Duty Session 408: Sher Kar Challenge

Goldenblade has gathered a small cadre of Yamato adventurers, because she's still not sure about the Palace Landers that might be on our side, and explains, "This has been an ongoing problem, but we're trying to get it solved, or as solved as we can before we face the Palace Landers. Westelande doesn't want this at their backs.

"It's a part of their coming of age ceremony," she continues, "The kids come down here and face the Sher Kar, which are about the right difficulty for kids just coming of age. The problem is, there's some giant ants that have moved in, and that's what we're here to exterminate. Just ants," she emphasizes, because there was an issue before, "If we face the Sher Kar, we need to /not/ kill them. We're sort of saving them, but they're monsters, so we can't actually make nice with them."

Explanation delivered, the small group sets out. The place is a few hours away on the trail, according to the maps....

It's quite unusual for Kita to be anywhere outside of Aincrad and the surrounding area, but by the expression on her features, the Imp was likely sent out by Scale Emblem to assist with gathering supplies and doing other tasks. That would explain how she found herself here, looking a bit out of place for the Holy Empire Westelande.

"Right. Kill ants. Protect Sher Kar. Make it so kids can deal with it later. Yep..." Kita pushes her glasses up on her nose. "Makes me thankful my comming of age was getting a motorcyle and sneaking my girlfriend out of school. A whole lot more enjoyable than this."

The Imp's tail twitches as she pages through her spellbook, jotting some notes on the side of one of the margins with a pencil.

Ayame listens closely, nodding at the explanation, and chattering along as she walks with swift, short steps, her shield unslung and wand twirled nervously in one gloved hand "Clear the way for the kids to only face the monsters they should be facing?" She hazards with a little laugh "Well, that's certainly a unique take. Glad to help - anything getting the Landers on side is essential, right now" She blinks slowly, nodding to the group. A tap of the wand to her metal-rimmed round shield "Nice to meet you all. Ayame, for those I've not met."

The sylph snickers a little at Kita's words "Sounds like you had a good time. Or at least, an enjoyably frustrating one" She grins broadly

Kauchemar gravels crunchs under the steps of hooves as Kauchemar makes her way along. She flicks some bangs out of her face, but for the most part isn't too bothered by the desert environment. Horses are quite tenacious travels after all. "Shame it's such an important ceremonial site... but an investation is an investation, and exterminated in due order." She rolls a shoulder, and gives a nod to Kita. "A bit of a change of scenery from guarding Tolbana won't hurt, and we'll be back home before you know it after this is dealt with.

The white haired Artificer is familiar with this specific request from the Guild. Haru wants a rematch after his less-than-stellar performance. Ant going to stop him this time around. "Familiar," the Artificer says with a smile.

Goldenblade nods to the group and leads the way across the arid Westelande landscape. Desert and/or desert-like, it's hot and dry, and hopefully everyone's got plenty of water in their inv. Goldenblade will remind everyone to stay hydrated. The morning dawns bright and clear, but the heat arrive soon enough, and stays. It's some hours later when Goldenblade leads everyone to what looks like an open pit or quarry, though a glance inside will show ramps down to various entrances into the ground itself. It also shows a small squad of ants at the bottom, feeding. But they have good senses, and start coming up after us.

The thing with ants is that they keep coming back. If there is one thing the world has a lot of, its ants. These ants, however? Big. Haru flicks a glance with his one eye to Kita on the whole coming of age thing. Certainly nice. He wonders if he should get a motorcycle when they get out of this place. The Peko races were plenty fun. He would probably enjoy it. "A change of scenery is nice," Haru agrees with Kau there, "and a change of opponents." Back when not fighting Palance Landers all the time was more common.

The Enchanter rolls a crystal ball into his hand, large enough to palm, not large enough to read fortunes, as he draws raw arcane power into it. They fire out in a series of easy to cast arcane bolts that dakka dakka pelt ant after ant from the first group. "Ant no problem here," he says with a smile.

Kauchemar stops at the edge of a platform. "Looks like an unwelcoming party down below." She strides off, going down a few more levels to get a bit closer to the bottom. "Now then." The Nightmare pauses to take a breath, and then leans over the platform's edge and emitted a horrid shriek. The sonic assault is directed into the pit below, intended to disorient the very senses the ants might detect the group coming down to stomp them.

Then makes the rest of the trip down like it was nothing out of the sort.

Ayame ended up weaving a simple spell to cast shade over herself as she trudged. This was known as 'a parasol', which she held over one shoulder as she traipsed through the desert.

On arriving at the duty site, she peered down at the ramp before letting out a sigh "I really don't have any intention to go down there" Before putting the parasol back away with a tap to her menu, and aiming her wand down carefully, resting it on the rim of her shield. Anyway, she starts blasting.

"It didn't include monsters, but there was a beach involved so maybe it wasn't as different as I thought." Kita chuckles to herself, giving a shake of her head. Then, glancing over at Kauchemar, she huffs slightly. "You say that, but if Tolbana gets attacked while I'm gone, I'm going to feel at fault for it."

Thankfully, the group gets going shortly after that, and Kita doesn't have as much time to dwell on the thought. "Oh look, target practice." Yep, the best way to re-focus is to practice shooting some of the ants with long ranged spells. A series of magic missiles follows, flicking them from her fingertips.

Kauchemar's sonic attack stuns and disorients the ants, who come up onesy-twosie rather than the wave that they'd meant to. Haru blasts down ants with arcane power, dropping them quickly as they come up, joined by Ayame firing her wand and blasting ants. Kita's magic missiles join in the attack, and ants drop quickly. Goldenblade stands at the top of the ramp to fight off any that do make it up, but there's just one, on his last sliver of HP, and it falls over just before she can swing at it. "Well, that's a good start," she says, and will lead the way down with an apologetic look to Ayame.

Ants defeated handily and thoroughly, the party must search for the best way down to find what they seek - the ants. There are half a dozen entrances, and it seems like only scientific instrumentation can tell the difference, but Yamato's adventurers have other means at their disposal.

While Kita may be quite skilled in both attack and support spells, the mage really doesn't have any training in the sort of things that help track down enemies. "I'm not sure I have any spells that can help here."

The girl starts to page through her spellbook, biting on her lower lip just above a scarred spot on her lip. "No. No. Definitely not." Looking up, the girl pushes her glasses up on her nose again, "I'll heave to leave this one to you guys." She pulls the bookmark forward, shaking her head.

Ayame's footsteps click-clack as they move down the ramp, and she buzzes her wings briefly, making a frustrated face "I hate going underground" With just a touch of sourness "Still, I can take a look around" She offers, her smile quickly returning as the sylph starts scouting subways, shielded and shimmying soft, swift steps, snapping shouts back to alert and advise.

At Kita's reply she shrugs a little. "I wouldn't worry, they're all in good hands between the Scale and Eas members stationed there." And then it's off into the tunnels. "It'll take too long to check all of these individually." She pauses to put a hand against a stone wall, a summoner circle forming. Then as she pulled her hand away some of the rocks fell free, hit the ground, and took a vagely bipedal form. Which Kauchemar sent off to check the various passages quickly, since the earth elemental could just shift between the walls to go from one to the next.

"Earth," Haru says as he looks for the means to descend down into the lair, "that I have a friend that can help with." Tapping his feet to a rhtyhm he starts on an Earth summon. "Terra. Vocare. Terebro. Numerus. Terebrare. Hostis." From the earth a Sprite appears with large whirrling drills that hit a sweet rhythm, as if they are just as much sonic as they are whrrrrrling goodness. The Artificer points forward, "A hand, Terra? Or two?" And away she goes, breaking into and progressing forward. And it is very effective. He persists, making way for the next challenge through the maze.

Goldenblade is no tracker, herself, and nods sympathetically to Kita, in the same circumstances. Luckily, Kauchemar and Haru's earth elementals are able to check the various paths quickly, and aided by Ayame's scouting, they seem to have worked out the best path to take to get down to these ants.

Unfortunately, the best route in also takes us inadvertently past the hidden Sher Kar burrow. Who can even say why they've holed up here on this passageway, but as the party passes, the Sher Kar break through the side of the passageway, collapsing the earth in an ambush. They must use this to catch what litle prey they can get, or to ambush ants if they can in small groups. But we're not here to fight the Sher Kar, and Goldenblade urges, "Don't kill them, they don't dare follow too far, let's just get past."

Kauchemar brows raise at Haru's summon of choice as it gets to work. "How did you get it to manifest drills like that?" she asks, honestly impressed by display.

But there's not long to marvel at it, as they come across the very creatures the ceremony is about. "Right, we're not here to handle these guys." The nightmare just smirks with a gleam in her eyes as she steps back, and seems to melt into the shadows of the cavern. Eventually she steps back out into view, on the opposite side of the creatures. All that time training stealth with Wake has paid off repeatedly.

Ayame emerges from the tunnels, having been winding her way through, and irritably flicks dirty from herself "This is why I hate these places" She mutters "I don't think the menu clears it out properly" Then she looks ahead with a nervous chuckle, and then sighs. She looks to her shield, and then to the group, nodding "I'll grab their attention" She offers with only a little nerve and a lot of bravado, moving into the pools of light and engaging - combining short ranged concussive blasts with the wand and actual smashes with the shield, working her way past methodically, keeping them bottled up as she works her way along the tunnel until they fall back, leaving her flushed, panting, and irritable.

There is only a hint of ease that comes from Kauchemar's reassurances. Tolbana had become Kita's home after the apocalypse, and she largely feels responsible for the place, despite it having been a shared Scale Emblem project. Pushing those thoughts aside, Kita winces at the sight of the Sher Kar.

"I'll see if I can distract them." She starts up a spell, creating a summoning circle nearby which pops out a raptor, the dinosaur kind. It looks around in confusion and then tries to step towards the Sher Kar. And then promptly attacked and completely torn to pieces.

"Uh." Well, that did distract them, but clearly did not make things easier on the party sneaking by. Kita just continues to make her way, trying not to look back at the monster carnage, or at the fact that her health just took a hit from that. "Mental note, raptors aren't strong against Sher Kar."

On the topic of drills, Haru is happy to discuss against the beats of the Sprite going to town with whrrrss. "Fantastic topic," the Artificer says as he motions to the Sprite, "so I took inspiration to the constructed work the Gnomes did and made use of Earth crystals, but they are not want to have /actual/ arms like that. So instead it required to one, make them want to, and two have a means to. The later was done by Artifice and apt use of anchors that would form at the tip of the hands when summoned. Having them form in, and you'll appreciate this, Kau, was actually through use of Song against the natural resonation that the crystals provide." And Terra is done. "End result, one happy, musical Earth Sprite with drill arms." Whrr whrr!

"Ah, right, these we need to avoid. This should help with a pacifying effect," Haru notes as he includes stealth in the option for the group. He draws out a Dark Sprite, a small black cat-monster with red eyes, six legs, and trademark infringement cases being waited to be settled. "Tenebris. Cadit. Lunae Lumen. Oriri. Occultare." With the Wave Arte chant done, a black mist spills from his orb, coating the area in a thick mist that makes it difficult to see at first. Then the Dark sprite appears, sitting on a moon-like construct and holding the Dark Zone effect there while giving the party a sort of Dark Vision that glows like a blacklight. "This one," he looks to Kau, knowing her penchant for the darkness, "was actually designed to help me work with photosensitive materials underground. But it helps with stealth and sedation, too." Artificer has been busy lately.

Goldenblade attempts to melt into the shadows and follow Kauchemar, but the Sher Kar are hungrier than that. As the nightmare slips away, Goldenblade gets a few bites taken out of her backside before Ayame can pull the aggro off the party, and Haru can corral them back into their lair. Kita's summon suffers much the same fate as Goldenblade, but is consumed before Ayame's got all the aggro. It distracted them, just not for as long as we'd hoped! They're -really- hungry, it seems, trapped down here by the ants. Haru's strange sprite and it's odd darkness befuddle the Sher Kat, then, and the party is once again able to proceed.

Moving past the Sher Kar, the party gets a bit of breathing room, but the tunnels are still close, and only widen out for certain specific things, and then not very much. One of these things, it seems, is a guard post, where several Guard Ants like in wait for intruders. Looks like this is going to be a close-quarters brawl, the guard ants are packed in pretty tight as it is.

At the very least, the party is able to get beyond the Sher Kar for now, meaning that hopefully it is only the ants they have to face further beyond. "I'll see about getting some support spells up."

Kita isn't particularly skilled at dodging enemies in the best of circumstances, so she starts to cast shields of dark magic across herself and her allies where it is needed, helping to ward off the attacks from the ants. "This should hold, burn them down." Leave it to someone from Scale to mention burning. She likely is talking about their health, maybe...

"Ah. That would explain the humming rhythm I could hear in their spin," Kauchemar resumes the conversation once Haru as rejoined her past the creatures. She very much does appreciate the little tidbit. "Very clever. I'm sure I'm not the only summoner class impressed by it." Then gives a nod towards the Dark Sprite. "That one I may have to ask you about at a later date... Or the spell behind it's conjuring might be more accurate."

But first they have some business to take care of. Farther into the tunnels, only for some of the giant ants to cut them off. Kauchemar rolls her eyes. "Oh look, we've already drawn attention. Pretty basic, though." She turns to wink at Haru. "You've shown me yours, I'll show you some of mine."

She makes a quick gesture sequence in the air in front of her, which erupts into glowing ghostly flames in a sort of portal. Out of the portal hurtles a large sword, which immeadiately launches itself towards the ants and starts hacking and slashing away. "Having Binders posses weapons takes some of the pressure off in combat. Less getting my own hands dirty."

Ayame mutters as she darts forward again, breathing heavily as she wields the shield aggressively - combining it with barrier magics, flashing them in place - and even summoning up copies of her own shields to hang in the air, confusing the enemy, as she nods in agreement with Kauchemar "I'd be interested in some of the advances my colleagues have made" She smiles as she pants, hemming the guard-ants in for the others to work

There is an excited look on Haru's face. He knows Kau can command quite a performance so he is in for a treat. There is a low whistle when the sword shows up. "Thats awesome, its giving me ideas," he exclaims. For a low-defense caster, it may be a bit uncommon for him to draw into a front-line battle stance. He does, inspired by the sword. Trying to learn from the motions and replicated it with a rapier-like magical blade that draws out from his orb. "It was one of the draws to becoming an Artificer," he says, gracefully engageing and slashing in the close quarter brawl. "Object-based Enchanting on Summon-based friendlies. Permanence is tricky, but learning about the natural frequency of the crystals in Enchantment helps the Enchanter, Summoner hybrid features really sing." Pun intended. After a slash he looks over to Ayame with a nod, "More than happy to discuss. We need to support each other more than ever these days."

Kita's shields protect the party as they mix it up in the close quarters melee, or summoned melee, in Kauchemar's case. The ants are helpless before the party's fast and ruthless onslaught, Ayame wading in, warding off the mandibles and foreclaws that slash down at her. Haru and Goldenblade slicing up ants on either flank until the last one drops.

The party proceeds onward, and after several twists and turns, finds itself in a wide chamber. The ceiling still seems low, but it hides the expanse, which is filled mainly with eggs. In one section, though, newly hatched grubs are fed by grub-tenders. When the party arrives, the grubs swarm towards the new source of food, and the tenders rally to defend them.

"Ick..." Kita makes an unplesant sound at the sight of the egg chamber, likely finding the idea of the entire place a little bit unsettling. "Well, guess this is what we were here to find. Should be easy enough to clear out."

The Imp turns in her spellbook to a page that looks to be some sort of customized spell, something she'd developed, herself. Touching her hand to the paper, she pulls out orbs of purple flame which circle about her one by one, until they seem to form a barrier around herself.

Extending her hand outward, she shoots the balls of fire into the chamber, lighting the eggs ablaze and filling the room with a wash of heat in the mean time.

"Oh, yes, there is great strides to be made in learning to creatively combine one's skills." Kauchemar doesn't mind talking shop, but keeps it brief as they come upon the chamber at the center of this mess. She takes it in for a moment, then nods. "Take out the eggs so they can't respawn." Her gaze turns towards the nursery tenders and grubs. "Oh my, we've got a bit of interference yet." With a smirk she digs her hooves in to brace herself, and its like on the scaffolding before. Except this time she opens her mouth as wide as possible, to the point her lower jaw is disjointed more like a snake about to swallow their prey. But there is no swallowing. This is using her mouth like a giant megaphone, in combination with her dark magic.

The enervating sonic blast she produces slams into one wall of the cavern, shattering egg cases and sending the would be attendants sprawling and thrashing as she overloads their sensative senses.

"I couldn't agree more" Ayame smiles to Haru, studying him briefly before smiling "I do a certain amount of it myself" She taps the rune edged shield as she walks forward, before halting at the sight of the egg chamber and looking down - firmly bringing up the shield.

She runs the wand around the edge of it, as the runes light up in sequence. From the top, around and down, and back to the top. Seventh Chevron, locked. And then the whole shield lights up, as the magic circle at the front of the shield simply fires glowing beetles at high speed at the attendants, sending them flailing and sprawling, shattering and smashing eggs and young "Combined skills. Right."

"Ignis. SPhere. Inimicos." Haru starts a Wave Arte as soon as he gets the chance to. This reminds him too much of a movie where other creatures and their eggs need to be burned as quickly as possible. The ball of flame erupts from his orb and is launched with searing flare. Fireworks time.

"I know, right," Haru says to Ayame with the reference to the shield, "the shield is very interesting, to put it lightly." Wait, there is an ant still screeching. Haru tosses a bolt of fire into it's skull. He is talking. Don't be rude, ants. "Shields and armorcraft are a fascination, especially with enchantment." An open shot to an egg? Flames. "I spent most of my focus on Accessories, though. Always a good market for an enchanted ring, necklace, or fine instruments likes a lens." He taps his monocle, a Relic and a fine inspiration for the work.

Kita leads off in true Scale fashion by setting intense fires amid the eggs. It's super effective! Kauchemar's sonic blast clears a cone-shaped swatch of grubs, tenders, and eggs, as far back as the blast's range allows, even picking up and throwing back waves of sand and earth that they were resting on. Ayame's glowing beetles are fired into the survivors, and they start killing and destroying the grubs and eggs and attendants with savagery. Haru's flames burn out selected targets that may have survived the initial waves of flames, consuming utterly until they vanish into a puff of pixels. Goldenblade holds the front line against the few that survive the tremendous gout of flames, the fires from her own defensive technique burning them utterly as she wades into them, without even a need to draw her blades.

The party has defeated the guardians of the egg chamber and crippled the ants' ability to respawn, and so have reduced the ants' threat level to the Sher Kar considerably. Though in any ant nest, if there is a queen present, more eggs may be laid. So there may yet be more work to do. But for now, Goldenblade says, "Let's get back to Breg Epona. There is too much to do and too little time."

"Please don't give my own relic ideas" Ayame laughs to Haru "It mostly provides clothes, and well - yes. It's a delightful thing, but I'm not quite sure I want to trust anything that much" She grins, watching the flaming destruction before she sighs, relaxing "That was a fairly good run" She nods, moving to poke through the detritus and shrug, twirling the wand and sliding it into her hair, slinging the shield to her back "This is a good start" She agrees with Goldenblade "More needed, and I'll try to keep an eye here, see how I can help"

"I agree with Goldie. This is more than enough done for one venture to slow them down." Kauchemar calls back the summoned sword she'd used earlier, as it had been guarding her back while she screamed the enemy to death. It's given a stroke along the blade, almost like petting it, before dismissing it back into its realm of shadows to await being called again. "We should scram before another cell of the swarm comes to investigate. I'd really not like to have to fight our way out like we did in."

Haru looks to both Ayame and Goldenblade, He agrees, much to party consensus, "Chalk up one successful venture," he smiles, rolling his Wave Arte focus of an orb in his hand at that. This also provided a degree of validation that the last time he was here that he was really out of it. More importance as to why, too. "Good point," he says to Kau, "no sense in making our evac any more difficult than it needs to be. The coming of age rites should be safe for a while longer, I hope. If not? We can always run more pest control."