Duty Session 54: Obligatory Rat Cellar

Rats. Cellars. Pest problems. A very boring quest existing in every MMORPG ever that any reasonably leveled player would instantly pass over. Sadly, nobody is 'reasonably leveled' at the current moment, so it's actually a rather enticing job.

For one reason or another, you arrive at the shop, the old man who is clearly the owner waving you down.

"Thank goodness you're here, Adventurers.If I don't get rid of these rats soon, it's going to cut into my profits, so please..." He gives every single person the exact same response, before ushering them on towards the entrance of the basement.

     They've seem to be beaten to the punch by someone else in terms of arrival, but given how they're sitting next to the entrance half asleep, it seems they've been waiting for a group for quite a while. He's quick to get back up on his feet once he realizes he's got company, brushing the dirt off his pants and playing it off like nothing had happened. "Bushi. Bushi Kamuto." He bows, before motioning towards the cellar. " So, let's get going."

     It's something to be taken for granted. Rats in the cellar. You can't get more classic. Anyone who's touched a video game has played it, or has made fun of it, or has had to do a parody of it. Subversions, jokes, gimmicks, everything imaginable - the cellar full of rats is so played out it's not even funny.

     But for Shin Heno, it's a totally new experience. The brown-haired young man with the stone belt buckle doesn't seem to notice the man's repetition - he just grins and pats the old man on the shoulder, responding with an earnest, "Don't worry, sir. We'll take care of your problem," on his way towards the stairs.

     The man in the cellar introduces himself. Shin does the same, hands going behind his head. "Hey."

     "I'm Shin Heno. I'm..."

     "...a Hero of Justice."

     He peers at the cellar. "So we just...go down there and kill rats, huh?"

A spriggan man, with a bow and a harp on his back, as well as being dressed in resplendent clothing, purples, and blues to make himself look more royal than he may actually be...or he just really likes these colors.  The face appears to be one of the older selections, but without being the wrinkly old man face.  

"Well well, good to meet you all my co-conspirators!" he says to everyone, but nobody in specific.  "I guess it's time we do the obligatory mission in any one of these games.  You may call me U.L.P. A pleasure to meet you all!"

He bows, appropriately before looking to the door that would lead them down.  "After you, my good sirs and ladies.  I am...what you would call a support class."

Kite, who has done something similar previously, recalls how god awful it was. "Don't worry, we'll get it done for you. Count on us!"

Giving the shop's owner a thumbs up, he just hopes things turn out this time, as it was on the tin. Some simple rat killing.

Garbed in a unique red outfit, Kite ruffles his mane of blue hair as he rubs the back of his head -- a natural response given the eccentrics of the players he's found himself surrounded by. "My name is Kite. It's good to meet you all, let's watch eachothers backs, okay?"

"I'm a Twin Blade, so I'm most useful as an attacker."

"That's sort of the idea, yeah." Att Syne comes in behind Shin. "It's a very traditional early-game quest. Sometimes you just have to kill so many; sometimes you need to bring back a certain number of tails. Really rarely, it'll cover up some more interesting encounter, too."

Att puts his staff into his inventory, leaving his sword at his hip instead. They'll be in a cellar, so swinging a stick as tall as you are is less than ideal. He nods at the unfamiliar figures, gesturing vaguely above his head in an 'inspect me' kind of way.

                                <Plant Hwyaden>                                
                                   Mastermind                                  
                                    Att Syne                                    

He's really lazy about player-to-player introductions.

"I'm all over. I'll call shots if something weird happens." He starts for the door. "Let's go see what we're in for, huh?"

    Mizuki follows the group back to town and into the shop.

    She looks to Shin. "Do you want spoilers?" She scratches her chin. "Actually, even if you don't, there's one thing you gotta know: It's never happened to me, but sometimes the final boss of this quest... is another player. So if you're trying to avoid PKing... use your Inspect tool first to double-check."

    She looks at the merchant as if noticing him for the first time. The last two times, she basically ignored the Lander. But this time... She's starting to think they're people.

    But if they're people, she has one question: "Why do you booby trap your cellars?!"

     "Probably to take care of the rats," Shin volunteers at Mizuki, "Especially if they're so big that we need to go down there."

     He looks over at Att. "Right?"

    Mizuki's righteous indignation deflates. "I guess that makes sense, but couldn't they use giant mousetraps instead of pressure plates and hidden arrow traps in the walls?"

"Oh! Rat quest party!" Calls a voice, lightly obscured by an alley around the house. Two eyes and the top of a hood lean from around the corner. "Party. Hello, I'm Whis--"

Whiskey Sour, Weird Alley Party Invite Ambusher, spins around the corner while waving and bowing alternatingly. "Oh! Att Syne, and the Masked Ranger! Hello again!"

You are bombarded with party invites. "Please take care of me again, everyone."

Whiskey beams warmly at everyone and seems outwardly jazzed to find familiar allies.

"Rodents of Unusual Size require traps of similar potency," Att solemnly intones.

He coordinates party invite things. There's a lot of boops and whooshes.

    Mizuki shoots Kite a look after the Lander greets everyone with the same phrase.

    Then she turns to Att. "Have you done this quest before, since the Apocalypse?"

Count V is a person who tends to travel in a pack, and today... his pack happened to drift in this direction. Still a bit dirty and battered from the pirate encampment, he meanders in through the door after Shin, his staff lazily resting against his shoulder. It's not until Shin is done introducing himself to the person waiting down here that he joins in with his own identity.

"Count V. It is my very great pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Bushio."

He brings his staff about theatrically, its eye opening wide as it gazes down into the cellar, "And yes, Shin. That is the tradition. We have many like it, but this one is uniquely ours."

His attention swivels to U.L.P., at whom he vaguely points his staff. The eye blinks at the other Spriggan. Raising it up and down as if the staff itself were oggling ULP, V remarks, "I love the look. Very well-coordinated."

Then, to Kite.

Count V looks Kite in the face, eyebrows lifting visibly as he does so. The eye on his staff stares down into Kite's face, widening grotesquely. Smiling brightly, Count V bows to Kite, and adds, "And a pleasure to meet you as well, Mr. Kite. Do take point, then."

"Whis." V greets the New Girl, who already has a signature catchphrase. Squinting at her in time with his staff, he wonders aloud, "Do your parties make a habit of failing to do so?"

"Nope. Also, if the final boss is a player," Att points out, "it's probably either not an actual player, or it was a fluke."

"Oh!" Whis nods. "Like that one show with Gackt in it."

There are a lot of shows that Gackt has performed in. A *lot*.

"Why thank you, good sir!" U.L.P. Responds, "I must say that is quite a look yourself. It works for you."

To the question of a player character, "Well, I guess you should try and not shoot everyone and focus on anyone who doesn't look like one of us. I can probably handle that, just in case."

Fresh from the previous quest, Proteus is there with the rest of Plant Duck and assembled. She hovers there behind the others, already clearly getting tired of the typical quest bullcrap. Still, the Lander begs them to... clear a cellar out of rats. Of course.

"Rats." She sighs. "Of course it's rats." She shrugs, not really seeing a need to expound upon it more than that. She does, however, look up to glance over at the other arrival. "U.L.P., huh?" Proteus says. "You and me both on the support." She says, looking back t othe frontliners. "But that said... I do a lot of scouting when I get the chance."

She nods to Kite and Bushi Kamuto, looking back at the stairs down. "Let's get this over with." She says, shaking her head. "I get the feeling this is going to be way more complicated than it needs to be." She doesn't bother introducing herself. Inspect is right there.

Kite nods, before waving to Mizuki -- what a coincidence that they'd both find themselves ratslaying again. Last time it had been for a potionmaker named Barton -- he could tell that this was a different Lander all-together. Reflecting on Shiroe's advice back in Ezzo, he deicded it'd be best to let sleeping dogs lie.

At least for now, trying to start a dialogue on the nature of Landers with people he barely knew didn't seem fruitful, so instead, he moves to descend, intent on waiting at the cellar's entrance until everyone else was ready to embark. 'Let's see ... U.L.P. .. Count V ... Bushi Kamuto, Shin Heno ... those are some pretty out there names, but I think I can remember them.'

     "Which show with Gackt in it?" Shin asks Whis as they descend.

"Uh, he's wearing a toaster?" Whis considers, lifting her chin to tap the side of her jaw. "And he fought... a bird?"

The cellar was dank, dark, and full of creepy crawlies -- just like one would expect. "Ah..some of you guys are using wind magic, I guess I should do that too. AER...Ae....ah...ah..."

        "ACHOO!"

Kite rubs his nose and decides to let the rest handle getting through the webs for now.

Down the stairs, as things turn from clean air full of life, to dusty and full of cobwebs, the expression on U.L.P. turns into a slight frown and look of disgust.  "Seriously, maybe these NPCs wouldn't get so many rats if they cleaned up once in a while."

With a flick of his wrist, the bow was in hand as he fired a few arrows into the cellar itself.  As the arrows move to gain momentum and clearing cobwebs in their wake and making the air better for the rest of them.  

"I should also charge them for cleaning...goodness."

    Mizuki doesn't look reassured by Att's assurances.

    As they head down the stairs, she re-equips the pirate armor, and comes face to face with... spider webs. She sighs. She's no arachnophobe, but fighting swarms of spiders is getting old. "Let's get some clean air in here!" She does some kind of circular, martial arts gesture before bringing her hands together in a ninja seal. "Aerora!" She thrusts her hands out and air blasts down the hallway!

    Unfortunately, this also stirs up the dust in the air. "Ah, no, not all over my fur!"

Att holds up an arm to cover his face, so the dust clouds that get pushed into the air from the air blasts don't make him cough, sneeze, choke, and have the most embarrassing resurrection experience in the history of the game. His other hand draws his sword, using the straight-edged weapon to cut through remaining webs and skewer a few spiders that get between them and whatever else is down there.

"These are spiders, not rats," he points out flatly. "I hate spiders. They're the worst enemy type in any game, bar none." Stab! Cut! Slice!

     "Oh, you mean Deca-"

     Shin is interrupted by the dust, the spiders, the cobwebs. It's absolutely vile down here. A bunch of other people use air magic, so Shin does the same thing. He clicks his hands against the belt in a brief stab. No callout.

     The buckle opens halfway. The red gem starts to spin with a 'whirrr'. A blast of wind just comes out of it, sending spiders, cobwebs, and whatever else happens to be in the way.

     "I thought we were here to kill rats? What's with all the spiders? Don't rats eat spiders?"

Down the stairs, down into the depths of the deep, dank, dark... ... cellar? It's a rat mission, there really isn't that much interesting things to say about 'the transition is a long staircase'.

Once the group hits the lower landing, broadening out into a cobwebbed nightmare of ughk, Whiskey sighs. "Don't worry, I know who to talk to to fix this."

There is a large spider, off in the corner. A big ol' eight-eyed mess of chitin and mandibles and palps and other spider-parts. Arranged in a spider-y way. It's probably a dire spider, because 'dire' is apparently the base template in a video game.

And no matter how large and angry it is, it is still a spider. So Whiskey just marches up to it, as Mizuki's wind and Kite's sneeze clear out some of the tougher spiderwebs. "Look here, spider. We're here for the *rats*. We can look the other way, about all this, if you just cough up the fuzzy ones."

She leans in, roping an arm around the 'neck' of the spider as if addressing a club partner and not an arachnid. "Come on. We'll be friends!"

The arachnid roars and snaps at her, causing her to hop away. "Oh. Oh!" She turns to the group. "I forgot a step!" She stage whispers.

Rummaging around in her belt, she produces a vial, uncorks it, and splashes the mix over the spider's snapping mouth.

The monster calms... and then flips over, legs twitching. Whiskey checks the vial in her hands. She turns it over. There's a skull on the label.

"Oh. Oh no."

                      "Where will the wind take you next?,                      
                         Winds of change, grow close."                          

Count V casts a spell the instant he sets foot in the basement. With a flick of his wrist, he sends a miniature tornado whirling through the place, sweeping through the dust and cobwebs and doing its damnedest to hoover it all up. It's probably not /perfect/, but it doubtless helps.

The tiny whirlwind takes its contents, ascends the latter, and disperses with an obnoxious explosion of debris... upstairs, in the room with the Lander that issued this quest.

Simultaneous with this, Whiskey Sour starts to wrangle and talk to an enormous spider. V stops dead in his tracks, raising a hand to his chin and observing with interest. A giant spider could be good for-- oh, nope. It's dead.

He continues to stare for a good ten seconds. Then...

                                "Burn them all,                                
                                burn everything.                                
                       Fire is bright and fire is clean."                      

A wisp of flame consumes the dead spider.

"You win some, you poison some." V declares, shrugging.

"To try and kill the rats. Unfortunately they're a bit too clever for them, but they shouldn't be a problem since you're all clearly smarter than a bunch of rats." Despite how it's phrased, the shopkeep doesn't sound like he's being snarky.

Bushi seems a bit taken back by the series of introductions, even going so far as to stagger back a bit in an exaggerated fashion like he's on some sort of show, but he eventually calms down.

"A Hero of Justice, I see."

As they finally go down into the cellar, they're greeted with cobwebs, and the spiders that make them.

Count V, Proteus Shin Heno, Kite and Mizuki attempt to blow the webs away, only to realize that dust was actually the real enemy. The other four do their job rather adequately and without any real hitch, while Kite sneezes, but at the very least nobody will begrudge the Twin Blade for doing his best.

Meanwhile, Att and U.L.P. decide that spiders are horrible tenants because they do not pay rent, and thus hack and shoot away at their hard work. It might be heartless, but it's effective, and they can both rest easy that there are fewer spiders in the world to harass them with very thin threads that they walk into without noticing.

As for Bushi and Whiskey, Bushi is just carefully moving the spiders out of the way, like some sort of Disney Princess, except instead of cute animals it's gross spiders. While Whiskey, attempts to be a bit more direct, chumming around and then 'accidentally' poisoning it with some weird concoction. Bushi just kind of squints, before visibly shrugging as Count V cleans up the corpse.

Probably not best to question it, so long as it works.

     The cobwebs are blown apart, the spiders poisoned. The dust is sent off on gusts. The cellar is clean - but that's not what they're there for, is it? No, what they're there for is rats.

     The gap in the wall might be just the direction they need.

     It's a narrow gap, a tight fit through the crack in the wall into the dug-out tunnels. No one planned these tunnels. No one prepared these tunnels. No one *set* these tunnels down with maps and goals and directions. This was dug haphazardly at best, spat into the world by some maddened digger, be they rodent or man or some stranger thing, splattered like a modern art painting underneath the landscape. The tunnels grow ever more claustrophobic as they go on. They squeeze. They tighten. It becomes impossible to determine their direction - up, down, left, right, they lose all meaning in this place.

    Mizuki stares as Whiskey Sour attempts negotiation. "You can TALK to SPIDERS?!" Her bullshit detector is pretty broken right now. She just -.-; when it turns out that no, Whiskey cannot talk to spiders.

    Up next is not a trapped hallway but... a maze? "Huh. I thought that the maze part came later? Maybe I'm misremembering. I wonder if it follows roughly the same route as the other times...?" She tries to guess how the other layouts she's seen would overlay on this to get to the next section.

    Just how good is her memory? Honestly, this is probably a matter of raw luck...

Whiskey Sour can absolutely talk to spiders, and carried on a wonderful conversation with the spider! Just hear her say it.

"Of course I can talk to spiders. I can also talk to fairies and spirits and sometimes, if I'm listening hard enough, mushrooms."

Whis carries on rather normally after killing the spider -- ACCIDENTALLY. "Thank you for sending on that poor spider, Count V. It was very thoughtful. So, I heard a trick about mazes: If you just put your hand on the right wall, eventually you'll get out!"

So she does so. Just... the most basic solution to a maze. Somehow, miraculously, she doesn't collect a line of filth the whole way along, because of aformentioned 'blessed by nature' claims.

Probably.

Either that or proprietary moisturizer.

    "That's /one/ labyrinth in Greek myth, and it is trivial to construct a maze where hugging one wall will make you go in circles eventually!" Mizuki shouts when she hears Whiskey's idea.

"Hmmm...now this is new!" U.L.P. Says with a hint of amusement.  Thinking about how to go about this, with the fresh digging, it appears all they need to do is attempt to find their way through these tunnels to try and find the source.  

Stepping forward, the Spriggan attempts to lead the way with his sense of direction and tracking through these winding caverns.

"I think we're going in circles..."

     Once again, Shin proves to be strangely at home with weird situations like this. While he's an absolute newbie at this game - and he certainly still hasn't gotten the hang of terms like *aggro* - Shin seems to be no stranger to cramped, crowded, confusing pathways. It's like he's spent a lot of his life going up and down insane elevator mazes and commuting across multiple, confounding train lines! Imagine that.

     He actually stops to sit down after a bit. "I think..."

     "I think we went right, right, left, right, left, right right, right, left. I think what we were *supposed* to do is left, right, left, right, left, right left, right, left."

Deeper into the maze they go, Kite pinching his nose as he steps around the twitching spider, it isn't long before the group has problems making it through all the twisting and turning. Kite ruffles through his inventory, hoping that one of the maps he'd gotten on his adventures thus far might be useful, but ...

Luck wouldn't have it that way, today.

"Uhm .... somehow, Whiskey, I don't think that's really going to help us in this case."

Thankfully, Shin Heno has something resembling an idea of what to do. "Alright, then let's retrace our steps and try it, unless anyone has another idea..?"

Bushi Kamuto is a master navigator and totally knows what he is doing. Unfortunately, he also wants to follow the rest of the group. He's pretty sure he has a good idea of where to go, but it's just... The others...

It's fine though. It's definitely fine. This Whiskey Girl clearly knows a thing about mazes. Nobody would definitely lie or be incorrect about having a solution. Ever.

.
..
...

He was wrong.

    The party is defeated not by rats, nor by spiders, but by a maze.

    Mazes kill nothing but time, though, so eventually by random chance the party finds the exit... oh wait no this is the way you came in. There is probably a lot of groaning.

    Eventually, by random chance, or perhaps by steadily and precisely making a map and checking every passage, the party finds the /exit/, tired if not physically than mentally from spending far longer than expected in a stupid maze without even seeing one of the rats they're here for.

    Encouragingly because it means a challenge other than wandering a maze, the party can hear squeaking up ahead, the war cries and death shrieks of dire rats.

    Mizuki sighs. "Another room full of racist rats again. At least we're finally out of that stupid maze."

    Indeed, the tunnels open up into a large room full of rats... fighting eachother! It soon becomes clear that the black-pelted rats are fighting the white-pelted rats and it is unexpectedly messy and gory for this game.

    "Forming a tight group and forcing our way through has worked before," Mizuki volunteers, "Although one time someone blinded the rats so they couldn't see the color of their opponents. Poetic."

     The party emerges from the maze into a room full of rats killing rats. Brother against brother. Black against white. The violence inherent in the computer system. It's a mess for sure, but it's not one Shin feels the need to transform for.

     "Well that's pretty gross! I thought all the damage was, y'know!" He scratches his face. It leaves a little trailing line before it disappears. He probably took a single point of damage, on purpose, but it's an elegant demonstration. "What's up with this room?"

     Well, either way.

     Shin moves forward into the melee. One of the rats catches on his feet, clinging. He raises his foot, trying to shake it off, and then realizes-

     "Wait a minute."

     Now he's armed.

     Shin kicks the rat off his foot. He bounces the poor creature off his leg for a moment, bouncing it on his heel, on his knee. He swaps legs, kicking up, kneeing, the whole nine yards. He even bounces the poor thing off his head, at which point the rat is just *thoroughly* confounded by the whole thing.

     "Ha ha! I can't believe that works! Let's see if this does, too!"

     "CHESTO!"

     Shin wheels around in mid-air as the rat comes down. His foot connects with the falling creature.

     It fires like a bullet into the melee. The creature barely has time for a squeal of terror before it's gone, shoving aside other rats, a wake of bowled-over and frightened rodents behind its trail.

     Shin lands and dusts off his hands. "Alright, I'm all clear over here!"

     He just played football with a rat.

     Yep.

Kite draws his mail breakers and moves forward, intent on forcing his way through, just like he and Mizuki had done with their party last time. "TWIN DRAGONS!"

Burning hot flame erupts from his weapons as he tries skewering one of the albino rat warriors with them, but Kite misses his mark, instead planting the finely tapered tip of his flaming weapon into the floor. "Uh..."

Tugging, he struggles to release it, rats of both colors dogpiling him in the meanwhile. "Uwah!"

"S..so gross and slimy...who made this area so bloody?!"

Don't worry, he'll fight his way out. Eventually.

"Well, that was...a thing," U.L.P. says with a touch of sarcasm.  Of course, now they come upon the obligate racist message that sometimes gets stuck into these things.  Thinking about things for a moment he shakes his head and regards the others.  "There seems to be a rather black and white solution to this."

Which is of course to go right through the rats.  However, as he does this he pulls out his harp.  As he plays, he dances through the rats.  He moves, opting to avoid the rats as they try and strike at him as he comes between the white and the black rats.  He deftly jumps when he accidentally comes between two, causing them to crash into each other.

With grace, he finally gets to the end and ends the song with a flourish.  With a bow, he turns to leave before any more rats want a piece of him.

"What do the mushrooms have to say?" Count V asks Whiskey.

What follows is... getting lost. The idea of getting lost in a vast warren built, ultimately, into somebody's cellar is ridiculous, but not all unexpected in this game. It does, however, intrigue him as to the possibilities. This sort of 'problem' is fairly usual in starter zones, and it's reasonable to expect to find variations elsewhere now and again. That being the case, V gets to daydreaming about the possibilities of tunneling beneath cities...

And what the physics models are for structural integrity. That gets him to looking at the ceiling, quite nervously, having all but forgotten his private concerns surrounding Kite.

Then-- then a whole lot of Nothing happens. Count V starts paying attention again, and realizes he has no idea where they are or exactly which direction(s) they came from. As it happens, though, he's not paid attention exactly long enough that they stand before a den of squeaking, squealing, warring rats.

"You... weren't joking about the 'racist rats' thing, were you?" V asks, quite rhetorically.

Count V steps forward and raises his staff in what is most definitely an exaggerated and melodramatic way.

                                "Silent Black."                                

The eye on his staff opens wide, veins beginning to emerge cross its surface. The wings upon his own back fan out behind him, fluttering for a moment and then being still. Visuals begin to flicker oddly-- and then it becomes evident after a moment that, in fact, it isn't the motion of everything around that's changing. Just the colors. Colors are being stripped away, and as they do so black veins begin to run across both V's staff and through his wings. After a moment or two there is no longer a distinction between the rats-- and the distinction between /players/ is muted, also. The overall effect casts players in the light of Noir characters set against a largely grey backdrop, the only colorful things in the room. V himself is black-and-white, though he is dominantly dark with white trimming, as there wasn't much on him to lighten in the first place. His eyes, though, are shockingly bright for it.

Count V lowers his staff back to the floor with a clatter, and strides on through the rat's den, humming as he goes.

The group eventually stops circling around and stumbles upon a group of rats. This is it. This is chance. Bushi Kamuto begins to very slowly and dramatically unsheathe one of the sword on his hip, a hand sliding at the base to press on the pommel as he does so to initiate a small heroic tune.

"From the highest of Heavens, to the lowest of Hells! Prepare yourselves, minions of chao-HEY!"

As he's busy preparing an overly dramatic speech, a rat takes the time to actually accost the boisterous Were Fang. There's a very audible noise of the man's ego deflating as he now has to struggle with throwing an oversized vermin off of him.

A valuable lesson was learned this day, that being if you're going to heroically flex, make sure you are several levels higher and that your opponents aren't cheating rats.

"We did it!" Whis announces, at the 'end' of the maze. "Yes, thanks to the wisdom of the Druid class, we--"

It's the start again.

Whis falls to her knees. "Noooo-ho-ho-hooo... I've failed..."

THROUGH THE MAZE FOR REAL THOUGH:

"I hate the word 'maze'. It is my number one least favorite word. There shouldn't be a maze in a cellar. Why does anyone go here?"

She beholds the Rat Melee and blinks a few times. "Those rats are trying to steal our quest credit."

"You can't murder those rats, rats! It's our job to murder those rats!"

Hopping into the melee, and rolling up her robe's sleeves to her elbow she actually starts...

Fistfighting rats? At some point she must begin buffing herself because flames begin to lick her body as if she exuded an aura of heat.

"I'll get you, rats. Nobody cuts in on our business!"

The rats behind scream and crawl at each other, but that is not your concern anymore.  Here as the path continues the smell of blood and something -else- increase.  The streaks of blood and bodies of discarded smaller rats lay across the path, only getting worse as you come closer to the end.

Upon entering the room, a mangy looking creature, much larger than even the rats from the previous area stands with his back to you.  Slowly, it turns around, it's dark beady eyes staring at you in a sort of feral madness.  It's sharp teeth clatter as it starts regarding the group as if it were its next meal.

Then it releases a mighty roar.  Threatening to shake the very walls of the place around you.  The murderous intent in its beady eyes now easily visible to all as it charges.  

U.L.P. frowns, "Huh, a dire rat.  Well, time to earn our pay.  SHOOT IT!"

    Most of the party runs with the suggestion to push through, and they do it with /style/, Shin Heno using the rats themselves to clear the way through other rats, U.L.P. dancing through the melee, Whiskey punching a path through the rats, and Count V poetically making the rats look all the same. Mizuki claps, "Nice! They can't see who's got stars upon thars now..." For her part, she just nimbly weaves through the melee after Shin, staying just ahead of the flood of rats closing back in behind him.

    "Alright," Mizuki announces cheerfully, "at least after all that we get to see the cute 'armored rat'! It's adorable, if murderous, and hasn't been a serious problem so far."

    As they enter the next room, a mound of fur at the opposite end of the room rises to the size of a man... and then further. This thing is the size of a /car/. Red eyes gleam in the torchlight and it lets out a hiss, spittle gleaming before it charges towards them with uncanny speed!

    "That's not Armored Rat! I've never seen this thing before!"

Kite, almost looking like he'd rather leave after dragging himself out of the rat heap, isn't entirely surprised that what waits for them is not in fact, a Rat Knight. After all, this was not Barton's shop .. the circumstances wouldn't be precisely the same every time. The maze they took was like that too, not being rigged with various shooting traps.

The cannibalistic creature's roar pierces his eardrums, but Kite perserveres and pushes his arms outwards. "ELECTRICAL FUUUZZZ!"

Lightning runs along his frame before it expands, creating a bright flash of light that completely exposes the room for all of its nasty, awful details but, more importantly, it is meant to sear the Dire Rat's eyes as Kite hurls his weapons at it from afar.

U.L.P. notches an arrow this time, chanting under his breath to try and get this right.  Taking aim, he unleashes the arrow which seems to have a green glow to it.  The arrow flies, unerringly towards the rat, and strikes it square across the shoulder as vines start growing out of it.

"Yes!" he says, excited. Then...

The giant car-sized rat breaks through the vines, just kool-aid manning through them.  This was going to hurt. "Oh no."

    Mizuki runs for the back line as a rat multiple times her size charges the party! The sight of a cat running from a giant rat would probably be pretty funny in other circumstances. She tries to avoid it and properly time her attacks, spitting bolts of fire and firey explosions at it from the back line, but eventually she overdoes it, pulls too much aggro, and ends up caught in its mouth. "No fair! No fair! I'm not really a cat! I haven't tortured any rats or mice!" Eventually she's flung free when other attackers get the rat's attention again, but the damage (to her HP) is done...

     The Dire Rat menaces with size and fury. It's huge, the size of a car and thrice as mean. The thing's roar shakes the room. Chunks of earth come falling from on high, knocking against the earthen floor.

     Shin's grin widens. "So it's time, huh?"

     His right hand rises from the side. His left comes up in a fist against his flank. The right hand goes to twelve-o'clock. The left comes out. "Transform."

     The right hand snaps across the belt buckle in a single, swift motion. It pops open, red light pouring out.

                        0 01 0
                      1 /----\ 0
                     0 /      \ 0
   ARMOR BEETLE    ====|  /\  |====  CODE: ALGOL
DEFENSE OF DESTINY ====|  \/  |====    COMPILE
                     0 \      / 1
                      1 \----/ 1
                        0 10 0

     The roar of the rat is met with the aggressively loud belt and its chanting announcer's jingle. Lights flash, old-style, gimmicky glowing lights straight out of the seventies, covering Shin in their glow. It's the constellation Perseus, with the belt's red light where the star Algol should be.

     When the lights die...

     "Masked Ranger, Algol."

     His hand goes to the side of his head. "Just a passing-through Masked Ranger. Remember that."

     The black-armored beetle man strides forward, red scarf blowing dramatically around him, red eyes glowing under the yellow mandible crest. In what little light there is his eyes look all the more menacing.

     His foot whirls around. The beetle-jaw hooks at the end of his ankle come shooting off, spinning furiously into the rat. Another kick sends another blade, and then a pair of punches follows it up.

     "Let's go," he says, his voice reverberating with confidence and armor echo, "While we have the chance. There's still more left to do. We can't get stopped here."

A dire rat. Cool. He's got a professional degree in monster handling, so if he just calms the massive rat down enough by waving his arms in a soothing manner-

Not happening. The massive Dire Rate promptly ignores him and does what Dire Rats do best. Which is be a massive nuisance.

Okay. That's...

"Wooooah. That rat's huge!" Whis exclaims, a weird look on her face. "Do you think is the *dire* dire rat? Does that stack? Is it a cubed or a squared rat...?"

Whis is lost in consideration for a moment. The rat looms. Masked Ranger Algol transforms and does a sweet, sweet finishing attack. "I've got it!" Whis snaps her fingers. "It's a--" A rat-tail biffs her, and she stumbles back - winded, but undamaged. "Oh, right. Forgot a step!"

A mistletoe-topped staff materializes into her hand, as a storm cloud forms above it. With a crackle, a bright flashing stormcloud forms over the top of her staff, and starts remotely blasting the rat with jumping shocks of electricity.

Whis turns to V, while her thundercloud loudly blasts away. "So the sound mushrooms make is sort of like..." She raises her lips, looking bucktoothed for a moment, and slowly forces air through her teeth. "Like that?" She laughs. "It's pretty weird, they're a fungus. They don't really have opinions."

    A dazed and battered Mizuki stands after the giant rat is defeated. "Is the just-passing-through thing a sentai reference? And here I thought it was Akazukin Chacha..." Well, those were certainly words. Maybe she hit the wall too hard.

"No, he's doing Gackt's thing. He says it every episode, while he flies through time and space in a racing seat." Whis explains.

"Originality is dead," U.L.P. says, as he gets up from the side of the wall he was slammed into after the dire rat Kool-aid manned him.

Count V snaps off a quick spell that sends a stream of toxic goo rocketing towards the colossal rat's eye-- but it misses by a few inches, and soon thereafter he's caught in a tail sweep that he didn't expect the rat to have because, seriously, who puts dragon template mechanics on a rat?

As he regains his bearings from the side of a muddy, grimy wall, he asks Mizuki, "Didn't you say you did this quest before?"

The meaning isn't, 'Do you know what you're doing?', but more, 'Isn't that a reason for rats to hold a grudge?'

The answer is no, of course. Rats don't have a reputation meter. Do they? Count V sure hopes not, because otherwise there's going to be some seriously awkward times ahead.

When Shin takes the lead, Count V scrabbles after him.

Pressing on down the tunnels is punctuated by quiet squeaks. An alternating trail of rats in pairs flowing steadily from down a long, dark tunnel. Most of them seem to be mere critters, annoying but easily challenged. Every third group or so consists of a pair of lightly threatening rats, and the second such pack feels just a little tougher than the first one. It's probably reasonable to expect that the more of these come down the hall, the stronger they'll start to become.

But time enough doesn't pass to invite another Dire Rat, or other special enemy.

A crude wooden door only most of the way shut lies at the end of the tunnel. The bottom half of the door has openings for rats of varying sizes, though the largest rat that has been seen so far could well pull the door open and slip out at its leisure. Flickering lights can be seen through the cracked door, and upon opening it what is behind becomes evident.

Runes smear the floors, gleaming red and grotesquely slick, as if freshly applied from human blood.

A humanoid rat in robes stands at the center of the circle. In one hand is a short, silver knife, and in the other a cane.

THE RATSPEAKER ceases to chant as intruders enter, a pair of rats the size of dogs -- one brilliant white, the other red as blood -- emerge from two portals standing at either side of the room. Combat begins as the RATSPEAKER gestures its knife, sending the two rats hurtling towards the party.

THE RATSPEAKER begins to chant again immediately. This is definitely an add wave boss...

    Mizuki squints at Whiskey. "When was that? 'cuz it's what Seravy would say whenever Chacha caught him following her in some ridiculous disguise, 'Oh, I'm just a just-passing-through' and whatever the disguise was."

    "Yeah but I didn't torture them like a cat! I gave them quick deaths! I mean, I guess that's fair..." If a rat reputation meter decides who gets bitten by giant rat next, does that mean they all get a turn?

    When they confront the pairs of rats, Mizuki goes 'Hmmmmmm'.

    And then they face THE RATSPEAKER

    "Okay, this one wasn't a player last time at least. Let's try this again..." With another ninja handsign, she's surrounded in stone armor, but it doesn't slow her down one bit as she ignores the adds to circle the caster, looking for an opening. "So, if it isn't the game's tastiest monster. Why are you so tasty?" Despite the sheer, undeniable if questionable tastiness of THE RATSPEAKER, she holds back from actually biting him and sticks to daggers, claws, and magic.

    "Why are you so delicious?! What's your secret!"

    Maybe she was hit a bit hard in that last battle...?

Kite is content to whistle as they all go along. Shin Heno's transformation had been /cool/ -- so much so that Kite had elected to cheer for him after transforming. "Masked Ranger forever! Or so ... "

Eventually, they find themselves at the source of the rat infestation. Rather than a fat, cowardly man trying to ruin someone else's business, it was a terrifying rat creature, THE RATSPEAKER. Kite does his part in the battle, having recovered his mail breakers earlier, and channels magical energy into their tips as he concentrates on dealing with the summoned rats, releasing flurries of stabs and slashes infused with a variety of elements, primarily fire, lightning, and water.

"Man ... I don't think I ever want to take another ratslaying quest again! Help me, Masked Ranger!"

The last part was probably a joke, since he seemed to be doing just fine.

U.L.P. frowns, "Oh shoot, a wave battle.  Well, I guess there's only one answer." That is, of course, trying to shoot as many arrows into rats as he can.  With a wave of his hand, he attempts to blind creatures that first come through to try and buy everyone more time.  

He misses, as the portals spit out rats just slightly forward than he expected, so their heads stick out of the darkness.

"Well, that's unfortunate..."

     Algol doesn't *directly* respond, but the little shake of the beetle-man's head should be proof enough of what he thinks of Whiskey and Mizuki's conversation.

     It's a reference. It's obviously a reference.

     The Armor Beetle-man walks in silence in front of the party, taking point because of course he is, he's a big armored beetle.

     When they emerge into THE RATSPEAKER's room, Algol steps back in surprise. Kite surges past him. Algol's hand snaps outwards. He starts gathering energy -

     No, no good!

     The ball of light detonates in his hand, shortly before one of the rats crashes into him. Sparks fly as the beetle-man stumbles back, red lights across his chest. "Tch!" He starts gathering power again, only to be hit once more, another huge rat clawing at his chest.

     Like any proper toku character, after he's been hit three times in increasingly major ways, he goes spinning through the air, crashing into the wall. His HP drops like a rock.

     He *also* detransforms. He's been hit *really* hard.

     Shin pulls himself to his feet and wobbles. "Ah...not...not as good a performance this time around, I guess..."

     "What's with these rats, anyway...?"

    When the ratspeaker goes down, Mizuki actually listens to his dialogue this time. "Wait, the meat is from the rats?" She turns to look at where the portals were. She claps her hands over her muzzle and gasps. "What have we done?!"

    But... the ratspeaker isn't dead, just collapsed. After collecting her share of the drops she rushes to his side. "Hey. Hey, wake up. You can't summon rats here, but maybe we can find someplace where you can work with a butcher or a slaughterhouse or something..."

    As the others collect their drops, she looks back at the group.

                                      +.+                                      
                           "Are you gonna eat that?"                            

"Oh. That's because Gackt is a very popular person who is in everything." Whis patiently explains while MASKED RANGER ALGOL, SHIN HENO and THE RATSPEAKER have a declarative text battle, with dramatic kanji and perhaps even a cut-in theme. That's all fine.

Whis is on the prowl. "What is that *smell*?" She breathes, a throaty inhalation that she lingers on.

THE RATSPEAKER reveals the CRUX of his EVIL RAT PLAN is that roasted rat is... delicious, if properly prepared? "Oh, but that's normal. Just like pretty much every monster of this level band, rats drop generic, undifferentiated meat. You can't even tell the difference! Well, maybe it's different now. Either way, you see--"

from the tips of her robe, embers pop and spread from the ends, pouring up the sides as she's consumed by a bonfire that still retains her general shape. "Step one: Cook the meat. This time, I won't forget any steps."

<ONE UNSPEAKABLE VIOLENCE LATER>

"And with a pinch of salt, and some of my secret herbs and spices--"

Whis checks the label thoroughly to be sure. She smiles faintly before waggling the shaker over the meat. "That's a steak that won't squeak!"

Is that... supposed to be a pun?

After some time readjusting his outfit, and cracking his neck, U.L.P. considers THE RATSPEAKER.  This MIGHT be a good idea, it is also a way to understand how well the AI in this game works now that they're...different?  He's not sure, but it might even work!

Placing the bow back on his back, he moves to gently pick up THE RATSPEAKER.  "Well, that was fu..." he looks at Whis.  For a moment he considers speaking up, but then stops.  Then he goes to open his mouth again and then stops.  

"Fun, that was fun.  We should meet up again sometime."

"They don't sound very interesting to talk to." Count V remarks to Whiskey Sour, during the trip to the end of the Ominous Rat Corridor. He pauses at set intervals, raising his staff to fire the occasional projectile -- the specific kind seems to depend on his mood -- at the lesser rats along the way.

When the boss fight begins, he's a bit on the back foot-- but a short while after everyone else has waded in, an extra wall of fire springs up abruptly, causing the Rat Waves to have to pass through /two/ area-control mechanics in order to reach anything they want to gnaw on.

The item that drops at the end elicits an odd look from Count V. He turns his head from his inventory to Mizuki, and back again.

"Perhaps. Your reaction is giving me interesting ideas..." V's gaze flicks back towards the fallen RATSPEAKER, his finger coming to rest thoughtfully at his chin. He raises his staff absent-mindedly, rotating it in a circle and sending a spritely figure to cast a basic HEAL on Shin.

Heaving a great sigh, Count V says, "Well, /I'm/ worn out and in need of a bath. Let's get out of this place and go wind down, shall we?"

While he's at it, he issues friend requests to everyone that he has yet to get on his list. Which, mostly, is the people not in his guild already.

     Count V casts HEAL. Shin gives him a thumbs up and a weak grin as he tries very hard not to think about whatever it was Whis just did. "Thanks...hah, hah. That one hurt a lot more than the water guy earlier."

     "I think that's enough excitement for one day, though."

With his own share of rat meat, Kite nods. "Well .. it was good company, but unless someone needs some real help, I think I'd rather avoid rats from now on."

Getting mobbed like that was embarassing /and/ gross.

The blue haired adventurer frowns slowly at Whiskey Sour.

He turns his head away, since there were some things that were better left unsaid. "Anyway. I'll catch you guys on the flipside, don't do anything I wouldn't do!"

With that, Kite departs, intent on finding somewhere that wasn't a grubby rat hole to call it a night in.

    When Whiskey starts cooking, Mizuki holds out a hand. "No, you'll ruin it!" But it's too late. "Now it's going to taste like soggy crackers like everything else..."

    But that's okay. They may have an infinite supply right here.

    She gives U.L.P. a curious look as they also come to help THE RATSPEAKER up. "You do realize the meat's only good raw, right? If you cook it it'll get ruined like everything else."

Whis brings her hands to her chest, fingers forming a heart. "Commends for everyone! Thanks for the party!"

She then immediately collects her share of the loot and quits the party, catching Kite's eyes for a longer-than-average moment.

She flashes a smile. "Let's party up some more later, okay?"

She pumps her fist. "Nice fighting!"

There is an attempt to stop the Were-Rat Enchanter by teleporting behind him in a flash of lightning to kick him behind the head. There is failure as he's thrown aside. Life goes on. The only thing that hurts more than Bushi's body right now is his pride. But it'll recover.

The Were Fang picks himself up, dusting himself off, hobbling over to Shin as he offers the man support. Even if he's also in rough shape, two injured people using each other as crutches is a lot more effective than standing on your own. It also invokes those moments in the show where the main and secondary hero power through after getting blown out of the water.

"Next time for sure... I say that, but I don't think I want to see a rat again for a good while."

There's a forced laugh, before Bushi pushes off. They should both be fine now. Maybe not their egos, but their bodies. But justice is tough. Justice perseveres. Justice... Is disgusted at the prospect of someone unironically eating rat meat. But Justice is nice enough not to say anything and pretend it isn't happening.