Duty Session 74: Is It Wrong to Pick Up Slimes in a Dungeon?

    There is a bunbun girl... there are bunbun girls? Well she's a werefang who looks like an albino bunbun, horn nub and all. She's standing outside the Hunters Guild. "Alright, who wants to help keep the city clean, get water for these fine people?" she's got Hunter requests in her arm and gives off the feel of someone recruiting for a school club despite the bunbun look and the being dressed as an onna bugeisha complete with katana at her hip.

"Sounds good," says Kaleido, making sure they've got the right spellbook slotted into their equipment slot for this.

"Slimes, right? Should be a piece of cake."

"Slime-shaped cake."

"Jello?"

"Slimes, hmm?" BlackRose says as she idly polishes her sword with something. "Sounds like something I can really cut my blade on." She smirks. "I'm gonna have some fun with this!"

Kauchemar nickers softly. "Yes. Water. Water is good." She's not as concerned about the Landers, but water for Adventurers who can actually cook proper food now, that's important.

Also, slimes. As a bardic summoner she's curious in seeing just what kind of slimes are found down there. There has got to be -something- more interesting than the overly cute beginning Slime summons.

    "Hmm, been a while since I had jello. I'm more of a butterscotch pudding kind of girl." Miyako grins playfully as she walks up to join with the rest.

    "Hey, neighbor," she calls over to Blackrose. "Good to see you again."

    A passing by red-headed giant pauses, then walks over. "Slimes? I could use a break from the forges." He pulls out a large warhammer, almost as large as his torso. Perfect for smashing slimes. And a shield he sticks on one arm.

    Giganpor smiles a little, "So what has an issue with slimes this day?"

    Wisteria seems happy to have so many people willing "It's the well over in the new district where we have lots of refugees." she says. "I took the quest and figured there would be enough Adventurers around to fill out a party and go clean this infestation out."

    Wisteria leads the way to the well. It's been roped off like some forbiden shrine. There are buckets spilled about, each with some rainbow hue of glowing ooze clinging to them, and the stones of the well itself. A rope has been setup and Wist sets the example taking it in her hands. "Okay guys, down into the slim ridden depths we go!" she says and bunny hops over the wall to start repelling down into the well.

    Once everyone is that the bottom and that disturbing 'bloop-bloop' of hopping slimes grows louder she looks into the gloom. She heads down an access tunnel that leads somewhat disturbingly to the sewers. "I'd expect this to go to the storm drains if anything... this is gross." she says There seems to be a cesspit where discarded food waste and offal has been discarded. Green bloopy slimes bounce about off of walls off each other and into the pit to disolve some rotting trash.

"Hah, these intro areas are simple," says Kaleido. "You just need to push on through."

<TWELVE SECONDS LATER>

"OH GODS, GET IT OFF ME!" They flail their arms around madly, trying to get the slime off. "THIS IS GROSS!"

    Miyako grins and almost decides to ignore the rope... but eventually she grabs hold of it and starts down. Not /climbing/ down, no, that would be too simple. Instead she just drops, relying on her wings to slow and guide her fall, flicking from side to side as she moves past the errant slimes. "Come on, Rose, it's easy!"

"Down we go," BlackRose says as she heads down the well. When she gets there, she wrinkles her nose. "Oh, gross," She comments at all the stuff that's strewn around. And that's not including all the slimes around them.

"Looks like it's slime time," BlackRose says as she draws her sword and slashes at the nearest slime. Her blade meets its mark and she smiles a little...

Only to have her smile turn into a scowl as the slimes spread into two slightly smaller slimes and then start to come towards her. "Yeah, well I'm not as agile as you," BlackRose says to Miyako as she tries to evade those ugly things.

    Giganpor wades in after the others, then, seeing the slimes. And well, typical Adventurer mindset. Slimes are easy!

    "This is gross, but... well, slimes!" He proceeds to try to hammer into the slimes. Which makes matters worse! The slimes split with each one that he smashes with the hammer, and it's quickly becoming evident that Giganpor is being... slimed. A lot. This isn't going to have a happy red-headed giant throughout this mess.

Kauchemar hops over the edge of the well after the other were fang, using the rope and proping her hooves against the inner walls to scale her way down. At the bottom they are greeted not by anything hostile, but a bouncy house ball pit on crack. At noticing all the porings in the room are green she gives an amused snort. "It's like someone tried to film a third rate Flubber knock-off down here." The nightmare hops to it, more or less literally. Skipping over, ducking under, and weaving around the rebounding little jello rounds.

Or at least that's what she saw in her head when she started.

Instead she lands in a heap at the other end near Kaleido, cloak flipped up over her head after several of the ricochetting blobs of goo slammed into the nightmare from behind. She huffs to get the fabric out of her face, and get back onto her hooves to shake some of glops of goop off herself. "Well that wasn't the most graceful of opening acts..."

    The party barges in, easy poporings are easy. The green jello balls bounce around and stick to people or split when cut and chase after. Almost no one gets through it unscathed, or at least un-grossed. Wisteria follows the path of least resistance, she just bunny hops her way past the pit, sproinging off of this stone or that. In the end the party get's through it all without major injury to anything except perhaps pride and time required to clean clothes. Probably everyone is happy for the 'clean' button in the menu options at this point.

    Deeper in, as one would normally expect to find gross sludgy water... instead the party finds themselves walking down a dry channel of stone. The sound of slimes boinging and smooshing grows louder, a set of larger slimes, brown and striped with what look like cat ears? Well at least the slime slopes up into something that gives the impression of some kind of animal ear. The slimes seem to be sniffing along like a hunting pack. Alcoves give places where one can hide, but perhaps they could be chased away with fire, or perhaps someone might hunt the hunting slimes.

"... Ah."

Kaleido disappears into the shadows, using some quick defensive casting to blend in with the stonework a bit more. "Have fun with this one. Healer out."

Annnd they're gone.

    Deciding to play tank, Giganpor waits for the others to get into position before he sets himself in the corridor. His hammer is brought up as it glows bright red and he swings it down, tossing out a gout of flame from where his hammer strikes the floor of the sewer to try to scare them off.

    He comments after the disappearing Healer, "Could at least put that on all of us!" More flames come from the hammer strikes as he tries to scare the slimes away.

Kauchemar gets herself back in order and resumes truding through the sludgy sewer with the rest of the party. It doesn't seem to be that long of a trek, but it's hard to tell when every passage looks like every other passage. Eventually they make their way into one of the many passages...

And the party of slime hunters cross paths with a hunter slime party.

"Looks like it's time to drop some heat." She grabs her whip from her waist, and as she flicks it upward to uncoil the weapon magic flames ignite along it's length. The nightmare grins as she cracks the flaming weapon towards the Hunter Slimes, forcing them to keep a distance from the others working their way through.

"More slimes, huh?" BlackRose says as she wipes her boot on a nearby wall. "Maybe this time, I'll have to turn up the heat." She tries to chant a fire spell in hopes of burning these slimes up...

But the spell fizzles!

"Oh no!" BlackRose says as she tries to get past the slimes. Unfortunately, they seem a bit attracted to her, causing her to pick up the pace a little more. "Get away from me!"

    Miyako lands lightly on the stone and proceeds on with the rest. "I suppose there are worse places to be," she muses. "Can't think of many right now, though." She shrugs and moves on.

    And then, slimes. With cat ears. She shakes her head, muttering about silly devs. She steps to one side, into an alcove, letting some pass before she steps out and slashes each in half with her naginata.

    Hiding and waiting or sneaking about, both seem a great plan. Then the big guy is doing big guy things thundering and pulling agro only to send out that burst of flame. Some who know their way around stalking manage to thin the pack down. Wisteria joins BlackRose, the bunbun girl taking her stance and a perfect iaitsu strike, and a call of a runic word of power... and what should be a flaring arc of fire is instead a pittiful path of sparks. "Uhmmm.. yah..well... didn't really.. need to compete with Giganpor... he likes the spotlight." she says, that's her story and she's sticking to it. Those that haven't been killed were frightened off and no injuries, it's a good encounter by her book.

    The party moves further into depths of the city's underbelly. The occasional distand splat boing splat boing seems to fade into the distance. Only to be replaced by a strange distorted Clang, Cling, Sproing, Clunk... much more like springs that slimes. The pipes seem to be rusted away and broken in this area and seem to have attracted some strange metalic slimes. They stick close enough to the water that one might wonder if they have an aversion to heat and fire? It's time for A Metal Slime Mosh... which will be some bards new coverband.

Despite having to fight the Hunter Slimes back for the sake of getting the party through Kauchemar is pleased to see that there is more interesting varieties than the meager common porings down here. This duty may require farther investigation to widen the potential of her summoner's repitoir.

Ears flare up at the tinny twangy sounds up ahead, and seeing the slimes of metallic nature in the water only brings her more amusement. "I wondered if this world had a metal variety." That definately could be useful later.

Hmm. It's hard to tell if these slimes really do comprehend fear, but their clinging near that water is close enough in her book. "So you adore the water do you... nyehehehehe..." She pulls a few vials and after magically activating them fling the vials into the water to turn it into a noxious mire that even metal slime won't be able to completely resist. Contaminating the enemy's safe zone will help force them to move out of the way.

    Giganpor, seeing something that doesn't look like it will be like when they were... well... slimed. Decides to try again.

    The red-head goes up and actually smashes a slime so hard with his hammer that it spurts into metal drops. "Hammer time!" He starts to bash the metal slimes into so many puddles quickly with abandon.

    The scary part is that it's working so well. The other is probably that Giganpor looks to be having fun getting revenge after the sliming earlier.

Oh hey, Kaleido is part bard.

They also fade back into view, having skipped the last encounter entirely. "Looks like you all did well," they say. "Good job. Gold star."

"And now..."

They pull out their book, crack it open, and gesture at the approaching metal slime. "TASTE THE MAGICAL PROWESS OF-"

And then Kaleido catches on fire.

"AAAAH!"

They dive into the closest source of water.

"Metal slimes, huh?" BlackRose says with a slight smirk. "Prepare to meet my metal sword." This should be a piece of cake, right?

Apparently not.

The slime jumps out of the way at the last second, leaving BlackRose dumbfounded before she looks at where the slime now is... apparently above her head, before dropping atop it!

"Get off me!" BlackRose yells as she uses the tip of her sword to get it off. "That was gross!"

    Walking along with the rest of the party, Miyako sighs and shakes her head. "Metal ... slimes. What's next, wood slimes? Vacuum slimes? Sonic slimes?" She shrugs and readies her weapon, humming a tune as she walks along.

     And then the slimes are upon them, and her first reaction is to go to aid the panicked BlackRose. She swipes the haft of her naginata around, to knock the slime off of Blackrose... and then just as she starts to readjust the weapon to go on the offensive again, she trips over another of the things and falls right at the swordswoman's feet. Well. That'll show her.

    Metal slimes everyone seems a bit confused... almost. The wolloping starts, and concotions are used to crowd control the metalic slimes. Some of the physical attacks seem to be working better than others and the battle seems fairly even. Wisteria takes up her stance, and she tries another of her iaitsu strikes, this time she barks out the rune command with more force and follows up with a second slash. An X of flame melting the few remaining slimes. No major injuries again, she loves when a plan comes together... she should probably come up with one sometime.

    The party gathers backup and gets ready to press on. Deeper into the earth and forgotten sewer levels, the clear running water that was feeding the Metal Slime's little pond seems to be tainted the further they move on, the smell starting to get more and more sewer like. The water turning a disgusting brown, and it leads into a cistern filled with a giant... is that a mound of ... no the devs would never make a giant autonomous poo monster would they? It's 'mouth' opens, big goopy dripping teeth and the smell of rotting sewage as it grows psudopods and flails making the fetid water slosh and wave.

This place just gets grosser and grosser. Kauchemar is really trying to not think about the fact that because of her equine hooves making footwear difficult she's essentially walking through here barefoot. "It's a good thing I'm not the constantly on fire type of nightmare," she muses. "If any of these fumes are flammable."

Setting poo poo gas on fire is the least of their worries as venturing through the narrow creeping passage brings them into a chamber about as filthy as anything sewage related could be. And as close to a living pile of crap in the middle of it. "Ugh, that's even more hazardous than the standard poisonous slimes." It may seem like a weird time for music but she pulls her lute-style instrument from her inventory all the same, and starts to strum it.

As the haunting tune rings from the strings a metal shield appears in front of her, one of the Binder posessed 'dancing weapons' she is fond of summoning. Well okay, a shield isn't technically a weapon. But it certainly counts as dancing, as it bobs left and right to the same rhythm as Kauchemar is playing to knock away flailing slime pseudopods and then slam itself into the flan to keep the literally shitfaced monster at bay.

Reaching down to help Miyako up, BlackRose says sympathetically, "Neither of us were expecting that I don't think."

Finally, they reach what is most likely the 'boss' of all these slimes, and it does not look friendly either. "Looks like I'm gonna have to cut you down to size!" BlackRose says as she draws her sword again, and this time when she swings it, she meets her mark.

"Take that!"

"Ah - egh..."

Kaleido pinches the space where their nose would be.

"Jeez..."

They start casting one-handed. "Ol Repth! Ola Repth! Guardian's- *gag* - Guardian's Song!"

"Remind me to never take slime quests again... stupid nerve gear..."

    Giganpor brings his shield up to block the first arm thing that comes at him before smashing it apart with his hammer. And continues on towards the thing. "I'm starting to hate this!"

    His nose crinkles as he spins to block and swing on another slime tentacle again and again. He comments towards Kaleido, "Try having enhanced senses! It smells five times as bad!"

    He continues bashing and guarding as he moves up to take the tanking position for the group.

    Picking herself up from the floor with BlackRose's help, and carrying on, Miyako sighs softly at having embarassed herself in front of her - acquaintance? Friend, maybe? Hopefully! - but she perseveres. After all, they've got a job to do!

    And so deeper into the dungeon - er, sewer - they go. Onward and downward, as were. "Oh ghu that smells horrible," she mutters, wrinkling her nose at the stench. "Who picked zombie slime in the bingo pool?" She pauses and flips through her inventory, pulling out a handkerchief to tie around her face and try to guard her nose from the smell.

    Too soon, the source of the stench comes into view, a massive black blob of hate and awfulness that is just utterly wrong to her eyes.

    Her first thought is to deflect the blobs of water it's throwing around. She draws on her magic, inscribing a series of runes in the air, to create a wind to blow them away... and just as she starts on the final rune, a blob of water slams right into her, knocking her flat as the wind forms in exactly the opposite of her intention, sucking dozens of water-blobs to splash into the poor Spriggan....

    Gigan is on Tank pulling agro, Rose joining in on DPS. The Kelpie? Nightmare? Horsey with big nasty teeth, is joining in on the tank front with their floating sheild. Then Miyako is down with the gross splash of sewage. "Tanks keep that .. uhm... poo off the casters and DPS." she says and then she's taking up her secondary role, normaly she'd be support for a boss fight, but it looks like DPS is in need. She takes to the air, the bunbun samurai bouncing from air rune to air rune, slashes of her sword sending out arcing cuts of air magic to split into the foul slime. It takes some work but in the end the party cuts the massive slime down to size and it starts to disolve into pixels. "Good work guys... hopefuly that's the worst thing we'll run into on this mission." she gags a bit before regaining her composure. "Ooh thank the kami we have a clean button." she says as she starts towards the exit further into the tunnels.

    A long walk through more thankfuly less terrible sewer and they come out a large circular chamber, arching high over head. A loud SPLUT resounds through the room when a giant pink slime slams into the ground suddenly. The shaking ofthe room causes parts of the celing to fall. The King Poring has a fancy red coat with a puffy lining, a great handlebar of a moustach graces it's scarred face. It has the abandoned weapons of failed attempts sticking from it and a dainty gold crown set atop it's 'head' at a jaunty angle. Cool king Poring is cool.

"Hero's song!"

Kaleido sings, putting their acolyte/bard enhanced skills into it.

The song washes over the party, enhancing them...

This time, BlackRose takes the time to try to utilize her mind as well as her sword. Having made a few mistakes previously, she decides to size up the situation first.

Once she's done that, she goes in with her sword at the ready. Her sword doesn't make as much contact as she'd like, but at least it makes some contact.

"I was doing a good job of not thinking about that until you brought it up!" Kauchemar's nostrils flare with annoyance... and immeadiately regreting it as she got a good hearty whiff of the surroundings. Even a creature of darkness and horrible things like her has a moment of watering eyes from the offensive olfactory onslaught.

But the group succeeds in getting past the horrifically hateful Black Flan, the bardic summoner waiting until the end to call the possessed shield back to her side and move on.

Onto thankfully less stank chambers. Though the rumbling and the splorting as the holy slime and some rubble drop from above, splattering the slick sewer floors. She lifts one hand from her instrument to point at the scarred (how does a slime scar?!) slime in his posh king attire and protrusion of weapons. "That would be SO COOL if it wasn't about to try to kill us..."

Then she gets back to doing bardic things, playing her lute while juking and weaving, effectively dancing between the attacks and falling stones. o/~ It leaps, and creeps, and slides and glides across the floor
Right through.. the door... and all around the walls. A splotch, a blotch..

Beware of King Poring! o/~

    Giganpor, looking up at the blob... thing. Just blinks. Then he notices the roof is pretty unstable. He comments, "Hey, we could bring the house down on this guy!"

    Apparently the King Poring doesn't like that idea. As the Tank is targetted first, and chunked into said ceiling. The fall would probably have killed a normal guy, but well... it's a video game logic sorta thing. Giganpor ends up with a nice large chunk of his health taken out as he lays there. Then comments to the others as he raises his hammer, "I'm okay."

    After that, he proceeds to get up and get flailed around like a crazy giant hammer as he keeps the slime's attention.

    Miyako is, indeed, quite glad that a few moments with the menu will leave her clean and dry after that little misadventure. Going on through this little dungeon adventure while wet and stinking of zombie-slime would be... agh, best not to think about it. No, it's time to find the big slime that's spawning the rest, and kill it so they stop. And here it is.

    Miyako grins. "Watch this," she calls to Blackrose, after the other girl makes her own blow. She twirls her naginata above her head as she sprints towards the slime-king, in perfect time with Kauchemar's music... and just as she reaches it, she lashes out with the blade... and cuts right through its fancy red coat quite neatly, doing no damage at all to the monster itself.

    The party rushes into action, musical buffs, mishaps and solid fighting finaly get the King under the unstable part of the celing. "Alright, keep it busy and don't get squished." the Bunbun woman cries out. "Power the Earth Fill Me! Grant me your strength! Fierceness of Earth!" green power snakes from the earth sinking into the albino bunny girl. She grins, her teeth on display for the first time in the mission, a mouth full of uneaven rows of ragged razor triangles. And then she's... bunny kicking one of the arching butresses holding up the celing. A loud 'THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP' followed by the gunshot sound of splitting stone before the celing starts a cascade of stone pouring down in a wave of earth to crush the final hitpoints out of the King Slime. Pixelating boss motes leave loot raining down convinently atop the pile of stone to be split by the party. "Good show guys! At least this bit of the city should have clean water now, thanks for joining me on this." she says happily.

Kauchemar ends her playing on a few extra mocking chords as the Poring King is buried under the rubble of his own lair. "Though, it's pretty filthy down here," she muses after. "It might not be the only boss level slime in this sewer."

She shrugs, and walks over to stoop and pick up one of the jewels that toppled out of the loot. "Well now isn't this one interesting..." She rubs it with the hem of her cloak, and gets a little bit of a gleam to flicker through the layers of aged tarnish and dried muck.

    Giganpor hums as he picks up one of the jewels that's left after being slung around. He pauses, then raises a hand, "Come forth, Auris!"

    A bird-like light elemental comes out of a small magic circle before Giganpor comments, "Fairy Healing, please. Draw on my power as much as you need." The light elemental gives a trill like sound before it starts to check on everyone, healing them quickly.

    Giganpor hums at the jewel, "Seems like we get a lot of jewels... perhaps I should take up jewelrey making as well, whatever that is called?"

    Wisteria picks up her own jewel "Accessory Forging." she says as she vanishes that into her inventory. "It's the same as Weapon or Armor but it makes jewlery and other items that you don't equip as armor or weapons." she says as she taps her katana with her fingers. "I'll be keeping an eye out for the next posting from the hunters guild when they track down where slimes have infested the water supply and I'll put another group together and hope for no more poo monsters... everything else was pretty cool though."

    Giganpor shrugs, "Maybe... let's get out of here, then." He turns to head out of the sewer himself, the hammer and shield out just in case still.

    It's the stench that's probably got him in a bad mood. Mostly. Yep.

Kauchemar chuckles a bit as she turns to follow the lionman out. "This is about the only time a crappy quest was a reasonably good thing!"

    Miyako covers her face with her hand and groans. "Oh, ghu... five dee six pun damage, girl."

    Wist follows last out of the chamber and then heads along to the surface and finaly along to turn in the quest at the Hunters Guild.