Get Golem, Get Gone

When Kaydon first started working on his mission to increase his physical prowess, he received a letter from Sumeragi Youta, advising him about a dangerous monster, a golem that would occasionally wander down from the mountains. It was far above the normal encounter level for the zone, but bringing it down would grant the kind of stone Kaydon needs for the construction project he has been working on.

Near where the golem wanders through where the mountains meet the plains, Kaydon has set up a camp, and has a table laid out with a hand drawn map of the area, which he is studying, trying to figure out the best way to go at the monster.

The timing has to be perfect because if it beats them, it will disappear back into the impassable mountains for who knows how long. The execution has to be exact.

And when Kaydon had first started his mission, Nyanta made sure to check up on him every few days to make sure he was still eating. When one gets focused on a task so greatly, they often forget to keep track of their daily necessities like food. Whether or not this WOULD have been a problem for Kaydon, the important take away is that Kaydon has been receiving a homecooked meal from Nyanta every other day or so to ensure he is staying healthy.

This is particularly important at THIS moment in time because, on the way to the Golem's location Nyanta is passing out sandwiches that he had made for this event, as well as juice. "Did everyone get a drink, nya? It's impurrtant to stay hydrated, nya." Nyanta asks with a smile.

Getting that construction built is one thing. The fact that a high level monster was wandering into lower level areas was a problem in it's own right that needed to be dealt with. No one wants to deal with grinding skills or resource harvesting only to have to bail because suddenly there's a monster 3 times your threat clearance wandering into the zone.

"I wish we knew more specifics about the quarry," Shiruba mused as she examined (and probably helped make) the map laid out. "But in general Golems as a monster tend to be large and slow, but extremely durable and strong." She accepts the snacks from Nyanta, never being one to turn away from food, but a lot of her attention remains on strategizing.

Goldenblade has joined Kaydon's expedition and stands around the table quietly. She's worked with Kaydon off and on almost since the game started, and they have quite a lot in common, she feels. Both are blacksmniths, and if Kaydon is tankier than her, it's not by too much, and they've shared skills before, much like she has with Nyanta, who was more of a fighting technique mentor. So when Kaydon announced he was going out for training, it's only natural she would accompany him. On hearing there were some special building materials possibly available, her interest only intensified, and so here she is, listening quietly as the situation is briefed.

"Unfortunately there's not a lot of time to gather intel." Kaydon replies, taking some of the offered juice from Nyanta, "Thanks." He takes a moment to drink it, and take advantage of any buffs the drink might provide, even if that buff is just a quenched thirst.

He glances around to the group that's gathered and hmms, "Our best bet is going to be me grabbing it's attention and the rest of you hitting it. We don't know what kind of tricks it'll have, so be on your guard."

Kaydon points down at the map, "Shiruba I'd like you to set up here if you can. From what I've been able to gather from the locals, the golem has a tendency to knock down trees, and if you're in this area you should have full view of the golem the whole time without any of those fallen trees getting in your way." He then quickly turns back to Nyanta and Goldenblade, regarding the two of them for a moment, "May need you two to swap in occasionally, but if we play this right hopefully I just won't get hit."

Nyanta gives Kaydon a wink and a two fingered salute, "Ever at your disposal, nya." He sets his brief case off to the side; it's never good to carry luggage into battle. To Goldenblade, he jokingly offers, "Purrhaps this old cat can keep up with your meowves this time, nya?"

Shiruba nods. They've worked together long enough Kaydon knows she's best at a distance, both in attacking and in strategizing. "I'll have Windburn airborne to keep tabs on things as well." Idly she runs her fingers over the ends of the arrows of her quiver, taking a mental check of what she has a prepared. They'll have to see what kind of material this golem is actually made of, but she came ready for almost anything. And what she doesn't have, she can easily charge with her magic longbow and Spell Fletcher abilities.

Goldenblade and Nyanta being the same class makes them mostly swappable, tactically, though she says, "I'm not as mobile as the CHief, here," she looks over to Nyanta, smirking at his comment, "I may not be as tactical, but I've built up my defense skills substantially, so I can probably off-tank for you if you need." She's wearing mail rather than plate, but it's far from normal mail. She's modified it considerably, and it shows in the very steel, burninshed in elemental fire until it's taken on a gold tint, and the blades she carries have made her famous among Landers. "And of course as DPS, I'm ready when you need."

The group moves into position, and after a short while, the ground can be felt starting to tremble. The sound of trees being felled in the distance grows louder and louder as the vibrations of the earth grow stronger.

Shiruba spots it first, or rather Windburn does and reports back to her. The golem is heading straight for the group's position. This allows them some extra time to prepare, as Kaydon moves into the front position, standing in the way of the golem as it stomps through.

When it spots Kaydon, it lets out a guttural growl, like someone grinding gravel in a turbine. It moves to engage him, but Kaydon strikes first, launching into a few attacks meant to draw it's ire, allowing the others to strike it.

Attack Round: DC 9

The warning cry of the peregrin falcon is unmistakable, being one of the few 'loud' sounds the bird makes. By that point Shiruba has already settled into her position with her weapon at the ready. "Eyes on the target," she calls over the party chim even as she's pulling an embued arrow back in Thundersnow Howl. Not knowing for certain what this Golem's defenses or composition is going to be she opts for a more general hit type this time, having had the time to properly prepare it.

The expert archer takes aim, waiting until the monster has been taunted by Kaydon before opening fire. The charged arrow become a streak of light blasting through the air towards the Golem. See how it responds to that and the attacks of others, then she can formulate a more thorough strategy.

And so it begins. The hulking humanoid heap of stone seems quite focused on Kaydon, but not so focused as to when the tank calls out for a switch that Nyanta isn't there, quickly raking a rapier across the construct's... well, what his face would be if it were a real boy.

Nyanta demonstrates that he is very much an evasion tank as he dodges, rolls, and sometimes just flash steps out of the way of the creature's blows. After a short period of time, in order to not hog the glory, he calls out to Goldenblade, "Switch, nya" and he gives the golem a swat with his pommel, knocking it's head toward Goldenblade to assist in the gaining of aggro. He resumes his assault from the back, or the sides, depending where he can get a good strike in on a thin part of its body.

When we get close enough to spot the golem, Goldenblade steels her nerve. She lets Kaydon lead off to pick up aggro, but then she charges in, her powerful legs churning as she extends both swords before her, and slams into it at full speed, blades sinking in deeply though the impact doesn't budge it too much. She yanks her blades free and slashes in a complicated whirling manner much like a tandem-rotor helicopter, with about the same result for anything sticking it's head up into the rotating blades. She's here to DPS, she's going to DPS as hard as she possibly can and trust Kaydon for the main tanking.

When Nyanta calls out to switch, her golden blades strike hard and fast, picking up the load that the chief passed off to her. Her blades are more like katanas than the chief's rapiers, but their techniques otherwise look somewhat similar, as might be expected of a teacher and student.

The golem, towering at nearly twenty feet of height, is rocked backwards by Kaydon's gunblade, the explosion blasting into it's rocky outsides. It stumbles, which opens it up for Shiruba's embued arrow, which strikes the golem with a massive blast of light. It absolutely rocks the golem, but it doesn't seem to do any extra damage.

Nyanta's lightning quick strikes are able to penetrate the golem's defences and leave it's HP dropping, the attacks are slow and lumbering, with the creature's strikes missing the were fang. After he swaps with Kaydon, the gnoll brings his gunblade around with an upward strike, leaving Goldenblade to close in with her signature weapons, bringing the boss' HP past some kind of threshold, as it hauls back with one massive foot, and slams it into the ground, disrupting the earth itself and sending shockwaves through the ground.

For the last few duties, it appeared that Nyanta was a little rusty; now, however, it seems the the rust has come off. The Golem has been unable to land a hit on him the entire fight, and he has been holding his own on the damage chart besides.

With a staggering blow from Kaydon, an opening is made to go all out on the construct, an opportunity that Nyanta does not miss. With both rapiers, the Dandy Cat launches a rainstorm of strikes cloaked in shadow, striking weakpoints in the rock with every hit, making worse the cracks that are already there.

Nyanta quickly rolls back, almost instinctively, when the golem launches its desparation attack... And his HP bar is still at full.

Shiruba is as intune with the earth as she is the sky, she feels the rumbles in the ground as the Golem stomps it's foot down to release the rocking shockwave. She actually backs up a few steps, putting more ground between herself and the fight so the vibrations are losing intensity by the time it reachs her.

Not that more distance deters her offesnive capabilities anyways. She leans back and fires one of her newest creations up into the air. The projectile disappears... Only for a whirlwind to drop down from the sky to assault the Golem, briefly battering it with abrasive and erosive forces. Tornado Chaser! But in Fantasy Yamato, Tornado chases You!

When the golem's slow attack comes, it does not find Goldenblade napping. It does not find Goldenblade anywhere. For a moment, /no one/ can find Goldenblade anywhere, she is hidden from view. One of the ways she diverged from the mainstream of Blade Dancers in the early days of the game was her association with Akatsuki, and her attempt to use the shadowy arts more in her fighting style. It may be considered a success, she comes out of wherever she'd hidden and strikes with a basic series of strikes, the foundation of swordplay, they might be considered, basic, but notwithstanding their simplicity, they are very hard strikes, and that may be /why/ they are foundational attacks.

It would seem that Kaydon is far too close when the shockwave hits, losing his footing and going down to a knee. He grunts in pain, and the trio can see his health dip a bit as they all skillfully evade the strikes, and return with their offensive counters, bringing the golem's HP down further with each successful hit.

Nyanta's cloaked strikes leave the stone creature unable to follow the movements, and unable to return the attacks. Shiruba's strike on the other hand is far too visible, and the damage it does to the golem makes the creature's focus turn to her immediately, forcing Kaydon to do something stupid, as he taunts the creature by stabbing it in the foot with a knife, the effect pinning it in place and forcing it to lock onto him.

It's focus now squarely on Kaydon, the golem turns and brings its massive boulder of a hand down towards the gnoll. There's no chance to dodge, so Kaydon brings his gunblade up between himself and the golem, swinging with all the force he can muster. The perfectly crafted steel of the fey mood inspired weapon clashes with the ancient stone of the golem.

The stone below Kaydon's feet cracks and then shatters outwards, throwing shards of rock all around as the group watches Kaydon's health bar dip even further. However there is a glow building from under the golem's massive fist.

What starts as seemingly just a spark turns into a flare of light, as Kaydon can be seen to be pushing the golem's fist back upwards. He shifts his foot for a moment, grabs the hilt with both hands, and roars, pushing upwards as he knocks the boulder sized hand backwards, and then delivers an upward swing, the explosion from the gunblade sending the force and fire magic through the tip of the weapon, the explosion turning the strike into a shaped charge that carves through the golem's fist, and shatters it into pixels.

Now greviously wounded, the golem has gone into a new phase, as it's speed has picked up, but without one hand, its attacks have been majorly hindered, something the team may be able to use to their advantage.

Docge or Shield vs 11

Attack vs 10

Looks like the Golem is one of those monsters that speeds up as it loses health. That would be enough to catch a lot of less experienced Adventurers expecting a slow ponderous beast for the whole fight off-guard. But this was far from an inexperienced party.

Shiruba still has the storm magic drawn to her, channeling it into a barrier of wind around herself as well to repel the fallout from the golem's attacks. It's throwing around debris and shockwaves as she knows she's not safe just in distance.

The barrier gives her time to focus herself and aim though, drawing back on Thundersnow Howl to use it's magical abilities to focus some of that elemental force into a projectile and fire. Howling winds cry as a shot of frigid force hurtles at the golem as Shiruba tries to make it more vulnerable to the other's attacks.

Nyanta decides to take this moment to show that he is not, in fact, a one-trick pony but an eight-lived cat who has only used one of his nine lives thus far, and such a Were Fang must always have MANY tricks at his disposal.

Upon seeing Kaydon take a solid hit, he switches to tank mode without Kaydon even needing to ask. Instead of dodging this time, he moves to solid parries with his twin rapiers. If one thought that Nyanta were weak because he emphasized on speed, they would be dead wrong.

With every parry of the golem's massive arm, some of which he manages single-handedly, he launches a thrust of staggering force, to the point where it would be forgiven to think that, perhaps, the Were Cat were using a mace rather than a rapier.

When he notes that Kaydon is ready to return to his tanking duties, he sends a nod Kaydon's way before darting away from the golem, past Kaydon (on the way, he shoots his party member a wink), allowing for him to pick up aggro again.

Goldenblade uses a complicated evasive technique as the golem shatters the earth, skipping clear of the shattered impact area and spinning back around once the attack is done to continue DPS-ing. Her mail is smeared with earth from the proximity of the exploded ground, but nothing that hit her hit her hard enough to hurt her significantly.

As she reacquires her target, she begins to channel one of the powers unique to her, or not so much unique as inherent in her character. Being a human, she has found an affinity for Fire that Nyanta couldn't teach her, and her home in Westelande hones that, so where he might make a jolly campfire, Goldenblade brings an inferno forth, swords blazing almost as if they were made of raw elemental fire, certainly dripping flames as she strikes the golem, and if stone isn't particularly vulnerable to fire, the blows still strike true, hitting like hammerblows from impacts that seem rocket-propelled.

It would seem Shiruba found the key, her icy blast freezing the more mobile stone inside of the golem, reducing its speed back to a more normal level. That opens it up for the flurry of attacks from the rest of the party.

Kaydon returns to his tanking spot, giving Nyanta a grin as they swap back over, "Lets finish this bad boy off, come on!" He calls out to encourage the rest of the team. The health bar is dropping rapidly now, though the party is faring better. Shiruba's assessment that a less experienced party would have had a tough time with this is accurate.

Indeed, it seems that the ice created by Shiruba reacts with the intense heat created by Goldenblade, the ice flash boiling into steam and bursting apart the golem's torso, revealing a core.

The group gets a new pop up in their target information. The core is the real target that they need to take down, and they'll need to put all their focus into that! However the golem, now scrambling to try and keep itself upright, begins to swing wildly, blows slamming down seemingly from every direction around the adventurers.

By now the Golem's desperate thrashing about is not only dangerous blows but also dislodging the damaged pieces of it's body. This gets Shiruba starting to move towards the fight to cut down her time between shots, even as she's firing off blunt arrows to knock the debris down before it hurtles upon herself or anyone else in the fight.

Then once she's closer Shiruba stops, eyes narrowing to focus on the revealed 'hearth' of the monster. This is the sort of weak point the Hunter was waiting for. She draws a specific arrow from her quiver, nocking it back in her bow and drawing lightning magic into it as she pulls back. Adjust her aim a little..

"Shoot the Core!" Sorry, the gamer nerd still in her couldn't resist the moment. Then she fires with a thunderous crack from her bow. Upon striking the arrow releases it's elemental charge, sending the equivilent of several lightning strikes directly into the monster's vulnerability.

For a moment, it seemed that the battle was all wrapped up. Nyanta let himself do something that a gentleman must never do in front of a guest: relax. He takes a brief pause near the end of the golem's health meter, afterwhich he would have used the secure footing to launch yet another attack. Unfortunately for the Dandy Cat, it would be he who would be launched.

Like a golfer at a driving range, the golem takes a heavy swing and sends Nyanta high into the air with an impressive arch. Luckily, a cat always lands on his feet, as a few spins and flips do allow him to regain his stance, landing on the ground in an impressive T pose (for dominance). His health bar is missing a large chunk, but such a small thing is hardly enough to phase the Coolest Cat in ETO.

As the golem starts swinging wildly, Goldenblade once again vanishes from the field of battle, from the field of view entirely, she's definitely taken a lesson or three from Akatsuki in fighting, and while the monster is particularly ferocious in its attacks as it works itself into a frenzy, she is quite pleased to have quit the target area completely. But Kaydon has not, and he's already a bit worn down from main-tanking this monster. But that's OK, Goldenblade's quite fast, and she zooms in to body check Kaydon a step or two to the right, darting out again before the golem's blow can land.

But now that some sort of inner core is revealed and our true target is identified, Goldenblade's path is clear. The most significant skill she learned from Akatsuki begins, in fact, from stealth, and the golem never sees it coming. Nor do the others, though it may seem familiar to Nyanta, and Kaydon and Shiruba have seen her use it, but it's only apparent from the aftermath, as she comes out of stealth with both blades run deep through the golem's 'heart'. Assassinate strikes true once again.

Kaydon finds himself still dodging strikes until suddenly out of nowhere, Goldenblade knocks him out of the way of one of those strikes, and he turns around to give her a grin, "Guess I owe you one." He hops back up to his feet, "I'll go low, you go high."

As those attacks hammer home, as the now exposed core is left vulnerable, starting to show visible cracks. Shiruba's lightning rod of an arrow sticks straight into the core, and bursts down through it, lightning crackling around as the glow from inside glows stronger.

Nyanta had successfully landed several hits to the core, but one brief moment of distraction sends him sailing through the air. Cats do always land on their feet, though this serves as a bit of an inpromptu swap, as Kaydon comes in from low, as he intended, and delivers a crushing blow from the Jaeger directly to the core, ripping a massive chunk out of it.

A massive gash that Goldenblade is able to plunge her blade directly into with Assassinate. The golem lets out a dying cry, and then the core shatters. The golem falls to the ground, and then shatters as well.

Windburn circles around a few times, and satisfied the Golem is finished as it crumbles and pixilates comes to land on Shiruba's shoulder. "Good job everyone." Then turns her head towards Kaydon. "Did you find the piece you were looking for?"

Nyanta lets out a slight sigh as he picks up his briefcase, which he had landed right next to. He pulls out several bottles of a type that Goldenblade would definitely be familiar with and passes them around.

"Congratulations, furriends, on the victory, nya. It was well-fought, nya..." The cat waxes nostalgic for a brief second, "It reminded me of the old days, fighting with a group of veterans, nya..."

Goldenblade grins with satisfaction at a hard job well done as the golem despawns. She shrugs off Kaydon owing her one. "That's what teamwork is about," she replies, "One mason doesn't build a building." That's something from her RL as a bricklayer, but it's true. "Everyone backs up everyone else. That's how we do things better than the Palace Lands." But sadly, she can only back up one person, and Nyanta got slammed pretty hard there. "You OK, Chief?" she calls out to the Cat. She looks over toward Shiruba, too, but Shiruba didn't just get knocked flying. She takes the bottle offered by Nyanta with a smile. "Ah, you saved the good stuff, I see."

Kaydon finds himself relaxing after he checks his inventory from the fight, "I did indeed." He says, as he turns to the rest of the group, "Thank you. I..Well expect me to call on you when I need some help with the actual construction of my new forge. But I'll give you guys the friends and family discount." He seems quite happy with the outcome of the fight, "Plus think of the Landers around here that can sleep a little safer."

Nyanta has a seat on a nearby rock and takes a sip of the bottle in his hand. His HP begins to slowly restore. "I have meowst definitely had worse, myai friend. This was a love tap, nya."

"Yeah. Less high level monsters to come stomping around. So we did good there too." Shiruba shakes her head to Nyanta. "I'm good, save them for the people that need it." Pause. "But if you've got any more of those sandwhichs for the trip home."

Goldenblade nods gravely about the Landers in the area. "That thing would have done a number on them," she agrees. She nods at being called on to help with Kaydon's construction, and says, "I'd be honored to help." She chuckles to Nyanta as he takes a hit off the oxygen bottle, which is quite restorative, and smirks again as Shiruba expresses a preference for sandwiches.