Duty Session 129: Totally Typical Tomb

    It's falling on evening by the time the group arrives at the graveyard. The Hunter's Guild had opened up a new quest for keeping the place clear of the undead, and with the setting of the sun an ominous fog rolls in, bringing with it a lingering, cloying, cold chill that seeps into the very bones of the approaching adventurers.
    It looks like there's no one here, but that's not the case until someone approaches the graveyard gates. In a subtle flash of purple light a diminutive figure appears, crouched atop the stone wall supporting the gates, waiting. Akatsuki says nothing about how long she's been waiting for others to arrive and take the quest, she simply dips her head in a slight nod.
    "I'm ready."

    Baroness Wake has given up her usual schtick for creeping in the dark. Well, at least for the moment! She's travelling with Yuuki, and even relaying a story about a recent mis-adventure she's had. "So that is how I found out where Landers say their babies come from. And offended three minor noble houses along the way." She laughs softly at herself, "I mean, how was I to know the question would lead to such a fit of blushing!"
    She looks ahead and smiles as she notes that they aren't the first to arrive. "Hello!" she calls out. "I think we're ready, too!" She looks to Yuuki, "Aren't we?"

More mysterious involving graveyards and undead? Yep, that's Kauchemar's sort of jam. Thankfully these are not wandering out of their 'area' yet, and that's probably why the Hunter's Guild wants it dealt with now instead of later. Fine with her.

Though for now the Nightmare Bard is just leaning against the wall, likely the same wall the smolnin has perched upon, cloak hood up over her head to suit the shadowy mood as she flicks the strings of her instrument in a somber tone. "Guess it's Swing Ye Sinners Swing night."

Gwen mind was freed from her fey mood, for now, she had delivered some of her projects. She also looks over to the Baroness for a moment. She towers over Akatsuki and she looks down at her for a moment. "Same, Ninja more or less right? Just use me as a meat shield and you carve them up." She looks to Wake for a moment.

"I'll have to hear this in detail later. " She smirks as she draws her blade and gets ready to take point.

"You ready Kauchemar?"

    Yuuki is laughing so hard at her guildmate that she actually has to stop as she leans forward, "Hahahaha! Oh man, I can just imagine their faces!" It takes Yuuki several moments to recover from her laughing fit, before she runs to catch up to Wake once more.

    The energetic Imp bounces alongside her friend, eagerly anticipating the coming quest, "Ohhhh, this is going to be so much fun!" Only would be quite so loudly excited about delving into a creepy dungeon filled with the undead.

    Yuuki picks up the pace, practically running circles around her guildmate as they head towards the graveyard, "I bet there's lots of zombies. And skeletons. And ghosts. Maybe a lich or two." Yuuki then spins around, walking backwards as she grins at Wake, "Oh! Oh! Do you remember that lich we fought where I sliced its arm off so hard it went flying and its skeletal hand struck you in the face before it shattered? That was hilarious!"

    Oh look. They're here. Yuuki stops. She looks up at the perching Akatsuki and waves, "Heya!" Then there's also Gwen and Kauchemar, who get smiles, "Let's do this!"

    It looks like a good enough group has come along to handle the undead menace, so it's time to proceed inwards.
    "Assassin." Akatsuki corrects Gwen mildly. But it's good to know who the group tank is when the going gets rough, and dark purple eyes take in the rest of the group as well, nodding in quiet greeting before the Assassin gets right down to business.
    "I took the liberty of scouting ahead." Akatsuki announces. "There's a patrolling group of zombies not far in, but there are a lot of them. Keep on your toes."
    It's as straightforward a warning anyone is going to get as she... Vanishes in a flare of subtle purple.
    Just as she had said though, the group doesn't get very far before they're accosted by a roving horde of the undead, shamblers of all races ambling towards the group, arms outstretched to match their hungry groans. But zombies should be easy to handle if anyone remembers the key tenet to dealing with them: Go for the head.

    "You know, about that lich hand," comments Wake. "I had a question.. were you the one who sent a picture of that hitting me to Tae? Cause she posted it on the forums and made it her wallpaper for two weeks." Her inquiry is cut-off by Akatsuki's comments.
    "Gwen keeps me alive. Though I hope that shadows will make that unnecessary." Wake says, smiling. "Time to get the game face on, though."
    Today, the right clothes is a full body suit, from neck to toe, that clings silently to her form. Not that zombies will care what she wears. But it does make it easier for her to slip into the shadows, drawing them around her like a blanket.
    Faced with zombies, Wake steals a page from another friend's book. And blasts them with fire. For a moment, she is eerily illuminated as she turns a zombie's head into a brilliant torch.

"Oh my bad, just from how you were dressed..." That word causes a bit of a moment for Gwen as she looks at Akatsuki again, now is no the time doe that. Ideas though begin to cook in the back of her mind. She tilts her head. "Very good." She's liking this Assassin already, she seems to know what she's doing as she'll march in ahead and start chanting various fire spells as she does so, but there is a lot of undead. She's not doing enough damage to really burn many of them down, she does get their attention at the least hopefully making it easier for others but alone? She'd get swamped to death.

Being the six-foot-six Were Fang that she is Kauchemar simple steps over some of the lower broken down tombstones. "You know me Gwen. I like to poke my snout into dark and macabre matters... Certainly more interesting that having to rummage through animal wastes looking for a missing trinket for the umpteenth time. And somehow less messy, despite the ichor."

Of course there's undead roaming about, but the Assassin flitting ahead to scout does give them a heads up on the matter. Kauchemar snorts a bit of mist from her nostrils as she has already started weaving her dark magic. "Tch. Points for variety, but they're still just shamblers." With the other hand she gives a mock bored yawning gesture. "Not even worth a bother taking control of."

She snaps her fingers with a little discharge of green and purple magic between the hoof-like finger tips.... and several of the zombies just keel over as their heads burst, having been given essentially arcane aneurysms.

"Now let's go find something -interesting-."

    "Nice work!" Yuuki gives the scouting assassin a thumbs up. Then whistles, impressed at the sudden vanishing.

    But then Wake asks her something. Yuuki turns away, letting out a few laughs while scratching the side of her head, "I don't know what you're talking about."

    "Now then." Subject change. Yuuki draws her dark blade, "I think it's time we let these guys rest in pieces." Peace. She probably meant peace. Yuuki dashes off in a burst of speed, her blade lashing out towards the first zombie's neck to slice right through and separate its head from its body. Okay, maybe she did mean pieces.

    Yuuki bounces through the group of undead, leaping off gravestones and stone coffins to get the height she needs to go for their necks with ease.

    Finally skidding to a halt near other side of the zombie group, Yuuki phews, "A good start but-" And then Kauchemar beats her to the punch, Yuuki grinning in her direction, "That's the spirit! Onwards, to adventure!" Yuuki raises her sword!

    The zombies are, all in all, pretty easy for the group to handle, it's a cinch all told, between Wake, Kauchemar, and Yuuki mauling the main brunt of them while Gwen holds aggro and attention, and Akatsuki occasionally flits out of stealth to deal out an attack or two and add to the DPS before vanishing again. No fuss, lots of zombie muss, though.
    It's not much longer before the party reaches the mausoleum at the very center of the graveyard though, and it looks like someone has already been here before to perform some kind of ritual. But it also looks like whatever the ritual actually was, something went way wrong. The ritual circle is damaged, tools and implements are strewn everywhere. The intent was simple; summon the spirit of a dead hero. The implementation was flawed, considering all the undead about.
    "Not my forte." Akatsuki admits as she appears from nowhere beside Yuuki.

"I could summon zombies like that in my sleep," Kauchemar replies to Yuuki. "I want to see something a little more... exciting. Much as I am sure you'd love a more fitting challenge to your skills."

She walks up to ravaged summoning site when it's discovered and kneels down next to it. Runs her fingers lightly along the lines, and were they are not broken up, her eyes flickering with unnatural energy. "I don't recognize all the markings and runes, and it's heavily damamged, but this looks more like a focused ritual..." She sits back up, one arm resting on her knee. "That there's swarms of undead roaming around is possibly an accident of this being... done badly."

    Baroness Wake sighs at the remnants of a broken ritual. "Well, this is unfortunately not something I can assist with." Her eyes rest on the runes. "Well, well.. there's a chance these might surrender their secrets."
    She examines the runes, eyes unfocused as she ponders what they might mean. Something suddenly catches her attention, but then a stray thought distracts and it slips away. With a sigh of regret, she steps away.
    "As easy as the zombies were to deal with, our humility has arrived. I can make no sense of this, and I fear we will not be undoing this particular error this day." The Baroness punctuates her declaration with an annoyed cluck of her tongue.

    Yuuki nods along in agreement with Kauchemar. But she then jumps at sudden Akatsuki. After recovering from the surprise, she admits, "Same. I know less about magic than I do about proper dinnerware arrangement."

    Yuuki tilts her head a little as she watches Kauchemar work. Seeing her kneel down near the site, Yuuki walks over to a different spot and tries it herself. She kneels done, running a finger over a rune.

    She smudges it, making it even more distorted.

    Yuuki blinks, before calmly standing and walking off, pretending to examine a nearby statue.

The good news is the zombies are handled she will keep moving but when she finds the mausoleum and that when she'll take a moment to look around. She seems to have some idea about the ritual circle as she kneels to take a look at it. "Humm I think I have some idea where this might have gone wrong. Though I'm not exactly an expert on this."

    It looks like whoever left the ritual did a sloppy job. Look at how smudged and messed up it is in that ONE section over there that Yuuki was checking out.
    Regardless, it looks like moving on is the best option, and soon enough the party finds themselves at a door; the bane of all adventuring parties. And worse, it's locked.
    But the key might be around somewhere if someone looks hard enough.
    ... Hey where'd that Assassin go, again?

"It's already damaged. It is probably best we leave it alone and move on." Kauchemar remarks as she puts a hand on the ground to push herself back to standing up. "Well that certainly qualified as more interesting, but not really... useful? Mmmm. Oh well, let's see what's inside here shall we?"

Or they would if not for this thing called doors. "Sigh." Eye roll. "Of course. And it's locked. Let's see." She brings out her Tabby Slime and it's it off to find a key.

It comes back with not a key but a shiny coin like the ones people sometimes leave as offerings on graves in its mouth instead. Kauchemar sighs, and pats the slime on the head behind the cat ears. "Well at least you tried."

    A locked door!? Yuuki is excellent at locked doors! She's always eager to get past them to find out what they hold on the other side. Yuuki grins at the others, "Don't worry, I've got this." She saunters over towards the door, reaching behind her back. Her hand returns empty. Yuuki pauses. She blinks in surprise. Then swipes her finger to bring up her menu. A few more swipes later...

    "Damnit! I forgot to restock my lockpicks." Yuuki looks dejected.

    But she then decides she might as well do this the more boring and less impressive way of finding the key. She sighs quietly, picking up one rock after another, turning them over to look at them.

    Wake has never seen a locked door she didn't love. Still, as much as she wants to pick that lock, there's something odd telling her what she really ought to do is find the key for it. Instead, she starts searching. It's amazing how many people hide a spare key in a place they feel is unlikely. And in that desire for being unlikely, they are actually more easily found.
    Still, she's not the only one looking. With a group of sharp-eyed experts, this key should turn up. If it exists here.

Well, look at this there's a door.

"It's locked."

Gwen notes as she starts to look about to see if there's a key nearby maybe she can find it. Gwen will busy herself for a moment as she starts to seek out if a key. Perhaps there's a hidden switch she can trigger. Gwen does seem to find something when all is said and done..

    The door is locked and this presents a problem... But not to our intrepid band of adventurers as they go searching for the key in.
    ... Or keys, it would seem.
    Because under a rock Yuuki finds what looks like part of an ornate key.
    Gwen finds another piece.
    Then Wake returns with a third.
    Fitting them together though seems like there's just one piece short and this could make for another problem, until Akatsuki re-appears a beat later. Hanging upside down from the archway of the door, ponytail fluttering towards the ground as she stoicly holds out the fourth piece.
    Affixing them all together, the combined key fits right into the lock, turns, and gives a rusty click, leading into... A room seemingly FULL of treasures.
    "Hm..."

    This is suspicious. Wake is a pretty suspicious person. With her keen eye on treasure, she tries to figure out just what they are dealing with here. That's when she realizes something! There's something wrong with all this treasure!
    Baroness Wake plucks a rock out of the pile of gems and holds it up. "Look at this! This must mean something."
    One may suppose that she is right. It is suspicious. Mostly because it's just a bit of broken stone she found that has nothing at all to do with the treasure. In fact, it has nothing to do with anything. She waits for Yuuki to react. Cause Yuuki /always/ reacts. And then Wake loses her straight face and bursts into a fit of most unbecoming giggles. It can't be helped with Yuuki around.
    "Yeah, I have no idea what I'm doing," Wake admits.

Hey look, a room full of treasure!

Which, surprisingly, Kauchemar looks a bit grumpy about. "No wonder there was coins lying around for you to find," she remarks to the Tabby Slime that has decided to plop on her shoulder instead. She scoops up a handful... and then just tosses them off to the side in annoyance. "Bah! I came out here looking for something -interesting-, like a lich or a wraith or at least the skeleton of something unusual, not this... Common Adventurer Pocket trash!"

She doesn't bother inspecting farther than that, just stomps off towards what looks like the exit.

    They collect the pieces of the keys. The final taken from upside down assassin. The door creaks open...

    Yuuki's eyes go wide.

    For just a moment.

    "It's a trap."

    Yuuki nods sagely. Gamer logic.

Gwen helps get the door open however something strange happens once they get past and into the next room loaded with loot.

"Oh this can't all be legit."

Gwen muses an old infamous D&D module her father told her about comes to mind, and it was also set in a tomb. She's very wary of this whole set up, she goes from item to item.

"Grey, grey, god in heaven this isn't even worth the inventory space to take it away. Grey, more grey, white..." Gwen clearly is rattling off loot quality.

"It's all junk a diversion to slow us down we should move on."

    It's either all junk or a trap or a junky trap. All it takes is for Yuuki to announce that it's a trap and Akatsuki doesn't even give any of the treasure as much as a second glance, while the others inspect things more closely and find it all to be mostly grey-tier trash, there's nothing of worth here worth bringing home.
    So moving on; the party soon finds themselves in a lavish chamber, dominated by a large and elaborate mourning shrine.
    As soon as the team approaches a spectral figure appears; a Salamander in samurai armor, who draws his two blades solemnly.
    "Greetings, young heroes." He declares. "You have this opportunity to prove to me that you are worthy of the legacy of a hero..." Said as he prepares for what will undoubtedly be a difficult battle.

As the group moves into the tomb Kauchemar's sourness fades a little. "This is a bit more like it. An ancient decorated and preserved tomb," she looks up at the walls, and pauses to squint at the picture, "dedicated to a great legend. Hmmm." She turns to look back towards the exit. "I wonder if that ritual was meant to try and contact the spirit of this ancient hero and... backfired. Or someone else interrupted it. There are people that would take insult with that sort of thing being a disrespect to Heroes having earned their eternal rest--"

She turns back to the tomb just as the apparition is taking semi-form. "That!" She thrusts both hands out towards the Heroic Spirit. "THAT is the kind of thing you come down into an ancient forgotten tomb looking for! Finally! Let's do this!"

Normally Kauchemar isn't one to jump to the front of a fight, but now she's got some frustration to get out of her system. "I'm no hero... but this is what rivals do!" She forms a layer of magical ice around herself like spikey armor and uses it in combination with her dancing moves to match the rhythem of the Heroic Spirit's swings to block several of them.

    Wake vanishes into the shadows. Or is swallowed by them. It's really hard to tell sometimes. She has to be mindful that Akatsuki shares the shadow space with her. It adds an spice of extra excitement as she works to coordinate a sneak attack not only for best effect with the mainliners, but with a fellow assassin, especially one who clearly has a considerable level of skill. It intrigues Wake. She wants to know just show she's back-stabbing with.
    As pleasant as the thought of making a new friend in her trade might be, the Baroness must remain focused on the target, and when she emerges from the cloaking shadows she lashes out with her blades, striking home with both.

    Yuuki nods knowingly as they leave the treasure alone, "You never know what might happen in traps like that. Poison gas clouds. Dart blowers. Surprise monster spawns. Always best to leave them be. Especially as they usually don't contain anything good anyway."

    Moving on, Yuuki looks around as they found themselves in a rather ornate tomb. It definitely looks impressive. Although unfortunately not particularly lichlike. This seems more like the home of-

    Yuuki turns to face the heroic spirit. She listens intently, before quickly grinning at the challenge.

    Yuuki draws her sword, "Alright, old man. You're on!"

    Yuuki charges in with Kauchemar. She's expecting Gwen to draw the aggro. But still, Yuuki suspects it's still going to be a challenge to break through the samurai ghost's defense. Yuuki launches into a quick series of strikes, designed to keep the samurai busy and focused on the obvious threats while the non-obvious ones move into position.

While Gwen actually did know how to handle a sword? This was something else she would look at them for a moment. "Hero? I'm not one but very well."

She told Glass much the same when she was called a hero. For some reason, it rankles her a bit she however looks them over very well. She will focus on magic that might be the best as she'll mix it up with various spells and it just does not go well for her, it ends up very badly for her the hero of old basically trounces Gwen as she ends up on her ass and she looks up when it's all over.

"Told you I wasn't one."

    It's a TOUGH battle.
    Kauchemar and Yuuki dart in, agile, graceful, deadly, while Gwen once again draws aggro. Even as the party tank is bowled over, the group works the ancient hero's HP down.
    And then... The Assassins strike.
    Wake lunges from the shadows, twin blades flashing. And in the same breath and beat, Akatsuki is there, kodachi held reverse style as she appears in a subtle flash of purple.

    "ASSASSINATE!" She declares, blade gleaming.

    As the ancient hero's Enrage activates.

    When all is said and done, everyone's HP takes a /nasty/ hit, but at least everyone survived, and that seems to be enough to end the fight.
    "Congratulations, young heroes. Take my favor and go forth to raise your own legend in the world." The ancient hero declares as he begins to fade away.

It is a good thing that Kauchemar used that armor spell, because when the Hero goes into Rage Mode it slams right through the ice and thankfully not her. Still knocks her for a loop though. "... And that is why I usually let the summons do that," she muses, before jumping back into the fray.

***

Eventually they emerge, beaten to scant flickers of HP bars left, but victorious. Kauchemar gives her head a shake to flip her glamrock mane and dislodge some of the lingering water and ice from it. "That was more like it." She gives Gwen a slap on the back of a shoulder. "Guess we showed him we're worthy, hero or not."

The other fair better than she did which is good and it seems that the Hero is still standing all of them are there. She pauses for a moment at the Hero as he fades away.

"What is your name..."

It's likely too late to get it. Still, she may go digging about the tomb for it later before.

"Well that was quite the trip wasn't it? We should not linger too long."

She looks to Akatsuki and will fire off a friend invite.

"I'd like to run with you again."

    Yuuki falls backwards onto her butt, breathing heavily as they finally trigger the victory condition for the quest. She watches the hero fade away, giving him a quick salute with her sword, "Thanks. I, uh, hope the afterlife treats you well?" And then he is gone. Yuuki looks down as something catches her eye. She sees the disc, "Oh, shiney." She picks it up, not yet realizing the value of it, and puts it away.

    Yuuki stands up and stretches for a moment, before letting out a big breathe, "Phew! A challenging fight against a samurai ghost who is a hero of the past? Who comes up with this stuff!?" Yuuki proceeds to sheathe her sword, smiling, "Still. That turned out to be pretty difficult! I guess it's lucky we did as well as we did."

    Yuuki gives a thumbs up to the others along with a grin, "Good work, everyone!"

Gwen says "Could be someone who was a spirit chasers fan. I mean that whole series is about them going around the world and helping lay to rest heroes of the past."

    Wake always lands on her feet. At least, that was one of the exaggerations of those who used to rumor-monger about her character. Depending on one's definition, she does end up that way, though the attack sends her rolling into a wall, which has more to do with her more-or-less upright posture than any flicker of her former skills.
    "I hit him," she mutters to herself. "That's gotta count for something," she assures herself. And well, what do you know, it actually does. The reward is appreciated, though Wake isn't certain this is something she will use-up easily. That's the problem with incredible things.
    She dusts herself off and smiles at Yuuki, "Any fight you can walk away from is something that the forums can exaggerate later," she begins. "At least, that's what I always used to say."
    She turns her attention to Gwen and laughs, "You know, I think I rather prefer our meetings in your shop to this, honestly. Quite frankly, your work has already made you a hero in more ways than one."
    Honestly, it's nice being with friends. "If any of you ever get over to the Dukedom, please let me know. There's good company and handmade food at my place. And don't worry, not made by me, so you won't get ill." Wake regards Akatsuki curiously, "You are really skilled. If you are interested in pairing up some more in the future, I think it'd be fun."

Kauchemar laughs at Wake's remark. "There's a Bard here. Who needs forums?!"

    It sure wasn't easy; and when all is said and done, Akatsuki is picking herself up and dusting herself off, sheathing her kodachi wordlessly as the spectre fades, too late in giving a name. But it's true, that fight could have gone worse and the group did as well as they could.
    "Still too weak." She mutters under her breath, a frown tugging at the corners of her lips, before her attention shifts as she plucks up her own reward.
    A friend request, though... She seems to pause, considering it for a moment before deciding to...

    AKATSUKI has accepted your friend request.

    "It was a solid hit." She asides to Wake. "If he hadn't activated his Enrage our combined damage should have finished the fight." She says matter of factly. Though on the topic of future work she pauses briefly again.
    "If I have the time and my lord doesn't need me." It's a vague promise from a cagey and aloof Assassin, so it's better than a 'no', right?