Duty Session 517: A Pirate's Life For Me

Passage has been arranged to Byalan Island, an area off the coast of Yamato. Viewed from above, the island reminds one of a skull. According to the reports, this island has been overtaken by undead pirates who have been hoarding cursed loot. The objective for adventurers is simple: Defeat the pirates, recover the loot, and return it to Mac Anu to be cleansed.

The ship's captain awaits the Adventurers by the gangplank to his ship. A grizzled old timer, he reminds the adventurers that the island they are going to is not safe to be around, and he does not plan to linger there long, so they had best wrap up whatever they are planning quick if they do not want to swim.

"I certainly do not plan to swim," Uta replies to the captain, with a little difference in her attire: instead of her regular white nurse's cap, she has a pirate's hat. Well... a pirate's hat slash nurse hat combo: it's white, and has a red Jolly Roger in place of whatever counts as a medical symbol. Even a red circle around it, to make it look more medical. "What's whit the hat?", inquires the captain, curious. "Hats are important," she replies, with a serious, deep nod, as if for saying "It Is So" or some other expression of appeal to Important Laws of the Universe mystical types might invoke.

Goldenblade knows better than to question a woman's idea of fashion, and just nods to Uta in greeting while ignoring her pirate nurse hat. It is what it is. She, like most guys here in the game, wears the same things she always wears: mail coat, boots, badge from Westelande. The Lander seems slightly impressed by it, but not enough to change his tone, and Goldenblade tells him, "We will do this quickly. I am also not planning to swim."

She does aside to Uta, "You know a red pirate flag means a fight to the death, no quarter asked nor given, right?" Because she knows that Uta, while enthusiastic, is sometimes not fully up on western customs, and pirate flags from the Atlantic are essentially western customs.

Hats are extremely important! Souji lacks a hat, though. It runs completely counter to the hat importance of the situation. As if to save him from a breach in etiquette, a parrot lands on his head. Sea hat. Pirate hat. Kaw!

"Training, to the death!" Soujiro says with a surprise jump from the top of the ship towards Uta. Except not to the death. Souji likes combat, he doesn't like traumatizing his friends. Kaw!

Uta stares at Goldenblade. Open mouth. Close. Open. Raise finger.

...Flick finger downwards with a concerned expression which mostly involves looking down and away and biting one's lower lip. Navigate menu. Hat shimmers. Replace with regular black pirate hat with white Jolly Roger.

"Hats are important." This is the Way.

Until, that is, Soujiro Seta makes his appearance. "Oh," she says, with a hint of surprise. "So we're doing that?" A sigh of resignation, and with a swipe of her finger,the original white-and-red hat perches back on her head. "I should have read the quest's flavor text before accepting it. I didn't know the rat quest involved training to the death."

The surface of the island is quiet, with only the sounds of birds and other animals to be heard. The captain drops anchor and lowers some longboats for them to use to reach the shore, again reminding them that he does not wish to linger long because of the rumors around this skull shaped island.

Upon landing on the island, the group is tasked with locating the entrance to the pirate's lair. There is a cave nearby that looks as though it may lead deeper into the island, but those with keen eyes or a good sense of direction may be able to find the secret entrance the pirates use. Someone's going to need to be able to get inside that entrance, though.

"Not to the actual death death," Souji says as his head-hat-bird squawks 'To the death!'. "It is fun to pretend and really push yourself. There is almost no limit to what the Adventurer's body is capable of!" They are practically super heroes. The excitement from Souji comes off in a calm, genuinely happy place instead of spazzy and irratic. He is a guy who just really loves the reality of the situation. He is in his favorite game.

"I've been on instances like this before, but we never found the entrance," the samurai says as he looks around, "it is one of those really tricky optional routes." True that each Duty is not the /same/ place but a /similar/ requeest. But it is a similarly concealed place. He looks, wondering if past experience helps him any. It does not. "If it gets too easy, lets try giving ourselves a handicap!" Training!

Goldenblade smirks as her bit of pirate lore has convinced Uta to change her pirate hat a bit. She nods approval, though, and does agree, "Hats are important." She smirks as Seta makes a showy entrance, but will take the ride to the pirate island in a thoughtful mood. On arrival, she looks around at the quiet island, and finds zero trace of pirates. "Perhaps these are imaginary pirates," she suggests, unable to turn up even the tiniest clue. She hrms at Seta having been here before but never found the entrance. "That does make it questionable. I don't know anyone who's done it, to ask them. But I'm pretty bad with problems that aren't in my face. This game thing confuses me sometimes, still."

"Almost," Uta mumbles. "People do cross that limit, all the time. And that's where people like me come into play." She points at her cap and gestures to her nurse's uniform. "When the going gets tough," she quotes, eyes closed and finger raised, "the tough get hurt, and the healers get involved."

"If you have problems in your face I can probably help," Uta offers, re-opening her eyes. "There's this herbal salve that is great for pimples."

Having been unable to locate the entrance to the pirate lair, the group opts to delve into the cave and try to find a way inside from there. It's dark, and there's no natural light after they get deep enough inside.

The caverns are flooded and narrow, and the party will need to work their way through them carefully to get deeper into the island's underground systems, to try to find a way into the pirate's lair proper.

"I have never found it myself," Uta mumbles. "Might be because it's the first time I take this quest. These pirates must be really good at hiding. We should learn some trick from them..."

Goldenblade nods as no one seems to be able to turn up a pirate lair. "It can't be that easy to hide," she points out. "You have to be able to sail in and out, right?" But the cave is the only place left to go, so she will go there, and look around, thanks to light shed by her sword. But to go much farther will require us to brave the flooded caverns, and she says, "Next time, I will bring my oxygen bottle." But for now, it will just be raw willpower and her lungs, as she consigns herself to the underwater maze of caverns, in hope of finding pirtates. Or air.

"Your healing is appreciated, we can fight on and push ourselves to new heights thanks to your support," Souji sparkles at Uta. The sparkles are more than just good social effects, they are downright radiant in the darkness of the cavern. That and it is an actual Light effect that comes from the Sword Saint's katana. He is no Hobbit, but he does have a glowing sword. "We will find it next time for sure," he smiles, taking a challenge that was not overcome as a new goal to set his sights on.

"That is why it's so impressive that they keep baffling us, Paula!", Uta exclaims, cheerful. "We -have- to study how they do it, once we find them!"

"And it is appreciated when people show respect and consideration for healers!", Uta beams, then stares at Souji for quite a few seconds as he begins to radiate. Maybe she is starting to fall under his Aura of Charm, or perhaps she's just enthralled by the glowing sparkles.

"Water. Why does it -always- have to be water?!", Uta groans. But the complaint lasts little: flick her menu open, shimmer her staff into existence, and she inhales, deep. She begins to intone an aria, quiet, melodic, with rapid ascents and descents. That score must involve a lot of quavers and semiquavers, or shorter, and tendrils of light and magic spin in a double helix fashion, like a disco glowstring drillbit, and as the aethereal lightshow accumulates rotational momentum, visible air currents encircle her, the humming of the wind providing a bass hum that harmonizes with her vocalizations.

She descends into the caves, as if walking into a cellar one step at a time, and the air currents form a spherical shell around her,pushing the water around in eddies and whirpools, but never allowing a drop in -- some sort of reverse Europa, with the water outside and dry emptiness inside. Emptiness, that is, if you don't count a singing musical kung-fu nurse and her staff.

The party moves deeper into the caves, but it seems that excavation on the pirate lair has caused one the walls of this path to collapse, blocking the way forward. There doesn't appear to be any way around, so going through is the only option.

The water makes Soujiro's kimono soaked. He doesn't mind it. There is light and good company abound. There could be an encounter around the corner. There is, in a way. One. With. Rocks?

Menu opens. Menu dry. He picks up a nearby rock to get a feel for it. Soujiro tosses it up and draws a katana out, slicing it in half. Then the halfs are sliced in half. "Productive and a good use of training my Flashrend technique." Happy Samurai. Instead of actually 'moving' the rocks, the warrior takes time to line up and zip-zoop-slasheroo the boulders into smaller ones. Easier to move and a lot more fun this way. A couple of his katanas break in the process, but that is a future Souji problem. Weapon durability is a thing!

Goldenblade has followed Uta, though rather than relying on magic, she simply holds her breath. For a magically long time, perhaps. But then that's beside the point. The point is that she arrives, next to Uta, and hrms at the blocked way forward. "Hangon," she says, producing a shovel from her backpack. It could be a magic shovel. If so, it's power is to pick up loose debris, helpfully reduced to gravel by Seta, and magically transport it to a nearby location, whereby using a magical gesture, the shovel's contents are desposited in a newly created pile, formed out of nothingness. Using this magical trick, the otherwise magic-hating Goldenblade will help clear the way.

"I think I can also do something!", exclaims Uta, as the rest of the party gets started on their tasks!

* * *

When the rest of the party is done with the opening a path and stabilizing it, they will discover there's extra work to be done: extracting a groaning Spriggan from under a pile of rocks.

At least it's moderately small rocks.

Going forward, the party finds their way through the caves blocked by an unusually thick forest of seaweed. "...Hm," exclaims Uta, who, coughing, gestures with her hand in the air, as she intones a tune, and causes the particles of dirt that cover her from head to toe to zip towards and circle around the gem of her staff, as if they were sucked away by an invisible vacumm cleaner and entered the red crystal's orbit.

The cough are at least dropped rhythmically. Yes, they cause the sand to briefly convulse.

"Any ideas here?"

Once the way is clear and the Uta is rescued, Goldenblade will continue on, seeing where this passage leads. "There's no way there's pirates /here/," she observes. "You couldn't sail through this with an icebreaker." She can't cut throuh it with flaming swords, and the vines are so tough, they're blunting her swords. It's all she can do to keep them sharp, and the effort to do that is more than the effort she can spend cutting. Needless to say, it's slow going.

Soujiro Seta rememebers these seaweed... plant... things! Much like before he is not equipped to deal with these things. It doesnt stop him from getting a good set of katana swings in. You don't even need to pay for training dummies when the target regenerates itself! That said, it isnt making great progress through the area.

"You might have a point Paula," replies Uta, as she hunches down to examine the seaweeds one by one. Without much success. "I suspect we have come entierely the wrong way. Perhaps we should go back."

Once she's squarely in the middle of the patch, she stands up and declares, "But then again... perhaps this is the key. We're getting in backwards. We might have found the secret passage they normally use to escape -out- of their hideout, instead of getting in!"

Tap lips, look around. "...now, which way is back? And which way is forward, again?"

Once the finer point of geography have been sorted out, the party finds their way deep into the underbelly of the pirate's lair. Instead of the pirates however, they come across a ant enemy crab which has somehow managed to get a large portion of the cursed treasure embedded in its shell.

It clacks its claws at them as they near, giving them warning to back off, but with that gold embedded in its shell, the massive creature will fulfill the goal of the mission, even without running into the pirates proper, however the group is still going to need to fight it in order to get their prize from its carapace.

"...Treasure!", exclaims Uta, pointing. "We were not -completely- off!" She scrambles off to a side of the large round cave, off to the side as befits a squishy healer. "I'm into postition! Time for Tanks and DPSs to work their magic!" After a moment of hesitation, she asks, staff clenched and ready to cast, "...who's the tank and who's the DPS in our party, again?"

Soujiro Seta offers a, "I'll tank," as he adopts a reliable tanking stance when up against the big ole boss crab. An enemy with a thick shell could involve a long battle and he is right there in the front with a solid Samurai's Challenge opener. The blue haired samurai holds onto the agro for the fight, adding in a mix of evasion and blade parries that really show why he was one of the main tanking forces in the Tea Party before the Apoc. He is quick to get in extra damage per second when his skills are cycling cooldown as well. Very reliable. The real impressive stuff happens with the counter attacks when he gets a 'Vengeance' buff that starts factoring in his damage and mitigation, finally unleashing in a powerful counter attack ka-crack! sound.

Goldenblade is panting and breathless by the time she's hacked her way through the pika pedan, or whatever this blade-blunting weed may be. She's not quite as turned around as Uta, but it's a bit disorienting. She spends several moments sharpening her blades /again/ before proceeding onward to ... a giant crab. "You know that's not a pirate, right?" she checks.

But Soujiro has decided he will tank, so that leaves her free to DPS. To be fair, that's what she would have done in any event, but it's nice that he can hold the aggro through what she's about to do.

Foreshadowing her plan, she vanishes from sight and seemingly from the fight. But only for a moment. She suddenly appears /behind/ the big crab, and now the big crab's HP are nearly all gone as Goldenblade's Assassinate strikes true. It's a low-aggro strike, compared to the raw HP damage, but she's pretty happy when she doesn't have to jump away to avoid a counterattack. "Have some of that, you damned crustacean," she says with a frown.

The going gets tough, but contrary to Uta's previous statement, the tough do not get hurt. Probably because healers got involved -before- that point. Prevention is key. Listen to your local health professional. Don't pelt them with apples.

A fourth advantage to having a Musical Kung-Fu Nurse in your party, just after Prevention (in the form of Magical Beams of Light), free soundtrack as her Arte mechanics to Cast Prevention, and therapy at the ready in case it's necessary, is the part where she can actually Kung-Fu: Uta may be a newbie, but by now she got at least the basics: a healer is not there -kust- to heal, but has to deliver as much damage as possible compatibly with keeping the party alive.

So, as soon as a window presents itself, she dashes into Melee ranges with a few leaps and bounds, propels herself upwards, spins in the air like a runaway whirligig flung away from its supporting structure, her song spiraling upwards in pitch and volume as she describes her parabola, and with an ear-piercing high C as a finale, she SLAMS down into the monster pointy-end-of-the-staff-first, shattering the creature in a gajillion polygons!

...Granted, the whole thing was a bunch of useless theatrics -- after Goldenblade's Assassinate, kicking it lightly in the shin would have sorted more or less the same effect -- and to be fair, she hit at about the same timeas one of Soujiro's counterattack, so it's hard to establish whose blow struck last.

Still, Uta, probably unaware of most of this, is downright beaming at her virtuoso display of prowess (or, for the layman, 'showing off'). "We did it!", she exclaims, pumping one fist in the air. "WOO! Good job, everyone!" She looks around, and one can almost hear the mental ka-ching at the sight of treasure. "This was a productive day- ooooh, crab legs," she says, and after picking one up, she gives it a tentative nibble. "Hmmm. Tasty." Looking around at the rest of the party, she suggest, "Seafood menu at the post-quest party tonight?", adding "It's on Mr.Shiny here", and gesturing towards the drops from the recently vanquished monster.

Goldenblade debates being a total downer for Uta, and pointing out that most of the loot was embedded in the shell of the crab that despawned. She finally decides not to mention it. Uta will work that out eventually, but for now, she's content with Happy Uta. "Well done," she congratulates her. "Yes, let's go get something to eat."

Soujiro Seta, victorious! "Good job," he shares as he basks in the glory of another well done dungeon run. Today will be a sushi night, something every samurai loves. Its a known fact!