Duty Session 530: Zombie Jamboree

Since the rise of the undead in the Ninetails Dominion, one of the many regions of Yamato, there have been losses suffered by the villages in the demense. It leaves hundreds of villages in their wake. The Hunter's Guild, an establishment for Adventurers to go on 'jobs' issued that likens to the Quest systems of Elder Tales, has asked one of these villages are investigated. A party forms and the group is travels to the locale. Even at a distance it is obvious this place has been overrun. Shambling corpses wander the streets. There is no sign of anything living, at least from this vantage.

The streets of the ruins seem to be littered with abandoned buildings. It is as if the people who fled from here had little time to gather their items before they were forced to evacuate. Some buildings show significant signs of damage. Some may have tempted fate in their final hours by protecting their homes. Toppled walls and debris is all that is left to show of the futility.

Haru Nox, a commander in the New World Alliance's Silver Sword, is taking stock of the undead situation. If Haru is out, it is not a case of dire importance, as he commands logistics divisions such as coordinating efforts for cityworks or the recently constructed statue. This is a hands-on tour of Yamato and, for him, a chance to break away from the administrative work in Shibuya. He travels light, cloth armor and a small black cat that inspects as 'Eve' and 'Dark Sprite' monster. He notices that his party consists of two Scale, so the adventure as much diplomatic now as it is vacation. No rest for the wicked. Maye burning some zombies will let some steam off.

Schneider is here as part of his personal training effort, hoping to become better at defense, in his role as a swing player. He's no tank, but he's reasonably resilient and of course he's a DPS by inclination, if only because that's the easiest role to fill. But he's broadening his skillset, it seems, though he's not going to far as to sword-and-board it up. But he says, "I know we don't have a dedicated tank, so I'll do what I can." His long white hair blows in the wind, which is conjured for that purpose, because looking cool is a wizard's prerogative.

Akikoji had come along in hopes of becoming a better support. He couldn't be going into raids if his skills weren't at their peak. He was no attacker but he made sure that the attackers stayed alive and healthy. "I've got your back Schneider! I'll keep you in fighting shape, promise!" his ribbons flowed magically at his sides, beginning to glow a warm pink colour. A shuffle in his step and a smile on his face and he was ready.

there is something eerie about stepping into the village's festival square. This is a place where townsfolk would visit for social and joyous occasions. It is abandoned. Devoid of its purpose. It must have been during one of the more recent celebrations that the village was attacked, as there are still signs of decorations strung between posts. A flap of colorful cloth billows in the breeze like a flag of the past. A single child's toy lies forgotten in the center of the square. It tells the tale of a hasty retreat that occured in the chaos of an attack during the defenseless festival time.

There is a chill in the air. A paranormal wind blows. The faint impression of being touched brushes against each member of the party. Something is passing through, around. They are not alone. The mystery does not last long as something materializes. A child, ghostly in visage, appears like a lost gust of wind to the toy. It lowers itself down, moving the arm of the doll. A memory of joy as it picks the doll up and holds it close. The memory turns cold as the story had no happy ending.

The ghostly child turns, as if hearing something. Eyes, empty pools of darkess where eyes once were. A skeletal face. And a haunting, powerful wail of distress and distress.

"Tragic," is what Haru has to say about the ghost, the child. Its a stoic observation as Landers, especially the children, of he Land, are the worst kind of victims in the acts of aggression and power. Its not clear /what/ Haru is doing as he extends a hand out to still the air, calm the child down. Which is a tall order for living children, let alone distressed ghost children.

Akikoji could see the flag waving and frowned. "This is awful, but it should be simple enough to take them out right? Still gotta be careful though, I don't wanna know what happens if they hurt us. I can't perform if i'm a zombie" he chuckled, even in the face of the danger before them. He readied his ribbons as either side of his, stilling hopping from foot to foot to stay agile and ready.

There was /definitely/ something odd going on, but Schnieider is encyclopedic on the subject of ghost children, it seems, a side effect, possibly, of being Scale's librarian (or it could be his use of Haru's identification spell), and he knows just the ritual to calm the spirit and send it away without bothering us further. Implementing the ritual without hesitation, he executes it perfectly, and the ghost fades from view.

The attempt to calm the ghost does nothing. Haru would need ghost candy or ghost parents for that. Meanwhile Schenider and Aki combined efforts obliterate the ghost's existance from this realm.

The Adventurers are drawn deeper into the destroyed village by the sound of steady thumping upon the door of one of the nearby buildings. The sound of slamming fists is insistent. It is as if they were trying to break in to get at something. It is at that point that the group might just notice that a flag is waving in the window of one of the upstairs rooms. Someone might still be alive out here, trapped.

The zombies here are all armored. They are likely members of the town guard who were turned by the strange magic that changed so many individuals within the Ninetails region into monsters. Into undead. They seem to be relatively mindless. It makes them easy to target, despite their stocky health. If they can be taken out then the people hiding inside will have a path to escape.

Haru walks towards the home, letting his Wave Arte focus, a series of ioun stones, summon out a variant of the Thorn Bind Hostage spell. They wrap with thick, firey vines, easily attaching to and gripping onto the zombies as they constrict.

Akikoji saw a good opportunity with all of the armoured zombies at the door and decided to take advantage of the situation. "Let's see how you like feeling trapped." he chuckled as his ribbons shot into the ground beneath him, after a slight shudder in the earth his ribbons burst out from the ground, attempting to surround the zombies in an earthy cave.

Schneider moves deeper into the village with Haru and Akikoji, looking around for the source of the sounds we're hearing. Armored zombies! That is not something he'd planned around, but he will use his control of earth to summon a small elemental, which rushes toward the undead. But it's small and easily defeated, and soon he's taking a beating based on the aggro his elemental generated as he fights them off with a starter sword because fire did nothing useful. It's lucky he's got a super regeneration rate, as he's taking damage hard and fast.

The vines from Haru attach well and good to the zombies, but there are limits to the spell in terms of targets. The ones under Haru's grip are crushed and incinerated, leaving several for Schneider and Aki to handle. It takes longer than the insta-gib of the first half, drawing on the party's health and mana reserves to get through the remaining zombies. Yet they press on with a dip into the potion reserves.

As the party moves further into the village, there seem to be more difficult foes waiting for them. They manage to clear through a number of lower level zombies and skeletons along he way. Meaning that they've made significant progress towards clearing the village of undead threats. A grotesque creature awaits them as they turn onto the next streets. It is a hulking creature that looks as if it wwere made of two different ghouls that have been stitched together at odd places. Limbs stick out all over. Heads jut at odd angles. It has ar too many legs to be comfortable.

It moves in a truly uncomfortable way. It makes your skin crawl. The monster stutters in a wet gurgle as it moves towards the party. Luching. Clawing with far too many grasping hands and arms.

Haru laments that such a thing is even happening in Yamato. Yet it is. Best thing one can do here is put it out of its misery. The summoner extends out a hand and summons out his Fire Elemental, a Phoenix with the heat and intensity far greater than any witnessed. One reflective of a person bonded with a Divine Beast of Fire, as a pillar of flame swirls in an inferno around the gaggle of grouped ghouls. Visual reference: https://i.imgur.com/Sc2en01.jpg

As the fight with the undead drifts into the village and more and more undead show up, Schneider again tests the waters by throwing his basic Fire attack out. "GUNZENRO!" hs shouts, and a gout of flame incinerates the nearest targets. That's a most satisfying result, and he leaves off the taking for a bit, playing heavily to his main strength, fire, hurling GUNZENRO at every clump of undead he spots. This is why he's the Exploder Wizard!

Akikoji winced moved forwards with his team, he was happy that the number of undead did seem to be dwindling and allowed himself to let his guard down as his ribbons trailed along the ground and he happily hummed along, still following closely behind Schneider and Haru, just to be safe.

Immediately upon seeing the monstrousity before the group Akikoji winced with disgust but his expression quickly turned to one of sadness. "This is horrible..." he felt for those suffering but knew they needed to get rid of it.

He held up his hands and began summoning a fireball to send into the monster but as the creature lunged and clawed at them, his fireball shot into the sky as he had to leap out of the way and avoid being caught in it's clutches. "Damn it!"

Haru's Phoenix leaves nothing but ash left of the midboss ghoul. The stray fireball from Aki is pulled into the vortex. Victory through association.

As they delve deeper into the village, it becomes clear that there is one cenral building that must have been the home of a noble. It makes for an easy landmark onward. There are strings between the building that once contained festival decorations ahead. Now there are strange wrappings dangling from them instead. These wrapping grow more and more frequent until the party finds the source.

A mummy. There is a mummy standing right there on the high wire balancing on one leg. Acrobatic mummy. It seems to be using the location as a place to scout. Spotting the adventurers it does a backflip and flings itself down from the high wire. Hero landing? Yes, hero landing. The mummy rises from its flashy entrance to show skeletal teeth of the zombie beneath before shambling to attack.
Haru still has his fire summon out, the fire birb. It is enough to burn the dry cloth to a crisp as they travel. He watches the mummy do the act. Uta does it better. Once the landing is stuck he points the Phoenix to unleash a hailstorm of pinion-like-arrows to firestorm down upon the burnable enemy.

Schneider's solution for undead is the same as ever, zombies and mummies and weird monsters, regardless, they get a dose of "GUNZENRO!" and a high-intensity flame from Schneider, who has given up, it seems, on his attempts to tank, and is happily blazing away in ranged DPS mode, piling damage up on the highwire mummy with a careless disregard for collateral damage.

Akikoji felt fear when he looked at the creepy acrobatic mummy hop down from the wire and charged for them. The way it moved was unsettling, something like a mummy was supposed to move slow and steady, right? Then what was this thing!

In an attempt to keep it away from him and his party members, Akikoji called upon the flames and erected a flame wall directly below the charging enemy. The mummy just managed to make it through, well, almost. Akikoji's flames caught one of the mummy's stray bandages. When his own flames met those of Schneider's, Akikoji cheered as the mummy began to burn to a crisp.

The fire feathers erupt like small arms fire onto the mummy, burning away the bandages and exposing the dry zombie beneath. It burns up, shattering and defeated.

At last, they seem to reach the other end of town. Here, a large building that would likely be considered a 'mansion' by Lander standards, lies in a state of disrepair. there is a significant amount of damage here, just as there was throughout the town.

As the party approaches the building, there is an immediate aggression notification. The party gets that combat light flashing up. a man in heavy armor steps out from behind one of the walls of the ruined building. He is wearing the colors of the town militia. His face is now ghoulish with half rotted features. the monster lacks the jolty or stuttering movements of its lower level brethen. Instead, it draws a sword with the grace of a living swordsman, rushing towards them at uncanny speeds.

Fast undead? Haru prefers the shambler types. They are like old world emails. Plentiful and easy to get rid of. During the last moments of mana with his summon, he levels down a parting barrage of fire before switching over to manual Wave Artes.

Akikoji immediately was not a fan of the ghoul before them, it sent shivers down his spine even though he was attuned to the Dark.

"hmm, well, ghouls don't like light so let's give it a try!" waving his ribbons in the air, their silken material began reflecting the light around them. Akikoji attempting to direct the blinding rays of Holy at the ghoul but tripped on a rock in the midst of his dancerly casting.

Falling onto the floor with a thud he tried to shake off the shock and get back up.

Schneider approaches the building with his usual cavalier disregard for danger. The appearance of a fast zombie, or whatever sort of undead this is, does not change his tactics though the monster is clearly upgraded from the common sort. "GUNZENRO!" he chants, and flames lick out. Seems Schneider hasn't bothered to whip out the big guns, he's waiting for a more serious threat, perhaps. For zombies and mummies and that sort of standard undead, his Guns and Roses spell is enough. It's technically a low-level enough spell he can cast it all day, it's the go-to for swarms of mook-grade monsters, but apparently, the undead here haven't required more. He recasts is over and over as the fight draws out, keeping himself at range, but range-tanking isn't really what he came here to train.

It takes effort, putting the party on the edge of their health and mana resources to take the boss down. There is an unearthly roar that comes from the Revenant Captain. A final phase of the fight that could spell doom for the trio. It does not go as planned for te Captain. While the undead is still a difficult foe, the lack of the debilitating debuff puts it at a disadvantage. The final few blows is all it takes to cause the former guard to burst into pixels. A stream of fire and light on the scene. The broken and damaged armor falls into pieces where he once stood. A notification pops up for the loot, enough for everyone a share in the broken armor bits.

Haru takes his share of the loot, swiping the air in front of him to bring up a menu. An invisible set of typing is seen as he jots down a few notes somatically. Another hand swipe and the window closes, keeping those thoughts to himself as he chims the Hunter's Guild to let them know the request is fulfilled. Nothing left but to head back to civilization.

Akikoji picks himself up off of the ground and bows to the rest of the group "I wasn't much help in the last fight. You were all great" queue the necessary and yes, obligatory, idol pose! Winky face!

He chuckles to himself as he bends down to pick up his share of the loot.

"Well boys...." he proceeds to brush off his clothes with his kimono sleeves. "This has been fun. Let's do it again some time."

Schneider is sweating and tired after that fight, but it's not the worst he's had. He smirks to Akikoji, and says, "It wasn't bad. You're new to Scale?" he asks. "Welcome aboard, then," he says. "This has been your trial by fire, as it were," he jokes. He shrugs at not being much help and says, "We all have good days and bad days, and areas of expertise and weak spots. Keep on giving a hundred percent, and no one will hold your rough days against you," he explains.

As Haru looks through the loot, Schneider does as well before dropping it into his inventory with a shrug. To Akikoji, he says, "You never know when this stuff will come in useful."