Duty Session 559: Fireball Solves Everything

    Hifumi is in need of insperation, he's working to build up his little cooking empire and for that he'll need to continue teaching new chefs as well as expanding his signature dish listings. What better tahn a bit of fire for insperation? That and he's been told these woods do have some good ingreedients so he figures he can pick those up. So he's putting together a group of adventurers. "Thanks for coming, don't want to cause my lady too much grief by not heading outwith a group when I'm going to hunt monsters and look for new ingreedients."

Thalia loves questing. It's even better after some fantastic food and good sleep the night before. The spriggan woman is raring to go, veritably bouncing on her toes as the group assembles. "Almost everything is more fun with a group, thank you for having me! I'm Thalia, by the way. I, uh, hit things." She pauses. "A lot."

Yeowang is one of those types who are constantly training, and this is no exception. She nods to Hifumi, and says, "I will assist where I can. I am not the best candidate for this mission, but I will make my best effort." Her best effort has been pretty satisfactory in the past, and she seems ready and able, arriving in travelling clothes, with a bow slung at her back. Those who know her, though, know she is a close-quarters monster. "I am Yeowang," she replies to Thalia. "It is good to meet you."

    It's remarkably easy to hire Fuka for a mission with promise of food. Especially good food. Especially desserts. The little sylph bounces as well, peering over at Thalia. "I'm Fuka!" she says, though everyone here probably knows her already. "I hit things really hard. And sometimes make them explode! Possibly because I hit them really hard!" she grins. "Also I can do some other stuff but mostly I hit things!" she grins.

Dosbox has a lot on his mind today. He's been doing a lot of thinking about who he is and where he is developmentally and socioeconomically, and that has been hurting his head, as such, he is a lot more subdued than usual. "I'm DosBox. I, uh, Support. I do have a bit of boom to me, though, if needed. But at a distance." He seems to perk up a little at some of the familiar faces. It's good to have people who he recognizes around.

An unlikely sight these days, the Doctor of Tolbana appears to be out and about for a spur of the moment adventure. "Figured it wouldn't be a bad idea to stretch my legs. Prophylaxis of the Divine Dragons," the Cait Sith inclines his head politely. "I'll do my best to keep everyone upright, but kindly try to avoid standing in the AoEs."

Healers hate it when people stand in AoEs.

    The second Spriggan in the group simply steps out from behind a tree, as if she'd been waiting. "Hello all. If anyone doesn't remember me, I'm Miyako. Good to see old friends and new." She looks from person to person, considering, but it looks like she's met everyone here so far. She does grin a little as she approaches Thalia, though. "Up for some more fun, hm?"

    Hifumi leads the way, as the group is walking he introduces himself "I'm Hifumi, I run the Isekai Ryokan." He starts handing out bento, each examins as an 'improved' Tasty Rat Bento. It contains his famous tasty rat filets along with a pickled triffid salad, rather than the standard rice and umeboshi. "Offically we're after some Igneous Stones... really I'm looking for things that will make good meals."

"I'm just trying to get a little bit of exercise in," Prophylaxis adds with a slow roll of his shoulders. "Too much time spent administrating behind the scenes. I feel like I need to shake off the rust. If we find some interesting loot, well-- that's just a handy bonus."

He glances meaningfully at a certain gnome as well, "Please be at ease. Today I'm just another adventurer. Just do your best and I'm sure we'll be fine."

Even though he couldn't see him, he HEARD the Doc's voice as he introduced himself and he instantly straightened his posture. He hears the doctors reassuring words, and he does relax visibly, "Oh? Ha ha! Yes, of course! I mean, everyone wants to get out every once and a while, right?" DosBox is, as always, not the best at socializing.

Yeowang sees old allies, companions, Alliance-members, and many familiar faces. "Large groups tend to make easier work of things," she says thoughtfully, and that's good for her, since she's got precious little affinity for fire. She smirks at Proph's self-intro, but says, "I imagine we're all here for our own purposes. But that's fine. It'd be a dull world if everyone were alike.

    "I wonder what an ignore us stone would taste like?" Fuka asks, making a thoughtful and somewhat sour face as she accepts her bento. Not for the contents, no, she knows Hifumi's a great cook. No, she's dubious about stone meals.

    Also, she's into stirring up things with randomness. "Don't believe him." Fuka advises Dosbox with a grin, jerking a thumb at Prophylaxis. "He iced me once for asking a perfectly innocent question!" she claims. Of course she almost certainly deserved it. And the question wasn't perfectly innocent. But Fuka is, of course, never at fault! Unless she is.

Thalia, for the moment, is enjoying the back and forth between the other adventurers. She grins at Fuka, because they're not the same exact person, but boy, are they rather alike. She peers at the bento she's handed and just shrugs, popping it into her inventory.

She's still full of bouncy energy, ready to get this party rolling. "An ignore us stone wouldn't taste like anything, since it's ignoring us, I think."

    Heading out to the area indicated on the map, Hifumi leads the way. His steps sure and his leadership confident, as he eats from his bento, balancing it on his right hand and eating with his left as he walks. The map leads to a one story circular structure of stone. The building is covered by moss and plants and it take sa bit to clear the doorway. The door has a complex lock that is old, enchanted, and probably complicated, it's also an ancient woodden door and so likely quite flamable.

Yeowang will proceed on until we reach the warded door. "Hrm."

She complains about magic not making any sense, and not being able to use her own small talent, but she has a remarkable facility with logic and working out rules, and seems able to puzzle out the rules for this these wards. This doesn't matter too much when burning the door down, but it's the effort that counts.

    "Kind of like the food we had the first couple of weeks. Sooo glad we fixed that," Miyako says, taking her 'Tasty Rat Bento' and tucking it away in her inventory.

    She provides some musical accompaniment for the journey, noodling about on a guitar as the group treks along, only putting the instrument away once the group approaches the structure in question.

    After several minutes of study, and sketches in a notepad, she tucks the notepad away and nods. "Right here is the key," she points out a spot. "Apply fire."

A locked door! The lock is an intricate piece of craftsmanship, something that someone must have surely spent an inordinate amount of time working on and getting /just/ right. It's truly a piece of magical art.

It's also very flammable.

"Mm, I don't want to get stiff in my old age," the doctor says, gesturing at the door--

And setting it promptly ablaze with a quick firebolt spell.

"Even in this world, we must find time to exercise. Even if all we're really doing is exercising our minds."

They roll up onto the door area, and Thalia takes a look around. The wards are obvious, and she keeps her distance. She glances at Yeowang and smiles slightly, since they are apparently having the same thoughts. "Everything has rules, right? These seem like pretty simple ones."

She just kinda points out spots in the wards where they're weak. Of course when things get set on fire, it matters way less.

Dosbox notes the enchantment which supplies the power to the wards... It looks really familiar. It seems to be a big team effort working on the door, and he only wants to do his part...

He expertly deactivates the rune, which he, after finishing it, remembers that he's disabled this type of rune at least twice before. How curious...

    "Oh boy! Puzzles!" Fuka cheers. She has a high expectation of her own brilliance and, well, she's not bad at the smarts. Not quite as good as she presumably thinks, but decent. The true puzzle, of course, is if she can solve the underlying enchantment before the door burns entirely through thanks to the efforts of the more belligerent members of the party. Don't mind her, she's having fun solving, and will collaborate with the more cereberal members of the group. And probably just offer inane comments and observations that somehow are actually insightful if one cares to look a little deeper.

Ameia looks closely at the wards, a little curious about the puzzle. As she finds out though, they're quite trivial to disable if you just burn the correct ones. "You, you, and... you?" she says, torching a few of the wards with magical flame. That seems to disable a large part of the lock system.

    Hifumi watches the party working on the lock with a small smile on his face, he continues munching on his bento to get his buffs in order. After a bit, a small drake made of flowers appears on his shoulder in a shower of golden sparkles. "Can you make heads or tails of it bud?" he asks, to which the silent Snapdragon has no answer. However it isn't long before runes have been burnt and spread to the door, leaving ashes in the doorway. He heads on down the stairs and shrugs looking at the next door. "They really didn't want anyone coming in did they?" he asks as he looks at the locks, sitting on a step and letting the team go to work on the door, waiting to see if he's even needed with all the busy beavers at work.

Dosbox takes out his worlds tiniest hammer and tries taping on the hinges, but years of rust and dust have gummed up the hingebolt to the point where, he is fairly sure, it is never coming out. He looks up to his fellow hingeworker, Ameia, and says, "This one's done for. What do you have up on that one?"

Yeowang walks with the group through the ruins and approaches the next locked portal witrh the same analytical gaze she trained on the first. A massive oaken door riddled with padlocks, but ... they already defeated a locked portal. A second lock would not seem particularly useful if the first didn't work. So, rather than prodding at the complicated looking locks, she instead prods around other parts of the woodwork, making things happen unexpectedly. It seems to imply an understanding of leverage and how things can connect?

They get down the rickety staircase into the dark. Long shadows trail the wall from the torches, and violet eyes widen at the many locks on the door. "Oh, hey. I'm good at this!"

The spriggan darts towards the door, producing a lockpick and sets about picking the locks with at least some skill.

Ameia looks at the hinge in question. "Too sturdy," she says. "I can try to bend it, but it might jam the door." Then they'd really be stuck. While the hinge approach often works, this appears to be an exception. Maybe if she or Dos had better tools...?

    As the group approaches the door, Miyako pauses, considering it. Then she shrugs and steps back to admire Thalia as she picks the lock. Let the experts handle it. She never did do much Rogue speccing. "Looking good there," she comments, though whether it's about the other Spriggan's work, or the view, she doesn't say.

Prophylaxis takes a look at the solid oak door and makes a noise of quiet discomfort. "Seems like a sturdy old thing. But..." He hurls another firebolt at the slab of timber, but only succeeds in charring the surface of the wood-- and thus rendering the rest relatively fireproof until they take the time to etch out the burnt bits.

"This might take a while," he says with a quiet sigh.

    Approaching a fresh door, Fuka frowns. "Okay that's a bit excessive." she observes. "and *I'm* saying this, so you know it's true!" she adds. There are clever people here though. Maybe someone can come up with something. She chants a few brief fire runes, lighting up her finger like a bic, but doesn't apply it, waiting to see how othes will manage.

    Hifumi watches the antics at the door and then finaly he calls on Tigerlilly, Snapdragon, and Dandylion, the three small summons clawing and chewing at the burnt door until the party can break it the rest of the way out. Once through the door and down a hall they find... all of the bats, zubats, golbats, ratbats, batrats, baseball bats, well really it's just dozens and dozens of very large dire bats. "Ooh good... it isn't a door." he says with pure deadpan

Yeowang's oddly accurate talent for certain instances of woodwork pays off, at least, and she smiles as she helps ease the charred door open. She continues through, and we find ourselves in a bat-filled passageway. Or bat-infested anyhow, they're not flying at us yet. In an effort to have that continue to be the case, she will pull up her dark hood and creep forward stealthfully, remaining quiet and as concealed as she can in order to avoid drawing the bats' attention. Whenever one shifts, she pauses, then waits before continuing, and in that way, makes it past them finally.

That is a lot of bats.

Perhaps even an entire Major League of bats.

"Mmm, I don't like my bats. But perhaps we have more chiroption available to us than we think?" Prophylaxis scribbles a magic symbol in mid-air, as a rather esoteric enchantment spreads across the party. "Quiet step," he informs, taking a (logically) silent few steps forward into the cave. "Quiet from here," the doctor whispers, "Don't want them finding us."

Dealing with the door, Thalia could feel eyes on her. She looks over her shoulder and smiles brightly at Miyako before turning back to work. ... Did she just wiggle her butt?

REGARDLESS, we move on to bats. Big Bats. Her wings flutter slightly, and she takes a deep breath. She moves towards the nearest shadow and seems to step into it, coming out another on the other side of the room.

Cheater.

    Miyako grins a little as she watches the show, following Thalia down the corridor... and straight into the shadows, and out the other side. As casually as strolling down the boardwalk.

    She cheats. And she makes it look /good/.

Following the good doctor's lead, he begins to carefully pull on the shadows, concealing as many of the party as he can. Before stepping into the QUIET ZONE, however, he shoots a quick chim to Thalia, "You're doing really well this time! Good job!"

    "Okay that's hot." Fuka notes, proooobably not talking about her own fire-finger action. She looks wholly innocent, should anyone check her out for her meaing... so innocent that she's clearly faking it, in fact.

    She gets her silliness under control, more or less, as the group finally advances past the doors. "Ugh, goddamn bats!" she groans, though quietly. "Fortunately we've got a bunch of super sneaky sorts!" she grins, softly chanting and generating herself a cloak of shadows. She might end up bumping into someone else doing something likewise sneaky... but oh well!

    When most of the party is through the room full of bats Hifumi starts through himself... and then Snapdragon bumps into a bat... the whole flock... swarm... colony of bats, attack! "Cheese it!" he shouts as he starts running pelmel from the bats, with his dragon flapping behind him spurting flaming breath time to time.

    Once they escape the bats they end up in what the map says is the antechamber. It's mildewy, puddly, dripping, and overall terrible... oh and full of angry attacking vines, lets not forget the angry attacking vines.

Oh, well this is just a terrible, awful, no-good place. It smells vaguely like the intersection of a crawlspace, a stormdrain and a rafflesia smootie. Prophylaxis briefly retches, but somehow manages to catch himself and only dry heaves a /little./ "I can try to come up with a solution," he says, conjuring a miniature crucible out of rock and stone, "But I'll need a moment...!"

(The others will probably have the situation well in hand by the time he's done, but he's still ostensibly brewing an herbicide there!)

Thalia giggles as Miyako follows right in her wake, pulling the same stunt she did. "Nice moves," she says as they get past the bats and into the next chamber. They're really close to done, according to the map.

The stink, though, might be the end of her.

"Oh, gross!" She shouts, making a face. She looks around quickly, trying to figure out what to do. She turns her back on the room and starts fluttering her wings rapidly. It's the fastest way she can think of to make an air current that doesn't require magical chanting or expenditure!

Dosbox has smelled worse smells when he was being forced to do laundry for the group of adventurers he was running with back in the day, but he was still not going to open his mouth. There are some smells that you can TASTE. And then you can't get the taste out of your mouth... To top it off, not everyone is as galvanized to pungent odors as DosBox, so he 'works his magic' in trying to ventilate the room. Without opening his mouth. That's one pun he won't be able to shoot off...

Yeowang ughs at angry attacking vines, but her Feng Shui is better than that, and she uses that odd art, which she hadn't meant to learn, but rather picked up as a side effect of some related studies. She never thought much about that side of the art, but her masters were very much masters and in all aspects of the martial arts, and she does know this part. It only comes up very rarely, but it's oddly comforting to rely on old skills that are still sharp.

    Miyako nods, grinning, and high-five's Thalia. "It's like a dance," she proclaims, following in Thalia's wake as the party proceeds along the corridors.

    And then there is the STENCH. "Oh grief," she says, and starts the motions of casting a spell... only to lose control of the impending nausea halfway through. URRRRP. Someone else is going to have to get the party past this obstacle.

    Okay, goddamn bats are kind of funny when they're affecting someone else, and that puts Fuka in a good mood. As long as Hifumi's not actually hurt by those bats at least. For the most part the group makes it through in good order, and the spriggan girls make it look easy. "Ladies, a request." Fuka murmurs as they get clear. "Not so much hiding! Some of us like to look!" she grins goofily. Probably shouldn't be taken TOO seriously... not when she's mugging like that. Probably.

    The next room provides something of a challenge, but Fuka's come prepared. "Oh I know what spell's PERFECT for this!" she says gleefully, beginning a complex chant. Those who know runewords will hear the unusual combination of wind and stone being invoked, as well as shielding and ... range. She continues the chant, weaving a shell of earth about her, then advancing into the vine-filled room.

    It's easy, of course, for vines to lash at her. The beauty of this defense, however, lies not in its ability to avoid blows. No, the shell cracks easily enough, and then blasts outwards as sharp fragments of stone, shredding the attacking vines as Fuka cackles gleefully! She's also, effectively, immune to being smothered by the foul gases. More to be gleeful about. "Eat my farts, plant demons!" she cries as her shield erupts outwards in another retributive blast.

On reflex, Ameia uses magic to purify the air in front of her head, then covers her nose with her sleeve. It's only good for a few breaths, but she decides to cast it on the others, too, giving them some respite in order to deal with the aggressive plants, or to chant a more powerful spell without having to choke on the strange stench.

    Hifumi calls on Snapdragon to clear the air, and instead gets his face and head buffeted by leafy wings, at least HE doesn't have to smell the air in here... of course he's not much setup to assist in the fight in that case but the team still manages to win.

    Then the party is through and into the next room... where they are assaulted with lyrics most foul... or at least poorly written, and molten metal. "I hope you all ate your bentos." he says "Cause the strength buff and regen are gonna come in handy." he says with a laugh

The final room. With a weird Fire Dude in it. The spriggan squints, thankful that it doesn't reek in here. "Huh. This guy's not very good at sing--eep!"

Molten metal is hurled her direction, but she simply isn't there anymore. She is, instead, seemingly teleporting around the room, assaulting the golem-thing's doppel-minions with her swords. She blinks in an out of existence, appearing to strike and vanishing before retaliation can come.

Yeowang had actually tucked the bento away uneaten and hadn't said anything to Hifumi, but she's absolutely grossed out by some of what people eat here. The heat of the room has her pushing the hood of her coat back, she's not trying to hide, and in the sweltering heat, she squares off for a fight. This thing is entirely nasty and pretty tough, but Yeowang has been doing martial arts since she was five, this is a hard foe, but she's fought hard foes before, and this one is getting the kicking of a lifetime. Leaping, acrobatic kicks, with a twist in the air, heels striking with a force like a freight train, hammering blows into the golem like an angry god. Each blow knocks off chunks of HP and forces it back a step, and she keeps at it.

Dosbox usually gets excited at this part. This is when he usually gets to just throw all of his magic at a creature in one copyright-breaching mimickry of a Sith Lord. Still, he figures he should be good this time. Electricity begins collecting in both his hands as he holds them up like on the front of a metal album, and after a bit of charge up, he lets it loose, unleashing a lightning storm on the fella with a very well-behaved, "Lord of Vermillion!"

Strength buffs? Strength buffs!? Who needs strength buffs!?!?

...

Prophylaxis is a magus. He has no need for strength buffs! But he is also a doctor, which means he... can ostensibly make use of strength buffs.

Hm.

A wave of sweltering heat washes over him as Prophylaxis turns his gaze towards the... weird, rapping, molten metal-flinging monster. What even /is/ that? Prophylaxis squints hard through the heat but he can't quite tell. All he knows is that this... this /thing/ is an aberration.

It's a blasphemy.

It's... a /personal offense./ It's as if the doctor senses the very universe challenging him-- DARING him... to do something stupid. This... this is a monster that obviously thrives on heat, LIVES in heat, radiates more heat than a box full of cats on a moonlit night.

The doctor does not take such insolence lying down. He huffs quietly and loosens the collar of his robes. "Alright," he intones, "Let's... boogie."

The doctor takes a step forward...

AND IGNITES!?!?

No wait, that's a personal enchantment to massively boost his FIREpower. With a roar of narration-shunning defiance, the doctor lifts high his staff and unleashes a truly prodigious quantity of fireballs upon the Heat Monster.

And... seems to be winning? Somehow!??

    Fuka seems to be specializing in multi-element spells. It's not a bad niche, and she has access to every element, so it works well enough for her. Also, as a mixed-role combatant, flexibility in fighting is kind of her thing.

    "Okay, I don't want to listen to this guy." Fuka complains. "Can we just beat him and go home?" she asks. And the boss battle begins. Fuka is quick to summon up a cannon, shaping earth into a weapon and loading it with flame. "Fighting fire with fire!" she claims, only she's not actually attacking. She's using the highly effective AOE offense spell *defensively*, tracking some of the flame boss's attacks and shooting them out of the air, sending shards of molten stone colliding with metal in an explosive annihilation. One that, with some luck, also drowns out the crappy rap battle lyrics from the boss.

Ameia pats her forehead with a hankerchief, wiping off some of that sweat. It sure is hot in here! "Speaking of bento, I have this weird craving for sea urchin right now..." she says. To assist in the fight, she decides to use a trick she refers to as 'magical thermite', which she picked up off none other than the fire-and-explosions enthusiast himself, Schneider.

"Time to burn!" she says, setting off lances of self-oxidizing flames at the minions.

    Wiping her mouth, Miyako follows the rest into the final chamber, wincing at the wave of heat that rolls over them. And stares at the singing, dancing fire golem. She shakes her head, sighing. "That's just... no."

        Gold is for the mistress, silver for the maid
        Copper for the craftsman, cunning at his trade
        No, said the cannoneer, on the castle wall
        For iron, cold iron, is the master of them all.

    She has her own song, to disrupt the monster's! It isn't terribly effective, but it's enough to distract the creature and help the others fight.

    There are many takes on the battle, the big one being Proph out firing the fire monster... but then he is with the Scale Emblem. Hifumi however, being a summoner, a chloromancer to boot... instead... TANKS IT? He's in the thick of things taking hits and dishing out blows, it seems his food based buffs are enough to keep his HP from dropping too fast and his strength high enough to deflect and attack. There is Miyako taunting it with better lyrics, Thalia ninjaing in and out, Ameia handling the adds, while Fuka plays anti missile, Dos calls down lightning and Yeowang tries for the cover of Wushu monthly. Eventually the boss falls and all can relax, Hifumi sitting down and pulling a bottle of cold water from his inventory to slurp loudly.

The fight is hard. It's hot, sweaty and gross, but the group manages. This is what Thalia needed. A solid win in which she contributed. Her self esteem seems to be topped off as everything dies down, and she scoops up a solidified hunk of formerly molten metal. It's got a cool shape. She pops it into her inventory and lets out a breath.

"We did it! Great job, everyone!"

She flops onto the floor and now pulls the bent out. Boss fights are hungry work, and she eats it with gusto. "This is honestly really good!"

Yeowang's Wu Shu is good, and if her execution this time is not worthy of a Wu Shu monthly cover, she's been there before, and won't grudge someone else this time. She's got small critiques, herself, ways she could do it better next time, because every fight is a chance to self-examine, critique, and improve herself. She's fought this boss before, he's not /that/ special, she feels, but it was certainly interesting with such a large party, which is unusual for her. "Everyone ok?" she checks. Not that she's a healer, but she tries to be an organizer as much as she can, keeping track of all the variables.

    Miyako smiles lightly, wipes the sweat from her brow, and settles next to Thalia to pull out a canteen and gulp down some water. "You did great today," she tells the other Spriggan. "The other day must've been just bad luck, huh?"

Thalia eats a questionable hunk of rat, gulping it down as Miyako sits next to her. "Must have been, but I've had a lot of pep talks and REALLY GOOD FOOD since." She looks over to the other Spriggan and smiles, inclining her head.

"I've said this a lot lately, but thank you for being kind to me. I do appreciate it."

"Fine over here," Ameia says. Being a mage, she kind of gets the liberty of staying on the backline during most quests. But, she makes up for it with utility and damage. She watches Thalia eating bento and feels reminded of something. Was it that craving for sea urchin, or something else...?

"Yeah, some people here can really cook," she comments. "Though, I have to admit, that particular meal could... look more appetising."

    Miyako takes out her own bento and starts to eat. "Enh," she says, chewing a bit of fried meat. "No worse than eating gator, or rabbit." She shrugs. "Or your average McRonalds."

    Hifumi "Well when we first got here, it was hard to get something to go out with and adventure. And back then enough people were low ranking enough to just have tasty rat meat from some of the guild quests." he says with a shrug "But it's been a top seller ever since. Then I made instant ramen, so if you've got any of that in your pack so you can have a hot meal without the cooking skill, you're welcome." he grins. "Isekai Ryokan in Dun Loireag, best food, drink, and restful sleep in Yamoto."