Duty Session 594: Goblins are Forever

    Because, you see...
    There was just one more item in the fetch quest that the unlikely trio of heroes finds themselves staring down. Lauren is caught womanfully smiling for six people, because her associates "are extremely dangerous people, just what do you think you're pulling? YOU go tell them!"
    Before Haru can get his paper signed, before Lauren can be evenses with the Hunter's Guild, and... Well, no one really has claim over Goldenblade.
    But Lauren said, "Hey guys, so, goblins, right?" And smiled manically.

    Which is why we are here, now, staring at wilderness nowhere near as pristine as the journies of the past several days. Even Lauren has ceased maintaining small talk as the smoke smoulders through the forest.

Another Tuesday Night for HaruNox LaBeouff. "So," he says Snape-like, "Goblins." Yes. They are 'forever'. Like diamonds. Only not. Not in the least.

While it's true that no one has a claim on Goldenblade, it's not completely true. The badge she wears that seems like a living dragon scale, that marks her as an officer in Westelande's army, and she does report to one of their generals. They have a pretty cordial relationship, but probably because Goldenblade has a very old-fashioned attitude towards authority. Kids sometimes call it sucking up, but she calls it respect where it's due, and she gets respect back from Landers in all the kingdoms.

But she is here now because goblins are a problem, and stabbing them is a solution. "Goblins," she agrees.

    "The problem with goblins is that you just can't, like, market them," Lauren says, as if this were the thought that had been preoccupying her every thought. "They insist on being awful. Like little brothers. What's to be done?"

    Stab them, that is what, which is why the trio is now beyond the tree line and thicket. Past brush. Deep into the woods. Which is where they encounter the first of the escape party stranded, and amidst the bodies, one survivor.
    They took the women and children, he tells the party. They went thataway.
    Lauren glances from Goldensword to Haru. "Do we have a doctor?" She asks.

Haru looks to Lauren and then to Goldenblade, "No, no doctors." They are dead, Jim. Or will be with the level of medical attention this group brings.

Goldenblade grumbles, "The problem with goblins is they're evil buggers." She's been to annual first aid lectures ever year of her adult life, but healing in game doesn't work a lot like healing in real life. Or if it does, it's like cooking, and requires the RL skill, plus the stat on your character. She doesn't have that part, alas, and her efforts are insufficient as Haru calls it. We have no doctors, and soon enough they are dead. It is unfortunate.

    "Haru!"
    Is what Lauren would have said over the poor stiff's shoulder, but she simply mouths it, because it's a lot easier than stifling laughter. She does succeed at least in triage-- the man won't die... if someone were to get to him. Very soon. Very, very soon.
    "Well, it's not wolves," Lauren says, approaching the two from a bit of lag. She knows, this time, to keep her voice down. "But a characteristic of these buggers is that they seriously disrespect nature. The litter..."
    One ought to look for litter only to discern where the criminal litterers /are/.

Haru has decided that the best way to find the goblins is through an enchanting level of destruction. He plants his foot on the ground and summons an obscene amount of gravitational magic. Its like reading tea leaves, if tea leaves were goblin debris. "That way," he says, pointing towards the largest 'pole' of the debris. Clearly the way onward.

Goldenblade follows along, trailing after the goblins, but soon the tracks get confusing and she is lost. She paves roads, following trails is not a job skill she has. Luckily, the others can follow the trail and she follows them. Problem solved.

    Lauren rolls the pole until it points a bit to the side, degrees off. But where traps exist, navigation need be calibrated. The imp happily bounds along the path. A reminder that dark places are home to many things.
    "Hmm," She says. "A lock. I am not a great lockpick. But I can try. Anyone else?" She asks.

Goldenblade will step forward when there's a lock to be opened, and she pulls out her trusty kit. She gets to work, but the tool she's using breaks. So she gets a similar tool from the kit and continues for a moment, then that tool breaks. She blinks in surprise and gets out a third tool, but it's broken inside the kit, and she searches through the kit, but there's nothing even close to helpful left in one piece. She must have taken a hit directly on her inventory or something. How does that happen anyhow?

Haru leans over to look at the lock. "Who needs a lockpick," he says as he holds his hand out, small white and green circles of 1s and 0s appearing, "when you /are/ a lockpick." One hand over his monocle as a light flashes red. 'Click' unlocked. Goddang Haxors.

    Lauren can, indeed, pop a lock. Which in this case reveals, thanks to her and Goldenroad, about the same amount of useful information.
    It's a complicated lock.
    True to narrative form, the whipsnap magic of Haru results in Lauren inexplicably finding a cool brew in her hand. The summoner blinks, once, twice, before glancing between the two "adults" with a shrug. "I mean... Damn, Haru," She says, glancing around him to stare into the deep.
    It's like every maze ever, except the impression here is of ants that couldn't form a line under any circumstances. But still, ants: the maze-like nature of the tunnels leads our fair trio to a many-faceted path that would make Hekate blush for its ostentatious liberties taken with the notion of a crossroads.

Goldenblade looks impressed as Haru works that lock, but she can't quite work out what he's done with it. Still, it's clearlt been well and truly operated, and that's the important bit. Though she does grumble as she packs up the detritus of her lockpicking kit. She follows Haru and Lauren around, a bit bummed, as we somehow wind up in a maze of twisty passages, all alikee. She remembers her earliest training, when the game opened, and Nyanta, her mentor at the time, taught her a technique. It's quite vigoruous, but mostly good for stirring up the air as her blades swish around, but she can tell by the way the dust blows which way is forward and out.

Haru brushes off his cloak. 'Damn, Haru' is a common phrase alongside 'Merek, No!' and 'I will cut you'. Onward on this goblin-y adventure that has a lack of, "where are the goblins?" He summons out a small sprite the size of a softball with wings, ready to say 'Hey, Listen!' at you at any moment. It does not. It is instructed to go and scout out this goblin madness situation.

    Fortunately for the group, Lauren was able to make use of the dust clearance to make a designated map of the tunnels. And fortunately for the group, Haru's sprite not only provides a direct path, it even returns to report:
    Unfortunately for the group, Goldenblade's blade technique now brings with it the foul stench of goblins. And even more unfortunately, what order exists is now explained by the presence of a Goblin Champion.
    Women in cages. Children, who knows where or what. All at the bellowing behest of this terrifying champion. There are still prisoners to be saved, at least, as the mission priority, but also... One could deal with the champion.

Goldenblade is not your typical ninja. Sure, she trained with Akatsuki once upon a time, and she's quite stealthy when she wants to be, but she's much tougher than most ninjas, and many have seen her off tank successfully. But she does have stealth skills, and she can use them when she needs to. Like now. Prisoners are stealthfully let out of the cages, sometimes under the noses of the goblins. Maybe not /under/ them. But they do not find Goldenblade wanting when it comes to hostage rescue. They do not find Goldenblade at all.

Haru believes in when it is time to be serious. Which is to say almost all the time. Serious business. Seriously dark business or his name isnt Haru Nox. Its right there in the last name. Nox. Either way he blankets the area with a wonderful debuff that reduces sound and makes sight deceptively hazy like a mirage.

    To be an imp is to be more than a literal genie who steals silverware. There is a predatory quality to Lauren as she moves from shadow to shadow, surfing through negative space until it curls around her hands to crest like midnight around her fingertips. That stark line becomes a whiplash arc, and then another, leading the goblin champion to turn the wrong way... and then try to recorrect, as light and shade change in binary fashion. Lauren stays focused until light and dark nearly meet at eternity, and then--
    then it is easier for both to agree that instead of reconciling so close to one another, wouldn't it be easier if the nucleus of all of this were to be pushed, crushed, into the palm of a summoner? And so Lauren exerts her will, and captures the monster in the shadows of her collection.
    Now in this situation, the stakes are so much clearer: These bastards need to die.

Goldenblade's escape is cut short by the arrival of the goblin champion, there were just too many prisoners to keep hidden. With a pair of casters, that makes her the tank, against this champion? She's part ninja, part tank, the woman, the myth, the Legend, and she steps up to square off with the savage monster, shouting back over her shoulder, "Get those prisoners out of here!"

It may seem counter-intuitive that a dual blade user can block like a tank, but crossed blades are surprisingly stout, and she's got a bricklayer's strength in those arms. It's hard, oh so hard, each blow jarring her, but she holds her ground, preventing the goblin from getting past her and harassing our prisoners. "You're fighting me," she snarls at it, slashing it enough to hold aggro. She's not DPS-ing much, it's all she can do to keep her guard up. This thing is brutal, but Goldenblade is made out of tough.

Haru buffs up Goldenblade with the one thing GB lacks: Magic. Hated as it is, its the reserve of energy that skills pull from. What happens when you give a Legendary Physical Powerhouse endless mana? Find out in the next episode of Goblins Are Forever.

    "Dear heavens," Lauren says, wiping her brow. "The stench of goblins... Haru, let's get your stuff, and Goldenblade, my eternal gratitude," the imp says. "I gotta get this goblin summons under wrap lest it unleash at an inopportune time," she says.

Goldenblade shouts to the prisoners, "Anyone that wants to live, head for the exit now! Go that way!" She puts the full voice of authority behind that shout, that's the voice that's pushed apprentice bricklayers across a construction site for decades, kept them clear of danger, and it has the exact mix of authority, urgency, and decisiveness to make the Landers finally move their feet in an organizes way. With the Landers clear, the fight is much easier, she doesn't have to hold his aggro from them and take the hits herself. The Champion actually seems a biy wary of her now, which gives us the chance to back down. It seems a bit too wary to follow, suspecting a trap, perhaps.

Haru gets his stuff with all the urgency of a person that doesnt know what urgency is. "All things in due time." He snatches a small icon, walking on out with gentlemanly flare. Its the monocle, totally the monocle.