Duty Session 462: For Whom the Bell Gnolls

    It all started with a small party of adventurers, a guild of youngsters who'd just started the game together a few days before the Apocalypse. Closing in on two years later, they're a solid mid-level group, gathering materials for the production guilds in the nearby towns.

    So it was quite a surprise to the guards watching the Cathedral in Fort Ouph, watching against Palace Lander intruders, when the entire group burst out of the cathedral at once, having respawned together, babbling about gnolls in the woods. Monsters powerful enough to take out a group like theirs are a major threat to the crafter guilds' source of materials!

    "Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to ERADICATE those damn gnolls!"

    Another guild leader nudges the old Pooka with his elbow. "Ixnay on the Mission Impossible riffs, Ted. Don't even get started."

    "Don't call me /Ted/, you old fart!" the pooka responds, tripping his friend with a quick leg-sweep.

    Watching as the two guild leaders start brawling like schoolchildren, Miyako just shrugs. "Guess we got us a quest," she says, turning to the group and surveying them. "Okay, we all know where to go," she continues.

    The trip out to the forest is quick, it isn't far from town after all. The Spriggan pauses as she sees the small forest of tombstones. "Well, -shit-." Clearly the gnolls have surprised more than one party here.

Kotono is watching Miyako discuss what's going on and she chuckles a little at the mention of a mission and the Mission: Impossible riffs. Even here you have to have a good sense of humor.

Kotono shakes her head as they start brawling and then looks to Miyako. "All right, let's do this!"

When they arrive and Kotono sees the tombstones, she shakes her head. "Looks like they're tougher than we thought," The Spriggan says as she draws her blades.

    Fuka would definitely agree about needing a sense of humour, though that's never anything she's been accused of lacking. Now a *good* sense of humour, that's another matter entirely. Some may question her taste, but the little sylph lacks nothing in humour quantity at least!

    "Hopefully not tougher than WE thought!" Fuka notes in something slightly too perky to be actual dismay. "This is a beginner zone, and while we may all be delicate maidens none of us are beginners. Right?" she asks around.

Goldenblade remembers Mission: Impossible when it was on TV. It wasn't a bad show, really. Of course this was many years before cable and the internet. When she arrives to see the Tombstones, she sighs. "Looks like they assigned the difficulty level incorrectly, again. Or the kids misread it." Of course /everyone/ is kids, to Goldenblade. Much as she's embarassed to claim it, she /does/ do a lot of the high-end content, and she's generally successful. "We ought to be able to do this," she says. "I did it not -that- long ago, and survived."

Haru is deep into a series of chims while assembling for an operation near Ouph. He wouldn't classify what he is doing is fun so much as something that needs to get done. A few notes are placed into a notepad that goes back into his navy jacket. "I remember collecting materials in this area," the crafter says. Thankfully he avoided tombstone land. He stands over a tombstone for a moment and takes a good look. "We are fine," he observes with a very neutral tone to his voice.

    Miyako nods. "Good, good," she says with a light smile. "Let's get to figuring it out." She paces along, following the tracks, until the group comes across a dark and morbid spectacle. Trinkets are laid out in some sort of ritually important pattern, apparently. And anyone with the slightest hint of magic can feel the power in the design.

    "Damn, that's... wow. How the heck? Someone's really been working on their arithmancy." Then she pauses, recognizing something. She squats down and reaches out to the flute that lays at one point of the design. "This... I know this one. Had a few good jams with Cai. They'd definitely want it back." More than one item in the circle looks to have some sort of sentimental value to it. Hopefully they can be returned to their owners, or at least to families for those that were looted from Lander victims.

A stone altar with blood on it. Real cliche.

There's something unusual about the whole thing and Kotono doesn't like it.

She gives it a scrutinizing going over, and somehow, she manages to get a basic idea of what she's reading on the altar. "This is making some sense."

Goldenblade follows Miyako and the others through the woods. Maybe her next project will involve bulldozers. They'd make short work of all this ... nature. Stripmines, that's what Yamato needs. Parking lots and shopping malls. Well, maybe not.

She takes a look at the altar and detritus of someone's ritual of some sort. As far as /what/ it was, she's no archaeologist, and just kind of looks around, as if some idea will spring into her mind. It doesn't. "Brutal monsters," she comments. It's about as much as she can work out.

    "Eugh." Fuka makes a face, looking around at all the blood and trinkets. Completely oblivious to the ritual enactment, she begins puttering about, cleaning things up and claiming things that may be of use and/or sentimental value to someone. "This is just nasty. Well, whatever they were doing here, best to just disrupt it and move on, right? Now where did they go from here..?"

Haru does not have a reaction to the morbid affairs as the party makes its way forward. It is all rather clinical as the white haired Artificer steps around the blood stained pools and looks to the altar. He kneels down to look at one of the trinkets, holding it as his the purple lens of his monocle is carved with white semicircles. A necklace rolls against his hands as he reconstructs what could have happened here. What is the significance?

He places it back down where he found it. Haru stands up and turns it for where to go next if there are no better ideas on breaking the site's circuit. The source is nothing magical or enchanting based he has seen that draws to the gnoll's power.

    Miyako nods as she studies the arrangement, and nods in agreement with Kotono and the others. "Ugly stuff. I -think- if we remove the right items it should negate the magic, though." She reaches out, and plucks the flute free, sliding it into her inventory... and as she reaches for a child's doll, she suddenly yanks her hand back, shaking it as if scorched. "Damn!" she spits, looking at her reddening hand. And the glowing red pixelation where two of her fingers were. "Craaaaaap. Okay, -fine-, game, you win this one. We'll do it the hard way."

    She turns, hmph'ing, and storms off into the woods. "Come on, you lot. We have gnolls to slaughter." Into the woods she goes, not looking to see if anyone follows or not. It isn't long before she comes across another massacre site, however, piles of broken equipment and shattered armor and weapons piled like some sort of sick souveniers. She glares right back at the bird that perches upon one pile, Spriggan to Corbie a match for one another.

    There's definitely something wrong here, and ... well, if it's the gnoll activity, that's not what Fuka's focussed on. She's kind of distracted by Haru being seemingly not himself. Or at least, not the self he prefers to be. It's possible he's this way because of her though, so she can't really think of any way to deal with it. Well, that's not entirely true either, she can think of something to do. But she's not about to do that here and now! She does, however, offer a hand towards Haru, trying to (lewdly?) hold hands while still allowing each of them one hand free for a weapon. "Yay slaughter!" she pipes up... but her heart's not exactly in it.

    When attacked by the carrion birds, Fuka presses in in an attempt to shield them both. Not that she's actually large enough to effectively shield Haru, but her armour might be decent enough to keep herself safe at least! And who knows, she *might* actually be helping!

Goldenblade looks around at the detritus of more fights. "These adventurers got farther, at least," she says, then acks as she finds out why some got no further. Carrion birds whose patience has reached its limits and have decided that they're now hunting birds. Dodging aside as one goes for her eyes, she grabs a helmet off the ground and goes to don it, to protect her eyes, but it turns out this helmet is still occupied.

She drops the helmet and tries not to sick up, bending over and clutching at her stomach as she tries to clear the image from her mind while avoiding getting her eyes clawed out. She winds up down quite a lot of HP before they're all driven off.

"Gnolls," Haru says as he motions one hand, "Slaughter," with hand number two. In true academic demonstration, he has one hand slapping the other in various methods. There is the closed fist into open palm. There is the backhand slap to open palm. There is the 'cleaning my hands of the situation' swish. Truly it is a demonstration of the creativity of slaughtering. It finishes with taking Fuka's hand and raising it upwards, "Combo slaughter!"

Into the woods!

The Artificer being close to Fuka works out surprisingly well with a bit of trust and coordination. After the first bird, Haru adapts his magical shield barriers to cover the areas that would be an overextension for Fuka and likewise he leaves the stronger, direct-to-core blocks to the mighty battle faerie. "Hey Fuka, I have bad news," he says very medical, "I'm afraid we /rock/. I know how Bore-ing Earth is, but lets roll with it."

Alfred Hitchcock died long ago, yet his legacy still lives on.

There are birds coming at the group and they are looking quite mean. Not something Kotono is looking to encounter.

In some cases, the best thing to do is adopt a good defense. Which is what Kotono does by bringing up her blades and crossing them in front of her. Fortunately it seems to do the trick, as the birds are driven away or hit the barricade quickly. "That worked better than I expected."

    Handholding? How lewd! Miyako wouldn't mind the chance to go for that with Kotono, but they both seem to be a bit busy at the moment. "Further, but not far enough," she snaps, as she continues to match the corbie glare for glare.

    There's a reason they call it a /conspiracy/ of ravens, and a /murder/ of crows. And the party discovers why, as the birds demonstrate their dissatisfaction with the intruders. Dozens of them bombard Goldenblade as she deals with a helmet that seems to have still been in use, Haru and Fuka seem to hold their own against the flight, and Kotono's blades seem to dissuade most of her attackers. Miyako herself flips a pair of war-fans from her belt, the blades cutting through birds while the flats bat them aside.

    Finally, the group is through, and the Hitchcock Fan Ride is left behind.

    And finally, there are signs that gnolls are actually near!

    Hoo! Hah! Hoo! Hah! Miyako finds herself muttering about Spartans and Persians, but falls silent as an actual gnoll stomps out of the treeline towards the party. Clearly a high-level version, equipped with an antlered helmet, a mace and shield, and actual armor as well. The monster continues its chant, in time with the beating of its mace against its sheild, stomping about.

    After being attacked by corvids, Fuka's strangely happy. Maybe it's the way she and Haru protected each other. Maybe she just enjoys clinging to him in desperate snuggle, er, struggle. Or maybe it's just that he actually attempted a lame joke or two! In any event as they escape the bird assault, she's in a pretty solidly good mood.

    "Yeah let's rock and roll!" she insists lamely and sappily. "Oh, uh... yeah I think I need my hand back now. You can have it again later!" she promises, grinning and pulling away to rest both her hands on her axe as the gnoll miniboss calls them out with that shield bash. There's the other chanting gnolls too of course, but she's not worried about that. All they need is a sufficiently flashy showing against the miniboss and the other gnolls will gno away!

    Fuka chants, channeling fire mana into her hands and up into her weapon. "You know what goes well with boreing, H? HOTNESS!" she cries out, her axe bursting into flames. Wooden shield... HAH! This is going to be fun! And hot!

An armored gnoll doing war chants. Unfortunately, Kotono's not a fan of these chants. She's not about to let this gnoll keep things going like that. She draws her blades and says, "OK, enough of this nonsense!"

Slashity slash! Kotono goes in fast with her blades flashing like light!

Goldenblade breathes a sigh of relief as the last of the carrion birds are dispersed. Apparently her attempt to take the occupied helmet annoyed them - that was their lunch after all. But they're finally dispersed and she's pleased to move on.

In tis case, though, moving on means facing some gnoll in some sort of homebrewed armor. A helmet with antlers, and wood plates in his armor. Well, Goldenblade has a solution for that. Slashing the air with her swords, flame leap out as if from a whip, and lash at the gnoll, burning away the improvised armor pretty quickly. "Try some of that now," she taunts, the fight joined.

There is a dramatic lament from Haru on the loss of the hand, "Thy hand, I shall mourn the loss of such a..." of course he gets it back later, "... deal." What shameless and Haru-like thing would the Enchanter have said?! One can only guess but the smile on his face paints the picture of what the result would be. His stiff demeanor warms up with the way the two of the handled those birder. Nothing like a good bird murder, birder, for the couple to really get things moving.

"So hot," the man with the monocle claps his hands together in an amused glee. A little bit of pride sprinkled in with appreciation on the effect. As a Wave Artes user, the Enchanter steps back while the front liners handle the front lines. "Like a volcano, sometimes it just has to," he begins as his casting orb glows a searing white red, "erupt." He thrusts down to the ground, pushing the orb into it. Spikes of fire press up in the form of erupting red vines that are ablaze, wrapping around the midboss in burning sears threatening to strangle, immolate, and debuff mobility.

    Hotness? Well, Miyako has to admit that Haru and Fuka are a /cute/ couple. ... but fire is hot, it's true. While the others move to engage the gnoll, she pauses, recognizing the magic in the gnoll's chant. So she adds her own verse to counter it, even as she closes in behind the others.

        Ho, Ro! The Wind and snow
        Flying o'er the Jericho
        When the stormy winds do blow
        Swing 'er off, and let 'er go

    And then it's a straight-up fight, as the party duels the gnoll to with song and sword.

    With the one champion fallen to the Adventurers' swords, a crowd of other gnolls hover by the treeline, watching, waiting. Not daring to approach those who've slain such a mighty warrior.

    Not all of them let fear hold them back, however. One steps forth, almost seeming to materialize from the shadows of the trees, smirking at the party and their 'triumph'. Whatever he shouts in their monstrous tongue is not translated, but clearly it's some variation on 'burn' or 'die' or the like, judging by the effects of the potions he throws! The vials shatter on the ground like eggshells (oh, wait, they -were- eggshells!) releasing not just flames but a noxious smoke, an awful stench that brings tears to the eyes. This clearly isn't the finishing strike.....

Goldenblade looks up as the lesser, flunky gnolls, form up, and the general appears mysteriously. "This guy now, this guy is serious business," she says, and then he's hucking potions and flasks everywhere. Smoke and explisions and green fire quickly litter the battlefield, and Goldenblade frowns. "Blow that out your ass," she tells the gnoll, vanishing just as an explosions happens where she just was.

She's not there anymore, clearly, and the other party members will see her HP on the party list, but seeing her is not something that is going on.

From nowhere, she comes up on the gnoll's blind side and delivers a slash, vanishing as he turns to face him, and her HP remains steady as he pelts the area she just was with more junk. Seems when use's using this skill, she's as insubstantial as air, except right when she's striking.

    "What did you say? He's got serious BO?" Fuka calls out to Goldenblade, breaking into a coughing fit as she catches wind of a sulfurous explosion. "Augh, I think he DID blow it out his ass!" she complains loudly.

    A rapid chant later, Fuka's countering the alchemy with blasts of air. Then she gets a better idea, lofting up freezing globes of magical water to solidify the potions before their containers can break. Well, as many of them as she can intercept, which is nowhere near all of them.

There's another gnoll causing trouble. It looks like this one is using chemicals. Not good.

"Looks like we need to blow this stuff outta here," Kotono says as she brings up her spell runes. "An air spell should deal with this nicely!"

That is, if it worked properly.

As it is, the spell turns into nothing more than a simple puff of air.

"Oh... no..."

Haru hurks. It was a nice time of slaughtering gnolls and puns before they had to bring alchemical alterations into the mix. "Bah," he quirks back, taking this whole stank situation rather seriously as he puts his finger to the side of his monocle. The read out of the material composition flies across the back end of his lens as he swipes out his menu to cross against a neutralizer. The green herb materializes into his hand. "I think you are onto something," he asides to Kotono, burning the materials like incense and helping with a Ai to get the area blanketing the mist. It is enough to handle a quantity of the gas potion bombs, but all that frozen support keeps the pressure on the neutralization front until the whole area smells a bit like strawberries and lavender instead of hurking sulfiric ass-id.

    Glaring at the oncoming gnoll and his potions of Unbearable Stench, Miyako takes a last deep breath of fresh air, using it to conjure up a chill winter breeze to keep the smoke away from her.

        Mister, I don't mind
        You callin' me a fool
        Better man than you ha' called me more!

    She continues singing, her fans batting at the air, twirling and dancing as she guides the wind to wipe the smoke away. The gnoll glares angrily at Fuka, water globes encompassing several of the potions in ice even before they can explode into their stench-laden smoke, but then Goldenblade steps in from nowhere to maul him with their blade!

    And while Kotono's attempt to blow the smoke away doesn't have much effect, she has help from Haru's incense and Miyako's counter-wind to bring her through it.

    The gnolls surrounding the clearing fall silent, acknowledging their enemy's victory. Even the shaman seems to be cowed, backing away. Of course, it isn't going to be that easy! This has to be the final boss, a massive gnoll with demonic horns and a draconic tail and heavy claws. And he's /fast/. And he /wants you dead/.

Goldenblade looks up as the /big/ boss arrives. "Well, this is going to be a bit of work," she grumbles. But then she vanishes again. She's kind of making a habit of this. But this time when she appears, behind the boss, with two swords in his back, he loses a huge chunk of HP. Her stealth attack on the other one was kind of effective, but this one is devastating, showering her with blood, or at least pixels, as he roars in pain.

"So you're the one behind all this?" Kotono asks as she draws her blades and grins. "Time to teach you a lesson!"

With a literal blur, the Spriggan races at the Gnoll, attempting to slice-and-dice it a little to show that she's not playing around anymore...

Except slicing and dicing only works if you hit the target. Kotono ends up missing completely and hitting nothing but air. "How could I miss that?!" She exclaims angrily.

    Filled with spirit and fire and having cleared the air (somewhat at least), Fuka's feeling really good about things now. So much so that she charges out at the boss, only to quickly learn the hard way that he's faster and much tougher than expected. She swings and misses, unbalancing herself, and the gnoll warlord takes a chunk out of her health bar with its claws. Hopefully as she screams and dodges and tries to get away from the murderous demongnoll she at least provides a good distraction!

Fast? Wants the party dead? Boss time! By this time Haru has a fair amount of his energy reserves for some good, heroic, stand-in-the-back-lines Wave Arts Casting. He knows the role here. It is debuffing! Take a fast bean like this here turbo gnoll and reduce its speed or evasion. Place some damage over times on it. "Woo, I felt that one back here, GB," to give a cheer on how brutal that attack looked. The health bar claps as well with the reduction of health.

The Artificer is not known for raw physical power. It has not stopped him from putting those noodle arms to use, though, if a certain fish will attest. So it is *very* surprising that when Fuka is getting assaulted that Haru charges in with little more than a clenched fist. *CRACK* One to the chest. *CRACK* One right to the demon gnoll jaw. Where chip damage should be expected, a healthy chunk of damage is pixelated off of the boss as he slides in next to the battle faerie. His monocle has an energized glow to it, as does his fist before the magic fades away. Noodle Arms, ho!

    The demonic gnoll is a tough, canny fighter, clearly one with experience fighting Adventurers before. The dangerous ones learn from experience, and this is one of them. He smirks down at Kotono, laughing at her wild swing, and reaches out to slam claws into her before Goldenblade's own attack leaves him momentarily stunned! The claw-swipe goes on to do the monster's best to maul Fuka, right up until Haru, of all the noodle-armed wonders, manages to deck the damned beast right and proper!

    Miyako has not been idle through all of this, however. She's been weaving her own spell, signing under her breath as she inscribes a series of runes on the air with her fans. Then, as the monster seems to slow - perhaps from its wounds - she races in, faster than ever, to slash at it with her fans as she joins the others in melee with the beast.

    In not too much more time of Epic Battle(tm), the beast is dead, vanishing in the traditional pixellated shower of light.

    With the demon's defeat, it is now clear that the remaining gnolls have fled, possibly to take up residence elsewhere in the woods. It's all too likely someone is going to have to hunt them down and finish off the pack... but in the meantime, there is treasure for the victors!

Kotono didn't quite do as well as she hoped, but in the end they triumphed. Now bent over with her hands on her knees, Kotono catches her breath before looking to Miyako. "I'm a bit embarassed about messing up those times, but I suppose I'm only... well, Spriggan..." She shrugs as she puts her blades away. "Hopefully, those gnolls will think twice before trying to cause trouble again!"

    Shaken and kind of hurt, Fuka's not exactly surprised to see Haru charge in. She IS surprised, however, to see him strike the demon gnoll repeatedly. And effectively! His training, from the fish to the vampire to all the other things he's punched to his own detriment, seems to have taught him something about how to fight with his fists!

    Step one: don't aim for the teeth, apparently.

    Well anyways, consider Fuka awestruck. And possibly considering inviting Haru to demonstrate his physical prowess to her the next time they're alone.

Goldenblade appears after it's all over, stepping out of stealth, checking her blades before sheathing them. "Is everyone OK?" she asks, looking worriedly at Fuka, who looks shaken and hurt. Not that she's a doctor or anything. But she can maybe help a bit. "That guy was pretty tough, huh? Got to bring the big guns for that one."

Haru holds a fist up high in a way that would make a Pilgrim of Scott proud. "Magic hands," he winks over to Fuka. Or blinks. Its always hard to tell when there is only one visible eye. He can be silly, but also knows when to take thins serious. And he seriously decked a mega gnoll. Effectively! A waggle of the eyebrows for a personal demonstrations at a later time.

    Fuka looks up at Haru, adoration in her gaze. "My Heeru~"

    Miyako settles onto a convenient stump and waves Kotono over to her. "You okay, Ko-chan? Looking frustrated there."

Haru asides to Fuka and puts an arm around her, one hand gesturing across the boss room wasteland of battle, "Woe to those that would beget malice upon the Fuka, fair maiden of lightning unicorn validated blessings. For vengence shall be swift." Yeah he is setting up something. "They won't gnoll what hit them."

Taking a seat on the ground next to Miyako, Kotono crosses her legs and sighs. "I feel like I could've done better. Maybe I can learn from this perhaps..."

    Miyako nods and slides an arm around Kotono to pull her close. "You'll get better. We all will."