Duty Session 609: Clearing Dragon's Eye

The desert area to the east of the mountains surrounding Dragon's Eye is the meeting point for the mission. The objectives are to patrol the surrounding areas and clear it of monsters in an effort to expose and eventually destroy the dungeon heart. The area is known to be patrolled by a variety of monsters. At low tide, the party is finally able to proceed. Time of the essence.

DosBox is wearing a monocle and holding a clipboard today, impatiently tapping on it with a quill pen. This is not standard Dossy by ANY means, and if you have met a certain ex-NWA now Olympus member before, it would be clear who he is emulating, "Okay, boys and girls." Does a head count, "Well... Girls. We have a strict time table that we have to adhere to. These monsters aren't going to slay themselves. Get yourselves ready. We leave in 5."

The barkeeper seems ever lax about the imminent danger that might soon come to pass, strolling up to the group and falling in as she eyes the tips off those not so far-off peaks. "Woman," she corrects the gnome, patting her side pocket that chimed with a metallic sound as her attention slips back to actual focus, "Else I wouldn't be able to drink. Or run a bar. It's an important distinction." With an overly wide grin to punctuate, they settle back down. "Do we know the kind of evil monsters that are within? And please tell me there is no lava.."

    Fuka, one of the original explorers of the Dragon's Eye and an avid adventurer, is more than happy to help out when it comes to clearing monsters. She gives Dos a funny look when she spots the monocle, but neither of them should be strangers to funny looks in any sense of the words. "I don't mind being called girl." she notes to Narii. "Though I *am* of age. I was even in college when this started! I'd show you ID but I lost it!" she claims, crossing her heart with absolute sincerity. "Anyways last time I was here, it was insects. Big annoying insects."

    Fuka finds Dosbox's appearance a bit disconcerting, but she is nothing if not resilient. Peering at him, she pokes a finger in one ear and wriggles it, "I'm sorry, did you say *slay* the monsters? I must have misheard." she claims. "So, no time to waste! Let's get to slaying! Oh what fun it is to laugh and sing a slaying song tonight~" she adds, sing-songing the last.

    Naniko's look toward the guy calling her a 'girl' is less frustrated by the terminology than the others, it seems. "You know," she says at Fukaziroh's statment about insects, "I remember using hot water to kill insects." She holds up her hand, ambient water forming small droplets that quickly coalesce into drops and soon into a bubbling orb of water hovering over her hand. The bubbles move up it like a carbonated beverage until it's free of them. "Let's see if it works here, too," she concludes, clearly ready.

Dosbox addresses Narii, "Cobras. And Hornets. And Cobra Hornets. And Hornet Cobras. All of them hate you."

He registers Fuka's words and, after a couple of seconds, he blushes a little, and frowns. "Yes. I said slay the monsters. Kill. Slaughter. Destroy."

He scribbles some notes down. "Okay. I will refer to you all as Ladies from now on. Is that alright? Can we move on?" DosBox doesn't wait for an answer as he goes on his way... to do his duty.

The party finds themselves in a cavern lined with geometric patterns on the walls and ceilings, all formed by several species of bioluminscent fungus. There is a slight musty smell all around them, and it is evident that this cave is commonly entirely under water, depending on the tide of the waters - meaning that they have limited time to stay here. The low tide washes allows slithering Centicobras (poisonous snakes with centipede legs) to congregate, gorging on trapped fish. These bar the way through the cavern. No matter what time of the day, there always seems to be few at the entrance waiting for the patrol party. The monsters bare their fangs and rush towards the Adventurers as the first in many battles to come.

DosBox nods, "Right. And Centihornets. Forgot about those."

    Naniko raises an eyebrow as monsters aim themselves at her. She drops the water ball and lifts both her arms, shoulders back, palms forward. She thrusts her hands toward them, a blast of air kicking up her poncho as they're shunned by the weather itself.

At the objection Narii just shrugs their shoulders, hands outstretched. "It's good to remember, and yess, I know Fuka. We have a list in the Dragon for a reason. Though I imagine here your avatar'ss age matters more," it wasn't something she had ever cared to look into, finding out if people were allowed alcohol was simple enough here. It doesn't stop her heading on anyway, humming a quite note as she added onto Dos' list, "Eviscerate, Explode, Murderlate, Pixelify, Bury, or better yet, Drown."

Her eyes move to the bioluminescent glow and she lets out a whistle, debating to take her own sample of the things. "Pretty place thiss, shame about the inhabitants, really. Perhapss I should steal it some day," talking quite happily as the agitated monsters attack and strike out, missing Narii often by centimeters or less, and yet she always keeps one step ahead.

    Fuka asides to Narii, "Women maybe? I don't know about the rest of you but I'm no lady." she says in the carrying whisper of someone who knows how to project her voice, grinning like a fiend. "As for drinking, who knows? I'm legal in Japan, and no one's ever tried to stop me here, so that's all that matters!" she says flippantly. "And yeah, boiling water's good. Oooh maybe there's some crabs! that sounds delicious, though it's a bit cruel so ... huh? Hornets and cobras? Ummmm... not sure how that'd taste. But they hate us so I'm okay with boiling them. Just maybe not for food...."

    Fuka's rambling is interrupted by the appearance of centihornets. "Ah, bugs." she observes. "Hostile poisonous bugsnakethings. And they're coming straight for us!" she observes, leveling her blade at the rushing crawling creepies. Triggering the enchantment, she discharges a point blank lightning strike of pre-stored energy. When that's done, she's left with a huge sword in her hands. Getting through the mass of creatures probably won't be a significant problem, especially if they try to bite her armoured shins.

Dosbox launches Earth Pillar after Earth Pillar at the insects, sending them off as if he were a field goal kicker or a homerun hitter. Observing his companions on their success at this stage of the game, Dossy looks pleased as he scribbles, 'Meets Expectations' on the parchment; the clipboard and the pen have moved to a set of Dossy's Gem hands so that he can cast without interruption.

To Narii, he comments, "That's why we're here. We are clearing this place out to make it a base of operations."

The assigned patrol pattern has the party venture towards the western heart of Dragon's eye through the mountain barrier that seperates it from the rest of the land. So far the path is singular and uncomplicated. This simplicity proves to be its weakness as much as its strength as stepping outside serves to make the party a very clear target. A swarm of Kraithornets descend and attack. These unusual mixtures of snake and hornet are of the poisonous type. Generally they seek fish and other aquatic creatures that unwittingly exit the inland end of the cave instead of making their way back to the sea. Today the Kraithornets find no fish. Instead they find a new meal to dine on: all of you. The party will need to push past this choke point before they can hunt and clear the Dragon's Eye area within.

Dosbox gives an emotionless nod to the Kraithornets. "I recommend Fire, but perhaps a combination of water and fire will give them temperature shock. Let's find out..."

    As a flexible adventurer used to shifting roles as a group requires, assessing the strengths of this group suggests to Fuka that her best role is to press forward as a melee fighter, taking pressure off the casters. Besides she needs to recharge Frank with repeated melee strikes before she can trigger lightning, so wading on ahead to be a tank it is!

    Unfortunately for Fuka, while she does rather well against crawly venomous snakethings, she does much less well against flying stinging venomous monstrosities. Swarmed and stung repeatedly the diminutive sylph ends up howling and swatting at the critters far more than either tanking them or smiting them. On the plus side she's probably a wonderful aggro magnet.

"Women. That does work. Honestly I'm hardly sure most would call a huntress a lady, nevermind one that's a monsster half of the time," Narii agrees with a wicked little smile, it wasn't a secret, but sometimes it was more fun to pretend it was. "No-one has ever tried to stop you drinking? That I find hard to believe.." Even as she wove between attacks she couldn't help but imagine Fuka being tormented, alcohol held just higher than the sylph can reach. That seemed right. Oh yes, the duty. "Let's try to avoid fire. We can just drown them all.. It'll be fine."

Well, that didn't quite seem to pan out for the Were Fang, who's artes were proving not quite as effective on the monsters, not calling in water, or a combination with her chakrams. The flashes of steel only managing to push back the tide in concert rather than making it's own dent. Sure enough she was grumbling softly as fire coursed amongst her attacks. "I hate hornets! Flying things need to jusst.." Glance at Fuka, pauses. "Okay, just inssects."

    After pushing away a lot of the bugs with air, some snake-like hornets...hornet-like snakes?...some weird fusion combo wants to bite...or sting...some poison into her. That's not very nice of them. But she's fairly certain those large and buzzing wings won't work underwater. Gathering up some of the magical energy of water from around her, she reaches out and directs it. The environment's moist air provides an easy source of water for her to envelop at least one of the snakey creatures. As she suspected, those wings are fairly useless underwater, and she's able to hold the orb in place until drowning occurs.

DosBox's days in SEA are paying off today; he fills the area with a buffet of flames, and then Naniko throws water on them to cool them off. Dosbox applies a second helping of fire and some of the bugs just pop like water balloons. DosBox shoots an iconic annoyed eyebrow raise that could have won him an Oscar if they were still on Earth. "If you insist then, women, let's move along, shall we?" DosBox motions everyone to follow once the path is clear...

After pushing through the breach there is a moment for the party to gather their bearings and pursue a more open pathing. The ruins that scatters across the area are wide. Paths stretch like old broken roads alongside even more broken ruins. Scouting out ahead would be the best option now to determine where the monster nests are in the area and how to start clearing them out without getting overwhelmed. Time for some advanced recon.

    Naniko is a bit distracted, playing with water. That's the problem when one enjoys the strengths one built one's character for. Whatever she's supposed to be looking for, she absolutely doesn't find it.

Narii raises an arm to try and ward of the monsoon of flames from Dos, treating him as much as something to be dodged as a wall of water rises up infront of her. "This iss why I prefer being underwater. Fire magic ruins the ssurface," a sigh as she waits for the heat to dissipate before trudging onwards once again, straight through the water barrier. One had to be fresh, after all. "Though nice to not have bugss buzzing about. Thankss Dos."

Sliding her weapons back against her hips she eyes the various passageways and gives a shrug, pressing a hand against the cavernous walls and breathing out. A dark mist-like creature starts to appear behind her, snake-like in length, pressing an odd claw against the same wall as she speaks, "Lookss like we're lucky. Not many patrols currently. Mosst of them are seperated into smaller hivess."

    Fortunately for Fuka, she's an alchemist and happens to have treatments for bug stings. Not great treatments mind you, but that's okay too. She also has healing magic, plus highly effective mana potions to restore what energies she expends.

    "Stupid bugs." Fuka grumbles, topping off her health and ensuring she's not debuffed by venoms. "I should have just burned them all. Anyways, guess we need to do some searching!" she claims. Fortunately that's also something she's decent at. She's not a hunter, but she's highly mobile and keen-eyed thanks to race and profession bonuses!

Dosbox takes Narii's advice on which path to take for the most part. Divination is very reliable in times like these: Kauchemar used it to save DosBoxby finding him the other day when he was swept away in an underwater eddy, "This place is mostly cleared out already. Another run or two, and we will be able to create a base with no problems."

The party finds a herd of Elkwolves walking through the overgrown 'streets' of Dragon's Eye. They may be the output of a nearby nest or simply a wandering feature of Dragon's Eye. Clearing these out and would go far in satisfying the requiresments of the job. These creatures are aggressive and blocking the way to stronger monsters in the area. Break time is over, time to get to work and clear out these monsters! With enough pressure the leader of this particular cell will need to show itself or face its domain being crippled through loss of monster-power.

    Naniko realizes she's too distracted. Getting her head in the game, she kind of...disappears. Flipping her hood up, the Bluenette ducks into her namesake Komorebi, the shadowy pattern made by the plants on the ground...well, and other shadows...mostly other shadows. Near the Elkwolves, there's a glint of steel and a flurry of motion. Simultaneously, one of the Elkwolves rears back in startled pain before going down.

"Elkwolves, they always look ever so majestic," Narii comments on the sight with a small smile, admiring the monsters for just a moment, before slipping free the steel disks at her sides, "Look like they'll make tasty steak when we're all done here.." The Were Fang is almost drooling at the thought as a flash of dark magic runs down the chakrams mere moments before her wrists flick, sending the discs careening into the fray. Majestic, maybe, but not majestic enough as it turns out. Even as she fights she nods towards Dos and grins wide, "Ah.. Yes. That ssounds good. Not that I tend to be over here much. Vertina'ss probably expecting me back soon."

    This time, Fuka's done playing around it seems. Seeing the elkwolves, she inspects them to be sure they're monsters. Once she's assured of their monstrous nature, that they're not just beasts that might be friendly - and of course they aren't, or they wouldn't be in an uncleared dungeon - she begins to chant.

    The spell she calls up is serious business, calling repeatedly on runewords of fire and earth, range and destruction. She calls upon the stone of the cave system itself, and pouring enough fire mana into the stones she summons up to make her a respectable candidate for SEA herself! This may have something to do with who taught her the rather devastating spell, but Fuka's a sylph. And sylphs like cannons. Or something like that.

    Holding the spell ready, Fuka shouts out, "I've had it up to here with these ... monsters in these ... caverns! Crucible Cannon!" and releases the spell. What happens next will shock you. Actually no, what happens next explodes. It isn't pretty, unless you like explosions.

Dosbox deploys a number of fist-sized gems into the air, which all seem to have different functions based on their color. The Sapphire one shoots a stream of water at the monsters while providing a refreshing mist. The Ruby one shoots a scorching ray of fire while also cloaking DosBox in fire. The Amber one shoots a machine gun of tiny rocks and the wolves while providing a shield from attacks... Which comes in handy momentarily. "Well, I believe if we take and hold this point, we'll be able to use the Chaos Gates to come and go as we please, but don't quote me on that..."

The monsters all appear to be protecting a snake that is much smaller than them. It is no larger than the size of a dog with white, feathery wings. That is until it flies up and unleashes a solid beam of ki energy into the party strong enough to cut into the ground, which is barely deflected by DosBox's shield. Cobra. Ki. Suddenly it makes sense. There is no time to be impressed by the flying death snake as it is swooping and laying down death beams onto the party. The party will have to wear this thing down for a while and get in a few precise strikes. It can't be all that strong, can it?

    Water magic is Naniko's go-to for situations like this...or any situation, really. She claps her hands together, then parts them, water getting pulled out of the air once more in a side-effect of her more distant application of the magic. Manipulating the water within the ki snake's body would absolutely at the very least tweak its ability to self-heal or whatever, and, well, this technique DOES tend to do damage.

Narii whistles appreciatively at the explosion, nodding as she watches pixels go flying, as they really should. "Lovely explosion that. You should teach people how to use fire better. Pretty too," Though that compliment only lasts until she spots the snake take to the skies, and a look of utter glee floods her eyes. A boss. No having to hold back. She might be a bartender, but there was something so nice about just letting loose.

"Fly true, and letss show them what they're missing," the Were Fang crooned to their chakrams, a dark tint running over the blades, like ink dipped into water. Soon there was nothing to see even before she launched the tearing disks skywards, strike after strike slicing into the snake. She didn't have any sympathy for her distant cousin monsters, it seems. No, this was like a dance and she was loving it.

    That spell was a powerful one, and Fuka's mana reserves aren't exceptional by any means. She does however, as noted before, have mana potions. Good ones too, ones she made herself from uncommon ingredients. Quaffing one with the hasty skill of a college student (it's just a coincidence!), the little sylph smacks a gauntleted fist into gauntleted palm. And then lets out a squeal as she desperately tries dodging black beams of deadly death! "Oh hell no!" she cries out, desperately beginning to chant another powerful spell... this one a draining sphere of energy to suck away the power of the deadly beams in the hopes others can kill the damn Cobra Ki.

Dosbox supplements is allies' techniques instead of throwing his own: Naniko's water magic suddenly have sharp gems in it that explode on contact with the little snake guy. Those same gems attach themselves to Narii's chakram, and the explosion sends the spinning blades on a trajectory right back to Narii for easy retrieval. Heck he even hurls a few into Fuka's Nightmare Sphere, which turns it into a Nightmare Sphere of Explosions! The net result is a lot of explosions for everyone! And the result...

Snake? Snake!!! The ki wielding snake takes that final hit and collapses to the ground. It strikes it like glass and shatters into a hundred crystal shards. Dragon's Eye holds surprising monsters in it and you decide not to push your luck further after that one. The rest of the area will have to wait for another party.

DosBox nods with approval, tossing the clipboard away. As it had one of his gems attached to it, it explodes when it hits the ground. He pops his monocle off and addresses the party with enthusiasm, "Go team! We just cruised right through that place! The REAL monster murdering was the friends we made along the way!" DosBox gives each of the WOMEN an awkward pat on the shoulder. It seems he's not quite used to physical touching, even in a celebratory friendship type sense.

    Naniko shakes out her hands as the ki snake goes down. "Not a fan," she points out. She ruffles her own hair with both hands, getting the creepy crawly feelings off of her scalp. "Really not much of a fan at all," she says, clearly directing the statements at the dead snake.

Narii looks all too satisfied as she plucks a returning chakram from the air, watching as the explosions and strikes fell the great beast and she lets out a happy huff of air, twirling the second around on her finger. "So much further to fall when you fly," she comments with almost a smug voice, and a smile that betrayed her sharp fangs. She really was just lording this victory over the airborne snake, the barkeep definitely had an odd dislike for them.

Though, the awkward pat on her shoulder gets a raised eyebrow, the barkeep not letting that stand and wrapping an arm around the gnome in a half-hug, despite having to bend down to do so. In part for the victory, in part just because she liked 'helping' when people were feeling awkward. That was probably why she offered a drink a moment later too. "That went ssmoothly. It'll be nice to see that gate operational. I'm ssure it'll mean more patrons. You all did excellently, though now, I think steak is in order. Ssee you 'round!"

    "To be fair, if I could actually fly and fire death beams, that would be really kind of badass." Fuka observes, getting up from a heap of scared sylph hiding from death beams and dusting herself off somewhat clankily. "I don't think I'd want to be a snake though. Uh, no offense?" she adds with a grin to Narii that suggests her 'no offense' statement was intended itself as a tease.

    "Well anyways, successful patrol! And loot! That's what matters." the little Sylph claims. "Not all the screaming and flailing along the way, right?"

Dosbox looks over to the charred remains of his clipboard. "Oops. Well, I suppose I will see y'all around! We're almost done clearing this place out, so... Go team us! And... Olympus as a whole, I guess?" He shrugs as he leads everyone back to camp to make the subjugation report, which will be one for the history books.