+duty: Spinner's End

Rumors have begun to circulate that Landers are moving towards the area known as Spinner's End. It seems that the Adventurers have run the dungeon enough that it is almost completely cleared. However, that doesn't mean that there isn't still a last-minute chance to get in on the dungeon before it ends.

Rylen has been the one to gather a group of Adventurers for the task. He's a bit late to the game when it comes to this dungeon, but better late than never. He leans against one of the miner's carts outside of the mine, looking relaxed and easy going. "Looks like this dungeon is only going to be around for another day or so." He explains, "Figure it's my last chance to give it a shot."

There are still plenty of signs of the spider infestation that is known to be in this place, but there is also more and more signs of Lander activity nearby. Certainly, it will be interesting to see what happens to this dungeon when the clock ticks over.

Goldenblade has joined Rylen, though she says, "I was here before, but I think it's OK to do it again, right? It'll help out the city and the Landers will be able to use the mine once it's cleared out, right?" That's how she understands it. "Plus I want to try out a new move, if that's cool. I don't know if it'll work or not, but, well, that's what I'm here to see."

Kauchemar stares at the entrance to the supposedly overrun mine for a moment or two. "Somehow I never got around to this one yet. Good thing you said something. Spiders are a little out of my field, unless it's the large horrifying ones that count as monsters instead." The Nightmare Were Fang shudders a little, making her ears and her tail both twitch. "Those give -me- the heebie jeebies, and I -like- creepy morbid things!"

Prophylaxis may in fact know the answer to that question. After all, the last time he was here, he found a certain something in the depths of the earth which suggested that this isn't the last they've seen of the spider caves... Though it'll take a little while to grind out the levels necessary to deal with that little surprise.

He's not going to spoil it either! These first-time runners will just have to discover it for themselves!

The Doctor of Tolbana is coming along for one last run through Spinner's End regardless. Recent developments in the Tower have revealed that any resources which might be able to contribute to tackling bossfights are going to be invaluable... And also because the leader of this particular expedition is a person that he'd rather like to learn a bit more of.

"I hope you're not arachnophobic," Prophylaxis says with a mischevious grin. "Supposedly this place is full of spiders...! Don't you worry though, I've packed enough fireball for at least one room full of the eight-legged monsters."

"I imagine it's at least additional experience points." Rylen replies, offering his usual charismatic grin towards Goldenblade. "And your skills are always welcome." He inclines his head to her, a few strands of silver hair tipping forward in the process.

"We might see a variety of both types of arachnids, but hopefully it shouldn't be too bad. I've heard this is a low level dungeon." He nods to both Kauchemar, and then Prophylaxis, extending his arms as he cracks his knuckles.

"Alright, onward!"

The first room that they come to looks to be some sort of ore sorting room. However, much of it has been smashed and damaged by something large. It becomes obvious just what it is after a moment, when light shines upon a creature that looks like a giant, naked mole-rat. The thing is blind, ugly, and has very sharp teeth which are being snapped towards the group the moment it senses them.

Goldenblade says confidently to Kauchemar, "Oh yeah, there's definitely large, horrifying spiders. My wife never liked them, either. And they take a bit more squishing, but the principle's the same. They're not creepy, they're a bit big for creepy. But with swords and magic powers, they're managable." Sadly, she's spoiled Prophylaxis's surprise, but she's big on information sharing.

Of course the first obstacle is not a spider at all, but a naked molerat. "Ugh, that's pretty bad," she says. "But manageable, I think." And so saying, she's on the molerat with fire. Flames leap from her blades and splatters like flaming gasoline as she strikes it with heavy blows, backing away when it makes to strike, then slipping in again to strike.

"Hardly, my good doctor," Kauchemar replies with a laugh. "Knowing what giant arachnoid monsters are capable of is more a healthy awareness for self-preservation."

But of course the first creature they come upon isn't even a spider, just something that's taken advantage of all the miners being chased out. "Alright then." Kauchemar hums a few bars and makes an arcane gesture. Red ooze bubbles up in front of her, the top of the forming elemental slime igniting on it's own as it forms. "Go get it!"

The fire slime slorps it's way into the fray!... and is promptly stomped on, smothering both the fire and the monster itself, by the giant mole rat as it is dealing with the other more powerful Fire techniques from the others.

Kauchemar oofs a little. "Maybe I should of went for the Boom Slime..."

"Honestly, I kind of like spiders," Prophylaxis says with a mild shrug. "Most of them are helpful little regulators of much more dangerous insect species. They eat mosquitos in droves, and most are completely harmless to humans. So it feels a little bad just burning them out of a place like this for the sake of mineral access..."

"...But I suppose unless there's some kind of SEALED MOSQUITO-SHAPED EVIL within the depths of the earth, they're not really eating many bugs, are they?"

And wouldn't you know it, the first thing they run into isn't even a mosquito at all! It's... It's that damn naked molerat again. The horrible, grotesque, denuded thing with far too big teeth and rolls of pink skin that wiggle and jiggle with all the fat it has fed with the bodies of slain landers. Prophylaxis takes one look at the thing and...

Doesn't... immediately cast fireball. He does use fire! Fire is a thing he uses. With a flick of the wrist, he conjures a barrage of swarming firebolts that crash into the monster's flabby hide and set its oily insides ablaze. "I /do/ hate this thing," Prophylaxis says of the molerat. "It's creepy. So I'm gonna burn it."

It seems like sometimes, fire is the answer to everything. The creature rears back from the onslaught from multiple soures. With those blind eyes, it isn't really able to sense where the next blow might come from. The beast does see to be quite sturdy, though, meaning that its health bar only drops a little.

Stepping foward, Rylen touches the ground slightly iwth one hand, allowing the creature to feel a rumbling from underneath. "Yeah? You feel that big guy? The source of all this fire is something /big/ that wants to eat you. You should get out of here."

And, that is what the creature does. It turns around and scurries down through the tunnels, diving off into a side path and cowering there. When Rylen rises he claps the dust off his hands.

As they head further into the tunnels, it begins to dip downward. This section of the mines seems to have been flooded out. The obvious answer seems to be to swim, hoping that they can get to the other side. Though there are a few large fish in the water that could potentially be utilized as transportation...

Goldenblade looks out at the flooded path, and agrees, "Yeah, this is the same route as I took before. Not gonna make the same mistake as last time, though," she muses, and her armor and gear get returned to her inventory as she gets quickly buried in inventory management. The armor and padding vanish, leaving her in the generic underthings that are default in the game. She had planned to get a bathing suit from Gwen, but had not gotten around to it. Which is unfortunate, but you don't realize these things until too late.

She gets into the water, and swims the familiar underwater passage. It's a bit longer than she remembers, but she's got a bit of affinity for water that helps her make progress, though by the time she rises on the far side, she's desperate for air, and as soon as her head breaks the surface, she's wheezing for fresh air.

"Remind me the summon needs to be bigger if I want to give a monster anything more than a failed hotfoot," Kauchemar muses. "Nice misdirection, Rylen." The giant rat thing is out of the way, and onward we go.

Onward to a flooded passage. "Well, you know what they say about leading a horse to water. Fortunately I don't have to -drink- it!" She uses summoner magic to wrap herself in elemental water, and wades in with little difficulty.

Of course fire is the answer to everything. Have you ever encountered a problem that could not be solved by enough fire? Apply enough fire and you can boil away a sea. Apply enough fire and you can kill the biggest and baddest beast. Apply enough fire... and you can kill fire itself...

"Same," Prophylaxis says as the group passes into that flooded passageway. "Last time I was here, we had someone catch some kind of weird diamond-horned narwhal-- some kind of... stonewhal, that let us pass. I doubt we'll be so lucky this time though. So..."

Fire is not the only magic that Prophylaxis has mastered. The Magus weaves a spell into the sunken tunnel, drawing all of that water upward until it clings to the ceiling of the mineshaft. Then, with another gesture, he freezes the stuff solid and hurries through after the others. He'll have to repeat the process every so often of course, depending on how long the trip might take, but it's certainly better than getting tugged around by a stonewhal again.

Once again, the entire party seems to favor one way of dealing with the situation. Water is little barrier to those who are skilled with the manipulation of that element. Rylen joins in by stomping on the ground, the ripples of energy causing a bit of outward force, shoving water out of the way as he follows the others through to the opposite side.

However, what they find when they get there is certainly mysterious. The room is completely empty, though there appear to be drag marks along the floor that suggest there might be a door that leads onward. There are strange rocks all along the walls, notches that might act as locks, and strange tiles on the floor that all might be possible answers to the problem facing them.

Kauchemar shakes herself off a few times as they proceed. But being wet is quickly forgotten about when the group finds themselves in a mysterious room. Kauchemar holds up a hand. "Hold up a moment, I've got something for this." Then retrieves her divining scroll from her inventory, the relic glowing faintly in one hands as she does and the spectacle frames of supernatural flame ignite around her eyes. "Mmm hmm, mmmm hmmm... aha."

Followed by a solid thom-thom-thomp as she stomps several of the runes on the floor much like the rhythm game pads of her youth. The runes flash on and off a few times at seemingly random, then fade as three remain

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Pointing at a specific slot in the otherwise stone looking wall. "That's the path out, if someone could be so kind to jimmy that open."

Prophylaxis emerges into the cavern relatively dry and gives the walls a quick once-over before looking thoughtfully into the ceiling. "Huh. Last time I was here there was a rock formation that you needed to cast a spell on to opent the way forward. Maybe we'll have similar luck? Or..."

Or Kauchemar could Dance Dance Revolution her way to a solution. Prophylaxis heaves a great big shrug! "Yeah, I got nothing. My arms are noodles. Someone else can take care of prying the door open, unless you want me to try setting the stone on fire."

Goldenblade gets to the familiar abrupt end, and nods, "This is definitely the route I came last time," she says, resorting out her inventory, replacing her underpadding and armor, then fishing around in her pack for the lockpicks that came with her initial outfitting. She rememners that there are two locks in the one keyhole, that was demonstrated last time, and it's kind of complicated, so it takes a bit of time.

She smirks at Dance Dance Revolution. "My grandkids love that game," she relates, ans sighs as Kauchemar reveals she's been working on the fake locks this whole time, and she moves over to the one that matters. It takes a bit of time, but she manages to defeat the lock that matters.

There are moments where Rylen simply isn't as skilled as some others, and this is one of them. The Beastmaster is better with monters to fight, or animals to tame. Here? Well, he steps forward to take a closer look at the wall, steps right on a pressure plate, and ends up shot int he shoulder with an arrow. The Pooka freezes in place, then takes a deep breath before pulling the arrow out, leaving behind a glowing hole. "I think I'll leave this to you guys."

When Goldenblade defeats the lock, it isn't hard for the rest of the group, Rylen included, to get the rest of the door open, using the spot that Kauchemar had pointed out.

However, what they find might just make them wish they had stayed in the empty room.

The chamber is covered in a very uncomfortable amount of spiders. The webbing clings to the walls and floors. Tiny spiders dangle from thin threads which lightly sway in the breeze. Thick clumps of web wrap around unknown forms that might have once been creatures, now food for the hoard. Every footstep makes a disturbing crunching sound, and no matter how they try to avoid them, the spiders seem to almost come down like rain.

Kauchemar chuckles a bit. "I was a master at them in the arcades when they were the new trend. Because if I got good, others got good trying to beat me, and hopefully got a better appreciation for music and dance out of it." Putting other peoples' competitiveness to some manner of useful motivation it seems.

And then the next room .... oh gods. Being as tall as she is Kauchemar almost immeadiately walks right into hanging webs. "Gaah!" Her nub of a horn keeps it from flattening entirely over her face though, and she's able to yank it off. As dozens of spiders fall out of the webs. "Worst. Room. Even." the nightmare hisses as she's grabbing her cloak to pull up the hood, and more importantly, pull it over her bare shoulders and cleavage to ensure spiders don't get down into some VERY uncomfortable to think about places.

Once that's fastened in place she can focus on quickly getting through the silk woven hellhole. "Well, I may not be the Big Bad, but I can still huff and puff!" And use one of her power screams to blow webs and spiders out of her way.

Rylen gets arrowed! Rylen then gets a quick potion tossed at him, because even while Prophylaxis does not actually have access to healing magic, he *does* have a brace of potions hidden somewhere under that vaguely labcoat-like robe. "You look like you might need that," Prophylaxis says with a slight smirk, "On the house! We're going to need *someone* to tank the thing at the end of all this."

But! Onward! Onward, to a place Prophylaxis remembers all too well.

This... this is the Spider Corridor.

And there are so many. So many little creepy crawly things that spin webs thick enough to ensnare bears, and with enough fangs to fill every pore on a human body. Prophylaxis takes one look at the crush of spiders...

And places his hand on the stone wall to release a wave of killing frost through the entire lot of them.

In a flash, Frost Shock spreads through the horde of arachnids, turning intricate webs into beautifully frosted filligree and their inhabitants into flash-frozen orbs like ornaments decorating a Christmas tree. "There we go," the good doctor says, "That should do us."

Goldenblade's uncomfortable level is not particularly high, and her blades are out again. The attacks slay the tiny spiders in swaths, and cut the webs, and she delivers heavy strokes with each cut, slashing and hacking through the webs as they're woven around us all. She steps on many, stomping heavily as she moves through the swarm, trying to clear the way. It's hard going for her, but she manages to make it through.

She considers DDR in the arcades, but she doesn't know much about that. Her grandkids had a console version. She looks relieved as Prophylaxis Frost Shocks the swarm, wading through with dozens of small, flaming slashes.

Kauchemar's roar causes many of the spiders to drop to the ground, who are then frozen by Prophylaxis' creeping frost. A large number of them that remain are crunched under foot, or sliced from the air by Goldenblade. Rylen, taking up the back of the group, follows up with a whirling series of martial arts movements, which then send out a burst of air, slamming the last few spiders against the walls.

It allows them a somewhat clear path to the end boss room.

What stands there is a strange, humanoid monster, that seems to be part spider. At her side are two giant glowing spiders which seem to react to her control. "You... do not belong here." She states with a strange, clicking sound. "Kill them. Kill them all..." She commands, extending a hand outward.

The two spiders bein to move forward, clearly driven by some strange magic, spitting venom and lashing out with barbed legs and powerful pincers.

Goldenblade is finding that these types of monsters are not fightable directly. Rather, there's some trick to control them, and that's how you defeat them. She doesn't know the term 'minigame', but she manages to fumble her way through, leading the monsters in such a way that they're slowly whittled away. She avoids the spitting venom when it comes, dancing around to avoid their counterattacks, leading it on as its health bard slowly sink down. "Ugh, I had forgotten about this one," she remarks.

Kauchemar strides into the room, and upon first laying eyes on Not-Blackarachnia and her guards almost feels a bit of appreciation from one summoner to another... upon until the spiderwoman speaks in such a creepy yet surprisingly bland manner. "... What? That's it? That's all? 'Kill them'?" Kauchemar reachs back to draw her lute instead of a weapon. "Where is your sense of theatrics woman?" The bardic summoner starts to play, creating a low and ominous, occultist sounding tune.
"o/~ Take me to your mountain.. Tear down the waterfall..."
As she does so the elemental energies swirl around her once more, causing her mane and tail to flit as if swept in a whirlwind.
"o/~ It's coming near, listen you can hear it call... o/~"
Until the flow moves away from her to take the vagely hominid form of rolling water. It surges forward into the fray like a tidal wave.

"o/~ So put a coin inside your mouth... And wade out to your knees
You crumble down... And give yourself to the sea! o/~"

The elemental abruptly rises up, using it's surging wavelike motion to arc over the summoner, and crash it's form down upon the crystal she's drawing power from. At the same time it starts to freeze itself over, bombarding the gem with crashing water and ice alike.

The spider horde has been defeated! By Prophylaxis' reckoning, there aught to only be one more obstacle between them and sweet, sweet victory. The doctor casually steps through the slush of frozen spiders on his way to the boss room, cracking a few into little red sparkles as he crushes them underfoot. What he finds there, however...

"...Huh, that's new," Prophylaxis says with a curious quirk of the brow. "You certainly appear to be some kind of Monster Girl." Glowing embers glitter in the air as the temperature begins to rise. Heat swells as the sparks collect in Prophylaxis' outstretched hand, gathering into a tight mote of firelight that seems to writhe and struggle against the magus' grasp. "Unfortunately," he says, "You and your minions are also in our way."

There are a multitude of enemies, and that means just one thing.

It's time for the good doctor to break out his favorite AoE spells...!

"O' spirits of flame, o' small gods of forge and fire, heed my call! Let all the foes that stand before us cower before the power you and I possess! Light up the underworld, my subterrannean sun...!" With a wind up and toss that speaks of marginal and unpracticed baseball pitching skills, Prophylaxis sends the orb of light flying toward the center of the phantasmal swarm...! "FIREBALL!"

The fireball flickers for just an instant as the binding magic falls away... And then, with a wave of heat and a roar of sound, a hemispherical explosion of fiery wrath scatters darkness and spider alike...!

Goldenblade is able to keep one of the two spiders occupied, while Rylen manages to trip up one of the others, using a series of hand gestures that seem to confuse the control over it. Then, with a combination of fire and ice, Kauchemar and Prophylaxis manage to take care of the rest. There is an explosion from the two elements meeting, filling the room with mist.

What is revealed as the fog clears, is a few glittering points of light from the monsters, now obliterated, and a small treasure chest that seems to contain a bit of fine thread-like webbing.

More mysteriously, though, is confirmation of the rumors from before. The circular platform that the Spider Summoner had been standing on now lies empty, other than a glowing timer that seems to be counting down with less than 24 hours remaining.

If they approach, it gives the message: Spinner's Deep unlocked. Content becomes available in ...

Rylen, for his part, steps up to claim the treasure, lighting holding the spool of thread in his hand before looking over to Kauchemar, "You certainly showed those spiders." He offers the nightmare a wink, then chuckles to himself.

Somehow Kauchemar hit her final chord at the same time as the antipodal explosion happens, by sheer luck or exceptional timing. Then gives her head a glorious hair-flip shake as the mists billow past for extra effect.

Followed by a chuckle towards Rylen. "You can't just sic minions on people. It's all about presentation." Though her attention is taken by the glowing display on the platform. "Looks like you were right about there being a continuation that hadn't unlocked. Until now."

That may be worth exploring later. But for now she wanders back to the chest to claim her part of the loot drop. "Mmm." Maybe she can make better strings or something out of this.

SILKEN THREAD GET...!

Maybe they'll go into making a new set of robes? Something for formal occasions? Something a little nicer than looking like a shaggy mushroom cap all the time...!?

Eh, maybe. It's just as likely that Prophylaxis will use them to make some real good sutures or something. But for now...!

"That's new too," he says of the timer over the strange magic circle. "I guess it makes sense. We /have/ been levelling up quite a bit lately, but... Is someone actively coding these new dungeons? Or is this some kind of other weirdness...?"

Goldenblade looks over the loot curiously, though there's none for her. She had to check anyhow. "Well, that went better than expected," she remarks. She's seen the continuation thing before, so that's not new to her. As far as coding new dungeons, she says, "I would think that it must have been planned from the start. Given we're all stuck here, I wouldn't expect that the company's allowed to just go on making content as if nothings happened?"

"Or maybe that's something they're doing to keep us entertained while they try to get us out." She shrugs. "I assume they're trying to get us out. Why would they not?"

"Content locked to specific levels is nothing new in an MMO," Kauchemar muses. "But that it's a worldwide level instead of the members of a party at a time? That's different. I would guess the content was part of the expansion, and whatever the Dark Wave did to the world made it match the players getting deleveled by a unified scale." She shrugs and laughs. "We'll just have to come back to explore the new section some time and see what it holds."