Duty Session 573: Windmill Menace

The Ninetails farm is seen over the horizon down a dirt trail. This place provides valuable produce for people that enjoy doing that daily ritual of eating and avoiding the monster of famine. A meeting spot is clearly defined by a signpost in the road for trade caravans to know what town or city to go to next. A makeshift camp clearing marks where numerous travelers have stayed the night out in the rural locale. No time for camping for the Adventurers, as they have important work to do!

Nothing like a simple adventure to really get the lead out! Soujiro has a bright smile on his face with the idea of doing work that a hero would do: Save the Farmland! Classic tale. "No quest to small. No thread too thin," says the simple minded samurai who has threads on da brain.

     Honami liked to explore. She really did. And an easy excuse was always following one of the raid leaders. In this case, she was following Soujiro Seta, "Yes, all things must be in balance before their destruction." Honami agrees, walking after Soujiro with a dark grin, holding a large greatsword rested over her shoulder as she walks.
     She was being relatively subdued at the moment. Likely because a certain sparkly man is distracting. Look. Very few people are immune to the sparkle. Even the chuuni. It just makes her recoil a little in fear when he turns it on full blast. "Do we know much of the actual source of the problem? Or is it a mysterious mystery of mysteriousness?" Honami asks. She's maybe in a little bit more of a silly mood than normal. Maybe. Don't mind the shadowy rose petals that swirl around her as she walks. She's just making her own special effects.

Nyanta, too, seems in a rather chipper mood as they approach the meeting spot. Their different responsibilities, and indeed, their different alliances, make it so that Nyanta and his dear friend Soujiro do not often meet unless they purposely seek out to do so, and this is one of those cases; Nyanta seems to be happy just being able to spend time with his good friends: Soujiro and GoldenBlade.

At Honami's mention of destruction, Nyanta raises a furry eyebrow, "Well, hopefurrlly, it will be our foes who meet their end today, and nyawt meouch else, nya."

Goldenblade is here because there was a quest to help Landers in need, and she's the sort of person to help Landers in need. Even in Ninetails, far from her native Westelande, she is known to a few Landers, and they seem pleased to see her. Her Legend has, it seems, preceeded her. She nods to the other players, and asks, "Do we have any idea what is afoot?"

She doesn't fawn over Seta, like so many women do, but those who know her as a seventy-seven year old bricklayer probably understand why. She's not discourteous at all, she likes him, but she's not the fawning type, so there you go.

"Chief," she greets Nyanta, offering a nod to her one-time mentor. She's done well by his training, it seems, but there's an undertone of solid respect, the way one might use senpai at work for a more experienced and wise coworker.

Miho is just glad to get out of the forge, it wasn't weapons lately it was orders form landers. Not that she minded she loved making tools, and such just as much as she did weapons. It was good to get out and stretch her leg so to sperak.

"Oh hello there miss Oni and Nyanta good to see you again, same to you Goldenblade."

She would be swishing her tail at Souji and grins.

"So what's the plan?"

"Mysterious mystery," Souji says to Honami as to her question. With sparkles. A sparkly answer. It glitters in the sun like a bad YA novel. This sparkling is over 9000! "Think we will learn more when we get there?" he asks her opinion, already hooked on this mundane mystery. This extends to Goldenblade as well. "We get there," conspires Souji with the plan to Miho, "we find the enemy. We /fight/ the enemy. We win!" Flawless strat.

No sooner than when the party arrives on site do they see what could
be the source of the problem. Plant monsters. Lots of them.

Raddish monsters the size of small red boulders roll in to engage with
the Adventurers. They are not using their head, in terms of their
tactics being very basic, but are using their heads, in terms of being
rolly polly headbutters.

This request will be over soon if the party can overpower them in
close combat or tap into the traditional grass weakness logic: burn
the plants up.

These raddishes are oh so rad. Soujiro is more than happy to dash into the fray and fight familiar plant monsters. Were they radiated by some sort of mutagen? Did they rise up against the farm that oppressed them? So much to discover! The happiness on the samurai's face is only matched by the sharpness of his katanas a he helps in dicing up dem veggies.

Goldenblade smiles to Miho, replies, "Good to see you as well." She smirks to Seta, agreeing, "I suppose we will soon find out," and joining the others on the journey to the village.

Once in the village, it becomes clear that their salad days are over, and they are being rudely garnished by savage radishes. Goldenblade of course has the solution to your radish needs: 350 degrees for an hour. Though in a pinch, you can do 1000 degrees for 20 seconds for about the same effect. It ends up looking like all her cooking attempts, though. Burned yuck.

     "Of course it shall be just our foes! And perhaps a windmill as well, I heard that, perhaps, it could be a boss monster!" Honami says with a dark chuckle. "It is my wish that this world be as happy as possible, even as the Lady Demonrose Honami, one of few remaining members of the forgotten army of the Scrapped Princesses, the one who shall destroy this world!" Oooh ho ho ho ho ho~! ... Ah. Okay. That's what's going on. She's a roleplayer. The scrapped princess wars happened way too long ago for anyone to still be alive from it.
     "I do not believe we have met, by the way. I--" Pause. "Oh my gosh I'm sorry I got too much into the role again, uhm... yeah. I'm Honami! Nice to meet you." She dips into a one-handed curtsy. "It's harder to resist now that I'm Honami full time..." To Goldenblade, there is a deeper, more respectful curtsy. Mostly because she recognizes her. "Hello, Lady Goldenblade! I hope you are doing well. Something about someone calling a windmill a boss? I'm not sure other than that, to be honest..." Pause. Miss Oni? Honami tilts her head, motioning at herself. "Moi? Oni? Non! I am merely a spriggan, not quite so far gone as to have become a yokai as of yet!"

     Pause. Raddish monsters? And they're rolling towards her? Honami's eyes actually light up at the prospect. "Oh my gosh, Raddishes! DELICIOUS!" She calls out, lifting her greatsword and immediately darting forward. "Oooh, I wonder if they'll drop raddish coins?" She swings her great sword forward towards the foremost raddish, laughing wildly as she cleaves it through the first one... and starts to go forward towards the next immediately afterwards. "COME, MEET THINE DOOM, DELICIOUS RED RADDISH BEINGS! MY HUNGRY STOMACH CALLS OUT FOR THEE, AND MY DARK BLADE THIRSTS FOR THY DELICIOUS JUICES!" She calls out. Yep. Her moments of clarity were gone again, right back into the chuun.

Nyanta nods to Goldenblade with a smile, complete with fang glint. To the strategy conversation, he replies, "I have heard of this tactic before, nya. I believe at that point, it was called... Surround it and hit it 'til it dies, nya."

Perhaps the radishes were listening, as that is exactly the tactic they try to implement on the adventurers. They are not as successful as they would have liked, however, as these are no mere common adventurers.

In response to Honami's monologue, he blinks a few times before giving a rogueish smile, "Well, furr be it for me to deny a lady of her desires, nya..." Rather than traditional swordplay, Nyanta instead moves to cut the radishes into cookable slices: far from an optimal decision, as they are currently trying to kill the party, but cuisine is not something that one merely performs a hack job on.

Miho looks to Souji and grins a bit. "Fair enough lefts go... Plant monsters." There is an eyebrow twitch it's nearly as bad as slimes. Yes given that cube incident a few years ago. Miho was still twitch about that and other types of monsters.

Well she seem keen to power on though it like a tiny little blender, she slices, she dices and just tears into the plants yelling I won't star in the movie you want to make. What is she babbling about? Maybe it's best you do not know.

"What are you doing?!" yells the owner of the farm as you finish
your brawl with the plant-based baddies. One squeaks and falls over,
the last of its health depleted. "Those are mine!" the angry farmer
declares as he stops towards the Adventurers.

It looks as if this is a misunderstanding. The farm isn't under
assault by plant monsters. The farm is being defended by these
critters against some maniac knight that appears at sunset. An honest
mistake. The farmer doesn't mutter about muderhobo Adventurers; his
eyes say it all.

Both to repair the misstep and prepare for an upcoming assault, the
farmer and the group start repairing the damage done. The plant
creatures that were injured would do well with traditional healing
methods such as pharmacy and light, but also respond well to herbology
talents in restoring and fortifying their health.

Soujiro's foolproof plan was fooled! By the wrong things to slash. "Looks like we attacked the wrong group," says Souji without shame, but with a earnest repentant heart as he works on healing up all the injured little veggie soldiers. They get little hearts over their heads because OF COURSE THEY DO with all those sparkles. Not even raddishes are immune to this Samurai!

Nyanta apologizes profusely to the farmer, as his particular method of fighting ended the life of one of the radishes rather than merely injuring it. In repentance, Nyanta sautes the creature up in a nice vegetable dish, seasoned with some herbs he keeps on hand: just in case. The food, of course, comes out delicious. Who do you think is cooking? He makes sure both the farmer and Honami get an extra large helping.

Miho pauses for a moment as the farmer is usaing the things. She stares for a moment with a mortifed look. "I ... sir I'm so sorry. I will make restution after we are done with the issue." She frowns looking honestly mortifed at this whole mes. There's not much more she can do. She will pop potions for the suriving creatures.

     "Hit it 'til it dies, the tried and true tactic of all shock soldiers~." Honami cheerfully agrees with Nyanta as she continues her rampage through the raddishes. And then pauses as a farmer comes running out. Yelling out and asking what they're doing. "Uhm. They came out to attack. So I was going to farm some raddish coins!" Honami responds cheerfully to the farmer. And then the farmer says that they were his. Whoops. "Uhm."

     Pause. She looks towards the raddishes. She looks towards the farmer. She carefully steps towards one of the injured raddishes, trying to pat it. And pulling out a little bit of water to try to water it. And then, unable to resist because she apparently LOVES raddishes, leans in to take a small bite of one of the raddishes. Look, she's good at breaking things, not fixing them. Crunch. Crunch. She's trying to at least kind of be sneaky about it. Don't mind the teeth marks on the raddish.

     "In our defense." Crunch. "They did roll up on and surround us, and we're adventurers." Crunch. "Of course we'd react defensively and attack them first." Honami comments. "...I'm still very sorry about it though! ...You should probably tell them not to randomly attack full parties of adventurers!" ... ... Honami is apparently not good at apologizing. Made worse by the raddish in her mouth.

Goldenblade smirks as Honami greets her, the chunni-ness confusing her for a moment, and she has to Inspect her to verify she is, in fact, a player. "Er, hello," she replies unsurely to the formal greeting, and looks over to Nyanta for help. She knows the cat is a roleplayer and may understand how to deal with Honami in the correct way. Goldenblade, for all she's been two years and change in-game, like everyone, she's still confused by some of the peculiarities.

Peculiarities like plant monsters we're supposed to defend. "Why would you..." she begins, and shuts up. It's a game, it doesn't need a 'why'. What she doesn't know is how to heal plants. Her main healing helper, the oxygen bottle, helps people, but not plants, and her knowledge of first aid from occupational health training, every blessed year the same thing, never mentioned healing plants. So while she tries to be useful, she is not very useful.

The farmer is not amused with Honami! Its amusing he isn't amused, but that was his friend, Ralph the Raddish. Now being monched on. Oh the vegimanity! Its not a big surprise that the group of Adventurers isn't the best set of medics. A for effort! Minus 50 MKP!

With many of the troops restored to fighting strength, there is the
matter of preparing the farm itself. It is clear the enemy will come
to them instead of needing to be found, so raising the defense now
will help the upcoming fight.

A capable monster capturer could go out and round out additional
troops to defend the farm. More numbers are better! A skilled farmer
can help restore the damage to the farm itself. It does not help with
combat, but the point of the farm is to create food and yields are
already damaged from these assaults. Restoring yields is why the
Adventurers are here, too!

Those that lack specific talents can help by restoring the damaged
fence and even build a few structures before sunset that would serve
as a tactical advantage. If all else fails, manual labor at the
direction of the farmer will put those strong (or weak) Adventurers to
work.

Manual labor? Yes! Soujiro jumps at the chance to put those healthy muscles to work. "This is different," says the ever positive samurai, "like the time the Hunter's Guild sent us towards a dinner party. Maybe the farmer just wanted some company." No. Judging by Farmer Mac's eye twitch he is perfectly happy NOT having his farm wrecked by crazy Adventurers and the nightly menace. "Need a hand with that, Honami," he asks, the samurai of light sparkling with the 'our hands nearly touched' trope as he picks up that construction material bag nearby... and tosses it on the Jenga Tower of them he is already hauling. Then one at Miho. If you are stronk, this is like a really fun game of pass the ball-of-heavy-materials

Nyanta is no stranger to hard work, though he is somewhat unfamiliar with the inner workings of a farm. He does what he can to weed the garden, till one of the unworked fields, do inventory on their goods, organize their kitchen... The Dandy Cat is quick on his feet and steady with his hands to the point that the farmer asks Nyanta if he was willing to work as a farm hand instead of a murderhobo, "Alas, my passion is serving the people in a different manner, but I am humbled by your offer, nya." He gives a bow before darting away to assist his allies in their tasks. Nyanta can hold a nail while Goldenblade hits it if need be.

Miho is happy to do manual labour. She look to the farmer for a moment and she gets to work. The short Salamander is strong, very damn strong as she does about her work taking order from the Farmer, even checking. It does seem she's quite taken aback over what's happened. She is playing Jenga and she laughs.

"I have trained like this before my Peatron helped me out with it last time!" Well she has experiance, she's past any level of strength a human from earth should have. ... And she love it.

Goldenblade is, of course, well-known througfhout Yamato as a builder, and will set to repairing and restoring much of the farm's damaged infrastructure. When that's completed, she can work on some fortifications that will enable the defenders to fight more effectively. That's always a force multiplier. She smirks as Nyanta escapes the farmer's recruitment offer to assist her fortification construction, and will put him to work. "Construction's slower in Yamato than at home because they don't have the professional builders and trained apprentices. Each person generally builds their own house as best they canb at this tech level."

     It's fine. Ralph is alive still at least! He'll probably heal. Just not with the help of this party, that's for sure. Still, somehow, they managed to restore the raddishes to something vaguely approaching fighting strength! ... ... ... Probably. ... Maybe. Yeah, they're going to need to give the poor raddishes every advantage they could give them. "I, uh. ...I'm pretty strong so can help out with stu...ff..." Honami blinks as she was reaching for something. Sparkling samurai nearly touching her as she did. Huh. Well. Okay then. Yep. This happened. "...I'm... kind of strong... but thanks anyway...?" Looks like the Chuuni is broken. Honami is too busy trying to figure out what just happened. Also working on doing what she can to help build up the defenses and repair the fence. She can help carry big logs and such! And push comes to shove, she's not terrible at chopping down trees. Sure, her technique sucks and she gets poor quality wood due to her lack of woodworking skill, but she's making an effort!

     Yeah this poor farmer's not going to have a farm by the end of the night, most likely. Also Honami is still occasionally munching on Nyanta's dish that he shared with her. Because it's delicious. Sweet and spicy in just the right ways.

"Ok," Soujiro says and has a happy little smile about that. His way of making it no big deal is natural and organic. Ignore all those sparkles. Ignore them! Thats how he gets ya. Then before you know it, you are adopting a cluck cluck and joining the book club. Of course with Miho he is all about getting dirty with the exchange of their strengths while GB gets actual construction done. After a while, Farmer Mac comes out to impart some farmerly wisdom.

The farmer says the windmill is the main target of the maniac. The
farmer needs it to mill grains into flour and there is nothing
particularly special about it beyond minor wind enchantments. Knowing
that it is the 'end game' here, the remaining time before sunset is
spent on the windmill itself.

Those capable of System Protection can place protection on the
windmill itself. Likewise an enchanter can add durability and
resistance to the windmill through improving the enchantment on it.

Anyone with a pair of hands can start armoring up the windmill against
attacks with plating reinforcement or, if they have the correct
element, lend their elemental mana to the enchantment that exists on
the windmill.

Soujiro rolls his sleeves up. He is no caster. He DOES have MP just like everyone else and has no problem offering up his supply of it to the Enchantments there. It like donating blood. Magical, Enchanting-Fuel oriented blood.

Nyanta, meanwhile, has the magic of a rock. A non-magic rock. Just a normal rock. He begins to apply the armored plating on every surface that he can, and he just so happens to do so in the proper places, perhaps with the good advice of his friend, Goldenblade.

Well, if the farmer says the windmill is the target, that can certainly be bolstered defensively. "What, are we defending against Don Quixote?" she wonders ironically as she attaches plated to the wall at lance-level, and then in bands above and below. She looks surprised at Nyanta, who's efforts compliment hers, and she says, "I didn't think you knew much of this?" It's not part of the class she shares with the Cat.

     Aw yeah, wards. Honami is... did I mention that Honami isn't good at fixing or reinforcing things? She's better with tiny little fiddly things or things that she can break. Magical reinforcements? Can she sing at them? She tries to sing at them. It's not very effective, because magical singing really doesn't help with reinforcing windmills. At least her singing voice isn't that bad though, so maybe it'll help with the morale of the group?

     She's even managing to resist munching more on Ralph! Because she's very tempted. Instead she distracts herself trying to help out the people who are actually competent at this. Eventually she gives up and just goes over to a corner. Where she is definitely not sulking while sharpening her sword. Yep. Not sulking /at all/.

Well things are going better at least for the most part as she's now going to set up some dewfences for the windmill. She is better at weapons and tools. Then armor and it shows slightly. She's still good but not enough as she does he best to do some jury rigged armoing to more vunrable parts of the building.

"Man there was a western book with an crazy knight who went after a windmill..."

Almost as if on queue to GB and Miho's statements...

A figure riding a steed is seen making his way towards the farm. He is
a coyote werefang that inspects as 'Donald Dela Mancha' but he
announces himself as 'Don Coyote' with an invigorating howl to
accompany the beating hoofs of his donkey steed. His heavy armor is
ramshackle 'junk tier' platemail and he seems harmless except for the
red crystal that glows on his shield, which explains all the scorch
marks around the farm.

Don Coyote's steed comes to a sudden stop, and the knight lands
heroically onto the field. Don's sword blazes to light in holy avenger
format as he charges into combat, ready to do combat with the trash
mobs before the boss. Trash mobs are you and the plant defenders. The
boss is the windmill. Don isn't right in the head. He is beyond
reasoning with, but he isn't immune to the calming tunes of a song to
appeal to his emotions.

Alternatively, you could give Don what he wants: a fight. Shield
defenses and Water will keep the fire damage down while dark-based
debuffs will reduce his accuracy. If you can contain the fire damage
to the structures, Don himself is not a big threat as far as bosses
go.

You want a fight? You got a fight! Heeeyyaa! Soujiro hops into the frey. He takes on a defensive, tanking stance as he engages with the werefang, supported by Kogarasumaru's ghostly appearances now and again. It is plenty to press the menace back and further from the farm and windmill.

     And then... a man begins to approach the windmill! A Coyote Werefang! Donald Dela Mancha. Don Coyote? Wasn't there some story about this? Hooooowl. Blink. Blink. Honami just... watches the man as he approaches. "...Don. Don it's a windmill. I'm all for destruction but it's just a windmill. In fact. There isn't even a windmill." Honami lifts her hand, invoking the power of DORKNESS -- I mean DARKNESS to cast an arcane spell. Who needs to reinforce the windmill, when you can just cast an illusion on the confused knight to make it seem as if she were /dispelling/ an illusion. "See? Nothing there. It's just an illusion to make the farm look better." She says. Reasoning with him, maybe not. Confusing him? Yeah, she can do that. "Go home Don, you're drunk. You just need to go sleep it off."

    Even if he doesn't listen to her, it's hard to aim for something that's not visible, right? Don't mind the glowing eyes. You're definitely not being hypnotized by the dark knight.

Goldenblade blinks as we are indeed attacked by Don ... well, Don Coyote, which is not the same thing, and makes her look now for roadrunners. Looking around at the party composition, she guesses she's off-tank here. Possibly very off tank. But that just means she can releive Miho and Seta when they take more damage than they'd like. Dividing it up three ways isn't bad, and the fight goes fairly calmly like this. She's not even a shield tank, but she's trained it hard, and she's much tankier than most Blade Dancers, fending off Don Coyote's attacks with deadly swordstrokes.

Nyanta smiles to Goldenblade with his signature fang glint as they finish up the armoring of the farm, "I think it is less due to myai skill and meowre due to the synergy the two of us have developed after working together for so long, nya."

When the Don (not Don Fluffles, mind you, else we'd be screwed) arrives, Nyanta draws his blades swiftly and confidently. The sheer confidence that the Coolest Cat in ETO emits as he slowly advances on the Don is enough to make the would be arsonist miss dramatically with much of his fire magic. His calculating eye causes the Don to fall back ever so slightly with each step of the Dandy Cat; the Were Coyote instinctually knows that Nyanta is dangerous, and that he needs to stay out of range of his rapiers: and his claws!

Miho is ready this time but she did not expect Don Coyote. If she only knew there was an AMERICAN Cartoon made out of that one joke. She just gapes for a moment at the whole thing and she'll move in rather than to slay? She's intendint o just try and defen and cold clonk this nutbar. He will get a fight however she darn well will.

"This is some Gazeebo level madness."

She'll dip and weave using her Nagitna to strike where she can.

The battle with Don is about damage control. The party does an
excellent job in controlling the damage. It does not take long before
Don Coyote's own shield betrays him and the affixed crystal falls out
and onto the ground. The fire is put out entirely.

"The day is yours," the Don concedes, unable to press on without his
secret weapon, "but mark my words that I shall return if my name is
not Doooonnnn Coooytteee." He hops onto his trusty donkey and raises
high up, sword held high like the hero he believes himself to be. Then
he is bravely running away.

The fire crystal is not an inexpensive item so it buys the farm plenty
of time before Don gets ahold of another. Time to report to the
Hunter's Guild and let them know what happened here at the farm.

Souji waves to Don as he heads out. He is exceptionally clear on who is an enemy and who is a friend. Don is just messed up in the noggin. "Bye Don!" he says cheerily. Hey, everyone needs a hobby. His... is... attacking windmills.

     "Gazebo... level... madness? I think I might be missing some jokes that exist." Honami says confusedly towards Miho. She'd heard that the writers in america had some strange stories, but she didn't know exactly /how/ strange, apparently. Either way, it seems The Don has conceeded victory to them! "...Have a good night Don! ...Go sleep off that booze! ...Please don't come back!" She pauses, looking towards the Don's retreating form. Then towards the others. And the farmer.

     "...I think we caused more damage than he did, to be honest..."

Nyanta sheathes his swords, stroking his furry chin, "Well, we did repair the damage we did, for the meowst part, and fortify the location moar besides, nya. I think we are a nyat positive, nya."

Goldenblade boggles at Don Coyote making his exit. "But your name /isn't/ Don Coyote," she protests to his departing back, then looks around to the other adventurers. "Does that mean he is, or isn't, coming back?" But it should be a while anyhow.

Miho relaxes when Don finally calls it quits and sighs she'll look over to the Farmer. "I'll help clean up things more once we're sure this is done for now sir." She seems to want to make as much amends as she can.