Duty Session 434: Investigating Payon Cave

"We should reach Payon Cave soon," Uta comments, glancing down at her map for a moment. The party has been trudging through the thick forest. "According to this tourist brochure, it used to be a mine, but now it's a dungeon overrun with Undead."

No, it's not a tourist brochure. It's a briefing sheet from the Hunters' Guld. With attached map.

A zombie rat raises from the ground, but Uta, without even looking, just skewers it with the bottom end of her staff, shattering it in one blow. "We should almost be there..."

Ayame's shield is on her arm as she pushes through the brush, her wand held out to provide a little constant light in the dappling shadows of the trees. Her hair is out of the bun, held in a low ponytail, though she's still in her usual stiffly formal attire.

"Does the brochure say anything about accommodation?" She asks Uta with a tinge of irony "Perhaps good places to get something to eat? Ooh, does it have a gift shop?"

    "Undead, more like FUNdead!" Fuka exclaims gleefully. "Hah? Haaaaaah?" she says in an attempt on pun solidarity. Know your audience, Fuka. Or... well, she does, which is probably why she's doing it.

    Always ready for a good dungeon run, or for that matter other adventure, Fuka was of course eager for this experience. "So, the real question is if this is a tourist TRAP. Huuuuh?" she grins.

"No...", Uta mumbles to Ayame. "But there's some tips for fun things to do." She looks down and squints. "...it apparently involves clearing the highest level of the mine... oh, hey! Fuka was right! Apparently it is." She looks up, "And don't worry, Ayame. I'm sure the accomodation will make itself obvious once we're there." Uta looks around. Nothing but forest for miles. And mumbles, "It will be overpriced due to there being nothing else available."

Footsteps, the sound of snapped twigs. As the party makes its way through the trees, the few little animals still around dart for their burrows, or nests. No singing cartoon princesses here, apparently, but to make up for that, look! It's a small squad of skeleton! There still is some fun to be had, after all.

"You're really killing it with the jokes" Ayame tells Fukaziroh without a hint of a glimmer of an iota of a smile "Are you secretly one of pundead?" She asks, all innocence

"Worse, the proprietors will be rude and make awful comments about one of us" She grins to Uta, looking sidelong to Fuka again before chuckling and continuing on.

It's only when she brushes aside a final few branches with her shield that she spies the skeletons. "Oh, but the entertainment is apparently good" She nods, the lilac light around her wand pulsing before rays of light leap out to slice through the undead "Four out of five. A skelly good time."

    The good thing about wielding a giant axe - well ONE of the good things anyways, is it's pretty darn good at wrecking bones as well as carving up monsters. "Oh hey, speaking of fundead, I GOT A BONE TO PICK with these!" she cries out, launching herself into the middle of battle gleefully. "I'll only be pundead the day I stop moving!" she calls out happily, either ignoring the meaner aspects that some might see in Ayame's taunt or taking them in the bantering stride they were no doubt intended.

"...The pundead...that explains -so much- about Kauchemar..." Uta mutters to herself, looking up and away while tapping her chin.

Rays of light slice cleanly through the bones, moments before the monsters shatter. It's like Star Wars, but with more skeletons!

Hopefully nobody finds the lack of flesh disturbing.

Fukaziroh's also pretty effective, except it's more like a butcher chopping through a bone. Do butchers even chop through bones? Well, this one does. And more shattering ensues.

Uta, well, does what she does best. Spin on one foot, swing the other, introduce the skeletons to her devastating kick, shatter, land, having advanced as part of the kick, and repeat with the next skeleton, in a constant dance of spinning, devastating, and landing. Through the combined effort of the whole team, the threat is dispatched soon enough.

The party has navigated through the forest and entered Payon Cave. The entrance is wide enough for about three Adventurers to enter side by side, though it narrows to two farther in.

Still, since Fukaziroh is in the party, this should be no problem.

It's dark, and stinky, and the reason becomes clear as the passage opens up into what was once the initial staging and organizing area for the mine. A large group of zombies are standing around, motionless until they spot the party. Then they lurch forward to attack.

    "Oh hey look, zombies!" Fuka notes gleefully. Fire being one of her stronger aspects, and her having mostly used physical might so far, she has nothing against breaking out fire to solve the situation. "And now they're zombies ON FIRE!" she notes. This... may not be her best idea ever. Because the problem with flaming zombies is they can sometimes keep going, necessitating smacking them around until they stop moving, which can be a problem whrn they're ON FIRE.

    Still, nothing the group can't handle right? Even if it costs them some mana and potion resources that might haunt them later.

"And then you'll help them rest in pieces?" Ayame asks Fuka with a little groan "Well, as long as you're axing them nicely ..."

It seems little in the way of bad jokes slows the secretarial sylph, stepping forwards, shielded and shining sleek slivers of silvery slicing lilac.

The glow dims as they enter the cave, and Ayame shuffles to the front. Tank, and all. She keeps the shield up, and as they round the corner, she barks a word; the rim of her shield sparking with flame as she charges in, leaving behind a trail of destruction! There is, though, a reason Tanks Normally Hang Back. And that's to stop getting flanked.

A few blows to the back reminds her soon enough

"WHY ARE THE ZOMBIES ON FIRE!", Uta exclaims, attempting to run from them. But it takes just one of them to grab hold of her, once, to set her on fire as well. This does not bode well for the HP bar.

After Ayame turns the corner, it becomes clear that this place was, in fact, once a mine. Tracks pass through all the major tunnels, and the occasional mine cart, generally in advanced disrepair, can be found tumbled by the tracks in various places. The undead in the caves, mostly skeletons and zombies, wander alone or in small groups and are easily dispatched, which is good, because the party seems to have become lost despite their best efforts, and right now, figuring out which way to go is probably more important than a couple of skeletons more or less.

    "A philosophical question indeed!" Fuka offers cheerfully as she continues to smash zombies down. She's scorched now, clawed, but still having plenty of fun. "Why *aren't* zombies ever on fire I wonder! Maybe they know smoking is bad for them!" she grins, then turning her pun assault back to Ayame. "I prefer axing them to leave in pieces, but that works too!" she laughs agreeably.

    After passing the undead guardians, Fuka begins to get the impression they might be lost. This ... is not new to the little sylph. Not all who wander are lost, but the wandering Fukaziroh frequently is. Usually she relies on Shiruba to find the path, but of course the wolfly one isn't present. "If your map doesn't show a way through, we'll have to find one ourselves!" Fuka notes. "I hear you just go through one of these maze thingies by keeping your hand on the left wall and just keep going till you find the exit!" she notes, putting her hand on the right wall and starting to lead the way.

"The zombies are on fire because it's the natural state of zombies" Ayame says after a moment "At least, all the zombies I come across with Fuka around are either on fire of they've just gone to pieces. I think the smoking relaxes them"

She chuckles at the jokes to the two, moving along, and she nods a touch to them both "You do that, and I'll mark the right wall" She quickly blasts a softly glowing lilac rune there, pulsing gently in the darkness "This way, we'll see if it's trying to keep us out of areas - some mazes do that, if you just check the left."

"The map just explains how to get -to- Payon Cave...", Uta mumbles to Fuka, while turning the map upside down and right side up again. Head is tilted, both ways, for extra help. "...I think the map isn't getting any signal in here or something..."

The party has made its way through the maze of twisty passages all alike, and have arrived at what seems like some once-important area. It may once have been a staging area for miners heading out in various directions, or it may simply have been an ore-rich area that was completely mined out until only the cavern remained. Something has made its home here, though. A small bed lies in the middle of the cave some hundred feet distant, and a dresser with a mirror. A lone candle flickers fitfully on the dresser. It's almost like a home for some sad, pitiful recluse.

Further investigation is prevented, however, as a frozen male corpse - much too fast to be a zombie, jumps out from a side passage and leaps to attack the party, mindlessly proclaiming how he will protect the one he loves with all his might. For some reason, he moves only by jumping.

"What is this?! A dire Q*Bert?", Uta yells, as she notices the strange locomotion of the attacker. She dodges an incoming blow, "No, no, I've seen a dire Q*Bert... and you look nothing like him."

    "Threaten the map with fire." Fuka suggests. "That always seems to work for me! Though I wonder, given how often I get lost, if I might try another approach some day.... probably not!" she suggests brightly.

    In any event it hardly matters, and the group finds themselves doing fairly well at navigating the maze of twisty passages. Well, as good as can be expected, which is to say they make progress. Eliminating options is progress!

    Suddenly OW! A fast hopping zombie. "Awwww who said romance is dead!" she notes as she gets slammed by the overprotective undead lover. "Dude seriously chill out, no girl likes a guy so clingy that he rises from the grave." she chides. And channels her mana protectively. It's a spell she's been working on recently so of course the spell comes naturally, and she even figures that embracing dark mana might end up giving her an edge on this monstrosity. Make it less able to sense her so she can wind up and smack it back into full dead perhaps.

    The spell is fairly quick, as a shielding spell must be, and the effect is decidedly strange. Fuka's skin actually goes dark as she channels mana into it, making her look decidedly ashen. There's something to be said for the combination of dusky skin and pale blonde hair though, so maybe the goth look is a good one for the tiny sylph.

"They don't all automatically update" Ayame tells Uta with a little exasperation "Have you been trying to follow that while we're in here? Just - just put it away and keep your eyes open" She suggests, shaking her head and glancing aside

"Does threatening everything with fire?" She asks Fukaziroh with interest "I do sometimes wonder how it might go if I threatened you with it" She chuckles a little, teasing a touch "Though you'd only burn for a short time, so many it's only worth a little consideration"

Indeed, the sylph is so busy teasing the other, shorter, sylph, she doesn't see the strangely slippery specimen until it bounds against her and sends her reeling into a wall! She quickly recovers, though she's left with a good deal more scrapes and bruises and mussing to that pristine shirt.

"I don't have any Fire magic...", Uta mumbles. "Probably for the best. No, I'd rather specialize in- AIR!"

Uta inhales, and blasts a high C so powerful the air ripples, and the mirror threatens to shatter.

Luckily it doesn't, and the blast is enough to, combined with the rest of the team's attacks, shatter the creature into pieces.

As the undead Bongun cries out in death, there is a stirring in the small circle of light in the center of the cave, A young girl, it seems, and beautiful, but with a tragic look in her eye, crawls out of the bed and timidly approaches the party in a series of what seem to be hopping steps. When she sees the party clearly, she hops forward, and when she gets close to the party, she smiles, revealing razor-sharp fangs. "I hunger," she says pitifully, "I hunger so much." And she tries to slake that hunger by attacking the party.

    Fuka, being an air specialist, can only gape in wonder when Uta blasts the undead with her own chosen element. "Hey!" she complains. "Why didn't I think of that? Oh well. Hey, what did you think of my new spell?" she asks, showing off her new dark-imbued skin. The darkness does slowly fade, but it's actually surprisingly good protection in the meantime, allowing Fuka to ignore hopping attacks and work on dishing out the punishment.

    Unfortunately their troubles aren't yet ended, and Fuka's protection is quite diminished by the time a new creepy hopping vampire shows up. She blinks. "Okay I take it back. This isn't quite as cringe, but it's also way creepier." she observes, gesturing to the hungry undead girl. "Back, cute gothy fiend! I have garlic!" she insists, raising her axe before her apparently as a cross. "Like okay, pretty, but after the last guy there's just NO way I'm getting close to this one!" she notes. "Aiyaa, you go ahead and give her a big hug! She could use someone with your... abundant bodily resources!" Fuka notes with a grin. "It's not fire, but it could be kind of hot!"

    Fukaziroh doesn't bother waiting for a reaction though. While others try to deal wiht the nonstop nattering of the little sylph, she's muttering runewords for sun, dawn, shielding and projection. In moments her axe head lights up like an actual holy symbol, at least if your faith manifests in purely physical murderous tools that is.

"It's a fairly neat one" Ayame tells Fuka with a note of interest. And a tiny surprise that she's not responding to the jokes. Hmm. She moves to lightly press the back of her hand to the shorter sylph's forehead, musing "Mmm. Only a small temperature. Clearly, not enough fire" She chuckles a little.

Then, as they trot on, she looks at the approaching woman, and blinks, stepping back "Is this your twin?" She asks Fuka suspiciously, then steps back *again* as teeth are shown "Oh, probably not, unless you're more committed than I thought to your new aesthetic"

She doesn't go with slivers of slicing light. No, this time, the lilac lances across; burning from her wand to wrap and restrain and hold the approaching darkling, pin her down for Fuka's attack

"Does it hurt?", is what Uta asks Fuka, in response to the curious coloration. "Because if it is no sign of health issues, it looks quite interesting. Darkness, if I'm not mistaken? Maybe we could trade tricks..."

As said -- there is no time for much banter. Teeth!

Uta raises her staff, intones a call-response tune that sounds like an angelic choir and an oppressive cultist chant are trading pleasantries, and two beams shoot out, red to envelop the monster, and green to envelop Uta, and restore her HP bar.

Between Fuka's holy symbol cleaving, Ayame's purple slicing light, and Uta standing in the back and quietly draining the monster and healing the rest of the party, the teethy creature is soon shattered into pieces.

"Well done, team!", she exclaims, with a sigh of relief. "We did it!"

    "It doesn't hurt at all any more!" Fuka notes, getting a bit of a thousand-yard stare as she remembers the initial experiments with gathering mana mostly associated with poison into her own skin as a 'defensive' measure. She did eventually get it right, but some of the earlier trials were very dubious indeed.

    She blinks as Ayame puts a hand on her, taken aback for a moment. "Wow. I mean, I'm not surprised you consider me that cute, but please, can we save the flirting until after all the undead are redead?" Fuka asks, not at all serious.

    The hopping vampire is quickly dispatched, since the team is well in sync and well-armed for taking on undead of all kinds between powerful magics and reliable smashy skills. "Okay, now we can flirt. Right?" Fuka asks, peering specifically at Uta. "Because that was really cool! I'd be interested in learning ... well, anything I can really!" she teases. But at the same time seriously. Learning new powers is great! And anything Uta's actually willing and able to teach is likewise great.

Ayame considers, and flicks Fuka's forehead "That for your flirting" She chuckles a little, but nods to Uta "I'm with you on that. That's a fairly impressive spell - one of your own, or learned from someone else?" She asks Fuka with interest "I can never keep track of who's making what, but I've not seen that particular one before"

She moves to prod Little Miss Toothy's remains with her foot as they vanish, and she gives a small, relieved sigh "That was creepier than it needed to be"

Uta does not look reassured at the 'any more' part, but she downright armflails at the suggestion of flirting. "I DON'T!", and blushes. "And, look, I don't care what you two do, just... go do it elsewhere, okay? I'm not looking!" She covers her eyes.

Eyes still covered, her complexion returns to a more normal hue. And no, she was not channelling elemental Fire into her skin. That technique has yet to be perfected (and besides, Uta has no Fire, remember?). "I'll be more than glad to teach you Shattering Resonance! I came up with it. Accidentally. When the glass golems pulled me up by my hair. Was effective, but the tricky part was getting to do it whenever I wanted to, as opposed to, well, by mistake. Maybe we can trade techniques?"

Uta turns, eyes still covered, to face where Ayame's voice seemed to come from, last time. "Oh, it was creepier than it needs to be. But let's not dwell on that. Let's head to the single overpriced dwelling place in these goddess-forsaken woods."

Pause.

"...I will need someone to guide me, though. I'm covering my eyes. Can't remember the reason why, but I remember it was a good one."

    "My spell." Fuka confirms. "First of a series! I got thinking that stoneskin's cool but not as focussed as it could be, and while there are amazing light-based shields there's a real shortage of using mana in a defensive and tactical way." she explains, warming up to her basic nerdery. "I call it licorice shell. Working on candy apple now actually, but ... well, still trying to work out the whole catching on fire thing from flooding fire mana into your skin. Now if only I could weaponize that!" she muses.

    Fuka turns to consider Uta. There has GOT to be opportunity in that reply. Perhaps a bit of seriousness... and some fun besides. "Uta, in many ways you're like a sister to me, you know? Only way way cooler than any of my sisters of course. So, for your sensibilities I promise, I'll try not to flirt with anyone while you're with me..." she pauses, considers, "Well, at least until H shows up. He's even more flirty than me and I can't help it! So please, keep your eyes open. And sure, I'd love to learn that skill! And you should be even better at Licorice Shell than I am, with your inherent power and my training!"

Ayame watches Uta. She watches Fuka. And then she looks at Uta. "I think I can promise that nothing's going to happen between us" She tells the Spriggan seriously "Fukaziroh is, I think the term is, a brat, and likes to make people uncomfortable. I just serve it back to her" There's a smile and a pat to Uta's shoulder "But don't worry about it. Just open your eyes and come along and let's find somewhere safe to settle."

There's a faintly apologetic look to Fuka in turn at all that comment, but she nods "That's definitely a cool idea. I really want to see what you come up with. I'm working on something with water at the moment - I'll show it off when I'm done."

Uta blushes another bit at the serious response. Granted, there is some confusion until all the gears in her head seem to click together and agree on how to process what Fuka has just said (it seems it took a bit longer than usual), but still, her hands lower, and she looks down at Fuka with a mixture of awe and respect.

At Ayame, she responds with a, "No dissing my sister! She's a good person, when she's not being a terrible person." Was that meant as a jab? Was it accidental? Hard to tell with Uta. But she did stand up for Fuka, even if with a sort of quiet politeness towards Ayame.

Uta scratches her head, and commets, "Well, uh. Now Fuka is my sister. Considering how Xander, Rylen, Morri, Uther, and Gwen have all decided to adopt me, and that Shiruba has been adopted by the latter two, and that Fuka is now my sister too... Seems like I'm slowly becoming related to everyone in Yamato. No wonder I have no romantic life, any attempt would result in incest!", she jokes.

    Fuka grins, not offended by Ayame's explanation, even nodding in agreement. "She's way too old and stuck-up for me." Fuka agrees, brattily. "Though it IS nice to see her let her hair down once in a while!"

    Besides, as much as Fuka loves teasing, she definitely doesn't love hurting others. Flirting is the most fun only when it's *not* serious! Fuka beams at Uta's warm defense however, and starts grinning at the later implications. "Well, you're someone anyone would want as a sister, or ... I guess a daughter, for those older people." she agrees. "As for your romantic life, we'll have to work on that! Find someone out there and tell them in nooooo uncertain terms that you're available and *definitely not* related to them in any way!"

"I didn't - mean to -" Ayame blinks at Uta's steadfast defense, and lifts her hands after slinging the shield to her back "Okay. Fine" She sighs, shaking her head and nodding absently to the two as she hunts for a way out "Let's just get moving, shall we? In case our toothy friend has more friends in here. One of those things was quite enough."

But she doesn't wait. She just moves on and out.

"It was just a joke!", Uta is quick to reply to Fuka at the suggestion of finding someone. Yes, there's your inspiration for your fire-based technique. "Remember, this is almost certainly just a videogame. We're hoping to get out as soon as possible! Virtual world romances... uh... never been in one, but I'm not entierely sure they'd be a good idea!" As if suddenly realizing something (which she probably did), she blurts out, "FOR ME! I meant for me! If you want to be in one, by all means, you have my blessing!"

"Please don't be offended, Ayame!", Uta calls out, chasing after the wand-wielding Sylph. "Was that too much? Too rude? If so, I didn't mean it that way... I was just happy to have a new sister... look, if you want, you can be my sister too? Everyone else is at this point, anyway..."

    "It's okay Uta... she knows." Fuka claims. Not in fact certain Ayame knows, but reasonably so. The little blonde grins at Uta's embarassment but the grin quickly fades as some of the Spriggan's comment sinks home. Not Fuka's choice... Fuka's fine with that, and doesn't much care what others think. But about the whole 'what is reality' thing.

    She lags behind, letting Ayame get ahead a bit. "You're probably right this is a game." she says. There's too much to suggest it could be otherwise. "But I think that's just more reason to do things here! I don't want to miss out on something worthwhile here because I'm afraid of what might be happening in another world to another version of me!" she explains. "I mean, it's fine to be worried about that. There's a lot of people who have something they want to return to! But I'm not going to sacrifice my life here for something that might be, somewhere else." she grins, a bit wistfully. What Uta chooses to do, that's her choice... Fuka's made her own.