Duty Session 449: For Whom the Bell Gnolls

    Today, is a June day. She's heard of a place where things aren't going well for the weaker adventurers. This is something June will not let stand... or she's bored... or possibly she's been drinking... hard to tell with June some days. But saving the lowbies and punishing the unrightious requires a PARTY. So random invites go out, just tagging people she recognizes from some of the bigger fights as being strong or at least willing to go into bad places to do good things.

Today is an expedition into the heart of danger, but it's one that Prophhylaxis has determined shouldn't be too much of a distraction from the war effort. The gnolls in this area have long been... something of an issue for lowbie adventurers, and with the Palace Landers preying on adventurers of all levels, any unnecessary hazards must be mitigated immediately. And so, the doctor has appeared in his hat and wizard (read: doctoring) robes, waiting for the others to make their appearance. Hopefully, they find the quarry that they're looking for . . .

Did someone say something about weaker Adventurers? Oh wait... they were supposed to be trying to /protect/ weaker Adventurers, not bring them along? Oops.

Tian apparently did not get the memo, but that isn't surprising. The former Palace Land Adventurer has been distracted as of late. Even now, they seem to be making notes on some pieces of paper, staring at each of the others gathered and making note of any headgear they might be wearing.

There are obvious signs that the Cait Sith is under the influence of a so-called 'Strange Mood', including the fact that their focus doesn't even seem to be on the here and now. With their hands occupied, the deaf Adventurer isn't making any sort of effort to communicate.

Tian is just there. Why? Who knows. Is this a good idea? Almost certainly not.

Schneider is always willing to set bad guys on fire. So, when the invite goes out, he'll accept it eagerly. He's a bit surprised to find it's not for blowing up Palace Landers, but that's okay. It wull involve blowing up /something/. This is Schneider, it will /always/ involve blowing things up.

He nods to Proph, eyes Tian warily, but nods a greeting, and says, "Doc, this is the one we'd discussed before?" He's brought the special spell he needs.

"Man I haven't done this one in like a year." Syx says as he wanders up to where the gathered group is, "Suppose that might be why these things have been running wild huh? We're all a bit wrapped up in other stuff." As usual Syx has no visible weapons, but his hands and feet which are all the weapons he ever needs, "So anything special I need to know? Or can I just slug my way through everything?"

It's Syx so he'll probably do that regardless of what he's told.

    Today is a day to work out annoyances and frustrations, at least for Setsuna. He has been a little grumpy as of late for those who have interacted with him, and is not exactly the fun loving, joke tossing person he has been in the past. Still here he is trying to socialize and get out with his friends and teammates before he became the grumpy necromancer that lives in the tower. That is why he has to make everyone suffer the next joke, "So am I to understand, someone forgot to put in a gnoll check?"

    June looks at her assembled ragtag band of rebels... or something. "Aren't you a bit short to be a stormtrooper?" she asks Tian, but then immediately getting distracted "Wait... we're looking for someone? Did Timmy fall down the well? Was your little sister taken by bandits? Are you infact a quest giver in disguise?" she peers at Schneider "Nah, I remmber you lots of fire everywhere." nods "Definately an adventurer." she shrugs "Well the Final Word isn't ready... but what can you, when ass needs kicking... kicking ass is what I do." she smiles. The frumpy middle aged librarian in barbarian princess chic just shrugs. "Well there are lowbies getting killed, and we have a war on, so it's time to kick some ass, save some battle fodder... er... wait..."

    She looks to the ground and switches languages to Elvish "Junie, you're not suppose to call lowbies fodder, they're people too... just like interns you can't just use them and then ignore them in the office meetings..." the system translates that just as it always does but there's really nothing June can do about that except learn Alvarian and that's proved more difficult than she's happy about... although that could be more about focus.

    She changes her focus back to the group and her language back to Japanese. "Everyone ready to go? Got your potions, got your weapons, got your meat shield?"

Tian will be fine. Probably. In the worst case, Prophylaxis has the spells to keep him alive. In the past, strange moods haven't led to people getting outright /killed.../ as far as the doctor's aware, anyway.

"It is," he says to Schneider. "Good. Hopefully the monster shows up and we'll be able to deal with it permanently. Or at least see if we can't learn anything from this infestation." He glances Setsuna-ward and just ... shakes his head.

"Punch everything," Prophylaxis adds to Syx then. "But don't run too far ahead." To June, then, "No, we're looking for a monster. We have business with it."

There is a confused expression that passes Tian's features, visible even through the canine-like mask that they wear. It's the slight tilt of the head and odd cant of the ears. It's very well possible that the Cait Sith wasn't even paying attention to the question and only caught the mention of 'stormtrooper'.

When it seems people are ready to go, Tian reluctantly stows the notes, giving a nod of the head before looking around, seeming to finally take stock of their surroundings. Their eyes seem to focus and unfocus from time to time, as if they were thinking about something and somewhere entirely else, only to snap back to the moment.

Pinching the skin between thumb and forefinger, they close that same hand, then make a motion in front of it like a shield. "<Meat shield, at your service.>" Apparently, Tian has no delusions about what their role is in dungeons like this, especially with so little experience with them. They follow with a thumbs up, showing that they are ready.

Schneider is remembered for fire everywhere? That's fair. The rest of the external internal monologue is just confusing so he ignores it. It's not meant for him. He smirks at Setsuna about a gnoll check. To Proph, he says, "Hopefully, yeah." He peers at Tian, the sign language being translated reminds him that they've met before. He checks his gear and stuff, and says, "I'm good, I think."

    Setsuna looks around and catches the head shake from the doctor but he knows, he knows the doctor is going to be laughing at his gnoll jokes later. For now he needs to get his game face ready as others do, taking a moment he checks to make sure his butterfly hairpin is properly positioned. Then he checks his dagger for quality assurance, and finally confirms he has potions. Then again he always has a surplus of those due to how often he goes out with a walking talking health potion . "So we are going after the glitch right? Think it is a gnoll pointer error?"

"I'll go ahead and fall in behind Tian then." Syx says, as he makes a motion with his hand, "You know, so they don't get totally swarmed by all the gnolls we're going to be punching our way through." He grins at Tian, "I got your back, don't you worry."

    June accepts that everyone is ready even Tian and heads for the area that has been indicated as problamatic. The small spitfire heads in with confidence and even a swaggering brashness. She heads after the gnoll tracks, showing that she is infact a shadowfist and knows how to track even if she is a crazy word lady that punches people. The tracks lead deeper into the woods and to an alter of rough stone. Rusty splotches and dark patches everywhere indicate blood spilled in sacrifice... even if no one here bleeds. There are numerous trinkets that seem to come from previous sacrifices. The area hums with a magical potential that disrupting would likely throw a wrench in the Gnoll quest for power. "Well... looks like this needs dealing with... I mean the blood is gross ... but it has to be just set dressing... but if it is set dressing then who... this isn't a pre programmed event if there are issues with the code so where DOES the blood come from...?" she looks perplexed but she does pull out her amulet letting it split into spinning rings that she stares at in concentration sweeping the view over the whole setting.

There always seems to be two sides to the Adventurers from Yamato, those who give suspicious looks, and those who seem to be supportive. Tian seems appreciative for Syx's offer and they quirk  a smile before nodding in his direction.

The deaf Adventurer pats the two daggers at their side. They raise two fists in a fighting stance, then knock the knuckles together. "<I can fight, but I appreciate the support.>" There is almost a moment of clarity in their 'Strange Mood' at that point.

As June seems to lead the way, Tian follows until they stumble upon the strange sight ahead of them. At the comment regarding blood, Tian holds one hand up to the other, wiggling fingers as if to indicate blood falling. "<There is a 'bleeding' status.>"

That, is when the Cait Sith becomes distracted with some of the items that are around them. Some of the objects fall distinctly under the realm of 'Accessories' so it seems to spark them into crouching down, picking up objects and examining them rather than actually doing much to help at the moment.

Schneider will advance into the quest area, following June, and he hrms at the trinkets, saying, "I don't think these are the same trinkets as before. I ... can't see how these ought to go." He reaches out to touch one, but pulls his hand back and rubs his chin. "No, I can't see how this ought to work."

    Setsuna looks around the area with the bleeding statue as he feels his hair stand up from the magical residue in the air, "Nothing ominous about a bleeding statue and magical energy in the air." Taking a moment he looks around, before muttering some made up words under his breath. A magical symbol appaers on his forehead, that looks like a butterfly and an eye interlayed ontop of each other , glows for a moment as Setsuna simply stares off into the distance. Finally he looks back at the group, the magic symbol gone. "So it looks like in a few minutes we will go over in that direction and find something about the magical field."

Syx just stands there and looks kind of dumbfounded a bit, "Man I hate puzzles." He mutters to himself, as he looks at the statue. He tries giving it a solid punch for the sake of trying that and most likely gets an <Immortal Object> warning for his trouble.

    June continues looking through her spinning rings and eventually shakes her head "I have no idea... nothing is coming up I can't even get the rings to line up right." she sighs. Then looks to the party as they all have their own input, but it's Setsuna she focuses on, walking over to where he indicated with his divining. "Ooh hey... uhm I think we find out we can't break this spell... but one of the gnolls was sloppy and left a trail over here." she says looking down at the drag marks leading off into the wood.

    She follows the marks of the clumsy gnoll until following them becomes easy and they reach a miden heap of stolen treasures. "Maybe there's a clue in here?" she asks looking at the ravens and crows with trepidation before one caw starts it off. "I'm going to punch the first Hitchcock fan I see I swear." she shouts as the end of the Birds is the begining of this trial. Maybe someone can find something to help defend against the swarm in the dross piled in the clearing.

Tian doesn't even seem to be trying to figure out the puzzle. Instead, they end up picking up the doll and examining it more closely. When the others start to move on, the Cait Sith tucks it away into their inventory for additional study.

It's no surprise that the Blade Dancer is quiet as they move, not really striking up conversation, either. However, at the sight of the heap of stolen 'treasures', Tian darts forward, clearly enthralled by the idea of looking for baubles and items that might have been scavenged.

So lost in their thoughts and explorations, is Tian, that the Wolf-Fox doesn't even realize the birds are attaking. Afterall, they cannot hear the cry of warning that comes beforehand. It is only by 'happy accident' that Tian manages to pull out a sheet of metal and props it next to them as they continue to dig through the refuse in search of anything that might be helpful to their research.

The birds clang into the metal, unable to reach the Adventurer.

Schneider looks blank as the thing is dealt with. Or not dealt with, as the case may be. But it looks like there is a Plan B, and he's good with that. Maybe a clue? Indeed. With the Birds remake going, he tries to throw up a magic shield, conjuring just after a raven lands on his face and starts clawing his eyes out. This occupies much of his attention.

He manages, with a bit of effort, to pull the raven from his face and he throws it to the ground, and he jumps up and down on it because damned birds. Wait, is there something he /should/ be doing to help the party?

    Setsuna watches the group go in the opposite direction he foresaw and just rolls his eyes, " You know I don't think the oracle of delphi ever had problems telling which future was wrong and which one was right." He reaches up and flicks the jade hairpin before he follows along with the group. Careful steps and a pile of treasure, a pile of treasure that screams this pile of treasure dares you to touch it.

     Then the answer to why one should not touch it appears, a single bird, then another and then a whole lot of them. No way is he simply going to avoid them all, instead he rips the bones from the ground and magically forges them into a shield he holds above his head as an umbrella. "You gnoll, with this type of weather I have half a mind to go home." He looks around to see if that joke at least causes a smile.

Syx patrols along with the others until the sudden swarm of birds comes for them. You know the old saying about how the best defense is a good offense? Syx always has that mentality, as he immediately jumps in, starting to punch and spin kick birds out of the sky as they come in for the attacks.

Hearing Setsuna's latest joke, that actually does get a laugh out of him. However the laugh is cut short as he grabs a particularly large carion bird from the sky and gives it a picture perfect backbreaker.

Prophylaxis had been absent for a short while, having hung back to make sure that the ritual site was well and truly dealt with. Only after the birds have truly set upon the party does the doctor reappear, a barrier of crystalline fire ensconcing the adventurers in protective energy. "Hmn. I don't remember birds being here the last time. Weird."

    June looks to Setsuna "The oracle of delphi was dying of hypoxia, and possibly emphysema or Mesothelioma... I doubt they were terribly reliable." She dodges into the birds, and with a soft haze she's replaced by a taller icon clad cow woman. She swats at the birds keeping her iron clad hide between the attacking birds and distracted Tian. Setsuna and his bone umbrella are okay, Syx is well Syxing it up, and then the crystal shield snaps into place. "Ooh good timing, not sure how much longer I was gona manage to keep damage down... even my iron scales only do SO much when it comes to contstant bombardment."

    Once the birds have been handled the party heads further in, just keep going IN and you'll find bigger monsters this is the rule of encounters that seems to be universal. There is the sound of yipping howls that the savy know as Gnoll war cries. But instead out charge some rabid hyenas, only to be followed by a gnoll hunter dressed in mad max armor and weilding a twisted wood bow.

Schneider didn't even know the Oracle of Delphi was real! "I thought that was just a place on the internet where you could see how closely a person was to Kevin Bacon?" Because he's mixing up the Oracle of Delphi and the Oracle of Bacon. "Eh, go home, why?" Apparently Schneider didn't catch the dad jokes. June's explanation of the Oracle of Delphu just adds to the confusion.

But the gnoll huntsman, that is an enemy he can face. One completely resisted fireball later, Schneider will break out some of his rarely used starter gear and fire a few arrows at the huntsman. Sadly, he's no marksman. On the other hand, the ground takes all the damage. Alas, that doesn't really help.

Unfortunately for gnollish archers, the bow has been rendered obsolete both by better bows and by literal cannons.

An arrow whistles by Prophylaxis' ear narrowly missing a perfect bullseye right into his left socket. With a curse on his lips, the doctor slams his staff into the ground and conjures a globe of roiling magma from the depths of the earth. Grunting with exertion, he swings his staff into the globe like a baseball bat, causing it to burst into a catastrophic cascade of flame, shrapnel and molten stone aimed directly at the gnoll and his sniper's nest...!

It takes a while until Tian finishes digging around, gathering up a few more items that have been discarded. Some look like they might have been pieces of headgear from Landers or Adventurers, each one in poor condition and stowed away for later. "<These will be helpful.>"

Once again, Tian lacks the forewarning of others, only able to read the reactions from the others. Still, that is enough to shift their attention in the direction of the arriving enemies. Grabbing for the daggers at their side, Tian draws the twin weapons and begins to move them in a circular pattern.

In the air, they draw out a magical circle which gathers together into a tight ball of fire magic. From the center of the circle, the daggers are thrown forward, casting the fireball towards the enemy.

    Setsuna, magical shield still acting as an umbrella looks over at June, "So what I am hearing is that oracles are almost always wrong so I should always do the opposite of what I see?" Its really more of him grumping with this new mysterious power of his. Then he sees the gnoll riding on the hyenas and he tilts his head, " I thought gnolls were kinda like hyenas. Is this a Goofy and Pluto situation?" The confusion of the situation has left him not even attacking, and you always fail 100% of what you don't try.

"Oh yeah, I suppose it makes sense that they'd have hyena pets despite being gnolls." Syx offers, as he looks at the Huntmaster and its minions.

Now Syx is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, and he'd be the first one to admit that. Which is why the first thing he does when the group gets attacked is grab hold of a rock nearby and huck it at one of the hyenas.

All that manages to do is piss off one of the hyenas that the rock bounces off of, and Syx quickly gets swarmed by a few of them.

    June switches to teacher voice. "The oracle at Delphi was a serries of young women who would inhale volcanic fumes, which includes a great deal of Carbon Dioxide, Sulfer Dioxide, and potentially microparticulate glass and asbestos. Get high on hypoxia and then reveal the future as told to them by Apolo god of the sun." she says "As they're depicted in myth they are infalable as they are divinely inspired. As they are quasihistorical figures, they would have been young women given by their families to the temple who were taught to get high on oxygen debt then babble about the shit that came into their addled minds to be 'interpreted' by a preist who probably was using cold reading or even hot reading on people of wealth and power to get donations for the temple."

    She hasn't been ignoring the fight however, instead many of these revelations are punctuated by an exhalation of green fog over the hyena's, stone slowly creaping in from the extremities until they stop moving, neat stone statues of beasts.

    "Beastkin count as humanoid monsters unless they're werefang or cait sith." she offers "So I think it's more... beast vs dire beast situation?" she shrugs a little "But I guess the Goofy/Pluto allegory is apt enough."

    Once the hyenas fall and the hunter is taken care of, the group can hear all the lowbie mobs shouting and staying out of fire ball range until a great beast of a gnoll general stomps into the clearing. The great leader has red runes burned into it's skin show it's infernal nature, it sweeps it's massive scythe. Light magic, someone who can read the curses infused into it's flesh are good ways to bring this fight down to a more usuall level. Otherwise smashing the unnatural with the natural is always an option.

Even without the gift of hearing, Tian has enough of an Adventurer's sense to know that they are not alone. The ears of the Cait Sith fold back in an obvious display of uncertainty and possibly even fear. Gold eyes flick throughout the location, moving from creature to creature.

It isn't until the infernal gnoll makes itself known that the Blade Dancer turns their attention directly towards it, curling a lip as they raise their blades once again. With hands occupied, there are no words shared from the crafter to the others, only a focus on what is in front of them.

Seeing the infernal marks, Tian begins to trace out familiar symbols from the Palace Lands, ones that are meant to contain and combat against forces of evil. The symbols glow faintly in the air as if they were trying to form some kind of containment that might help others be able to better do DPS.

Unfortunately, someone decided that the wizard classes shouldn't have ready access to the skill required to do intensive reading. However, that does not mean that Prophylaxis is in danger here. Oh no, quite the opposite in fact. He regards the demonic troll with a fixed, fearless stare and once more slams his staff into the earth. Large chunks of rock rise up out of the ground, aggregating together into a trio of torso-sized boulders. Glowing a dangerous, gravity-colored purple, the rocks sail through the air at the doctor's direction, crashing one after another into the corrupted gnoll...!

It's tremendously effective, as it turns out. Magic, clearly peaked at 'throw rock.' All further developments in the art has quite obviously been a waste of time.

Schneider huhs as June explains about the Oracle of Delphi. It apparently has nothing to do with Kevin Bacon. On the other hand, there's some kind of weird enchantment, and rather than leaping into the fight, he'll work on breaking that enchantment, and he puzzles it out, powering down the gnoll with the bat wings.

    Setsuna watches the general of the gnolls, stepping into the ring with the adventurers. "Finally the general of nothing steps up to deal with us." Setsuna makes a fist and spires of earth begin to launch up towards the general, the magic around the spires doesn't just let up after being launched though. Instead the sharp rocks move in the air as Setsuna guides them around the scythe and any other defenses the Gnoll may throw at them before they find their target.

"Ah finally, something I can actually work with." Syx takes a moment to crack his knuckles, and then his neck, throwing a few shadow box punches to warm up despite all the fighting they've been doing. Because he's about to do something stupid.

He rushes in without warning, roaring past the others as he drives forward, dropping down to his knees to slide along the ground as the scythe whizzes overhead. He kicks his legs out and continues to the slide down between the gnoll's legs, and then kips back up to his feet behind it.

Syx moves quick once he's back on his feet, grabbing a hold of the creature, and hauling with all his might to slam the beast into the ground with enough force to make a crater.

It TECHNICALLY counts as earth magic.

    June quickly looks over the runes on the infernally inspired Gnoll and she speaks out the name eblazoned upon it's flesh using the power of light and her own deep cow voice to make the name carry in a condemnation to strip power. Between all of the debuffs from the schollarly the others smash the General brutally, it can hardly be called a fight much less a midboss fight...

    The party continues on through the woods until they find the path that leads into the obvious boss chamber. A glyph burned into the ground. Then without even the benefit of a WWE intro song Haggar drops in with a loud crash as his huge feet impact the ground. However Haggar is looking.. off, glitched, pixelated edges and his inspect is full of bad data along with a new title: Deathcleaver. He drag shis great axe in a wide circle, melee AOE in-bound the fight looks like it could get choppy.

While most Yamato Adventurers would recognize Haggar, Tian most certainly does not. This is the first time they have witnessed the massive gnoll and his huge axe. There is a tense feeling as they shift into a combat stance, tail sticking straight out with obvious apprehension.

The last quest that Tian had gone on, they and Shenmi had barely survived. However, this time there seem to be far more capable Adventurers on their side. So, knowing that this will take their most powerful of attacks, Tian begins to summon up air that swirls around them.

The air magic they command is surprisingly powerful, throwing them skyward and giving them an ability to attack the huge creature at a higher footing. Blow after blow rain down with those twin daggers, slicing from the torrent of wind and striking over and over against the glitched creature.

Schneider finishes the fight with the demonic powered gnoll, having debuffed it considerably, and he follows through the woods to the boss chamber. When Haggar shows up with glitches showing, Schneider looks to Proph, but this is what they had planned before. He casts, saying the words that the mysterious hair gave him, and he intones the strange words, and BOOM, the spell is explosive, but it is attempting to burn away the broken bits of game. He's not clear on the details of how it works, but it seems to work.

And there it is. Prophylaxis' expression falls into a stern, stony grimace. "Alright. Let's see if this works as I hope," the doctor says, nodding towards Schneider, "Schneider. It's your time to shine. I'll head in and keep the thing busy."

How? He's a squishy mage!!

The doctor wades into the front line nevertheless, staring daggers at the flickering, glitchy gnoll. "Come on then," he growls, slamming his staff into the earth. This time, no stone answers him. Instead... His skin takes on a distinctly blue tinge, the temperature around him plummets. His staff glistens as it's covered in a thick layer of rime. With a shout, he smashes his gelid rod across the gnoll's snout in a clear declaration of contempt.

This is how you gather enmity, right? Well, whatever the case, the doctor barely even flinches when the gnoll smashes its axe into his staff, instead whirling and driving a blade of razor-sharp ice into its foot. Frost roots the creature to the ground, setting it up perfectly for... "Schneider, go for it!"

    Setsuna looks at the big ugly Haggar and just grins, "Oh it's this guy again, this is the guy we wanted right? " With out another word he slips into the shadows as he reappears behind Haggar, dagger drawn. With a single slice he goes for Haggar's hamstring before he blinks away again. In the end Setsuna just ends right back where he started and looks over at Schneider. "All you kid."

As soon as Haggar jumps down, Syx's eyes light up, "YES!" He was hoping he'd get a chance to fight this thing again. He'd been running the encounter through his head, and now was his time to get at it.

He was going to make sure Haggar was down once Schneider had done his thing, and as soon as the spell was cast, rushed forward, leaping up onto Haggar's axe, and running along the shaft, his form bursting into flames as he reached the huge gnoll's arm, leaping from there and wrapping one of his arms around Haggar's throat, to haul him backwards into the ground, with the firey explosion going off from all around him, engulfing Haggar in the process as he impacts the ground.

    Proph wants the boss distracted... June can do distracting. There isn't much more distracting than an iron clad bull of a woman charging in to slam her iron horns into your body and start savaging by tossing her head. The Gorgon woman continues the assault slaming her iron scaled head and iron horns into Haggar over and over ripping red lines in it's wire mesh. Once the explosion from Schnider seems to calm down the pixelization she works even harder until as a group they fully pixelate the boss leaving him in crumbling motes of light that linger rather than evaporating quickly. "That's a good job." she says "Hopefully whatever it was you were trying to do manages to unglitch this boss so we can get back to the war we're fighting." and out comes a flagon from her inventory. If she wasn't drunk before she started this adventure she probably will be by the time you get back to town if bovine chugging is any indication.