Investigating Payon Cave

Yeowang is honchoing the assembly of players to take care of this problem site in Ninetails, where the remnants of the undead army that didn't get caught up in the sealing have been a problem. The area is a bit hard to get to, and turns out to be heavily forested, and while there's trails through the woods, there's a solid canopy overhead. The weather is at least mild, it's actually nice out, and Yeowang looks over everyone who's assembled here at the edge of the forest in a little camp.

"Okay, we'll be walking a ways into the woods from here," she says. "It's trackless and not very well-mapped, unfortunately, but there are trails that hunters used to use, and I've got a /crude/ map," which she will show. It's not very good, sadly, it's kind of vague, with a couple landmarks like lightning-struck tree, and so on. "The Guild say it's good enough, as long as we keep to the trails." She's wearing a coat of dark forest green and black pants, with black leather ankleboots, and carrying a bow as her only weapon. Her long hair is gathered up into a large bun atop her head, fixed with a couple long spikes and a leather cord.

    Merek walks along with his dark attire on in addition to the hood pulled back, while he places a hand upon the belt with him. He nods a bit to Yeowang, "Do you know what we can expect?" the man asks. There's a look to everyone else, making sure they will have enough people, then he takes the time to drink from the canteen of water with him, "tYour map, your lead, I will follow ya."

Rushing in quickly, leaping from here to there and using acrobatics to remain unseen is none other than the green-haired Spriggan herself Kotono. The girl uses her agility and acrobatic skills to be almost like a real ninja. She eventually leaps into the area, landing in a roll before finishing in a crouched position.

"I could do this all day," Kotono comments to herself as she dusts herself off. She then listens to what Yeowang has to say and she nods. "Yeah, it would be good to stick to the trails, as that forest doesn't look exactly like one I'd go hiking in." The girl adjusts the hoodless cloak she's wearing to keep herself warm before looking around.

"Shouldn't be too hard to find our way, I imagine." Mikage comments, giving a nod to Yeowang. She prepares her weapons, Rama looking attentive at her side, with his ears perked. "I'd guess we'll see some undead, if we're anywhere close to the area that they had all the problems."

Rolling her shoulders, the Were Fang offers up, "I'll follow your lead. Might be good practice if we run into any place we can go sneaking about." Since Mikage had been training with Yeowang, as well as trying to develop her own new sneaking techniques. "If not, well... at least we know most of the people here can handle themselves in a fight."

The Ninetails Dominion has seen a considerable amount of trouble in the past few months. Where it's not dealing with undead swarming across the breadbasket, it's got invaders at the gates from the Palace Lands. And now... There's this. Leftover zombies, waiting in the woods to continue a guerilla war against the Dominion's people.

Well, as an upstanding(?) citizen(??) of Ninetails, Doctor Prophylaxis will not stand for it! And so the Doctor of Tolbana has come, standing at the ready with an inventory full of curative items and a full MP bar. "You'd think that these things would have just collapsed without their mistress animating them. But I suppose she's still got an abundance of lieutenants left scattered here and there. Mmn."

"Well, the least we can do is to wipe out a few more of them, eh?"

Yeowang shakes her head to Merek. "Nothing more concrete than 'Undead' that people were complaining about." What people were complaining, this far out into the middle of Ninetails, in the woods, is not mentioned. She smirks to Kotono as she shows up, revved up and genki, and says, "It's a nature trail to hell," with a wink. It doesn't really /look/ that bad, truth be told. The undead /are/ a recent addition to the land, so they haven't had a chance to defile the forest entirely.

She nods to Mikage, "We're on the edge of that area, so we're expecting to face fringe groups that weren't rounded up with the main lot." She agrees with Proph, "Indeed, we suspect there's some sort of lieutenant marshalling them in here."

Yeowang will lead the way into the woods, following a game trail as planned. It's not quite a normal woods, there are fewer woodland creatures than one might expect, and as we walk through, our eyes becoming used to the dim light, the lack of furry creatures becomes more noticable. An hour or so in, walking along the trail, which is comfortably single-file, though there's room to pass people if you don't mind the press of trees and brush, the sound of footsteps can be heard, and coming closer. Those with sharp eyes will spot a squad of skeletons, marching down the trail, coming the other way.

Mikage falls quiet, as is far more common for her nature as they start along the game trail. Rama seems to keep looking about, his ears swiveling as if to catch all the sounds around them. He stays close to Mikage, rather than ranging ahead as he might do in other circumstances.

It's the cat that hears the footfalls first, causing Miki to pause as she draws back an arrow and aims it forward, waiting for a target to make themselves known. A bit of light magic is channeled through Dawnbreaker. At the sight of the skeletons, she launches it, lodging the arrow right in the chest of one. Alone, this might not do much, but after a brief pause, it explodes with light magic damaging the skeleton from the inside out.

    Merek listens to the undead making their way through the place, and nods a bit to everyone. He will take a moment to begin casting support magic on the party, though it doesn't look like it will be beneficial to the party. For the time being he doesn't talk, they need to keep from taking more undead to them than they really need.

Skeletons, and they seem to have a bone to pick here.

Kotono decides to take things the magical route by casting a light spell. She brings up her runes and attempts to conjure a spell of light that will take care of those boneheads...

Only to have it fizzle out on her.

"When the lights go down on Kotono," She sings to herself sarcastically while moving herself out of the path of danger.

"Guerilla skeletons," Prophylaxis groans, "I can only imagine how awful it could be. Pits full of bones ready to reanimate and devour the flesh of the living. Zombified trees that bleed necrotizing sap...!" Prophylaxis shivers in the awful, terrible anticipation.

But the party presses forward, as it must, and soon finds its first obstacle. It is... /decidedly/ what one would normally expect to encounter on a hunt for undead in a forest.

...Undead! IN A FOREST!!

The woods themselves become a useful tool for Prophylaxis to exploit. As the creatures shuffle closer, he taps his staff against the earth and bids the woods to grow rapidly around their exposed bones, through their eyesockets, around skeletal limbs. The ones that are not torn them apart instantly are held still for the rest of the party to attack with impunity.

Maybe Prophylaxis should have been a druid...?

Mikage's holy magic is quite effective against the undead, their HP bars dropping preceptitiously. Merek's supprt magic buffs us, though the buff is kind of small. Or is it a debuff on the skeletons? It's hard to tell. Kotono is apparently not using the right light for these skeletons. Is Light even keyed that way? Proph, meanwhile, causes the forest to reach out and swallow the skeletal warriors, tearing into them, wooden shoots piercing their skeletal bodies. Yeowang just has a few that were outside the main mass to kick the stuffing out of, and after Mikage's spell, there's not a lot of stuffing. It's harder to get past the knot in the trail to resume the path on the other side, and it takes a few minutes to get back on the right track,

It's maybe fifteen or twenty minute later that the cave opening can be seen, low foothills causing the land to rise here. It's dark, in the cave, and stinky, as if not all of the undead have been undead long. The party enters the cave, that's what we're here for, and it opens out pretty quickly into what looks like a staging area for a mine. In the middle of the staging area, a bunch of zombies are milling around aimlessly.

Ugh, that smell! Prophylaxis recoils in abject disgust when the scent of raw, rotting flesh punches directly into the back of his throat. The doctor staggers at the scent, his Cait Sith form's unfortunately heightened senses coming back to bite him. While he does manage to conjure some flame, it seems the doctor is more preoccupied with incinerating the lingering stink-particles hanging in the air around him than with setting zombies ablaze...

"Stay close, Rama." Mikage reminds her feline companion as they continue forward, following the path that Yeowang has set for them. Lowering her bow, she keeps it close at her side, but not extended. The weapon is large enough it might be troublesome in close confines.

As they reach the entrance to the cave, with the zombies lurking around, Mikage seems to get a glint in her eyes. It's the sort of thing that suggests that she is likely under the effect of some kind of strange mood. "Perfect chance to put some of my theories into practice." And, with that, she utilizes some earth magic, pulling up rocks and using them to hide from the enemies, moving between them with surprising ease.

It's probably a good demonstration on how proper stealth can be accomplished even in close quarters.

Sometimes, the best strategy is to avoid conflict altogether. Zombies can be dangerous but they're also not good at detecting their prey it seems.

Keeping a low profile, Kotono tiptoes through carefully, keeping an eye out for any possible signs of encroaching zombies. Fortunately, the girl does her impression of a ninja quite well and makes it through unscathed.

    Merek looks to all of the undead while he seems to consider, then he does what he does best. "Ragnarok's Wisdom!" He doesn't like to avoid it, instead he will try to swing through any of the undead which he can fight, while he nods a bit to the party, "That, is easier than you know, avoiding."

Yeowang will take Doc by the shoulder and lead him around the edge of the zombies, going wide to avoid their aimless grasp, using her speed to remain ahead of them. They don't even /notice/ Mikage, who slips by entirely unmolested, and Kotono is through too quickly for them to react to. Merek is not so agile or sneaky, but the ones that lurch in his direction are consumed by FIRE and do not lurch after him after that.

Having penetrated past the entrance, it becomes progressively clearer that this was, once, a mine. The cart tracks are a hint. Undead are present in the maze of caverns, but by themselves or in pairs, and are easily overpowered. Now, to get unlost seems to be an important task, as we seem to be in the famous maze of twisty passages, all alike.

When Mikage emerges from her hiding place, she walks up closer to Yeowang in that moment, "Just like that, right? Utilize your surroundings and try to blend in as much as possible. I don't quite have it down perfect, but I'm starting to get the hang of using elemental affinities to aid in stealth." She's been talking like this for weeks now.

In fact, she is so distracted by trying to talk to Yeowang about matters of sneaking around, the the actual task at hand becomes secondary. Rama... however, is paying attention, at least. He starts sniffing off in a certain direction, and only when it becomes clear that the others aren't going the right way, he starts to yowl.

    Merek looks around a bit, then he sighs while he tries to find his way, "That map would probably be pretty useful, I don't know about where anything is at, I will admit," the man offers, while he follows with the party.

"OK, it seems we're in a bit of a predicament," Kotono says. "But I'm sure we can figure this out, just leave it to me." The Spriggan attempts to deduce which way to go by looking around the environment, hoping to find something of use.

Unfortunately, she comes up empty handed.

"OK, maybe that wasn't such a good idea," She mutters. "At least Miyako wasn't here to see me."

Mapping? Navigating!? "Damnit," Prophylaxis curses, "I'm a doctor, not a cartographer!!" In other words, he's going to be approximately zero help here. Maybe they'll bumble in the right direction even without cartographical help...?

Yeowang's class skill list does not seem to include subterranean orienteering skills, so she has no idea which way to go at this point. The ways all seem the same to her. She'll show the map to Merek again, but it shows the way /to/ the caves, nothing inside. That would be way too easy. Kotono has the same orienteering skillset as Yeowang, it seems, both of them looking around blankly, and Doc doesn't even try. He's got skills, just not this skill. It's Rama who finally leads us along through the caves, and when he yowls, Yeowang will go the way that he's leading.

The cave opens out again, deeper inside, into what must be some sort of mined-out node a hundred yards across or more. In the distant blackness, in the middle of the cave, a small bedroom scene has been recreated, with a bed and a dresser and a night table, almost like a home for some pitiful recluse. Unfortunately, there's no chance to peer, a corpse-like male, seemingly frozen, or radiating cold, for all that he's quite fast, leaps intp the party and starts attacking, crying, "No, stay away!" as he slashes with claws.

    Merek lifts up a hand while he brings about the energy shield with magic, then he uses that to bring protection for the party. "I will hold along the defense, you all focus on your things," the man offers, while he takes the time to begin weaving the fight.

Having messed up before, Kotono's trying to step up her game here by paying closer attention to what's going on around her. Her hands are on her blades and her eyes dart from side to side occasionally, not wanting to take any more chances.

And then that corpse comes into play. It's not a zombie but it's definitely fast! It's something that has to be taken care of.

Slash! Slash!

Kotono rushes in quickly, using her blades to strike the corpse quickly. "Back to the afterlife with you!" She calls out.

The one thing that seems unsettling to Mikage, is the sight of the more ghostly undead. They remind her a bit too much of those Japanese horror films. Enough so that she remains a bit back from the rest, falling quiet from her rambling about sneaking techniques.

Rather than speaking out loud, she seems content to deal with it from a distance, drawing down some of her storm magic to attack the corpse-like creature. Rama, on the other hand, darts behind her legs and peeks out from there, obviously more bothered by the whole experience than Mikage.

"This... What is this?" Prophylaxis asks of the frozen ghoul. "Frozen to death, but still mobile. Even when the water should have turned to ice..." But Prophylaxis is also one who has been touched by a being of elemental cold. The chill does not send shivers down his spine like it might for the others. Instead, he hoists his staff high and erects a globe of crystalline flame around the furious wight, holding him in place until he can claw through the barrier...

...By which point, the rest of the party aught to be ready to do what adventurers tend to do when confronted with hostile undead.

Merek and Proph's protections shield the party from damage, while Mikage's storm magic strikes the Bongun as it jumps around. It doesn't seem to walk or shift, but only to jump, which is a good thing it's in a room with a high ceiling. Kotono and Yeowang sight up close and personal with it, and the combined assault finally overwhelms it.

As the Bongun is dispatched, there is a stirring in the circle of light in the center of the cave. A young girl, beautiful but tragic, crawls out of the bed and approaches the party in a series of hopping steps. She smiles, and everyone can now see her razor-sharp fangs, and she says, "I hunger, so, so much," And she tries to slake that hunger by attacking the party. She turns out to be lightning fast, faster than the bongun by a substantial margin, and facing her in melee would be hopeless. Earth magic may mire her, or ranged attacks that can strike from afar. Holy magic, of course also works on undead.

From one frightening undead to another, Rama is seemingly having none of it. The feline just finds a rock to hide behind and refuses to go any further at the moment. Maybe it's because his master isn't quite in her 'right' state of mind, or maybe he just happens to be more easily spooked by them.

"It's okay Rama. You stay there, we'll take care of this." Mikage loads up another arrow, channeling her storm magic into a swirling vortex around it until the arrow is nearly glowing in the dimmer light of the cave. When it impacts, like before, there is an explosion. However, this one isnt' of light, but like the inner vortex at the heart of a storm. Electricity crackles and water surges into sharp shards of ice.

Dodging from side to side, Kotono thinks quickly. "Gotta take her down." She brings up her spell runes. "Let's see, maybe some rocks will take care of this!" She invokes her Earth spell runes, hoping to take care of things...

Only to end up throwing what pretty much equates pebbles at the target. "Not again..."

    Merek will take the time to consider it, then he uses the holy magic which he knows to aid with the party, healing them and protecting them while he maneuvers with the field of the fight. Eventually, when it looks like they will win, he gives all of them the magical healing of the power.

More undead. This one, Prophylaxis quirks a brow at, "Some kind of... Jiangshi? Seems to fit the bill. If it's at all like the legends, you don't want to let that thing touch you. Keep away, and try to keep it immobilized if you can!"

Of course, Prophylaxis /would/ be all out of MP for his big immobilization spells, /but/ that doesn't stop him from spamming a few dozen magic missiles at the creature before she can hop any closer.

It's not an elegant solution, but it works...!

Mikage's storm shots impact the Munak, making it shudder in between leaps, and draining her HP away. Yeowang is resorting to her bow, also, firing for effect as it leaps from target to targey, dashing away when she's the target, though as it dashes from player to player, it gets a couple hits in on everyone's health bars. Kotono's earth magic is not terriby effective, it seems, maybe a different spell might have worked better? Proph's Magic Missiles -are- effective, burning down the Munak's HP. Merek's healing power is also very helpful to recoup the damage that can't be avoided from the raging Munak as we whittle it down with ranged attacks.

The restless undead slain, the party is free to return to civilization at their leisure. A reward of gold from the Guild is given to all the party members.