Goblin Scouts in the Field

It's a bit chilly out in the January times of Yamato. Certainly within the Aincrad Island region. The snow leopard Cait Sith, Cyrus, breathes into his gloved hands and rubs them together. A white mist rises up from near his mouth at this attempt. It's not snowing at least, but the ground is hard underfoot, and there's a hefty wind cutting through, causing a heavy chill.

He halts for a moment, his cart being set down. The youth then pulls out an old timey looking map, and looks around on the old road. "There's supposedly some Goblins nearby that we need to get rid of. It should be a fairly easy job." The porcelain ranked Hunter remarks, glancing back at the accompanying folk.

Sassaral and Mikage, he'd picked up at the inn, and asked Jurou to come along - since they really needed a tank! Alliances be damned. "It should be a fairy easy mission." He notes, "They may be a bit hard to hit, but they use such weak equipment." Dismissing the idea of those greenskins even being worth the trouble. Back in those days before the Apocalypse, Goblins never really received any care or interest, until they got to the Hob Goblin level.

"Everyone got their gear set, and their potions ready?" He asks with a little smirk on his lips. "Don't worry, miss Sassaral. We'll take good care of you." He explains, before looking to Jurou. "How do you prefer your healing style? Some excitement, or top you off?"

It's at the moment that Cyrus turns around that he might realize just why his cart seemed heavier than usual. Mikage and her pet lynx are both sprawled out atop the cart, seeming perfectly relaxed. Apparently, at some point, they had decided to hitch a ride. The girl is wearing thicker clothing than they'd likely seen her in, having probably exchanged some coin in order to get some warmer gear. Though it still has that druidic style, made of furs and leathers rather than typical armor.

She sits up, then hops off the cart, landing in a crouch. "I don't have much experience with this particular quest, but goblins usually range from being easy but annoying, to being frustratingly hard." The Were Fang runs a hand through her hair, then pats her side, giving a little whistle to Rama, who hops down next to her, purring up against her leg.

"I'll leave the potions to you. You seem to have that well under control." She instead give a nod at Jurou. "Let's just make sure our tank stays on her feet."

    And then.. we have... Sassaral the Cait Sith Hymnist! Dundundunn...! FEAR! There's no denying some of the little wolf's anxiety in these matters, but she feels quite safe with her new in-game friends. She, herself, is wrapped in a fine woven cloak with a thick bandana-style rag tied around the crown of her head, loosely around her ears to keep them warm. Tail swaying at her ankles, Sassaral looks between all assembled. "T-there isn't no time quite like the present!" She exclaims, but there's... some worry. "I will do my best.."

The cold air mists thickly in the wake of the Salamander girl's, her internal warmth keeping the chill at bay. She's followed along quietly, seemingly a little out of her element, since offering to aid on the quest.
"Someone more knowledgeable than me told me a little self-healing was wise for a tank, so I should be fine, I think? But - I'm also a bit new to all this so, expect a little stumbling along the way." she states abashedly, "So, thanks for letting me come along." She gives a smile to cart-carrying Snow Leopard man. "I'll trust you all to show me the ropes."

Cyrus raises his brow a little, before leaning on his cane and shaking his head at Mikage and her Lynx. "Trouble." He comments bemusedly, before turning his head to the road ahead. "I don't know, I never had any trouble with Goblins." Cyrus comments. "Anyhow, let's go." He moves over to Sassaral for a moment and pats her shoulder very gingerly. "You'll do fine."

The youth then nods to Jurou. "Don't you worry. I used to be part of some well established raiding groups." He explains, as he grabs his cart again, and then begins to move it along again. "Just keep your eyes peeled."

----

As the party proceeds along the road, they start ending up near longer grass, which is making Cyrus' progress a bit slower. What with dragging that cart with him. "I'm going to need to get a Peko to carry this thing along at some point." He remarks awkwardly, while the others might already be a bit further ahead when...

*CHUNK!*

The loud sound of a beartrap going off, rusted, but Cyrus does not pull his leg away in time. It ends up gripping tight on his leg, causing him to yelp out in more /surprise/ than pain, though he spots his HP starting to drop.

"What the heck!?" The youth calls out, as he realizes that there is another rusted device in the grass ahead of him.

"Everyone! Slow down. There's traps in the tall grass!" He calls out, before furrowing his brow.

To himself, he whispers; 'I've never heard of Goblins setting traps before'.

He kneels down, starting to to undo the trap.

"Always." Mikage replies to the Cait Sith, offering him a wink. As a Were Fang, she could easily transform into her more monstrous nature to ward off the chill, but for some reason, this particular Adventurer seems to avoid doing so whenever possible. In fact, no one seems to have ever seen her in her other form. Odd that.

As they continue down the road, she comments, "I can probably track one if we find an area that they spawn in, but you'll probably need some help with capturing it." Oh, the Ranger can kill things, but catch them alive? Eh... not so well.

She winces at the sudden loud sound, turning to see the trap sprung. "Uh... I'll try to scout around, see what I can find." After a moment, she seems to spot a trap... only for Rama to give a yowl as he goes down into a pit. She turns her attention towards her pet, racing towards him... only to be dropped down into one herself.

"Uh... little help? Ow." She mutters, rubbing at her now bruised behind.

As they started to slow, Jurou moved herself slightly in front of the group, to make sure they when they stumbled across the goblins, she'd be between the others and the enemy, and she's thoroughly focused on keeping an ear and eye open for the movement of the critters when the cry comes out from behind about a trap she'd been lucky not to step in herself.
Whirling around to figure out what to do, her foot snags on something on the ground, and she stumbles a little forward as a series twangs announce a small shower of crossbow bolts launching towards her back. Her armour deflects most of the crudely made projectiles but one slashes intp her thigh with a soft yelp of unexpected pain.
"Ugh. Just a-ow- moment, Mikage." she says as she catches her balance and checks the wound.

Cyrus manages to pull himself from the clawed trap, but he notes he has a small debuff on himself now, indicating that he's slowed in his movement. The youth grunts, moving along and gets to Mikage, lowering his hands to help Mikage up out of the pit. Rather pull her out, than her pet. He's afraid Rama might decide to claw him.

He then pulls out a potion afterwards, and throws it at Jurou, before taking a moment to check out the party window. "It looks like these traps have some kind of long term poison on them. Nothing that will affect us on the short term too badly, but let's be careful going forward." He notes.

The young man then moves over to Sassaral, helping her out of whatever predicament she might have ended up in.

----

After a tense and exhausting continuation, the group manages finally finds what they were looking for. They announce themselves by firing a cruddy bow-and-arrow at Jurou, which slams into their armor and deflects off pointlessly.

"Here they are. I'll focus on healing. Everyone else, try to keep them engaged." He calls out, as a potion immediately bops against Jurou's head and shatters with barely anything but a bit of a slight 'bonk' sensation, raising her HP up a bit and giving her an HP barrier.

Not someone one does, when they are 'not concerned' with the enemy.

The last time that Mikage had run a duty with Cyrus, she had been so focused on trying to reclaim some of her lost abilities, that she had pushed away help. This time, she accepts it willingly enough, grabbing his offered arm and helping to drag herself up out of the pitfall. Rama cirlces at the bottom of his hole, waiting for her to reach down and collect him. He sneezes. "I know buddy."

"You alright?" She asks of Jurou, then sets the lynx down on the ground.

As the party continues forward, it is almost a relief to finally see the goblins in question. Mikage draws her sword, cutting one of the arrows out of the air. "Alright, looks like I get to play front-line fighter." She glancing over at the tank, offering her a wink. "Stay close!"

Then, she charges forward into the fray, slashing with her sword and trying to avoid the projectiles being tossed their way by the enemy. The ranger is quick on her feet, able to be quite proficient with that blade of hers.

Jurou walks over to the pit and Mikage, arriving as Cyrus finishes hauling her up, the Salamander girl winces a little at the discomfort in her leg, something flet strange about the wound - it was explained by Cyrus a moment later. "Oh." she says drinking from the potion bottle, and notices this time a symbol flashing and disappearing from her vision. "So that's what that was." The wound feels immediately a little better, "Yeah, I'm fine."

---

As Mikage charges into the frey, Jurou jogs behind her heavily, unshouldering her oversized blade and crashing into the group of goblins with her armoured shoulder, scattering several of them back to give the fighter some room, and then she uses her long heavy blade to keep them back, swinging it in wide arcs that kept the easily spooked creatures from swarming forward.

Cyrus continues to stay on the side of healing his allies. But an arrow manages to slip through from the occassional Goblin. One of them striking Cyrus in the shoulder. The youth grunts, but continues his healing. Luckily, the pain dampening system did not get taken away by the Apocalypse. Things may feel realistic, but that particular element is not, and is part of what makes Adventurers different from Landers.

Right?

The battle continues on - with the goblins being cut to size by the front line fighters, until finally, amidst the smaller Goblins, another appears. This one is armored. "It's not a Hobgoblin. We should be able to handle this!" Cyrus calls out to Jurou and the rest. "Tighten the formation up, and stick close to miss Jurou." He directs, before grabbing one of his potions at his belt and snagging it off. This one is glistening with a constant pearl of white light.

He throws it right over Jurou's head. "Bright incoming, shield your eyes!" He calls out, moments before the bottle lands on the ground near the archer and sends a massive column of light up that wreathes the area in painful glare. "Attack while it's blinded!"

The sight of the armored goblin draws Mikage's attention. A booted foot kicks out at one of the smaller goblins as she moves closer to Jurou. "You defend, then I'll switch in and attack." She suggests, waiting for the other woman to take the lead.

Cyrus's call has her ducking her head, closing her eyes, avoiding the flash of bright light. Then, the next moment, timing it for just when the goblin is occupied by Jurou, Miki charges and slashes at it's legs, trying to flank the creature and catch it flat-footed.

"Yeah, I got it." This, Jurou felt confident with. She can take on one bigger foe, so she moves in as suggested, and covers her eyes with her buckler just in time as she figures out what Cyrus is talking about. Momentarily confused, the armoured goblin's blind flailing catches her by surprise and its rusted sword scrapes at her armour. She refocuses and interposes her own sword in time for the next swing, her larger blade easily dismissing the goblin's, and as Mikage moves up behind him, she brings the blade down hard on his helmet with a loud clang, and sends him stumbling backwards towards her blades, blinded, deafened and stunned. Seems unfair really.

With the Armored Goblin downed, Cyrus glances around. "It must have come from a nearby cave. Let's see if we can figure out their source, and report back to the Hunters Guild with that information. These goblins are clearly more troublesome than they used to be." He calls out, as Mikage and Jurou's blades sink into the armored Goblin and cut it down - the creature detonating into shards of light.

The youth grabs his cart and pulls it along, trying to keep his eyes out for any more traps or Goblins, while the others seek through the grass for any Goblin Holes or the like.

"Cave, or burrow, or den..." Mikage continues off of Cyrus's thought as she lightly shakes her sword through the air. There is nothing to wipe off, since the monsters don't really stick around long enough to bleed, but she still feels the need to get the taint of them off the weapon.

"Though, I agree. There are a fair few more of them than I was expecting before. But they do tend to travel in packs." Crouching down, Mikage whistles, which draws her lynx familiar out of hiding. He had not followed her into the fray. Instead, he had stayed behind, hiding in Cyrus' cart. The little creature comes loping over, sniffing at the air.

"Which direction?" She asks, making a hand signal that likely is the equivalent command to 'fetch'. The lynx goes loping off in a particular direction, and Mikage motions them to follow. "This way, I think. Unless he's found rats again."

"Four on one seems a little unsporting", Jurou comments as they walk past the corpse of their momentary goblin foe, and slinging her weapon over her shoulder so it doesn't get in the way while they walk.
While they're searching, Jurou mostly just tries not to get in the way, she's not sure how they plan to find anything around here, it all looks the same, but then the lynx finds a scent and she's ready by Mikage's side to move on into danger

Upon swinging her blade, Mikage might catch a minor debuff on her sword for a moment - having just dealt with damaging a Goblin. 'Slippery'. Luckily, she didn't get too much on her blade, and it is removed with her motion.

"Don't you worry about that when dealing with monsters. They won't play fair - so I suggest you don't either. Unless you really enjoy visitng the Church." Cyrus remarks to Jurou as Mikage points somewhere to go, and follows after her with the rest of the crew.

Then suddenly, an arrow, which cuts /eerily/ close to Mikage's hair, and cuts a red mark across her cheek that quickly causes her HP to fall! A high damaging attack that just barely had missed. Cyrus immediately responds with a potion being thrown at her head, before he calls out; "Waterslide!" And rushes across a wave of water, moving him and Sassaral out of the way. "This one's on you two!"

This time, Jurou is quick on the move, she lumbers forwards and draws her weapon into a downward cleave into the first of the goblin minions that surround the one clearly dressed as the 'boss' of this rabble. In another motion, she runs her fingers along the side of the blade, tracing the patterns forged into it, and it bursts into flames. With a sweeping gesture, she draws a line of flames down the middle of the goblins, seperating them into two groups with flames keeping them from working together. And one unfortunate goblin in the middle yells out piteously as he gets caught in the flames.

"No thank you." Mikage shakes her head, "Besides, I'd be teleported back to the church in Eastal and I'm not looking forward to making that long journey back to the island." That would likely take a number of days out of her exploration efforts!

As the arrow comes dangerously close to her face, Mikage stops and stands quite still. Something seems snap in that instant. Her sword slashes out in front of her, then held horizontal before the ranger. "You call that an arrow... I'll show you an arrow."

Miki runs her hand along the flat of the weapon, the lines within the sword igniting with light. The sword's blade seems to vanish, the pommel becoming the grip to a strange sort of ethereal bow. An invisible string is pulled backwards, held to Mikage's damaged cheek as an arrow of energy forms from nowhere. Her fingers twitch, loosing it into the direction of the Goblin Ranger, sinking deep into his chest.

Cyrus whistles, impressed. "Didn't think I'd see an Empyrial Arrow this soon after the reset." He remarks as Mikage blasts the Goblin apart with a coring blow of her weapon - while it's forced to maneuver within the line of blaze set by Jurou. Its HP drops from top to bottom within a few moments, and then shatters apart.

The Snow Leopard moves forward, noting the cave. "Let's stop here." He remarks, and takes a moment to take out a map and marks this location. He motions for Mikage. "Can you confirm this with me?" He asks. "Or you - if you have any skill with maps? I think we're here. So that cave is here... since we walked in from here roughly that long." He points at the main road for a moment.

As the blast fires forth, it takes a moment for the effect to fade. But eventually, where the magical bow was a moment before, there is now only a sword, and a relatively plain looking one at that. She lets out a breath, a shiver running through her at just how close she'd come to taking what was quite possibly fatal damage. "Ranger." She comments, then, her usual smirk slowly returns. "Couldn't let him show me up, now could I?"

As Cyrus starts to drag out a map, Miki just stares at him. "Uhh." She really hadn't been keeping track of exactly where they were. The fact is, if you're anywhere on the Island of Beginnings, it is easy enough to find your way to Alne and the Tower, so she has mostly used that as a landmark. "I'm... not going to be any help with that. I mostly navigate by sight, or use the Tower for a marker." She reaches up, rubbing at the back of her neck sheepishly.

After the leader is gone, it doesn't take long to clean up the rest of the rabble, even the one running around on fire, yelping about how hot it is. And then the cave is quiet, the flames flickering out after only a little while.
At Cyrus's question, Jurou shakes her head "I don't think I've ever read a real map" Jurou admits, "I mean, other than google." she glances at the paper but it doesn't mean much to her. "I mostly navigate by following someone who knows where we're going. It seems to be working okay so far."

"I see." Cyrus notes, before letting out a sigh and finishing the marking, before he rolls up the paper and puts it into his cart - tucked amongst some bottles. "Let's head back. We should be able to get back before it hits night." He comments, and then motions towards the road. "Thank you all for coming along. I hope my healing was to your liking." He adds, and grabs his cart by the handle, and begins to drag it along through the tall grass, grunting at the awful terrain difficulty he has to deal with to get it back to the road. But he can't just leave his beloved cart behind.

In that instant, Mikage's expression falls slightly. It's just a brief sign that being unable to help felt a little rough. She doesn't let it linger for too long. "Right. There should be some good coin waiting for us back in town. I could certainly use it."

The next instant, she is hopping on the back of Cyrus' cart, plucking up her lynx and setting him inside as well. Seems that he can't quite avoid having her utilize him as a free ride. "Had to spend a good chunk on the winter clothes. I used to have a full set of cold-weather gear, but... the wave made everything 'poof'."

She sprawls herself out, idlely batting a hand at the leopard's tail. "Your healing was proficiently adequate." Miki smirks. "Onward!"

When she notices Cyrus struggling with the cart, Jurou offers "Do you want a hand? We are going the same way, after all." and she walks beside him so she can pull one of the arms of the cart beside him.