Quantum of Silence 2

    When last we left our heroic party, they had successfully rescued two Landers from a gang of orcs in the little village of Sunnydale. Making a wise and organized retreat, the party was able to escape with all their memories intact. They also now were aware of what they were facing: a Vampire.

    In most cases, this is a rather dangerous, but manageable challenge. However, with the Shadow Festival in full swing, creatures of this kind are greatly augmented in power. The group now has the opportunity to consider their options and decide if they should wait a week for the shadows to pass or risk facing the enemy at its strongest time. There are obviously risks with both choices. Most obviously, the vampire will have more time to use its orcs to get more victims and finish off anyone who might still be in the village. On the other hand, the power of dark creatures at this time is a threat that should not be taken lightly.

Normally, when hearing of news of a vampire taking captives of innocent villagers and terrorizing people, Curtana wouldn't even hesitate charging into it's lair and taking out the creature. Villanry like this shouldn't be left to fester, and there are innocent lives at stake.

The issue here is that the Shadow Festival is still ongoing, giving much greater strength to a dark-aligned creature.

Mulling this over for a while since they saved the two traveling merchants, it finally comes down to the fact people are in danger -now-. Opening his eyes after having kept this closed for a while, he nods to himself while scanning around. "I don't know about you guys, but...we need to take care of this vampire now, before it's too late for the Landers. And not just Landers are at risk, keep in mind. Adventurers who aren't as strong as us could be kept prisoner as well."

Pushing off from the tree, he turns his gaze back towards the village they left. "Once we find the lair, we need to strike during the day and take him out. Besides..." Holding up his gauntleted right arm, crackles of the sun's energy ripple down the metal for a moment. "...Hamon is perfect for taking down the undead like this. We need all the advantages we can get."

Yeowang has done some calculations, and some figuring, and says, "If there -are- any of the townsfolk still alive, they are almost certainly in a bad way. It looked like some of the orcs had trophies of slain villagers, and the fields haven't been tended in a month. I can't imagine why they're hunkered down in an empty village unless they're not done with it. Just sitting on it just makes them vulnerable, I would think." But game tactics and RL logic don't always merge, which is why she states her case as observations rather than assertions. "I would recomment at least infiltrating to find out, but at the very /least/ we should go back to the village and make sure no one else stumbles in like the two we rescued did."

Last time, the fall of night and surfeit of orcs had thoroughly derailed any chance of nipping a new vampire problem in the Ninetails Dominion in the bud. Fortunately, all hands escaped intact and with a couple of captive Landers in tow. The question now is-- do they take a risk with an unknown vampiric opponent at the height of their power (seasonally speaking), or wait until the festival ends for their strength to wane, at the cost of unknown numbers of lives.

For Prophylaxis, the choice is simple.

"Agreed," he says to Curtana. "The longer this situation is left to fester, the worse it will become. While each individual foe might be weaker if we wait for the Festival to end, the vampire will likely have expanded its forces with additional undead by that point anyway-- which would likely have come from either Lander victims." Or Adventurers, but he does not speak that particular truth too openly yet. "My vote is to engage the enemy now, before it can consolidate its hold on the region."

Besides, if Yeowang is right, then any survivors are unlikely to survive for much longer.

    Typically Arashi would be of the opinion to fight smarter, not harder, but after thinking about the potential people in the town and what could happen in the week to follow, the dire-shire decides that, for once, it may be better to fight harder instead of smarter. As a result, she'll help scout the town, slip into the shadows as she did earlier, and explore, avoid guards and similar, and try to determine what they should do next.

    Sneak, sneak, sneak. Working from collected info from other members of the group, Arashi is able to stealh far into the town and even finds what she THINKS is the crypt entrance. Lots of orcs, bored, but -not- weak given her chance to inspect them all. <<So... if you head to this part of town, *instructions*, I think I found where our 'boss' is sleeping. There's a lot of guards, they look pretty well bored, but they aren't weak either. Its in front of a cave of all things. There's a gate.. ... haven't found any other way to get in really. .. Have a sneaking suspicion one of the guards has the key so that could be our target..>>

Jayu is, admittedly, completely and totally uncertain as to how he came about to be here. At one moment, he was training by kicking and punching while balancing on his head. Then, suddenly, a blonde beauty showed up, told him that he was coming to help with... something? And now, he was here, hunting vampires?

This was hardly his FIRST time hunting vampires, and he would never say no to a request from Yeowang, but that does not change how confused he is to be here.

Vampires are never a good thing to deal with, and Kaydon has dealt with his fair share of them, back before they managed to seal them away, "This better not be more of that same clan." He mutters to himself, "I'm about as stealthy as a brick through a window, so I can probably draw its attention while the more stealthy folks can move in from behind."

<<Understood,>> Prophylaxis chims back. He turns his attention to the indicated region of the village and lifts his staff. An eerie wind blows, howling as deep fog banks begin to roll over that particular section of the ruined town. <<I've covered our ingress. Someone take out those guards while I maintain the fog. We'll take the key and get in before we're noticed.>>

    The attack of Prophylaxis is not detected by the orcs. Not until it has them all in its power. By the time they are aware of the fog, it is all around them. They are cloaked in a haze so thick they can barely make out the hands in front of their faces. Strange things happen in the time of shadows, though. Even monsters are not above its reach. Nor are they able to discern this magic from the usual weirdness of this time of year.

    In short, they are vulnerable. They draw weapons, but they do not raise an alarm.

Yeowang will slink through Proph's fog with a quiet step, seeking out the orcs who are guarding the way we want to go. The object, to take them out quickly and quietly, has been left to the Shadowfist, and Yeowang moves through the arcane fog like an iceberg hunting out ocean liners. When she finds her ideal position, just exactly so many paces, knowing how she'll move when she executes her attack. She steps it off like a kicker planning a field goal, but in her case, it's a flying kick. She steps into it, then vaults her body into the air, one leg going over the other, then the primary leg coming around in its deadly arc to strike with the full force she can bring to bear. Her body continues to spin horizontally, and her second leg makes contact with the other, striking with deadly precision. As she rotates once more, her feet landing on the ground, both guards freeze still, then silently pixelate and fade away without making a sound.

    Merek arrives when the call comes out for someone nearby. He was doing business, although he is able to take the time to come around, although it's a slow going. When he comes along to the fog, he will walk along the edges, with the hopes to find the party, and not mess up their plans, which means that for the moment he's going to stealth up and wait for them to finish what they were doing.

    The two guards vanish and aren't noticed. They are not weak enemies, but Yeowang's attacks were terrifyingly powerful. It's not always easy to tell which orc is in charge when one can only make out vague outlines of their bodies, but the key that drops for Yeowang makes it clear that the most important of them is dead. The other four targets are apparently utterly clueless.

    With Arashi being so far into the town already, the moment fog starts to roll in, one of the guards is very likely to just.. not be there anymore. That will continue as long as the rest of the group is working it's way in. Of course, Arashi will be looting for the key she is HOPING is on one of the orcs..

Curtana is a bit slower to join the assault due to his armor and overall build on being a sturdy tank instead of an agile one. The clanking of his silver platemail could likely be heard despite the fog, but it only adds to the intimidation factor, as the sound distorts in the mist. The only warning an orc gets is when Curtana comes out of the mist like an armored specter and throws his sword.

The longsword ignites and twirls rapidly as it cuts into the orc, shattering it after only a few rotations before the knight backs up a bit. This sort of hit and run tactic isn't something he would prefer, but they needed to take care of the vampire while they can.

Jayu follows Yeowang's lead as he dashes forward at superhuman speed. He jumps, does a backflip mid-air, and lands with his knee in his target's cranium, connecting with the soft bit on the side. His Krav Maga-esque flying knee kick continues through the orc, and he lands on his feet as if he weren't passing through the space where a body once was. It crashes to the ground in a splash of pixels as Jae Gu lands on his feet in a TaeKwan-do stance.

There's one thing that Kaydon loves doing, and that's taking down orcs. He isn't even using his gunblade, wielding what could best be described as a fire axe built for combat. The damascus blade from that weapon glints as it catches light, a moment before it plunges into the orc's clavicle, causing it to disappear into sparkles after a moment.

Arashi's idea to search for the key is worth exploring, as he quickly checks for any loot from that orc that could give them a way to open up the way they need without resorting to brute force.

    And with that, the orcs are no more. A thick fog remains, making it incredibly hard for the adventurers to even tell what is going on around them. But in short order it is established that no orcs remain. They leave behind mostly junk drops, except for the second kill that Yeowang made, which dropped a key. The key, it turns out to the gate. Now it's just a matter of using it and dealing with a Vampire and whatever else might be inside.

Yeowang partychims, "I have the key, going to the gate now," in a whisper, so as to not attract attention, and then she will do what she's said, using the key on the door the orcs were guarding, and trying to open it as quietly as she possibly can.

    You know those rusty graveyard gates in horror movies? The kind that open like fingers scraping across a chalkboard while amplified for emphasis? That's what this gate threatens to do. Will Yeowang stop when this first becomes evident, or continue is the question. The very first centimeter makes it obvious that this is not a well-oiled machine!

Yeowang will, in fact, stop when the gate threatens to make noise. The whole point of a stealth mission is stealth, it'd be weird to stop now after sneaking in and ambushing the guards. This is going to be hard enough without having to fight a tribe of what seemed like pretty-high threat level orcs. But mechanical things are not her area of expertise, and she will allow the experts to expert.

It takes a few minutes for Curtana to arrive, mainly due to not being familiar with the layout of the town and the fog hindering his progress as much as hindering it. So it doesn't come to any surprise when he's late to gathering near the gate. He happens to get there just as Arashi starts to open the gate and pauces once more. "Is there a problem?" It could be some sort of tripwire trap he just can't spot-

...wait, no, he spots the issue after a moment of inspecting the gate itself. "Aaah. Hold on just a second...where is...ah!" Whispering so his voice doesn't travel, Curtana materalizes a small can of oil from his inventory. Taking a deep breath, he channels Hamon directly into the oil as he dribbles the can over the hinges. The oil helps to lessen the friction, and the sunlight energy erodes the rust buidling up. It should make it slide open like a dream now!

Kaydon moves up to the gate proper, bringing his axe along with him. He stops near one of the sides, and then spots when Curtana pulls out the oil.

"Not a bad idea." He muses, pulling some of his blacksmithing gear out, and working open the other side of the gate, "We need a plan before we go in here. But at least we'll be able to maintain the element of surprise for now."

    Merek meets up with the party, and nods to everyone. "I will do whatever you need of me, keep in mind I have healing magic," he says, "And can support as well." The man takes the time to check his equipment, while he follows up with Yeowang and Kaydon, watching the gate and waiting to see the move that people will make.

Jayu is most definitely a sneaky type, and he is definitely here to help, but he definitely does not understand what is going on at all. There was an orc, and then the gate was noisy, but there haven't been any Vampires yet...

Jae Gu leans in close to Yeowang, "So ah... Do you need me to do anything? Heh." He gives his standard nervous smile. He's clueless.

    The crypt begins with crudely-hewn stones. They descent in broad steps to a depth of perhaps ten meters. The air is stale, dusty, and there is the unpleasant scent of rot. There is no sound to be made out here. The place is lit by flickering torches. They are notably not lit with normal fire, but by something greenish in color that is otherwise fire-like.

    As soon as the group steps inside, there is a sense of numbness in both the mind and body. A debuff will pop-up. It is a slow-acting debuff that dims responses and the mind. It also layers on a very low amount of negative energy dark damage.

Rather than creaking open like a cackling witch, the gate instead gives passage silently and subtly. Prophylaxis arches his brow and crosses the threshold into the crypt beyond, only to pause when he feels a sense of numbness begin to spread through his limbs. "Nn. Troubling. A DoT and debuff both... Hold on." His pendant flashes and activates, projecting another of those minimaps. He studies it for a moment, then nods, "Alright. The boss arena is pretty obvious, but I'm worried about ambushes from these side passages when we engage it. I'll take care of those, you guys go on ahead and get the party started."

How, one might ask? By walking up to those side-passages with a song on his lips. The world itself responds, conjuring vast quantities of dirt that seal up the potential ambush routes. To add security, Prophylaxis takes a moment to spread a strange, viscous solution around each wall, which soon forms into football-sized lumps of congealed matter which glow ominously like magma bombs in the dim light.

They're explosives. Because of course Prophylaxis has a bomb potion.

Yeowang turns to Jayu as he asks what the plan is, and when he asks what to do, she says, "Everyone not working the crypt, follow me," and she will charge at a sprint through the corridors to where the central chamber is. She's alert to dangers from the side, but she's not going to do anything about them since Proph has brought up walls. She's going to rush the center and hope to get the drop on the vampire. If not, she's giving it as little time to prepare as physically possible.

    The rush attack is working. It is the difference between a powerful vampire waiting and one who rises from the coffin just as the party comes crashing in around her. She is, like most vampires, dressed in elegant, but revealing clothes. The color scheme is all blood reds and an inky black that the eyes find hard to focus on. That makes her more difficult to hit.

    She sneers at the party and lets out a hiss. "Sun-stained filth! How dare you bring your taint into my presence!"

    She stands on her coffin as the intruders begin to attack.

Jayu follows Yeowang without question... And there it is! The Vampire they are all here to beat down. This gives Jae Gu joy; he finally has a clear, specific goal to work at!

...or at least attempt to do so. He jumps up and goes for a flying kick, but overshoots, sailing above the vampire's head by a foot.

Yeowang spots the vampire as she enters that room, and if the vampire is attempting a sultry look, Yeowang is not impressed. "Pedestrian," she snorts as she makes a basic attack. Nothing fancy here, the target isn't easy to look at, there must be some kind of aura affecting onlookers, but a hard kick connects, and if it's not as hard as what she did to the orcs, it's hard enough and the vampire is going to feel that one as her HP sink.

It likely seems sad to those who are Landers that Curtana is quite familiar when it comes to crypts. Oh no, not for burying the dead or to pay respects to those that have passed on. No, he's used to the crypts because he helped to clear out a few necromancers in his time in this new world. It's this experience with crypts that tells Curt...this was a rather small one. Perhaps by charging in now they managed to stop this vampire from building up too much power.

But what power the vampire does have is rather impressive due to the effects of the Shadow Festival. As soon as the Pooka knight steps fully into the shadows of the crypt, a tingling starts to be felt over his skin, dancing lightly like loose spiderwebs. Instantly realizing the dangers, he takes in a deep breath before slamming a foot down into the earth, sending out a rippling field of crackling Hamon from around him. The party would feel the effects lessen immediately, but it seems like the effects of the sunlight energy are weaker than normal. "Sorry, that technique is only meant for one person, not just everyone. Let's just strike hard and fast!"

Charging deeper into the crypt and into the main chamber, Curtana draws up short as he sees the vampire. No, it's not fear of the blood sucker that stops him. Well, not quite.

'Why do female vampires always dress like that?!'

Thankfully, this is a dangerous foe, so while he will be blushing a vibrant red visible in the gloom of the crypt, he won't be held back so easily. "Bathe in the light!" Stabbing his longsword directly upwards, a brilliant flash of light radiates from the simple weapon, likely blinding the dark creature.

There she is. Kaydon had picked up after Yeowang, and followed through the hallway down to the vampire herself. When they come to a stop in her chambers, he pauses, taking a second to look at her, "A little on the cliché side, don't you think?" He says, as he drops the axe down a bit in his hand.

He rushes towards the vampire, sweeping in and swinging his axe in an extremely obvious, wide arc. The whole point is to get the vampire to move, so he can swing in with his left hand and slam a punch into her, deploying the blade on impact, intending to jam it into her heart. It's not a stake, per say. But the effect should still be similar.

As everyone moves in, Arashi keeps to the back, keeping the element of surprise for herself, despite you know, being what she is. Still, she lets the tanks surge forward, take aggro, distract the boss, do what tanks do, as she takes hold of the borrowed blade from Kaydon. Even though it isn't Starshadow, Arashi is still able to focus enough to channel some light energy into it before she lunges upward. The weapon's light probably grows before the warhorse comes down with a brutal strike before following up with an upward slash.

        "Light? Dark? Balanace is more important."

    Merek rushes along with the party, and when they all come upon the boss vampire, he takes his time to look towards Curtana, "You know, I think you are..." He then turns around and lifts up a hand while he points towards the woman with his palm. MEREK_TEIWAZ_BANDIT_KING. The access code is made and he extends a beam of green light from his hand, which moves with a fractal of color that surrounds their enemy.

What it does is begin to work on her, sealing the power of Dark within her, locking it behind an impenetrable wall that is created by the breaking of the Law of Alba. The code will take time to reconfigure itself. "DATA DRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIN!"

    The group in the chamber is able to, in the midst of the fight, make out their surroundings. The wall nearest the entry is a disturbing sight, indeed. Only visible from inside the circular chamber, these walls are a mix of arcane channels, bowls, and glass tubes arranged in an intricate fashion. These all gather at various bowls, each with slightly different drip rates and different liquids in them. Amidst all of this ominous machinery two landers can be seen. Their bodies sag and their heads are bowed. They must not be dead, since they are not clouds of pixels, but they are showing no signs of consciousness, either.

With his longsword still emitting light and his kite shield sturdy on his left arm, Curtana moves forward to engage the vampire lady directly. He takes his roll as a knight seriously, and there is always a need of someone there to protect against evil.

But despite being almost toe to toe with the vampire, she doesn't seem to be engaging in melee combat just yet. No, the gathering crackles of energy and the hair-raising tingles filling the chamber is a good sign of that. Instinct leading the way, the knight raises his shield and jabs forward, using both of his arms to direct the shield directly into those casting arms. It's a good thing he did, as his shield manages to block or deflect what felt like the storm's fury. Screeching of metal could be heard as Curtana slides back a foot or two, but the knight stands firm under her magical onslaught. "You could teach me a thing or two!"

A small part of him wonders if she would randomly yell 'Unlimited Power!' at some point.

Jayu lands behind the dracula (vampire and dracula can be used interchangably, right?) and spins on his feet as he notes her completely ignoring him, throwing around lighting into Curtana's shield like they were making a science experiment with static electricity. With her attention diverted, Jae Gu is able to take a couple of extra seconds to prepare an extra special surprise for her royal pain in the highness.

He pulls out a talisman, a rectangular strip of paper with caligraphy on it, and purposefully cuts his finger with the edge of the paper: it bleeds as if he had used a dagger. With two quick stroke of his bleeding finger, Jae Gu completes the mostly finished symbol upon the charm. It activates with the other markings, turning from red to blinding white light. The familiar sound of a wave art activating can be heard as a circle of holy flame surrounds Jae Gu. He holds the charm up to his forehead and chants. The auto translate picks up: "<Take my blood, that mine enemy's might boil.>"

He plants the charm on the vampire's back. The circle of flame passes from Jae Gu to the vampire and erupts into a pillar of flame that pierces the heavens....

    Merek draws all of the power of flame into his attack once he finishes with the Data Drain. He nods a bit as they sweep through any oncoming assault, and he swings forward with a barrage of strikes and kicks that he uses to attack the vampire. Each of them is combined with an insane amount of power in flame, the sweep brought with everything he has. He did not come around to play, especially with Landers on the line for the fight.

Yeowang is looking out for the overall situation, and has so many more things going on in the background that she almost falters in her concentration. She doesn't, but it almost turns out poorly. As it is, it's almost a clumsily executed attack, but mitigated by the fact that she's been doing martial arts for twelve years and this is old hat for her. The flying roundhouse kick, as poorly as she feels she's executed it, is still sufficiently savage to strike home and inflict damage on the vampire.

"Wow, you're one to talk," the doctor emerges from the halls, dusting his hands of fresh, leftover soil. "Vampires. Always so haughty and self-absorbed. And yet they're little more than glorified leeches. Must your kind be so... /unsanitary?/" Prophylaxis grimaces. "It's only fitting that one use a parasite to fight a parasite." He opens his gauntlet-clad hand wide and forms some manner of swirling confluence of green and black energies. With a swing of his arm, the orb of ominous power lashes out on the end of a whip-like tendril. It slaps into the pearlescent skin of the vampiress' exposed collar and... implants its payload there.

It's a seed. A seed that swiftly begins germinating, spreading a rat's nest of twining, thorned vines. It drinks deep of her mana as it spreads, forging a Thorn Bind curse rooted in her own mana pool.

"Hit her now," he directs the team. "High hit-count attacks will be the most effective with that debuff."

    The vampire is powerful, and with her darkness restored to her she begins wielding far more dangerous attacks. These drain hit points in the area and heal her, prolonging the fight. But the more heavy damage attacks she would use are soaked up by Curtana, aided by healing magics from Prophylaxis and others in the party.

    It is not an easy fight, but the party is extremely powerful, too. Inevitably, they wear down their foe. In the midst of the battle, there's an explosion, then another, and another, as ghouls finally dig far enough into Prophlaxis' walls to disturb the explosive traps. After those explosions erupt, there is a lull, and then several more as the rest of the chamber walls detonate.

    Denied support from her fellow undead, the vampire attempts to escape, but this, too, is prevented by the party. Her nearly invisible and relatively intangible form is blasted with magic and she has to resume the fight. With several party members dipping to half health, she lets out a shriek and finally bursts into a swirl of pixels.

Boom boom boom! Despite the creeping numbness, the sound of his preparations paying off can't help but bring a smile to the doctor's face.

It feels good when you successfully sight-read an encounter, no matter how many raids you take part in.

The vampiress slain, Prophylaxis... does not relax. Instead he immediately speeds over towards the pinned Landers and infuses the both of them with a burst of regenerative magic before attending to the careful surgical procedure of extracting far too many pointy objects from their bodies. It's a delicate thing, but Prophylaxis is a Doctor. His hands are steady and sure, and soon enough the unconscious Landers are lying restfully on the cold stone floors.

"...Well done, everyone," Prophylaxis says with a smile. "Very well done."

    With the vampire defeated and two more Landers saved (Harv's niece and her husband, as luck would have it!) the group can get out of here. The path out is relatively straight forward, and the orcs still have not detected that their captain and vampire master have both been slain. Or maybe they are and just decided to not find out more about that situation. Either way, they make no attack on the group. With the vampire dead, the mind control would have worn off, too. With the Landers removed from the chamber, the debuff ticks off and its duration is not restored. Clearly there was a connection!

    Harv Derlson will be relieved to see his niece again. Her husband lost both his parents and two brothers to the orcs, as well, but they are happy to be alive and back in a safe place.

So few people recall that the Red Chain is Yeowang's group, but she is capable as a healer also, when the need arises. When the fight is done, she will help with healing the injured. Her depth of healing craft is not as great as a dedicated healer, and seems mostly to be based around sports medicine's principles, but she can treat sprains and wounds and can provide first aid fairly reliably, and she will do to help these rescued Landers, relieved that we were able to rescue them. It looks like our decision to return immediately was the best decision.