Duty Session 60: Obligatory Rat Cellar

    Another day another duty. Shiroe had ended up using the public channels to make another announcement that his group was LFM. So once again he stationed himself at the beginning of the quest area that ended up being one of the local shopkeeps in Alne. The Pooka enchanter had prepared himself, making sure to call upon those of the NWA as well of course. And for just no reason at all, which no one should over think he has his back against the wall, with his eyes staring down the entrance...No one needs to over think this...

Shiruba goes through her usual pre-quest routine of checking over the arrows in her quiver, flicking fingers over the color-coded fletchings as she counts. Satisfied with what's there she nods, and nudges the quiver back into place at her side. "Ready to roll on as soon as everyone is here."

    The Enchanter's precautions are unnecessary today, as Yuuki calmly walks down the street in the town to meet the others just outside the starting location. She raises a hand in greeting, "Hiiiii!"

    Yuuki skips to a stop as she grins at Shiroe, "Another day, another quest, right?" Yet again the two find themselves on an adventure!

    Yuuki is prepared as she ever is. Which is to say she has her sword. She'll figure out the rest later. But Yuuki does smile at Shiruba, "Don't think we've met before. I'm Yuuki! Let's kick some ass together!"

The rat dungeon is almost familiar to Mikage at this point. Then again, there always seemed to be something new each time that she steps foot into another basement cellar. Unlike before, this time, the Were Fang has dragged along the Cait Sith, Cyrus. Perhaps this is her way of offering out an olive branch after their last meeting.

She has her usual gear, including her lynx this time, since his usual kitten-sitter is along for the ride at the moment. "No trouble, this time, okay Rama?" She asks, then casts a glance at Cyrus before falling into step with the others.

Gwen thinks you got to get those daily dungeons done right? She could use a bit of extra gold too. She's learned to do a thing and she's going to need a bit more cash. She looks at Shiruba and sings songs at her friend.

"Shir after I'm going to do something you'll love! I learned something! o/~"

Gwen seems in good spirits very /good/ spirits she's just about vibrating.

"Ready to go!"

    "Hello again, Shiroe. Working hard I see." Amalthea greets as she arrives, smiling warmly at the already amassing party. "I came as soon as I heard you needed more." The old Paladin says as she drums her fingers on the crossguard of her sword in an idle tick.
    Ah, more familiar faces though.
    "It's good to see everyone doing well."

Cyrus is also in attendance, coming to check out what the curious 'Villain in Glasses' was all about, and more importantly, by invitation of Mikage. As a former Silver Sword raider, he'd heard that name before. But never had he seen the man in actual action. Even if he's in Grandeur now, there is part of him that still clings to times of raider-past, wanting to know.

Wearing his long coat, jingling with each movement as potion bottles and flasks hang from his clothing and 'cling' against eachother, the youth makes his way down into the cellar below, notably carrying a small cart with him that he sets on the ground as they finally begin to travel downstairs. "Cyrus - Astrologian Alchemist." He explains as he joins the rest of them, sticking close to Mikage - giving her a trusting nod.

    The first one that Shiroe takes note of making it is Shiruba, who looks ready and prepped for the quest. She gets a smile and nod from the bespectacled enchanter as she arrives, "Thanks for coming Shiruba. Just waiting on a few more arrivals so feel free to take your time giving everything another look if you need." The next two almost arrive siultaneously with Yuuki beating Gwen by just a few moments. Her response ends up bringing a quick smirk to his face, "Always. It's always good to have eager people for these." He'll let her introduce herself to Shiruba while he turns to Gwen, though it looks like she's more focused on Shiruba as well, but when she notes she's ready to go is when a few more Adventurers pop in as well. Mikage arriving next with someone who didn't seem immediately familiar. Thankfully Cyrus introduces himself regardless to which...Shiroe responds in a bit of a rather mundane, if not traditional greeting back.

    "Ah, Shiroe. Enchanter. Pleasure to be working with you." It didn't sound exactly forced in his response but it didn't really give off the leader type vibes you'd expect. That's when Amalthea arrives and that demeanor changes a bit, seeming somewhat more open to the older lady as she greets him. He scratches the back of his head a bit bashfully as she regards him working. "Ahehe, something of the sort. I just prefer to keep myself busy if I can. Anyway, thanks for coming. I'm sure you'll be a great help as usual."

    As he looks around the room he raises his voice for a moment, "Alright everyone, that should be everybody. I'm gonna send out party invites to you all now. Once you accept we can start heading down. Don't think this quest should be too difficult but still should keep your eyes open none the less." With that said he sends out the invites before encouraging the front line players to take point into the cellar.    As the Adventurers start making their way down into the cellar it becomes apparent that there's an over abundance of spiderwebs littering the ceiling and walls of the cellar. To those that have done the Spinner's End it's probably nothing as close to that, but at the very least it's enough where it'll get in your hair, obstruct your vision a little, maybe end up impeding your path where there's the sound of chittering beyond the webs. You know that sort of stuff...

    Yuuki wanders into the store, quickly making a beeline towards the cellar. Along the way she waves to the Lander merchant, saying, "Don't worry Mister Lander, we'll take care of those nasty rats!"

    Making her way down into the understructure of the store, Yuuki lets her eyes adjust and then blinks.

    "Webs?"

    Pause.

    "B-But, rats!" She starts flailing, "And the mine! And the wrinkly rat! And the spiders! AND THE QUEST TITLES!"

    Yuuki finally mutters, "If I ever find my way out of here I'm going to kill those devs."

    Yuuki decides to take her annoyance out on the webs, drawing her sword and chopping into them as she makes her way through the cellar and towards underground propper.

    By the time she actually gets there, she seems pretty chipper again, "Hopefully there's some more rat killing and less boulder smashing in this one!"

"Shiruba. I prefer to shoot more than kick, but the sentiment's mutual!" She answers Yuuki, then turns to squint at her friend. "Gwen, calm down. You have -that- look in your eyes..."

Her tail twitchs a few times, but she calms herself down to focus as everyone gathers. Most of the others familiar faces at this point, including Mikage actually having her catfriend along.

She's done this Duty a few times already, but she promised she'd help others out so she's got no problem doing so again. Sometimes part of being an explorer was being the guide to others in places you've already been after all. "Shiroe's right. There may still be variations we haven't encountered yet."

She still makes a face as their descent is greeted by dust and webs. "Ugh, if these places are meant for storage why do they always let them get so contaminated?", she complains, even as she conjures up a little whoosh of wind to help blow some of the offending webs clear.

Though the details are slightly different, there is a lot that looks familiar about the chamber that lies within the cellar. Mikage raises her arm up, trying to ward off some of the dust, but it still causes her to cough softly. Rama, on the other hand, end up with a nose full of dust and begins to sneeze, over ... and over again.

"There should be a passage somewhere in the webbing." She explains, crouching down to pluck up the lynx, shielding his face with part of her jacket as he continues to sneeze. "I haven't seen spiders past this point, though." Like Shiruba, she'd been through this before. However, it seems like her pet is already proving to be a distraction.

"Easy Rama. We'll be out of here soon." She tries to use a bit of air magic to help clear some of the dust and webbing, but Rama's wiggling disrupts the spell.

Once more into the breach they got bur this time Gwen does not try to set thigns on fire she will look to Shiruba for a moment.

"It won't be like the camping trip I promise o/~"

She ntoes and then she lets lose with a wind spell to clear the way.

    Once she's partied up with the others, Amalthea takes a place at the fore of the group on the way down to the cellar. "Amalthea." She introduces herself to Cyrus, thus far the only person in the group she hasn't already met before. Slowly she draws her sword from the scabbard, the quiet song of steel ringing gently against the lip of the sheath calling out as she takes a few steps in.
    She had been expecting rats, not so much webibing.
    "I feel like we just did this quest the other night..." The old adventurer murmurs as she waves her sword in front of her to try and clear the webbing up.
    Only to frown as it gums up on her blade.
    "Well, Yuuki, I'll be right there with you. If you want I can even hold the rowdier developes, while you punch."

Cyrus nods his head in response to Shiroe, and makes sure he stays back a bit. It's obvious enough that he's the healer type, instinctively picking that spot further back. Quietly watching the others. When Gwen, presumably, takes to the front, he motions his hand to her. "I'll keep you healed." He remarks to her, while grabbing a small bottle from his cart.

"I think I have something for this." He remarks, as he uncorks the bottle with a satisfying *KWWWHOP!* right before aiming the bottle at the nearby webs and begins blasting them away with the sudden magical wind that rushes out of the bottle, pouring out against the spider-remnants and pushing them out of the way, and creating a better way forward for everyone.

"There's quite a few rat problems throughout the world. I imagine they have an easier time infesting in towns than others." Cyrus remarks to Amalthea's claim. "Since they can probably swim in through the water channels, and evade the town guard." He adds.

    Yuki's rage of poorly differentiated quest development appears to work in the group's favor as her flailing ends up proving to slice through webs with much ease with her trusted blade. Though her insistence that she's going to kill the devs sorta brings up a sore spot for Shiroe a bit which has him chuckle a bit awkwardly in the background, "I feel like she makes that threat too easily now that I hear it a bit more...", Sadly Amalthea's efforts don't prove as potent with her sword being caught in the webs. Perhaps it's a difference in quality, maybe in maintenance? Hard to say!

    While Rama's being a bad pet and interrupting Mikage's spell Gwen and Shiruba's wind spells proven rather potent in dealing with the dust and webbing in the place, and a nice little explosion from Cyrus' bottled wind magic. It ends up clearing the path pretty easily with their combined effort, which leaves Shiroe with just having to occasionally spook away a few rodents that had been causing all the chittering with some of his weaker spells to get them to dash away. "Alright, so far so good it seems." With the path cleared he continues to follow the heavy hitters of the group making sure that they take point while keeping his position, making sure to monitor the halls and the like incase something was to appear such as a roaming mob or something of the sort.

    The webs have been defeated in glorious battle! Yuuki sheathes her sword again, grinning as Amalthea offers to help with the devs, "Sounds like-"

    It's oddly quiet. Yuuki having stopped mid sentence. It's hard to see her face in the less than ideal lighting conditions. But there's a bit of a surprise on it.

    Finally Yuuki hehs, musing to herself a little solemnly, "I'd almost forgotten..." Yuuki stands there for a moment, before lightly slapping herself to psyche up, "Nope! It's rat killing time! Onwards!" Yuuki starts walking forward at a brisk pace.

    Right into a passageway blocked off by a door. Yuuki snorts in amusement, "Oh look, a blocked passage." Yuuki walks up to the door to try it. Only to find no handle. Yuuki blinks, "Okay..." Strange indeed. The door looks very solid, with no normal means of opening it. Numerous runes are etched into the stone around the door, possibly suggesting a way to get past.

    A way that Yuuki seems oblivious too as she pushes against the door. Nothing. Yuuki pushes harder. It won't budge. Though as she pushes, Yuuki's hand brushes over one of those etched runes. It briefly glows with a magical light.

    But Yuuki fails to notice it, taking a few steps back. She ponders the door a few more moments, before reaching down to draw her sword once more...

Once free of the dusty chamber, the lynx seems to calm down. "Easy, buddy." Miki lowers him down into the passageway, the little creature pawing at his nose a few times before shaking his head. She remains crouched there for a time, lightly scratching at the animal's fur.

As the challenge before them isn't exactly something the little creature would be useful for, Miki steps forward, allowing her pet to recover at the back of the group with Cyrus. Instead, she starts to examine the runes marked on the doorway. "If I remember correctly, we can channel magic into these runes." She doesn't exactly know the right order to solve the puzzle, but at least it's something.

A bit of icy frost forms on the edge of her fingertips. Focusing the elemental ice magic through them, she traces one of the rune markings, causing it to glow, then steps back, allowing the others access to the door.

"Interesting thing to find in a Lander's basement. I guess it must be here from before." Cyrus comments as he spots what Yuuki has found. The youth tilts his head a bit, trying to divine a bit of knowledge about this particular subject matter. "From what I remember reading in the lore notes about these Root Towns, is that the Landers here didn't actually build them. But that it was an older race. This Merchant must have taken up residence here, and not known what he was sitting on."

The young man continues forward to take a closer look. "Not sure what to best do about the door itself though. But with how old these Runes look... if things have been moving back and forth, there might be signs of use on them, in case it takes a specific order?" He proposes hopefully.

The young man then comes up to Rama and Mikage, and kneels down for a moment, running his hand underneath the critter's chin, trying to help calm it down.

    "I, ah... Meant with the spiders." Amalthea replies to Cyrus. "We cleared those mines of a big one, just the other night." She says, motioning to the webbing now gumming up her sword, before cleaning it off as best she can while the group presses on and finds a door.
    A door that will not budge, in spite of Yuuki's admirable attempts to push it.
    "Have you tried 'speak friend and enter'?" Amalthea suggests playfully. "Or maybe pulling." That's another thought before she squints at the runes. "What about those? They probably do something." She suggests, pointing out the runes before letting someone more actally magically inclined start futzing around with them. Someone like Mikage, as she gets to it.

Shiruba just shoots -another- look in Gwen's direction as she mentions camping. But puts aside whatever her best friend is scheming for now so she can focus on the matter of getting people through this Duty.

She stops for a moment, watching Yuuki mess with the door. Then puts a hand lightly on her shoulder to stop her from doing something dangerous with her sword. "That won't work." She points at the runes around the door with her other hand. "It's a magical lock."

After studying them for a moment she nods. "That's right. Mikage and Cyrus are on the ball. Those runic glyphs are like the combination on a safe." She sparks a bit of lightning magic to help with the sequence.

    "Ah, Yuuki! I don't think we need to resort to that yet!"

    Shiroe holds out a hand in protest clearly not wanting her to destroy the runes. "Remember what happened last time you tried to fight mother nature?" Bonk to the head. That's all he can say in regards to keeping her from doing what she's thinking of doing, at least till Mikage mentions the usage of the runes, "Ah right. That's definitely something we can do. If I recall I think we can use them in this order..." Shiroe would follow in Mikage's example as he starts to fuss with the runes using his mana to fuel the runes as he turns back towards Cyrus who makes a rather interesting note.

    "Interesting. Seems like you know alot about Eldertale's lore. You probably noticed by now as well, but this is a bit large to be just a cellar. From the few times we've been in here we've sorta figured out that apparently the place is one large tunnel system under the city that connects other residences. It was a rather unusual surprise. Wonder if that has anything to do with the older races." That's all the knowledge he can share for the moment as he continues to focus on the task at hand though.

Gwen has been working with many o the people before and she knows this dungeon well enough. She recalls being here and it seems her memory is holding out well. She looks to Shiruba as she's looking over the runes.

"That's how I recall it, though let's see here." She looks to Shiuruba for a moment as she starts to nod to Shiruba.

"Yeah it looks like that is the case here."

Gwen thinks for a second.

"There's a whole darn complex down here..."

    Mikage places her icey finger against the rune. The magical energy flows into it, lighting it up. And from there it flows into the rest of the runes, spreading out. Each lights up a silver colour, the passageway brightening from the lightshow. The runes are easier to see now, for everyone to examine.

    Cyrus suggests that the runes need to be used in a specific order. Which is right on the mark as touching a rune causes it to brighten, before going duller again after a short time.

    Amalthea suggests making friends with the door. Yuuki chuckles, but says, "We tried that with the last magical door we came to." By 'we' she means her. "Don't think it helped!"

    Shiruba and Shiroe interupt Yuuki before she can try and chop the door in half. She blinks at them for a moment, before agreeing, "Okaaay?" Yuuki watches as Shiruba adds her own magic to the runes, streams of azure light interlacing with the white.

    Shiroe is the last to add his magic to the lock, wisps of crimson moving to attach to the silver and azure at various points. From her position, Yuuki watches with interest as tri-coloured light streams around the doorway.

    "I'VE GOT IT!"

    Yuuki rushes forward, tapping three of the runes in sequence.

    EVERYTHING GOES DARK. The entire passageway plummits into darkness as the lights vanish in an instant.

    Yuuki's voice can be heard, "Uhhh... Whoops?"

    Suddenly, light returns! One of the runes lights up silver. Another lights up azure. The final lights up crimson. There's a rumbling sound and the large door splits in half, sliding open.

    The runes that lit up are totally not the ones Yuuki picked.

    The door is handled. But not without a moment of suspense as the lights die out before the runes do their shimmery thing and once solid door opens, leading the way further into the depths of this mysterious basement-undercity architecture.
    "Good job." Amalthea says in congratulations now that the obstacle has been surpassed. So about all that squeaking, though...
    It's getting louder, louder as the party moves on through the depths before everyone reaches a new room with a domed ceiling overhead.
    And a *LOT* of rats.
    Big rats, little rats, rodents of usual and unusual sizes alike are TEEMING in the chamber, there are so many that the floor looks like a writhing mass of fur, limbs, snapping teeth, and a sea od beady black eyes.
    "... Well. That is a lot more than I expected." Amalthea says as she flips the sword in her hand to hold it by the blade. "... Shall we?"

Shiruba gives Yuuki's shoulder another pat before letting go. "This is why Quests are a team effort." Then makes her way onward with the others.

As they come upon the room infested with swarms upon swarms of rats of all sizes Shiruba lets out a slight "Huh" sound. "They're not fighting each other this time," she notes after. Finally, a scenerio she hasn't seen before! She steps up next to Amalthea. "But I think this will still work..." She draws a flash from her inventory and holds it in both hands as she shakes it vigorously. "Give it just a moment before rushing in, Obachan Tanku." With a flare Shiruba heaves it into the midst of the rats.

Upon impact the flask bursts, sending a rush of mire and gunk spilling out in several directions. The sudden eruption of earthly mire sends rats tumbling haphazardly in the gush, squirming as they are trapped in the viscious poison slowly but steadily leeching away their strength.

Being suddenly plunged into darkness is enough to have Rama racing back over towards Mikage. The lynx huddles against her legs. Silently, she reaches down to stroke his head, her eyes trying to adjust to the darkness. Then, when the light returns, she squints, the lit runes flashing in her eyes briefly. "That was dramatic."

She follows the others into the room beyond, which seems to contain far more rats than she could remember seeing here in the past. "That's... a lot of rats." Rama seems excited by the prospect, but he sits, waiting anxiously. "I'll try to wall some off into the walls."

Drawing her sword, Mikage runs her hand along the flat of the blade, the lines etched into it glowing a faint brown color. She traces the blade through the air, as if marking off an area. What follows is a rumble as spires of stone shoot up from the ground, trapping some of the rats closer against the wall.

Glancing towards Shiruba, the Were Fang girl smirks, "Think I'd rather take this than those freaky black and white rats, any day." Rama seems content to chase after a few rats, though he really isn't contributing much to the group.

"I wouldn't say I'm an expert. But after I left the Silvers, and joined Grandeur, I kind of... changed my playstyle halfway through." Cyrus explains to Shiroe when he mentions his knowledge about the lore. "Yeah, it's why I figure this cellar probably served a different means in the past. Or perhaps the people who the Landers defeated were just... really tall."

The youth then gets back up and nods to Amalthea. "I am afraid I've largely been helping newbies back in Alne with some simple leveling and killing of Goblins. Miss Yurei invited me to this one." He explains. "I might be interested in seeing those spiders."

As the door opens, the youth nods his head and gets back up, stepping up along with the others. "I'll keep us protected from any swarms." Cyrus calls out, making sure to leave a 'gap' for his allies as he grabs two small red flasks from his uniform, putting them in his fingers, and then throwing them outwards like a fan. The moment they hit the ground, they immediately detonate into walls of fire, halting further rat advancement, and giving the melee folk and easier time keeping them from their allies.

"How's everyone doing on their health?" He calls out.

Gwen says "I have seen them fight and not fight it seems to be random on that. I have no idea I just know there's a whole lot of them here. Whenever we go through. I wonder if this will ever run out..." She thinks for a moment on this shakes he head and she'll start to cast fire spells at the hordes of rats, trying to thin them out. Or prey on the primal fear of fire.

Gwen at least didn' run in or it might have been worse for her, she does end up having rats and one somehow gets under her armour for a bit.

    A mild sigh escapes the lips of someone in the group while the lights are out. Who it is? NO ONE SHALL EVER KNOW! Thankfully the lights come back on just as quickly as they turned off, and the grouped continued into the next room. Upon their walking there's at least a bit of room for chatting though, "That so? Well, that said it sounds like you know plenty still. Not many people tend to take an interest in Eldertale's lore. It's a rather thick read." It's definitely a word of praise from one player or another, and a few nods of recognition when he hears about how Cyrus had been aiding some of the newbies as well. He seemed okay so far. Though as they enter into the next room. It's the Ratapocalypse.

    He falls back with Cyrus and the rest of the non-frontliners as he pulls up his staff. He's about to cast the first spell before it seems like Cyrus' alchemy ends up creating a wall of flames faster than he can cast, while Shiruba's flask apparently ends up shooting out some earth alchemy as well. "Impressive..."

    He can't seem to remember if alchemy was that potent before, but he ignores that for the time being as he sets up a wall of flames of his own, making sure to help bridge the back-row players from the front-line but also being sure the flames aren't too high that they couldn't see what they're doing. "Cyrus, we should be fine back here, if you need to heal anyone make sure it's those in the front!"

    Yuuki phews as her apparent mistake does not cause them to wipe. She laughs at Shiruba, agreeing, "I know, I know. Plus they're so much more fun with other people! I've tried doing stuff like this solo before. It's boring."

    The group continue on, the sounds of large numbers of rats starting to be heard. Yuuki grows excited as she draws her sword, "It's about time!" They come out into the large chamber, finding a massive infestation of rats. Yuuki grins as Mikage points out it's a lot of rats, "I like to think more along the lines of, it's a lot of XP!"

    Some of the others get a bit tactical, using poisons and magic walls to separate the rats. That's all well and good. But Yuuki does what she does best, quickly rushing forward into the mass of fur and teeth!

    Darkness flares up around Yuuki's sword as she starts to lash out at all the rats she can reach. Her feet barely stay on the ground as she dances from one to the next, sword slicing and stabbing as she spins and flips. She seems to have no problem switching from one rat target to the next.

    Amidst the flying rat pieces and flashes of mobs vanishing, Yuuki calls out, "I'm fine for heals!"

    "Rushing in is my job, though. Are you taking my job?" Amalthea replies to Shiruba in a playful tone. "Kids these days~."
    But the old Paladin holds back as the others start to unfold their solutions to this fine furry issue in progress.
    Shiruba and Cyrus open up, hurling their flasks of poison and fire, sickening and disorienting the flea-bitten critters before spooking them ti spread out. It only makes it all the easier for Mikage to spread them out towards the walls even more by shifting the earth itself.
    "Gwen, dear, hold on a moment." Amalthea says, plucking a rat out of the girl's armor by the tail and hurling the squeaking rodent away, while more flames rise up courtesy of Shiroe, to fry fur and create a path.
    And then Yuuki happens.
    Before Amalthea can step properly into the fray the wily imp darts in ahead of the game and starts hacking rats into piles of fur and pixels. Mostly pixels.
    "I'm doing alright for now," she replies to Cyrus in regards to her health as she wades into the what's left of the rats and batters a few away with the pommel and crossguard of her sword.
    Onward!

"I'm fine!" Shiruba calls at the query about heals, while her tail is wagging eagerly at her trick flask working. She's been learning to not rely -entirely- on her arcane archery skills. Then motions to the rest of the party. "Come on, we should be getting closer to the end of the quest chain." She stalks back into the tunnels, pausing after a bit. "Hmm. The smaller ones are avoiding over here..." The wolfgirl could rival the cats for curiousity at times, leading the way to investigate.

Investigate an even more horrid site in seems. She reels back after stepping into the room, covering her nose with one hand. "Eeew!" It smells like rotting fur and flesh from all the half eaten rat corpses lying about the small chamber. But it's heap of hair and mange at the end of the room that proves to be the real threat, rearing up into a giant bloody rodent of even more unusual size. The entire room seems to rattle as it stomps and screechs, but it's not particually fast due to it's size. Better get it before it gets to you!

In the aftermath of facing the horde of rats, Rama comes running up to his master, a limp rat hanging from his mouth. "Uh... thanks buddy. All yours." The little cat spins around in a circle, then continues to hold up his 'prize' as if this were the crowning achievement of the entire dungeon.

As they enter the mini-boss chamber, the rat that awaits them is familiar. Enough so that her expression turns more serious. "Right... you again." She reaches for her sword. Her weapon is lifted up, channeling magic through it in order to try and convert the blade into a magical bow.

However, the rat comes charging right at them in the process, causing her to have to dart to the side, the impact of the massive creature slamming her hard into one of the nearby walls. Miki gives an 'oof' of sound, the sword falling from her fingers and clattering back to the floor in it's default appearance.

"Damnit." She scrambles to her feet, grasping for the sword. "Watch out! It's fast."

"Aye, I will keep the front lines healed." Cyrus reports to Shiroe, before remarking - having noted Shiroe's earlier look - about the Alchemy use; "It's quite useful for quick casting. But you can only really have so many things out and on you to use, and you only get to use what you prepared." He explains to him. In reality, it's just his way of casting his spells of course.

"Alright, miss... Amalthea, it was, right?" Cyrus notes, not having used inspect to confirm, before noting Mikage's situation and the Dire Rat rushing around. He quickly throws a flask at it, causing it to slow down through the use of some ice magic bottled within, before moving towards the lady and tossing her a healing potion, and a hand to help her back up.

Gwen says "Now that is a rodent of unusual size..."

She doesn't even pause she move in trying to get agro on the thing by moving to chant Holy causing a burst of holy magic as she close to give herself some cover and to make the thing's life far more miserable and make it even more pissed.

"Come on ugly! You are not even fit to be an extra in a D&D GAME!"

    Yuuki lands at the other end of the rat infested chamber with a flourish of her sword. As the last rat vanishes in a flash, Yuuki looks back at the party and holds up a V with her fingers, grinning.

    Yuuki walks along with the others as they continue deeper. The imp is humming happily to herself, apparently enjoying the adventure. Though she soon stops the humming, agreeing with Shiruba, saying, "My boss senses are tingling."

    Sure enough, the group comes out into a boss room, with numerous rat corpses laying about. The smell is pretty bad, though Yuuki just pipes up, "Don't worry, they're not real rats. Just fixed prop versions!" Thaaaat's not really going to mean much of a difference when they still smell and look just as bad!

    Eyeing the dire rat, Yuuki grins. "Now you're a big, bad rat. A fatrat!"

    Yuuki keeps herself safe for the moment by dodging out of the dire rat's way. She dive rolls at the last moment, letting the rat's swipe pass by her. She lets the tanks draw the dire rat's attention before Yuuki reaches behind her back to ruffle around in her inventory for a moment. She then pulls out a bomb. Yes. A bomb. The stereotypical RPG consumeable attack item that devs never seem to be able to balance properly, either making them useless or super effective. Let's find out which one this is!

    Yuuki throws the bomb, the round item with its quickly shortening fuse bouncing before rolling under the dire rat.

    "Mmmm, one thing I'm starting to get really tired of is the smell of burnt rat..." A sigh escapes his lips as the group of rodents get handled with ease. Or enough so that they don't have to stress about it too much thankfully. When they finish he looks back to Cyrus who makes a rather interesting appeal of his Alchemy, though...Even if he's not entirely familiar, he can still tell which spells are being used when he applies them from the flasks. He'll nod along though. No reason to spoil the fun, right? It takes a bit of time before entering into the next section of the tunnels which brings them to, "The giant rat..." It seemed like Shiroe was acquainted already with this boss monster.

    A displeased look follows on his face just as Mikage had as well. The front has to start dealing with the brunt of the assault that looks like Mikage ends up taking a hard hit. Cyrus is quick to use a frost spell to try and keep it's speed stats reduced, and yet with the front lines broken through it still leaves a few of them open to assault if the dire rat got close enough. The rat takes notice of the healer, creating enough aggro for it to want to re-designate it's target. "Cyrus! Mikage!" He doesn't have a spell to do enough damage to buffer it back, and his debuffs wouldn't do much with how close it was getting already to disrupt it's accuracy. So he only thinks of doing one thing. He knocks them both out of the way of the rat only to get smacked in return by the beast.

    Curious question? How much HP could a Dire Rat slap, if a Dire Rat could slap an Enchanter? Alot...Cause they are very squishy.

    The smell was bad enough. But to find a room full of dead and half eaten smaller rats is ominous in and of itself. Until the group is dealing with an honest to goodness Rodent of Unusual Size.
    "... That is a big pest." Amalthea states the obvious. But she still hasn't shifted her grip on the blade of her sword.
    "Please. Calling me 'miss' makes me feel old." She replies mirthfully before she gets her head in the game. Because once that rat is slowed by Cyrus' ice, she raises her sword high.
    "Hah! Hah! Stay back, you brute!" She shouts, swinging the pommel and crossguard down hard on the beast's head and nose to try and hold its attention by forcibly asserting her dominance. Or just break its nose; either way she won't be picky right now as long as it stays on top of that bomb.

It's a giant, hideous, bloodied beast of a rat. It's strong and fierce... but not very smart if it stomping right for the invading Adventurers is any indication. It just sees a chance to feast on something other than it's smaller kin.

The huge rat didn't seem to move very quick at first, but it's picking up the pace stupidly fast for it's size. Mikage barely avoids it's rumbling charge, but that leaves plenty of room for Cyrus to throw his freezing potion at it! The midboss rat whacks at Shiroe, then rears back with a discordant screech as it's matted fur and flesh start to freeze over, it's rush staggered.

"I'd say keep your distance but there's always someone that doesn't listen," Shiruba remarks, even as she fires an arrow into one of the rat-of-unusual-size's shoulders while it's off-kilter. A burst of Holy magic from Gwen follows, which causes it to step on the bomb Yuuki rolled under it and the pressure of it's weight is enough to make the device explode spectacularly. There's large plumes of black rising around it, until the beast shrieks and lunges from the smoke!

Only to get metaphorically spanked by Amalthea, and literally browbeat. It's already shot, blasted, bloodied and cold. The pummeling of a pommel fractures it's fragile frozen skull as well as the end of it's HP, and the monster collapses in a heap, the exit of the room that was hidden behind it's bulk now visible.

Mikage catches the healing potion, tipping it back quickly then tossing the empty bottle back towards Cyrus. The girl then accepts his help to get to her feet. "I need to remember that transforming my sword takes a while. Longer than I'd like." Rama, luckily, is still playing with his rat and totally ignored the fight.

As the party moves beyond the Dire Rat's Lair, they come into a room that looks strikingly similar to the one that they first encountered. It is yet another cellar, connected to yet another store. However, instead of dust and spiders, this one is filled with rat cages. The sound of squeaking is quite loud, rodents, large and small, chitter and chomp at the cage walls.

Amongst all of the noise and chaos, sits a portly looking Lander who is cackling to himself as he releases a cage full of rats. "Go my little ones. Mwaa-mmwaaahahaha." He laughs, but then seems to struggle to stand back up, his huge gut making even that minor exercise a struggle.

As he stands, he ends up looking right at the arriving adventurers. "Oh." A nervous expression passes his face as he glances between them, then to the rows of rat cages. It's clear that his brain is working to find an excuse that might get him out of trouble, but it is coming up blank.

As soon as they progress down the remaining tunnel to step into the final room, Shiruba's ears fall flat along with her mood. "Augh!" She throws her hands in the air with annoyance. "It's this idiot again! How many times must we do this to get the alternate progressions?!"

Hackles raised with irritation, Shiruba stalks right up to the merchant while he's faultering for an excuse.... and grabs the straps of his shopkeeper attire to pull his face to her level despite his portliness. "I TOLD YOU THE LAST TWO TIMES THIS PLAN SUCKS!" Then lets go and turns on her heel, stalking off with a hrmph and leaving the sod probably even more confused because the whole repeating thing is too meta for the Landers to register it.

    Yuuki whistles as her bombs does pretty damn well, "Now that was a blast!"

    The dire rat finally succumbs thanks to Amalthea's whack to the head. Yuuki gives the battle grandma an approving nod. Meanwhile to Cyrus she says, "Good work on the pots!"

    Yuuki turns, heading towards the way out, "Well! That was fun. Could use more rats though." Yuuki follows the exit out into a familiar looking cellar and familiar looking store.

    Yuuki gasps at the sight of the culprit, "It was the store owner all along!" Pause. Yuuki squints as she looks a little closer, "Oh... It's a different Lander. Nevermind!"

    Yuuki walks past the sweating merchant, apparently not too concerned about whatever excuse he's trying to think up. Instead she eyes all the rats still in cages, hmmmming in thought, "This is almost like shooting fish in a barrel... Stabbing rats in a cage?" Yuuki smiles, "I know!" Yuuki raises her sword...

    ... And begins bashing the cage locks open with the hilt. She moves from one cage to the next, shooing the rats towards the cellar with her sword, "Go on little fellas. Now you can have a sporting chance of being XP against the next group to do the quest!"

"Ah. I have never meddled with transforming weapons." Cyrus answers Mikage. "So I can't give many pointers there. But I figure it'll start feeling natural over time, after the Apocalypse." He offers to her. He then gets back up and starts heading out.

Into that.

"This... has to be the worst business venture idea I've seen in a long time." Cyrus and the rest of the team enters that room, staring down the merchant lander. "You do realize that the Hunters Guild makes it pretty cheap to handle infestations to deal with this, right? Cheaper for the guy upstairs, than for you to do whatever... /this/ is." He remarks, motioning out at the room. At the rat cages.

"How much must this have cost you?"

    With the biggest rat she has ever seen now throughly dealt with, Amalthea heaves a soft little sigh. That sure was something.
    Through the next door, though, and the group finds... A Lander with a load of rats and unleashing them from cages.
    "We killed your rat." Amalthea says plainly, lips tugging into a slight smile.
    "The big one, I mean. You know. The *really* big one?" She says. "Dead as a doornail now. Lot of the smaller ones are, too." She says.
    She's still smiling.
    "This is something though, really... Catching all these rats in cages, so you can unleash them on your competitor, is that how it goes? How cutthroat!"
    She's still smiling.
    "Only problem is, you're going to stop this nonsense, or I'm going to bend you over my knee and beat you, within an inch of your life, like you stole something."
    She's not smiling anymore.
    "Capiche?"

Gwen says "You again?!"

She does not seem happy about this at all she doesn't quite move to beat the Lander up but she does engage Anchor howl she charge in crying out

"ANCHOR HOWL!"

She move to get in the man's face to show him that he'll get a world of trouble if he tries to enage her.

"I am so done with your antics!"

    Shiroe finds himself with glowing red claw marks across his chest as his winces just a bit, "MMmngh, just another day, another quest..." He slowly picks himself up when all was said and done, not making a big fuss of it. The only reason he did something so reckless anyway was mainly cause it was the boss and he was sure it'd end up dying before he did...As long as everyone kept up the dps on it...Which they did. Even if Cyrus didn't end up healing at this point it'd be fine too, after all they were at the last part if he recalls. "Alright, guess we'll see which route we got this time."

    Step-by-step he follows until..."This guy again." It really seems like he's not the only one to be disappointed with the choice of conclusion they got. He leaves it to Cyrus to talk the guy down, he's a little too...Disheartened by the end result to feel too chatty. "You know, for the Landers who seem like they've been learning so much, this quest is the only thing that makes me doubt it..." At the very least Yuki smacking the cages is a new thing but... "Is that really the best idea? Ya know what it's fine...Alright, good job everyone. Know this was a little...Gross, but appreciate everyone putting their backs into it."

As Shiruba walks up to him, the merchant ends up taking a quick step back, stumbling on his own fat feet. He's completely off-balance when she pulls him forward and shouts at him, leaving the man staggering. He stares, gape-mouthed after her, stumbling over words to try to find an excuse. Cyrus seems to add to his confusion, "It's the only way to stop people from shopping there! Less business for them is more business for me!" He stammers, clearly thinking this was a brilliant idea. He may not be the brightest tool in the shed.

"You... you killed..." He stares in Amalthea's direction, looking as if someone had just kicked a puppy. He almost looks as if he might cry at the statement, except then Gwen shouts, the force of her Anchor Howl blasting him back against the cages. The man raises his hands defensively. A moment later, an arrow slams into the wall right next to his head. Mikage, standing at the back of the group, had fired one to land just above his ear, just close enough to be a real threat.

Then, Yuuki starts breaking the locks on his cages. "No, no no stop!" He cries out, flailing ineffectually. The rats begin to run down into the tunnels, and he pushes past the Adventurers, crying out after his lost rats as his fat form disappears. What follows are squeaks from the rats, and a cry from the merchant, suggesting that the rats may not be so happy to see him.

    Yuuki's idea gets questioned. Which is smart. It is a strange thing to do, given the original Lander's request. But Yuuki smiles at Shiroe and says, "Don't worry. We already killed all the rats down in the dungeon, so the quest will be flagged as complete and we'll still get out reward!"

    Yuuki blinks in some surprise as the merchant ends up chasing after the rats. And soon they hear his surprised cry. Yuuki chuckles, "I guess that's some poetic justice for you?" Pause. "He'll be fine, right?"

Cyrus does indeed throw a potion to Shiroe, noting he's lost a bit of health. A simple flask that shatters against him with naught but a bit of physical feedback, before his health rises back up to be topped off.

Gwen sighs nas she thinks for a moment "He surived it the last time. I expect he will /again/." She makes a face and then sighs.

"Well it's over for now right? We got some loot and XP so it wasn't a loss."

    Shiroe doesn't immediately answer Yuuki's question about the Lander. He just...Smiles at her, That's an answer right? Right? "Alright, everyone, I think that's a wrap. Let's all head back and get some rest. It's starting to get a bit late as it is, and we got more quests to run tomorrow if we can." Yeah he was done with these quests. He didn't know why but he just felt tired all of a sudden.