Along A Copper Path

It's just past lunchtime in the simple hills of Alne, and abutting a large gorge is a water-hewn path of an old riverbed that now runs deeper into the rocks. Going down into the defile reveals some old, burnt-out torches and a wooden-bar reinforced cave mouth with tracks that run from the quarry-yard down into the mouth of the cave. Deeper within flickers firelight and soft sounds - susurations of stone and whispers of some far-off creatures.

In that quarry just at the defile, the party have gathered after only an hour of light travel with lunch eaten on the way. Whiskey Sour, a druid in mismatched 'levelling chic' robes and cowl, sits on a stone seat before an old, dirty 'desk' writing on a set of stone plates with a piece of glowing magic rock used for etching.

The magic is that it's just an attack spell.

The first plate is quite complicated, and prepared. She waves the group over, and lifts two plates up for everyone to read.

<Alchemy problem. Throat sick. Clear a path through the mine for the cart.>

Once everyone has read the two plates but before any questions are asked, Whis produces a third plate that had been sitting on her lap, which just says:

<Don't Worry About It.>

Goldenblade is still amazed that this is all a game inside a computer. She ate a sandwich for lunch and this looks just like a place. Except that she didn't have trouble walking here, and she's not 75 years old. -That- part is pretty amazing. It's one of the reasons she's so enthusiastic about everything.

"Clear a path through?" she reads. "And don't worry? About your voice?" she guesses. "That's simple enough, I guess." And so saying, she'll advance on the entrance warily, waiting for something to jump out. Because things do jump out, she's found.

    Merek looks like he was coming to assist with the people going forward to accomplish this task. He's a friend to all alliances, and as such met up with them to come along, his longcoat about him which would beltcape about the waist. He pulls that from him when coming upon people, the weaponbelt adjusted while he shifts Shadow Eclipse onto his back. "Well, evening all."

Proteus sweeps in as Proteus is wont to do, the Imp seeming to have problems figuring out if she wants to hang out between 'serious archeologist' and 'chuuni gremlin'. The general Mysterious And Ominous Hooded Figure demeanor doesn't help matters, but that's just her Style.

Nevertheless, she approaches Whis at the appointed time, and there is a toothy frown as Whis supplies both instructions and automatic reassurances via tablet. "All right." She says simply, and shrugs. "We'll get some tea with honey or something later. That should help, right? First, however..."

The instructions are to clear a path so people can push the little cart. The Archeologist doesn't stand there, instead heading into the mine and quierly beginning to sweep back and forth, her hands weaving in the air to form gleaming shapes: ( * #

The Arcane Eye forms out of the released magic, the deep purple orb sweeping about to check the area for both enemies and hazards for said cart.

     There's something about the mine that just screams 'interesting'.

     Shin hops off one of the rocks, landing vaguely near everybody else, his scarf flowing around him. He holds up a hand at Whis and Proteus. He also gives one of those straight-arm right-angle Anime Greeting Waves to Merek.

     "Hey."

     "Nice to meet you. I'm Shin Heno."

     "I'm a Hero of Justice."

     The hand goes back into his pocket. He's grinning, as per usual; it's rare that Shin isn't grinning. He's got a perpetual sort of good cheer to him, a just...one of those 'lost anime protagonist' auras. The 'totally unarmed' and 'long-ass scarf' only aid in that impression.

     Whis 'says' not to worry about it. He gives her a thumbs-up. As Proteus casts her Arcane Eye, Shin leans against the cart. Once Proteus has the lay of the land, he'll just fearlessly head inside, because Shin is just that sort of person.

Gwen got the call from Whiskey Sour the day about the mines and had expressed her interest to help with clearing out the mine. She'd also thought to bring something with her.

She's carrying boxed meals simple ones of dumplings and some french fries? Yes french fries, but hey she brought food with taste. She'll look for a moment at Whiskey Sour.

"I may have brought too much but I brought food for everyone if they want it."

It doesn't take too long as she'll fall in and read the plates.

"Thorat sick? Someone got salt? Oh I'm Gwen Prendragon by the way."

She grins at Shin and seems to like his intro from her reaction.

"If you're not feeling well, you should have just called it off. You got a death wish or something."

Having been specifically contracted by Whiskey to help with his STRONG HANDS earlier, Haseo's actually on time for once, and equipped in his usual manner.

Though rather than having either a great sword or scythe strapped to his back, he has both this time. Because screw having to go through his inventory each time to equip a new weapon, he's a big enough boy to carry the weight of both anyway. Like, big in terms of stats, stature wise he is still your typical Japanese adult height.

"Anyway, if you're sick, just stay behind the group. If it's just some abandoned mine, this shouldn't be too hard anyway."

Whis gives a thumbs up at Goldenblade's questions, and waggles the 'Don't Worry About It' sign to those questioning her throat. Proteus, especially, gets one of those 'no no really, haha please' Japanese smiles and waves of the hand while Don't Worry About It is waved.

To other entrants, she finishes knocking a :) slate to gesture with it and a smile at all the arrivals. But it's fine! Everything's fine.

Don't Worry About It.

Just inside the mine is the distinct smell of something funky and herbal - incense of some variety - and the more acrid scent of a cave where men had spent hundreds of hours sweating and working. It is a lived-in cave. The marks on the stones and smoothness of their bearing reflected use as furniture and amusement rather than any industrial purpose. Rocks with a warm history in a sleepy quarry.

The mission to clear a path for, as Proteus mentally notes, the little cart begets an immediate question: Where's the minecart? it's not at the quarry yard - and thus must be farther in. Goldenblade's advance on the entrance reveals some text etched into the walls in bright yellow - the color of a local plant's juice, popular in the mine otherwise for marking veins and patterns on the ground.

COPPERHEADS RULE and WELCOME TO THE COPPER CARNIVAL are smeared across the walls over the main entrance that the rail line follows, and a few torches deeper in reveal:

There's a large grunty inside the first chamber, sleeping across the track. It's large enough to have come from outside - but just barely. It'd be an extremely tight fit, what with how boxy and bulky the dozing doofus is. An oddly tribal mask is set over the grunty's face like blinders with sworls and designs in a coppery version of that yellow juice. There is a hooting from behind the grunty and something that sounds unironically like terrible beatboxing.

    "You," Merek notes then upon seeing Haseo, and would think on it a moment, "You were the one that... At the Wave. What was that power you used?" he asks. Then a look to Shin, he lifts both of those hands of his to double finger gun to him, "You're pretty good. I'm just Merek, a local Merchant." Then he walks along into the mine proper with a nod along to Whiskey, "Ah, do you need healing?" he asks. Then it's the grunty, he blinks a bit, then he would listen to the beatboxing, then he watches the writing upon the wall with a little sigh while he scratches along the thick stubble of his cheek, scarf adjusted.

Goldenblade proceeds inside up until spotting the grunty. The blinders make it looks like this is a beast of burden rather than an invader, but she doesn't understand the setting in this game nearly well enough to be confident in that guess, so she'll hang back with the others and see what the consensus is. Since it's sleeping, she'll avoid making noise, just in case rousing it turns out to be a bad plan. She looks around at the others, having drawn both her swords. One is blazing, as if it were on fire, and it sheds light like a torch.

     "You might as well not bother," Shin says, waving his hand dismissively, "If Whis says not to worry about it, she's not gonna let you do anything."

     He shoots her a Look, then puts his hands back in his pockets.

     The walls of the mine sure are odd. The painting, the smearing, doesn't feel like something the game developers would do. It looks too...natural. Shin stops to tap on some of it thoughtfully. He's been doing a *lot* of artwork lately, after all.

     He purses his lips. It looks too natural, but more than that, it's just one more layer of detail that doesn't make sense in the context of a game.

     They're *etched*.

     There isn't a game in the world that could do that level of tactile detail on something so meaninglessly small. The development time necessary would be insane, right? His fingers brush against the text again. No company in the world would approve that. They'd just lose money forever. There's *cars* that get rushed out the door with less detail than this.

     The grunty up ahead is less surprising. Shin's getting the hang of how some of this stuff works, after all; it's a game so it's got recolors. Saves on dev time. Even more suspicious, though.

     The internal monologue is, of course, entirely internal. He debates rousing the thing. It might be faster, and, moreover, it might be safer.

Gwen looks to Haseo for a moment, she thinks about what to say for a moment but he's got a good point. She's however is fine,

"Strange with those signs."

The party gets past and she looks at the :) for a moment she'll pause and wonder just what they are getting into here. Still so far so good, right? The cave looks lived in that's pretty much clear. She'll take a moment to check out Goldenblade's find for a moment as she reads the lines.

Bad beatboxing? She'll look to Goldenblade for a moment then over to Merek and Shin. With the torch-lit, she'll move forward cautiously and then tries to see what's behind the slumbering creature, seeking the source of the 'music'

As the large sleeping Grunty who is barely too large to comfortably fit through the door is rounded, the source of the noise is revealed.

It's two dudes with copper-yellow facepaint dancing around a warmth/cooking fire. Their clothes are of ragged and low-class make but they are otherwise two overalls-and-work-pants stained with sweat and soil.

One appears to be 'beatboxing' - a generous term for making mouth sounds and exclamations - while the other is freestyle composing.

"Oh, yeah, we're the copper-heads!"
"Oh, unh, we've seized our copper... ... breads?" He continues. The beatboxer throws in an extra 'unh-yeah' supportively.
"So respect our copper face!"
The beatboxer finishes up. "Because this grunty was sure hard to place!"

The two laugh and clap hands against each other's in supportive doofery. The beatboxer looks over the rapper's shoulder and squints into the dim light around the party. "Issat white rustling in the dark? White don't belong in the dark."

Haseo's edgyboy white hair may have marked you! And apparently these idiots have greased the local equivalant of a large horsepig into the mine so they don't have to work.

"My power? Pffft, you think I'm gonna tell a non guildie about it?" There's a coarse, almost sneering tone in Haseo's voice as he casually adjusts the piece of fabric wrapped around his arm. "Good joke, dude."

Entering the cave, one would expect to be greeted with a bunch of railroads and empty crates left to rot. Instead, there're the smells and signs that someone, or something rather, has been living here quite comfortably. It's probably not rats either.

And then there's a Grunty. Those awful, annoying, larping sacks of crap that are infinitely more annoying than useful. He's super close to going up and kicking it out of pure disdain, but luckily he's stopped when the COPPER-HEADS notice him.

"White don't belong here? Excuse me? Ya looking for a fight, ya weirdos?" Screw being nice. They wanna throw verbal hands? Well, Haseo's gonna verbally throw back, because he's a BIG BOY.

     Shin laughs.

     "I like it! It's not bad!" He says, walking past Haseo with his arms open. He's wearing a white scarf, so this is probably the equivalent of walking into a gang war.

     "Maybe 'best beware our copper dread,'" He says thoughtfully, finger tapping against his chin. "Maybe ''is that white we're seein' in the dark/white don't belong where the Copperheads mark'? A little bit more menacing, right? And it says how important your turf is."

     Shin taps his finger on his chin again. "So hey."

     "You wanna have a music battle?"

     "If I win, you guys do what I say. If you win, I'll punch this guy in the face *super* hard until he cries."

     He points at Haseo.

Goldenblade is absolutely not sure what to make of this. She will inspect these people, she's got no idea if they're Landers or players. Would Landers rap badly? Well, she wouldn't expect it. Not that she knows much about rap. Her grandkids listen to it, and it all sounds more or less like that, as far as she's concerned, though maybe a bit more professional. Alas, her kids were a bit too old for the classic rap era, so she only has the newer stuff to compare with.

    Merek looks then to Haseo for a moment, "You know, with an attitude like that, it's no wonder," he notes, then he sighs while he offers an adjustment of his scarf, then looks to the two rappers, while he watches the party. He does Inspect everyone, including Haseo, then it's back to the two, "Greetings." The man shifts a hand to the hilt of Shadow Eclipse, while he places another into a pocket while he nods a bit.

Proteus simply stands there at the display backed by the huge greased (and decorated) pig. This place has been claimed by some would-be squatters with terrible sense in music and decor. She looks back over her shoulder at the others arriving behind and sighs for a moment as the Copperheads do their... thing.

She looks back at them, and then at the Grunty, and then at them. "Okay, so I have to ask: Why the Grunty?" Shin has the rest well under control.

Gwen looks at the Grunty for a moment and then sees the dudes with facepaint who are about a fire she looks them over for a moment and doesn't' deem them a threat they don't seem to be too hostile for a moment. She brings at the pair for a moment. She thinks about what they are saying as she looks at the pig then at the pair.

"So this is where the copper faces live huh? You look like you kept it clear of threats too. How long have you guys been living here? So if you'd move that grunty I'd have some really good food for you in trade."

The two goons are dumbfounded as Haseo uses his Chuuni Interrupt to just bust out of the shadows, drop a hot line, and then throw his own brand of intimidation on the Copperheads.

The two guys shrink back, confused, before bristling back at Haseo, doing that shoulder-and-neck popping/pumping thing that dudebros do to puff out their necks. This is mitigated as more people slip into frame and they're critiqued by Shin Heno.

"Ey, that's good."
"Don't compliment the Adventurer dummy."
"They're *Adventurers*?"

Both stammer odd greetings to Merek, Proteus, and Gwen as they enter frame from outside the halo of light provided by the fire, that 'ha ha hello please don't murder us' cycle of slight wheedling. "Y-yeah let's have a music competition, a really loud one, maybe the Boss will hear--"

"Shut up, idiot!"
"What?"
"I SAID SHUT UP IDIOT!"

The shouting draws a voice booming down in a baritone drawl. An utterance from deep in the core of the belly: "NAWH I BETTA NOT NEED T' RE-GREASE THAT LUMP!"

From where Goldenblade can see, a towering cartoon character silhouette that fits the profile of Bulky Broad-Shouldered Lumberjack stoops in from the next room, looming in the path only very dimly lit by cast firelight.

The two goons stand bolt-straight eyes-wide under their masks.

The giant, a large Human wearing a buttoned loose-hanging shirt and belted trousers with boots, looks dismissively at the party. "You're early. The guild doesn't send help this quickly."

An Inspect on the two idiots reveals them as:
* Copper-Head C and * Copper-Head G.

The large man is * The Grinder. He is revealed as a Human Warlord.

     "Oh, are you the boss?"

     Shin smiles. "So what is it you need help with?"

Goldenblade puzzles over the Inspect data. She knows to do it, that's an accomplishment in and of itself. But now she has to make something useful, knowledge-wise, out of the data. "Warlord is a ... uh..." she consults her compiled notes on a crumpled piece of cloth in her pocket. And it does her basically no good for dealing with the situation. "Is this some kind of mini-boss?" she wonders. She looks The Grinder up and down, but he doesn't look like the sort who will just let them do some mining and leave, does he? Unbidden, she wonders, "If he injures someone, and it doesn't heal, is it Grinder Reminder?" Or is that the tombstone if they kill him?

    Merek would look to relax knowing that no one intends to fight, then he nods a bit to the two. "Merek," he offers as a greeting. Then a nod to the Warlord also. The man seems to content with looking for a nice place to lean on the wall while he watches, listening.

Gwen looks for a moment at the pair as they speak up and then she looks for a moment.

"Music contest?"

She's not a bard well but it's better than a fight. She muses for a moment at this and then looks in the direction of the voice.

"A song showdown could be fun."

She notes and then she looks at Goldeenblade or maybe they don't need to she will inspect both of the copperheads for a moment and looks at The Grinder and tilts her head.

"Goldenblade is that..."

She just makers a terrible face.

"I am Gwen sir, so what do you need help with?"

"Don't entertain weirdos, stupid."

Haseo is about to deal with the two rapping idiots by showing just how strong his hands are, when their big boss man finally shows up.

"Hey. You! Keep your idiot sidekicks in check!" THE GRINDER gets moderately more respect from Haseo than the Copper-Heads, as he has yet to insult his intelligence. Though that's probably going to change very soon.

The pair argue, and Proteus is already breaking her poise in order to rub her temples in irritation at the raw Bulk and Skull energy flowing through this cavern. Proteus has expressed a desire to immolate them already, but she has restrained herself to allow Shin to engage in his own fashion. There's less chance of collateral damage.

The pair's back and forth brings up an issue, however. "The Boss?" She asks the pair... But the question is answered almost immediately. The towering, muscular man with an axe arrives, and Proteus instinctively inspects. Lander. Warlord. The Imp frowns. That's... an interesting class combination.

"You're right. But since we're in the are, we may as well find out what exactly you need help with regardless." She glances over at the pair of nogoodniks and then back at The Grinder. "Are those yours?" She asks. "Or are they part of what needs to be dealt with?" The latter is said with a distinct hopefulness.

The Grinder, tall and broad, drags a large greataxe with a heavy head up behind him, his brow dropping and his cold eyes reflecting the firelight. "I bought and paid for this mine for two weeks. Paid these idiots to stop it up so I could get my work done. I..."

His palms work against the butt of his greataxe as he leans on it, words slow and deliberate. He sucks against his teeth, before spitting to the side of the passage-mouth where he's standing. He is unhurried in the whole affair, as Copper Head C and G whimper and try badly to slide out of frame. The grunty chuffs.

"The guild takes..." He raises heavy fingers, counting from his pinky across his hand. "Three... Four weeks to check a place like this?" He eyes the party and their platitudes. They ask what he wants. His shoulders rock up before down, in time with a heavy breath that heralds a heavy exhalatory sigh. "Made myself a nice hat after the last event. Wanted a nice copper watch - real proper, like you can find near the tower, but it's not good enough unless I build it with my own hands."

He drops his hands, turning at the door. "Now I just want to get some supper."

Hope for a peaceful resolution raises to a fever pitch. C and G are here for it, before a halo of wicked smiles and bristling weapons from around The Grinder fill the screen, Inspect-sight revealing another dozen or so Copper Head goons chuckling and being creepy bandits held back by Cutscene Time.

The Grinder turns to go 'deeper' into the mine, turning his head to the lunatics in his halo like a proper Big Man.

"For the frustration, though... Maybe wakin' up at that fancy church will be even. Yeah."

"Kill 'em."

The utterance is what unleashes the alphabet tide of copper-yellow masked lunatics into the room, each weilding a collection of knives, mining equipment, and miscellaneous melee weapons in ill repair.

C and G just scream and start running off.

    Merek looks between the Coppers that come from the woodworks amidst the monologue of the Warlord. "Well, that went as not so diplomatic as one would wish," he notes, then he swings the Shadow Eclipse from his back. "Alright then, I don't want to fight, but you know he does," a nod offered to Haseo, "Do you really want to fight us of all the people?" He then twirls the blade while darkness trails from it, then swings along into one of the NPC Landers.

Gwen knows what she has to do, she'll watch for a moment as it looks like they might be able to talk this out, which is fine with her. However, that rapidly fades C and G have the brains to /start/ running the hell away. She'll not worry about them, as there's a screaming horde of copper-heads coming in. She'll move to try and get in front of the power. It doesn't take long as she will trigger a tanking ability.

"ANCHOR HOWEL!"

Bright green energy flared up about her and any of the Copper Heads who go after Proteus, Goldenblade or Merek would find Gwen taking a shot at them as she tries to keep them on her.

"So if you want to play come at it Don't worry I got enough to handle all of you!"

Goldenblade is slow on the pickup, she wasn't sure if this is supposed to be a fight or not. She was expecting it, but the two fellows have run off. But then these other people are attacking, so it looks like this part of the expected fight is happening more or less as expected. Blades out, check. "Well, if this is how it's going to be ...," she says, twirling like a ballerina. With two swords, spinning around quickly, slashing at the lunatics, grinning to Gwen as she does her tanking thing. She's not clear on how the tanking process works, but she's more than willing to take advantage, coming in to Gwen's left side and cutting the villians as fast as she can. It's pretty fast. It's so fast, the tips of her swords are leaving little burning trails. That's new....

"Hey, don't just leave! Get back here, you damn coward!"

The Copper-heads and ther boss flee the scene, being replaced with waves of generic copper masked hoodlums aiming to kill them. At last, they're finally speaking his language.

Haseo unholsters the scythe from his back, sliding his foot across the ground as he widens his stance.

Twirling the weapon around a bit, he eventually slams the top end of his scythe into the dirt, a dark pulse spreading across the room as he does so.

An assortment of skeletal arms erupt from the ground moments after, latching unto a small group of thugs to not immobilize them, but to help pull themselves out of their earthy tomb.

     Unfortunately, the newly raised undead don't give to live their new unlife for long, as Haseo takes advantage of this by running up to reap both thugs and skeletons alike, the cutting blade of his scythe wreathed in darkness as he swings the weapon widely.

     'Kill 'em.'

     Shin just sighs.

     Oh well. That's what he gets for trying to be helpful. For trying to be nice.

     His smile gets thin as the order is given. Tight. Unhappy.

     "OK," he says, "I'll kill 'em."

     He knows the order's not for him. But intimidation...it has some real power.

     Shin slaps a weird stone belt buckle on his waist. It locks around and flashes red as his hand goes up to the side. As his other hand goes against his side.

     The arm rotates around in the air.

     "Transform."

                        0 01 0
                      1 /----\ 0
                     0 /      \ 0
   ARMOR BEETLE    ====|  /\  |====  CODE: ALGOL
DEFENSE OF DESTINY ====|  \/  |====    COMPILE
                     0 \      / 1
                      1 \----/ 1
                        0 10 0

     Ten stars spread across Shin's body. A red light absorbs him utterly.

     When he emerges he is no longer Shin Heno.

     He is a giant, black beetle-man. His scarf is a blood red. His eyes are a blood red. His armor is a gleaming black.

     His finger goes up. "Masked Ranger, Algol."

     "The Demon Star will light your way to hell."

     And then he's straight in the melee.

Proteus had some hopes this would be resolved without stabbing. She's still a little low level to just brute squad her way through irritating things. Unfortunately, the man walks off and tells the local thugs to kill them all. With a grimace and taillash of irritation, Proteus shakes her head. "Fine. Have it your way."

Thankfully, she's not alone. Her allies and comrades are present. While Shin transforms and crashes into the melee with no survivors, Proteus backdashes when the first thug leaps at her, then yells as she drives forward into a quick palm-thrust. As she does so, her hand ignites into a burning stream of blazing white energy, her other hand quickly inputting several gesture commands to activate the Ability as she hammers home. ) - O

The Holy strike blasts outwards in a flash of light, sending the first thug rocketing backwards into the pile behind him. The question simply becomes how many are taken down in the process so she can engage in relentless followups.

The wave of freaky tribesman 'landers' - akin and adjacent to event monsters spawned out of a closet - aggresses on the party as The Grinder saunters off. They're all like to swarm over the back-line, past Gwen's shield and into the center of the party when Gwen roars out her Anchor Howl.

This is, as far as drawing aggression, the correct decision. All of the attention is pointed at them.

Including the leaving form of Grinder.
And the sleeping Grunty.

With blades of dark and light and the light of an evil star all brought to bear upon the goons, none can withstand focused aggression, being beaten senseless or left broken and battered smashed into walls or left in sprawls over cracked ground.

Unfortunate for them, basically everyone in the party is a fan of Melee Combat, and the undifferentiated horde has nothing to put the pressure on but the sheer mass of them suddenly falling on an inexperienced tank. With the Anchor How, it's easy to manage--

Until the huge man starts stomping his foot and getting pumped up, back and shoulder muscles tensed as his treetrunk neck seethes with Broad Man Power. With an "OH YEW'VE DONNE IT NAOH!" bellow, the enormous man swings his greataxe over his shoulder and swings it up towards cieling where the head fires out a long chain-winch. Grapnel attached to the cieling, Grinder heaves down, collapsing an extremely convenient set of loose stones and jagged chunks of rocks onto the party.

He's right about to close into melee with the party - especially Merek and Goldenblade, as Gwen's taunt runs low, when he's run over by the large, confused, charging grunty that cannot push towards the 'out' door --

And thus is proceeding deeper in. Grinder is trapped, carrying on through the minecart path while shouting angrily and bouncing against the wooden slats of the track for a short ways before his hookshot-axe disengages and he finishes his tumble into the next room.

Instead of re-engaging he begins grabbing a large cargo box with obvious pry-marks from a just-used table.

    Merek looks to the Warlord when he would move to collect things from the next area, then to the charging of the grunty. He looks to that weapon which he wields, frowning a bit that he needed to fight Landers. There's a sigh while he shifts all of his attention to the Warlord for a moment, and decides upon capturing him, while he chants.
    "Thorn Bind Hostage!" Though it is a curse meant to allow for follow-ups, the man uses that to actually bind people on occasion, looking to Gwen, then to Goldenblade, "I think we should try to catch the grunty as well!"

Goldenblade is watching the way the fight is going, cutting down all the trash mobs, without a care in the world. Because she has Scrap-lock, and her peripheral vision has shut down as she concentrates on one target after the other, unaware of boss monster and Bessy the grunty near to melee. Luckily, he darts off before taking a shot at her. He'd have nailed her.

As it is, she's hard pressed to dodge the suddenly falling bits of ceiling. Merek's comment about the grunty is met with a puzzled 'Huh?' "Why, you want to start a farm?" That actually might be a good idea, she muses before shaking her head and getting back to the moment. She looks to Gwen, she's not going to charge a miniboss without a tank on hand, she's fast, but she's not fast enough to avoid getting her head slammed.

"If you want a pet, get one on your own time. All I see right now is more EXP."

It's not that he doesn't have the skill to capture or handle a Grunty. It's on his list of trained professions, after all. But even if they do capture it, then what? Who gets to keep it. So nah, might as well beat up as far as he's concerned.

After struggling a bit to NOT get crushed by falling rocks, Haseo plants the haft of his scythe into the dirt, using it as a pole vault of sorts to launch himself into the air to deliver an extremely sloppy kick to the beast of burden's flank. It's so sloppy in fact, he's just basically tackling it with his feet.

It's good to get out and do something she's spent weeks working on a project and this time she didn't have time to worry bout that as they managed to deal with the various attacking Lander if they somehow run she'll let any survivors run she seems focused on her party getting through this. That always is her main focus Grinder seems to be trapped now and others are charging away. She will look at the escaping Grinder, and will attempt to aid her allies in chasing him down this time she does manage to not get buried or otherwise taking down as the rocks come down.

"Damn it we need to get him."

     The boss is going running. A lot of other people have the Grunty - and arguments about catching it - but the boss is bailing with something that might actually be important. You can't have that, can you?

     No, of course you can't.

     'Algol' takes off at a run. His legs are powerful, strong, armored beetle legs. He goes racing after the boss like a lightning bolt, his arms pumping, his eyes a glow as ominous and bloody as the scarf trailing behind him. He's a sight to behold as he chases after the boss, ducking around the Thorn Bind Hostage as it comes from behind him, going under rocks. One of them carves across his chest, red lights sparking out. One of them narrowly misses his face. 'Algol' does not stop. 'Algol' does not ever stop.

     His hands snap against the belt.

     It calls out CODE: BREAKER! in a voice that echoes through the mine.

     A jump.

     A snap forward.

     Red light running down the leg.

     A kick.

     'Algol' skids to a stop on the other side in the classic Iron Man pose - one hand out, legs spread, eyes looking up at the other wall.

It's a chaotic mess, and Gwen is in the center of it, nearly buried under rocks and making it out under their shield. With the mob broken and routed, and the boss off in the next room, Gwen has a moment to regroup. Beyond the shock, she's probably fine!

A green bolt runs past her.

Merek casts out his green vines of binding while Goldenblade pulls Gwen out of the rubble for the pair to remain totally unharmed.

Haseo leads with his legs, against the grunty, while Merek's inwardly-planted bindings of thorny brambles are connected with the shotgunning heel of Algol's finisher attack, Grinder is heaved back through the air into a heap against the wall.

Then the grunty smashes into him.

Then the thorn bind, true to Tokusatsu nature, explodes violently with exploited magical power, leaving the man's body smoking and nonresponsive.

The Grunty is fine, because Grunty are essentially the physical embodiment of an object too stupid to be harmed.

The workshop area is a mess, with a large set of notes in charcoal written into the wall, apparently left by the Grinder, detailing the rest of the 'impossible puzzles' on the way in he had to figure out.

Stuff like pressure plates that need two different people to stand in locations, or simple box dragging puzzles.

Also in the workshop area - the seized copper, crated and ready to be shipped. Since the quest said you could keep what you could carry, spoils wise, perhaps they meant this?

With the puzzles solved by the strange gang of hired occupants, there shouldn't be much more trouble for the miners to resume mining.

Unless that grunty gets back on the tracks. Grease may be required in quantity.

    Merek looks to the man with that explosion begins to come from him, then he falls to the ground. "Wait, what? No!" The man didn't mean to assail anyone that was not in combat, he walks up to the Warlord to begin trying to heal him, "Ol Repth!" He then watches, looking to the place while it begins to fall in on itself a little bit, then backs up, walking to the party so that they can make a way from the cave, his Shadow Eclipse placed to his side, "I didn't mean to," he notes.

Goldenblade and the others get out from the fallen ceiling and investigate the workshop area. The Grinder is over there in a pile, unmoving. That seems like dead to her, and so she'll see what she can do about liberating the copper. That's the promised reward, right? As long as there's plenty for everyone, she'll pack enough so that she's slowed, but not too much. "This had better be worth something," she says. "Dunno why it would, copper or bronze is crappy for weapons if you've got iron or steel." But she'll grab what she can. She peers at Merek, says, "He's dead, Jim," and gets back to looting.

Gwen make sure one of the party is okay before she'll worry about loot it seems the damage dealers were on the ball with their job today. She's pleased with this nad will start trying to take what copper she can but not strip it all. This could have some uses later at the very least for a copper cookware set for herself later. "Yeah looks like he's done, we should get going with the loot. I'll do another sweep for leftovers before we go."