Duty Session 30: Spinner's End

    Giganpor was naturally one of the few that hung out around the Town of Beginnings and Alne alternatively. He helped the new people there, and secretly visited an orphanage there quite a bit. But whenever he hears of a resource shortage due to spider infestation, he naturally can't resist doing something to help out! That leads to him putting out the call to allies he knows, around the town, and over the chimlink to go spider bashing!

    Besides that, he was hoping to get some good ore and other things in the mine. To that end, he had actually changed his weaponry. Mostly to get a good feel, and since everything freaking felt like it was overweight and unbalanced, he was wielding a large hammer this time as he waited on the others. Currently he was giving it a few test swings as he prepared. Said hammer looked almost like his known crafting hammer, only a bit smaller. And more one solid block with a triangular point on one end.

    Overall, he was still here to get the mine clear. And he was starting to look around the entrance as he waited for others.

Lo and behold, the world gives forth it's bounty on request. Ask for something to hit, and you shall receive.

Smudged and dirty from supervising the efforts to retake the overgrown mansion in the city of Ash, Nureha has a grey ragged hood over her face to hide a tangled braid of hair. There is probably going to be a good bath in the offing, one way or another. Better to get this done first.

She lurks at the edges of the clearing in front of the mine, sitting on a rocky outcropping with her staff over her knees. She stretches languidly for several seconds before waving to Giganpor.

It isn't the first time that Mikage has faced the terrors that come within Spinner's End. It seems like the previous expedition hadn't completely cleared the place of all the dangers that lurk there for the Landers. She is dressed in her usual leather armor, but it seems that she has chosen not to bring her animal companion back into this dungeon.

Her hand rests on the handle of a sword as she approaches the others, giving an incline of her head. "If you don't like spiders, this place isn't going to be a fun experience. Fair warning." As if that wasn't obvious from the spider webbing along the outside of the mine.

She reaches up, touching the webs briefly as if trying to get a feel for how recently they were laid out. "Seems like we missed something last time." Her brows furrow.

Spiders? We don't need no stinking spiders!

Jokes aside, Proteus generally shows up to lend support to the rest of her Guild, and so she is present now. While not as smudged as the Guildmistress, she shows all the signs of having been out and about in the wilds, the dirt of the forest decorating her cloak as she sweeps into the clearing, simply padding over towards the entrance to the mine. "Spider problems, huh?" She mentions, and looks meaningfully at the entrance to the mine. "If you ask me, we should just toss in some explosives and call it a day, but I suppose we won't be getting off that easily."

There is a little chuckle. "DID you miss something? I wonder..." She muses.

Being low level sucks, and one can only feasibly spend so long killing low level mobs on the overworld before realizing it's a pittance compared to doing Actual Content. Ergo, the solution is to do some generated NPC content. It's a bit hard to remember the last time he actually accepted a quest in this game, given he had no reason to for a really long time, but it shouldn't be that hard. At least he figures.

     "Pfft. If it was just that easy we could just cause a cave in and call it a day."

     Haseo rolls his eyes at Proteus as he goes in to check the entrance of the spider lair. He doesn't step inside, mind, but he's clearly impatient. He misses soloing. He misses it a lot.

"Oh." Nureha says with bemusement, eyes glimmering.

"I'm sure we'll find out one way or another. Though. Explosives WOULD take all of the fun out of it." she chides Proteus and Haseo "And possibly cause other issues to surface. Nothing you couldn't handle, mind.. but perhaps not what you expected."

    Giganpor shakes his head, "The problem with that is that we would deprive the Town of Beginnings without the mine and the means to make iron among other things." He comments. He heads for the entrance to the mine. "Let's just see if we can't clear this out, no?"

    The red-haired man hefts the warhammer over his shoulder as he advances into the mine itself.

    "And no blowing things up, please. I'd rather not try to dig out, no?"

    Once they head into the mine, the first thing they find is a side room with the smell of moldy food. Open cabinets, hinges hanging open, and food containers are empty. Pure chaos for a break room. And the reason for such chaos? A small pack of dogs that are currently growling and looking very, very hungry. They look like former guard dogs that have holed up in the room for some reason.

    Giganpor looks in the room, then looks warily at the dogs themselves. "Uh... nice dogs?" He looks at the others, "Anyone good with dogs? They probably hate me 'cause of the cat smell..." Sure he could capture them, but he's not a dog person! Then he looks as if he seems to consider. Pulling out some supplies, he tries to do a quick menu cooking bit to get something to tame the dogs with. Or so he hopes!

Nureha takes a look around, nose wrinkling from the smell of moldering food and dog. The cabinets are ripped up and in disrepair and the source is pretty clear. A roaming pack of critters taking donations for the Hungry Dog Fund. When they don't growl or immediately attack, Nureha stands unthreathening in the corner of the room for awhile, taking everything in.

After about a minute she begins to manuever some of the wreckage inside the side-chamber, gesturing for someone to help her create a funnel that will keep the rambunctious pack in a relatively contained area while they figure out what to do with them.

For the time being, Mikage ranges near the back of the adventuring party, uncertain if they will end up down the same path as last time. It seems almost coincidence that they find the dogs. "Hey there. Your people haven't come back to get you yet, have they?" She asks with a soft sigh.

Shaking her head, she swipes a hand through the air, going through inventory, trying to find anything she can offer. Unfortunately, Mikage comes up empty. "Shit. Sorry guys. I must have given Cyrus my last fish in exchange for watching Rama." At the end, she manages to find a bit of cooked meat, but it was done using the menu and is burnt beyond all recognition.

"You can try this, but even I won't eat it..." She tosses it towards them, not expecting any real results from the charred bit of meat. The girl clearly can't cook.

"Yes, that's exactly what I mean." Proteus replied to Haseo, smiling with aplomb as the Lord of Edge does his mandatory eyeroll for the scene. "You and I seem to have different definitions of 'fun', Nureha." Proteus asides to her guildmistress before turning her gaze back to the entrance. "Or maybe not. Context is everything, isn't it? As far as what I expect, well... It helps when I don't expect anything."

Giganpor's response gets a shrug. "They can't use the iron mine /now/. And apparently some people cleaned it out once and it didn't stick already. Have you considered if this mine simply is never going to be usable thanks to a permanent spider infestation?" There is a little smile there. "Regardless, you have nothing to worry about. Fire isn't my... thing."

A short time later, there's a very smelly room full of spoiled food. "How can food that just ends up tasting like soggy rice cake go bad? This is absolutely the worst of all worlds." Proteus grumbles. She rummages around, trying to pull out something that might be dog-compatible, and gets a box, holding it out to a dog. The dog looks interested. She opens the box. It's just got some old lettuce in it. She picks it up and holds it out to the dog. The dog turns its head away, then the other way.

"I guess they only want meat." Proteus comments ruefully.

     The first obstacle in this mine itself isn't spiders, or goblins, or anything of the sort. But dogs. Why the hell are the dogs sticking around here when it's probably dangerous? Or when it's probably easier to get food anywhere else? Well, whatever, who cares about the priority of dumb virtual animals anyway?

     With food openly available and ready to be used, Haseo thinks he's got an easy way out. Just throw a bunch of food at them and leave them distracted. Easy and simple.

     He doesn't care that the food on the table is moldy, and gross, and probably not edible in the slightest. They're god damn dogs, dogs aren't picky. With that in mind, Haseo just scoops the nasty leftovers off the table and begins dropping them in front of them.

     "Here you go you stupid mutts, now get lost."

    While the dogs seem to appreciate the jerky that Giganpor manages to pull out, and kinda get funnelled by Nureha, the fact is... two of the others don't seem to realize these are GUARD DOGS. Proteus and Haseo get growled at. Then Mikage comes up empty handed.

And unfortunately for everyone, that is obviously not enough meat or funnelling by Nureha and Giganpor to quell the pack of dogs. Pretty soon, mostly thanks to Haseo's poor attempt to feed and Proteus trying to ignore them, the pack has managed to bite, harass, and otherwise force the group out of the room by barking. In particular poor Haseo and Proteus are probably getting the worse of it along with Mikage a close second. The good news is that Giganpor and Nureha at least manage to come out of it mostly with just a few bites, growls, and whines for more food. That and most of the group appears to have some sort of status debuff. Looks like Filth or the like even if they do manage to kill the dogs. Poison at the worst. These are, after all, not healthy dogs.

    The dogs give up after a small chase down the mine into a deeper area before something makes them whine and turn around, tails between their legs.

From there, a rockslide has caused a cave in and there's thick webbing coating the rocks themselves. Obviously, whatever has caused the rockslide doesn't want people investigating deeper into the mines. Could it be some smart spiders?

Giganpor, grumbling a little, looks at Haseo, "You could try being nicer. Even if it is a game, the system's pretty sohpisticated. So... everyone alright, while we try to get past this? I can at least give some healing to get people over the worse of the... ah... poison? Filth is another matter."

Nureha smiles, conceding the point without actually having to say anything one way or another about Proteus's claims not to expect anything or the Permanecy of this particular iron mine. She didn't believe either of those things, but there was no immediate reason to say so.

There isn't much to say about the fiasco that happens afterwards. Her already ragged clothes are torn up from several rather rough attempts at begging. The guard dogs, smelling fox and something to chase, hounded her out of the room with ringing barks and growling whimpers for food almost simultaniously, as if they didn't know which mode to choose. Purplish grey funk rises from her clothes, a symptom of the 'Filth' debuff that has her idly scrubbing her hands as if to peel something off that won't budge.

Despite this, her demeanor remains calm until they loose the dogs deeper into the mine, smoothing out her skirts and turning to confront Haseo. "..See what a little carelessness buys you?" She raises an eyebrow in his direction, tilting her head in a very distinctly 'Mom' look. This is really all she has to say, not belabouring the point. She turns to investigate the rockslide, scratching a number of runes in the dirt near the worst of it, hoping to move it aside.

There is a pang of guilt at the sight of the fleeing dogs. As a druid, she likely has a soft spot for for animals. "I'll come back with some food, if I can." She promises herself, her voice low as she follows further into the mine. Raising an arm, she shifts some spider webs out of the way, ducking beneath some low-hanging rock formations.

Reaching the rockslide, she eyes it suspicously, taking heed of where it looks like the walls are still stable. "I think we should be able to move move enough to get through." Reaching for her weapon, Miki draws it and holds it in front of her, blade pointed towards the ground.

A faint sort of gray light shows on the weapon, reflected into the ground. The same glow highlights the boulders which can easily be moved without causing more rocks to tumble down afterwards. "These ones should be safe."

"Should have just killed the dogs." Proteus mutters in the aftermath of the chase, Funk Waves radiating off of her as well as some scrapes and bites. "Stupid things were half-feral as it was." She shakes it off, however, turning her attention to the rockslide. "Looks like the spiders beat us to it. How are they going to get out to threaten the people, again?" She hums. "Well, whatever. Extermination mission."

As others move the earth directly, Proteus draws in water to form a globe. "Whirling Disc..." She announces, spreading her hands apart as the globe compresses to form a dense, deadly spinning blade. She thrusts it forwards, letting the waterknife begin shearing through the rock to help cleave open a path for them as well.

     Animals suck. Plain and simple, but at least even through all the nipping and clawing, the Imp's vitals are mostly covered. His stomach and forearms aren't though so they have a few scratches and bite marks. Though the only thing that is damaged is his pride.

     "Yeah, we should of. But whatever, we got away."

     One problem onto the next seems to be a the theme of this mine so far. As now they're confronted with rocks. A lot of rocks. Screw rocks. Haseo does what Haseo does best, and just tries to brute force the rocks away, pulling out an extremely basic greatsword from his inventory to use for leveraging the boulders out of the way.

    Fortunately most of the others seem to have no trouble while Giganpor works some healing magic to get rid of whatever debuffs are leftover. The distraction is enough that the giant of a were fang has trouble moving rocks, however. And ending up with some very sticky hands that he manages to wipe off on different rocks once they get through.

    The others manage to move, stab, and otherwise break through the rocks pretty easily, though!

Once they break through and get to the next chamber, however, they find what looks like a dusty, spider web covered room that is obviously disturbed recently. The main problem is that odd hole in the wall and a bunch of unusual rock formations standing out.

    Giganpor looks considerate, then begins searching the room carefully. His keen eyes aren't much use in this, and a sneeze comes from him as dust gets into his nose, but otherwise he looks at the others, "Ah... so... uh... any ideas here?"

Nureha purses her lips in disapproval to just killing the guard dogs, but doesn't say anything. They, like the adventurers, had just been doing their job. That they collided in such a fashion was a failure on the part of those who could think their way through a situation instead of just stick to the scripting.

Ah well. Problems for another run-through, perhaps. She stays out of the way of Haseo throwing himself face-first at another problem, writing earth runs as she comes up behind him but stays at a polite distance.

As to ideas? Well.. Nureha attempts to cross the odd rock formations using flashstep but miscalculates the third hop and barks her shin HARD against the stone. She manages to jam the staff into place to keep from falling flat, but it's an effort.

The group moves on, and find themselves in a strange room. Proteus' eyes flick about and take stock of the environment. "Mmm..." She hums, looking around. "This place looks odd. There's got to be something here. It can't be the end."

She begins pacing and searching around the web-strewn room, poking and searching around in an effort to locate the path forward... And from the look on her face, it's not going well. "But... where..."

Leaving the rockslide behind, Mikage allows the magic to fade, sheathing the sword back at her side. She lets out a breath, seeming a bit tired from the focus of magical energies. The room that lies beyond feels oddly familiar, though there are some differences from the one she'd faced last time.

"Last time there was a switch somewhere along the wall, but... this looks different." She admits, starting to explore along the walls. Looking for anything that might be out of the ordinary. It isn't so simple, though. "It has to be somewhere around here..."

     "I got a few."

     Haseo makes his way to the hole in the wall, and after a bit of budging to see if it gives in, realizes it's actually a locked door. He bends down, removing a picking kit from his menu's inventory as he gets to work.

     A bit of metal shoved into the hole and a pick is apparently universal for all doors in Elder Tale. Not that he cares, if it gets the job done, it's fine by him. He's just thankful that he doesn't need to translate real life skills to accomplish this.

    Despite it all, the group manages to somehow navigate, by mostly clinging to rock formations, across the way to the wall with the odd hole. Haseo proves to be the lock picker of the group, while Mikage manages to save Nureha, Giganpor, and Proteus from nasty falls when they cross. It's Haseo's use of the lockpicking that eventually gets them across, but it's a very, very rickety wooden bridge that takes them time, more banged up body parts as they go through rock formations, and generally a lot of painful (even dulled by the system) bumps and bruises before the group collectively makes it across.

    The good news is that whatever was unlocked is probably what saves them as they end up in a room... full of egg sacks. And two very, very large guardian spiders. A sticky floor is the first thing noticed beyond that. As it proves hard to move about in.

    Fortunately, Giganpor can quietly summon as he whispers out, "Come forth, Granit. Stoneskin us to hide."

    Whether or not it's enough is a good question, but the little gorilla-like earth elemental that comes out quickly covers everyone in greenish magic that turns their colorings to vine and stone like.

Nureha lingers at the edge of the egg chamber, nursing a bruised shin and some scrapes and bruises that heal too slowly for comfort.

She taps her staff on the ground but it makes no noise, a swirl of darkness wrapping around her limbs as she sneaks forwards one calculated step at a time through the chamber, being careful not to touch something and staying close to Haseo, who.. while his personality qualifies him for the "Levoy Jookins" award, he shouldn't have any problems with picking their way forwards. Probably.

If Proteus looked annoyed after the dogs, she looks even more beat up and mussed after the bumpy trek across that bridge. She grimaces at the situation, grumbling about various things as they proceed. "Stupid mines, stupid spiders, stupid dogs..."

She suddenly stops as she looks around the corner into the next area. "... Fire. Why do we not have more fire." She says, her smile turning into a haunted frown as she pulls back, shuddering at the sight of the crawlies and their egg sacs. Just a look at the others though, indicates that there just aren't enough explosives present for this, and so discretion becomes the better part of valor. With a grumble, Proteus reaches out, grasping the darkness in the mines as she begins whispering, dimming what light there is around the spiders to make it easier for everyone to sneak past. "Move. Quietly." She whispers, and she quicky skitters herself a bit, whipping through the area to try to efficiently get to a better position. There has to be SOMETHING they can use around here...

The feel of her boots sticking to the spiderwebs is enough to send a shiver down her spine. The sight of the enmormous guardian spiders are not something she wants to mess with. The Were Fang pulls her hood up, sinking into a crouch to move low, when Giganpor's magic comes over them all.

She mouths 'thank you', in his direction, before starting across the chamber. Experience moving through the wilds helps as she steps as quietly as possible, making sure to step on stones and not disturb the egg sacks.

Lockpicking gets them moving along. Thank god. But now there's a room full of spiders eggs that seem ready to go off.

     There's a brief moment where Haseo considers just breaking them all for more EXP, but if they all wake up, it's probably bad news. So instead, he does the smart thing and decides to sneak around, doing his best to be quiet and not alert anything.

And now for the boss. The name tag over the massive thing reads 'Arathrog the Dire Tarantula' and it is standing between Nureha and a good long bath. This will not do.

Still, she is soon too busy dodging it's acid puddles and webbing traps to think too much about it. She throws up shields to protect those moving forwards to assault the named monster, staying back and providing support.

    Giant were fang are not suited for sneaking. Despite casting the spell, it's only the others and Granit the gorilla earth elemental that keep Giganpor from almost having a bit of trouble as they circle the overly large spider egg sacks.

    Then they find... the boss room. Large webs go over the ceiling and the center has... the largest, ugliest spider many have seen.

    Seriously, the developer who thought it up needs to be shot. 'Cause it's that ugly.

    Giganpor grins, "Well... guess we can't be quiet any more." He steps forward, and spins the giant hammer in one hand over head before slamming the haft down on the ground. The resulting boom is sure to draw attention to him. Especially as he shifts into his were lion form and gives a challenging roar at the thing. The other thing is it serves as a signal for Granit. Who casts some magic over the Were Fang Lion that looks to strengthen him considerably.

    And then said lion is off in a charge at the giant spider, commenting to the others, "Come on! Dungeon boss time!" The resulting bang as the spider back pedals from getting smacked by a spiked hammer is easily heard throughout the chambers, though. Again and again as Giganpor proves that he's a Dreadnought, especially with the bright golden glow of confidence that suddenly covers him.

As they enter the final boss room, there is almost a smirk that plays on her lips as she glances towards the group's Were Fang leader. This seemed more in the lion's wheelhouse, at least as far as she was concerned. "Lead the way!" She falls into step behind him, drawing her sword.

Despite the weapon that she wields, however, Mikage doesn't seem to charge into melee range. Instead, she seems to use the blade as a channeling device for magic. Sliding her hand along the flat of the blade, it ignites white, flames licking along the edge of it. In a turning, spinning series of slashes, the light lashes out from the tip of the sword and streaks across the chamber, slamming into the huge spider and leaving glowing cuts behind in their wake.

When she lands, the energy seems to dissipate, like smoke drifting off of her blade.

The group gets past the guardians and manages to ambush the dungeon boss. "Well, this is a thing." Proteus says with no small amount of acid of her own as she looks on the huge, deadly-looking spider of doom. "I guess THIS is where we start unleashing fire and death?" She asks, despite being clearly not a 'fire and explosions' type.

Still, the hellish creature is going to try to actually fight back. Proteus opts to let others DPS while she begins weaving darkness and arcane forces. Barriers of darkness rise around the beast, trying to confuse it and keep it from mounting an effective offense while she begins layering curses and debuffs to weave her own web further.

The rest is effectively a foregone conclusion. Proteus smiles as it plays out. "I do so love it when a plan comes together." She says.

     After playing a small game of stealth, they're finally in the boss room. About time. He takes a brief moment to draw the greatsword he had pulled out earlier, just in time to swat away a glob of acid directed at him.

     Each step forward to reach the giant boss spider is another step wrought with danger, and another gamble at using a weapon to swat away flying projectiles. The corrosive liquids starting to take a toll on the starter weapon. It's fine. This is one hundred and ten percent fine. Weapons are expendable, players less so.

     As the Imp Legionnaire finally closes the distances, they twist their hands around their weapon's hilt, tightening their grip on the weapon as they bring the sword down for one downward diagonal swing.

     There's the distinct sound of something breaking, but Haseo doesn't pay it any mind, instead following his first downward swing with an upward one, creating a V-shaped pattern as he does so. His weapon's durability doesn't like that however, and the moment he finishes his attack, the weapon snaps.

     Haseo clicks his tongue in annoyance for a brief moment, contemplating throwing the weapon away, before ultimately pocketing back into his inventory. He can find a Lander to repair it later, it's not like it's expensive. It's also not like he's sitting on two other weapons in his inventory in case they need to continue attacking, but he has a sneaking suspicion the spider boss is outgunned.

    Between the shields of Nureha, the confusing darkness of Proteus the spider boss doesn't really stand much of a chance to mount an offense. It's almost boxed in.

    Then there is the flaming sword of Mikage as the hammering blows of Giganpor rain down on it left, right, and center to keep it off balance. Between the two, the thing is weakened enough for Haseo to strike the finishing blow and take it down quite hard. Despite his weapon breaking.

    The final blow struck, a variety of chitin pieces fall down for the Adventurers to use. Giganpor himself picks up one and looks it over. Tapping it with a knuckle, he hums.

    Afterwards, the part makes it's merry, if messy way out... and back towards town for much needed refreshment. Particularly baths. Stupid dogs and Filth status.