Duty Session 507: Karluin Reclamation - Labyrinth

They dug too deep. Deep in the keep. Karluin Keep. The party gathers at the stone door in the dank, dark underground. Rumor has it that the Keep is getting ever closer to yielding its final secrets. The Hunter's Guild has pinned to have this request as a priority mission. Priority alright. Priority stench with that of battles past. Iron and rot. A foul wind howls through the depths to threaten the experienced party. Taunting them that they are not up to the task to the terrors beyond.

Haru is here. Surprised? Makes sense. With everything going on with the war and political cat herding, having the Artificer responding to a Hunter's Guild Quest seems almost random. "Quartz," he says, holding up a small clear rock, "Silica ground and heat abound." Oh god. No. Haru is strange mooding. The 'hunger debuff' and everything in his inspect. "Deep into the ground we go, where ice gone earth shall sift and flow." And he is rhyming. Buckle up, he didn't need to be any more eccentric than he already was.

Asuna had an itch to do something useful. As much as she enjoys cooking, training her dire panda, and ABSOLUTELY NOT PINING FOR SOMEONE WHO HASN'T BEEN AROUND RECENTLY, she needed to get out of the house.

So here she is. With her dire panda. The fierce creature is currently giving a wary look at something on the floor. Probably a rock. Or its own shadow. Or perhaps an imaginary, undead tortoise that might any moment menace its rider.

Listening to Haru's uhhh.. situation and all, Asuna gives him a curious look. "Yeah, so.. maybe I got it wrong, but we're here to kill monsters, right? I'm not much of a rock collector."

Yeowang has met the party coming down the Tower. She did the Floor Boss this time, for educational purposes, and it turns out it was .... educational. Still, this is Yeowang, cool and professional, and stands rfeady when, on descending, she saw the party invite go out from Haru.

When she arrives, and realizes he's strange mooding, she sighs. She does the Wash Other Player command, which basicly dumps a bucket of water over their head and clears the Unwashed debuff, which at least makes him not stink.

She would understand about Asuna pining, she'd intended to join this game to meet her boyfriend in Korea, and that was 2 years ago. She hadn't seen him when we were isolated, of course, but she hasn't found him since the Palace Lands have opened, either. Onthe other hand, she doesn't pine, she's not the pining sort. She's the punching sort. And there's monsters.

Carbon, lurking near the shadows as ever, listens to Haru's words, a slight frown crossing his face just a bit, "We'll help you to find what you need here, you don't need to worry about that."

He's seen these strange moods before. People taken in by some unseen hand to give them a push they need. He'll see what he can do to make sure that Haru gets whatever help he needs for this.

"Monsters, yes," Haru faces Asuna to address her question. A wide, overly dramatic sweep, to the entrance, "Beyond is monsters, traps, puzzles, and a test of our prowess as Adventurers. An observation behind the glass, like rodents." He makes little rat motions with his teeth and hands to the side to mimic whiskers. And then he has water all over him from the bucket of water from Yeowang. "Yes," he exclaims to Yeowang, "we must pace and temper our excitement less we get too far ahead." Drip drip drip. A hand moves over his menu and he dries off in a hot glow. A hand on Yeowang's shoulder, "We shall prevail." Another on Asuna's, "Together, a band of brothers and sisters." A booted foot out to Carbon to high-five with feet. Boot-5. "Onward. Destiny awaits us."

Just as the party turns the first corner, things go wrong. Immediately. The dungeon etiquette of no traps in the starting area is overwritten by the worst of the worst: gobbos. What do gobbos go after? Your ankles, of course. Shins and knees acceptable. And in said lower areas of the body is where a thin trip wire is pulled on and broken like a strand of hair meant to snap. A heavy swoosh heralds the launch of several spring-loaded stakes from right where the party was standing. That one missed, but it is now clear this entire corridor is filled with traps. Luck and skill will be tested in equal measure or those health bars will be starting at a penalty before the group even runs into the first monster.

Haru considers the trap with great consideration, "Considering," the considerate human calls, "the nature of this room I can only conclude that break-glass traps would serve better than spring and pressure mechanisms." He presses his foot forward on the stake trap to watch them shoot out again. "Perhaps one with replaceable panes on one side when the gas is refilled. We would be coughing and unable to dodge well if debuffed, making our health deplete even further." A finger snaps. "A case study. Control group before the gas." He assumes people are on his wavelength here. At least he looks happy. Or crazy. Herd enough cats and you become a crazy cat bishounen. Either way, the Artifiver is off to dash through the traps as if collecting important trap data.

Asuna isn't sure what to make of Haru. "I feel like I'm on an adventure with a game show host." But seems amused. Until the trap springs. I mean really. Right away? Such poor taste.

Fortunately, rider and dire panda move as one and Tomoe is able to leap out of the way of the oncoming pointy objects. As her kind are not exactly known for their agility, the move earns a reward from Asuna as she offers up some fruit to her steed.

"So far, so good."

Yeowang smirks as Haru carries on after being washed, but he doesn't seem upset. Just all wet. She, herself, avoids the traps mostly by luck, at first, but then she pulls a small optical device from her belt and scans around. "Aha," she says, and ocntinues to scan, moving forward and calling a warning to others when they get too close to a trap. Sometimes in time, though not always.

Carbon takes a moment before he lifts one of his feet up and taps against Haru's boot, "Lets make it happen."

No sooner are they around the corner, but things start to get out of hand, the traps being sprung, with the were fang going into his usual stealth mode as soon as the chance presents itself. It's a bit slow going since he has to move slowly and quietly, and he will disarm any traps he can along the way in order to assist the other members in advancing, even if they may well find him waiting for them at the end of the trap filled hallways

Haru spends too much time looking for traps. Thats what a reasonable person might think. He is too busy taking /notes/ of the traps. Placements and the like. Not to avoid them, but to improve them. There is a lot to be said about the fine mechanisms used in Accessory Forging or the magical natures in Enchanting. There is a lot to be said about the red lines in Haru's shoulders as he is looking when he should be leaping. Asuna's assumption about Haru being a game show host isn't off! He is no Shenmi, but at least he is entertaining right now. Nothing that doesn't distract the Scale Ronin from avoiding the traps that he keeps setting off. Fortunately Yeowang steps in to give the real advance notice to keep the 'Barbarian Trapfinding' method occuring in the squishy Enchanter. It gives all the notice that Carbon needs to take out the key mechanisms to that the party can pass safely.

The party proceeds onward until they see torches flickering in the dark up ahead. The steady clinking and clattering and chain is heard against the stone. It doesn't take long to determine that they have stumbled upon a train of prisoners, Lander and Adventurer both, led along by an escort of goblins. It seems that the goblins are trying to move their captures deep into the tunnels now that the keep is no longer secure. They haven't noticed the party yet. It gives everyone the opportunity for the famous 'surprise round' where they can turn the tables on these nefarious creatures. Kill them with speed. Kill them with stealth. Liberate the captives!

Slavery? An affront to FREEDOM? Haru's Braveheart senses are tingling or it could very well be the grumble from his empty stomach. Much like the void that fills him in growling attention not unlike an angry cat, the Enchanter does what Enchanters do best. They debuff! A swirl of dark arcane energy prepares and drops blindness on the goblins in tandem to the stealth and range strikes.

Asuna pretty much sees bad guys, sees bad guys doing bad things, and she's on them. It's probably for the best that she can rain fire on them from a distance. Not literal fire, but she throws daggers at them. They fall swiftly enough. Which is probably better than being mauled to death by the terrifying long claws of an irate (but adorable) dire panda.

Asuna is satisfied that the enemy suffers losses. However, she is a bit disappointed that she hasn't gotten to stab anything with her sword yet. It's just not a dungeon run without getting up close and personal with a monster just before it's converted to loot!

"So monsters have the guts to take our kind prisoner now? I have been derelict in my duty. It's past time to cull this herd to extinction."

Yeowang puts her finger to her lips when we see the party up ahead, and will sneak forward. She is, first and foremost, a melee type, and will use that whenever possible. And if she can sneak close enough, she can!

So, it turns out the goblins aren't the best lookouts, and she can sneak quite close to the back of their formation with them none the wiser. Once in place, it's a matter of a grab at the last goblin in line and twisting his head until his neck snaps without alerting those in front. The prisoner he's leading opens his mouth to shout in surprise, but is so surprised, nothing comes out. Yeowang pulls a knife and cuts him free of the ropes linking him to the others before moving up to the next guard and doing much the same thing.

"Are those Adventurers? Or Landers?" Carbon asks, trying to sneak an inspect of some of the captives. It's not that he wouldn't rescue them anyway, he's just very curious if it's all Landers being held captive.

As the party gets ready to engage, he sets up with his bow, loosing careful shots into the group while the others attack in close quarters. But he has to be extremely careful not to hit his fellows, or any of the captives, making his shots slower than he would have liked.

Let there be stabbins! Ranged, magical stabbins. Stab tangent-- its not the same. Asuna may be completely and utterly victorious but a ranged stabbin isnt the same as a goblin screaming in your face before it dies in a pixelated death. Though with Haru's blind debuff, there is at least a little joy in watching them flail around screaming 'My eyes, my eyes!' in Goblin. At one point a goblin is staring directly /at/ Yeowang and it doesnt even matter, giving her the chance to execute the ones that do still have their vision. In moments it is too late and the captives are singing praises of their heroes. Their chilling effective heroes. Yes, a few of them are scared of Yeowang after the assassinations.

Goblins are not unintelligent. If anything they are quite intelligent! Brutal. Cunning. The edgelord kind of intelligent. They left a number of signs scrawled into the old stone to ensure they can navigate the tunnels. It looks like garbage or at least very difficult to penetrate artistic license. The party would benefit from making out this chaotic graffiti by getting hints as to where to go. Again. This is garbage. It even crawls up the wall and onto the ceilings like someone rolled in paint and flung themselves up there. Then it became caked over by whatever /that/ substance is that needs washing off more badly than Haru did. Even then, wandering may be in their future.

Behold, a Strange Mood mind may be in tune with this level of visual cacophany. "Reveal your secrets, hahahaha," he does the whole open arm villain laugh thing, that Haru. Really he is excited to put his newest Arte to the test. The laughter stops as he draws out his four ioun stones. They begin to scrawl in purple-black blacklight effect gylphs around the area, presenting graffiti of his own to the mix. Arcane graffiti. Its the latest trend. His purple monocle glows as white lines of kanji form on the lens for him to read, streaming information quickly to the Wave Arte user.

Asuna looks up at the.. creative goblin work with a wrinkled nose. "Is there anything about them that isn't gross? I mean what did they even.. no. I don't want to know. NOT AT ALL."

Still, there's some investigating to do, and some of it involves climbing. It just so happens that Asuna has a mount that specializes in climbing. Also in threatening butterflies and devouring carts of fruit. Thankfully those aren't present so far in this adventure.

With Tomoe climbing up the wall, Asuna is able to heroically.. make sure that everything is cleaned. Yep, that's right. Asuna, the Flash, is up here directing window washing efforts. Don't try this at home, kids!

Carbon always has some potions on him, some of them designed to poison knives, others designed to clean a scene of any leftover residue that Carbon might not want someone to be able to find. So the were fang tiger pulls one of those same bottles out of his pouch, and with a rag, uses it to sweep and clean off grime and filth from the areas that need to be cleared in order to decypher the runes.

Yeowang scowls at the goblin markings and frowns, but she's used to this, it seems and looks around warily. "The goblins hide information in strange places," she explains. "They can't keep a place like this in their heads, not most of them," but it takes some lifting of things out of the way and a lot of looking around to find all the clues. It's almost like she's done this before, though, as she points out all the bits.

Mischief Managed, mister Haru Nox. The Enchanter provides valuable directions as they proceed, made possible by the wet and wild party members keeping the scrawling clean like a minigame of Pressure Wash Simulator. ETO DLC. The system awards a solid silver star ranking, as it would take a flood to get the gold star rank. Perhaps in the next expansion they planned to release it, but the last one had such poor reviews that it is unlikely that the powerwash feature will ever be added in.

In the distance, you can hear the noise of goblins frolicking among the filth and muck Even after all that cleaning, there is endless muck in a goblin lair. You are getting closer to your goal, but you have also encountered more grotesque, primitive totems of goblin make. You pass by another one. Something shift. Something moves. The party finds themselves staring at a totem that wasn't there before. It trembles and bursts into flame. Hey totem, you do you. Wait. No. It is hurling itself towards you. Boundaries, totem! Boundaries. You'll need to evade the totemic onslaught because they are not going to respect your boundaries or your health pool. It is a defense system. Extinguishing the blazing projectiles makes sense or you could just dispell them. Or, you know, not get hit.

Did someone say Enchantment? No. "Look, I know I'm hot," Haru laughs, "but it requires a specific degree of heat to apply to the flux to create sand. The whole historical rumor about sailors discovering glass with campfire goods is just not chemically feasible," he says as he begins disenchanting history and, with these burning totems, their fire enchantment.

Totems, burning totems, what does that remind Asuna of? Oh yeah. PAIN!

"OW! Who the #### uses burning #### totems!"

She kisses her mom with that mouth?! Who knew she had such a saucy tongue. Who knew she could get so niftily on fire, too! So yeah, she didn't dodge worth a spit.

Also she keeps going on. For those looking for really interesting Japanese curse words, it's time to break out the parchment and get to note taking!

Carbon spots the totem when it pops up in front of him, and sweeps underneith it as it bursts, spinning around and rolling past another pair of them as they burst around him.

He drops to his knees and then onto his back, before he kips back up onto his feet. Once his feet are back on the ground, he activates sonic acceleration and races to the end of the totem filled route. He wonders if one of the groups that took the more brute force route had the same kinds of troubles.

Yeowang is right in front of the party, and primary scout, and though not the tank, her DPS makes up for it. However, she's been fighting people since age six, she's only been fighting weird monsters since she's been in the game, and the techniques you use aren't the same. So, while she fights savagely, she takes a ton of damage for her trouble. She does not look pleased by this, but doesn't comment.

The Artificer's disenchantment is super effective. Probably not something he should be proud of as he starts going on about how glassmaking dates back to Mesopotamia like a history buff that never got the hint that the topic is boring. Fire. Gone. However these things still really hurt when they are hurled. Like a bunch of angry dolls being flung at the party. They are well pelted on their way forward, like someone is getting rid of beanie babies from the barrel of a potato gun. All the four can do at that point is run. Carbon leads the pack, his Arte speeding past Yeo who is on point.

You run and make it to the gate. The gate falls and you emerge into the cavern beyond. There is a whirling. A humming. A churning. A number of elemental machines in various states of disrepair litter the ground. Several are being worked on by goblin technicians. BUt the ruckus you've raised has also gathered quite a response by the goblin populace. In the distance you can see a a goblin wearing a crown being escorted further into caves by a few burly bodyguards. To get to the king, you're going to have to slaughter your way through a truly absurd number of goblins. Really. Its unfathomable. The whole Hobbit scene with the Goblin King? Doesn't even cover it. If you're not careful you might end up bogged down by their sheer numbers like a zombie movie. Large area-of-effect attacks are the key to victory here and the only way you're going to get out of this without being buried under the sheer mass of gobbos. Did you want Hard Mode ticked off? Of course you do. Add in that this has to be done while keeping track of the Goblin King's retreat. However if you pull this off you will all be able to rightfully claim the title of Goblin Slayers.

Haru could go for another title. Most of all he is bothered by the crowned king and the misuse of enchantments. Double trigger. "You thought those little enchantments were hot stuff?" Haru takes a step back as his ioun stones begin to slowly float around him. This one has a long cast and he is going to need help from Asuna, Yeowang, and Carbon to pull it off. "Allow me to introduce you to a beautiful hell," he grins. The golf ball sized stones that serve as Haru's Wave Arte focus begin to swirl around each other, metal humming against metal. They sing out in an all too shrill tone. "Rrha yant ga guaysu fowrlle yorr." The mana bar on Haru's party HUD drains like someone poked a hole in one. It finally stops. Snow begins to fall from the ceiling of the arena. It is pretty. Something that fits the wintery season. Haru is going to kill them with sniffles? "Ashfall," Haru says with his own voice, independant from the Hymmnos-like metal, "Snowblind." Like a blizzard, the snow whips around the goblin horde, the downy flakes exposing themselves as white hot volcanic ash that aim to burn and burn them like Pompei.

Asuna doesn't have any AoE attacks. She *IS* an AoE attack. From the back of Tomoe, the goblin hordes are nothing but a festival of potential carnage. Where she hides all those daggers she throws is a secret that only one person knows. Probably. And he's NOT BEEN AROUND TO VISIT FOR WEEKS!

Ahem.

Anyway, Asuna kills things. A lot of things. If any goblins try to crowd in too close, they lose limbs to a fiery-eyed red panda. Tomoe even rears up and then comes crashing down, flattening a half dozen or so of the stinky little bastards in one go. It's really pretty cute, honestly.

Yeowang has raised a ruckus, indeed, and a goblin king being hustled off by guards is a high-value target, which as a Shadowfist is basically her primary mission. And if she'd got to carve her way through the goblin army to get to that target, that's not a requirement that will give her pause.

On the other hand, there's a lot of goblins, so she will drop a few traps to channel them into killzones, replentishing them as necessary. The killzone is right in front of her, where a brutal kick or a hard punch will often one-shot the weaker goblins, and any that don't wind up as pixels go flying.

So many Goblins, coming in from seemingly every direction. Carbon sets up close to Haru, in order to give himself the most range he can as the spell gets prepared. The cast time on this thing must be crazy, but what it'll do to the horde is more than enough to get Carbon on board to defend Haru while he casts it.

The were is mostly known for his precision shots, which he is more than capable of nailing on goblins as they swarm, but he will need to work on perfecting some AoE attacks, because it seems he may still be a bit lacking on that front.

Big cast is big. Problem with big casts? Interupts. It takes a concentrated team effort to take out the healthier of goblins that are making their way to the party's position from Tomoe, Asuna, Carbon, and Yeowang while the caster in the back unleashes a beautiful death. The burning damage over time is enough to take out the weak goblins in swaths like a flamethrower to a swarm. The arena wide effect holds its grounds, uninterupted, as the final goblin is laid low by the ranged-hunter team. The final burst of light shows that it is dead and a silly amount of XP and low-class loot lay at their disposal. Also the filthy room has been purged with fire. Haru dusts his hands off.

Leaving a path of snow laden carnage in your wake, you finally catch up with the Goblin King. Mostly. You are a few moments too late. The wily creature steps past a set of doors that slide shut behind him. Standing in your way is a goblin of unusual size and of unusual equipment. His gear is practically sparkling and far greater quality than his fellows. Standing almost ten feet tall, this Goblin Paladin is outfitted in the very best that the goblins have been able to acquire. Much of his gear seems to have been previously adventurer owned or made. Worse, he seems to have the stamina to shrug off wounds that penetrate his armor. Taking him down will be an endurance match against an elite combatant who has commited himself to either victory or death. You may be able to find gaps in his gear to exploit that the extensive modification needed to fit his huge frame. Or. And throwing it out here. You could stab him a great number of times until he is dead.

Haru is on team 'stab a goblin' only he didn't bring his lightning rapier. True that Asuna and Haru have a lot in common there. Only he is a noodly armed squishy caster that needs magic to be fancy and Asuna just is fancy. And has a dire red panda backing her up. Time to grab a sword. Time to be a hero. A Heeru. Nope! Time to support your team. His time to shine was the goblin horde. This time around he does what an oldschool Enchanter does and provides a Mana Regeneration effect to the party for what is surely to become an endurance battle. Its been a long journey and this show is for the brawlers of the party. Finish strong!

Big stupid goblin paladin with a bunch of stolen gear? FOR ME?! You shouldn't have.

Asuna couldn't possibly look happier. Sure, the armor is great and the thing takes a LOT of damage. But if she has any trouble stabbing the living hell out of the thing, she makes no sign of it. If anything, her motions weave into a dance not just with the enemy, but with Yeowang, as well. She's rather liked the martial artist's style and prowess, and so Asuna is finding her own unique way to fit into it.

It's the only battle where she fights away from Tomoe. Some things, after all, you really wanna do a certain way. It's not to say the dire mount doesn't attack, though! Monster gonna monster and all that, and that goblin has a lot of limbs to bite.

Yeowang grimaces as we face off against Armored Goblin, and her first strikes are mostly blunted by armor. But the goblin is not fast, and she has other ways. As Asuna dances around her, she places her fist on the goblin, works it up and under and inside the plates, moving with him the whole time, and when she has worked her fist past the armor, she leans into it with all she has, and delivers a blow that knocks the monstrous thing back a few feet it strikes so hard. It does substantially more sanage that way, so Yeowang will use that technique again and again, bypassing the armor, moving with him, and delivering that massive punch from basically zero range. No need to haul off, or even cock back a fist. Her motions are so refined and precise, the style and prowess shining through.

It's a hard fight, of course, and her poor defense means she takes more damage than she'd like, but Haru's helping to mitigate that, and the faster she can DPS this thing down, the less damage she'll take, so she perserveres and doesn'y give a moment's respite between savage blows that takes off chunks of HP.

Carbon wants to take a shot at the Goblin King as he slips off behind those doors, but it's too quick to be able to land it. He curses not moving a bit faster, but instead has to change tack, as the armored goblin paladin comes to engage the group.

Carbon does his best to stay on the move, and try to fire shots into the spots between the patched together stolen armor, figuring those weak points would have to give sooner or later!

We are the champions, my friends. And we'll keep on fighting til the end. Dun dun dead. The Goblin Paladin falls and dissolves into a heap of red death-effects and damaged equipment. The party is able to salvage some of the higher quality components equally amongst themselves. Reuse and Recycle. As for the Goblin King? He made his escape. This time. But next time he will be down a powerful bodyguard. and you at leat know which direction he was heading. This means you might be able to continue your pursuit. That is after you rest. That was some dungeon run and resources are not looking all that fresh. Reporting your findings to the guild makes the most sense as the King is running out of places to hide. The opportunity to eliminate the goblin threat for good is at hand!

"I see goblins are not good at glassmaking," Haru makes a note, somewhat sad about this, but his quest must go on. Across of the land. Glassworking is close at hand!

With the goblin going down, Carbon feels like he can finally relax, if only for a moment or two. The fight's done, and everything finally settles down, "Best of luck with what you're looking for, my friend!" He calls out to Haru as the spellcaster leaves, his mood pushing him ever onward.