Duty Session 564: Isle of the Terraformers

    Miyako looks out at the distant island from the ship that's carried the group there. She shades her eyes with one hand and hmmms as she tries to make out details. "I mean, I've heard stories about this place, but still, it's hard to believe that it's all that they say."

    She steps down from the fo'csle and shakes her head, sighing. "So, we're almost there, any of you been here before? Recommendations on things to watch out for?" She leans against the mast, hooks her thumbs in her waistband, and looks over the group.

"Can't say I've been there, Miyako," Kotono says as she lowers her feet to the ground in an extreme backbend while balancing on her hands. Yes, the Spriggan has an unusual way of warming up for things, but it works for her, doesn't it? She does what she does and it works.

"Whatever it's like there, there's no telling what it will be," Kotono adds as she completes her backbend by touching her feet to the floor and then coming up like it's nothing. She then proceeds to stretch her legs by doing a vertical split on each leg. "We'll have to be on high alert, that's for sure."

Goldenblade has, in fact, been here before, but it's been a while. "I get the quests mixed up," she says. "This one's a bit odd, because we fight sort of automotons, and it's confusing to get around in places." She shrugs helplessly, "Sorry I can't recall more." She checks her gear, though, and it seems ready. "It's ... I keep thinking there's something in the beginning, but I'm almost positive that's on a different mission that also involves a sandy beach at the beginning."

"Never been here either," Thalia says as the group disembarks from the ship. She makes one final gear check, smiling slightly as Kotono shows off her balance and flexibility. That's one way to get ready for a fight, or whatever other chaos is about to ensue. She looks at Goldenblade, listening intently.

"Welp, it's going to be a trial whatever, so we may as well get started."

Miho says "I know a few people who hae been here...I however never have been here before." Her tail sways lazily as she does so. She's also leaning on her nagitnata for the moment as she looks the rest of the party over. "Good to see all of you. Hopefully I will find some good forging materials here..."

    Miyako nods and boards the longboats with the rest of the party. The ship's captain has refused to get any closer to the island, so it's up to the small boats to get the adventurers in to the beach.

    The ride to the beach is less than eventful, the landing unopposed. Getting any further inland, however, will be something of a challenge.

    It takes some searching, but the group eventually locates a tunnel leading under some of the worst of the barriers. "What's that noise?" Miyako asks, but it's quickly obvious - something mechanical, possibly steam-powered and hydraulic. There are even steam pipes lining the tunnel walls once the group gets a ways into it, occasionally venting scalding-hot steam to annoy anyone trying to get by.

    "Well crap," Miyako mutters, pulling back from an even hotter burst. "These things are just getting denser and denser. Can anyone see a shutoff valve or something?"

Goldenblade likewise boards the longboats. This place is a bit too dangerous for Landers, and the boat is our way back to civilization. Not risking the boat sounds like a good plan to her also. So, her background in construction perhaps is the source of her sure knowledge, but she seems to have some talent for turning off the valves that need to be turned off. "Like this," she explains to Miyako, demonstrating. "Steam valves are found all over the place in buildings from the seventies and before. That's around when they went over to heat pumps." Construction trivia, pretty meaningless.

"Oh oh, this does not look good," Kotono says as she arrives in the tunnel and discovers all the steam there. Just by looking at it Kotono senses how hot it must be, if not worse. She's not in the mood for a sauna experience or anything like that, so something has to be done.

"I'm sure there's a switch somewhere, and it's up to me to find it!" Kotono says as she begins literally shifting from one point to another like a spirit or something. Whenever there's a blast of steam, it happens just as Kotono leaves. "I think I've found it!"

Miho is happy to go for a boat trip to get there. It doesn't take too long until they get there. "Humm no one's waiting for us..." She pause but as they get from the beach to the tunnel. She will pause for a moment and given her skills she got some idea to find a shut off valve hopefully that will be the master one or there could be more. It can't help but make things less of a pain for everyone, right?

Much like Kotono, Thalia slips down through the tunnel, which is not a tight fit for the tiny Spriggan at all. She hits the walkway and immediately ducks a blast of steam, eyes widening.

"I'm all for a spa day, but this place is kinda gross. ... I'm gonna open a spa."

She moves through, following Kotono. If the other Spriggan seems to be gone before the steam shows up, Thalia is just dodging it expertly. Juking, weaving and even limboing around it.

    Miyako nods and watches as the rest make their way past the gushing steam vents. She's just as successful as the other Spriggans, and emerges smiling and unscathed. Past the steam vents the path is much wider and clearer, cavernous chambers that echo as people walk - and even louder if there is any talking.

    Soon enough, however, one chamber is not empty - there's a single chim, of all things, standing there and looking at the adventurers. It blinks, staring, and then turns and darts off.

    Behind it, however, the adventurers are not left alone. There's a rumbling noise and a red light down one of the tunnels leading away from the chamber... "Oh, crap," Miyako mutters.

    Indeed, the rumbling noise is the approach of a massive sphere of metal, rolling down the tunnel to come to a halt before the party. It unfolds with mechanical noises and hissing steam, into some sort of giant robot that starts to stomp in their direction!

Goldenblade makes it through the steamy tunnels, now sweating heavily and looking rougher than she really feels. The next hard task we face looks like it ought to be easy for her, too. Her knowledge of armor is not inconsiderable, and she has a few ideas about how this armor might be circumvented or rendered less than useful. So, she darts forward, thrusts her sword into a place she expects to find a gap, and does not find a gap. She's struck and falls back, shaking her head to clear it.

"There's openings there, it's ... is it timing or something?" she wonders, and darts in again, this time getting smacked pretty hard before she can even get in to try her armoury knowledge on this thing. She will hang back after this, watching now for openings rather than stepping up and getting smacked. She's got to figure out how she misread this thing!

As they go through the empty rooms, Thalia keeps her eyes open, looking for trouble. The chim makes her squint, when they find it, but it runs off. The sphere, on the other hand, is a problem.

Goldenblade takes a hefty hit, and the Spriggan frowns. She zips in close, using her size and mobility to her advantage. She skirts to the right, getting too close for that sword to effectively strike, and she starts stabbing. Her hands are a blur as both swords rain in at parts of the thing that might be vulnerable.

Kotono thinks that the sphere is the weak point. She thinks maybe a well timed strike will do the trick. "Hiiii-yah!" She yells as she dashes in, attempting to strike it with her blades.

Only to find herself getting electrocuted (or something similar) before dropping to the ground, slightly burned and also somewhat dazed too. "Table for two, waiter. My date will be here soon." She babbles before shaking her head. "Ow."

Miho knows metal almost as well as she can make weapons and and this is going to be a big boon right now. She will size the thing up and after a moment.

"Right there." She'll strike out with her weapon going for the weak point she'd spotted.

    Miyako joins in the fight, calling over to Kotono, "I'm right here, Ko-chan!" as her partner falls. She engages the machine, slashing with her fans to keep it distracted from those who pick out its weak spots to disable it.

    With the automaton disabled, parts scattered about the room, the party can move on.

    "You ok?" Miyako asks, helping Kotono to her feet.

    A few chambers further on, however, is another ... obstacle.

    A choke-point in the tunnel narrows down until the walls almost meet the set of spinning blades that fill the corridor's width, suddenly shooting up from the floor to send the adventurers screeching to a halt.

    Beyond the blades, -something- is watching, a humanoid-ish figure that watches the group for a moment before heading down a set of stairs and out of sight.

    Miyako takes a few moments to examine the spinning blades and shrugs. "I got nothin'. Anyone bring a big stick?"

Goldenblade grunts as the others manage to puzzle out the bot that had baffled her. She looks at it more closely now that it's disable, hrms. She proceeds on with the group, though, not wanting to be left behind, and hrms as we're faced with the whirling death machine. "Interesting," she says, "But I think, if ... here ...." she looks over he device, and swaps her swords out for some small hand tools. "This would make an interesting training aid," she announces.

Thalia is quite tiny. This allows her to start edging towards the whirling blades in relative safety. "I'm gonna try and disable them!" She drops to the floor and starts crawling, slipping under the trap. She reaches into her inventory and pulls out a very basic, but sturdy looking long knife. She squints and takes a breath.

"Here goes!"

Her hand darts forward and she tries to jam the knife into the gears of the mechanism, to bind and break the teeth. Hopefully she doesn't lose a hand!

After the bad luck she had back there, Kotono's hoping she can do better this time. Fortunately, she seems to know what she's doing. She's got everything down pat it seems. There's nothing to it.

"Let's see here," Kotono says as she does a little lockpicking using her blades. "Just like this, then that..."

One thing down, who knows who knows how many more to go right? That's half the fun of it.

"Good keep alert for more..."

She stares at the Whirling blades. She takes a moment gets an idea and out comes the smith tools as she works to sabotage it...

    Miyako nods and backs off from the spinning blades... and, knowing her own limitations, settles in to pass tools to those doing the real work. Eventually the trap is dismantled, the pieces set aside (or pocketed for later re-use), and the party can move on. "Good work, everyone," she praises them.

    Following the retreat of the trapster down the stairs, the adventurers find a narrow stone walkway, strewn with dirt and rubble. At its end... a truly massive cavern, artificially lit, observed from a walled-in balcony above. And on the cavern floor is what can only be described as -jungle-.

    A jungle occupied rather thoroughly by dozens, possibly hundreds, of the hunched creatures some have called 'terraformers'. They don't seem to have noticed the intruders just yet, focused as they are on their tasks.

    Miyako pauses and gestures for the group to back off into the corridor to plan their next step. "Right then, suggestions anyone?"

Goldenblade takes apart the blades carefully, saving some of the parts for later. Moving with the party onward, she hrms as we find ourselves in a jungle. Filled with terraformers. "We /probably/ can't take them all on?" she asks. But she's not sure, she doesn't always get the game mechanics. But it looks like sneaking past them is the party's plan, and she can do that, too, vanishing aside as if avoiding an attack, and not appearing until nearly all the way through the jungle.

After failing to fight properly last time, Kotono is not up for using her blades this time. She decides instead to sneak through, using her swiftness and light stepping to avoid drawing the wrong attention. She almost trips up at one point, but she pulls through in the end.

Thalia decides to, rather than fight, sneak. Much like her pal(?) Kotono. She takes a few steps into the room, seeming to meld in the shadows. With an arcane gesture, she lifts a few inches from the ground and walks on air as if it were solid.

She flits from shadow to shadow, violet eyes seeming to glow in the dark as she traverses through safely. Hopefully everyone else makes it too.

Miho looks at the swarm ahead and get the idea she needs to sneak. She's very bad at it but by god she's going to make the attempot but something goes wrong. He tail catches on something making some noise before they make it past thankfuly no one else does anything to draw attention...

    Miyako watches as the others make their way through the forest, then simply fades into the shadows, stepping into one shadow and out of another. She -almost- gets caught, when she steps out of one pool of shadow just in time to trip over a root. The scuffle that follows leaves two dead 'terraformers' dissipating in crimson flecks of light behind her, and several small wounds cutting her HP bar down. It doesn't take her long to catch up from there, however.

    The rough-hewn passageway out of the massive cavern twists and winds about, with a rumbling humming noise becoming more and more evident as the group treks along.

    The massive cavern it opens out into is occupied, but not by a forest like the first - it's some sort of digging machine, crewed by a pair of the same creatures the group has been encountering elsewhere!

    And they are not at all happy to spot intruders....

Sometimes, it pays to use the standard methods.

Slicing and dicing.

Snippety-snapping.

That's what Kotono does with her blades as she goes after the enemy!

Goldenblade spots the cavern-hewing machines, and hrms. "We've probably got to stop these, yes? Not just sneak by them?" But everyone else is attacking, when she vanishes. Is she attempting to sneak by also. It's not clear until a few moments later, when she appears behind the boss, accompanied by a huge drop in the boss's hit points. The Blade Dancer has become an Assassin again.

Getting through the forest, Thalia moves carefully with the group down the hallway. Her steps are careful and quiet, though seemingly to no avail. As they enter the next room, they're spotted. She swears under her breath, drawing her swords again. "Stick together!"

She blitzes in, ignoring her own words, twin blades flashing in the dim light as she does what she is very good at. Stabbing and slashing things.

well the party is alive, she's not got anyhone harme and now they got to deal with a big bad monster and she'll use her rather terrfying physical power to deal with the machine. She'll punch a wall and cause several stalacties to break and fall towards the presuing monster.

"How about ... NO!"

    "Stop them, wreck the machine, or both," Miyako says in response to Goldenblade's query. Somehow, she's never quite where the machine is aiming, despite seeming to stand still and -dare- it to come after her. The perfect distraction, always vanishing just as it reaches her, always there to attract its charge, never there to actually be hit.

    It's not too hard for the group to finish off the drivers, and with no one to guide the machine, smashing it isn't hard. Unfortunately, the interrupted digging has destabilized the cavern, and it starts to rumble and collapse!

    "Out, quick! This way!" Miyako yells, pointing to a nearby passage that seems to offer an escape. There's just enough time to snatch up a few pieces of loot and get to the passage before the roof comes down!

    An hour or so of trudging later, the passageway finally lets out onto the beach... not at all far from the original landing point, since the ship is still in view.

    Well, at least it won't be hard to get their attention to send the longboats to pick us up again.

Finally, they make it out, and Kotono breathes a sigh of relief. "Whew, that was something else," She comments as she sheathes her blades. "But at least we made it through." She smiles to Miyako. "All right, what say we get something to eat once we get back, hmm?"

The fight is fairly ordinary, as such things go, the initial strike shaving enough HP off the boss that she's not sweating the rest of the fight. "Well," she says, looking to the rest of the party, "How is everyone? No injuries?"

Things go pretty well they don't die they get some loot and they finally get back out. On the beach she stretches. "I'm good and I should have packed a swim suit to have some fun while we wiat on pickup but other than htat! I'm doing good and food sounds like an awesome idea!"

    Miyako nods and relaxes as we get into the boats. "Yeah, soon as we can get back to Shibuya. I hear somebody's making pizza, I want to try a pie or two."

The fight is fast and brutal. Blades sing, air cleaves, and the Terraformers fall. Thalia scoops up a crystiline rock as the cavern begins to shake, and she books it with everyone else.

SOME TIME LATER

They emerge on the surface again, near enough to the boat. "All good over here. That went really well. Thanks for having me!" Then Kotono mentions food. "Yes. Let's do that! And I'm seriously considering opening a spa."