Duty Session 441: The Deadly Caves Of Toxic Death!

The Adventurers reach a section of desert which looks just like every other section of desert: dunes as far as the eye can see. But by going off the route travelers usually follow, through an especially inhospitable stretch of sand teeming with scorpions and snakes, one can reach a previously invisible narrow ravine, whose presence was hidden by mirages. "I, Mister DesertGuide, welcome you to The Gorge of Death", announces the Salamander Lander from the Hunter's Guild as he points to a number of openings at the bottom of the ravine. "You will find the entrances to the caves down there." He gestures towards some pickets close to his feet, to which bits of rope are tied; the rope disappears past the edge of the cliff. "This rope ladder will get you to the bottom of the ravine. Go there, and rid this place of its worst vermin. Good luck!"

Under his projected aplomb, Shenmi betrays some nervousness. Whatever role he has in this party, it is clearly not the leader of this group, having stayed in the back during the whole journey.

Sumisu had portrayed the innocent curiosity through the trip. Dressed precisely as one of the landers from the town they set off from, she had affected a flowing dress and a wide hat that kept the sun from her face and her eyes in shadow as she meandered. She had been ... chatty. She kept her sword on her hip, and didn't bother with a sheath, and occasionally, a hand lifted to the sparrow pendant as her attention wandered.

"Oh, thank you!" She exclaims happily to the lander, moving forward to examine - wait, not the rope, but the pickets, before nodding contentedly "It's great to be welcomed to the I'm sorry did you say Gorge of Death begging your pardon?" As her ears catch up with her

Goldenblade is more than willing to lead, or at least to walk in front. Kids today, she sighs as she heads down the rope ladder into certain doom. She's playing hookey from what she probably ought to be doing, but the Official People are meeting soon, and she's not allowed to do anything useful against the Palace Landers without their approval. Not that she could, by herself, she supposes. But this is a personal goal, and won't take very long at all. "I'm mainly here for the first bit, there's a tricky challenge," she explains.

Miho wash here with another Palace Lander. Her mind shifts away from the plan of vengeance and terror she's been milling over upon the Palace Lands. One that's rapidly falling into the no pile. She seems to be in good spirits too. Her tail is almost wagging as she looks to Sumisu and Shenmi for a moment.

"So this is my first time running with you, what do I need to know?"

She tilts her head for a bit at both her liminal ring glowing faintly and then she turns to Goldenblad and grins.

"Good to see you and if we're lucky? We could get some good blacksmith material drops here!"

After descending the rope ladder, the Adventurers take stock of the caves. Greenish wisps of vapor waft out of some of the caves, and pool for a moment before a gust of hot desert wind dissipates them. Those are the caves with the more dangerous creatures, but the better rewards. In order to access them, the team will need to be ready to face a hostile atmosphere, either through special potions, antidotes, or plain old holding one's breath for a long time. It is rumored that unnaturally gifted armor forgers can improvise a one-time breathing protection, but this is way past the skill level of all but a few people in Yamato.

"The Gorge of Death," Shenmi replies for Sumisu's benefit, once he's at the bottom of the chasm. "They apparently like their picturesque names around these parts."

He turns to Miho, and bows. "Why, you should know that it's a honour for me to be questing in the company of such fine ladies!" With a flourish of each hand, he materializes two bouquets, one of which is offered to Sumisu and the other to Miho. He smirks at Goldenblade. "I'm sorry, only one bouquet per customer. But the honour still includes you as well, of course!"

When the niceties are complete, he'll look around the place, with a slow, repeated stroke of his goatee. "If you don't mind, I'd prefer if we went for the caves without fumes. I'm trying not to die and wind up back in Kallamore..."

"Is it?" Sumisu asks Miho with a little excitement. "I'll have to see if I can find them sometime!" She says hopefully.
Shehe smiles and rests a hand on her hilt, a casual familiarity "Nothing in particular for me. I'll just help out as I can. A little of this, a little of that. You know" A flutter of her fingers in a dismissive gesture

She smiles to Shenmi, taking the bouquet with a little laugh "It's been some time since I had these" She says wistfully, examining the bouquet with a contented nod^r
"I'd love to see how it's done" She tells GB, not quite putting the flowers away, but definitely moving to lend a hand with clever armor-forging fingers!

Goldenblade gives Shenmi a puzzled look. She's not offended at a lack of bouquet, being a crossplayer and not into the romantic or dating side in any event. It'd be kind of uncomfortable if she /did/ get one. She ahems and looks on to the challenge, and says, "-This- is what I'm here for. The rest is incidental." It's an armor forging benchmark that will showcase her skill as one of Yamato's premier armor smiths.

Alas, her skill is not quite up to par, and the item she makes does not work as it would have to. Which is a shame, because she's worked on a tethered hostile environment suit that maybe -would- allow operattion in such conditions. Alas, it's tethered, so not portable, and what she can improvise here is not enough.

Miho is on guard as she enters this location and she laughs a bit. "Oh, flattery today mm will get you somewhere." She'll takes the flowers and carefully put them in her inventory they would look nice on the counter at the smithy once she got home. She would nod in agreement about avoiding the fumes.

"Yeah there's likely someone waiting with a box of crowns there."

She looks over to Sumisu and says "You craft?"

She nods in agreement to Goldenblade and she too falls shor on the armour challenge as well.

Not feeling confident enough to venture into the most dangerous of caves, the Adventurers decide to head towards an area which looks relatively safe. They take some time to consider which cave to head into, and when they settle on one, a Lander rushes in to block their passage: A lanky old Salamander hermit with unkempt hair, a long beard, and wild eyes, he is dressed in tattered rags. He shakes his cane and yells, "Go away, strangers! This is no place for you!" Maybe the party can convince him to let them through, or maybe he can be bribed with some treat from civilization.

"I do" Sumisu confirms to Miho with a pleased not, then a small frown, studying the small smith closely and giving her an aside look before just nodding, but it's clear something is on her mind as she chatters "Swords, mainly. I'm trying to perfect the process from beginning to end, including using them, but it's certainly going to be more of a challenge!"

As they arrive at the hermit, she steps forward, and bows politely, a hand lifting to her pendant "We mean you no harm, sur, but we do intend to pass through" She says demurely "If you share your concerns, I do trust we may assist your own safety, as you have our own so firmly in mind"

Goldenblade eyes the Salamander, who warns us away, but she says, "Do you not recognize me, here in this lost cave?" She smirks, and places one hand on each sword-hilt, not quite posing smugly, but ... kind of posing smugly, and emphasizing the blades she wears. "Oh," the man says, recognizing her after a moment. "Well, I suppose you can pass." Goldenblade nods gravely and proceeds on.

Miho pauses at the old man and she thinks he's got to be fairly badass. After all he's living in what could be considered a dungeon after all. She'll ehad up to talk to him and she'll offer him a few gold poitnting out he'd have to get supplies sometime right and she wanted to pay the toll for passing through his home more or less. When that is out of the way she'll turn to Sumisu for a moment. 5R
"I run the Mirthrilscale Ironwork and I like your attuide I'm quite into smithing myself from kitchen knives, to armour but more so even weapons myself if your curious to leanr I might be able to teach you a few things."

After Goldenblade is let through, it is Shenmi's turn to approach. "Excuse me, sir-", he begins.

"You're one of them, aren't you?", the hermit cuts him off. "One of 'em Palace Landers?!", he exclaims, with a glare towards the Conjurer. "Are you here to wreak havoc like you did pretty much everywhere else?"

Sumisu's kinder manners, though, seem to calm the Hermit down, as does Miho's offer. "...You may pass too," he finally mumbles at Shenmi, who greets him with a tip of the hat as he passes by.

"...Thank you," he mumbles to everyone else, once he's sure the group is out of earshot.

The Adventurers meander into the cave they have picked. There are some rare leftover signs of the cave having been used for some purpose in the far past (perhaps by the Gnomes?), but very little remains; now it's mostly a hangout for all sorts of venomous beasts and monsters. The first few caves do not pose exceptional challenges, just a bunch of snakes, scorpions, and the occasional spider. A few caves in, however, something different appears.

For one, the cave is relatively small, compared to the others, so it would be easy for people to pass through it, were it not that a multi-locked gate still stands at the opposite end. People could probably lockpick it relatively easy, given time, the problem is -- there is no time: the place teems with large flying insects, about as large as a small dog. For some strange reason, they do not appear to be stinging the adventurers, but /biting/ them. Maybe they are just hungry, and someone can appease them with a snack? This is where some knowledge in armor forging would also come in handy -- not only to offer impromptu protection to those who have none, but since the bugs seem particularly good at prying their teeth through joints in protective equipment, to improve protection for those who are already wearing armor.

Shenmi rushes through the cave, getting a few bites in the process. "Ow. Ow! Someone do something about those bugs!", he grimaces, while he extracts some sort of leather pouch with small metallic tools from his jacket. "I'll see if I can take care of this," he says, and begins to work on the locks.

"I'd be delighted to learn anything you can offer" Sumisu says to Miho with a smile, though that curious look returns as they trot along. "It's odd to ask, but did you ever play pachinko?"

Then they enter the cave. One slap at the insects, one look at them as her eyes widen in horror, and she quickly moves to gather piece and set up protection around herself and Shenmi from them, layering pieces and encouraging the insects to come through built-in weaknesses. Where she smashes them with a rock.

"Well," says Goldenblade. "It seems a shame to waste all that armor work we did a few minutes ago." So, she will quickly repurpose and slightly adjust the breathing armor bits to cover her face completely, which is really the only part that's vulnerable to the bugs, her chainmail sufficiently resistant and covering the rest of her. She hrms at Sumisu, but it looks like all the crafters are out today. "You're new to the big leagues, then?" she wonders, a bit late to that game. "Glad to see another crafter getting into the main content."

Miho says "We can talk later on smithing then." She's about beaming and she looks at Sumisu for a moment "I have, it's rather popular with my older family memebers." She suspects they are off at some point playing again . There's not much she can do about it. she'll look at the task at hand.

"We're going to need to keep feeding our war effort with gear."

She notes before the bugs come and she's got her Katana out.

"Look for the joint behind the head strike there!" She also shows by doing so to several of the things.

Shemi grows increasingly frustrated at the locks stubbornly resisting his crafty attempts at tampering. "You little..." His increasingly annoyed language quickly degenerates from a composed 'oh bother' to the stream of profanity you'd expect to hear in the deepest boondocks with the same speed as his face flushes red with annoyance. "Leave me alone, you-" he yells at the insects biting him, swatting at them, and finally, furious, just slams his sole into the misbehaving lock.

The item shatters into pieces, and Shenmi is left blinking, his natural complexion resumed. "...well, what do you know, that did the trick," he comments, as he quickly resumes his composture and tugs at the lapels of his jacket to straighten it.

The party moves on, and after crossing a few more caves, reaches a point where they cannot proceed any further through dry terrain -- the cave dips into a large pool, with barely enough head space to catch one's breath above the surface. It is time to swim.

At first the scene is pleasant: underwater, there is no foul smell, and the scenery, instead of dead and barren, is graced by colorful plants which have somehow managed to grow among the gravel at the bottom. It is not long, however, before a group of curious creatures torpedoes into view. It's a group of dire Platypi with bloodshot eyes, ready to slash at the Adventurers with their venomous spurs.

There aren't many options, here: maneuvering, underwater elemental fighting, or trying to hide oneself from the creatures.

"I don't know if I'd call it the big leagues. Looking to up my game? Certainly" Shumisu notes to GB with a smile "I wanted a firm basing in each step of the process; from extracting and purifying the ore, to the armor it goes against, as well as using the blade once it's done. I believe that only by perfecting each step of the process can our weaponry truly reach perfection."

"I don't mean to pry, but I used to help run a themed parlor in Tokyo. We got a lot of new machines in, usually themed. I don't suppose you used to ...? You look familiar" She explains to Miho.

Then they come across the. Sigh. Dire platypi. There is a moment's pause, as she begins to engage clumsily with the water beasts - ice cracking into existence below her feet as she advances, ensuring she can strike with the straight blade before dropping through the crust of ice and thrusting below the surface, frost slowing the advancing platypi

Goldenblade follows along as we move through the door once it's open, and hrms as we come to the water hazard. "Guess we're swimming from here," she says with a smirk, and will hop in, gear and all, and swim. As she spots the platypi, she will fade from view, or however they sense things, and subtly slip past them and through to the other side, the plat.. whatever they are avoided.

Miho says "I am looking to up your game if you are intested. Ah yes I'm not much for mining, couldn't really got personal mining anymore back on Earth. So we just had to buy that part of it." She pause for a moment she stare for a moment as she looks the werefang over for a moment "Yeah Grandps loved the themed machines a lot also there was this lady who was one heck of a cosplayer at our favouite one to trip to." She noted before she loosk to the water it does not go so well for Miho. Glub!

Shenmi's using relatively standar water techniques to create sheets of ice between himself and the torpedoing semi-aquatic egg-laying mammals of action. Or, well, the monsters based on them, at least. It seems to work, and each time a dire platypus attempts to slash at him, what it finds is a icy barrier instead.

In the next cave, the party encounters a group of Poisonous Bears on Fire (yes, that is the actual name they inspect as).

The most pedantic among Adventurers will point out that, technically, they should be called 'Venomous Bears on Fire', because their claws will inject poison into you, but then an experienced Hunter will point out that attempting to eat meat drops from a Poisonous Bear on Fire will also kill you, therefore the name qualifies. The more pragmatic among Adventurers will point out that there is a bunch of them, right here, right now, and they are attacking. Also, they're on fire. At which point the Hunter and the pedantic will reply, "Of course they are. It's in their name. Duh!"

Case in point, there's a group of Poisonous Bears on Fire about to attack the party. Animal handlers can attempt to calm down the beasts. Were Fangs can use their monster form to look more intimidating. The rest of the party can be sneaky, and pretend to be dead. Or on fire. It is a well-known fact that Poisonous Bears on Fire will not attack you if they think that you are already dead, or already on fire. If your pretending to be already on fire is not convincing enough, maybe a fellow party member can helpfully set you aflame for real? If none of those work, one can always fall back on parrying the attacks, or running away as fast as possible.

Goldenblade peers at the Poisonous Bears on Fire, which are also, it seems, venemous, not that being bitten by a bear is a good plan at any time. Luckily, she's been told that flaming bears will not attack you if you're also on fire. That was a bit of knowledge she did not expect to need, so much of what she knows is like that, but it seems pertinent here.

So, flame on, and she wreathes herself with flames, channling quite a huge amount of fire with minimal effort, and will walk past the bears with only a few wary glances.

"That was me" Sumisu admits to Miho with a laugh "I was just logging in to do my crafting for the day, and ... well. Crafting alt." She says with a little gleam of amusement. "But it's good to see you. You look very well!" She says, pleased, as they trot along.

And then they are entering right, About To Be Pursued By Bears.

Not if she can help it! She slips a mask from her wrapped tunic, sliding it over her face as she dramatically proclaims "This appears to be a job - for TENGU" The wings of the brand at her neck spread, gaining dimension as feathers rush over her shoulders into a heavy cloak of jet pinions. The head of the tattoo rushes up, taking over her own as her nose elongates, tapering to a point below her deep red mask. Her shoulders hunch, though she loses no height, her body thickening to the form of a large, humanoid avian, coal-black eyes and feathers, though one that holds that straight sword with a calm, confident posture. "A Challenger Approaches!" She calls out. And seems annoyed she's not approached.

Miho is now soaking and wet and she's only able to make it htough with help from the pary once she's finally out of the water she's sputtering up water. She'll end up shaking it oiff and looks a bit like a scaled drowned kitten for a bit. There's no time to rest however.

"Wait really!? You were always good to grandpa and that time you were cosplaying as the Major from Ghost in the Shell..."

She'll talk more later about that as they run into the monster they have come to hunt. There are Bears freaking Bears, so what does Miho do? She takes a heck of a deep breath and breaths out fire, a whole lot of fire.

After Goldenblade leaves the area, with slow movements and a soothing voice ("Easy... easy... easy..."), Shenmi manages to placate the aggressive instincts of the Poisonous Bears on Fire for long enough to get to the opposite end of the cave, and dash out.

That was bad timing, because Sumisu's transformation, possibly along with her reaching for her blade, is enough to terrify the bears into taking a few steps back, leaving a free passage for Sumisu and Miho. Acting dubious and scared. Miho's final breathing of fire is the last straw, which causes the bears to run for cover into the next room.

The team squeezes into a narrow stone passage; it goes on for a bit, and finally opens into the central room of this cave: a wide space strewn with pincers of dead, or molted, manticores. Scorpions and snakes scuttle about, and in the center, a curious creature the size of a calf crouches, snacking on some sort of meat. The being had the body of a lion, the face of a monstrous humanoid, and the tail of a scorpion. Its fangs are sharp and threatening, and it is unsettling how easily it can rend through that snack.

When the Adventurers arrive, it looks up, and hisses. Its hair raises on end, and begins a frantic dance where it leaps left and right. Given its diminutive size and erratic behavior, one would be inclined to think of it as a juvenile specimen.

Despite being on the low end of difficulty when it comes to manticores, it's still a manticore, so the fight is still not going to be trivial. However, given how erratic, impressionable, and easily distracted the creature seems to be, perhaps experienced Monster Catchers can confuse it using their trapping experience. Or an Oracle can drive it bonkers by casting voices directly into its head.

Goldenblade turns off the Fire when she has passed, and follows the passage, stepping on any scorpions or snakes that get too close. Her boots are stout enough that normal varmints are not a concern for her. Manticores, on the other hand, are a concern. So much of a concern that she vanishes from sight. When the fight is joined, though, the party quickly learns where Goldenblade went.

Where she went is the mysterious ability shared by herself and Akatsuki, who's been even more hard to fine lately, that is to say, she comes out of the darkness behind the manticore, and without a word, uses her ASSASSINATE skill. The monsers HP drop in a huge chunk all at once, and it staggerss from the blow. Goldenblade joins the others in DPSing it the rest of the way down, looking pretty pleased with herself.

Sumisu assists, though really, it seems to be Tengu doing the work. The mask nods to Miho in agreement at the comments, confirming that, indeed, the small lady who is unaccountably not here was said cosplayer! For now, though, Tengu Seeks a Challenger!

The Manticore is indeed such a thing. The Tengu's mask rises, and those skinny legs shake the ground as it darts forward, past the beast; one quick strike with the blade severing a wing, which hangs a moment in the air before vanishing in a shower of pixels. One strike!

Things are not quite over yet for the group they still have one last trial to overcome. There is the big bad mnonstreat has lair in here. It's not long before a creature from European Myth if she recall right is before them. She'll draw her Katana and make ready to enage it. She'll talk to Sumisu later for now she's leaping at the monster going to town with her Katana!

Shenmi fans two decks of card into circles, one per hand. "Prepare to be amazed, astonished, astounded!", he states with a grin, and after pointing the edge of the deck at the monster, he begins to hammer at it with a nonstop flow of cards, that somehow always seem to replenish. The fan shortens on one end, as cards fly out, but he somehow manages to replenish it at the other end, by fanning out more and more cards. Each impact might not bring much, alone, but there is a -ridiculous lot- of them.

Until right at the very end, the fight intense. Goldenblade may have removed a huge chunk of HP from the monster with a single blow, but each blow the monster manages to land is devastating, taking down a large chunk of the adventurers' HP in turn, each clawing burns with poison for far longer than just the moment of impact, each bite wipes large chunks of HP. But the Adventurers have some trick of their own up their sleeve. It is only with the last blow that the situation is resolved in favor of our heroes: with a last shriek, the manticore shatters into polygons, and the exhausted combatants, with barely any HP left, can see a small Manticore pincer drop, on top of a small pile of similar ones.

The transformation ends as Sumisu removes the mask, the form of Tengu once more retreating to those brands on her neck. She examines the blade with a thoughtful air before she meanders for the remains, though her movements are stiff, and there are many slashes upon her. Finally, her voice is a little more broken as she speaks "An interesting beast, but little challenge to such skilled adventurers as yourselves" She notes, with a smile and a slight bow

Goldenblade looks around after the monster is vanquished, and checks, "Everyone OK?" Her own healing is cursory at best, she's not really a tank, she's more of a semi-off-tank, with wildly limited self-heals. She appears to be inhaling deeply from a flask, which may seem odd, but her HP bar is rising back up slowly, but steadily. "Yeah, that was pretty good, all things considered," she observes.

Miho dusts herself off after the fight and will fire off a friend invite to Sumisu before she notes. "Well it looks like we should get back to town and maybe get something for all us to eat, right?"

"Well, don't sell yourself short, fellow Adventurer, you did contribute quite a bit yourself." Shenmi comments to Sumisu. "Impressive swordfighting skills there."

"Yes, I... I think I'll heal," Shenmi replies to Goldenblade. "I have access to some basic healing spells. Nothing fancy, regular fare anyone with a similar build has access to. I think nobody will be needing any of this, but if anyone does, I will be glad to comfortably tide us over until we get to a proper healer."

Shenmi turns to Miho with a wide smile. "And the lady over there wins this game! I'm all for it.", he says, as he pulls a handkerchief out of his jacket, covers his hand with it, and proceeds to pick up the monster drop.