Swarm Get Some

A small camp had been set as a staging point south and west of Shadow Ageis Academy, on the edge of dark yellow-leafed woods where the quarry was supposedly last sighted. It's gloomy and dreary even by Eastal dark forest standards, so it seems like the appropriate place for a swarm of devouring shadows to lurk.

"It's almost time," Kauchemar murmured as she got up from her waiting spot. Other people would start showing up soon. She knew they were coming, being able to glimps ahead as Oracle does, but not specifically who it would be. So it would still make this an interesting endeavour. Though it's into the darker reachs of the forest that her gaze turns while waiting.

Then the bug hunt would truly begin.

Morning in the living area above the Chainmail Bikini +1. The three Pendragons are gathered in the living room when Uta darts out from her guest bedroom, staff clutched in her hand. "Sorry, no time for breakfast. I have to go to my Dark training..."

Morri and Gwen look at each other. The way their expressions suddenly light up promise nothing good, as witnessed by Uther slinking out of the room like Solid Snake.

Gwen is the first to speak. "You need a goth makeover."

"Eh? No, really, I don't think it's necessary...", replies Uta, but she's interrupted by Morri putting her hands on the nurse's shoulders, leaning over, and stating, "You -need- a goth makeover."

* * *

"...and that explains -this-", finishes explaining Uta, gesturing down at the uncharacteristically poofy knee-length black dress she's wearing, all frills, straps, and bows. "Something about going through a goth phase being better for aligning with the element or something?" She scratches her head. "I've never gone through a goth phase before. I hope I'm doing it right. I might have to ask Kita for advice..."

    With the war going on, Xander has found himself mostly in the Holy City helping the people there and making sure the war didn't even look sidewise at that location. After all, no one needed the city full of soldiers and warriors to become crowned!

Then there was also his assisting from the sidelines, out of the main view to make sure people could get to safety when things did get heated, but now with the war switching gears, the dark scaled Salamander needed to reconnect with others he has not seen for some time. Actually do some things that were not focused on the war and rather, just do other things entirely.

This is what brings Xander here to aid Kauchemar on her quest. He wasn't really sure what he signed himself up for, but something other than 'war', was a welcomed change of pace. The Holy Knight came fully decked from head to toe in armor; His custom mammoth armor. Though that shield and sword one day needed a replacement.

He gave a smile to Kauchemar as he moved closer to the group and bowed his head to the others. "So, what we going to be dealing with today?" Straight to work. Typical Xander.

Hunting very dangerous big game was one of Carbon's favorite pasttimes, so when he heard word of this through one of his usual channels, he made contact with Kauchemar. Now having arrived to the camp, the sniper is currently looking over his equipment one last time while he waits for the gathering group to be ready and the time to be right. The big black tiger runs two of his fingers down the length of the bow string as he listens to Uta's story, "Fascinating. It makes sense though, you know how people get attatched to things they put a lot of effort into. It could work the other way too, with the," and he puts up air quotes as he says it, "'Goth Energy' helping you better your understanding of the element."

    Inexplicably present (unless she followed someone, which is entirely plausible) is the irrepressible sylph Fukaziroh. Always happy to help out, particularly with friends, it's not exactly unexpected for her to be called on to help in something like this. And she IS looking for challenges to dedicate her training towards. Swarming shadows, after all, sound like the sort of elemental challenges she's seeking out!

    She puts her chin in her hand, nodding thoughtfully and squishing part of her face while doing so. "I see, I see." she agrees, eyeing Uta with intense scrutiny. Then she raises a hand and flashes a thumbs-up and a gleaming smile. "YES! The goth-loli works for you, Songbird!" she claims. "I never would have expected it. If anyone here should be pulling off loli frills it's me, but I'm more the fancy loli sort than goth. So you can be our goth loli!" Fuka observes. Yes, make use of dork energy!

Goldenblade has arrived. She's not partucilarly expert at wilderness survival or overland travel, she's a bricklayer by trade. And agog as she spots Uta and Kauchemar. Or, rather, Kauchemar and some new gothy player that she hasn't met. She doesn't realize it's Uta until she's quite close, and she boggles, then laughs. "Ah, my grandson used to date a girl that dressed like that," she explains. "It's very trendy, I am told. It looks a bit like a 'French maid' costume to me," she adds quietly.

But she is here. Mail gleaming, Westelande badge worn proudly, and looking around curiously to see who all else will show up. She nods reetings to Fuka, Xander, and Carbon as they arrive as well. "Hello to you all. Sorry I'm late."

"The look is the easy part to pull off," Kauchemar comments over her shoulder. "Not very emo though. Granted, you'd probably pull off a perky goth better than an emo one."

She pauses to adjust the grip on her staff with one hand, shield ready with the other arm. "It's some form of shadow swarm monstrousity according to my informant," she fills Xander anyone else needing an update in. An Imp dressed in leather with an exceptional amount of straps and buckles waves from where she's been lurking at the edge of the group at the mention of informant, as she's mostly been around to support the Nightmare Bard and doesn't know much of these other people. "This should be everyone. Let's get this extermination underway." She starts to walk into the woods, her eyes glowing. "It's here, but haven't pinned down the exact position yet. So if someone can help track," sidelong glance towards the hunting sniper, "That'd be great..."

    Xander glances over at those going on about the whole Goth phase, he then eyes Uta up and down with that almost 'dad' look on his face of deciding her possible fate. He then looks away. "I think everyone has an emo phase at some point in some way."

That is all he is going to say on this subject.

The Salamander turns his attention back to the bard werefang and raises a brow, "Shadow swarm huh? Guess its a good thing I did come along. Holy Knight and all." He chuckles a little. "Though if they are insects, they might be tricky to follow..." He'll let the trackers do their thing, but he does decide to step in a bit.

Looking for any clues, even damage to any local plants that could give a hint of what direction the group may need to go in, because why not!

Goldenblade has no commentary on the relative gothliness or otherwise of Uta's outfit, or the specific subtype of goth. She hrms to Kauchemar at the description of the shadow swarm monster, and will follow as she leads the way deeper into the forest. She peers at Xander at the mention of emo phases, and sighs, "Kids today."

As far as searching for clues, she gets a bit lucky, calling out, "Is -that- something?" She's pointing at some sort of strange footprint, but a tracker would know more than she does. "Does a swarm of shadows even leave tracks?" she asks. Maybe it's something the shadow swarm ate?

"I dunno," Uta squirms, scratching the back of her head with one hand and the back of her leg with her other foot. "I... thank you for your support, and I get it and all that, but it feels kinda... wrong?", she says, looking for the right words. "I know it's a bit of a strange way to put it, but it gives me the kind of discomfort this whole thing would give one as if it was all a ploy to sell more merchandise to fans of some franchise or something," she mutters.

"I am not your daughter.", Uta replies to Xander. But she did hold her breath while waiting for his declaration.

"That is my hope, Carbon. That it actually works..." And then, to Kauchemar. "...I suppose you're right. I should probably ask Kita for pointers on how to Goth. As said, I have no idea."

"Shadow swarm monstrosity," Uta sighs rubbing her eyes. "Why can't it be -slimes-? Slimes I know well. And I could use some for the re-opening of the Slime Labs. Ah well!", and off she wanders to look for the Swarm. In all the wrong places.

    Hey Fuka's into fashion, sort of. Not like... into it, just aware of it. She does think Uta's cute though, and quite approves both of her being forced into fashion by Gwen and teasing her about it. So much so that she's kind of distracted when it comes to actually searching out signs of the swarm, so hopefully others will pick up the slack.

    "I don't know about it feeling wrong, it LOOKS right to me!" Fuka claims cheerfully. "And yes, if you were being forced to cosplay some manga character so as to sell merchandise for the Pantdragons I'd see how that could be creepy and wrong. But if it's for your personal benefit I'll have to congratulate Gwen for this!"

    Of course she doesn't completely ignore the others. "Holy Knight, Batman!" Fuka exclaims out of nowhere. "Which reminds me, if we ARE looking for a swarm of bats, or like... a swarm of man, we're all set! But I have no idea how we're going to track one down. Like, what are you all even searching for? Goldenblade's got a good point I guess."

Hunting down a swarm of shadow monsters. Well every monster leaves a trail of some kind, Carbon knows this because hunting is one of the things he specializes in. He pulls up his hood and readies his bow, as he takes into the wilderness.

"Every monster leaves some kind of trail." He offers to Goldenblade, repeating his own thoughts from earlier, as he hmms quietly, "Look for something out of place. That's the first step. Scratches along a tree trunk, or broken branches."

"Typically no," Song Won pipes up from the rear of the group. Then points at some ruts in the ground, and bark busted off a tree trunk not unlike Carbon's suggestion. "But you can see were it's fought and dragged down prey." That is all the clue the group needs, they have the right diverse range of abilities to follow the signs of predation and keep some of the more easily distracted members in line. Eventually.

The party makes their way into a grove, where the remains of a large bear are on the ground, with what at first appears to be a large black wolf tearing into the carcass. Until one realizes that the beast has a constant... visual vibration to it, as it's actually made up on hundreds and hundreds of small shadowy bug-like motes that constantly twitch and buzz.

Kauchemar, true to her recent training, strides in to the front of the group with little hesitation and raises her voice as she does so.

"o/~ Let me be hypothetical.. Best beware when speaks the Oracle.
Come and face us, here at last... and we will take you to task.
Heed the words that I've said... as I get into your head! o/~"

Which seems to provoke the beast, which reads as Tenebrous Swarm if someone actually INSPECTS it, it's body twisting into a less distinct amorphous collection resembling what one might think of as a swarm as it rushes towards the Bard, even as she stands her ground and her presence turns ominously cold and overbearing. Parts of the swarm reach towards her, only to buzz irratically as several motes turn ice blue and fall away. It's disoriented, as Kauchemar has taunted it's first response to herself to give others a chance to start dealing with the problem now bugging them!

"o/~ Run run, but you can't run away!
Casting spells to cast down the enemy!
Divination, Darkness, Deception
You can't change the tidal inception! o/~"

    Fuka nods wisely as if she knew all along what others are saying; that the swarm can be tracked by finding signs of its predation. And not, for example, by finding signs of aerial guano bombardment. Which is what she was going to suggest they keep an eye out for. Fortunately, she didn't have to make that suggestion!

    Following the group, Fuka blinks at the sight of the swarm beast. She rubs at her eyes, blinks again. "Oooooh I get it!" she finally says. Then pauses while Kauchemar serenades them all.

    Truly, Fuka wouldn't mind tanking the swarm. She too is looking to train. But the swarm seems less elemental to her, more bitey, and besides Kauchemar's counting on them to get the insects off her! "Fireball is ... probably out of the question huh?" she muses thoughtfully. Fortunately she knows alternatives! And the best way to deal with insect swarms, she seems to believe, is with napalm! Pulling out a salve she made with her alchemy skills, she ignites it and sprays the resulting sticky flames wherever the insects are thickest. Which... is around Kauchemar. "Ooh oops watch out Kaumare!" Fuka warns, possibly somewhat belatedly. Fortunately she was far more careful spreading the flames around than her words might suggest, and the warning was meant more for comedy than for actual need!

    Xander takes note of the groves noted by the imp and like Carbon, they knew what they were looking for it would seem. Fuka tries to joke, but the Salamander sadly doesn't really have a response for it.

He is oddly being very focused and very quiet, all things considered. More so than usual maybe

What he does take notice is when they come upon the corpse, his eyes go a little wide, before they focus on the 'wolf' like creature which is labeled as Tenebrous Swarm. His eyes narrow sharply at this point as he draws out his sword, along with shield.

Kauchemar draws those shadowy swarm to her and Xander, perhaps in the beat with the others, goes to move in for the attack. His sword lights up with glowing, red runes, before the blade ignites into fire. "RRRaaah!!!" He roars out, before turning his body and swinging his blade in time.

The flames sheer off his blade and move across like a blade wave of infernal flames.

Goldenblade eyes Csrbon skeptically. "While technically you're correct," she says, "tracking a flock of birds by the trail of birdcrap is very difficult." And well beyond her skill, truth be told. When we encounter the beast, at long last, and Kauch starts singing to it, Goldenblade is confused. Are we fighting it, or singing to it? But the words provoke the beast, and it seems this -is- a fight.

Goldenblade has to switch mental gears.

"Right, okay," she mumbles, and slips into shadows, reappearing behind the shadow creature. Except not quite behind it, and she has to adjust before coming with the strike from behind, cutting it pretty badly, at least, as the fight gets brutal.

"No, no, no it's not about the Pendragons making a profit, I'm pretty sure it's not their intention," Uta hurries to add. "Also, this is the Swarm. The Bat is the one Haru and I have to find."

As her search proceeds, she hums a quiet, "na na na na na na na na na" tune to herself, until the Swarm is revealed, at which point she goes dead silent. "Dark training," she whispers. "It's time to start practicing."

People familiar with Uta will remember that her familiar method of magic casting is through musical evocation, but this time, she doesn't utter a sound. It's mere concentration, extending her hand, and extending it towards the Swarm. "Harness the Darkness," she whispers to herself. "Find it within yourself, modulate it."

At first nothing happens, but then, all of a sudden, there is a minor reverse-flash. It's like a flash, but dark instead of luminous, and darkness ripples out from her fingers towards the Swarm.

It... is not a -big- blast, one had to say. Goes to show how useful that focus crystal on her staff really is.

"Darkness. The key, here, is keeping hidden, secret, Arcane. Not to give away your-"

And then everyone talks about Fireballs and jumps in with Swords. "...so much hermeticism, I suppose."

Have to immediately move into position as soon as the monster shows itself. Carbon quickly dashes off to one side, doing his best to keep his distance as he looks for openings. The way the thing is moving, it's going to be extremely hard to hit it with individual shots. Which is what gives Carbon an idea, as he sets up and then fires an arrow into the air.

The arrow shatters apart as it angles downward, spreading out over a wide area to make it way harder for the monster to evade the attack.

Song Won hangs back at the edge of the grove as this is Adventurer business to deal with... But that doesn't stop her from throwing her hands up and cheering at Kauchemar's successful musical taunt and defense, having been the Nightmare Bard's personal cheer squad through much of her training.

As people begin attacking the Tenebrous Swarm they reveal more of it's unusual nature. While it registers as one entity the swarm is made up of so many small forms that it easily twists and contorts itself as needed, much like when it was using the wolf-like formation to hunt and eat. Now it uses it to churn it's mass away from attackers, but with limited success. It twists away from Xander's blade, but the intense heat and flame coming off the weapon still burns away part of it's composion, as does the fires ignited by Fukaziroh.

Someone uses Dark magic, which does little in the way of damage, but the sheer audicity of doing so with one of it's key Elements seems to confuse part of the swarm, making it easier for others to pick into it. Carbon's arrows pass into the swarm, but seem to hit something more physical within. As does Goldenblade's assassination strike, and she's the first to see what it is. The Swarm starts to spread itself out, rising to tremendous speeds like a dark hurricane as they buzz around and around the group, leaving a orbeous creature that was at the center. It almost looks like a hive or wasp nets with beady eyes and stumpy limbs.

As the Swarm spreads around the grove with it's cyclonic force the entire area starts to darken more. And those shadows are drawn to the hive like beast, which starts to spawn more of the shadowy insects to 'heal' by replacing what has already been destroyed by the group. The Hive and the Swarm seem to have some manner of symbiotic operation that is represented by them being one entity.

"It's using the darkness to regenerate the swarm!," Kauchemar calls out even as she braces herself against the shadowy winds being churned by the storm. "Light it up or burn it down before it gets too dark to stop it!"

    Xander watches as it starts to pull in the darkness and rises up like a hurricane of dark forces. His golden eyes in the shadows of his horned helm glow gently as he observes the mayhem that is taking place.

A 'Hrm' escapes his lips, before his draconic eyes narrow sharply. Runes light up along his armor as he goes charging foolishing right into the Hurricane! Using brute force of his tanking ability to shove in, even if clipped a bit by the swarm of darkness.

Though what is the mad-man Salamander thinking? Get to the core and unleash some magical arts in the center of the eye of the storm! The runes on his armor slowly become white with glowing light, including on his blade as the magic is enhanced as he spins the blade in hand.

Then dropping hard to his knee, with the sword's blade digging into the ground, a hard burst of bright light goes to splash outward from his form and try to break up the center of the darkness hurricane.

Goldenblade boggles as she finds out, right close up, some of what this thing is made out of. No wonder it's called what it's called. As it counterattacks, her gut response is Burn It With Fire. This is Goldenblade's Go-To anyhow, much of the time, and she leaves a flaming trail as she jets out of the way of the attack, leaving flames in the face of any subcreatures that thought they might get a piece of her. They get just the flames.

But that's not the end of Goldenblade's fiery inferno, no. Her twin blade, golden in such light as there is, burst into flame, then that flame grows more and more intense, and it's almost like she's wielding lightsabers against it, each strike searing deeply as it strikes. She may not have the higher ground, but she's beating it like a red-headed padawan.

The sound of thunder repeats a few time as Uta Lightning-dodges from spot to spot. "Stop healing? NOW we are talking!", Uta exclaims, and a couple of flicks through her menu later, her staff shimmers into existence into her hand. She clasps it, and begins what might by now be a familiar call-response chant, lyrical and oprressive alternating, until tendrils of color and darkness dance into existence all over the staff's handle, coalesce into the gem, and-

Two beams depart, a bright green one engulfing Uta and a blood-red one hurtling towards the swarm, ready to sap some HP from the target to the caster.

    Okay now THIS is fun! Fuka cheerfully ignites the swarm, though it seems that burning one insect at a time isn't going to be terribly effective in the long term. Still it's fun, and having fun is half the battle!

    The shadow swarm starts attacking back, and Fuka quickly chants her own defense so she needn't rely solely on Kauchemar tanking. She floods her skin with light mana, toughening it and providing for a minor healing factor, as well as carrying a rather nasty surprise for any shadow insects brave enough to bite her.

    She nods wildly at Kauchemar's order, snapping off a salute. "I'm always up for lightening up the mood! Or the room!" she cries out, rapid-firing a chant that gathers fire and light mana together into her hands. "Fiyaaaaaah~ PSYCHE!" she cries out, flinging out the ball of liquid flame. "FLAAAARE!" she yells, closing her eyes as the spell lights up the room.

Carbon watches and waits, as the shower of arrow fragments cuts through the shadows. That's when his keen eyes spot it, the more solid inner workings of the creature, "Gotcha."

Carbon has to move again, however, like everyone else when the strikes come in. He vanishes from view, using the shadow creature's own element to get into the shadows, and then move up into the trees. Balancing carefully on a branch above the battle, Carbon takes aim.

When the moment the core of the creature presents itself, he looses his arrow, a precise shot to live up to his moniker, as he tries to plant that arrow right in the middle of the creature.

As she braces herself Kauchemar drives the butt end of her staff to the ground, which in turn causes plumes of flame to erupt around her, burning away at the swarm speeding past. The fires created by both Goldenblade's evasive move and fiery attack do much the same, while whatever collides against Fuka's anti-Dark shield wither and fall like mosquitos hitting a bug zapper. The swarm is already recoiling, which draws it away from the Signal Flare burst. But the light generated by the spell helps drive back the shadows they were creating.

Xander's light wave spreads the Swarm farther from the Hive Beast at it's core, making it easier to focus on admist the swarm storm. This allows Uta to execute a gamechanger maneuver, stealing the health the beast was trying to draw to itself. With no shadow swarm respawned around it, it's an easy mark for another precision sniper arrow from Carbon who's been patiently waiting for that opening.

The Hive Beast whails with pain and rage, the shadow storm breaking up as what survives of the swarm, the darkness clearly less in size than before, returns to it. The shadows ripple as the motes form back together, taking the shape similar to their insect-like nature but larger, and several shadowy forms of wasps are send after the party.

This of course means there's less shadow swarm around the core beast, though.

With the shadow fragments rippling and attacking, Goldenblade becomes like a shadow, herself, vanishing from sight and remaining unseen for several moments. Certainly enough for any aggro to drop, which is just as well, since she's cranking it right back up again. For the moment, she sticks with the very basics, a hard slam with one sword, then the other right after, droppingg chunks of HP all over the place in a flash of imaginary gore.

    Fuka's not out of tricks yet, though she is starting to run low on mana. That's the problem with dabbling as she does in many different categories... no great depth in any of them. Still, she's able to continue empowering a light-based defense while getting prepared to strike.

    Seeing Uta readying her own charge, Fuka grins and lines up with Uta. "Let's WRECK this!" she cries out, charging forward and unleashing Frank to rain unholy flashes of elemental energy on the core beast. And if she DOES run out of mana, well, at least she's got a big sword and armour!

"Let's wreck this!", confirms Uta with a nod at Fuka. "You go ahead with your sword, I will attract the bugs towards me before going for the core!", exclaims the Spriggan, standing still as the creatures approach.

Sudden inhalation, arms crossed in front of herself, and-

It's a flash. As she jingles the name of the technique, "Vanilla Vanguard", Uta's body flares in a luminous sheen which washes all over her and remains for a few seconds, protective magic embedded in the caster's skin.

This appears to provide an effective protection against the Creatures of darkness; and at first, Uta doesn't do much but let them attack and suffer the counter element of her defense. But after a few moments when she believes she's caused enough damage, she darts towards the Core, zigzaging through the battlefield, and with a spinning leap in the air, she hurls at what she believes to be the core staff-tip first, to skewer it as hard as possible.

Hopefully with some of the Light magic of her Vanilla Vanguard spell still lingering.

Putting himself in such a high perch can be an issue, because there's not a lot of room to maneuver when the boss has another phase you weren't expecting after your arrow strikes home. Carbon was really figuring they'd have it in the bag after that shot, so when one of the wasp-like creatures rushes him in the tree, he gets knocked off the branch.

Still he can turn this around, he just has to do something crazy. He turns over in midair, swapping to his blades as he falls, trying to land a strike on the core with both of them before he hits the ground.

He's a cat, he should be able to land on his feet...Right?

    Xander watches as Carbon takes advantage of the near exposed core and the others do their parts to /piss/ this thing off. As he draws his blade out from the ground, he turns his focus fully to the creature as it starts to take on a new shape. "Okay, you son of hell-spawn." The Salamader growls out as he extends out his shield hand. "Let's have some /fun/."

His armor lights up with red runes, as he roars out, "I am the light in this place! Come and /snuff/ me out you bastard of shadows!" Giving the creature a challenging roar of his voice, as he tightens his fist and rears it back.

Flaming runes light the ground, as the creature goes to finish changing into swarms of wasp-like beings and he attempts to wrangle them in as a burning wall rises up. What he did not plan for was perhaps suddenly needing to bring his own defenses up to bare.

At least, if he did, he wasn't quick enough as stingers of darkness would eventually find their mark in the weak spots of his armor!

Kauchemar conjures a layer of obsidian over her shield, increasing it's defensive ability. It's enough to keep shadow swarm stingers from getting through. And then Xander does something crazy, drawing the swarm part of the Tenebrous Swarm away from the core monster and coralling it with flames. "Huh. He beat me to it... Oh well!" She thumps the butt of her staff against the ground. "You're up boys!"

There is a brief rumble in the ground and then Stripmine and several of his Rock Mole brether pop out of the ground where they'd been lying in wait for the command. Without the swarm to protect the hive beast core they easily surround it and smack it around repeatedly with their sharp digging claws. It bounces and tumbles between them, making it easy for Goldenblade and Fukaziroh to join in like it was some violent form of hacky-sack with the core monster as the ball.

There is little it can do to defend itself farther as it's tossed around, an easy mark for Carbon's precision strike despite his fall. He knocks the hive beast out of the air and onto it's back, stubby legs wobbling helplessly... Until Uta's Aerialist divebomb drives her staff through it!

With a final whail the Tenebrous Swarm hive-beast bursts into pixels, and the lingering remains of the swarm similarly desolve and fade away like the shadows they resembled.

Cheering can be heard from the treeline as Song Won whoops with joy. "All tha training is really paying off, you go girl!.. mare!"

    Xander grits his teeth as he can feel the pain; even if muffled by comparison to real pain. he continues to hold his own while the others do what they do best! Destroy stuff!

Once the swarm though poofs into pixels, Xander lowers his hand and just flops down on his the ground of his back. Just laying there for a momemnt, staring up at the tree line.

There was silence from him before he moves his head and looks at everyone, then to Kauchemar, "We good?"

    Cheerfully smashing balls around is one of those things that brings Fuka joy. Though perhaps that could be more properly phrased. She lets out a cheer as the Tenebrous Swarm is banished in a spray of pixellation that suggests a certain level of gore well beyond what actually happened.

    She looks over to Xander, then scoffs. "No, we're AMAZING!" she claims. And turns to offer a high five to Kauchemar and Uta. Two people she hopes will get it, and not leave her hanging.

Goldenblade doesn't cheer for this, she's not really the cheering type, but she does smile grimly and nod all around for a hard job well done. "Good job, everyone," she agrees, and looks around to make sure that's the last of the things. "Hopefully the region will be safter with this gone. Is everyone OK?" That last question as she fishes out her now-famous oxygen bottle. A twist of the cap to break a seal inside that starts the chemical process, and she draws a breath of sweet O2. "Ah, that's the good stuff."

"Yeah, the problem is dealth with." Kauchemar returns the high fives, then takes a few bits of scrap metal she collected from the junk bins of Olympus' crafting area and tosses them to the moles for their good work. They eat rock and ore normally so processed metal is like candy to them. "From what I understand that creature is a rare spawn, that forms a symbiotic connection with the swarming shadow to hunt and defend itself."

"And if it got big enough it could blight large parts of the forest. Like locusts. but worse," Song Won adds to the exposition.

If what Fuka was going for was a pop culture reference, it flew straight over Uta's head.

If what she was going for was a high-five, though, Uta will be more than glad to reciprocate, in her exhilarated post-adrenalin state. "We did it! Way to go! High-"

She looks down at the shorter Fuka. Is it technically a Low-five? Thankfully, she doesn't say that out loud, and, politely, she just slumps to the ground as if her legs gave after all the excitement, and high-fives Fuka while sitting.

"Blight the forest? Is... is this what happened in Eastal a while ago? That corruption?", Uta asks.

Kauchemar shakes her head. "That was the result of one of the Waves, and Goblins trying to spread the corruption as vengence against the Sylph and Spriggans."

    Xander goes to sit back up and slowly uses some fairy healing magicks to deal with his minor wounds from the stings. Though he does hiss a little at some stiffness left from it.

He peers at Fuka with an almost disapproving look, but does say too much on whatever he was thinking, before he looks over to Song Won as she explains. "Yeah, that could be a problem alright." He agrees, rolling his right shoulder. "Given forests like these would make great hunting grounds for a shadow creature. Good places to hide from the light."

The Salamander then looks to Kauchemar, as his draconic tail flicks ever so slightly. "It was also good seeing you again, Kauchemar. Looks like you are doing good for yourself." He at last turns to Uta, "And you as well, Uta."

Xander then goes to turn away, as makes sure his sword is secured, before he starts to walk away from the group. "Till next time, perhaps." He then gives two finger little motion in the air as a wave. "Later."

"We should be seeing each other more often, Not Dad," Uta calls to Xander. "Maybe for a post-quest celebration at a tavern or something. I can even come take part in the quest if you want! Or not. I'm also open to just come to the celebration afterwards. I'm not picky," Uta offers.

At the mention of the Spriggans, Uta's ears and wings perk up. "...Vengeange for what?"