Duty Session 143: The Vanishing Forest

    Wisteria hears about a secret forest that only shows up once a year...of COURSE she's going to poke around in it. That means she puts a call out to the aliance and at the Hunter's Guild. She's an Odyssian but she still likes having people to chat with when sh e's exploring and playing around in new dungeon adventures. The tall albino girl is hanging about waiting for folks to assemble and looking pleased like a Mizuki with a tasty rat meat.

A new place to explore? Good enough for Vertina! "Sounds like I got done working on my stuff for the tavern just in time." She gives Wisteria a quick squoosh around the shoulders with her arm. "I haven't gotten to spend as much time getting into shenanigans with my friends with that project going on."

    Merek makes a way along with the party, and looks to the place. There's a nod which he would offer along to that forest, "Well that should be interesting." He then adjusts the gloves which he wears.

    Setsuna walks along the path to the forest and waves to the group that has gathered. "Hey there, hope everyone's day is going well." If one thing could be said its that Setsuna seems to be relaxing a little more around people. Breathing a little easier perhaps. " So into the unkown mysterious forest that is probably full of cute little fluffy things ?"

    Wisteria laughs "I duno if it'll be full of fluffy things, but it should be full of rare plants since it only shows up once a year." she shrugs "And never know when rare herbs are going to be important in alchemy or enchanting or the like." She steals a squoosh back huging her tallfren one armed. "But only way we'll know for sure is to go poke about in it."

"Alchemy is good. Or maybe I'll find something to experiment brewing with." Vertina stretchs her arms. "I just need to get back into getting out more, not gonna be picky right now."

    "Sounds to me like you are doing the important first step of getting out more by getting out to begin with. " Setsuna smiles feeling like he is able to relate to the need to get out more. Taking a moment to look around Setsuna asks, " So anyone know where the entrance is to begin with?"

    Wisteria looks around and points into the south and the road leading into the Vanishing Forest. She quirks one snowy eyebrow at the vulture. "Really... ominous vulture on a tree branch?" she giggles as she heads in.

    The road seems to end in some merky pools of dark water. A bog stretching out into the distance. Seems there is more forest shrouded in fog across the bog. "Well... looks like we've got our first bit of footwork to work on." she says pushing a foot at one of the less solid looking bits of 'ground' that sinks into the muck.

And the first thing they come across is... a marsh? Bog? What's the difference? Vertina honestly doesn't know for certain how to tell one from the other.

The Salamander closes her eyes and takes a focusing posture for a few moments, staring at aspects of the world around them not visible in the physical state of affairs. It's enough to let her gaze at which stepping stones are solid and which ones sit atop mud or are just clods floating in the mire to avoid them.

It's almost like a game of hopscotch when she does skip her way across the spots of solid footing, not opening her eyes until she reachs the other side. "That was a nice warmup."

See, she can do more than just punch and kick things. Those are just her usual go-tos for most needs.

    Merek looks along to the ground while he takes a moment to think about it. He begins lifting up both hands, then he follows along the path while sensing the water, with using that to make a way along.

    Setsuna looks out at the fog infront of him. "Guessing a gust of wind isn't going to blow the fog away. " Stepping forward he feels his foot sinking and pulls back. Taking a moment he cast a small spell, " Spirit of those who have wandered here guide my step. " A moment later a small ball of light is hovering infront of Setsuna and he begins to follow it, he should of specified a spirit that had safely traversed the area. Half way through he finds himself sinking and stuck and has to pull himself out or rely on the others to come back and help him. At the very least he is going to be wet , cold , muddy and grumpy. At least there aren't giant leaches,

steria draws up some water and then with a stomp she usually uses for earth quakes, she sends ripples of water to push away those floating clods and wash away some mud. The allows her to skip hop and jump along the stones and thicker mats without issue. "There we go." she does get a rope out to toss to Setsuna adn help him out.

    Once the team is across the bog adn the land becomes solid once more the team is presented with a forking path. "Ahh, good thing you brought an adventure bun with you." she says getting out her mapping tools. "Endless woods are never endless when you map!" she says brightly, and seems pleased with herself.

"There's too many possible paths for me to divine my way through," Vertina comments almost at random as the others reach the edge.

It becomes more apparent that she caught a glimps of the next challenge when the group starts moving through the forest only to find the multitude of paths.

She crouchs down, resting a hand on the ground. Makes a face. "Not all the pathways are dirt or stone, I can't just feel them out." She stands and shrugs. "Well, I guess... Go left? Because if left isn't right, right is all that's left!" She laughs at her own quip, even as she walks off.... And a few minutes later comes back to the same spot. "... Maybe I should of taken more rights to not be left behind... Wisteria, wait up!" She hoofs it to catch up to the bun that's actually taking the time to map her way.

Setsuna is indeed cold and wet and there is mud in his boots, he is thankful to Wisteria though for the rope. " An adventure bun is definately needed. " Looking out into the maze of trees here on out he takes a deep breath. "Spirit of the earth guide my steps through this forest....safely. " Again his little ball spirit begins to float infront of him, taking on a yellow tint as it leads Setsuna through the forest. Maybe they should of all tied rope to each other.

    Merek would begin to try with the power of magical Earth to assist him, then he follows with people, not really able to assist a lot with the party.

    Wisteria shifts, her long ears pointing in two directions, then she taps her toes on the ground sending a rumble through the earth. She sketches something on her map and walks a bit then repeats. And now you've seen one of the murder bun's secrets... sonar steps, and a keen eye for detail on her maps. Eventually the maze of trees opens up, and things get grey and creepy.

    The leaves falling to ash when tapped. Wisteria looks around "Hmmm... looks like a curse... might be in one of those boxes..." she reaches in her inventory and comes out with.. a monocle, she sets it over one eye and squints locking it in place as she starts to look at things. *Gasp* Two murder bun secrets in one dungeon it seems she's got inspect gear.

It's not normal for forests to turn from vibrant greens to monochrome is it? "Something about this place feels off..." Being tall is annoying at times like this, as she has to thwack a branch out of her way so it doesn't thwack her in the head. In doing so, the motion obliterates the leaves from the branch and sends the dust scattering through the air. "I'm no botanist and even I can tell that's not right."

She clenches a fist and holds it up above her head as it starts to glow with her spiritual light... but then poofs out with no warning. "What the..." She clenches the other fist and does the same... and it happens again. It's like the old cartoons where one character keeps blowing out the match the other is trying to light a candle or lantern with.

The salamander growls, and smacks both fists together before holding them up and apart.. and yet again her glow is pushed back to barely her own vicinity, making it useless in searching. "I've heard of oppressive darkness but this is rediculous!"

    Setsuna finds his way through the forest and meets with the others as he gathers at the structure. "It's just a murderous forest that wants to kill us. Seems normal for this world." Everything seemed to want to kill them in this world, he really did just want something cute and fluffy. Stepping into the structure he whistles and takes a look at the objects but his vision blurs the moment his eyes fall on them and he has to step back out for a moment. " Ugh that was not fun to look at. "

    Merek takes a look at the boxes, then he begins to appraise with the inspect, while he nods a bit to a few of them.

    Wisteria starts looking over things, looking through her magic monocle seems to tell her something. "Curse... curse.. junk... curse." she says tossing boxes and items on to the ground. "Hey Vert, smash those would you? Easier than trying to disenchant." she keeps going through things until she and Merek have located all the cursed bits for distruction.

    The group gets into a big area of wild verdent growth. "Oooh okay this looks to be the kind of things the Hunter's Guild is looking for.. I hope more of you guys know what is weird... herbs aren't really my thing..." she growls as something snaps at her and snaps back with a flash of dark magic that pulls the same dusting trick the leaves back in the last area did. "I'll see if I can't keep the snappy plants at bay."

    Merek seems to think about it, when coming upon the plants. Then he nods to Wisteria, while he takes a moment to gently weave magic, "Alright, I think we can use that," the man notes, then he tries to use magic, which is successful, and taking care of a few of the plants.

*Wack wack wack wack* It's just like that one Rhytmn Heaven minigame as Vertina smashes every thing Wisteria tosses her way. It's not a fight but at least she's putting some of her skills to use. Moving on once they have enough corruption cleared to move on!

"It's about time we found something." She takes a few steps in, only to jump back when one of the plants snap their petals together like multi-sectioned jaws at her. "Whoa! That would be kind of cool if it wasn't trying to eat us... Don't worry, I got this!" She brandishes her arm-claws and starts whacking away at the more aggressive plants. But can't get close to any of the prize plants to actually uproot them for collection.

    Setsuna follows along into the crazy plant growth and looks around shaking his head. "Yes these are indeed plants..." he trails off as one snaps at him, "I think." The darkness around some of the plants was just scary, as another one snaps at him he gets a bit annoyed and lashes out with his own dark ball of energy...and the plant eats it. " Yeah ok , definately seems like someone needs to make a joke about the root of all evil right about now."

    Wisteria growls and snaps dark magic out at this or that snapping plant, and then Merek starts harvesting and it turns into a brawl. Vertina, Setsuna, and Wisteria in a battle for their lives protecting Merek from 'enraged plant monsters'. The trio buys Merek time but not without taking a fairly significant amount of damage.

    Once they've managed to gather herbs and such for the Hunter's guild, the party falls back from the revenge of the rhododendron. Then they reach the heart of the forest, a large tree, marked with strange symbols, that may be joined by a cheeky little bun later however for now... there's an ogre. "Oooh yah, boss battle, lets teach this guy about gentle gardening!"

    "Thank you," Merek would offer while he then would look along to that ogre while he takes a moment to adjust his gloves, then he charges along into the enemy while swinging the fists, "Ragnarok's Wisdom!"

The heart of the mysterious forest. The source of the problem? Presumably the big monster with an axe. "Oh, I get it. That big tree must be the source of the forest's magic, and this big oaf has damaged it." She smacks her fist into the other hand. "Time to axe a tree murderer!" Then kicks off the ground to dash towards the ogrish boss.

When he swings his massive axe at the small party she drops down into a perfect soccer slide, gliding under the axe and between the ogre's legs. Promptly springs up behind him, jumping to catch her feet on one of the trees. "Excuse me!" She wall-jumps across the clearing to another, then leaps off it to aim her feet at the brute's back, stomping on his shoulders several times to keep him from accurately hefting his weapon again.

    Setsuna trudged through the plants and underbrush, he was not happy as he is reminded why he is not a druid. At the mention of the boss battle he smiles, " Oh those are wonderfuls words to hear. " Tapping his staff on to the ground he looks at the ogre, " Venomous serpents of the forest, come out and strike." Maybe Setsuna's magic twisted the vines into snakes or maybe snakes had been in the underbrush all along, either way the snakes were taking revenge on the reason Setsuna was cold, wet, muddy, dealing with blurred vision and allergies.

    When Vertina goes low, the bun goes high, in a flash of speed born of Caerbannog blood and hard to track with the naked eye, the onna-bugeisha is dancing along the flat of the axe, and up the haft before she's leaping high, blade flickering with black light as she's slashing. A kick off a shoulder and she's up in the tree and then she's dropping in for more attacks. It's flash here, flash there, dark blade flickering and slashing until the ogre goes rage ham on the tree.

    She kicks it into high gear along with the others until they're standing over a quickly disapaiting pile of pixelating pearls of light. "Did it do any lasting damage?" She asks going to check on the tree. "Looks okay..." she says and dabs a finger in the sap. "But this... I bet I could use this in earth enchantments." she smiles "Thanks." she says to the tree giving it a pat... and a little bunny carved into a thick bit of bark. Just a hello for later adventurers, and a check for next year.. should she still be trapped here next year. Plan long, pray short.

Vertina hops off as the ogre dissolves into voxels. "Now YOU'RE the one blowing in the wind, you bastard!" Then walks over to inspect the tree as well. "Yeah. This is no ordinary sap. Might be useful." She takes a small collecting vial from her inventory and drips some of the sap into it, and puts a stopper on. Once it's put away she palms her hands together and bows to the ancient tree in a show of respect.

"Well, that was an interesting little trek." Vertina starts back for the edge of the clearing. "Hope we don't have to go through the path maze again to get out."

    Setsuna sighs as he sits in the dirt for a moment. " I am just glad there was something causing all this to let frustrations out on. " Hearing the mention of earth enchantment , the necromancer stands back up with a sigh as he walks over to the tree and gathers some of the sap on a piece of bark from the ground and inventories it. "One nice thing about gathering things like this is, you don't have to worry about how to properly store it." He stops and looks back at Vertina as she mentions the trek back, "Oh I hope there is a quick path out, I definately don't want to have to back track. "

    Merek would look along to the ogre, and nods a bit, then he watches the party, "Ah, that was nice, you all be well," he notes, while he waves.