Duty Session 145: The Vanishing Forest

    Hifumi saw a request from the Hunter's Guild regarding a special forest that is only accesable once a year. This is the kind of thing the Chef gets mobile for, helping out the Landers. He puts out his usual party request, the one that offers free Bento to anyone who joins him in doing something heroic... or stupid... or something that is at least dangerous for the Landers.

Schneider joins in, he's always up for a bento. And blowing things up is always good. "Hello," he calls as he joins up with Hifumi. "How's it going?" Not a new player, but newly joining up with the serious players. "This is a special mission?" he asks. "I'm ... er... new," he explains. And a bit clueless, he doesn't say aloud.

    Yuuki is in the Isekai Ryokan, leaning over on a table, softly sleeping off her latest food binge. Occasionally her pointy ears twitch at the talk of other patrons around her. But otherwise she's blissfully unaware of goings ons.

    Until suddenly the Imp darts up straight, as if surprised, asking loudly, "Did someone say heroically stupid quest!?" Yuuki looks around. But only finds blank stares sent in her direction. Yuuki scratches her head, post-wake-up daze settling in as she wonders if she had dreamed that.

    Then she notices a flyer stuck to the side of her head. She must of fallen asleep on it, though she recalls not how it got there. Tugging it off she looks at it. A flyer advertising the Hunter's Guild special request. Yuuki blinks, then shrugs, "Eh, good enough." Yuuki hops up, making her way out of the restaurant.

    Soon enough Yuuki joins up with the forming party, waving energetically to those who are already here, "Heeeeeey! You guys ready for some ADVENTURE!?"

    Peering over the job listings at the Hunter's Guild, Miyako hmms as she considers the possibilities on offer. She's looking for something new tonight, something interesting. "No, done that one... done that one... looks boring... hrm. Okay, maybe this one."

    She turns to the Spriggan girl beside her, with a playful smile. "How do you feel about a nice walk in the woods, Kotono-chan?"

Shiruba will take the oppritunity to get this venture in before she has to go out into the field to resume her search for undead army encroachments. The Wolf Cait Sith strolls up with her hands folded behind her head. "It'll be nice to do some actual exploration that doesn't have some world threat hanging on the edge of success."

Of course Hifumi usually hands out Bentos for times like this, and that's likely the other reason she's coming. The food. "A pleasure as always. And it sort of it, apparently it only becomes accessable during this event," she explains to Schneider.

    A secret forest that appears once a year? Yeah, that's worth investigating. If it isn't seen as much, might it have an exploitable glitch? Could whatever magic it uses to move be exploited? Could whatever they find there be really useful in itself?

    "Depends on what you mean by 'special mission'. I hear it's less about combat than usual, but we might find something neat."

    Free bento is nice.
    Heroically stupid quests are okay.
    Amalthea is here.
    "Hello, everyone. Doing well?" The old Paladin's tone is as warm as ever in spite of the prior night's big meeting, revelations, and new responsibilities plopped in her lap. She'll deal. But for now, she's here to explore a forest, while there's still time before she's too tangled up in bureaucracy and battle. And bureaucratic battles.

Kotono has been feeling a bit on the bored side recently, so when Miyako mentions a walk in the woods, her ears perk up. "Ooh, that sounds like a lot of fun!" She grins eagerly. "All right, let's get going, as there's no time to waste!"

    Holds out a bento to Schneider "Well it's at least limited. Apparently this forest only shows up and becomes accessable once a year." he says and continues handing out bento. "Well hopefuly we can find some new herbs that will improve my meal offers." he grins "And of course there's the hope for magic plants that give us better access to healing potions or other things the Landers willneed if things keep getting bad."

    Miyako nods and grins at her companion as they head out to join the gathering party. "Limited-time Event Quest, GET!"

    Yuuki gains 1 x Bento Box.

    The Imp slides the bento meal behind her back and into her inventory. She then raises her hand into the air, "Okay! Everyone who's ready to go kick some forest ass, let's go!" Yuuki starts walking off.

    She then stops in her tracks. Looks around for a moment. Turns around, walks back to the group. Through it. Then off once more in the other direction. It's probably the right way this time. Though someone else should probably confirm that.

Shiruba idly reachs over to grab Yuuki when she passes the second time, before she goes off to get lost somewhere else. "Ease up there Champ. How about, since Hifumi called us together, we let him show us where the start of the mission into this forest is?

Schneider ahhhs as Shiruba explains. "The event, right," he agrees. He checks over his gear, and his status menus, and nods his readiness. "All right. Let's do this." He'll take the bento from Hifumi with a smile, "Thanks!" He will head out with the group. Then turn around and follow Yuuki. Then turn around and keep following Yuuki. "Wait, where are we going?"

A mysterious forest full of even more mysterious herbs that only appears once a year and might hold the secret of obliterating the undead menace!?* Prophylaxis signed up like, YESTERDAY.

Though he is a little late to arrive to the party. The Doctor of Tolbana apparently took a while to get himself prepared-- but prepared he is! Armed with a backpack full of useful tools for herb collecting, a mysterious talisman dangling from around his neck for good luck, and approximately twice as much tea as he normally imbibes for day-to-day business, Prophylaxis appears just behind Yuuki and...

Pats her head. Because he's exactly the right height to be able to do this thing.

"Looks like we've got quite a group together here," he says, cheerfully and without any of the usual FIREBALL-SLINGING BLUSTER. "Wonderful. The more eyes and the more hands that we have together, the better! Shall we get a move on, then?"

(*Not actually guaranteed)

    Hifumi "Alright, lets get going." he says with a big smile. "We'll find out if there's anything good there, and hey worst case you guys get a free lunch right?" he says with a chuckle. When the party does finally get to the forest there seems to be only one way in. Following that path leads to a bog with no real clear path across. "Well... this... is going to get messy." he says with a shake of his head.

As they make their way into the forest, Kotono is skipping along slightly, a smile on her face...

Until they reach the bog, and her smile fades. "Oh no," She says. "That does not look good." She bites her lip for a moment before saying, "Maybe I can find a way through."

Unfortunately, try as she may, Kotono's attempt at finding a safe way across doesn't quite work. She suddenly finds herself up to her thighs in the bog. "Help me! Please!"

Schneider follows the group, which eventually gets to a road, and follows the road into a bog. "Well, crap. No one brought a boat?" he wonders. He takes a step into the bog, and it only comes up to his ankles. Well, that's not so bad. Three steps later, he suddenly sinks down in the muck to waist deep, and he has to grab onto a sapling to climb back out. "Er," he says, and will proceed more carefully this time, using his sword to test the waters ahead of him. Which doesn't help when he catches his ankle on a tree root, and flops in face-first.

Spluttering back up from the surface, he looks around, and now he's lost sight of the party. "Hey!" he calls. "Where'd everyone go?" Trudge trudge.

"That you make sure we don't travel on an empty stomache is a bonus," Shiruba replies with a chuckle. It doesn't take long for the group to find their first obstacle with a gunky bog. "Don't worry, I've got just the thing for this!"

Shiruba takes out an odd device and clamps it onto her wrist, then holds it out in front of herself. It activates and flashes a radial light over the bog in front of her, then several smaller pinpoint beams to highlight the soggy sinking spots she shouldn't step in, allowing her to make her way through with little difficulty.

    And there goes Yuuki.    Amalthea knows better than to stop her at this point, but she does chuckle at the girl's guts and gusto.
    But it's time to move on, and as she gets to the bog...
    Amalthea takes one step in.
    And promptly sinks in her heavy armor
    Whoops.

    Yuuki is briefly held up, giving Prophy the opening he needs to get in some headpats. Yuuki just smiles happily. And soon enough they are off and heading towards the forest!

    It starts to get a little creepy the closer they get. But it soon becomes clear that the ground is not going to be able to support them for very long, with all the water build up. Some people start to get concerned at the path ahead.

    But Yuuki has it covered, "It's fine! I know just how to solve this." Yuuki reaches for her sword, unsheathing it. Yes, Yuuki plans to solve this the same way she solves many other things. By stabbing it.

    And it actually works!

    Yuuki stabs the ground in front of her, "Land." She takes a step. Stabs again, "No good." And again, "Nope." And again, "Aha, land!" She takes another step.

    It takes a little while, but Yuuki makes it clear through to the other side. She turns around, smiling and expecting the others to be there. Only to find many of them not. Yuuki blinks, "Uh, guys?" Then she spots many of them stuck. Yuuki blinks, before rushing back along the path she discovered to go help.

    Mizuki eughs at the smell of the bog... but it soon becomes clear that she needs those were fang eyes to see where solid... well, relatively solid... land is, after she accidentally steps in the bog and her leg sinks in with a disgusting *squelch*. Thank goodness the washing menu is available...

    "This way, careful..." she tries to guide others along as she finds a path. And occasionally pulling them out of the bog

    Miyako sighs as she looks out over the bog, surveying it with a hand held up to shade her eyes. "Well. Could be worse. Could be the Cranberry Bogs." With a shrug she takes a step in, placing her feet carefully as she makes her way across.

    Then she hears a splash, and turns her head to see Kotono flailing. "Calm down! Just hang on and grab my hand." She steps carefully as close to the other Spriggan as she can, then leans in to reach out to her and pull her clear of the mud.

    "Just walk where I do, and take it slow," she says, then starts off to finish the crossing.

You know, there's a thing about bogs full of muck and all kinds of awful things... They're bogs! That is, they're still basically made of water, more or less. Prophylaxis takes a look at the prospect of meandering through a disease-ridden mire inhabited by all manner of nipping insects and virulent fungus and decides that the environment could probably tolerate one late-season freeze without too much trouble.

He doesn't step into the marsh, instead the Doctor of Tolbana sticks his staff into the earth and whispers a few words of power. Arcs of white-blue fog sweep down across the waterlogged earth, flash-freezing the land into makeshift permafrost. Smiling at his handiwork, he calls out, "Got us a path forward here! Let's all keep going single column now--"

Nope, too late. Look at all those people stuck in the swamp already. Prophylaxis sighs and draws a few vials of antitoxin out of his pack. Time to do some triage...

    Hifumi looks at all the mud and water, a few runes drawn in the air and then "Come on Nori, lets do this." a small homnunculi made of kelp apears out of the water, running over to Hifumi looking for all the world like a toddler with a full diaper. "Okay Nori, see the route that's marked?" he asks "Lets firm up the ground there and head over." he nods as the little summon works to pump water out of boggier spots, once it looks like there is a nice clear path Hifumi starts to hopscotch his way across. About half of the way across, Hifumi's luck catches up with him as a branch falls out of a tree, thumping into him with a flash of red, before dumping him into the muck and water. Then in goes Nori and it's an uncomforetable time later that the small summon drags it's master onto the far shore, coughting and spitting up muck and weeds. "That went.. well." he says looking at the sizable chunk of health bar missing.

    Once the team has been rescued from the muck by those who managed the crossing he gets to his feet. "Well... lets see what this thing has for us. The branching paths lead off into interminable paths in the woods. "Who brought a compass?" he asks with a quirked eyebrow.

Schneider is helped back onto the path and he smiles gratefully. "Thanks," and then he will follow the tested path, dripping swamp water where he goes and smelling ... well, like a swamp. He'll accept Proph's antitoxin, which also makes the leeches fall off, because videogame magic, and will proceed on to ... the trackless forest.

He looks at the forest paths, a bunch of twisty passages which looks all alike to him, and picks one more or less at random. He will follow his intuition through the maze of trees, feeling, perhaps, the nature of the forest, which is happy to see him leave.

"Actually, yes, I know how to make one of Jazu's compasses.... but these type of forests tend to magically screw with those anyways." Shiruba explains, but she's still gleeful as she pulls out her other cartography tools. Holds a small eyeglass up to one eye. "No, that way curves the other way." She looks in a different direction. "Overgrown, possibly a dead end."

She starts down one path, occasionally stopping to check the splits. Or looking at signs of other people having turned around from other directions. Eventually she will find her way through, taking her time to be precise and accurate about it.

    Yuuki finishes helped others to the other side of the bog, wiping the sweat off her forehead, "Phew. I'm glad everyone's out of that sticky situation!" She turns around, "Let's keep going, before we wind up sinking into some quicksand next."

    The group makes their way through the quickly branching paths. And soon enough they realize that they're facing off against a maze. Yuuki hmmms, rubbing her chin for a moment. She then kneels down, grabbing a handful of dirt and examining it.

    Yuuki then looks up, "I'm going to try this way!" Off she goes.

    A short time later Yuuki walks back in from a different direction. She blinks in surprise, looking around, before remarking, "This looks familiar..." Yeah. Probably don't follow Yuuki.

    Ahem. We do not talk about the time Amalthea nearly sunk to the bottom of a bog.
    Once she's dredged from the waters and back on solid ground, the old Paladin quietly clears her throat. And like a cat, as cool as ice, she pretends it never happened.
    Moving on.
    When the group gets to the mazelike section of the forest, Amalthea pulls out a piece of parchment.
    And begins sketching a map. Pauses. Pulls out a spyglass and looks through it now and then before adding to her map, humming to herself as she works.

Assisting with navigation is something that is, unfortunately, far outside Prophylaxis' usual wheelhouse. Sure, he could be analyzing the state of the trees to determine which direction might more quickly bring them all to their destination, but...

Well. There were a lot of people that fell into the swamp back there, and a lot of HP bars that look like they need topping off, nevermind the persistent debuffs (including leeches, apparently) that need to be purged.

"Here," he says, passing a potion to Hifumi. "Drink up. Should perk you right up real quick..."

Yuuki disappears down a path.

Yuuki reappears from a totally different path.

Prophylaxis frowns and wonders quietly to himself if Yuuki has been replaced by a pod person. Probably not though...!

    Miyako is *usually* pretty good at finding her way around, as demonstrated in the bog.

    Usually.

    Today is apparently not one of her usual days, as her first attempt at striking off to find a path leads to her wandering straight into an old hunter's trap. "Oiiyyyyaaaghhh!" she shouts as she's hauled up into the air by her ankle, to dangle there from the tree until the rope frays and snaps, dropping her to the forest floor once more.

    "Augh," she repeats, coherently, spitting out pine needles. "Can we have a do-over, please?"

A neverending forest of no escape? Sounds very familiar. Didn't Kotono hear of this in...

Ahem.

"Let me see here," Kotono thinks, before she hears Miyako crying out. Rushing over, she helps free Miyako from the trap. "Looks like I'm returning the favor now," She says with a slight smile, before pointing forwards. "I think I've figured the way out."

    Mizuki sighs. "I guess I need to get one... if we just see what's at the end of each one, we'll find the right one eventually, right? Besides, you know some of the 'wrong' ones will have treasure chests, so we need to check them all anyway." She heads down one of the paths...

    ...And a few moments later, walks by the group from behind. "Oh." Her ears splay. "It's one of THESE."

    She thinks for a bit, and then starts marking the paths she takes. Singing to herself.

o/~ Entering the forest came with ease,
now that I'm lost someone help me please
How can I remember what brought me here,
a twisting maze takes me far and near
There are many secrets in this land,
up in the clouds or beneath the sand
deep within this labyrinth there is a place,
if you go looking you might go insane!
Exiting the forest is super simple, all you do is follow these patter-erns,
exiting the forest is super simple, listen to me or you'll regret it

Ahhhhhh-ah-ah-ahhhhhh ahhhh ah ahhhh ah ahhhhhhh ah ah ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

Super Mario-oh R P G, this is a game just for you and me
When you find yourself in a miserable place,
it's all because of the forest maze!
Exiting the forest is super simple all you do is follow these patterns
exiting the forest is super simple, listen to me or you'll regret the reeeeeest of you-r gaming liiiiiiiife...
follow Geno's route, dear, follow Geno's route, dear, follow Geno's route, dear, follow Geno
follow Geno now! o/~

    Hifumi makes the finger motions to draw runes in the air and flicks through the motions. "Snakeroot, come on out buddy. Help them out huh? Mark the path as we confirm it." The snake made of brown roots with white flowers for eyes, and it's fangs made of thorns drip poison. It slithers along following with those who are making progress, leaving raised stones in arrow shapes to point the direction that is good.

    As they travel on and the color leaches out of the leaves, and even snakeroot seems to start feeling it, the snakes eyes kind of going a bit brown before it looks to Hifumi. "Hey little one, go on back, I'll summon one of you guys if we need you."

    He looks around "I... really don't like this..." the choloromancer not liking a cursed area that is sucking the life from plants... shock.

    Mizuki smiles if anyone recognizes the song and sighs if they don't.

    "Oh hey, I think we're out of the maze section. Are those..."

    She zips up to the hut. "LOCKS! Finally something to use THIEF SKILLS on!" She rezzes a lockpick from her inventory and fortunately doesn't embarass herself, opening one of the locks weithout trouble. "So what treasure do we get?!"

Ever hear of that lady they call the 'Master of Unlocking?'

She's got nothing on Kotono, who analyzes one of the locks with a discerning eye, and then smiles as she proceeds to work her magic on it.

"Voila, there we go!" She says with a smile as she picks the lock with her dagger.

Schneider got pretty lucky finding his way through the woods, and is now at the ... well, it's not a gingerbread cottage, which is kind of what he was expecting. It looks more like a stone igloo that's seen better days. Better decades. He looks over the strange objects, hrms, and nods at Hifumi's declaration.

The swamp-smelling sorcerer goes forward confidently to look over the place, trying to work out which one he should be messing with, and while he does this, the darkness slowly saps his HP. He does not realize this until some time later, squawking in alarm and running out, his HP well and truly drained.

Prophylaxis may or may not have heard that specific song during his many late night de-stressing episodes in front of his Ultra Wintendo.

"It looks like something's been sucking the life out of the earth," Prophylaxis murmurs as they approach the mysterious barrow. The depletion of the land gains a sinister connotation when juxtaposed against the undead onslaught elsewhere in the world. Could they be related? Prophylaxis' lips draw into a tight line as he approaches the strange, locked objects hanging from the barrow wall. "Let's see, if my hunch is right and one of these *is* responsible for the taint..."

Application of Mage Sight (tm) to the problem might just be what they need to find what they're all looking for. From there it's just a matter of opening the offending artifact and purifying the contents-- or destroying it, either way!!

Shiruba looks at the trees. Looks at Hifumi's summon before he dismisses it. "Even your summon was affected. That is not good." It is indeed not, and it would seem whatever is hidden away in this burrow they've come across has something to do with it. Shiruba slips inside, politely keeping her distance from the people that still smell like swamp water, her nose is sensative.

"Mmm, check the lockboxes. There may be more than one thing." She pulls out her hunting knife and uses it to cut through some gnarled vines and a book thumps out. She quickly stabs the knife through the covers to keep it from flipping open. "Cursed botany book. Somehow not surprised considering the event." She picks it up by the knife handle and walks outside where she can destroy it properly.

    Yuuki looks around as the forest around them seems to be dying. Or already dead. She frowns, "I bet this would look a lot more beautiful if everything wasn't so... Sick?"

    Yuuki follows Prophylaxis up to one of the locked boxes. She peers around him as he examines some of them. Until he finds one of the offending objects. Yuuki glances at him, "That one? Okay... Let's just hope it doesn't jump out at us, or anything."

    Yuuki creeps up to the locked box, eyeing it supiciously. She retrieves a lockpick from her inventory, expertly applying it to the lock with a successful sounding *click*. Yuuki slowly opens the box, expecting the worst...

    Well this certainly is a foreboding place. With the color itself being drained from everything and the darkness sapping the life from everything.
    Amalthea purses her lips and joins Mizuki and Yuuki in picking locks, pulling a pin from her hair and using that to--
    ~click~.
    Opening the container she peers inside.
    Reels back wit her arm...
    And carelessly smashes the contents with one brutal swing of her fist.

    Miyako sighs softly as she picks her way through the forest, following Kotono, until they reach the barrow. As the other party members quickly select their targets, she hangs back for a moment to survey the ones not selected. "Well," she muses, finally stepping forward. "Let's see what's to see." She focuses for a moment, trying to examine the little chest for magical traps, humming softly to herself.

    Focusing on her magical senses, she fails to notice as the vines creep up around her wrists, until they tighten down to pin her in place.

    "Well, I don't see anything," she muses, and goes to open the chest... and only then notices that she cannot move her hands. "Oh bleep... Kotono? Help?"

    Hifumi has his own way to try and identify the cause of the blight. He causes a small plant to grow and then checks which side starts desaturating and then grows another to that side. The man wandering about until he's helped confirm the cause.

    Once they've destroyed the dark art eating the plants, the party moves on, then the plants thicken up. "Ooh this is much better, I do hope we can find something good here." he says and when a plant snaps at him he chuckles "Oooh they're fiesty too."

Schneider will let the rest of the party work out the stone igloo and follow them along further. The plants are thicker and that's about all he can glean from that. "Well," he says. And that's about it. After a moment, he shrugs, reaches forward to pluck a plant, and is engulfed in dark magic. He screams and tries to wrestle it off him, struggling mightily. He bursts into flame for a moment, and when he does, he steps back, taking a breath and incinerating the offending plant with a fierce one-word spell. Not that it helps, but he feels a bit better about it.

"Hey, you leave my buddy alone!" Kotono exclaims as she runs over to slash at the vines holding Miyako down. "Don't worry about owing me one," She comments as they move on.

More plants are here, and they are definitely not looking like the ones you want to keep in your greenhouse. She tries to look over them, wondering if they could be avoided somehow, but it's no use. She is forced to slash at them to keep them away. "Darn it!"

    Amalthea wanders into the brush.
    "Ack?!"
    This is the sound of a heavy armor wearing tank getting hoisted by the ankle, and hung upside down, regardless of all her weight.
    It takes a moment of flailing her sword at the vine grabbing her before she cuts it. And lands gracelessly to the ground in a WHUMP of heavy armor.
    Amalthea is just going to lay there for a moment. A nap sounds nice about now.
    Sigh.

    Miyako nods thankfully to Kotono. "Hey, it's OK. You know you can always call on me." She flexes her hands and twists her wrists to get the circulation back as the group moves on. "I don't mind owing a friend."

    Onwards the party goes, and this time Miyako spots the creepy-crawly plants moving *before* stepping into them. "Hang on," she calls, retrieving her naginata from inventory.

    A quickly-inscribed series of runes coats the blade in shadows. "Not this time, Doc Plock!" She lashes out with the polearm, slicing through the creeping vines with the shadowy blade in a quick twirling motion.

    Selective destruction complete, the dark magic that had been sucking the plants dry seems to be gone. Yuuki cheers! She holds a hand up towards Prophy for a high-five. Teamwork!

    As the group continues on, Yuuki finds it harder and harder to move amongst the overgrowth. She starts to grumble at the annoyance, before she takes out her sword and starts chopping her way through.

    The plants start to fight back.

    Recalling the darkness that had been killing the plants in the previous area, Yuuki gets an idea. What better plan than to turn your enemy's own weapon against them? Not that these plants are necessarily their enemy. Or connected to the previous darkness. But hey, it might work!

    A dark wind engulfs Yuuki, beginning to rage around her as she activates her custom Sword Arte. Yuuki chuckles, "Hey plants, I heard you don't like darkness! Well taste Imp wrath!"

    Yuuki continues moving forward, the plants trying once more to attack her. Only to shrivel up as they get close to that dark aura.

Spirits buoyed by the party's victory over the herbicidal burial mound, Prophylaxis moves along with the rest of the group and finds...

Uh.

"Maybe..." he says, prodding the overgrown thicket with his staff, "Maybe that land-killing magic was put there for a reason? This is almost the exact opposite of that barrow. There's way too much growing here to make any sense of it!" But attempt to do so he still does. Or rather, while the rest of the party is being strung up by angry plants, Prophylaxis kneels among them and, apparently utterly unbothered, begins quietly cateloguing the flora that they've found. He needs to know, after all, if these are worth keeping-- or if they need to take a more...

Incenidary... approach...

    The locks reveal not treasure but blight. "What a rip-off!"

    And then it's time to find plants. Trial and error soon shows that they're weak to dark-element for some reason. She charges her daggers with dark energy and tries to hack through them as they reach to snag the party!

Shiruba yips as she jerks back from one of the vines cracking at her like a whip. "Talk about going from one extreme to the next!" She takes a few steps back, and tries to focus with a few arcane gestures. Briefly a sigil resembling the Third Eye flickers over her forehead, then she opens her eyes. Reachs into one cluster of plants and pulls out some vibrantly colored bulbs. "Hey, are these anyth--eeek!" She's cut off by the bulbs spraying some noxious powder in her face, and she stumbles back while gagging and coughing. That really sucks when you have a sensative nose to get all the pollen gunk up in.

    Hifumi moves to the special looking herbs, cutting them with a little pair of shears he has for herb gathering. The snip here snip there. When the plants snap back at him he pulls back and whacks them on the 'muzzle' with his fingers like one might when disciplining an animal that is getting nippy. "No, bad bush. Look I'm just collecting samples not trying to harvest you." he says to the plant and moves on to the next. Once he has a bagfull of samples he puts it away "Hopefuly the Guild will be happy with it."

    Once everyone has been rescued from vicious hedgerows and then they head on. Looking up at the massive tree Hifumi smiles "Well there is a hell of a thing... and THAT appears to be a boss monster that needs taking care of before it damages this place."

Schneider breathes a sigh of relief as the party manages to squeak by without his support. Again. He really needs to step up his game of he wants to help out here, but he's kind of a one-trick pony. As we proceed through the forest, he considers excuses he might use to play off his uselessness, but no one's called him on it, yet. Maybe they're not worried? He can only hope.

Ahead, he spots the ogre, and looks a but relieved. This is a problem he can solve.

He chants darkly, sonorouosly, "Brain, Brain dead. Obey your blood oath, come forth from the land of Avalon. Fire of Gehenna, become a fiery blast and burn everything around us! EXODUS!" The last word is a shout, and the flames roar forth, exploding around the target and sapping his HP in a deeply satisfying manner. More fire spells lash out, one after the other, and he seems quite pleased to roll them off in a ripple-fire style to burn down the giant. He seems to have a lot of fire spells. And he's using them ALL. Over and over.

Once they've moved on from those vines and plants, Kotono starts to breathe a sigh of relief... until she sees the giant in front of her.

"Whoa!" She says, her eyes widening with surprise.

Twirling her blades a couple of times, Kotono then smirks. "The bigger they are, the harder they fall!"

Instead of rushing in quickly, Kotono watches the ogre quickly, deciding to use her skills to her advantage in an attempt to strike at the ogre carefully. She uses her speed to use hit-and-run tactics in order to take down this huge enemy!

    TBetween sinking in bogs, nearly getting lost, heroic vandalism, and deadly plants. Amalthea has kind of had enough of this forest.
    There is an ogre. Something she gets to take her stress out on.

    "ANCHOR HOWL." She declares, making a beeline for the ogre, sword in hand.

    It shouldn't be too had from a normal Tank and Spank. Right?
    Time to relieve some stress with a good old fashioned beating.

Shiruba is still sniffling a bit to try and clear her nose but has mostly recovered by the time the group finds the central area. She follows for a few steps before stopping to look up, eyeing the ogre that's been trying to chop down the big central tree. "Hey, you big oaf, leave that central tree alone!"

She doesn't follow the group farther, being a ranged fighter, but does immeadiately pull out her bow. Reaches for one of the specially marked arrows in her quiver. "I am Shiruba Howlinger..."
She draws back the arrow, elemental energy spiraling as she does so until there's a growing charge of cyclonic force spinning around it. "Spell Fletcher of the Silver Sword..."
With a determined frown she lets go, the arrow literally screaming into flight because of the airstreams churning around the projectile. "And in the name of this forest I shall punish you!"

The magical arrow releases the charged elemental energy as it hits, blasting the ogre with the equivilent to a powerful storm's winds. It's strong enough to make even a hulking brute like that stagger backwards, giving her time to draw and ready more arrows.

Though by that point she's started to giggle. "I've always wanted to do that! Magical Girl style!"

    The dark aura flaring up around Yuuki finally fades as they make it through the overgrowth and into a clearing. The large tree sits. Probably the oldest of the old.

    Yuuki bets that would make for some very powerful wood.

    And it seems someone else already had a similar idea. Although as the boss monster registers in her view, Yuuki whistles, "Big fella. Doesn't look particularly bright though." Yuuki looks around. Finding a large vine curled up nearby, Yuuki walks over. She chops a long part of the vine off, then gathers it up, "Yup. This'll do!"

    Yuuki starts running towards the ogre. As its large weapon comes down towards her, Yuuki quickly sidesteps, avoiding the blow and managing to maintain her balance as the ground shakes. As she reaches the ogres legs, she whips one end of the vine out to wrap around one leg.

    A soft aura glows around Yuuki as she starts running circles around the ogre, her speed continuously increasing as she starts to wrap the vine around the ogre's legs until they're all tied up.

    Yuuki skids to a halt, dusting off her hands as she waits to see how long it takes the ogre to fall over.

    "Oooooohhhh." Mizuki takes in the sight of the great, majestic tree. "Hey, there's symbols carved on it..." Before she can investigate, though, a giant ogre approaches! "Boy did YOU pick the wrong adventurer to pick a fight with! My track record against giant landbound enemies is pretty good!"

    Soon the cat ninja is scrambling up the monster's back, dodging attacks and digging in with her claws, as she makes her way to the monster's head to breathe a plume of flame over it point-blank!

Final verdict: No, Prophylaxis, you cannot set the entire goddamn forest on fire, what is wrong with you? This is the harvest festival not the EVERYTHING MUST BURN festival. "There-there," the good doctor coos at one of the vines, apparently from the same plant that Hifumi so ruthlessly abused only moments ago. "You were just trying to protect your friends, weren't you? Don't worry, we won't hurt any of you, just giving you all a bit of a trim." In a tangle this thick, plants can't grow so well, can they? A little bit of pruning is necessary to help the new sprouts find sunlight...!

With a pouch full of herbal cuttings, Prophylaxis tails the others as they move toward the heart of the wood, a spring in his step and a whistle on his lips. What they find is simultaneously breathtaking (because that is one ASTOUNDINGLY large tree) and worrying (because that sure is a giant there). The good doctor regards the colossus with a long sigh and a helpless shrug. "Well, nothing to be done for it, I suppose."

Is it time? Time for FIREBALL!?

Nope. Again, not setting a forest on fire today. Instead, Prophylaxis levels his staff at the ogre's head, takes careful aim, and then whispers: "Magic Missile Storm."

What ensues is... A little bit unfair, honestly? Arcane Bolt once is one thing, but Arcane Bolts several dozen times, right into the eyeballs? That's just cruel!

    Stumbling around in the bogs. Getting lost in the forest and caught in a trap. Grabbed by stupid vines. More stupid vines. And now a stupid ogre.

    "Hey! Goofie!" Miyako yells at the creature as she leaps into the air, a sapphire glow forming around her feet as she starts bouncing from tree to tree, lashing out with her naginata every time she passes within strike range of the ogre. "D'you play pinball? 'Cause I play to win!"

    Finally. Something she can just *murderize*.

    Hifumi starts his usual summoning gestures and then calls out "Snakeroot, go give him hell huh little guy?" the snake made of roots with his flower eyes bright white again now that the dark magic was destroyed. The serpent slithers into the under growth and through the fight pops up to bite the ogre injecting poisons into it's system before hiding away and then biting again later. It's a slow way to fight but Hifumi isn't exactly a power player, he's a chef with a summoning class. Once the ogre goes mad and starts chopping at the tree he sends several darts of summoned thorn at the beast to help take it down in it's rage.

    When it's fallen and vanished he heads over to check the tree. "Well, she looks like she'll be okay." he says but he does get a vial out to collect some of the sap. "Thank you for your sacrifice we'll try to make something good come from this wound. I'll be back next year to see if your resin has any different powers from whatever we discover from your living sap." he pats the tree

Shiruba fires several more less flashy arrows while Thea is taunting the brute. But it's an overall group effort that brings the ogre deforester down despite his rage fueled chopping.

Once he's dead and pixelated she walks up to collect some of the sap as well. "If nothing else I bet you can make some really esquisit syrup."

Once all is said and done, Kotono finds that her acrobatic hit-and-run skills have helped take down that not-so-jolly green giant! She twirls her blades with a smile.

"Yeah, that was totally awesome!" She says with a brief wink. "Nothing to it!"

    "Aww yeah!" Mizuki gives a celebratory shout as the ogre explodes into polygons. She investigates the tree, but her attempt to identify anything interesting about the sap fails. "Hopefully we'll be out of here by then. Somehow..."

Schneider fires fireballs into the pixels as its fading away. He's working out his frustrations, it seems. Seeing the others, he'll move up to collect some sap. "What's this for?" he wonders aloud, examining it. "Magical sap? Probably not for pancakes," he thinks aloud.

    "TIIIIMMMMMBERRRRR!" Miyako shouts, as the ogre starts to topple and de-rezz. "Look out below!" And she pin-balls from tree to tree to return to the ground, finishing with a backflip to land next to Kotono and sling an arm around the girl. "Well done!" Grinning widely, all the day's hassle forgotten, she slides her blade back into inventory and stretches.

    "DOes anybody remember where we parked?"

    Hifumi shrugs "Somewhere back past the bog of eternal stench." he says with a chuckle as Snakeroot climbs his leg to drape around his neck.

    Where they parked? Mizuki turns back the way they came. o/~ "Exiting the for-est is super sim-ple, all you do is fol-low-these-pat-terns..." o/~

    Miyako pauses for a moment, turning to look at Mizuki. "Ahem. Do ~not~ make me break out Little Bunny Foo-Foo."

"No ingesting magical deep-forest tree sap," Prophylaxis says with some mild consternation, having seen far too many doujins that start at 'mystery tree sap' and end places that no sane mind should ever tread. "A wound like this, though..." The Doctor examines the gash and frowns, "It could go either way. I'm hopeful it'll be fine, but just in case, there are things we can do to seal the wound up, or at least prevent infection from taking root."

No, it doesn't involve fire!!

GOSH!!!!

    Yuuki looks up, watching the ogre topple over in her direction as it is defeated. She deftly sidesteps, letting it crash down and explode into pixels. Yuuki nods in satisfaction. Before ooooing quietly as they get their reward from the defeated boss.

    Yuuki stretches, "Well, that's another boss down and another quest complete! Hopefully the plants are appreciative of our efforts." And just how many did you chop up or burn with darkness on your way here, Yuuki?

    Yuuki looks around at the others, "Guess it's time for us to make like this tree and... Leave." Pause. Then Yuuki shrugs, "Man, I envy English speakers sometimes. That doesn't work nearly as well in Japanese."

Shiruba can't do much about healing trees, but she can be heard laughing from the back of the group as the puns toss left and right.