Going (ele)mental!

    Deep in the woods, along a woodcutter's path, lies a cave that some might consider inviting shelter from the elements outside. Any good woodcutter knows to avoid it though, for it is said all who enter, never return. The cries of the damned echo up from the depths, giving testiment to their folly. Within the cave lies horrors indeed. Giant ants and beetles and worms abound. These, however, are of little threat to a well-provisioned party. No, the true horror is the great magical beast within. It is said to have three mouths, each of which spews forth a different element, and three sets of eyes, each with their own elemental magics in turn. This, and a monstrous body seemingly immune to all damage, is the true horror. Heed the warnings of those who have dared this cave in the past, or your screams will only add to the Cutter's Cry as a warning to those who come after!

    Fuka has done her research, assembling a team to take on the dungeon. The reward isn't that interesting to her; no, it's that elemental monstrosity she's eager to challenge! The quest notification's warning she dismisses as typical questy nonsense, but she verified the bit about the elemental attacks with her patron. With the right preparations and the right team it should be fine... right? Right?

Most people would take the words at face value as a warning... But someone like Vertina just sees it as a challenge. Needless to say she's more interested in the boss than any loot. Victory itself will be a fine reward. "Only three elements? We'll have to see which three, the fourth may be a key to defeating it."

"Three mouths, three pairs of eyes, huh? Hm. Is it a Cerberus puppy? I hope it's a Cerberus puppy," Uta rambles as she trots along with the rest of the team, white staff shaped like a snake coiling around the anatomically correct heart shaped gem at the top (with some blood vessels added on as wooden framing!). "I miss Demon. Haven't seen that one in a while. He'll be grown by now! I need to poke Setsuna about it."

Since people last saw her - well, she seems to be over her Goth phase, having returned to her usual nursey self.

"I also hope we won't need much Fire today. I'm not good with Fire."

    "I don't think it's a puppy." Fuka notes absently, then glances over. "I mean, it *might* be?" she concedes. "But probably not a cerberus. I've seen Setsu's puppy, and if it has a breath weapon it's like... bad breath. Not elemental breath! Also don't worry about fire, we've got fire experts! Maybe you get to put out the fires! Just not the ones we set, not until the boss is fully cooked!" she grins. It's good to adventure with Uta. The silliness that invariably results makes everything more fun!

Goldenblade has heard about a magical monster immune to damage, and so she has come along to put that rumor to the test. She doesn't have elemental foo, she's strictly about hitting people. Though of course there's the fire. That's not so much an element as a way of life for her, and after more than two years in the game, it comes to her as readily as breathing. She smirks to Uta and assures her, "I have your Fire covered."

Miho has joined the party she could use material and more coin honestly. She also needed to get out of the forge too. She was armed and ready clad looking like she did fall out of a fantasy samurai movie or maybe Fire Emblem. Given her orange battle outfit she leand on her naagitna for a moment.

"I wonder what I can make from this thing..."

https://i.imgur.com/bMDVtTC.jpg

    The quest through the caves isn't uneventful but the giant ants and beetles and worms are little trouble to the group, who may have reason to question the dire warning of the quest notification at this point. The threat is purely physical, and really not that high of a level. Just a light warm-up for what comes next! The cave trends down through the earth, then ... a door? A boss room door in the caverns? What is this, some kind of constructed dungeon?

    Probably best not to think too hard about this. The Chimera awaits within! And ... what a beast it is! A monstrous body with three monstrous heads; ram, lion, and dragon. Only one tail however, a muscular dragon tail. Probably best for the creature to only have one tail... the anatomical implications of three tails don't bear thinking about. The beast paces, apparently unaware, giving the group an opportunity to plan how they will approach, surround, and murder it! Those who inspect it will learn it is a Chimera, and it has four health bars.

(OOC) Fight Strategy
You must pick a place to stand. At least one person stands in front of the beast, holding aggro. Other options are the left and right sides, and behind. The more people standing in a particular location the harder the rolls there, as the two combatants risk interfering with each other! It's easiest to spread out if possible.

The Chimera attacks with fire in front of it from the Lion's head, ice (water) to the right from the Ram's head, lightning (air) to the left from the Dragon's head, and a tail smash (earth) behind.

You can choose to defend or attack, and both will allow you to 'contribute' - a person succeeding in a defensive roll is assumed to also be doing effective damage, while a person succeeding with an attack is assumed to be either stunning the head or otherwise dishing out more damage than they're taking.

As everyone knows, it's best to counter an element with its opposite. Fire opposes Water, Earth opposes Air, Light opposes Dark! If your defense or attack contains the opposite of what your chosen position is facing (fire, water, air, earth as listed above), your roll difficulty is reduced. Select your site appropriately! Note that even if you don't have a favourable elemental matchup you can still attack or defend, it's just a harder roll.

This will be a multi-round fight, and you may swap positions in future rounds as you feel appropriate. Try not to exhaust all your options! Standard boss fight deck rules apply - no card repeats. Utility cards or power paths may be used at any time, though the difficulty of the action's roll will be set by me - feel free to page!

Miho is having a grand old time honestly she's dealing with the bug with little problem. She'll try to haggle for some of the shell drops as there's certain armors she can make with them. What she wasn't expecing was the natureof the Chimera.

"Why is something Greek here?"

She just stares for a moment she then sees the ice head and grins she'll postion herself take a deep breath leap into the air. Then start breathing fire, this little lady has far too much fun with her racials she really /does/.

    Being late to a party means you get to make a dramatic entrance and look good while doing it! In this case, that is what Katherine plans to do. The scantily clothed imp rides in on a stone steed, with her special staff in hand. As she leaps off, she moves the staff and her stead turns into a slide of rubble which her hooves slide across, till she lands in the ground.

Katherine then moves her bangs out of her face in a dramatic style, as she places her hand on her hip. Staff butt hitting the ground as the stone creature forms into a 'knight' like figure. "Forgive my lateness, but Lady Magus, Katherine Tanzer is here for the aid to defeat this fowl beast!"

Goldenblade smacks down the lesser monsters without breaking a sweat, golden swords fklashing with each slash, and purely physical threats are easily dealt with, but she looks impressed when she sees the chimera. She will move to the Water side of the monster, to suit her elemental affinity with Fire. "I could fight fire with fire, but I think that's more cliche than useful. Firefighters don't carry flamethrowers, they carry firehoses. But their firehoses use water. It's confusingly worded." So, she's a waterfighter. But she definitely uses a firehose. Or at last a fire sword, and flames lick along the steel blades, flickering. Blades blazing, she chuckles to Miho and says, "The game picks and chooses its mythology pretty much at random, it seems." But those iconic blades blaze intensely as she attacks the chimera's more vulnerable side.

    "I guess three heads really are better than one!" Fuka notes, probably to groans, as they study the boss. "Well, this is my training I guess. Let me get aggro!" she offers. As if the pun aggro isn't enough. She moves up and immediately launches a slush ball straight into the central mouth, making the fire-breathing head choke and gag and utterly disrupting the attack it had been telegraphing with smoke and a reddish glow.

    She grins at Goldenblade. "Trust me on this, I've been researching. Fight ICE with fire!" she points out approvingly as she pulls out her sword, ready to continue battling, poking the great beast a few times to maintain aggro and also to reduce its health bar. It's depleting rapidly, to be sure, as attacks come in from all sides and people pay attention to the elemental weaknesses. Miho and Goldenblade rain down fiery blows on the Ram's head, making it bellow in futile fury as it tries to spew ice at them, but it can't get a concentrated blast going.

As Uta walks into the room, she stops.

The camera pointing at her winged back lingers, then zoom out at breakneck speed with a wooshing sound effect. It stops again to reveal a massive monster that dwarfs the party.

Obligatory roaring sounds and snapping movements, to establish dominance. Possibly a subtitle to name the monster; it's a pretty common Anime trope.

Uta turns to look at Fuka over her shoulder. "...It's not a puppy."

Dash, zip, a couple of bounds, and she's already circled the monster, to hide behind its back like the squishy healer she is. "The mythology is intricate," Uta replies to Goldenblade. "But it does have a surprising degree of internal consist-"

She just has to stop in awe of Katherine's entrance. "That lady has -style-..."

But that is enough gushing for today. Time to, instead, inhale, sing an operatic area in a crescendo (causing tendrils of colorful magic to dance in helixes on her staff), and then unleash the full power of the sonic attack in a shockwave directed straight at the monster's backside!

Smacking their way through bugs and other dungeon mooks isn't very hard, but it's a nice warmup for the eventual boss fight to come. Which turns out to be a Chimera. Probably should of figured on that, with the whole three heads and different elements deal. But that's a monster you don't see very often, so this should be interesting!

Vertina eyes the creature up and down a moment. Hmm. At least this isn't the kind that have a snake for the tail, poison might of been an extra annoyance they didn't need. But seeing as they have plenty of fire users in the party she opts for one of her secondary specialties, darting over towards the dragonic head's side. A few swirling hand gestures weave the energies of nature together to form a large ball of vines and thorns. "Hey, Lightning Lips!" She drops the bramble ball. "CATCH!" And gives it a solid soccer stricker kick towards the dragon head! It's not rock but nature counts as Earth in Elder Tale's format. And plants are natural resistors of electrical current, so it should still work to get past the monster head's offensive power to score a blow.

    ALWAYS more fun! "If it's a puppy, I'd hate to see it full grown!" Fuka grins, bantering along. The chimera is no fan of banter however, and lashes out at Uta (and Katherine) with that lethal tail. Katherine agilely leaps clear, while Uta staggers the chimera with the dissonant shockwave of her operatic excellence!

    The most notorious of the chimera's heads, the dragon's head, looks at Vertina approaching that flank, its mouth opening and crackling blue energies forming within. She launches her bramble ball straight in, hitting the head cleanly and knocking it to the side, sending its lightning breath wide!

    But for all that the party has done, it becomes clear why the chimera has a reputation for being invulnerable. The damage is ephemeral, the scratches and slashes don't remain on its scaly hide. Its health bar continues to tick down however, until the first bar shatters entirely, and a brand new health bar is revealed beneath. The chimera's eyes, all six of them, begin to glow violet... and energies start to collect throughout the boss chamber, threatening to strike everywhere at once! Everywhere, that is, except at the chimera itself!

(OOC) Strategy: Chimera (75% health)
Same as previous, except that if you want to attack the chimera, you must use a card with a *melee* concept or your attack will be spoiled by the paralyzing strike of energy from the chimera. If you choose defense as your roll this round, you may proceed as in the first round based on your position. You may move or swap positions with others as you see fit.

Miho says "I guess that's how it goes! Oh well, this is going to be fun!" She seems to mean it too She's laughing as she bounces about the arena and tries to keep the monster at bay. She sem to be doing quite well.

"That's what I'm doing my friend!"

She gives Golden a thumbs up during the fight but she keeps going. She sees it can't think too well and will keep up with her firey assault.

"BREATH OF THE FORGE!"

There is no such ... power...

She however follows that up by channelling fire into her Nagtinata and assailing the monster's ice head still. "FORGE'S FURY!"

Goldenblade nods agreement with Fuka's assertion on elemental fighting. "That indeed seems to be the case," she agrees, and huhs at Uta's claim of internal consistency. "It's consistent in thay everything wants to kill us, sure," she says to Uta with a laugh. Not bothered by it, but amused, from her tone. She nods to Miho and agrees, "I am, too. It looks ... looked good, what's going on?" The chimera appearing to heal up is a bit annoying, but the health bar shatters, so maybe the damage is working after all? She's still a bit confused on game mechanics after two years and change. Bricks don't have health bars, she understands bricks.

When the chimera starts powering up its big AoE, though, she rushes in with a fast, close attack, an interrupt they're called, she thinks, she delivers it a fiery smack in the icy head, but also forestalls the building breath weapon or whatever the casting bar was about.

The heads have different elements, so when all of their eyes light up in the same color that's a pretty clear tell that something more potent is about to be released. So instead of pushing an offensive Vertina stands her ground. Both proverbly and literally. She angles one leg back with her tail for better balance, and digs her heels in. Brings her arms up in a X-stance defensively in front of her body. As she does so the Sword Arte she uses draws from the cavern around them, forming scale-like layers of rock and dirt along her arms and legs. The energy surge knocks some of the debris loose, but having braced and grounded herself out Vertina suffers little as the defense tech does it's job as ablative armor.

"Let us not give it time to grow then!", Uta manages to get in before it's time to attack.

The operatic blast strikes true, giving its contribution to the removal of one of the health bars.

"Uh-oh," Uta mumbles. she can feel the tingling of the energies being collected. "It feels like a storm is brewing. Brewing... you know, like a storm. Not like tea. It's not a storm in a teacup. It's a storm in a-" Blink. Look around. "...boss chamber, I guess?"

If the lethal tail decides to lash out at Uta again, well, she's ready to jump and dodge again and let it slam on the ground again, if it so desires. In this case, shockwaves through the floor might ensue.

Goldenblade's amused response gets an earnest, academic-sounding reply: "In that I have to agree with you, Paula. A significant portion of Lore seems intent on murdering us. I wonder what we did to deserve this."

And then, back to the Chimera it is. "You don't like music? Good. Because I have more!"

She vocalizes another aria, and while this one does not downright crescendo into a devastating blast like the one before, it has whole passages of sustained intensity, with the occasional exceptionally powerful one- which is used as a sort of martial arts diaphraghm compression technique, to pump even more powers into her blows. Like the one where she downright moves to -skewer- the tail with the pointy end of her staff.

    Katherine moves out of the way as the tail comes slamming down. She twirls her staff around as she orders the golem to follow, which follows her steps with ease.

The Magus moves toward the lion as dark purple flames form in her hands. Then it becomes a small bit of 'sand' of some kind. "Oh kitty~" Katherine says the lion, before she uses her golem to get in close and with a exhaling breathing, sends the sleeping powder toward the beast up close and personal.

    The party continues melting through the chimera's health bars with speed and efficiency, acting as a well-oiled machine through teamwork and long experience with boss fights, starting to take some damage but not enough to be particularly concerning. The lion head breathes out fire, finally having cleared its mouth of the slushy iceball, but Fuka is prepared. She stands her ground, a blue aura surrounding her as she floods herself with water mana, laughing like a maniac as her shields mostly hold against the intense heat and she continues to poke and hew at the chimera's chest and the lion head, holding aggro.

    Miho and Goldenblade continue their assault on the Ram's head, pummeling it mercilessly, interrupting the breath weapon and using the chimera's own body to shield themselves from the cavern-wide lightning storm attack. The ram tries to, well, ram them back into the lightning storm, but in its confusion it only hurts itself further. Their combined offense easily overmatches its attempts.

    Vertina, seeing the monster charge up for an attack, wisely decides to protect herself. It's effective, and she even has time to continue her assault upon the dragon's head once the storm has passed!

    Katherine Tanzer foregoes the elemental matchups, instead staying in the relative safety behind the chimera's tail while she casts a sleeping spell. Of course the boss is way too tough to be taken out by such an effect, but she's able to bring its cavern-wide lightning storm to a premature halt as the beast has to shake off the effect, giving the party more time to focus on doing damage! Uta takes advantage of the lull to sing triumphantly as she bashes the chimera's hindquarters with blow after blow of her staff, laced with the powers of song and air!

    The combined assault causes another of the chimera's health bars to shatter. As evidence of its wounds fade, all of the chimera's eyes glow blue this time, and the three heads let out a violent cry, one that would put even a bard's efforts to shame.

(OOC) Strategy: Chimera (50% health)

As previous round, except the area immediately surrounding the chimera has a *slow* effect which makes melee attacks ineffective! You may roll a defensive card as before, but if you roll an attack card it *must* have the Ranged concept to be considered effective!

After her defense and Katherine forces the Chimera to dial back it's energy storm Vertina gets in a few more hits, but quickly withdraws again when it's eyes shift color once more. This time the effect is less obvious, but she still gets the feeling she kept out of having worse issues to deal with.

Shifting tactics as she backs off she sweeps her foot across the ground, gathering up the bits of stone that were scattered from her defense. She rolls them together into a ball, then flicks it off the ground. Bounces it back and forth a few times as it collects matter and grows, until it too is kicked at the Chimera Dragon head.

This time the creature sees it coming and jerks out of the way, but at least she's still keeping one of the head's attention so it doesn't turn to assist the others that have more people beating on them, right?

The operatic aria rambles on; it spirals downward in pitch, and as it does so, the helixes of light and color progressively degrade into aethereal wisps of darkness that coil around her staff. Strands detach, they waft off, and get caught on Uta's body. She continues what is now some sort of ominous chant, and like a sort of twisted candy floss machine of black arcane power, progressively cocoons into some sort of terrifying figure out of a sleep paralysis. She zips past, at the edge of vision and consciousness, dealing the occasional strike and retreating again.

And the chant, the chant doesn't stop, but it gets lower, quieter, more diffuse; hard to pinpoint, like background music.

Goldenblade smirks at Uta's academic response to her ironic observation. Her answer is even more amused. "Well, we logged on to the game. It's an adventure game, it's about overcoming challenges. If there was an adventure game about real life, no one would play, you could just have a real life." Overcoming certain challenges, anyhow. It seems Goldenblade is not prepared to face this next one head on.

As a melee DPS class, she's about getting into the enemy's face and kicking it hard. Filling that area with area denial makes it hard. Well, filling the area with damage, technically, but Goldenblade is far, far too fast for that, scooting out of the immediate effect, leaving nothing but a trail of flames. Those flames cause damage, too, if not a huge amount. It's like she left a trail of burning gasoline in her wake like a time travelling sports car.

Well this proves to be a problem she attempt to use Anchor Howl but it fails and she's slowed getting smacked aorund. She's not looking so happy now at this point as thing seem to be going a lot harder. She's not done but she's certainly on the ropes for now.

    Fukaziroh is a bit slow to retreat, and is caught by the cacophonous cry as three heads roar in unison. The effect slows and weakens her, leaving her vulnerable to the breath of fire from the lion's head. She cries out in pain, her previous elemental shielding insufficient in her current state to fully protect her. She huddles, and when the howl finally ends she spends her time pulling out a healing potion and drinking it rather than immediately launching in once again to attack.

    Fuka isn't the only one having trouble. Miho also gets slowed and smacked around, taking considerable damage while under the status effect. Goldenblade isn't caught in it and is able to escape easily enough, free to return once the howl ends to dish out her usual style of punishment. Vertina isn't caught by the effect, but it's all she can do to hold aggro with the dragon head and keep it from double-teaming someone else. Uta nervously anticipates the terrible attack and escapes it easily, once again allowing her to return to the fray once the howl is ended, and continue the assault on ... er... the chimera's end.

    Fortunately the boss's big attack doesn't last forever, and it returns to its original pattern of elemental attacks. The party has the opportunity to get back in there, whether hurt or otherwise, and begin to chip away at the boss's health bar again. The fight is slow, the party finally feeling some pain, but the end is in sight as the boss's penultimate health bar shatters. The chimera's attack pattern, once again, shifts. This time the eyes light up a flashing white, and the creature roars once again, the dissonant sound coalescing into a glowing ball of dark energy that begins to drift outward.

OOC Strategy: Chimera (final health bar)
Standard elemental positioning as before for attacks and defenses. In addition a light attack and a dark attack will go out. The ball of dark energies will paralyze their target unless it dodges or resists. The light flash will blind their target unless it dodges or resists. The two special attacks will by preference target two people who have succeeded in every round so far (In this case, this appears to be Goldenblade and Uta)

Vertina kept the Dragon Head's aggro at least, and when it goes back to the usual attack style, she's ready for it. Though one might think otherwise as the beast spews out a bolt of lightning that rips across the floor of the cave and the Salamander seems to avoid it just by stumbling in the other direction in the nick of time. More arcs follow, and Vertina keeps staggering and weaving out of the way, frustrating the monster.

And maneuvering herself to be just under the dragonic head, where as it stops blasting lightning is when she grabs the bottom of it's neck and just squeezes, trying to cripple it's ability to use it's breath attack!

Goldenblade manages to evade the area damage, her speed propelling her forward far faster than the damage can catch up. But this has conseuqnences also, apparently, as a special attack targets her, a ball of dark energy following her. Of course she has no special magical defenses, she has no magic. But she's heluva fast, and stealthy, too, it seems, because she seems to have left the fight. In fact, she seems to have left the cave complex completely, as far as detection can tell.

Luckily, she hasn't, but she did manage to step well ahead of the creeping damage stuff that was coming after her. She slashes with both flaming blades, thrusts like the spears of a dragon's fangs, or so goes the metaphor, but two deep thrusts in any event that eat HP.

Uta knows her Elements (except Fire). You can tell that a flash is about to go off from the increasingly high pitched whirring that marks its charging- wait, no, that's cameras. But point is, Uta seems to realize that she's about to be attacked with a flash, be it through Loremastering, her Godhand attunement with the Light element, or sheer combat experience; and this extremely short-term realization gives her the tiniest amount of warning to do what one has to do in such circumstances, which consists, in order, of:

1) Beam wide in excitement.
2) Call out, "Fuka! FUKA! OH MY GODDESSES, YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS!" while gesticulating wildly.
3) Cross your arms in front of yourself as you chant a dark, ominous jingle, and look downright terrifying (as terrifying as you can look when the lyrics of the jingle are 'LICORICE SHELL' -- possibly in some ancient language).
4) Watch your skin become imbued with the Dark element itself, for long enough to the flash to watch over you, unscathed, like an invincible creature out of a nightmare.
5) Beam again as you return to normal, and while you flail one arm towards Fuka, boast out to everyone, "It's Fuka that taught me this! Both to Shield in general, and the specific technique!"

Of course, once she is done with that, she will also respond in kind by unleashing attack of raw Dark energy at the Chimera, but before that, let her enjoy this moment!

    Katherine has been doing alright so far! Moving with the others and using her stone construct to avoid the worse of it.

Though as the dark energy forms, her eyes narrow. "Now now, you shouldn't meddle with arts you know nothing of beastie. Stick to your elementals." Katherine then twirls her staff around before she slams it into the ground. The golems eyes glow dark purple before it seems to move as she does, only for the dark energy to slowly consume the construct.

Then by will of Katherine, the construct runs toward the sphere, it rears back its fist in time with Katherine, before she yells out, then punches the air... Then construct, covered the dark energy slams the sphere with its fist, trying to send it right back at the Chimera.

Miho is slowed down she's beat up even worse but it could be worse. She could be waking up at a church missing part of her memory. She will get back on her feet and look at the thing fdor halfd a seocn she dart in again using her weapon's reach to strike and breathing fire, at the same time she triggers a fire based weapon arte.

"YOU ARE GOING TO BE CRAFTING MATERIALS!"

    The whole point of coming here was to work on her shielding against a powerful elemental foe. Fuka, however, just got badly hurt by the lion head's roar and flaming breath. After finishing her potion of healing she picks herself up and lets out a roar in reply. It's startling in volume from a tiny sylph even if nowhere near as impressive as three monstrous heads in a dissonant chorus. The lion's head opens and begins to spew fire in return. Fuka charges through the flames, arms held up in front of her with her plated forearms protecting her vulnerable face, and skewers the lion head through its open mouth with her mighty blade. Panting, she pushes forward with her blade, keeping the pressure up, looking under the chimera's belly as Uta calls out in triumph. "I'm looking, Songbird!" she cries out, her voice raw but sounding remarkably happy despite that.

    Vertina keeps agile and, soloing the dragon's head, dips drunkenly around in seemingly random fashion as it tears up the stone with its lightning breath. Somehow, seemingly miraculously, she closes without further damage and grabs the dragon head by its scaly neck, in too close for it to bite or breathe at her, holding and squeezing. The dragon's head begins to flail, and the boss HP bar continues to deplete as Vertina chokes the life out of one of its heads.

    Once again the ram's head tries to unleash its icy breath, on Miho alone this time as Goldenblade seemingly vanishes due to being targeted by a mass of dark tracking energy. Miho's having none of it however, simply lashing out with a burning weapon and punishing the head some more, interrupting the stream of ice once again. Her strike carves into the ram's head, severing one of the horns and blinding it as she bears down on it with flame and blade.

    While no one seems to know where Goldenblade went, the sphere of darkness still follows. As Goldenblade leads it from the shadows herself, the dark energies come back towards the group and the chimera itself, only to meet Katherine Tanzer's golem's fist. Dark energy collides with dark energy, the two forces colliding rather than interfering, and the chimera's own globe of dark energies is sent flying into it, paralyzing it briefly. Only for Goldenblade to suddenly appear, carving her two flaming blades deep into the chimera's flank!

    The sound from the mighty impacts echoes out, drowning out all else and leaving only silence and a still tableau in its wake. Then the chimera explodes in a massive burst of pixels of all colours.

    Katherine watches as the beast goes down and turns into pixel sparks. She does a victory pose which her construct mimics that victory hand signal. "Good work everyone! Now," She spins her staff and moves it to the side. The golem turns back into her noble steed, which she gets up on. "This was a very successful test, so thank you all. Till next time, ta ta loves!" Then off the imp goes!

Vertina steps back as the monster explodes in pixel gibs upon death, releasing her hold on the neck that is no longer there anyways. None of the pixels stick to her but she dusts her hands off against each other just the same. "Not super hard, but keeping up with it's tactics was a challenge, so fight well won!" Then she pulls out several yakitori skewers. "Anyone need a snack for the trip home? I've got plenty." Takes a bite out of one for herself.

Goldenblade is breathing pretty hard after that fight, in which, she considers, she did pretty well for seventy five years old. Well, if the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, doing all this in VR is the perfect solution, because then she's only as old as she feels, which is apparently spry enough to do what was done. She is, in fact, one of the faster people in the game, that she knows at least, and if she's tired afterwards, she can take a well-earned stitdown, unfolding a camp stool from her inventory and crossing her arms over her head the way joggers do after a jog. "That was more technical than a lot of fights I've done in this game," she admits. "I'll bet that's why other players had trouble. I'm glad your research gave us the edge." She gives Fuka a thumbs-up.

    "Okay that was super fun!" Fuka cries out, voice a little hoarse. She raises a hand at Vertina's question. Like she'd turn down food! Abruptly she realizes she's still carrying her sword and she makes to sheathe it, only to smack her forehead. "I FORGOT! I was supposed to shield myself from its attacks, not stab it in the face!" she cries out. "We need to do this all AGAIN!"

    This is, of course, a joke. Probably.

Uta walks over to the rest of the group, panting as much as Goldenblade does. Her player was younger than Goldenblade's, out there, but still, it was a tiring session. And to be fair... it is not even certain that there still -is- a player out there. Or that there is an 'out there' at all.

After greeting Katherine Tanzer by returning a "Ta ta!", and an additional mumbled "She seems nice. I hope to meet her again soon...", she segues into a different train of thought: "Li Gan might be interested in learning about this fight...", Uta comments. "He was mentioning how he found it strange that hybrid monsters like Manticores were present at all in Yamato. He even tasked me to capture a Manticore for him, so... he could study them, if I recall correctly? I'm a bit fuzzy on the details." She sits down, cross-legged, flicks her menu open, navigates through her inventory and shimmers a pen and notepad into existence. "I think he will be interested in an account of this battle, and general description about- hey, any of you has the Artisany skill?", as she stops scribbling and looks around.

"-Okay, that question can wait. Food I'll take!"

And so, chewing she goes, eager, until, well, she stops to chew abruptly. Mouth still off to one side with her cheeks full, at Fukaziroh's words.

"...Fuka. Who is the Uta in this party?", she asks, with her mouth full. "Take your time to think about the answer."

Miho is going to hold true to what she was shouting about as she aids in the downing of the boss she'll be looking very smug.

"Ets get the loot and go back to get some food as that sounds wonderful." She pause at Uta and peers.

"Come on lets' ... wait what you need to do it /again/?"