Duty Session 448: Investigating Payon Cave

There are many places which tend to be common 'leveling' spots throughout the world of Elder Tale. Payon Cave is one of those that people often explore if their starting Kingdom was Ninetails. There is a forest surrounding the area, and plenty of accounts of undead in the cave, itself. Though these are not usually the same undead who had posed so much of a threat recently.

Today, this is a distraction from the usual scouting or supply collecting around the war. This is just two Adventurers, exploring a dungeon the way that anyone might in less dire times. Rama pads along behind Mikage, approaching through the woods. "It's interesting that the Hunter's Guild has a quest here. Things must have changed if they're looking for people to clear out monsters."

"It's strange to be back here, after the undead swarm kept this area being far too dangerous to visit." Cyrus remarks to Mikage as the two of them approach the dungeon itself. As she mentions the Guild quest, he nods; "Yes. From what I understand, we're making sure this place hasn't changed too much with the undead presence having kept it occupied for such a long time."

He pulls a backpack tighter onto his back and leans in to rub Rama's head, before glancing aside at Mikage herself. "Let's get this show on the road, shall we?" The youth then remarks, rolling his shoulders and arms a bit, and taking out two fire potions. "Last I recall, everything here is vulnerable to fire and light."

"Light I can do, fire not so much." Mikage's skillset tends to lean fully into natural magics, with her most powerful techniques all leaning heavily into the powers of air and water. "So you'll have to take care of that, if we need it."

As they start moving through the woods to approach the cave, it becomes obvious that there are less and less animals. It is quieter, and that causes Rama's ears to swivel, looking around. He continues to keep them on the right trail, standing in front of the two Adventurers and padding along without any fear.

However, eventually the sound of clattering bones greets them. From a turn in the path, a squadron of skeletons come marching their way. "Well, looks like we found the undead."

"Way back in the day, you could use healing techniques to damage undead. Though they removed that, last I recall. Something about it being overpowered for leveling? I don't know." Cyrus mentions, rubbing his cheek a bit with a bit of a scratching sound.

"You know, normally there'd be a bunch of tweets and chirps here." He looks down at Rama, whose ears are moving all about. "Looks like your cat agrees - there should be more birds here." It isn't long before they come across the squadron of skeletons.

Cyrus flicks his light potion he grabbed earlier and makes for a baseball pitch. "Let's knock 'em out of the park, Miki!" Cyrus declares, before throwing a fast-pitch that creates a massive blinding wave of Holy energy right in the midst of the formation!

"Even if you can't use healing, you can still use Light against most of them. They tend to have an elemental weakness to it." Mikage agrees. She had played Elder Tale offline back in the day, which was an influence on both her future Angel and on the character she now plays within the game.

Cyrus' wave of light energy knocks a few of the skeletons back, but it seems to only impact the first couple. Mikage utilizes her bow for her own attempt, extending it out into the unique weapon: Dawnbreaker. Light energy is focused into it and fired, exploding into a radius around the skeletons. The two blows, combined, seems to be enough to skatter them into bone fragments. "Nice combo." She grins.

Not long later, they reach the entrance to the cave, which is easily enterable by both of them side by side. It opens up into a dark, smelly passageway that seems to be largely occupied by a group of zombies who seem to be mulling around. "Ugh, well, that explains the smell."

Cyrus grins, fistpumping a bit; "Nice." He recognizes the amount of damage Mikage does. But he's crowd control and support. He's not here to do the rediculous amounts of damage that Mikage does. "Alright. Next up..." He steps towards the entrance with her and then...

The smell hits.

He ughs and puts a cloth over his mouth. "You know, I'd like to have to protect my nose less in the future. I know gaming wanted to get more realistic. But the moment they added smell to the mix, I sometimes think they went a bit to far." He hurks a bit.

"Let's sanitize this mess." He then adds and throws two potions in a cross figure towards the zombies, trying to create an 'X' for the zombies to keep running against; "Firewall!"

Mikage offers a soft laugh. "Maybe that's something you should develop, then. Some kind of anti-smell ward." She raises her eyebrows, seeming more amused than anything else. "I'll take a little stench for the other benefits that full dive offers."

Rama doesn't seem to agree. Rather than trying to deal with the zombies, Mikage uses her specialized evasive abilities to simply weave between them without them being noticed. Rama follows, low enough to the ground that most of the enemies don't even pay attention.

Cyrus' fireball offers a distraction, though, luring them all in that direction and giving him space to follow, even if it doesn't really destroy them in the process.

For those who have been here before, the familiar mine-like tunnels with tracks and mine carts are all still there, though some seem more rusted than in the past. However, the tunnels seem to weave in a number of directions. Those who are unfamiliar with the caves may not remember which way to go, and it may take a bit to remember how to navigate the cave system.

"I'm starting to think I need to up my attack stats one of these days." Cyrus points out as his firey ability fails to properly eradicate the zombies. It helps them get past and hit that distraction. But boy, is he just not doing the kind of damage he'd like to do.

For him, the tunnels are indeed quite familiar. A few mine carts that he rather not touch, simply to avoid the Tetanus debuff. "It's been... a while since we've been here." He then remarks, rubbing behind his head for a moment. "I think we go... this way?" Cyrus used to be the one to help with the mapping. But these days, Mikage has been far more succesful at that. So he's leaning on her for this.

"It's something we can work on training. I mean, this place might be ideal for that sort of thing, since most of the enemies should be weak to fire." Miki doesn't utilize the element, herself, but she has familiarity with training techniques, having increased her own combat abilities and iaded others.

As they come to the winding tunnels on this level, Mikage takes a moment to consider her memory of this location. "I haven't been in a while, myself but..." She seems to be relying on her memory, as Rama doens't seem to have any idea of which way to go. The cat just tilts his head.

"This way. I think it's down along these tracks." She suggests. As they follow the passage, they come along an area that makes it look like something has made a home here. It almost seems like a ruined bedroom, complete with a single candle flickering.

Before they have a chance to look further, a chilled corpse-like male jumps out, moving too quickly for a zombie. Fast and agile, the individual proclaims: "I will protect the one I love!" But the voice sounds garbled, almost other-worldly in the process.

"It's certainly something worth considering. Though Air tends to be my best element still. Fire - as much as I am an alchemist - isn't actually my best element." Cyrus notes as they two of them carry on further.
"Anyhow, I am going to trust you on directions. You've gotten a lot better at figuring this stuff out." He points out, and follows her along the tracks. Preparing another set of potions for this, until they get into that ruined bedroom.

"Huh... I don't recall this chambering being herEEEEE!" The sudden corpse-like male jumping out like that, bouncing up and down, has Cyrus /immediately/ throw his prepared fire potion, creating a wall of fire in the way. "Geez. That thing scared me! God, I hate it when they /talk/."

"Well, maybe we can work on that, together? I could stand to train up my Air based magic, myself. It would help bolster my storm powers." Mikage explains, "Though, I doubt this would be the right dungeon for that." There were probably others with enemies more vulnerable to that.

The wall of fire seems to keep the undead creature back, causing it to create an unearthly sound. It also gives Mikage the chance to draw her blade, sweeping the weapon multiple times. Due to the low level of it, it takes more than her fair share of slashes to be able to actually do enough damage, but the monster doesn't seem to be able to put up much of a fight.

"This place has a good share of pretty creepy monsters, though some of them are more common on the lower levels." Speaking of creepy monsters, a girl seems to crawl eerily out of the bed, moving in a jittering sort of movement towards them. She flashes the two Adventurers a view of razor sharp teeth as she murmurs, "I hunger..."

"Speaking of creepy..."

"Hmm, training in air would likely mean going back to Byalan again, and practicing our lightning abilities to take down the water creatures there. That, or we head to the terraformer island innards, in order to deal with the elemental golems there." Moments later, their foe goes down.

"Phew, okay, so who was he protec~" They find out not a moment later. Hopping forward, the second zombie approaches, repeating words as well. "It's like they're just parroting something, rather than actually understanding what they are saying." Cyrus remarks, taking out a different potion. A dark one, this time. "That one looks like it might bite. I'll root it, and you take care of the rest!"

The Snow Leopard flicks the potion in his hand, then throws it forwards - black tendrils quickly webbing out and trying to grab hold of the creature, binding it to the ground. "Yes! Alright. It's all yours from there, Miki." Cyrus calls out, while covering the other entrances to make sure they won't get disturbed by any other adds or the like.

"I wouldn't mind doing that, though we might have to work that around whatever plans the Alliance comes up with." There is still a lot they don't know about future plans to reclaim Shibuya and fight back against the Palace Landers.

"Yeah, I've seen more of these before, when I've been deeper into the dungeon. They all sort of mutter the same things over and over again. I think they're supposed to be monsters based on dead lovers." Something that may be a bit unsettling for the two Adventurers who happen to be in a relationship. Thankfully they are powerful enough not to risk joining the dead.

With Cyrus rooting the enemy, Mikage nods as she summons up elemental power, using it to bolster her strikes as she moves forward, meeting the enemy who bites down onto her sword. Rama then leaps, clawing over and over again as Miki holds the beast at bay, eventually whittling down the damage.

As the enemy falls, scattering into light, Mikage looks at the teeth intents in her sword. "I really need to get this thing worked on." She sheaths the weapon and looks to Cyrus. "I think this is as far as the Guild quest goes. Want to head back?"

"Yeah, let's head back. I don't really... get unsettled by what they say. But when monsters start talking, I really get on edge for some reason." He mutters. Which is understandable. These days, the only real talking monsters tend to be the really dangerous ones. And it tends to wear on one's nerves because of that. "Let's head back, and talk about figuring out how to get our air abilities up."