Goblin """Management"""

Unlike a lot of the former requests to deal with goblins coming from landers. This is a request coming from an actual player. Which really doesn't change a lot, except that generally players don't tend to know the locations to places they haven't been. Except for Haseo, who is adamant he knows what he's doing.

The treck through the forest to get there is mostly uneventful, a few encounters with low level mobs that explode (metaphorically, not literally) on contact with the party is the only real highlight other than finally reaching the fabled Goblin Camp itself.

The word camp is clearly the thing that's underlined here, as it's not really sprawling with hundreds of green creeps. There's a few tents made out of bones and furs that's probably housing a few sleeping goblins. Though that's a slightly less pressing detail compared to the campfire surrounded by half awake goblin warriors.

There's several emptied barrels of beers littered around the site, apparently they were partying. Probably because they weren't expecting on being found out. Also because goblins are terrible little gremlins rather than the endearing kind of gremlins.

That or the bottles were left as both an alarm system, and makeshift caltrops.  U.L.P. frowns at the situation, it's almost too easy, or just obvious enough to be that there is someone slightly clever in the goblin camp.  Thinking about this for a moment, U.L.P. signals to the others he'll go ahead, to try and scout out the camp and get them some intelligence.

It wasn't risky for him, if worse comes to worst he can disengage and lead them into a trap.  Right now, U.L.P. attempts to slowly maneuver through the bottles, aiming to keep to the cover of the forest where he can and try and get some eyes on the camp itself.

It's nice to have a relaxing stroll through the forest before reaching the main event. It gives Kauchemar a chance to warm up, so to speak. Get the blood pumping, find her groove for the occasion. Metaphoricly, and literally as most of her dealing with the trash mobs was blasting them to the beat of her own.

It all leads them to the so-called camp, full of either sleeping or likely half drunk goblins. Shame that won't likely make it easier. Drunk monsters probably have even less restraint that normal ones, and that's saying something.

Though for this occasion as the group gathers nearby the nightmare puts her lute away for the moment. Despite her usual ostentatious nature she is perfectly capable of keeping herself calm and quiet until the time for the show comes. She just focuses on warming up some Fire magic. Because it isn't raizing a camp if there isn't stuff burning.

Kasai has been doing his thing with the group. Which means he's been moving from tree to tree, staying to the shadows, and getting ready to strike. He stops as they near the camp, perched on top of a tree branch, looking down over the camp.

He thinks he could probably whittle their numbers down without being spotted, however the group would most likely ruin it immediately with some loud, flashy show of force.

Then again those kinds of things can be very useful from time to time.

"And you're sure you know where we're going, Haseo?" Whis asks for the dozenth time, having recalled her own time definitely absolutely sensing treasure and instead coming up on Slime Alley. The monsters between them had each gotten one ask at the start, and one ask at the end. It had become a game, even, though Haseo may not have been having fun.

When they find the camp - and the drunk, hung-over goblins enjoying a nice fire, Whis' smile turns dangerous, bubbling at the corners of her mouth.

"Oh no, not another camp of flammable hide tents held up by flammable wooden posts, guarded by flammable goblins next to their wonderful, bright, warm fire."

She wipes her mouth with her sleeve, coughing once to clear her throat and fluttering her eyes. "S-sorry, I forgot a step. Please take care of me, everyone. I'll make sure to support you - and if everyone thinks arson is best, well, it can't be helped."

Count V... is better, now! This doesn't stop him from carrying a massive shoulder-spanning waterskin that he's using as a hot water bottle anyway, because it's been cold as it gets lately, and he wants something a little more comfortable right now. It's awfully heavy-- fortunately, he isn't /quite/ as flimsy as he looks. His scarf wraps around the waterskin a few times over, giving it the appearance of some strangely rustic decoration. His actual participation, has mostly involved hanging towards the middle-rear of the group and using his usual array of buffs and heals to enable /others/ to do their thing.

He stops dead in his tracks at the sight of the bottle field that ULP starts picking through openly, heeding the signal and allowing him to scout ahead.

He waves his staff, raising a finger to his lips. The air stills around ULP, reducing the noise that he makes as he goes.

V himself just sways lazily at the edge of the camp, waiting.

"It looks like arson will be second pick today." He asides to Whiskey, quietly as he can manage.

If the game could read the mind's of people and realize that almost everyone's first idea was arson, they'd probably be put on some kind of list. But it can't, as far as anyone's aware. So their horrible thoughts remain their own.

Several people, including (and surprisingly) Haseo stand back as U.L.P. decides to scout ahead with Count V assissting him. Even with the magical assistance, the goblins seem really out of it at the moment, only turning to check their surroundings now and then. More than enough time for U.L.P. to avoid detection if he's smart. Also regardless if he's smart or not, he'd probably realize that every single trap, be it a simple alarm bell or a bear trap, seems to no be working. Not because they've been tripped or because they're poorly maintained however, but because they haven't been rearmed.

They'd also probably notice the several stolen shipments of goods that are strewn around the camp fire. A lot of it is boring stuff like grain and wheat, but there's some more useful stuff like ore and actual money thrown into the mix.

U.L.P. goes through the 'camp' such as it were...

The traps were unarmed?  The Goblins drunk, and various foodstuffs rather than actual loot.  Sure, ore and money are thrown about, but this causes a frown.  Moving carefully back the way he came, he moved back to inform the rest of the group, as well as the location of the goblins he could see.

"They're mostly drunk, barely alert.  What's odd is the stuff they have.  Mostly food stuffs, but some other more marketable loot strung around.  No traps set though, which makes me wonder if they just recently took this place?" he shrugs.  

"So I wouldn't suggest arson, there appears to be more going on here than we thought.  Though if we move quickly and stealthily, we could easily take out their numbers before an alarm is raised."

"Aw, no raizing the camp?" Kauchemar mock pouts, but it's just for show as she quickly gets over it. "Guess this will take a more... precise approach then."

She puts her hands together as if to extinguish the flame magic she had, but it's not quite so as she pulls them apart again to form a whip of dark fire out of the elemental energy instead.

"Dark Fire. I like it." Count V remarks, scratching at his head with the wing of his staff. After a moment, he gesture out across the camp and says, "Blinders!"

Little patches of darkness begin to bubble up around the faces of the goblins that are outwardly visible, beginning to make their vision spotty and shortly thereafter obscuring it entirely. As the last of the visible goblins has the effect applied to them, he spins around in a circle and brings his staff down against the forest floor, "Air Conditioner!"

The wind begins to pick up, not dangerously so, but audibly. It whips here and there through the trees, creating an eerie howling that is characteristic to a dark spooky forest and not particularly 'questionable', but enough to make it difficult to hear. This one applies to pretty much everyone, since it's an actual wind current instead of an effect applied directly to anybody in particular.

Sighing, V declares, "That's the best I can do in a scenario like this one. I'll be able to act more once people are on top of them. Buffing you all basically-simultaneously will be pretty MP-intense, so please get an easy coup-de-grace. Thank yoooooou."

He sounds like a clerk thanking somebody for their patronage.

"If we do it right, you won't even have to buff. If arson's out, we'll just have to do this the old fashioned way." Whis schemes quietly, once ULP returns from his scouting pass. She makes a hopeful 'neck snapping' motion with her arm braced against her opposite wrist and an elbow jerk, smiles, V's-for-victory, and dismisses her own staff into her inventory, dropping into a slinking crouch.

"If the goblins have all that stuff, and it's not eaten or burned, there may be some thankful landers around they haven't killed - and that means we get paid twice! Sco-re!"

"Let's coop all their graces real Solid Snake like, okay everyone?"

"Don't take this the wrong way." Kasai says from his perch up in the tree above the group, "I don't know how stealthy all of you are. If you want me to go in first and try to clear as many as I can, I will." He's again trying to be as nice as he can, but he always has trouble with this part of the 'interactions with other people' part of playing a MMO.

He pulls his hood up over his head, figuring that the group will give him the go-ahead, though he supposes they could be stubborn about it and do it their way.

One of the goblins wakes up from its dazed state to check on the fire after the entire group has basically been reduced to severe tunnel vision. It seems concerned at first, before it probably remembers it's drunk and that's how it is sometimes. It throws a nearby pile of grain into the fire with all the grace of a fish on land, before picking a mug off the ground, checking to see if it's empty or not, and then also throwing said mug into the fire before passing out on the ground. Someone might consider it a close one, but these goblins seem completely smashed.

Everyone is posed to strike, which means someone should probably go in first to be some sort of weird sacrificial lamb that will probably end up gaining all the aggro. Haseo realizes that's probably going to be him, so ultimately just throws himself in the camp once it's been confirmed there is no sneaky traps.

A goblin that's just minding its own business soon finds a pair of daggers shoved into its back as it falls off its seat. It doesn't get to say much, as it just falls to the ground while Haseo urges the rest of the group to hurry up.

"If you're volunteering to show off, you don't need my permission!" Whis beams up at Kasai, entirely nonplussed that the other player just revealed that they had been in the trees the whole time. "I'll make sure to support your efforts, sempai!" The druid continues, pumping a fist at Kasai to /psych him up.

It's true! She doesn't have any ability in Sneaking.
Mostly, she has arson and the unlimited power of Nature. (Arson is a part of nature.)

"I mean, you just watched me walk in and out, but if you want to show off don't let me stop you!" U.L.P. says with a shrug of his shoulders towards Kasai.  "Just make sure you get out into the sun once in a while, the shadows are no good for your bones, or so I hear."

U.L.P. gives Whis a thumbs up for her support of their shadow boi.

After a moment, and impatient Haseo noises, U.L.P. finds a place to snipe from, and notches an arrow.  Once Haseo draws aggro, and thanks to Count V's debuffs, he releases an arrow towards the first goblin he can see, before notching another arrow and doing the same to the next.\

Sometimes it's just better to take things down without fire.

Once Haseo encroaches on the camp to gank a goblin in the back Kauchemar ... just kind of strolls in after him. She's not all that sneaky, just an ominous prescence thanks to her colorations. The fact that most of these goblins are either drunk or asleep just amuses her, because those are two states of mind she can easily work with. She snaps her whip at one goblin slouched over on his seat in a darkness induced stupor thanks to V, catching him around the neck and yanking him off the seat. Flames surge from the magic whip to wrap around the rest of his body, slowly burning him to a crisp.

As he's squirming and smoldering Kauchemar leans over him, smiling that viper smile of hers. "Fighting it just makes it hurt more," she practically croons, "So please, keep doing so, it's much more entertaining~"

"Go ahead. Here-- Shadow Edge!" Count V points his staff towards Kasai, its eye opening up wide and illuminating the Assassin with a fel, purple light. His weapons are suddenly aglow with the same dark aura, their attributes buffed with Dark-based damage. As for the Diviner himself, this isn't his forte. He'll let the damage bonus on Kasai do all of the talking for him.

Leaning almost lazily on his staff, V nods towards Kauchemar, "Have you tested that on yourself? Does the intensity of the pain really vary? Is that intentional, or just an attribute of an existing spell? If the former, I take it that it's something you designed it for yourself? Our magic got a lot more flexible after the Apocalypse, if you ask me..."

It seems like the whole team is going to buff Kasai. Which means he's going to have to do what he does best. After several buffs are added to him, he leaps off the tree, and drops down on the closest Goblin, using the hidden blades on his gauntlets to puncture the creature in the neck with both blades.

He rolls through as the goblin bursts into sparkles, and then quickly slides across the ground to slash a second goblin with one of the blades. The action has been joined by the others already as well, but Haseo seems to be getting the aggro, which allows Kasai to figuratively dance around in the back line of the goblins, sliding his blades between armor plates and dashing around. The buffs are helping him move faster and strike harder, he feels a lot like his old self before the apocalypse, at least for a moment.

Goblins are sniped with arrows. Chocked with whips, stabbed and crusehd with crude weapons and magic. And absolutely eviscerated by one lion boy with far too many buffs. Why do they have that many buffs?

They don't even put up a fight, even when they do notice. Well, they try to put up a fight, but being drunk and debuffed up the wazoo really hampers one's ability to do anything other than be mowed down like fodder.

One of the tents finally open up as one of the sleeping, non-drunk goblins finally picks up on the slight noise. There's a brief moment as they stare down the group, before ultimately turning around and going back into the tent like nothing happened and leaving from the other side. They're outmatched, outgunned, and not swimming in enough traps to deal with this crap.

"They're monsters, hell if I know." Kauchemar replies. "Or care. It just sounds more ominous~"

The cursed whip lashes out again, this time catching a goblin across the arm. Streaks of festering darkness appear across the limb from the corrupt effect, farther crippling his ability to fight back and leaving the goblin easy pickings for someone else to finish off.

"Is not magic, in it's very nature, malleable?" She continues the conversation like it was no big deal.

Another goblin finally gets teetery enough on his feet to try and get in her face, only for his flailing strike to diffused against a flaming aura that erupts around the Nightmare, flames snapping back at the offense. Then Kauchemar grabs him and hoists him up to look her directly in the face. After a moment the goblin drops his weapon and clutches his head while squealing as she stares her Dark magic right into his puny monster mind. It's short order before the goblin gibs into sparkly databits, having little in the way to defend against the magically mental assault thanks to the drinking and V's debuffing.

There's nothing physically left but she wipes her hand off on her side all the same, because it's the kind of thing you would do after having someone die in your grasp. "Those who seek power, must shape it to suit their desires."

She turns her attention as the tents open... and then close again as the other goblin decides to ditch and run instead of deal with the massacre. Raises a brow a bit. ".... Do these mobs even have a retreat mechanic?"

"Don't kill it," U.L.P. says after a moment.  Instead, he lets an arrow fly from his bow, aiming to try and take the legs out from under it.  He walks up to try and kick it over onto its side and attempts to tie it up.  "There has been a lot of goblin activity lately.  I'm curious to see why that is..."

He looks down towards the (hopefully) tied up goblin.  "And you are going to tell me everything I need to know."

Looking back towards Kauchemar, "Why waste your breath intimidating a foe you're going to then immediately kill?  It's a waste of breath.  Intimidation is for those who can still attack you."

It goes off without a hitch! The impressively overbuffed ninja does exactly what that implies, and the rest of the plans fall into place. As the dust clears, Whis has disappeared from the edge of the fight and beelined for the boxes of money, carefully scooting them away from the fire and cleaning up the stacks. "Goblins? Same as gnolls, I think. They have this skirmishing mechanic, and they'll just leave if there's too few of them." Whis answers Kauchemar's question in between righting the stolen goods. "Someone check to see if there's any Landers this is owned by still left, and if they're not, well, that's a terrible tragedy and we'll have a minute of silence for them."

While they count loot.

"Nice fighting! Commends for everyone!" Whis raises her hands fingers-together steepled at the top and thumbs down to form a heart.

The tiger cait sith takes a second to clean off his blades, before they slide back into their hidden sheaths, "Well done." Wow, a compliment from the notoriously aloof assassin. He has been trying his best to be more 'personable' after all.

"So that last one, we're going to get intel out of him right? As opposed to just stabbing him..." Although he still wonders if burning the whole camp down might not be the worst idea the group has had.

"Hmm... was the request related /to/ bringing things back to Landers to begin with?" Count V asks Whiskey, glancing in the direction of the Goblin that comes in, turns around, and goes right back inside again. He frowns, his expression thoughtful. That's not normal behavior. Normally they'd run away. Do they expect Adventurers to have the integrity not to attack a thoroughly defeated enemy? Do they not care? Do...?

To KAuchemar, he responds, "In concept, yes. In implementation, no. The freeforming I've been able to do since the Apocalypse is a bit different. But that's true of a lot of fields, isn't it? I'm excited to see what new things come of experimentation. Adjusting pain thresholds would be quite the alarming modification parameter, actually..."

"I don't remember that." Is Whis' immediate answer to the question of the objectives of their mission, but she blinksmiles in the slow way someone who isn't sure if they're busted or not leans upon.

If you don't say you're busted, you're not busted, you see.Also, honestly, she wasn't paying attention.

"Things that are coded into a game aren't freeform. Just because I call it magic doesn't mean I can cast Bolt one-and-a-half when my options are Bolt 1 and Bolt 2."

Haseo just kind of scratches his nose as he stares at the group's handiwork. Well, that was probably easier than just throwing themselves into the camp with zero care about being stealthy, but man if it didn't feel like overkill. Well, what's done is done, and as Whisky goes on about returning these resources, Haseo actually just decides to take the time to start rounding them together to make them easier to transport for later.

The goblin that U.L.P. has in his custody just stares him straight in the face when asked a question, before proceeding to spit in their face. If he wants them to talk, it's probably going to take a while. And a lot of torture and or affection raising items ( the latter doesn't exist, wrong game genre).

"Because it entertains -me-," Kauchemar replies, still grinning that viper fanged grin.

One might expect her to be annoyed by the questions, but truth be told she'd rather her companions question things than accept them at face value. So other than the occasional flustered flick of her tail it doesn't really bother her as much as one might think.

Doesn't stop her from snickering a bit when ULP gets spat at. "Oh, that's a fiesty one."

She turns her attention to the others gathering up the recovered goods. She hums to herself and makes a few arcane gestures, then snaps her hoof-like fingers. A summoning circle briefly appears by her as earthly material is drawn up into a small but stout Earth elemental to help carry stuff back.

U.L.P. does not bother to respond to Kauchemar.  That's someone else's problem until it becomes his problem.  For now, he's focused on something he made his problem.  The goblin spits on him, and with a wipe of his face he stares down at the creature.  

"Oh good.  You want to do this the /interesting/ way.  Please, do get it all out of your system."