Duty Session 87: Obligatory Rat Cellar

    It's a rat cellar. Everyone kills rats. Everyone goes to cellars. And those two are not mutually exclusive. Arashi had wandered back to town with a single goal in mind! To find something to contribute to Kaydon's project. He proved he could work metal, and maybe once the were fang had more shards, he could prove just what kind of blacksmith he is. On an interesting side note, this quest also started with some blacksmith. He insisted rats were a big problem in this building and that he'd reward everyone greatly for killing them. So. Here Arashi is. She put up a very tiny call for aid somewhere. And called Kaydon. It was for his benefit, after all.

Kaydon had heard things had shifted a bit with this particular quest. The first time he ran it, he ended up threatening the rival shopkeeper with extreme violence.

This time he's promised to be good. But for now, Kaydon is keeping his blade sheathed for the moment. He was letting Arashi take point, in order to show her working with a team could be a good thing, even if it was a few solo players teaming up.

That part of the blacksmith is about the only thing that's unusual about this, as it's usually market or supply merchants bringing up the rat cellar duties. Maybe these were packrats obsessed with shinies? Then again, there's been sightings of an armored rat in these quests, maybe this is connected to that? Well one way or another that one tick off what she's seen before is enough to bring the Nightmare out of whatever shadows she had been lurking in. Possibly lurking nearby waiting to see if anyone else turned up to investigate the Duty, considering without much warning or such she seems to just walk up to the group.

"Well well well, and look who I should just happen to come upon.." Kauchemar holds up a hand. "And before you ask, no I can't just pied piper the rats out. Monsters tend to not leave the Duty area they spawn in." Almost sounds like she tried at some point...

Kaydon moves into the cellar, and upon looking around, he hrms, "It's changed since last time.." He muses, pulling out his smaller sword in order to cut through some of the vines, in order to try to clear a path for them to move on into the next area. There aren't any rats in here, after all. So they need to get deeper in.

    Down into the depths they go. The same group as with the gnolls? Kaydon she expected but Kau? That was... unexpected. The other equine gives a shrug. It's help. She's fine with it. And it's why she's simply heading down to into the cellar, likely with the others in tow.

    No.. rats though? Weird. Kaydon's working the vines, Arashi joins in with her not-busted blade. "Mm. I don't remember the last time I did this." WORDS.

"Well this is boring," Kauchemar mutters as they arrive in the cellar only to find it moldy and overgrown. She tries to push some crates out of the way, but loses her footing on some damp moss on the floor and stumbles aside instead of getting anywhere with it. "... Well, at least it's not nearly barehoof in sewage this time."

Kauchemar pulls some stray vines off her shoulder as they continue off. "This is why I prefer dead and haunted thin--NNGH!" The nightmare walks right smack into a wall as the tunnel branches off several ways, and cusses repeatedly as she backs up. "... Ugh. More tunnels." And no idea where to go. "This duty doesn't seem to like me very much."

    Was that a snicker? It had to be. Problem is, if anyone looks toward where it came from, they'd just see Arashi marching forward without a care in the world. Vines, musk, and rot be damned. "I think it's this way," the were-fang muses, tromping along, sword in hand. HOW CAN THEY SEE- oh right, everyone is a were-fang. That makes it easy, doesn't it? Maybe.

"Hrm." This is absolutely a different version of the dungeon than the last one he did, "I don't know for sure which way to go...But I know how to find out." He closes his eyes for a second and then sniffs at the air a couple of times.

He considers for a moment, and then sniffs again, "This way." He points towards a corridor, the same one that Arashi has picked out as well. The two are in agreement of the direction, so it's just a matter of going in.

After navigating through the corridors, they come across a mass of rats. That's a lot of them. Kaydon doesn't think he could kill them all no matter how much he swings his blade. So instead he gets another idea. Digging into his inventory, he pulls out a torch, and lacking something to light it with, pulls out his blacksmithing hammer.

The tattoo on his right arm lights up the color of burning coals as he stries the torch with the hammer, transferring enough heat into it in order to ignite the torch.

Taking point, he swings the torch back and forth in front of him to scatter the rats and leave a nice opening for the other two.

The other two seem to figure out where they're going, so Kauchemar just follows her fellow Were Fangs until they reach the end of the twisting winding tunnels. Thankfully into a large, open chamber. It's just filled with rats. Lots and lots and LOTS of rats.

Kauchemar nudges were way past to the two to stare down the swarms. "Now this is more my jam~" Apparently literally, as instead of a weapon she draws her lute, and starts to strum on it. It's somehow both a bit creepy sounding yet unusually upbeat, as green and blue ethereal energies whisp around her fingers across the strings.
"o/~ If you're feeling dead I'll be your reanimator, I've got the way to bring you to life.
A superior existence with no one to control you, Where you can always do what you like
Let me give you some green color and you will ask for more. You will see that you never felt this way before! o/~"

Several similarly colored lines crease the floor around her, almost as if shaping off a grid of some kind. From which several of the undead, zombies and skeletons mainly, arise from.
"o/~ Party without limits, have fun and don't be blue. Freedom is eternal for you, you, you! o/~ "
And that's when they start dancing, stomping and flailing and swinging wildly about into the rat swarm, trampling the foul beast beneath their musically driven movements, surrounding the larger vermin and keeping them at bay.

"o/~ Move your dead bones, bones, bones...Move your dead bones, bones, bones... The secret will keep you alive!
Move your dead bones, bones, bones...Move your dead bones, bones, bones... You'll dance for the rest of your life! o/"

By that point the Nightmare herself has already paraded through the gyrating crowd, stopping at the opposite end to strike as epic a chord as one can manage on such a primitive instrument "o/~ Reanimate your feet! o/~

    Fire's good. In this case, fire is -great-. Arashi may actually be a bit impressed by how he lights his torch, but she doesn't say so. Instead she's swinging at any of the damn dirty rats that even try to come close to her, or the others for that matter. "This is going pretty well..."

    This is about the time Kauchemar breaks in with Gravecall. "... Well. That's a way to steal the show." Okay, yes, now Arashi is CLEARLY impressed. They both have proven that. Clearly.

"I have a plan. It's a weird plan." Kaydon says, as he digs into his belt for a second, and then pulls out a needle and thread, "Get back for a second." And then the large were fang dives in, heading straight for the weird mutated rat and it's collection of scrap materials.

Weaving in and out, Kaydon uses the needle and thread to weave together several of the peices of scrap, until he has made what looks like esentially a net around where the mutated rodent has been chasing him. All he has to do is yank on that cable over there.

Once he (or someone else on the team, perhaps a lightningstepping equine) pulls that strand of cloth, it'll pull the floor out from under the rat and leave it suspended in the air. Then they can tie the rope off and move onto the next one.

Kauchemar strolls right into the next room. Look at all that materials. And the big ugly rat lurking on top of it. Kauchemar is still strumming, but she frowns at the sight. "Ah, shit. That thing isn't dead, I'm on the wrong track to try and sway it." Well at least the other two still have music to work with.

    ... Effing bards. That's everything the look from Arashi says in one simple narrow gaze. As for Kaydon, well, the rapid sewing should get him a cameo in Kill La Kill. Sadly, that anime probably doesn't exist here. SO. Instead, the were-shire decides to figure out what Kaydon is getting at, instead. After a moment? Sure. that makes sense. She puts one hoof forward, then -booms- forward, rather literally, cloth in hand. That is one airborn rat, now, in all its squeaking fury.

Kaydon has no magical ability to think of. He cannot fight this guy one on one with magic. He can't use some spell to disrupt the portals. So he does the only thing he knows how to do. He improvises.

He runs towards the red portal, and every time the enchanter summons a rat from the portal, Kaydon picks it up and yeets it back through the portal to wherever it came from.

This keeps up for some time, because he has no better ideas and it's annoying the enchanter at the very least.

Kauchemar gets a dirty look... Which does nothing to phase her. In fact she sticks her demonic tongue out and makes a lapping gesture with it, as if licking up salty tears. Now you see why just because she's on your side doesn't mean she's going to play nice every time. Even with another equine. You don't get any free pony rides either.

She does finally pause in her playing to watch the other two go to work and string up the monsterous rat with his own hordings. "Commuppance at it's finest." She shrugs. Moving on.

And it's a rat summoner. A crazy one at that. Oh fun. She resumes playing, channeling her magic and as Kaydon chucks rats back into portals she uses her own summoner magic to force the portals shut... But there's a lot of portals.

And every time she tries to focus the counterspell on the summoner himself, he just looks more annoyed than affected by it, and throws some more rats at them to cover his own withdrawl, with maybe a migraine from the music at the most.

"Everyone's a critic," Kauchemar grumps once he's gone at the portals actually stay closed.

    The dire-shire just gives a shrug to Kau's 'reply' to the glare. Whatevs. Don't be a seduction bard. That's all she was really insinuating. At least the rats were dealt with. The group can move on to... the king of the rats? "Oh. Wow. Your profession is being a rodentmancer? Lame. As. Hell." This seems to annoy the enchanter. The counterspells annoy the enchanter. The YEETing of his own rats -really- annoys the enchanter. And then something ridiculous happens.

    "Screw you guys, I'm going home." A third portal is made, he steps through it, and he's just... gone.

        Fanfare...?

Please. Kauchemar may be a lot of things, some of them less pleasant things, but she has more respect for herself than THAT.

She is sure as hell not seducing anything down here, giant rats and ratmancers, even if she did.

"That was... not the response I was looking for, but hey, what works works." The nightmare shrugs.

"Huh." Kaydon throws one last rat but the portal vanishes after he throws it, "Well I guess we win?" He says, looking between the other two, "Wanna go get some drinks at the tavern or something then?"

    LOOT GET. Loot distributed. Arashi menus for a moment then just.. gets the worst kind of crestfallen look. "............Yeah. I need a damn drink," she mutters before starting to march back out the way they came. She'll actually BE AT THE BAR in the town if they follow after her. That's an angry horse. Kaydon probably will understand why.

You don't need to be a horse to reconize that mood, but it helps to know to give Arashi room to stalk out of the room. "... I didn't take her as the drowning sorrows type, something must be sour."

Kaydon is a bit surprised that she actually agreed to go get a drink too. But he leads the way back to the tavern, and of course buys the first round. It's the least he can do since she's clearly upset she didn't get anything to help him out like she was planning. He'll help her out later with that too.