Duty Session: Tome Raider

Kauchemar idly wiggled one of the metal gates back and forth, ears flicking back at the rusted creaking sound it makes. "No wonder they didn't want to budge before... Well that and all the vines knotted around it." She shrugged, and turned her gaze up to the tower looming at the foot of the mountains, so close and yet not quite within reach. As soon as she had gotten word from the Hunter's Guild that they had finally located an actual entrance point to the tower after clearing through the overgrown gardens, she'd put out word to get people together to finally dungeon delve it's depths. Or heights. She's not sure if they'll be going up or down at this point. She just knows what she's looking for, and it's here somewhere.

"Well, either way," the Nightmare Bard murmurs as she turns away to await the gathering to come, "it's sure to be a real pageturner."

A distant location in a mountain range. A mysterious library tower. This has all the recipes of exploration and adventure and Haru is in. He makes a circular motion about the play on words, "Page turner, because its a library" There is a grin on his face there. Even if it wasn't through the Hunters Guild, he would join up to help out Kau. No matter what it is going to be a good time when good company is involved.

When Prophylaxis first heard that there was to be a Hunter's Guild quest involving some kind of library on the fourth floor, he damn near spat out his coffee in scandalized protest. But as it turns out, this library is not THAT library, and in fact the Rovians were at least partially responsible for requesting the investigation /anyway/ so it's good! It's allll good.

This is, incidentally, why the good doctor has decided to come along and lend his magical might to the first foray into the mysterious tower.

"Careful. Even if this is the right way in, it's liable to have been quite thoroughly trapped. If I were designing a dungeon full of forbidden lore with only one way in, I'd rig a disintegration spell to the front door to wipe out any overenthusiastic lockbreakers." Perhaps the doctor has played through a few too many devilishly convoluted tabletop adventures?

Schneider has been part of Uta's research team for some time now, and he makes particular effort to uncover secrets and mysteries in the game, in hopes that it will help the players accomplsh their goals. It's not really an angle he'd thought about when making the character, or when joining an VRMMO, it's a bit like schoolwork in that respect. But he's pretty decent at it, he's found, and he's willing to see how far this will go. After all, uncovering secrets may lead to getting out, or at least toward overcoming hurdles in the future. It's been a year with no real leads on getting /out/, so he's not expecting any proggress on that. But, you never know when lore might drop, and the lore in this game tends to be actually useful.

So, here he is, arriving at the gathering point he'd been told to meet at, smartly turned out, without the goofy peko hat he sometimes wears. Nor has he opted for more dakka, as is his wont, because most books don't react well to what he tends to do in dungeons. Instead, he's going with a more introspective spell load, and we'll see how that goes. He's still brought some boom, just in case someone tries to stop us exploring.

"Please remind me again what the deal with this particular library is," Uta begins, "as if I was one of those characters at the beginning of a story who would have all the in-universe reasons to know things but, somehow, forgets for the sole purpose of allowing some character to provide an explanation to the reader. I mean, I know, that, technically, I -would- have all the in-universe reasons to know things, but-" She wrings her staff while she looks down and away, her weight shfting from one leg to the other. "-When you came to recruit me, you both had me at 'library', and lost me at 'library'."

In fact, Kauchemar might remind Uta spacing out with a huge smile at the mention of a libary, a thin line of drool descending from the corner of her mouth. Apparently, she wasn't just salivating at the thought, she also literally zoned out.

Not that it would be hard to guess with Uta.

Lots of people were concerned about the reason why they were here. Some folks looking for something specific, others wanting to clear out a dangerous spot in the tower.

Syx was here because it sounded like there'd be stuff to fight.

"So nobody's been in here since like, before the whole black wave thing huh?" He asks, as he looks at one of the gates, and taps it with a hand, debating if he could rip it off the hinges or not. He probably could, "So we have no idea what's in there or what we're up against?"

"Don't start," comes a familiar, though not seen for a little while, voice. Arashi hadn't been beyond Alne for well over a week. She heard -something- was going on, assumed it was the first notice she saw, and then proceeded to get herself together and head on into the tower. It was near by, after all. And guess what? She only read that notice. What's a crowned? WHO KNOWS. Dentistry, right? ... RIGHT?!

    Setsuna approadches the door along with the group and whistles to himself as he looks up and down at the tower. "You'd think that out of all our looking around we would have found this thing months ago. " Looking at the rest fo the group an then letting his eyes rest on the doctor. "That sounds rediculous, who would ever design a dungeon that will simply disintegrate you at the front door. " Looking over at Haru, "Perhaps there is rare loot that we no longer meet the requirements to use. Either way who has the crowbar?"

Gwen looks to KAuchemar for a moment ant seme to be singing songing.

"Take a look it's in a book o/~"

There she goes, Gwen has just accepted the book humour which will run rampant in this dungeon run. She bounces in poalce a little bit looking fairly excited.

"Mmm and we don't have someone to face check for them either. I'm many things but I do not face check for traps."

She looks to Arashi and starea t her for a moment.

"We need to catch you up later."

"Start what?" Kauchemar replies to Arashi in an oh-so-innocent tone and a very not innocent smile. "Rest assured I am behaving. To the letter." Then tilts her head for a moment. "There's something different about you my dear, but I don't have the time to put my finger on it at the moment..." Which is Kauchemar for 'I noticed but now isn't the time to harass you about it' as she turns back to the gates. At least she didn't make the cliche joke about acting like it was her hair or something.

"What else do you go to the library for? Books, of course," she continues as she starts down the path which is now only partially overgrown thanks to the Hunter's Guild at least clearing down the once decorative gardens. "In this case, a particular book that's been missing for quite some time that I've been asked to recover." She gestures at one of the still overly thick hedges. "It took time to get this place cut back enough to actually find an entranceway, as you can see... though it's still a problem." She waves at the doors in the tower, which are covered with thorny vines. "We're going to have to get through these fir--"

And that's when the unholy combination of rosebuds and AudreyII rise out of the bushes, gnashing maws of teeth at the center of their rose-shaped heads. "--And those would be the monster that keep resealing the doors. Great. Time to hedge our bets on getting in."

"You know exactly what," Arashi counters before listening to the rest. "... Ah, yes, that can come later," the dire-shire agrees. Considering most of her coat, aside the armor of course, was black, a single white-coated arm was a bit of a give-away that something SIGNIFICANT happened. ... At least there's no music here. Sweet, delightful, silence.

    At least until the Rose Guardian (UGH) decides to make its presence known. "If that plant starts singing I am -leaving-." Arashi got the reference? Huzzah. "Time to take it out at the root," she points out, stomping on over to jam Starshadow into the ground, softened by those steps. Not a full-on tremble step but.. close. "I hate weeds.."

Schneider follows along as we start through the doors, only to be assaulted by the shrubbery. No wonder those odd knights didn't like them. Well, he's got the perfect solution for vegetation, which he'll use freely when there's no books around. "GUNZENRO!" he shouts, and gouts of flame shoot from his hand, consuming the vines and creepers closest to him, burning them up and leaving pixels that poof away. He looks around, but it looks like we've pretty much got this, so he just shoots flames here and there to hit any patches that look like they want to try some.

Haru asides to Uta and agrees, "Libraries." with the hand motion that should say 'Aliens'. There is a smile on his face, a more genuine one more and more these days.

The bemonocled Artificer has an appreciation for the herding of large groups so pays attention to Lt. Commander Kau when the party makes their way down the path. "Earth," he clenches a fist. "Nature. How majestic. How interesting." Really selling up Earth. Earth is cool, just like bowties. The white haired man rolls his focus orb in his right hand, looking at it through his purple tinted monocle to look for the traces of elemental energy. To him they are a lot like circuits here.

"This is nice," Haru says, having his own view on the rose bushes, flowing the natural source of magic to clip a few in a way of redirecting the natural energies. Plus. Roses. "Glass or Ruby Roses," his accessory crafting mind goes, "I should make a few of those when I get back to the shop." If nothing else these adventures are great inspiration and material sourcing. Paint for the painter. Ingots for the metalworker.

"Hm, it would seem that the front door was, indeed, trapped," Prophylaxis muses as the Rose Guardian rises from its recently pruned garden habitat. "What an interesting specimen. Though I admit, I'm somewhat disappointed that it's not a venus flytrap. That would have made for a much better joke."

The doctor considers for a moment, before striking the ground with the bottom of his staff. A second set of thorny vines erupts from the earth at his command, intertwining with and entangling the Rose Guardian's brambles in some kind of twisted, floral embrace!

It's vaguely uncomfortable to look at. Fortunately, it does the job of keeping the thing from attacking the party long enough for Schneider to set the whole thing ablaze.

    Setsuna looks from Kauchemar to Arashi and tilts his head as he looks at Arashi, something new? Perhaps a new haircut? Then again Setsuna rarely remembers interacting with Arashi so for now he doesn't bring up the next question of did she cut her hair for someone special? Taking a moment he looks over at Kauchemar, "So is this one of those touch nothing but that one book or can we take every book we see and sort out the mess later?" Speaking of messes it appears that someone hasn't paid their gardeners and now the shubbery is all a mess. Pressing his hand to the earth a magic circle appears and sends a mass amount of pebbles and earthly debris at the evil shrubbery. " This is why you always need to remember to trim your evil monster like shrubbery."

"I got this!" Syx yells as he immediately rushes forward, trying to power his way through the garden walls. He could have at least used his fire powers or something, but no, it seems Syx has his mind set on literally fistfighting a bunch of plants. He'll eventually get through but it'll probably require the flames from some of his compatriots.

Gwen tries to get up to the front of the party regardless of any quips she's made about checking for traps with her face. She does seem concerned though s she goes onward.

"This would be about the point where...."

She stares at the monster for a moment and frowns.

"Fire..."

She starts chanting and a moment later there are bursts of fire at the thing.

"Though I know some people who could use some weed like all the Crowned."

"Libraries..." Uta drools, in a manner that would make Homer Simpson proud.

If libraries were donuts, that is.

One would think this is a terrible moment to lose one's focus, but, counterpoint, the carnivrous maw that lunged at Uta slams against the floor and all it gets for its effort is a mouthful of dirt, while the Musical Kung-Fu Spriggan is spinning above it, curled up. It lands a moment later on the still sputtering bulbous mouth, and the impact itself already functions as a kick; Uta propels herself up and forward, and spins in the air to deliver two kicks and one punch like some sort of spinning pinwheel of pain.

Twisting like a cat in the air, she lands on one foot, one knee, and one punch, other hand risen in the air as she looks up. More plants attack, and she darts towards them. "You know, I understand you have all the intention to suck the reader in-" A spinnking kick sends one plant flying. "But, hear me out here," Run, pole valut, two-foot impact on a second plant, "You're missing a crucial step:"

Two plants lunge at Uta, and she ducks out of the way just in time for them to bite at each other.

She pops up a few meters down the path, leaning on her staff: "You need -dead- trees."

While several people work on uprooting the Rose Guardian, Kauchemar quickly summons a impish looking fire elemental to help with burning the vines off the doors. It's slow going, but once the main monster is weedwacked the binds on the door wither and crumble away. "Not going to lie, I was expecting some caretaker trying to paint roses red rather than that... Though now I see why the Guild didn't actually get -into- the tower, yet." She shrugs and uses her shoulder to push the now free door open.

Inside the group finds themselves in the main entry of the tower, now little more than some broken windows letting faint glimmers of light in. The entrance into the actual library is on the opposite end of the entry hall, flanked by a pair of lion statues, similar in style to those seen used as decorative bookends.

The problem is when someone approaches those statues start to move! The leonine golems appear to be some manner of old magic security system and consider these unfamiliar adventurers to be intruders. They also don't seem willing to leave the front hall, so you only need to hold them at bay long enough for people to get through...

Well, AudreyIII wasn't so bad, and it didn't sing! So, that's a bonus. "Thankfully no queen of roses today," Arashi muses, still catching Kau's references as the gathering heads inside. The warhorse has a long, long look around. "If a skeleton librarian comes out and shushes us I'm going to have a problem," she decides before getting a step to close to the lions. The now, moving, lions. "From Audrey to Vince and Z. Nice.." What's a pwny to do? Kick. That's what a pwny does.

Inside the main entry, Schneider looks around curiously. The pair of lion statues coming to life looks like it could be a problem, But He doesn't want to use fire inside. Fire's not hugely effectove on stone anyhow, and he hasn't worked out the Lightning yet. Lightning's not great, to be honest. Well, if he can keep a magic shield up long enough to get past these giardians, that ought to be enough, so he'll cast that magic shield and scoot, and his shield does, in fact, last long enough that he can get away.

"And after a trapped garden, it's sentinel golems, is it?" Prophylaxis murmurs, his staff whirling through the air. "Careful, these things are probably pretty powerful in close quarters. Golems hit hard if they can get close." A wave of protective energy washes out from the magus, imbuing the party with a potent, if not particularly long-lasting, defensive buff. "If we can get by, we might be able to outrun them, though. Just don't die!"

Haru sees that things are well under control in the large raid-esque party. He claps his hands together and says, "This looks like a job for arms." Lightning glint on his monocle, "Noodle arms." Gym day is everyday if you just apply it to everyday life, virtual or not. The non-physical low-strength Enchanter grabs hold of the lion golems that are keeping them at bay. In truth he is holding onto a leg or a shin and doing a solid NNNnggggg or Grrrraahhhh. No avail. "Thats a bad kitty," the man intones. Its his pot pie. He is flicked off unceremoniously. Thats what he gets for going Physical on stone cats. Boundaries. Not that it stops him from going back at it.

    Setsuna sees the golems and grins as he steps forward and draws his knife. " Oh these things look like fun." Using his knife he cuts his hand giving him a bleed status as he gains red pixels on his hand and then runs forward. Jumping he lands on one of the back of the golems and places his pixelated hand on the stone leonine as a red magic circle spread over it. "Yeah yeah, skipping ome steps for the sake of it lets just pretend that me landing on your back was capturing you. " With his new toy he sends the golem to fight the other golems for now.

Things are handled with the rose Guardian now, that's some good news for the party.

"Yeah it's not exactly easy and the hunters are not foolish about things we're better suited to handle."

She would be wuick to block theincomming attack and get iun the attackers faces to allow everyone else to get past. She'll quickly move on the moment the last person is through

"Living Bookends!", Uta exclaims. "The food of poets. I heard they can cook them really well in a place called The Stone Den."

Uta stands in front of the lion Haru had just tackled. She stares the beast down, as it charges towards her. Close up to her firm face. Close up to the lion's enraged muzzle. Close up to Uta's eyes, which narrow. Close up to the Lion's ravenous mouth.

Details galore, as if this was some sort of spaghetti western. Except... uh... for martial arts. What do you call those?

Noodle Arms?

When the Lion gets close, Uta crosses her arms in front of herself, and touches her wrist together. "RAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHH!", she screams, and-

*TWHAP*

With a powerful swipe, Uta is sent crashing into the wall, leaving an Uta-shaped indentation there. Radial cracks flow out from where her red-gashed body is jammend into the vertical crater in the wall; a moment of stillness, and she peels off, and lands on the floor with a muffled thud.

The saddest excuse for a bubble of lightning crackles around her, and a faint puff of air blows past.

"E- Elecetric... S-...Shield!", she mumbles between gnashed teeth, barely audible.

"Oh sweet, this is way more my speed." Syx says, as he cracks his knuckles looking at the lion golems. "I pick...That one." He singles one of them out, pointing at it and then giving it the 'bring it on' hand motion.

After that, Syx springs into action, throwing himself at his selected golem and grappling with it. He latches onto it, his superior strength proving to be too much even for the big stone defender. Syx shifts positions, moves in and grabs hold, and then hauls the golem through the air.

The golem, if it can make facial expressions, probably manages to look surprised for the moment or two it has before Syx slams it into the ground at full force and it shatters into pixels.

".. Should of seen that coming." Kauchemar murmurs at the bookend sentinels, and rolls a shoulder. "This is suppose to be a library, not a circus, but I guess I'll just have to crack the whip." Literally, as she unfurls her monster handling tool, and with a mighty snap snares the whip around one of the lion's neck, holding it back for others act. Until Arashi up and kicks the stone beast, and Kauchemar pulls her whip free. It's dazed just long enough for Syx to grabble the stone lion, lift it up, and suplex it mightly back into defeat. On the other side of things the monster handlers do their job (or try to, Haru you weirdo) while Gwen shows Uta what to do, and Uta proptly learns what not to do the hard way. While Proph keeps everyone on their feet, and past the limit of the stone guardian's range.

And right into the heart of the library. A literal maze of shelves and desks, making it hard to tell where to go. Kauchemar stops, pointing at one of the perfectly stacked columns of books. "We're not alone in here. Nothing HUMAN stacks books in such a precise manner...." She turns, holding a hand up to the stack, her eyes flaring briefly. Then frowns at the divination. "We definately do NOT want to meet what is tending to these books. Onward! I can sense a staircase at the other side." Pause. "How to get there is another matter..."

"So close, Uta, you were just, like, seconds away from good timing," Haru encourages! Seconds. Like a dozen of them. Not that he is one to talk! The results of Noodle Arms are more about the journey, really. Haru exhales and stretches his arms out, "Just another day moving a heavy rock from one place until the other. Big gains." No they are not. Haru is a caster. The next location has him pleasantly baffled. "Is this a case where it is larger on the inside?" he wonders aloud. "Or a set of staircases that you can only always go upwards?" Even though it is a maze, the brain puzzles are the ones that the Artificer enjoys. He even rolls out one of his Sprites, a black cat named Eve, to ride on his shoulder for a while as they figure it out. Cats like books, right? Monster cats have to really love them. Eve gets ahold of one of them and starts gnawing on the cover. No! Bad Kitty! This must be a bad kitty day.

Haru puts the book back where it belongs. Respect the books and the books will respect you. Namaste. "If I know anything about mazes," he says, going in a direction, "is the direction you want to go is the wrong way. You need to go the right wrong way to get to the dead end with the treasure then the right wrong way to get right to the exit. Right?" Video game logic.

Gwen is pretty unharmed after the last trial as she head on looking about the stack Gwen's ears twitch at a sound and she point. "I think it's this way and no we don't want to meet the Libary Terminator who stacks these books. We should move with haste."

Schneider is not particularly good at mazes, and he's quickly turned around in here. Luckily there's people he can follow to get through this. He's glad he didn't have to use his signal flare to mark the place, that amost certainly would have worked out poorly.

With the stone critters dealt with, and everyone piling through the doors, Arashi wanders close after Kauchemar, heaving a sigh at some Very Familiar Words. "I told you, no Librarian Ghosts. I will light a torch I swear," she growls, though the nightmare may recognize the harsh, but actually slightly teasing, tone. It may come off as grumpy to others.

A maze, then? Fine. "Welp, see you later," Why would Arashi say that? Cause she vanishes into the shadows and is just, well, gone. She'll be waiting by the stairs. "Not a fan of mazes... or libraries.. at least in here," meaning ETO more than Aincrad.

What kind of librarian stacks books in towers? In symmetrical towers!? How do you even get at a book lower in the stack without knocking the whole thing over!? It's maddening! Why would anyone do such a thing!?

If they accidentally knock one of those stacks over, they might just find out. The party needs to make a quick exit, but which way to go...? Prophylaxis purses his lips and pulls a blue, octahedral crystal out of his inventory. The gem flashes briefly as the doctor's eyes shine with an unusual light. "This way," he says, turning down an apparently unremarkable corridor. "I think I can see a way out through the bookcases."

"I don't think we should burn the whole place down." Syx offers to Arashi, but he himself is bad at mazes and puzzles and he would be the first person to admit it. Which is why he tries to climb one of the bookshelves to get a better view of the maze. Only to fall off and hurt himself. And then try it again. And then repeat the process.

After the third time falling off he contents himself to just follow Haru around until he makes it to the exit, because that way is easier than figuring it out for himself.

"Look at this. Look at -this-!", Uta exclaims, spinning around and staring in amazement at the cornucopia of literature available. "The wisdom of the centuries! All of space and time, within our reach!"

She blinks at Haru, "A case where it's bigger on the inside? Hmm." She thinks, hard, for a few moments. "I think we should ask the Doctor. Doctor?", she asks, turning to Prophylaxis. "What do you make of this geometrical anomaly? Do you think we're dealing with some sort of distortion of the relative dimensions in space, and possibly time? Hm."

Kauchemar's urging snaps her out of her rambling, "Oh, yes, right. Stairs. If we climb stairs, we should be safe from those monsters. Maybe we'll find differnt ones, but I doubt the golems will be able to follow and exterminate us up there! Now, to find the way out..."

She intones a quick chant, and the gem of her staff lights up, emitting a faint glow and a quiet chirping sound. "This sound and light will help us find the way. Drive the party forward. I call this spell the Sonic Crew Driver" Uta explains.

A bit of divining guidance and a Whole Lot Of Running is enough to make it to the end of the maze eventually. Sure enough there is a set of stairs at the back, winding it's way in a spiral up to the higher levels of the tower.

It's whilst making their way up the stairs towards the top of the tower the brave souls come upon another terrible obstacle. An irritating thrumming sound can be heard, followed by a swarm of large bees coming zig-zagging down the stairwell. But the fierce stingers they possess is not the biggest concern. It's the fact that their constant buzzing has an anomalous effect of it's own, sounding as if it is spelling letter by letter one after the other. This constant string of buzz words quickly gets into the minds and grates the nerves, making it hard to focus on important things like driving them off while avoiding those stingers, and the stairs are a precarious location to have to fight or dodge!

Kauchemar, however, is grinning like a mad mare as she pulls out her lute. "Time for the bard to do what bards do best." She starts to jam, hard and fast, playing a frantic (and to some possibly familiar) tune upon her instrument... using her bardic magic to drown out the anomolous buzzing effect, beating the Spelling Bees at their own sinister game!

(Music - https://youtu.be/HZF5mr49DJo )

"Doctor," Haru asides to Uta on the important question to Proph on the 'larger on the inside'. Spatial knowledge is as import as the timey wimey ones. But there is no time for that now. There is an interuption that can't go ignored. Bees.

"Bees!" Haru points out with a dramatic pose that Phoenix Wright would appreciate. There is a stark objection to the bees. They sting the brain as well as the mind. No, I am not sure if its affect or effect. Yes, the spelling of road looks weird. Quit your buzzing, bees. "Terra. Vocare. Terebro. Numerus. Terebrare. Hostis." the Enchanter chants the Wave Arte, drawing a summon from the earth itself as brick and stone lend itself to the creation of an Earth Sprite with two large drill arms. Like a Big Daddy but two arms whirrling to a rhythmic beat set to harmonize with the talented songcrafters present. It is not the drills that drill the lessons into the bees, but the sonic, song-like quality to apply some white noise while, yes, drawing the bees into a vortex that the drills grind them through.

Musical Reference: https://youtu.be/gIr4C5Ztlcg

Bees? BEES?! "Bees. Hell." Arashi is not very fond of bees, and this whole LETTERS in the BUZZING thing is NOT going to be permitted in any way, nor is saying the WORD they want her to SAY. NOPE. NOT TODAY. What's warhorse to do? They swing Starshadow in an arc, a crescent of air rushing off, going right down the center of the swarm. "Ahem. No. Not the bees. Aaaaah." shrug. She can keep up the references but that one is too easy~

Schneider doesn't have a beekeeping spell, and again, fire inside a library seems like a bad plan, so he will snap up his basic magic shield, which springs to life as everyone else takes care of the bees. He doesn't know thw song that's being used, but it looks pretty effective, so he'll just hunker down until it's take care of.

"I don't know if I'm the kind of doctor who can comment on spatial or temporal anomalies," Prophylaxis admits with some sorrow, "I'm a doctor, not a Doctor!"

What?

Don't worry about it.

There are other, more important things to be concerned about, after all. Other, bee-shaped things. Things that are in fact a vast multitude of bees. A veritable buzzing of bees, perhaps you could say.

"My God," the doctor wheezes, "Bees...! In a place so full of books, I would have expected wasps instead! But these are just as bad!" What kind of honey would book bees even produce, anyway? Perhaps something as saccharine as a love story? Probably just as sappy, too. Too sweet for the doctor, one way or another. At Prophylaxis' command, his staff begins to crackle and pop with arcs of white-hot skyfire. A bolt of lightning lashes out, crashing into the swarm amidst the rapid pop-pop-pop of hundreds of insects flying head-first into a bug zapper!

    Setsuna ran through the mae with the others and ends up looking a bit concern when he hears the sound of buzzing, "Oh that sounds like some giant swarm of..." He trails off as he hears Haru fill in the gap, "Yes Haru, Bees. " With a moment reaction he grabs a broken shelf near by and does his best to shield himself but unfortunately he does not succeed. By the time this is all over he is rather swollen, "Doctor I may be allergic to the book bees." It is so bad at the moment his left eye is swollen shut.

Now when it comes to music, Syx's main source comes from his Harmonics relic. Setting himself up against the bees, along with the others that have the same gameplan, his song isn't nearly as theme appropriate as Kauchemar's, but never the less he does manage to belt out with a song that seems to carry the weight of his fury behind it.

It seems to have the effect he wants too, counteracting the buzz words from the bees and allowing the others to fend them off while Syx rocks out. Not only does he sing but there seems to be music coming from somewhere to accompany his song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLUbodrA0NE

Normally the confides of the stairwell is in their favor but this time the Spelling Bees are drowned out, blown away, and driven back with their stingers between their legs. The rest of the path of the stairs is clear, leading into another room of shelves that are, fortunately, in proper order and not a maze. "Ah. The other side of the floor. More stairs." Kauchemar starts across the room, only to stop as a book nearly falls on her head. "Huh." She kneels down to pick it up. "Nope this is not what I'm looking f--awk!" She brays as the book snaps at her, like a pair of chomping jaws as she drops it.

Several more leap off the shelves, either claptrapping on the floor, or wagging their covers like wings to try to latch onto people. "They're posessed by Binders. Unless you can find the glyph binding the spirit, don't try to read them. Or you'll be lost in a book in a very literal sense."

Which is why the Nightmare engulfs herself in darkness, and just keeps walking towards the opposite end of the room. Can't read the posessed books, can't be caught in their literary bewitching.

Uta stiffens at being called 'Doctor'. Her head jerks left and right, in panic, "N-no! Nurse! I'm not a Doctor!", she scrambles to correct, nervous. Her breathing accelerates. Her fingers twitch. Despite there being no 'Nurse' profession in the game. Only Doctor.

She flicks through her menu, materializes a red, squishy ball, and begins to squeeze and stretch it, forcing her breathing to follow the rhythm of her hand.

"A-as to the question about what bees are doing here. I- I think they might have misunderstood the meaning of the word 'garland', Doctor," Uta replies to Prophylaxis, quick to turn away from Haru, not out of anger or spite, mind you, but discomfort.

Some more serious squeezing later, Uta is once again calm. She disappears her squishy ball, and clears her throat. Eyes closed, face pointing down, she inhales, turns her chin upwards, states, "Concert in Bee Major Flat for Dungeon Party and Nurse."

She harmonizes with Kauchemar's song, each passage eliciting tendrils of magical color and light that interwine on her staff, focus on the gem; at every beat, blasts of magical musical energy shoot out of the jewel, and go slam bees against the nearest surface, reducing their thickness to that of a very small coin.

    Attack of the killer bindings. "I SAID NO LIBRARY GHOSTS!" Arashi howls as a book flings itself off a shelf and into her white hand, going wide open before it gets tossed away with her other hand, "Oh hell no," emphasizes her throw before she pulls the same trick as back in the maze. It isn't as fast, but given a few moments to be close to the shelves, and in the shadows, the warhorse will go nearly completely out of sight. Enough that the books focus on others! Sneaky sneaky sneak away, little pwny. .. She isn't so little. "Worst library ever.."

"Bees," Haru asides to Setsuna. It bears repeating. Fortunately they were not bears that bear repeating. Or bee bears hybrids. Haru wonderse if those exist. Would they have little wings but still be able to fly bear forms? Would they be bee sized bears?

"You are like a Doctor to me, Uta," he notes as they continue, "the medical professions you and Proph follow are admirable ones. Glad you are on our side." The side of justice. Justice against bees!

It is a shame that Terra, the earth sprite, can't stay with them for the entire trip. Haru bids his summon goodbye when the soundtrack makes its final loop with a notable wail as if someone had the floor taken from them and dropped into a pit. Next level! "Thank you for bringing the Terrah, Terra." Summoner respect, even if it is Haru's subclass and not main class.

Books getting bossy? Need them to calm down. Haru has a summon for that, too! "Ok, sounds like a little calming zone magic is in order," the Artificer says, his casting orb becoming as dark as a tarball. The spell is unpacked with a Wave Arte, "Tenebris. Cadit. Lunae Lumen. Oriri. Occultare." where the small black cat monster from before is returned with a hunger for books still in her red eyes. Looking up at Haru she knows that this is not a social call and its for the Arte, hopping from ledge to ledge until she gets a good leap into the air as a dark mist fills the area. At the top of the zone effect, a pale moon sits, the cat resting atop of it and giving everything a blacklight effect to it. Calming and blinding to the enemy. Rave party for the rest of the assembled.

Schneider is relieved as the party deals with the bees, and will follow as we proceed further in, and up. And up. And another room of books. This seems less like a library and more like some rich weirdo's sitting rooms of books, but the books here are ... viscuous! Or at least possessed. He's still hesitant to use fire within the library, and it'd be so easy, too. But no, he's got better than that, for the possessed books. He's been in libraries before. Scale's library, for one, and a few others, and he's poked around in places and found out a few things. And of course he's got the skill for decoding mysteries, and an understanding of glyphs. That's got the effect of nullifying the binders, it seems.

Books! Angry, possessed books! A veritable tomb of tomes! Manuals of madness! They flutter this way and that, promising knowledge that can only break the mind. Eldritch truths, forbidden lore, the REAL hot dog recipe!

It's terrible. But the doctor seems... unamused.

"What, so we come all the way up this library tower, and you tell me that we can't even read the books!?" Prophylaxis huffs, pulling a spellbook of his own out of his inventory. "Bah, I've dealt with their like before. And as it so happens, I've kept notes! Let me just find the right page... Ah!"

There, hidden in middle of that ratty old grimoire, a glyph that seems to look right. One by one, as each of the bound spirits approach the waiting doctor, he slides in and neatly severs the arcane array holding each of the binders to their hosts. Soon, the ground around him is littered with a small pile of dispelled books, ripe to be taken home and added to someone's collection of literary contraband.

    The swollen Setsuna looks at the specter of books flying around with his good eye as he squints trying to figure out how many more minutes this allergy debuff will exist. Then he focuses on the books, particularly the books that are stacked in a single straight pillar. For a moment he tilts his head, " Who would stack books that way?" Looking at the other flying books he counts to himself a moment before he leaps into the air and blinks across the rows of flying book to the otherside. "I really love that spell."

"I am not a Doctor! I'm a Nurse! The game made me a NURSE!", Uta finally explodes, fists clenched, her whole body shaking, wings included, while she puts up a superhuman (superiman?) fight to hold back tears this time. "Isn't that the whole thing about making me a nurse? Pointing out that I'm not a doctor?! I know my semiotics! 'Random' my rectum! That so called 'character randomizer' knew very well what it was doing!"

Almost reduced to a shivering nervous wreck by the recent breakdown, Uta's attention is mercifully snatched away by the tomes zipping past her. "Wait, where are we? Why is this place full of book? W-what are we talking about?" Her expression is suddenly confused, and despite her slightly reddened eyes and the hint of humidity at the corner of her eyes, there seems to be no sign of her previous agitation. "Are we supposed to fight these?", she asks around. Another book flies straight for her. "...I'll take that as a yes!", she exclaims, and after a deep inhale, She blasts out a high C wihch devastates the book's binding (and binder?), reducing it to a bunch of floating sheets in the wind.

More than three sheets, alas, but.

When that's done, Uta looks around, quiet, blinking. "Uh, what is it that we supposed to do, again?", she asks Arashi, as if he was the one leading the party.

Seems like her previous outburst is completely forgotten by now. Along with... a lot else. But that's Uta's attention span for you.

Well if there's one thing Syx is good at it's fighting off things using FIRE.

Glad he saved this move from earlier when they were fending their way through the hedges outside, Syx engulfs himself in flames, and begins to run around like a madman. He starts grabbing books out of the air, stuffing them under his arm and wrestling them down. Binder bound books be damed, Syx has a plan!

Once he has what he feels like is enough of them in his grasp, he does the unthinkable! He uses his flaming form to leap into the air, and slam all of the books into the ground with a resounding explosion that incinerates the books he was holding and any others unfortunate enough to have been close to him!

He rises out of the fireball, laughing like a madman as the flames die down. There's a reason he created that move...And most of the reason is because it's VISUALLY impressive to look at.

Eh? Oh. Spoken too. Huh. Arashi glances over at Uta. "Follow Kauchemar." Simple enough.

"Well it looks like we've got this problem... covered." Kauchemar snickers as she heads up the final flight of stairs. "Binder books haunting a library ruin. How... novel."

Finally the group reachs the top of the tower... Which has certainly seen better days. Kauchemar wanders over to the work station, making a face at the mess. Then something catchs the corner of her eye. "Ah!" She swats a few decrepit books aside to pull a thick one out of the pile. "Right where the premenitions said it would be, lost and forgotten."

Behind her the stack of books has fallen over in a shamble, several of them toppling over. Black ichor dribbling out from between the pages, starting to pool together. Jagged points like the tips of writing quills jut out of the mass as it swirls and swells, as more and more words disappear off the pages of the books it's emerging from.

Kauchemar turns back to the party, holding the dusty tome up. "I found the book she wanted! Now we can get out of --" She tops. Ears tilt up. Then her expression goes entirely deadpan. "--There's another monster behind me, isn't there?"

That's when the Inkswell roars, ink spittle splaying as the Nightmare quickly scrambles away from it. "We need to keep it from getting bigger and more toxic!" She skids to a stop with the party, already starting to conjure up her dark magics. "Come too far to cut the story short here."

Darkness swirls and churns, until she throws out her arm to blast the debilitating negative energies at the Inkswell to try and stym it's leeching of mass and power from the books. "o/~ RUN RUN But you can't run away! I'm casting spells to cast down the enemy!
Darkness, Deception, Divination... Enervation, ruination! o/~"

"Why can't you just be a Doctor from character generation? Isnt a Nurse a kind of Doctor at the end of the day? Medical training and all that," Haru asks in genuine curiosity there. Scholastic inquiry! "I dont give two gold coins what the randomizer says, if you say you are a Doctor, then the system making a clear message that you are a second-class version is unacceptable. We will tear down these walls and replace them with... Slimes." Support! Fight the System! Get the Hacker Power Path JUST to change Uta's profession to Doctor. That said, Ink Slime appearance interupted the line of thought.

There is another slime? "Slime?!" Haru perks and checks his personal Slime-a-dex. A new species in the Aincrad region? Possibly entry 151, which is blank. The Artificer is quick to roll up and get some of that inky-slime solution into a glass vial. It is of utmost import to get the base material for quick Alchemical response! After the initial sample, Haru ducks back behind a book case and inspects it with his monocle, the purple tint giving way to white lines as the Relic whirrs to life. Weak points. Identified. Properties. Listing. "Ok. Graphite. Carbon. High Ph attribute. So it would require a Base element. Distributed with Heat and liquid form." Although Haru focuses mostly on Accessory Crafting and Enchanting as his primary activities, he is a rather capable Alchemist! Crafter life, ho! "Ignis," a quick Wave Arte gets a burner running under his hand as Eve holds onto the solution on one of her tentacle arms. A wonderful assistant, if not as reliable as any cat would be. Haru begins to scroll through his common material inventory, adding in limestone powder and a careful amount of alcohol into the mix during a slow rise. At the end of it he ends up with a recipe, which he copies and pastes out to the party for those that are interested in neutalizing the slime for future generations. "Here. We. Go!" the Artificer arms the solution into a Jet Spray Wave Arte, hosing the Slime down with the Alchemical solution.

Reaching the top of the tower, Schneider watches as Kauchemar finds the object of her quest. And something else seems to find her. "What is that?" he mumbles. He forgets his hesitancy, this calls for FIRE. "Deep Doomsday," he chants. "To the spirits of land and air, bound by the pact, fulfill your obligation now." He takes a breath, focuses very tighgtly, and whispers, "Megadeath!"

It's still a catastrophic explosion, but very tightly contained, the intense flame and roaring sorcery boiling away at the blob's HP as if were wax being flamethrowered. Schneider does not do subtle very well.

A giant, big, blob of monstrous ink? "... Yes. ... Yes there is," Arashi deadpans to Kau before slowly drawing out Starshadow. "Blobs are the absolute -worst-." You can't slice them, you can't suplex them, all you can do is freeze them. ... or dilute them? .. Worth a shot. The dire-shire stabs her blade forward, channeling some magic into it, before a burst of water rushes down the blade and into the monster. it probably makes it bigger ... for now. She'll keep stabbing, and diluting, and stabbing, and diluting, until dealt with!

    Setsuna looks at the giant ink slime form before he tilts his head and grins a evil grin at the debuff timer as the swelling goes down. "Perfect timing. Predator's eye!" The necromancer's eyes both gain a red broken triangle in them as he looks at the world through a whole new set of magical induce optics. Taking his dagger in hand he lines up the core of the ink slime before he throws his dagger straight into the slime as hard as he can perfectly able to see the core in the ink. "Uta we will have to come back and pick up another one another time." No mention about Uta's outburst, it wasn't much different then the last time he had brought up her being a doctor.

"Well that's different." Syx says, as he looks at the giant ink monster that rises up behind Kauchemar, "I don't suppose anyone has a REALLY BIG fountain pen? No? Okay, guess we'll do this the old fashioned way."

Syx's initial plan is to rush the creature and throw a punch. Naturally his punch just goes straight through without doing any damage, and leaving his arm covered in inky goo. He frowns, and shakes his arm off a bit, before he gets an idea.

A moment later the gauntlet on his arm bursts into flames, the other one following suit shortly after, burning the ink off, "That's more like it." With the Buster Gauntlets burning bright, Syx rushes back at the inky blob again, this time throwing punches that connect.

It looks like a flaming flurry coming from the fighter, but each punch is measured and targeted, aiming for the same spot multiple times. Syx may have the air of a fool around him, but it's something he does on purpose, because when it comes to stuff like this, he's a genius and he knows it.

Uta hyperventilates at Haru bringing up the topic again. She reaches into her inventory, and this time, she materializes a crystal, a twin to the one Doctor Prophylaxis materialized earlier. She taks it to touch her forehead, and when its medicinal light flows into the Nurse's cranium-

Composture. The nervous wreck shifts about to collapse shifts into the picture of composture in a matter of seconds. She inhales.

"Please forgive my previous outburst," She begins, with an apologetic bow to Haru. "Your support for what we healers do is deeply appreciated. And you were trying to praise my worth, not demean it. In my previously unstable emotional state, I was too blind to realize it." Another bow. "My profession on the character sheet does, indeed, read as 'Doctor'," she explains, "It is one of the few choices available. I am not aware of a 'Nurse' profession being available, based on my discussions with other Adventurers. But the character generation gave my avatar a nurse outfit of sorts. I have some..." She takes a moment to think, but her expression is controlled. "...personal issues to work out about that. Which reminds me-" She turns to Prophylaxis. "Doctor, I would like to discuss this subject with you when you have time. I think you might be the person best fit to help."

She gives a mild smile back at Haru. "Ah, yes, slimes. This place would look nice with some of them around..." She comments, casual, notably not -super- excited, only mildly amused, and taps her chin. "Although I am afraid their high Ph would be detrimental to the overall state of conservation of the tomes. I would argue that it is wiser to keep their storage areas within a safe distance of each other."

And then the big blob of ink shows up.

"That is no slime! That is more like The Blob!"

A beat.

"...The Blot?", she attempts, brow furrowed, one eyebrow quirked.

There is no time to lose, though, and with a focus few people in the room have seen on her face, she magically grabs and lifts part of the black mass, swirling it around the room through a song-activated tractor beam emanating from her staff.

Prophylaxis frowns at Uta's sudden outburst. Now is... not the time to be delving into the depths of those implications. "I'm sorry," he says, frowning, "I hadn't realized. It must have been... difficult for you. Of course, we can discuss this later." But he turns to Haru, then, and shakes his head. "Uta's situation notwithstanding, nurses are extremely valuable colleagues. The medical profession would not be the same without their aid. They're not 'second-class' in any way, shape or form. To call them that is disrespectful in the extreme."

He doesn't reprimand any further, because there is other business to attend to.

Kauchemar finds her book, but she also finds... something else. "An Ink-aspected slime...? A slime that consumes books and knowledge?!" Uta is probably going to want to adopt this thing. But there's no way that they can just let the thing run rampant and consume all the valuable tomes they've come so far to claim! "How long has this thing been here? Was it released when the tower detected our intrusion to destroy any sensitive information?"

One way or another, it has to be stopped. The doctor's breath frosts on his lips as the temperature abruptly plummets. He strikes the stone with his staff, a wave of killing cold racing out from the point of impact to freeze the slime solid...!

It can't eat if it can't wiggle, after all!

Kauchemar uses her newly refined negative energy blast, though it's not enough on it's own. But at the same time Gwen unleashes her divine wind power, and Uta takes advantage of some of her syphoning magic, the combinations creating a sort of antipode effect of conflicting energies that serves to disrupt the Inkswell's engourgement from the books scattered about. Followed by some skilled on-the-spot alchemy from Haru to farther destablize it. It continues to squirm and spit noxious ink at them, but it's mass has stopped growing from the counter-attacks.

Arashi's water stabs don't do much directly, but they get more water in the ichor of it's body, which in turn makes the freezing blast from the Good Doctor all the more effective, patchs freezing over as the water turns to ice and the crystals stab it's body from the inside-out. By honing in on the core and then aiming at it through one of the now frozen patchs allows the dagger throw to sink deep enough to hit.

Then Syx punches it. With fire. LOTS of fire, as one would expect of a Salamander and a Scale member. Again it's an antipode effect, as the intense heat causes the frozen ink ooze to rapidly dematerialize as the ice is superheated past water and into steam and bursts out of the body. All that remains in the end is a few splotchs of gunk that dribble down between the floorboards, and several of the quibs that had served as fangs clattering upon the ground.

"Well this place certainly has it's share of surprises. No wonder she couldn't get in here to retrieve the book herself," Kauchemar muses as she tucks the tome she recovered away. "Good job, guys. This problem has been wrapped up Book, Line, and Inker."

Unusually Composed Uta seemed to have had fun with stretching the blob into complex kanji to reduce its cohesion (and probably practice her calligraphy?), before it got owned; at Prophylaxis's comments, she responds with a completely level voice, "Agreed, Doctor. ", and then, to the others, "Just so we make sure we're on the same page: please do not take my previous outburst as demeaning nurses. In fact- that is exactly the point. Their-" A pause. "Our?", she wonders, genuinely puzzled as to whether she counts or not. "Our profession is extremely valuable. And it is not that a rarity for real world nurses to have a medical knowledge equal to that of a physician, minus the title. They are not, in any way, 'lesser'. This is not, and has never been what I meant to imply."

"Well, folks, we did it!", Uta exclaims, her tone shifting to cheerful, as a victory demands. "We did cover a lot of ground, and nobody can say we've been spineless. I think it is important to underline that we've been all ears, we've read between the lines, we've shown character, and we've triumphed by a wide margin. Lots of manual work, but I think it is safe to essay that this party will, truly, be a font of inspiration for generations to come. People would be hard-pressed to deny this."

"And thanks to you, Kauchemar!", she finally exclaims. "Having fun isn't hard, when you have a Library Bard."