Duty Session 560: Shrine of the Dragon King

Xenphia pinged out for some help. She pulled the Dragon King's Shrine quest and as tough as she is, she can't solo this thing. Thusly, the Cait Sith waits, double and triple checking her equipment, making ready to go in and get this done.

For the uninitiated, Xenphia is a tall, rabbit Cait Sith. She stands nearly six feet tall before her ears, which flop over to the sides. Her hair is pink and currently pulled into a ponytail. She's wearing white playe armor on her torso, complete with armored gloves, and she's chosen to wear a skirt (an armored skirt), and low heeled boots.

She doesn't seem impatient, but she's clearly waiting for backup.

And wait shall she do no more. If there is a lady in need of assistance, a gentleman should not be but a step away, and Nyanta is the most gentlemanly cat in ETO. He enters the scene with the poise and grace of a nobleman, and the smile of a cat that just had cream. "Good Evenying, friend. I have responded to your request for aid, should mew still need it, nya. I am a swordsmyan by the nyame of Nyanta. At your service, nya." He bows, bringing his hand wide around to his chest.

Goldenblade is here. She's in the Palace Lands to see that the Palace Landers are brought to justice, but that's not a 24-7 pursuit, and she hasn't done this dungeon in ages. And her old mentor is here, so she'd like to show him what she's done with herself. "Hello there," she calls out to Xenphia. "I'm Goldenblade, with Crescent Moon." That should help because when Inspected, her name spills out of the window.

She nods to Nyanta, greering him with, "Chief," and telling Xenphia, "I'm here to assist if you'll have me."

    When Miyako heard that someone was planning on raiding the Dragon King's Tomb, she shrugged and agreed to come along. It would make a nice diversion from her regular work in Shibuya's catacombs. "Good to see folks are always ready to help out with these things," she comments. Not having met Xenphia before, she introduces herself. "Miyako Blacklily, Bard, Silver Sword. Pleasure to meet you." She nods casually to Nyanta and Goldenblade, smiling lightly.

It wasn't so much the dungeon as it was the location that got Daiyu's attention. And she just happened to be on this side of the seas for a bit, helping the Adventurers coming from Yamato get situated in the land unfamiliar to them. "Facinating. Despite controlling the lands the Palace Land forces had no idea this location has here. Or if the officers did, they did not share it," is Daiyu's observation as she strides up, parasol resting upon one shoulder as always.

Nyanta notes that everyone else included their guild in their introduction; the Dandy Cat covers his eye and does a jojo-esque Yare-Yare-Daze. "Ah. My apurrlogies. It is now customeowry to include your guild in introductnyans. I meowst be getting old. Goldenblade, you will have to use your youthful spirit to get this old timyer back up to speed, nya." He gives the old lady a wink. "I amyalso from Silver Blade: newly joined, nya."

Xenphia does not smile. Her expression seems locked onto Stern. She does nod politely to the others that have arrived to help her. "It's good to meet you all, and thank you for coming. My name is Xenphia Liadon of the Aincrad Liberation Front, but you can call me Xen if you wish." She looks towards the direction the quest says to go and sighs. She draws her sword, an enormous thing that seems almost too wide to be wielded one handed, as well as her shield. Making sure they're set, she starts forward, leading the way like a Good Tank.

As they head up the narrow path, she frowns as sounds come from all around. Angry sounds. Screeches and howls. She hefts her shield as a rotten fruit splatters on it. She snarls, "Disgusting," and starts to jog up the path.

The monkeys, meanwhile, start to unload all sorts of things at the intruders. Fruit, rocks and even poo! Oh, the humanity!

Goldenblade nods to Daiyu, and says, "The players here had much of their agency restricted by your Landers, who didn't see fit to explore much of the content. I think it was Scale Emblem who uncovered this place?" She smirks at Nyanta, and says with a chuckle, "It's fine, old man." It amuses her that the veteran gamer and mentor is much younger than her in RL, wherever that is, but by time spent gaming, he is very much her senior. "Xen," she nods to the organizer, and follows up to where the monkeys are monkeying around.

She has trained considerably since she learned the basics with Nyanta, but she is feeling a bit of the student-teacher dynamic still in play, so she will follow him, trusting him to choose the best path. It does not work out well for her, and while she finallyt gets oast the monkeys, she's lower on HP, and she pulls a flask from her pack, huffing on it pretty hard, slowly reecovering.

The tank takes the lead but Daiyu is close behind them, prefering to be near the front of the group so she can scan ahead. "Careful, these ledges are narrow and may be brittle." Her keen senses can pick the way across, so following the nimble vixen isn't a bad idea.

The parasol is kept in hand, as Daiyu is using it both to aid her balance, and to swat away rotten fruits. "What rude little vermin."

    Miyako nods, and starts on through the mist, only pausing briefly as the fruit starts to fly. "This is the stupid part, don't worry, there aren't a lot of them." She steps along the path, ducking and weaving. "Goldie has the right of it, I'm afraid. There's the whole Babel Tower thing, too, I think I mentioned it to you once, Dai-chan..."

Cats truly do not always land on their feet, but at the very least, Nyanta does look graceful in his fall. A section of floor falls away, and while he does manage to roll out of the hole, he does twist his back paw in perhaps not the nicest of directions. "Myai apologies. I shall be meowre careful in the future, nya."

Xen is lighter on her feet in that plate armor than she seems. She darts up the path, ducking behind her shield as Stuff splatters on it. Her feet find purchase as she goes, trying to take some hits for her compatriots, but this is hard with AOE's. She manages, though.

As they leave the dirty apes behind, the group comes to a cross-path, the fog rolling in heavy. She stops, goop dripping from her shield, a banana peel dangling from one of her ears. Looking around, trying to peer through the fog, she frowns.

"Any ideas?"

Goldenblade smirks to Nyanta, and says with a grin, "No pressure, Chief. Teamwork will see us through." She nods to Miyako, and says, "This path looks familiar," because we've completed a circle. She looks on more closely to try and work out the way forward. She shrugs to Xenpha's question and shrugs broadly. "My GPS doesn't work here," she complains. Though it's more correct to say it doesn't exist here. Teamwork is nice, but she's not really contributing as she looks around and sees nothing.

"We proceed with caution." Daiyu replies as she puts her now soiled parasol away across her back. And heads into the misty maze. It's not hard to see that the foxy were fang isn't navigating by sight, the way her ears keep twitching back and forth. She seems to have picked up on something to follow.

Cats are also known for their impeccable eyesight, and yet, this doddering old cat has procured a can from somewhere and is using it as if he were blind. "The fog is too thick, nya. It is interfering with our myapping I suppose, nya." He bumps his head on a low hanging rock. Ouch. That's going to leave a mark.

    Miyako nods to Nyanta. "Yeah, I could've sworn we've gone a full circle already, but this isn't the same path we were on..." She shakes her head and crumples up the paper she's been sketching out a map on, tossing it aside.

As the group finally navigates the maze and makes it into another area, Xenphia takes a moment to catch her breath. "That was awful, I've never felt so lost." Her ears twitch.

The dragon statues loom over everyone, claws empty. Then the dreaded hooting begins. Screeching and hollaring. "Oh good. More monkeys." As if this wasn't bad enough, they start hurling elemental magics. Xen positions herself in front, hefting her shield to take as much punishment as she can. That's her job.

"Fire back! I think we need those trinkets they have!"

Daiyu lets out a sigh as there's -more- monkeys, and they have pilfered the mcguffins. "I think I have found a creature that annoys me even more than Bao," she remarks dryly as she flicks open her warfans. A few swipes make small cyclones whirl about the area, failing to actually strike any of the simians but possibly helping heard them into the reach of other party members to deal with.

Goldenblade scatches her head at Miyako's comment, but will follow along as we bumble our way forward. As we find our way to some shrine or other, finding ourselves under elemental attack, she parries fire with her blade, which itself is ablaze, and seems suited to parrying the flames. She rushes toward the magic monkeys and slashes at them with her flaming blades, the fire so intense that the steel all but glows. As much as Nyanta was her class mentor, the fire is a thing all her own, and the intensity is intense, her fighting style is like his, but the fire is a thing she's developed independently. Her blades flicker and burn like they were dripping with gasoline, the fire burning the monkeys until they're no more.

The cat was a bit rusty at first, but now he's gotten back into the swing of things. And if there is one thing that Nyanta knows, it's his blades. Both rapiers are in his hands before the order is out of Xen's mouth. He is so fast that he seems so vanish, then reappear right next to one of the monkeys, and with the swiftness and darkness of a spriggan, he unleashes a flurry of slashes that takes down one of the monkeys in seconds, "Ah, yes... It's comying back to me meow."

    Miyako sighs and shakes her head as more monkeys show up to annoy the party. "Oi!" she calls at them. "Stop that!" ... of course, they don't.

    So it's time to retaliate. "So," she asks, "What do you call a monkey who tells crappy jokes?" She's already scrawling runes in the air with the point of a folded fan.

    "Why, he's ALL WET, of course!" She flicks the fan open, sending a jet of water at the fire-flinging monkey, extinguishing the flames!

Xenphia ducks an errant bolt of flame, growling in her throat as she leverages her sword. She shants under her breath, the blade bursting into fire. She lifts it high and then swings it, a fang of flame ripping free of the weapon and racing across the ground.

Where it fizzles out a foot away from the laughing monkeys.

She sighs again, floppy ears drooping just a little, but it looks like her companions have cleaned it up.

Now comes the hard part. The monkeys disapperate, leaving the mystic artifacts behind. The Cait Sith begins to look at the pedistals like she knows what she's doing, but, uh. She doesn't.

Once the monkeys are gone and the orbs liberated Daiyu walks over to one of the statues, crouches down and brushes off the base with one of her tails. Taps her fingers upon the surface. "Hmm..." Adjusts her spectacles, and their special ability kicks in to allow her to read the otherwise faded and worn plaque. "Fire, Water, Air. Find the order, the path is clear." Snorts. "That's not a proper rhyme... but it does tell us how to go about this puzzle. There's a certain trio of statues in order to place the orbs with."

Goldenblade is quite potent with fire. Mysteries, not so much. She will step up and peer, but can offer no useful assistance. "You gamers know this sort of thing better than I do. No one said we had to know archaeology to succeed in the game." Not even RL archaeology, but fantasy world mystery solving. Not proper archaeology, either, she's misuing the term to mean general Indiana-Jones type puzzle solving, which she has no clue at. "Huh?"

    Miyako nods as Daiyu reads out the riddle. "So we need to find the dragon statues that correspond to the three elements. Right." She strts examining the statues. "I think... let's see... damn these are hard to read... I think this one is fire," she decides after a few minutes of studying. "Water is this one... or, wait, maybe this one...."

Nyanta nods in agreement with Daiyu. "I can see that we myawst use Fire first, but benyand that, I am stumped, nya..." He shakes his head, "If only a certain villain with glasses were here, he would solve this in a heartbeat, nya..." He prods at one of the statues with a paw.

It takes a bit of time, but the orbs get slotted into dragon claws that make -something- happen. There's a click as a piece of sheer rock begins to grind away, opening into a great door.

Xen leads the troupe inside, moving methodically and slowly, leading with her shield. She swears as the fog comes back, and with it the monkeys. "Not agai--"

She trails off as they convert into streams of fog. These trails coalsece into one and form a GIANT MONKEY. Xenphia, for the first time, smiles. "Behind me! I'll keep its attention while you all murder it!"

The Cait Sith flings herself at the giant ape, engaging it in PHYSICAL VIOLENCE!

"I shall remove his advantage." Daiyu leaps into action, vulpine grace bounding over the dark shockwaves created by the monster ape. But as she runs up she doesn't attack the monster directly. Instead she grabs onto his staff, digging her claws in even as he lifts it again. She does what Enchanters do best when it comes to battle.

Debuff.

Debuff debuff debuff, weakening the strength and slowing the speed of the staff's emissions, so the others can get close.

Goldenblade is not much help with the puzzley stuff, but she never was good at mysteries, and she had a hard time with science in school. And this was back in the 40's and 50's before they had modern science. But what she can do, is fight, and Nyanta might recognize Akatsuki's famous technique. She knew the ninja much after her association with the cool cat, but she learned a lot from the ninja, and one of the things she learned was an effective strike from stealth. Of course you don't shout an attack name when you're striking from stealth, but he will recognize the hallmarks of Assassinate when she appears behind the Great Monkey Sage and shivs him in the back.

Nyanta appears as though he's dancing with his evasion of the monkey, and with the tank holding aggro and the creature fully, the swashbuckler is free to unleash holy heck (not on my christian minecraft server!) on the Monkey Sage. Still, he gives a laugh at Goldenblade, who seems to be full of surprises, "I wonder where you had the oppurrtunity to learn that move, nya? I meowst have been out of service longer than I first assumed, nya..."

    "I hate monkeys," Miyako mutters, and fades into the shadows as if to escape the fight. Is she running away?

    Nope. She reappears several times, but only briefly each time, weapons flipping out to slice and slash at it before she vanishes into another patch of shadow, only to reappear from another. "Just die already," she mutters at one point, only to vanish and reappear to slash again.

    "Three... two.... one...."

The monkey falls with a heavy crash. Xen starts to relax.

Then it gets up again. She swears violently, recoiling as it begins to engage in violence again, only creepier. "Kill it! Kill it harder! Don't let up! Don't stop! I'll hold it again!"

The Cait Sith takes dire blows, but does not stop. She does not surrender. Her shield rings like a bell and her sword flashes with holy light as it lashes out at the abomination.

Goldenblade smiles to Nyanta. "I think Akatsuki said she knew you, Chief? I haven't seen her in over a year, I hope she's OK. I think she may be questing, building up levels but staying clear of events? Or maybe she's involved, but in the shadows?" It's hard to tell, with the ninja. She looks repulsed at the centimonkey thing, and the phrase 'Kill it with fire' comes to mind. She goes with that, both swords pointing, and directing flames from the tip to incinerate this foul thing, and the smaller centipedes are consumed in the conflagration, which she will not ease off on any time soon.

When the boss starts to go down... only for something more horrific in both power and visual effect happens to forcefully string it back together. "This is wrong in so many ways..." Tactical mind is working, and while it is hardly one of her strong points, Daiyu gets an idea. As she parkours away from the boss' flailing about she pulls several of her alchemical bombs out and throws them. A smoke bomb in it's face, followed by adhesive ones at its legs. The best 'capture' she can do is restrict it's movement and it's perception.

The Centimonkey Sage falls. It's horrific and gory and full of body horror. Until it finally fell, the beast threw itself at Xenphia and found itself wanting upon her shield. Again and again it battered at her, at everyone, with physical might and unholy power, but she did not falter.

Finally, finally it falls. Then the cleansing can begin. For her part, Xenphia approaches the altar and sinks to her knees before it, channeling Light magic into the altar and the sanctuary itself.

    Miyako blinks and stares as the monkey... dies. Or maybe not. "What... the...." She'd been so sure it was dead, but this...

    "Ohmygodsthat'sdisgusting" she snaps out before turning to try not to lose her breakfast. Then there's nothing left but blinking from shadow to shadow until it finally falls and STAYS DEAD THIS TIME.

    "If it gets up again I am officially OUT."

"Disgusting, foul infestation." Fortunately the group is able to overcome it. And while she is not as strong in it as others Daiyu is able to use her own Light magic and a bit of Enchanting knowhow to help with purifying the site.

Goldenblade is spraying the corpse with fire until it despawns. Not taking any chances, she stands like a firefighter hosing down hot debris, overhauling the fire, as it's called, but sort of the opposite, overhauling the body with fire until it's just pixels and loot has dropped. "Ugh, that was nasty," she says.

Nyanta adopts a look of nostalgia, "Aye, I did know that Female ninja (Kunyaoichi). She was loyal and fervorous. So far, I have only encountered Souji-kun from the old days. I wish I could see them all once again." With the nostalgia comes something that someone should never have when there is a surprise centipede monkey sage. As soon as the creature appears, Nyanta is sent flying into the wall. By the time he collects himself, however the fight is already done. "I feel, purhaps, I need some meowre... Trainying, nya..."