Baby's First Duty

Dosbox is sitting in the Dragon's Larder in Tolbana, having been told he must complete a quest as part of the membership for his alliance. The ones who were to run with him bailed on him, leaving him alone to perform the Hunter's Guild quest. Knowing that he cannot, truly, complete a quest by himself (He is the Super Support, after all), he sends out a general, non-urgent missive to members of the Hunter's guild for assistance so that he does not end up on the Hunters' Guild's bad side. What will become of Borywick Rockborer, the Puntable Rock? Will he have to perform the duty by himself?

Dosbox slides his ale back and forth in front of him on the bar. He has just finished an entire pizza to himself, and for someone of his size, that is quite the feat. He has kept himself to just the one flagon of ale, but he feels he might have to start on a second for... gulp... courage. If no one else appears, DosBox will most likely attempt the task all by his lonesome. He had never died before in the game, and he wasn't really keen on knowing what it felt like, but...

Dosbox orders his second beer. He is relatively certain he'll have to take up a quest by himself, and he needs a bit more liquid courage to head into death face first. He's never been brave; that type of thing was beaten out of him at a young age. He's always tried to be helpful, but he has never wanted to put anyone out because of it. And now, his anxiety against making waves by bothering people to help him and his anxiety against ignoring a task he has been assigned for his own self-preservation are at war with each other. Will one more ale be enough?

The second beer arrives. Set down by the hand of Vertina herself no less. Then the Salamander tilts her head a bit. "What's with the long face? Something on your mind?" She's a barkeep, it's kind of part of her job to pay attention to people feeling down. And make sure they don't go too overboard with trying to relieve their spirit. With spirits.

Dosbox blinks a few times when he notes that it is none other than Vertina who delivers the beverage. He's seen her from a distance before, sure, and the guys he hangs with always thought she was kind of a big deal, but it was never really made clear why to the gnome. DosBox smiles big and bows his head, "Oh, ah... I just... I found myself in just a tiny predicament. I... Well, I am waiting on some friends here, and... Well, it seems they aren't coming. I didn't mean to sour your mood with uh... my bad vibes."

Ameia steps quietly into Dragon's Larder, her gaze drifting over the patrons. This girl seems quite of place at the tavern, wearing a long, magus's dress that was styled like the night sky, and with her black hair done up into braided buns.

She spots Dosbox and walks towards his table with a sigh.

"There you are," she says, placing a gloved hand on her hip. "You know, you could've just sent a message out to the Divine Dragons. Now the Hunter's Guild thinks we're incompetent for letting a support take on a quest by themselves."

Vertina has to use a hand to stifle a snicker. "Sorry! Not at you. Just you said 'tiny predicament', and you... y'know." Vague wave down. Then again a lot of people are 'short' to her. "I didn't mean to laugh at -you-." Then Ameia joins the conversation. "Someone can have a word with the Guild to straighten that out. Later. After this is dealt with. Sounds like someone's attempt at a hazing."

Dosbox blushes fiercely at Ameia's claim; he hadn't thought of what it would say about the Divine Dragons OR the Scale Emblem. He never thought that he was important enough to show on anyone's radar. His primary concern had been just not bothering anyone. He was about to TRY to say something about that, when the pun that he did not realize he had said was brought to his attention. The greatest form of humor was enough to put a smile on his face in spite of the situation, "Ah, well, it seems I HAVE come up SHORT for my roster on this little outing. And... are you sure everything will be fine with the guild? I have been trying to GROW on them, and I don't want to disappoint."

Ameia looks down at the gnome, a little confused about his strange sentence inflections. It seems she isn't very good at getting jokes.

"Don't worry," she says, responding to both of them with a hand-wave. "They know we're handling it, and that you're new. So, it's not a big deal as long as we get this quest done."

She glanced at Dos's two beers. "The real question is, why are you drinking so much right before a quest?"

"Liquid courage," Vertina replies matter-of-factly. "But knowing the situation, I won't let him have too much more," she adds with a wink. "Excuse me a moment." She turns and heads back into the kitchen. A few words can be heard exchanged, and she comes back out after having taken off her apron. "Now, what duty do we need to be punching?"

Dosbox reaches up into his hat and retrieves a sheet of paper, which looks like it has adopted its fair share of wrinkles from being held too tightly. "Ah, apparently, there are some igneous stones that need to be retrieved from some towers. I ah... I have to admit that I haven't really read the whole thing through. I was... just supposed to be support for this mission. Sorry..." DosBox wilts a little, realizing he is being even more of a disappointment than usual.

Ameia leans forwards to look at what's written on the piece of paper. "Well, that doesn't sound too hard," she says. "If you just hide behind us, it should be a walk in the forest."

As usual, wholly unaware of even her own puns.

"As I understand, we get more compensation based on how many of these Igneous stones we collect, right? So let's try to get a lot."

Vertina ooohs. "I've heard people talking about that one. Supposedly involves a lot of fire? So they like to give it to Scale Emblem I guess." She shrugs. "Because scales to dragons to fire, or something. "

Dosbox nods vigorously, "Yes, let's get a lot of fire stones! After all, We are the Scale Emblem Alliance! Even our currency is on fire most of the time!" He pauses, "I have no idea if that is true. I just heard it somewhere." He shakes his head, tosses back his drink, and... well... TRIES to smash the flagon on the floor like a proper adventurer, but he doesn't have the arms strength, so it kind of just clunks on the floor. He lets out a dry chuckle before shouting, "Adventure awaits! Huzzah!"

"And that is why we don't have expensive mugware," Vertina observes. Adventurers getting a bit rowdy before or after a delve is fairly common. She picks it up, sets it back on the table, and follows the Gnome out now that he's in a better mood.

After a very impressive traveling montage involving DosBox almost being eaten by a camel, the party arrives at the base of the circular, stone structure that almost seems more green than stone colored due to the mass of vegetation. The Gnomish Tinkerer lets out a big, "Hmmmmmmm..." as he analyzes the situation. "I think I could just... Cut the power to the wards if I could just GET to them... But how do we get rid of all these PLANTS?"

"Well, that way is definitely faster." At least for Vertina, who doesn't really have any of the skills for fancy dismantling of things. She just ignites her fists on fire and punches them apart, true to Salamander Godhand style.

"Let's just move on," Ameia says. She snaps her fingers, casting a Fireball at the wards.

Being made of wood and string, the wards don't stand much of a chance against the magical overkill, and all turn to ash in its wake.

"Was that meant to be a puzzle? Oops."

Dosbox waits as the two just... simply DESTROY the plants, as well as most of the door, in a flurry of fiery destruction. His jaw gapes only slightly as he sees the carnage, but manages to close his mouth before they turn around. "Ah. Yes, good job, team! We're doing great so far!" With a quick waddle, he finds the one line of energy going to the wards that they DIDN'T outright demolish, and the door just falls to the ground. "I suppose it was supposed to be a puzzle, but well, who needs puzzles when you're us? HA HA HA!"

DosBox leads the group inside, and upon discovering the trap door, he leads them down the musty stairwell. At the bottom is a titanic wooden door, locks abound. "Oh! Well, I might... Ah... I think I COULD maybe pick the lock. I... Should I give it a try...?"

"Loosening up the moving parts doesn't hurt." Again, there's not a whole lot Vertina can do that isn't just hit it with fire. So that's what she does, using some kung-fu rough housing with what remains of her fiery charge. At least the girl doesn't try to be something she's not.

Ameia crosses her arms as she watches the salamander try to bust the door down with her fists. "The locks, and the door, are a distraction. If you look for the weakest point, it's clearly the door hinges. Check it out."

She points at the metal fittings that keep the huge door attached to its frame. Blasting them with a thin stream of high-temperature magical flames, she partially melts them and causes the entire door to lean. However, it doesn't come loose completely.

Dosbox grins sheepishly; the last duty he had participated in had an issue with the exact same solution, albiet with less fire applied to the situation. "Ah, right! Let me just... MEH MEH MEH!" With his tiny hammer, a swift tap to the bottom of each hinge sends the linch pin sliding out like a buttered hot dog out of a glass tube. "That was... probably easier than what I was going to do." He grins and says in a loud voice, "Come friends! Lets move on.... ward" Halfway through the sentence he drops to a whisper as he notices a swarm of dire bats about his size. "Uh... One of those things could fly off with me guys...! What do we do?" DosBox whispers heatedly, not in a way that inspires the most confidence in his leadership.

Vertina pauses. Looks up a the bats. Looks down at the gnome. "Yeah, I think you're right. So I'll just beat them to it!" Before anyone can really ask what she means Vertina yoinks Dosbox off the ground, rests him on her shoulder, and takes off in a mad dash across the chamber. In her mind this is how she's protecting him from become a bat snack. She's moving so fast it leaves little sparks in her wake from the friction, all the way to the other side.

Dosbox is surprised at first, but after registering what happened, he puts his arms in the air and goes quietly, "wheee...." With a bit of darkness magic, DosBox conceals the sparks left behind his salamander friend, as well as creating an obfuscated path for Amelia to follow.

Ameia watches Vertina take Dos and dash to the other end of chamber, leaving her by herself, just as she was about to say something.

"We should- Ah... Alright then."

With Dos casting his darkness spell, though, they've left a convenient path of shadows for her to sneak through. Not really needing to do anything, she just retraces Vertina's footsteps to get to the other side.

The adventuers now find themselves in the antechamber to the inner sanctum. The pungent stench of mildew eminates from the dungeon walls. You cast magic missile at the darkness... Wait, no. What is before the adventurers is not an elf that would complete this meme, but a gigantic plant monster's tendrils doing it's best to grab them. Luckily, the tiny gnome is already safely grabbed by Vert. Still, the horrific smell permeating the room is akin to the Bog of Eternal Stench from an old 80s movie. "We -GAG- gotta do something about that SMELL..."

Vertina sets the Gnome down once they're in the next room. Then makes a face. "Eeew" Gives a shake of her head. "Hold on, I've got something to deal with this." To which she pulls out a flask. And gulps down the contents. Which she uses to breath fire, combined with the alchemical comtents and a few extra spices to make essentially a highly flammable herbacide. So she can clear a path through the touchy tangly plants like a living flamethrower.

Ameia yelps and does her best to avoid those tendrils as they try to grab her. She also pinches her nose as she catches a whiff of the awful smell."Oh, that is truly vile."

She uses magic to create a powerful wind torrent, sucking the stench from the chamber and replacing it with fresh air from outside. She then hides behind Vertina as the salamander starts spewing fire at the plants ahead of them.

Dosbox does his best to support Ameia's fanning as they, following the path Vertina created, rushed past and out of the reach of the plant monster.

Leaving the giant plant behind them, the trio advance forward to what appears to be the boss room. Fire surrounds the area in the form of torches, a giant brazier in the middle of the room... Oh, is that a fire golem with a nose that is BIGGER than DosBox's?! He scarcely thought such a creature existed in this realm! Not only that, there are a bunch of him, though they are all smaller than him... "...About the same size difference between Vert and me, to be honest..." He says quietly to himself. Then he shakes his head vigourously to clear out unnecessary thoughts. This horrible creature is trying to sing. Emphasis on trying.

"There once was an adventurer from Tolbana
Who tried to fight someone big and tall... anna.
They failed to do it, and the didn't do a good job.
And they had to go back to Tolbana!" Not only was his singing horrible, and the limerick off beat... Did he just rhyme Tolbana with Tolbana? WHAT RUBBISH!!!!

Vertina cracks her knuckles. "Finally, time for the real fight." She runs a tavern. She's heard worse attempts at singing from drunks. AND sober people. So she's unphased by the ruckus from the heat monster. "Nuke him!" As for Vertina? She takes advantage of having alchemically treated her gear so be highly flame resistant, so she just goes to town on the smaller imps to keep them from mobbing the others. With their small size several get punted across the chamber to poof against the opposite wall.

With the creature's minions out of the way, Ameia focuses on casting a powerful combat spell against their opponent.

"Nightmare Sphere~" she says.

Waggling a finger at the huge golem, she shrouds the whole creature in a ball of darkness, causing the thing to stumble and fall as it's blinded. Now they don't have to hear that awful singing any more.

Lightning begins to culminate in his hands as Dosbox begins to hover ever so slightly off the ground. His eyes go pitch black as the electric energies begin to arc between his fingers. With the minions out of the way, and the big guy weakened and motionless, he didn't even have to aim as he held his hands out... and unleashed...

"UNLIMITED!!!! POWER!!!!!!!"

Tines of lightning launched forth from his hands as DosBox's copyright infringing force lightning leaps forth at the poor fellow, who writhes on the ground just like some silly little boy who didn't understand the POWER OF THE DARK SIDE! DosBox continues as the golem flails helplessly, and is eventually reduced to ash, leaving nothing but lumps of metal behind... As well as the bare minimum of Fire stones they needed to complete the quest.

Dosbox clears his throat. "Ah... Um... Y-yay... We did it...?" He shuffles his feet, now firmly back on the ground, nervous about his display of magic just seconds hence.

Ameia pats the gnome on the head. "Nice damage," she says. "It's a shame we didn't get more stones, but the Hunters Guild should be happy with this. They'll probably also forgive your cold-mailing thing."

"We got enough to pay off completing the question, yeah." Vertina picks up one of the lumps of metal left behind. "And these might be useful, with a little reforging. Not the fire stones, but it's still something."

Dosbox grins sheepishly, both due to the head pat and the cold-mailing comment. "I mean, it was a success. And... And I learned that I need to rely on my allies from now on. And... Maybe I really can do more than just... Throw debuffs from behind a rock." Looking at the metal lump DosBox nods slowly, "I could probably make something out of this... Maybe a ring of some kind...?" Sauron's theme plays softly in the background.

"No loot for the jerks that ditched you. Their loss!" Vertina folds her hands behind her head as she starts for the exit. "Let's head back to Tolbana. Celebration round of drinks is on the house."

All thoughts of creating rings of power to bring them all and in the darkness bind them leave DosBox's head at the note of free beer, "YATTA!" DosBox jumps into the air and there's a freeze frame. The screen goes grey scale. The credits roll. But rest assured. Everyone got properly drunk and happy at the end.