Duty Session 526: A Pirate's Life For Me

    Having heard that this place is full of booty, Fukaziroh is naturally drawn to the area! "Yar har!" pipes up the diminutive sylph brightly. "Shiver me timbits and hoist the planker! We're here to kick some booty!" she claims, probably rather annoyingly. Or endearingly. It rather depends on your perspective on such things.

    Hyuga rolls his eyes, but does at least thank the gods and programmers that the area can support him and his massive Greatshield. The slab of metallic monstrosity is on his left arm, and his hammer is on his left hip, clearly stating that Hyuga has come to F around and find out... at the expense of some pirate idiots who charge such a large man.

Vertina gives her battle gloves a tug to make sure they're properly strapped up and ready. Only about half of what Fuka makes sense, but that's just Fuka for you. Energetic regardless if she's intelligible or not. "I call dibs on any rum we find." Pirates, after all. "Maybe I'll have to make use of some of the watermancy I've been honing."

    Hearing about a new band of pirates operating in the area left Miyako mildly annoyed. So she's joined the expedition to deal with them. "Just remember that most of that 'booty' was looted from innocent people."

Goldenblade is, for her part, thoughtfully preparing for this venture. She's been on this trip a few times, she nods to the captain, and she says, "It's pretty hard to find their lair, I've been to the island before, but we never could locate it." But having briefed everyone as thoroughly as she could, she will join the group, and announce, "I'm as ready as I will ever be."

    Fukaziroh laughs heartily, though it's affected rather than honest. "Once we claim the booty we can spend it in the local taverns!" she reassures Miyako. Then in a more normal tone, "It's good for the economy. And don't worry, I can find anything! Except my way. For some reason I'm lost more often than not. Probably Songbird's influence!" she grins.

    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.

"One way or another." Vertina hops off the boat, takes a few steps, and then crouches down to run her fingers across the ground. Then stands and shrugs to the others. "There's been too much activity here for me to track. All the pirates smell the same." Salamanders may be natural hunters, but it's much more geared towards beasts and monsters than other humanoids.

Goldenblade is prepared this time, and as she'd explained, finding the lair is indeed the goal. The party sorts thorugh several alternate trails to what looks like a blank wall, and when Fuka finds the door there, Goldenblade is relieved. "I've got this," she declares. She has brought her A-Game, and is able to work the device Fuka has located, despite it's tricky and complicated nature.

For her part, things are going OK, but it seems like the entrance the party has found was a false one, and her efforts are in vain when the secret door opens to a blank stone wall.

    Hyuga, still a bit nervous actually adventuring around people, attempts to track down the lair as well, and finds himself at the same sort of fool's errand as Goldenblade. "Calm down. Freaking out isn't going to help." He takes a breath, turns, and catches up with the rest of the party.

    Miyako just sighs and shakes her head as the group searches for the entryway. She's working out a new spell, something to track where the shadows of men have passed... but when she intones it, all she can see is the overlapping shadows of dozens of passerby at once. "Damn," she mutters. "Haven't got the temporal component down yet. It's just showing everything at once. No useful information."

    Scanning about with her special eyes, Fuka tries to locate the pirate entrance. "It's got to be that cave, right?" she observes brilliantly.

    Well, probably not, to be honest. But lacking skilled trackers, the group isn't exactly going to be able to find footprints leading to a secret entrance. So the cave might actually be their best bet. They find a few possibilities, but those seem to be false trails and fake entrances. So in the end the group turns and tries the only obvious way in further.

    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.

Goldenblade sighs as we seem to be unable to find an entrance to the lair aboveground. "We can try the cave, but last time, there was no back way in..." But she will follow along gamely just the same. When it becomes clear we'll have to go under water, she pulls a small flask from her inventory. Giving the top a half-twist, she puts it to her lips, bites down on it, and breathes deeply, heading under water without any real trouble as she's brought her air with her.

In times past, Vertina would be a bit leery about getting into the water. But those days are well behind her. And while she couldn't use her waterbending to just clear the path of liquid, she can use it to keep herself safe.

That, and using her more potent air manipulation to fill her lungs extra full before diving in, ensuring she'll be able to hold her breath long enough to swim through the submerged passage.

    Getting in through the cave proves challenging indeed. Miyako grumbles as the water climbs above her knees, and shows no signs of stopping. "Blargh," she mutters, then snaps out a spell to push the water away from her, trying to maintain a bubble of air around her. It succeeds for a while, but not long enough, and by the time the party finds their way deeper into the complex, she's soaked from head to toe.

    Hyuga channels a little bit of divinity, using the Light to guide him, and thus others, through the current problem. Part of him wishes he was still back at home, as he felt like he was a far better farmer than adventurer, but Lith had told him to get over his problems with being in a party. The woman knew best, and so he was here, albeit a bit more nervous than the others most likely.

    Flooded caverns huh? "Well, guess it's time to get wet." Fuka says, not entirely enthusiastically. "So you don't think the entrance is in here huh? Well, I guess we'll never know if it was out there somewhere. Just have to do what we can with diving!" she claims.

    Putting actions to words, Fuka surrounds herself with a bubbly shield and dives in, her magic making it fairly easy for her to swim and not risk drowning. Well, not risk it too much at least.

    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 party will need to move the fallen debris out of the way in order to proceed and brace the wall back up in order to ensure it doesn't collapse again after they pass, blocking their escape route.

Vertina wrings some water out of her jacket as the group moves on. Going from one element to another as the path is blocked by collapsed rubble. Fortunately, they do have a construction person with them. However, there is a lot of rock and dirt in the way. "Lemme clean some of this up, Goldie, and you'll have room to do your thing." She stomps a foot into the ground, causing a split to appear down the middle of one of the debris piles. Then thrusts forward her arms, curls her fingers as if grabbing onto something, and spreads her arms out. The two halves of the pile rumble as they roll to the sides in the same directions, and then press up against the walls.

Goldenblade nods at what Fuka says about doing what we can. This is all well and good, of course, but soon there is a point where the path ends, at what seems to be a cave-in. "Not a total disaster, at least," she comments as she looks over the debris and what's still standing. She nods as Vertina calls her number, and replies, "Let me get something to shore up the roof, and then we can clear the debris from the passage," she says, and will direct the party's efforts, helping to stack the more rectangular blocks into a makeshift pillar, wedging it under the roof before shovelling the rest of the debris out.

$r    Hyuga recalls a trip he had taken with just such an issue. "Overgrowth... wait, of seaweed? Come on, I can do this..." Removing a pouch from his belt, he starts to work with a variety of chemicals in his Crafting window. After a few moments, he stands up and, cradling a small potion bottle, he analyzes the seaweed forest. Picking his spot, he hurls the bottle towards a relatively central location.

    Miyako takes one look at the wall of rubble and shakes her head. "Well, this is going to be fun." It isn't. Fortunately, it's not too hard for her to pick out key stones to move and place to support the walls. "I thought we were going after -pirates-, not groundhogs."

    "Well, there does seem to have been digging here." Fuka observes. "The tunnel's collapsed, but ... doesn't that mean there's something on the other side? Come on, let's go, what's the worst that can happen?!"

    This is, of course, a question one should never ask. Studying the collapse, Fuka considers. She's not actually particularly good at construction and is in fact considerably better with both earth magic and physical effort. But her experiences have led her to gain some familiarity with construction work thanks to her own enchantment creations, and she sees this as a puzzle to solve rather than an obstacle to bypass.

    She nods to Goldenblade, moving in to act as the bigger woman's assistant. And for that matter, even managing to move in and do a few smaller things before Goldenblade needs to suggest it! She's... actually rather competent? Who knew?

    Moving on, an unusually thick forest of seaweed blocks the next cavern. There doesn't seem to be any way around it, and the team will need to figure out the best way through.

    Someone could cut through it with a blade which might take a while, or a skilled herbalist or alchemist could use an herbicide to clear a path or to take down a lot at once.

Vertina huhs. Seaweed. Thick, too.

Vertina pulls out one of her vials of alchemical mixes, and pours it over the claws on her gloves. Then starts cutting her way through. It, at first, seems to work, as the bits of seaweed wither away when cut... but the area is so densely packed with it that it's not long before the chemicals are being wore away and she's stuck just straight up trying to slice through and it's not nearly as effective without the extra toxicity.

    Hyuga knew the score, here, once the Giant Enemy Crab was encountered. Others would hit its Weak Point for Massive Damage, perhaps with real-time weapon change or not, but this battle was not based on an actual battle from... okay, we get it. That massive Greatshield comes around to the front, and Hyuga steps forward. Mash Kyrelight ain't got nothin' on Hyuga, and as he draws his hammer to slam upon the shield in order to get the crab's attention, he grins. Social interaction? Failure. Combat? Oh, he could get down with some fighting.

Goldenblade gets through the blockage and leaves the passage quite neat and orderly, and of course there's no chance it will collapse before another group came through here. None at all. Following the group through the caves, she sighs at the thickly overgrown forest of fronds that block the passage forward. She draws both blades, and they burst into flame, but though the steel cuts, the vines do not burn. They do blunt the blades badly, and her blades won't cut after a few fronds are cut. But quick work with a whetstone brings her blades to like-new sharpness, and she cuts forther, though again, her blades dull quickly. Finally, she sharpens them again, sheathes one, and keeps her whenstone in the off hand, hacking fronds, then running the stone along the blade, and making good progress, slash-hone-slash-hone-slash-hone all the way through the growth.

    Miyako sighs and shakes her head as she surveys the forest of kelp standing between the party and their objective. "It's just one thing after another, isn't it?" she mutters. "I came here to fight pirates, not a /salad/."

    Hacking her way through the forest is such an unpleasant chore. She grumbles all the way, especially when her sword snaps with a 'ting' and she throws it away to draw another.

    "Are we there yet?" swiftly becomes her refrain.

    Fuka also tries her green thumb at the task of clearing the greenery. That is to say, everything she touches dies. Well okay, she's not quite that bad. She usually has to actually work at it to make it die... but that's okay, she is perfectly willing to do so now!

    The seaweed is rather resistant to Fuka's alchemy though. She peers at a half-empty bottole dubiously. "Was this weed killer or oil and vinegar?" she muses, glancing over at Miyako. Then tosses the bottle over a shoulder. "We do this the old fashioned way!" she says cheerfully, raising her blade and beginning to hack away at the growth.

    The team finds their way deep into the underbelly of the pirate's lair. Instead of finding the pirates however, they come across a giant 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.

Goldenblade slashes her way through the growth and peers critically at the giant crab. "Well, that's a thing, isn't it?" she says, and vanishes from sight. The rest of the party is fully engaged with the crab when she reappears behind it, striking a deadly blow that costs it an entire health bar at a stroke. It's got more of them, but her stealth attack has cost it heavily, and now she draws the other sword, and DPSes just as hard as she can.

    Her blade kind of gunked up by seaweed, Fuka's not really one to overthink things when she sees a crab boss ahead. Sure she COULD use something else, but this is a fairly physical group. And besides, she's not entirely sure her magic is the best thing for cracking open the shell of this great beast. So, gunk-covered sword it is!

    "Prepare for hot butter!" Fuka cries out, charging in and laying into the crab fiercely. She's not one to dish out massive damage in a single strike, not in this sort of fight, but she's constantly bashing away at the boss, her sword gleaming with electricity that adds a sort of extra threat to a water-based boss. Or so she supposes. Really, the heavy blade is sufficient on its own even without electricity. But that won't stop her from using it! "Prepare to be FRIED!"

    "Finally, something to just properly /fight/," Miyako grouses as the giant gold-plated crab scuttles into view. "Hey, anyone bring any melted butter?"

    It's time to fight, and she's found her enthusiasm again at last, dancing in and out of the shadows to pick at the crab's joints and other weak points. "CRAB CAKES FOR LUNCH!" she yells in response to Fuka's shout.

"That is one big crab."

But Vertina is undaunted by this. Anything but. Like most fight ready Salamander she sees it as a challenge and bounds into the fray.

The giant boss crab with the shell covered in gold swings one of its huge claws to hammer her into the ground!... But Vertina steps out aside where it struck, untouched. So it tries to jab her with it's pointy legs. Which she also bobs and weaves around, farther confounding the monster. It doesn't even look like she's doing anything other than fumbling about.

Except for every time she teeters and totters it is more focused than it looks, the erratic movements making it hard to tell exactly when she makes short precise swipes at those legs with her battle glove claws as she does, weakening the limbs holding up that treasure laiden body little by little.