Duty Session 493: Totally Typical Tomb

    June is being June, and apparently in a hurry cause she just tags a reliable person as she heads off towards the most recent outbreak of undeath. "I was getting ready to punch them all alone, glad someone was available." she says even as she jogs along towards the 'graveyard'.

Goldenblade is caught up in something? But it's June, so she follows along, hustling after her as she checks her gear on the fly. "We're doing what?" she says, having missed a couple details. "Something about undead?" Well, she caught something about a graveyard.

    June grins "Oh just the usual, undead in a memorial ground you know." she shrugs "But sometimes there are writings and stuff down where the source takes up residence." she shrugs "Besides always best to keep undead from getting too thick on the ground... I mean look at the trouble we've had all through Ninetails." she says even as she stops just outside the gate, the cloudy sky and opressive air indicating that yes, this place is unclean.

Goldenblade ehs about the usual undead problems. "Got to keep them down so they're not a distractiob while we're dealing with the Palace Landers," she agrees, giving her own motivations, but agreeing, "So I missed how they became such a problem in Ninetails. Did people not run duties there? Or was it just some world event?"

    Dogs, why is it that dogs are one of the main zombie animals? Ah well speedy undead puppers means speedy responses. Be that lobbing spells, firing weapons, or just fire if firing isn't someone's style. June readies herself taking up a pose with her new cestus creaking lightly as she clenches her fists. "World event I think... some undead queen thing, but best to keep her from spreading by keeping ours in check."

Goldenblade hrms at the undead dogs, and are probably, when wild, often found around graveyards pining for their former owners, or else strays looking for a bone to gnaw on. Making them the first victims when bad things happen. Goldenblade makes it a bit worde, though, blades stroking flaming blows, which does addtional damage. They're too fast for normal melee attacks, but a block with a flaming sword will set a zombie on fire, sure enough, and the flame lingers as the blades slash through the air.

    June clentches her fists and the engraved plates on the front of her cestus begin to glow with holy white light, and then she's in among the pack, her punches dealing extra holy damage and well it isn't long before the two higher level adventurers have blown through the lowbie trash monsters. "Never a doubt." she says with a chuckle.

    As the party continue on their path towards the mausoleum skeletal archers stop out arrows beginning to rain down. "Well at least they're consistant." she says as her iron scales crawl over her skin until she's in her Gorgon form.

Goldenblade doesn't have a gorgon form, and while she's considering shield training, she hasn't started it yet. What she is, is extremely fast, and she only has to zip twice from cover to cover, waiting until the archers have fired to move again, and then she's amonug them, and a melee monster like her amid archers makes bulls in china shops look careful and considerate.

    June jogs after Goldenblade, arrows skipping off her armored hide as she dodges any direct hits and then joins in... look far more the part as she bulls her way through the bone (china) archers. Once the indominable duo finish off the firing line June leads the way into the mausoleum and down the stairs inside. Once they get down to the end of the stairs it's in an ampetheatre. "Ooh hey Rincewind... sorry don't really have time to let you freak out and run away." She announces to the skeleton 'wizzard'. "Nothing like a good princess fight." she says her fists once again clenching... undead punching is the nature of the game it seems. But hey blocking dark magics with dark or bringing the holy light are options... but it IS Rincewind so a good pummeling seems to be a solidly viable option.

Goldenblade is not an experienced gamer by any means, but by now she's worked out that if you're not a spellcaster, your only real option against a mage is to rush them, so that's what she does, swords forgotten, she rushes the skeleton wizard like it's fourth down on their own three, and Goldenblade is going to damn well nail that QB behind his own goal line.

Rushing in, she tackles the skeleton around the waist, and starts to smash it in the face with her forearm, raining blow after blow on it, while it attempts to cast Get The Hell Away entirely unsuccessfully.

    June get's ready to lay a smack down to match her smack talk... and then Golden is just treating Rincewind like the nerd he is, at a football tryout. "Oo uhm... I haven't seen anyone beat on a nerd that hard since I watched a coming of age movie from the eighties." she says.

    June and Goldenblade continue past the crumpled form of one badly damaged skeleton mage and when they step through the next door it slams shut and an ominous voice intones "Looking for a way out? There is but one. The way lies forward, beyond that door. There burns a fire no waters can douse. How will you fetch the key before the flames devour all the air in the room?" The second door is large and imposing, but the hinges are on the inside, and the cold fire is impossible to reach into but the plinth isn't even attached to the floor.

Goldenblade collects her swords and joins June in proceeding through the tomb. She's come a long way since she started the game, confused by everything, new to fighting with swords, and all the monsters right out of some movie. Not even the sorts of movies she used to watch. But now they're stuck in a puzzle room? "Gah, I hate these, they're ... wait ...." and she goes over to the exit, with the hinges on this side, and sights, then gets out a mallet and a small metal bit of indeterminate purpose. She gives the hinges a wallop, and again, knocking out the pins with a bit of effort.

    June just stands by and as Goldenblade knocks out the hinge pins she helps move the door out of the way. "Bad level design... but then who really expects someone to just remove the doors?" she laughs and pats Goldenblade on the back. Then it's further down the stairs until they come into a dark room, flickering torches and boss music. Out of the coffin at the center rises a pale gnome who opens his eyes startlingly fast and then his mouth to expose fangs... yup... vampire gnome... the things you run into in this game.

Goldenblade shrugs to June about the physical design layout. "Hard to tell sometimes if it's a hint or a clue or an opportunity, or if the developers just had no clue. But I saw the opportunity and I took it. Simple as that." She does tend to live her life here in the game in a simple and straightforward way that a lot of the gamers seem not to find fulfilling. Maybe she expects less from life? Or she expects the challenges, so deals with them as a matter of course.

Now a vampire gnome is a different sord of thing, and her swords are put away again as she gets herself lost in the shadow. As the vampire steps forward to June, she appears behind it, and uses Assassinate, with a stake in her hand, to nail the little pest. But just because you've staked a vampire through the heary doesn't mean the fight's over, oh no. Or maybe it's not all the way in? She winds up in a flurry of punches and counter-dodges, pounding on that stake to drive it in deeper.

    June smiles when she sees the Vampire staked from behind, and then she grins wider. "Ultima Scriptum Ultima Ratio!" and then starts swinging like she's shadow boxing. However instead of random punches that fall short, the end of each punch the words engraved on her cestus peel away in a scripture of holy light and slam into the vampire with blinding flashes. Between a staking, a pumeling and a holy boxing... he doesn't really last all that long. June gathers up her loot drop and tosses the other to Goldenblade "Well, undeath well and truely punched. I'll let the guild know." she says and pulls a mug of beer from her inventory to start drinking before she thinks a minute and offers a beer to her quest partner.

Goldenblade will take a beer mug from June and quaff away. Fighting vampires is thirsty work! "That seemed easier than the last tomb I ran. Maybe it was lower level than what I usually run?" Or maybe her levelups have stacked sufficiently than even her myopic vision can't miss them.

But she nods about getting back to the Guild and letting them know. "Mission accomplished."

    June smiles "When we get to them eary they don't have time to power up I think? I'm not sure sometimes they're real easy sometimes they take some work to punch through so." she shrugs "Glad it was one we could easily handle. Thanks for coming with me, I would have had to figure out that stupid puzzle room the actual puzzle way." she grins "I never would have thought ooh just take the doors down." She sticks her tongue out drains her beer then heads off back towards town.