. I have just been on boats a lot of late." Pela responds to Jazz, wrinkling her nose a bit at the thought of the flee from the palace lands, which she remembers as more unpleasant as she'd had to slow her research during it as well. Ugh. The area was most uninhabited? Well then.
     Time for the scout to do her job, and once the party reaches land, she's already starting to apply her stealth skills. "...Ideally I'd like teleportation back. Or just alternative sea-travel to boats." Pela replies to Schneider. "Good to know about the worse than leviathans thing though." Inrit, the one 'better at light magic' seems to be doing very well at wind magic. Which had been a help in speeding up the trip, allowing he and Pela to trade off and keep neither one of them from getting too tired during the trip. "...Flying is fun, yes. Though cait sith usually had to use alternative methods for flight, such as mounts and such." Pela comments. "...I'm going to scout ahead, I will be back in a moment." Pela says, before she activates her stealth skills, going partially see-through as she slips off into the overgrown forest to scout ahead. Soon, she returns.
     "...Found the entrance ...It has a stone door. Probably a puzzle." Pela nods simply after that comment as she starts to lead the party to the entrance. "So far, no enemies." And it's... a big ol' puzzle door it seems! Or maybe something opened with a code word? It's hard to tell, looking like a giant technological marvel that might make the money-oriented drool, as it seems as if it were made with intricate gold lines on it that would probably be worth a good few coin pouches. "Let's see... okay so it needs some sort of power source probably. Let's see if I can't... let's see..." She mumbles, pulling out a small crystal sphere, which she starts to tinker with on the floor, using a small inscribing tool to start altering the spell battery a small amount, followed by her shoving it into the slot. "Okay, someone look for how to activate this thing... I think I have the power source situation solved."

Schneider nods to Pela about knowing there are worse things. "They live on Aincrad tower, like gargoyles clinging to the outside. Anyting that flies, they attack, anywhere in Yamato. They fly fast as anything, and can fly for hours or days without rest or respite," he explains, giving Inrit a significant glance. "Flying by spell, we haven't even /tried/, given what happened. What we did was by airship." When they land, he will make his way with the others to the entrance, and he will peer at the stone door. And suspicious writing.

He is familiar with what he will be called upon to do. He's not sure if the NWO folks recall that he's Scale's librarian, and he reads off the scrip to the others with a crisp tone, so that he information it provides can be incorporated into the solution.

Jazz's eyes had been drawn to the same thing Pela's was, really. It's what she was focused on. When Pela gets to the solution before she does, she gives a nod in her directin, tentacles wiggling slightly at the ends of their lengths.

"..well," she says, "I feel shown up." There's wry amusement in her tone, though, and then she turns towards the others to regard them as they wind up their ends of things respectively.

    Inrit was happy to help, but responds to Schneider, "I meant with my wings, not magic. But yeah I don't think I want to get attacked by gargoyles so I'll stay on the ground." When Pela returns with news of the door, he'd follow to take a look at it. Though he didn't really know a ton about enchantments. When Pela asks for help he'd take notice of the other slots, examining the shape of the hole and then stepping away for a moment, and coming back with a strange device he knows absolutely nothing about, but it matches the hole perfectly! And when he slots it in, that key-slot lights up, so it seems he was correct after all.

     "I can actually answer the flying by spell question. I've tried it. They just don't work." Pela responds. "I'm not entirely sure of the specifics of it, though. Not sure if the spells themselves are stopped, or the mana just gets taken for them. I just tried it once, it failed, I moved on at the time." Pela shrugs, then falls siklent as Schneider reads the inscription. She nods, starting to work on following the instructions.
     "...I just conveniently just finished a project incredibly relevant to this." Pela says towards Jazuhanzu. "So... maybe a little?" She flashes an almost playful smile at her friend, and... then Inrit walks off, returns from a device, and slots it into the door. Huh. "...Well, that's... one way to do it." Kid has good intuition it seems. Good to know. Regardless, the golden door puffs into life, rolling to the side and out of the way with a few puffs of steam and letting them go forward into the ruins. And leading them into a vast series of galleries that might have been the central living area for those who lived here before. "...We should come back here and study this place sometime, when we aren't dealing with a quest." Pela murmurs absentmindedly as she continues forward, peeking here and there around corners to make sure there weren't any stray mobs. "...Tsst, back, something's coming." Pela suddenly says, quickly backing up as a large metallic sphere rolls out and turns into... a mechanical guardian of some sort? A wicked curved sword and shield are formed from the sphere, and it begins to thump forward.
     Pela responds quickly, darting in to start working at cutting at weaker areas of its armor and draw its attention with some minor taunt skills; immediately slipping into her role as... all the roles. "I'll try to turn it away from you guys, figure out how to take it out fast, I don't have super high defenses so if I take many hits I'll go down quickly!"

Schneider nods to Inrit, "Most members of the winged races feel that way," he agrees. "But physics is not in your favor. You'd need much larger wings or much less body weight to fly with wings with the current physics settings in the game. Which is why we went with the airship. Though interestingly, flight /inside the Tower/ is possible and doesn't sttract those menaces. Just overland flight through Yamato." Pela's revelation about flying spells is intriguing. "I see," he says. "That makes sense. Or, rather, is consistent with what else we've seen."

When the Guardian appears, he nails it with fire. His first, and instinctive reaction, but it doesn't seem affected. "Well," he says, and the hesitation in his voice is plain. "I guess I have this for a reason."

But it's a starter sword on his hip, for all that it's been made fancy-looking, or rather it has a fancy appearance, but starter stats. He doesn't use it much, and why is made clear as he attacks, and can take some hits for Pela, but is quickly spent, his HP draining quickly, very quickly as his defense isn't super high, either. He does have a pretty good regen rate, but clearly he needs it.

"I'm told one of the Palace Lander leaders is capable of flying," remarks Jazz, but then there's an automaton on the move of, well... as of now. She turns quickly, closes her eyes a moment before quiclly bringing her hands together in front of her. Her hair begins to move about her as if it's far windier than it is ... no, wait. It's more like it's .. floating? Like she's still underwatger, even now, surrounding her as she calls on her artes. Kelp and seaweed-like vines erupt from the earth, aiming to cling at the automaton, gum up its parts and keep it away from them long enough for them to get on the move again, one can hope. Then again, maybe they can just defeat it. The vines seem to be doing damage, at any rate.

    Inrit would be noticeably more tense once past that door. Drifting both to the back of the group, but close by whoever is second to last. He really was not comfortable here and fidgets with his staff. And hops back a step or two when the sphere becomes a scary thing and everyone springs into action! Inrit was a healer first and foremost, so that would be his main focus, though between calling out, "Spirits of Light, grant me your aid!" He'd try something else, "Spirits of Earth, grant me your aid! Spring forth a spike of stone and pierce the heart of my enemy!" And aim his staff at the automaton, but for a moment nothing happens, and he seems concerned, before the staff sparks with magical energy and a pillar erupts from under the automaton, likely to devastating effect as the vine hold it down while the pillar pushes up.

     Indeed, the fire doesn't end up doing too much to the automaton. Sure, it ticks down its damage sone, but doesn't really properly do much damage to it. And the sword doesn't do much better, just enough to draw some aggro from Pela, who darts in afterwards to take back over the tank role from Schneider, having to take a couple of hits to give him a chance to get out of harm's way again. "Y-yeah. Huh. I didn't know that about the tower. I'll have to try it sometime." Pela responds, huffing as she agilely dodges one of the automaton's attacks.
     "Really? I didn't... interact... with them much while in the palace lands. I was more interested--" Twang, steel meets steel as Pela deflects an attack to the side with a briefly summoned larger sword that almost immediately shatters. "--In the land itself at the time."
     Kelp and seaweed-like growths surround and grab the automaton, slowing it down and leaving it open for several more attacks from Pela as the combat with the automaton continues. Inrit's continued healing is... pretty good! Well okay, it's enough at least, healing the tank enough to continue the battle, until that earth spell was called out! A spear of earth growing under the automaton and stabbing up through its center. It tries swiping at the party again briefly, but ultimately slows to a stop, before exploding into a series of red pixels and loot. Victory! The party is now able to move forward to the next rooms. A hiss of steam loud as they continue their search. Spotting some of the terraformers, Pela points them out. "Right the--" Ah. Of course. They're spotted. And the monsters are running. Aaaand... there's now a wall of flame from an activated trap in the moment of distraction. Careless. Now they'd have to deal with it. Pela pauses, looking aorund quietly with a hum. "Let's see... uh... water.. or... shielding... uhm..." A tank? Is that a propellant? Pela moves over to start fiddling with it.

"Well, those things are interesting," says Jazz of the escaping creatures. She stares after them for a moment, her large, almost luminous amber eyes blinking slowly after them. She's staring until Pela distracts her with talking of the tank. She moves over to join her, quickly, "No -- not that -- there. Inspect suggest that the components might..."

She's communing with Pela, it'd seem, but hey ... progress.

Schneider is, as he has stated before, a swing-build character. He can do any role, just ... kind of poorly. He can DPS, and it's his preferred role, and the one his character, such as it is, is built around, but his self-healing is very high, and he can take hits and melee, if not for very long.

So, it's when he's trying to shield and take hits for the party that the shortcomings of the class are revealed. Or, better to say, Schneider's lack of ability to play within the capabilities of the class. It just cant take the damage that's being dished out. His HP bar sinks preceptitiously until the other party members are able to resolve the situation.

    Inrit continues on with the group, and would follow Pela over to the tank as soon as she heads over. He wasn't terribly good with alchemy, but he knew enough to help. He'd listen and watch the other two, and suggest, "maybe there's a way to change the mix percentages, and if the mix is right the flames won't get enough oxygen and fizzle out and need to be reignited to be a problem again?" He wasn't totally sure! But his attention would be pulled over to Schneider! And he slips back into a healer role to keep him from going down. "Spirits of Light grant me your aid, restore the health of my friend so he can endure!"

     Pela seems... distracted as she works on the tank, frowning a bit as she fiddles with one of the valves. That is, until Jazz points her else-where. "Oh. Right, maybe... that... hm." She twitches her ears, though mostly seems to just let Jazuhanzu take over, just looking tired for a moment as she does. Hmm. And Schneider's HP is dropping, which is concerning her and drawing her attention elsewhere, as well.
     Much like Schneider, she's a swing build, Regrettably though, her only method of healing is potions right now though. For now. "...We need to fix this quickly, the damage from the fire is starting to tick our HP down faster than healing is keeping up." She mumbles, which just makes her attention more lacking. Until the final suggestion. Another turn of a few things between the group of alchemists... and suddenly, the propellant is overloaded and the fire is shut off with a sputtering puff of smoke. Thank goodness, because their HP level was starting to get concerning.

    Continuing after the terraformers, the party finds themselves into a ... testing facility of some sort? And there's a large amount of the black creatures down below. Verdant growth covers every surface down below, but right now they're stuck upstairs. On the upside(downside?) they're now dealing with creatures in front of them.
     Jittering, jolting, adn aggressive. And moving to attack with their strange jittering movements. "...I recommend overloading them, they seem unstable." Pela mumbles, before pulling out a small dagger, which she affixes another one of those crystal spheres to. A quick turn of the sphere, and lightning crackles along the length of the blade. "I'll draw their attention again." Pela says, darting towards the monsters with blade at the ready, slashing at them... mostly ineffectively. Seems this dagger had a slight defect in it, and the electrical spell wasn't working as well as it could.

Between Inrit's heals and Schneider's own regen rate, he is back up to green HP soon enough, and proceeds on with the others to see what else this place has to throw at us? "Those seem broken," he observes of the terraformers that accost us, and while the others leap into action, he pauses, considering. Probably for a while longer than Pela would like, as she's taking the hits again, but as he looks over the devices in the room, working out what each one does, he arrives at a solution that will shut one of them down, then another, while the others take them out in their own ways.

"Sure, yeah. Lemme just summon up an electric eel," mutters Jazz. Still, lightning she can do. She reaches into her coat pocket and produces a lengthy, purple, twee feather-duster with a sigh. She weaves it in the air, gathering energy at its tip before zotting it out in a blast of lightning in the direction of the creatures. It does seem to be working, anyway, disrupting their motions. Her magic is not terribly *damaging*, it'd seem, but ... then again, her class is 'Sea-Witch' and that is, perhaps, not the most damaging one.

    Inrit is relieved when the fire is gone and they can move on. Only to be back into the thick of things once again, at least he was more ready, and overloading? The Air spirits are the most reliable for Inrit! So he raises his staff, "Spirits of Air, grant me your aid!" And an almost immediate response, as crackles of electricity lick out at the air around the tip of the staff. He doesn't know why this is so easy to him, but he isn't going to complain either. He would level the staff at one of the unstable creatures, "overload my enemies to protect my friends, unleash the fury of the Air!" Inrit's staff would burst forth arcs of sustained lightning, forming a link between Inrit and one of the automatons, a link that the automaton really doesn't like! Inrit's attacks are really pitiful for damage, being a defensive healer type, but stunning and ruining electronics is something he can definitely do extremely well.

     Devices in the room are turned on, short-circuiting or disabling several fo the terraformers, starting to make them cease movement, which is a merciful reduction in DPS in the enemies on Pela as she tanks the hits, even if it took him a moment to get through his assessment. Crackle crackle. Each little strike sparking against the enemy's to draw their attention.
     "Can you? That seems pretty useful!" Pela responds to Jazz, seemingly not getting the annoyance in her voice. Or just playing it straight. Still, the lightning bursts are helping overload and defeat the monsters faster even if they weren't the most damaging. It combined well with the rest of the party's own attacks.
     And then. The spirits of air call, and lightning strikes! The battle is... soon brought to an end, short circuited and destroyed bots bursting into red pixels and loot.

    Letting them continue to the room below, a tunnel leading down to rough hewn stone, rumbling, grumbling earth and rich growth. And... a massive drill digger before them. Burrowing. And... the creatures point out the adventurers once more, seeming to get the drop on them in each room. "...I dislike scripted events you can't even try to stealth on." Pela comments, as the drill dozer starts to bear down on them. Uh. What to do. What to do. "Ah... maybe... uhm. I don't know, but we need to do something." Pela says, looking around for something. She's not really panicking, but she /does/ look tired.

Schneider finishes puzzling out the last of the enemies while Jazz dispatches them with lightning. Or stuns them so they can be dispatched. He'll continue on with eberyone, through the tunnels, through the earth and stones. He pauses as we confront the massive drill digger. "Well, this is a thing," he says, sounding more curious than worried. As for bypassing it, he says, "No, I think this is a thing that needs to be fought."

The darkness gathers around him as he chants, dark words, menacing, "Kaizard, aruzard, kisk! Hansay Glossik! Unleash total destruction! Sage of Hades use the seven keys to open the gates of Hell!"

The Exploder wizard extends one hand, and shouts, "HALLOWEEN!"

And why he calls himself an exploder wizard becomes apparent, as the ensuinig explosion rips across the target, with black smoke clouds and swirling bursts of energy, and a general malevolence that says, quite plainly, that something very bad has happened to someone.

Schneider looks pleased with himself.

"H...halloween?" says Jazz of Schneider's efforts, staring at him for a long mooment. All the smoke and explosions, at least, are a useful answer to her query and she jusrt shrugs after a momenmt. Her own contribution of summoned, tiny jellyfish in blasts of water -- which are intensely adorable by the way -- is less than helpful this go around.

... but it IS cute.

    Inrit follows the group, and being the defensive support he is, when he sees a giant drill thing, he responds with a raising his staff, and "Spirits of Light, grant me your aid!" And a warm soothing light shining from his staff, "protect and restore my friends, create a zone of safety around us! Sanctuary!" And sure enough, a dome of soothing light that will at very least weaken any attacks not going out from inside appears around the party! And being inside of course replenishes HP if any was missing. Inrit mostly just focuses on keeping that active for as long as possible and lets the others handle everything else.

     Explosions! Really they're rarely the wrong answer. And in this case, they don't seem to be, the explosions causing damage to the drill of the machine before them, as well as knocking loose the stalactites that were above it, knocking some to the ground. Which gives Pela an idea. She takes a deep breath, and pulls out... a melonpan. Which she quickly eats. Focusing her. Letting her see critical locations and weak points... and with a series of quick airsteps, she's leaping along the walls of the dungeon, until she can slash through several of the stalactites on her own with her twin blades, causing them to fall down on the giant boss drilldozer!
     Bursts of water fly towards the thing! And they're adorable! And ... mostly just. Well. Clean it a little, which is good, because it allows the party to see sensitive areas a bit more clearly, right? Or at least, it gives a clear view of Pela as she rides one of the stalactites down, leaping towards one of those sensitive areas with both blades drawn to slice at it, as well as the driver of the drill-dozer machine. A spell of sanctuary is summoned, which is really perfect timing. As the machine starts to overload. "GET UNDER THE SHIELD!" Pela calls out, diving for the sanctuary and taking shelter behind a bit of scenery on top of that as the trembling machine starts to turn orange... then cracks form in it. And then explodes!

     Thankfully, that Sanctuary spell was up to protect them from the AoE damage of the explosion, and in the wake of the explosion... not... much is left in the room. There's a few pieces of loot, but otherwise it's just. A mostly empty, natural looking room. "Uh. So... Victory?"