A More Challenging Foe

Schneider has been working on improving his defensive capabilities. His offense has never been in question, though his ability to do /less than/ catastrophic damage is. But in order to effectively deal out maximum damage for the maximum time, he's got to be able to take the hits, too, and there, he's only intermittently successful. So he's been working on his legend of immortality, or, rather, his ability to stay in the fight when things get really tough.

His Patron set him up with a contact in Ninetails who pointed him in the right direction to find a more 'challenging' foe to face. He ends up finding what looks to be a portion of the demon Queen Helena's army that has been abandoned, wandering aimlessly without a commander. Schneider has put out word that he's hunting these remnants, and is looking for some DPS and a Healer to back him up while he tanks this pull.

Leaning against a tree, Uta is doing some stretching. Which involves pulling one of her legs up until she can touch the opposite ear with the corresponding foot.

People might we wondering if she's being supported by the other leg only, to which we reply, 'don't be ridiculous'. She's supporting herself with the palm of her free hand, the other leg is needed to do a full leg-split (which explains why she's wearing black shorts under her skirt).

We're talking Godhand-grade training here.

While performing these feats of contortion, she notices the approach of Schneider. "Oh, hi!", she greets, as she extends her legs, one vertical and one horizontal, to form a 'L', as the free arm and the supporting arm form a corresponding inverted L, her limbs now drawing a 'plus' sign of sorts. "Sorry if I don't bow or wave, I am busy with my training, and last time I attempted something similar I ended up faceplanting and ended up needing both a Moonlight Doctor -and- a Sage of Crypography to untangle me...", she comments, before pushing herself up in a hand-jump, and landing on her other hand, still resuming a 'plus sign' position but with the limbs rotated by one.

    And who should wander by, entirely by happenstance, than Fukaziroh? She pauses, looking in on the meeting curiously. Then she begins waving her arms and posing. "I know this one!" she says eagerly, drawing attention to herself like usual. "Y... M.... C.... oh how does the other one... A!! There we go! You need music though, or at least singing. Y... M... C... A! It's fun to go to the ... okay how do the lyrics go? Bit before my time really, though it's fun!"

Stray undead on the prowl? That's a problem that might not be Scale's main interests, but it's still dangerous. And challenging. And that's enough to get Vertina to come along. "You think this is like that one village that got overrun by zombies and vampires? A stronger undead trying to fill the power vacuum in this group with the connection to the big commanders gone?"

Erufu has heard Schenider of wasn't it the kingdom of Metllakia or something along those lines needed some help with training? She'd be glad to lend him some aid in that. She had blunted training arrows in her quiver which could be used to help so here she was. Sitting higher up on a tree brance watching for a moment.

"I'm ready to go when you are for this hunt! They are not goblins but undead are nearly as bad."

Schneider smiles as he notices Uta doing some ... whatever it is she's doing. Luckiky, he /is/ a Sage of Cryptography, so he could help her de-contort if needed. But she's just the sort of person who could be useful on his quest, so he calls out, "Hey, Uta, come join us? I've got a lead on a remnant of that undead army, but I sure could use a musical kung-fu nurse to help out." This is a quite specific niche to fill, but one Uta is uniquely qualified for.

Fuka's knowledge of 1970's disco is far greater than Schneider's, and he just kind of boggles. "Uh, hey," he says to her. "Do you want to come hunt some undead with us?" he asks, and party invites will go out to everyone.

"Could be," Schneider says to Vertina. "The report said there were no commanders, but that might just mean no archvillain-tier bosses. Someone's almost always in charge." He nods to Erufu as she speaks up. "Sounds good, welcome aboard!"

When everyone is assembled, Schneider will lead the way, over hill and over dale, right on down the dusty trail, but since we don't have any caissons to roll, we will have to be satisfied with, after some hours of walking, spotting a crowd of undead wandering aimlessly through a badly abused forest. It seems like some of them have attempted to eat trees to find nourishment, though it seems like that effort did not pan out, and the trees are only lightly gnawed. There are no forest animals, who had been intermittently sustaining the undead, who, when they spot the party, turn as one and charge. They do not scream, "Hot puppies! Grub!" But one might be forgiven for imagining that dialogue. Schneider will drop a nice fat fireball on them to pull the aggro, and he calls out, "All right, lets kill some undead. Or rekill. Whatever."

"I know that song!", Uta exclaims, pointing her non-load-bearing hand towards Fuka. "I tried making a Kanji adaptation for a school play, once. That project had to be shelved."

Lower center of mass by bending the knee, still maintaining the inverted T shape of the other limbs, and hop! Abrupt pushing up, spin in the air, land in a defensive stance, front leg extended, back leg bent, palms up ready to chop.

Stand, focused, for a few seconds, then return to Uta's usual careless stance. "Sure! I'd love to help you find whoever is in charge," she replies to Schneider. "I mean," she continues to Vertina, "it makes sense. Someone has to be the brains of the operation..."

As the group reaches the gnawed trees, Uta rubs her chin. "Uh... have the undead been experimenting with..." She pulls back her head, with a slight frown of puzzlement. "...veganism?"

Vertina pauses for a moment when the group reachs their destination. Notes the poorly chewed trees. "That or they're just desperate after they ran out of forest critters." She rolls a shoulder. Then crouches down to put her hands against the ground. Dirt and rock creeps upward as she draws upon the earth, forming layers across her arms and legs. She's a Salamander, so it's not realize surprise the matter takes the vage appearance of scales.

With the extra layer of protection set she springs down the hillside and into the charging horde. Shielding herself with inorganic matter was for protection against any life draining or necrotic effects the undead might have was about as tactical as Vertina gets. But it also helps in having some extra mass behind the punches and kicks she throws to start the beatdown on undead bodies.

    "Sure!" Fuka readily agrees to the suggestion to go hunting undead. She's usually up for fighting and helping friends after all. Or helping friends fighting! "If Songbird's going to be our nurse, I'll be our bard! Or she can be the bard and I'll just tag along and roast stuff. We really do need a bard though, undead hate music. They lack soul!" she claims enthusiastically. Maybe it *should* be Uta in charge of party morale...

    "Kanji? But it's a foreign language you should be using kana!" Fuka explains to Uta as they head out to engage undead. "Then again I don't make the rules, so break them if you want!" Speaking of breaking things, undead show up. Or rather the party shows up where undead are. "Maybe they're really into graaaaaaains!" Fuka suggests. "Oooh I hope there are bosses, like a lich or something! I'd love to fight something with elemental powers. Or maybe I'll like... run into melee while Schneider fireballs!" she squeals, charging in. A little late as Schneider's already launched his opening gambit. Fuka's happy nonetheless, taking great hewing swings at zombies as they rush past her, for a given value of rush, in their hopes to eat the party mage.

Erufu makes a three point landing from the tree and rises up with a grin on her face.

"We can't leave them wandering around now can we get to it." The elf is in good spirits hell her ears wiggle for a moment as she looks to Fuka.

"Sadly Kau is nowhere to be seen but you know I can do music right?" She grins at this given the Elf does have some bardic skill.

"Kanji...?"

Looks like the elf as ever doubles down on her roleplay.

"They have not been going on about gains so much as I'm aware."

A Kanji adaptation of YMCA boggles Schneider. He looks over the gnawed forest, and says to Uta, "Looks like something like that. But it doesn't look like it worked out for them. Anyhow, they should be using Romanji, shouldn't they?" he asks Fuka. He nods at what Vertina says, "They'd be pretty desperate, so that fits." Vertina slams into the mass of undead and they fly up from her punches and kicks. They seem more interested in trying to eat her than fighting her, but neither plan works out well for them. Fuka also starts wasting the indead, and while they try to gnaw on her, malnutrition has resulted in weak teeth. Erufu analyzes the situation, but it seems like the Horde is not being directed by anything specific. Just a wandering damage sort of encounter.

Schneider will leave Uta, Erufu, and Fuka to argue about which BGM to play for this fight, he's mainly about sending out the max aggro draw, which means the zombies, and it's nearly all zombies, no bosses or anything. The Exploder Wizard sends out fans of flames that draw the monsters from Vertina and Fuka to come after Schneider, and this is what he's training for, keeping his defensive magic up for the maximum duration.

The zombie rush gets diverted towards Schneider, save the ones Vertina already smacked down of course. The tank pulling in the opposite direction might be an issue for some melee fighters, but not for for the Salamander elemental bender. A few sweeping motions of her arms to draw a rush of air around her. Then she mimics the throwing of several punches in rapid succession, which sends bursts of ripping wind hurtling towards the zombies as they're shambling after the Explosion Wizard instead of paying attention to her.

Erufu is going to do her best to start pulling in foes to help Scheider so she start laying down arrow fire, shge does however aim to pick off undead here and there. Why? To keep the numbers managable for the party after all this also a cleanup operation too right?

She'll start singing soon enough but for now she's laying down fire.

    "Romanji, katakana, what's the difference?" asks Fuka airily, waving her hand dismissively. Well, one's right and one's wrong, but hush. Fuka has more important things than being correct on her mind right now, and some might comment that she's got quite a one track mind indeed!

    Probably Fuka's not the easiest DPS to tank for given she's as much tank as DPS, is rather distracting, and actually rather loud as well as she shouts and smashes into undead minions. But on the plus side she hits like a truck with that greatsword, no hesitation or half-measures at all, and what she hits tends to go down and stay down so it's not like she's distracting things too much. And of course when she does, well, she's got her armour and lightning to defend herself!

Uta may be a squishy healer, but she is a squishy healer who can pack a punch, something which people unfamiliar with her do not commonly expect, making her a passable damage dealer, especially at melee range, if there is no specialized DPS around.

As one of the team's designated bards, she begins playing the BGM for the fight -- but as a musical kung-fu nurse with a busy schedule, she often has to conflate multiple activities into the same time slot. So the BGM is played by hitting different undead, the target and timing picked to produce the right note at the right time. The return of the osteophone! Which is like a xylophone, but made of bones.

"It was a -translation- of the song, itwasn't in English. Well, okay, it was an adaptation. I researched what this YMCA thing was, at the time, and... we had to come up with something more local to Japanese culture. Can't remember what I went with at the time," she rambles, while she punches skeletons into a compelling melody.

"Careful, Fuka! If you hit those undead like a truck, you risk sending them back to our world! And nobody wants that."

Uta, all of a sudden, remembers Erufu's obsession with roleplay, and offers, "Uh... it's... a writing system. Complicated. Maybe I'll teach it to you some day." Pause. "Might take a few years."

It looks like Vertina has adapted to the plan, slamming waves of very hard air into the zombies' backs. They stagger from the blows, bursting into pixels and dropping XP for everyone. Sadly, the zombies have been on their own since the Undead Army got sealed away so we could deal with the Palace Landers, and the zombies, if they had any drops, have eaten them in desperation. Erufu's archery nails individuals that might not have been picked up by the waves of aggro, or are otherwise wandering more aimlessly than most, and keeps the melee much neater. Fuka winds up pulling enemies off Schneider, but since she kills them right away, it doesn't really affect the dynamic negatively. Her aggro draw mostly affects the one she's hitting, which is convenient because her greatsword mostly affects that one also. Uta's explanation of YMCA confuses Schneider even more. And what about hitting them and sending them someplace....? He shakes his head, baffled.

Schnieder's holding the aggro all right, but his tank isn't holding up as well as he might like. Sees like he still needs more training. He could, at any time, start dropping the catasrophic explosions he's known for, but instead, he sets his armor ablaze, and the zombies take additional aggro for coming up to hit him. His tank holds, and as he shields himself from the attacks, he calls out, "You're doing great. Chop 'em down like lumber."

    "I wood totally do that but I'm not using Chopstick these days!" Fuka calls out, nonetheless chopping fairly effectively with her sword. It's a bit axe-like anyways given its weight and broad edge. Nevertheless, she carries on her task with enthusiasm, chopping down any undead she can reach along with the other DPS.

    Fuka's puzzled by Erufu's comment, or rather Uta's response to it. She shakes her head and instead responds to the Isekai reference. "Do you think if I learned how to hit like a Truck-kun, I could get Scalies lining up for me to hit them?" she asks with a smirk, demonstrating on a zombie. "A WHOLE NEW WORLD OF PAIN!" she yells

Erufu gets the answer to her eariler question, which is good right? She'll keep laying down the arrows at this point seeking to cut the undead nyumber to a size that can be managed.

"So just how many do you think are out there?"

She stops playing around and fires off a bit shot from her bow causing black bolts of magically charged arrows to fire into the undead ranks.

It helps that Vertina is more of switch sweeper when it comes to her DPS, being able to use physical combat and mystic arts in equal measures thanks to her abilities to bend most elements to her will. She scrapes her foot across the ground, kicking up a bit of grit, and molding it into a ball that she flicks off the ground. Bops it back and forth between her feet and her knees like a dirty hackysack, adding more to it's shape and mass as she does so, letting what she had collected for protection meld away into the growing sphere since she's not using it defensively anymore. A final lob into the air, then she plants one heel and whips her body around on the pivot point, tail snapping in an arc for balance as she spins and brings her other leg up to collide her foot with the dropping ball of rock. A kick so hard that it sends the spheroid rocketing into the remaining horde of zombies with such speed that the combination of magic and friction ignites it on fire!

"I can still use Stick!", Uta beams at Fukaziroh. "...okay, the item is called Heartsong Staff, -technically-... I mean, if you inspect it. But I nickname it Stick," Uta says, as she shimmers her white staff, with a faceted red gem in the shape of a crystallized anatomically correct heart at the top, held in place by the sculpture of a snake coiling along the full length of the item. "Stick good," she says with a nod, and continues her musical bashing of the undead, mostly through the head (sometimes sending body parts to fly -- Zombies sometimes do not shatter out right, but have detachable body parts! Possible soccer practice for Vertina?), but swinging the staff at their sides, thus cleaving them in half, or jabbing them with the pointy end is not unheard of.

Schneider grumbles to Fuka, "I know where you go when you're killed in this game. It's not home." She finds it a bit slower going now that the weakest zombies are down, but she continues to strike at them with fury, and if they could feel pain, they would absolutely feel the pain she's bringing. But they keep coming. Erufu sees the remaining zombies are the tougher ones, and she steps up her attacks, cutting them down quickly before they can cause too much trouble. "This wasn't supposed to be this huge a group," Schneider tells her. "But I'm not sure my contact had the same idea of what 'a bunch' consisted of. I was thinking 'several' not 'several hundred'." That said, they've thinned the numbers considerably already, and Vertina clears even more, sending clumps of flaming earth into the highly flammable undead. Uta's song grows more intense as she's now striking more powerful zombies, and they take more hits per zombie to get knocked flying or burst into pixels, changing the time signature from something like a Waltz to a Quickstep.

Dark Schneider wades into the last of the monsters, and these last monsters are much higher level than the ones before. But he's determined to see this through, and keeps drawing the aggro, depending on the rest of the group to finish these not-bosses off. "Hit em, hit em fast!" he urges. Because his HP are sinking preceptitously.

    "Hit 'em FAST, he says? I'd hit that so fast it'd smoke!" cries out Fuka, pulling back somewhat from the zombies to begin a rapid chant. "Great balls of fiiiiyaaaaah!" she shrieks, calling upon mass detonations of fire and shards of exploding stone. The problem, it seems, is that these undead don't bleed. Getting flesh ripped off in big chunks doesn't slow them down all that much, thugh possibly a few of them do fall apart. But Fuka's having fun and isn't that what counts? Well, that and not dying of course!

That's one of the things about being a combat healer. Being a healer still means having to deal as much damage as possible, but it also means to be constantly aware of the state of your party, and make sure you keep them alive.

Despite Uta generally struggling with the concept of 'being aware', there is... something. Something about her role as a nurse, as a healer, whereby she doesn't seem to get critically distracted when someone's life is on the line. And so, as Schneider's health gets into the point where he -needs- assistance, her quickstep turns into some sort of holy-sounding Hymn. Tendrils of light and magic dance on her staff, and a beam of golden holy light departs to engulf Schneider, while Uta, leaps, spinns in the air, and after landing on one hand and holding up the staff with the other, spins around to deter the Undead from coming close while she's busy healing (but possibly kicking a few heads around in case they -do- come too close to this whirligig of pain)

The numbers are thinned out, but that has left the big tougher undead, the closest this hoard has to bosses, standing. And ready to rip Schneider apart for his defiant stance against their ill forces.

Yeah we're not going to let that happen.

Vertina bolts from her position, taking a running start before using her great leg strength to leap into the air. She whirls around, creating several great plumes of flame about herself. She may manipulate several elements, but as Salamander Godhand the Fire was still her strongest. But being a Godhand didn't mean she necessarily had to use her hands to do it.

"RAGNAROK'S WISDOM!"

And comes down in a glorious blaze to delivery an explosive flying kick that any Kamen Rider would of been proud of into the remaining monsters from the rear!

Erufu sees how intense the fight is getting and gets it into her head that it's time to buff. While she does let lose several shots for her bow? It's more to keep the enemy away from her as she sings. She sings Hero's song in an attempt to buff her allies against the undead horde.

Schneider is melting under the onslaugtht, but Uta's heals keep him up, and Vertina's DPS puts the monsters down. Fuka and Erufu are able to mop up the stragglers that survived Ragnarok's Wisdom, low on HP and on fire as they were. It makes it hard to hide. Schneider looks around, then grins and says, "I think that was the last of them! Thank you all, that was pretty spectacular. I need to work on a big defense spell, I think, to go with my heavy blasts." He looks around, but the forest is not on fire, and he says, "I feel like I've left something undone."

Vertina stands up from her fiery landing. Shakes her head a few times to dislodge some ash from her hair. But the undead are all redead, so there's little to worry about. "You definitely had the taunting down, Schniky. Just need to space out those defense timers a little so they don't all nearly hit cooldown at the same time."

She glances at the forest. "Eh. It's not burning, it'll recover in the spring. They weren't able to do much to the trees." Then turns to glance towards Fuka and Erufu. "The New World's tree huggers will probably help get animals back to living in it then." She's not saying tree hugger as an insult mind you. It's just the easiest way to sum up all the nature oriented members they seem to have.

    "If you want to work on your defense some time..." Fuka muses, hoisting her sword up and resting it across on her shoulder. "... I could always hit you a few times?" Fuka offers Schneider, and by the sound of it she actually seems sincere! Well, mostly sincere. It sounds like she might find some amusement in the action besides. "You can fireball me once or twice; I still need to proof my anti-elemental shielding spells!"

Erufu sees as the horde is finally wiped out she takes a deep breath. Given Schneiders status? She does her best it seem to help somewhat but in the end the entire party has taken out this left overpocket.

"Nicely done! Shall we go get something to eat?!"

"Oh, yes! I can also hit you if you want," Uta offers with perhaps a little too much enthusiasm. "And if you develop an Elemental defense against Fire, I'd be interested in learning that one as well. Sounds like fun," Uta says with a smile.

"Oh, yes, eat! A nice post-quest tavern night. I love those!", Uta exclaims. "I know a nice place around these parts-" She stops, blinks, and asks, "...where are we again? Just to make sure."

    Fuka turns to stare in (mock) horror at Uta, eyes widening dramatically and perhaps comically. "It was YOUR turn to know where we are! I was remembering what we were doing!" she claims dramatically. "Alas! We will have to wander around lost until we stumble across something interesting! Onward to adventure!" she calls.

    Then she pauses, looks back. "Or we could follow them I guess. Adventure? Or companionship?"