Duty Session 146: The Vanishing Forest

    Deciding to take a break from dealing with Undead Army stuff, the quandry of how to make a good chest plate in a style he prefers, and his own Guild matters to attend to not to mention the Alliance, Giganpor had found out about the odd Vanishing Forest. And decided to take a look!

    Once he saw it was something interesting, he sent out a call over the Ninetails and New World Chimlinks to see if anyone wanted to take a trek through it. And to bring friends. It was a festival event, and he certainly didn't expect anything like the Bun-Bun Festival with a giant Dire Vorpal Bun-Bun.

    Now he was just waiting by the entrance to the Vanishing Forest for the responders to show up.

    That being said, the Forest was normally closed off. It only opened at this time of year. And just a road sign with an arrow was pointing into it. The the kinda eerie, overgrown forest is perfect for adventurous treks into the wilderness where hopefully people are not fighting for their very lives most of the time against Goblins, Undead, Lizardmen, or Bandits of some sort. Oh, and the weird Ants over thattaway.

    Yep. Giganpor's looking forward to a nice, relaxing journey despite bringing his armor and overgrown one piece of steel weapon just in case. Not to mention the buckler shield. He's even in human form.

    Time to step into the fire...

    When the call over the the Ninetails link came, Ainkli had to psyche herself up. "Okay... okay!" And then she tracked down where she needed to go and made preparations to head there. When she arrives, she's in her monster form, as always, quietly stepping up to the entrance. She has a tower shield with her, and her silver staff with the blue orb tipping it. Her armor is a kind of half-plate arrangement that goes over her very religious-looking attire.

    "Hi!" is all she can bring up the nerve to say for a moment, to this virtual stranger. Her features are friendly, and her posture is anxious. "Blh... I hope nothing goes wrong..." she murmurs, fretfully eyeballing the menacing area ahead.

Schneider arrives quickly when the call goes out, he was apparently in the area. He, himself, has done this mission this year, but is interested in going again. Both for practice and to try to do less poorly than last time. "Hope no one minds, I'm re-running this?"

He eyes the Vanishing Forest away to the south, and he at least looks determined. "Hopefully I can do this a bit better this time," he mutters with determination. Nodding to Giganpor and Ainkli, he stands tall and determined, though he's not quite as sure of himself as he tries to appear.

    One minute she wasn't there.
    The next second, in a soft flare of subtle light, Akatsuki appears; the ninja resting perched on a tree branch above the group in a crouch.
    "I am ready."
    Quiet. Direct. To the point.

"... a festival event. You brought me to a festival. Is this revenge for my Sailor Giganpor jokes?" asks Jazz, casually raising a hand to scratch at the long tentacle that falls down the side of her head. The ends are twitching. Twitchy tentacleqs, that's her.

All the same, the wee Undine (that is also a twee Undine) in the dark clothes, maid outfit, and witch's hat is present, staring at the way ahead. Her voice is painfully anime. The randomizer was not kind. (OR was, depending on who you ask.)

"Right. Well. ... let's do it. It's not like Tsushima won't wait."

    Naotsugu was last to arrive. Fashionably late as always... "Yo. Thanks for waitin'. Sorry for-" Suddenly Naotsugu stops... his eyes narrow towards the small, pint-sized Ninja. "Pipsqueak..." He folds his arms and just smiles. "Well, at least I know you're good at what you do. So I don't gotta worry too much."

    Naotsugu looks around at the rest of the group. "Don't know much about the rest of you, though... hope you're good enough, though!" Did... did he even read the details of what was going on...?

    With everyone gathered, Giganpor looks over at Jazu specifically. "Yep." He even makes sure to pop the P on the end. "That'll teach you to make fun of the Goddess given title." He folds his arms, since his weapon is mounted on his back at the moment with a somewhat haughty looking turn of his head. Obviously he's in a bit of a good mood.

    Giving a grin afterwards, he looks around, "Oh, nice. And you're welcome to... uh... who are you again?" He says to Schneider. Not one he knows off hand! Then he turns towards Ainkli, "Welcome aboard! I'm Giganpor. Nah, nothing should go wrong. I'm just armored just in case. Last festival thing had a Dire Bun-Bun that tried to eat people."

    Then he eyes Akatsuki and Naotsugu, "Behave, you two, else I'll put you in separate corners. C'mon. Let's go have some fun... without killing things, I hope. I got tired of being murder machine for a while, so that lead me out here when I heard about it. That and I need a break."

    Turning, Giganpor moves into the forest. The road's pretty smooth at least until it apparently ends. With a bog. A big old bog that seems to be a puzzle of some sort. It's obvious you don't want in that stuff, too. Not unless you want a debuff. It's not a good thing, and it's obvious you really, really don't want to end up stuck in it! But, they have to get past it. There might be a road on the other side from the looks through the dense fog hugging the top of the water.

    Giganpor's first step on a land mass has it giving away. Fortunately he has his balance and doesn't go into the bog, but seriously that makes it more obvious that the bog's not something to be stepping all over with. Ew.

    If there is ANY way to make Akatsuki very surly, very fast, it's to call her a pipsqueak.
    "Don't call me that, baka-tsugu." The tiny imp replies tartly, eyebrow twitching as her lips purse into a thin line of irritation.
    Wow boy, does she not like that, considering the huff that follows as she vanishes from her spot in the tree.
    As soon as she touches down on the loamy boggy earth... The little imp begins to sink.
    "..."
    Someone should have stayed up in the trees.

Schneider follows Giganpor and the others along the road until they get to the bog. "I'm Schneider," he replies to Giganpor. "Dark Schneider. I guess I'm new, I've gotten done with the newbie quests and am trying to join in with the ... uh, serious players." He's not sure how else to refer to the movers and shakers.

He thought he'd be better prepared for this, but it turns out he's not, and he's got to rely on his native understanding of the spirits of water and the ways of the swamp. This doesn't mean he's clueless, but it's not his forte, and water is not his element. It's like the opposite of his element. So, he proceeds slowly along what he hopes is solid ground, or mostly solid ground, not too deep in muck. He's got stout boots, anyhow, so there's that. "But I guess I'm still pretty new," he admits as he fails to make his way through the swamp. At least he doesn't wind up underwater this time. "Can I follow someone?" he asks plaintively.

    Naotsugu enters the forest first. Luckily, even with all this heavy bog, he was rather adept at moving through with little problem. His current armor was attuned to the element of water, which definitely helps quite a bit. It's not the best armor out there, but it was better than what he'd had on at the time and that's all that mattered. And in this instance, it definitely had some help to him.

    He turned to the group to make sure they were keeping up alright. And of course... the tiny stumpy one was stuck... he goes over to her and just holds out a hand. "Just this one time! This one time you can use me as a perch..."

    Naotsugu looks over at Giganpor. "Ah, don't worry about it. Two of us are just fine. Unless I mention my love for women's pa-" And...

    Once the group is gathered, Ainkli does a peculiar thing. She tries to stand at a point roughly where she can see most of the group, without standing too far from the center. The awkward shuffle reveals her powerful Healer Instincts, to the point she does it even when not in a combat scenario. Giganpor's reassurance doesn't help, not when he admits that something tried to eat people during the last Festival. She gives him a wan smile at that.

    The rest she nods to or gives a demure "Hi," in greeting, where appropriate.

When they start through, and run into a bog of some kind, she pauses and glances over the landscape with trepidation. And spots Akatsuki stepping out into the bog. "Not that--... way..." As Naotsugu already has it, she fights her instinct to rush over and try to pull Akatsuki out somehow, and instead focuses on something more useful.
    "Where..." she warbles in her perpetually wary voice... "This way." And she steps forward, using some good ole Divination, pausing and closing her eyes, waving her staff here and there to locate the correct path.

Jazuhanzu just casually begins to hum the Sailor Moon theme song as she moves behind Giganpor.

"Watch your step, Princess," she responds. As she stares at the bog before them, she lets out a breath and then places her hands together in front of her. Utilizing her command over the element, to say nothing of a water slide spell, the muddy, boggy watery that seems to rise up out of the water to make the ground beneath her own feet far more solid, water footprints of her own being left in her wake. "Cool," she adds, tweely, under her breath.

Upon seeing the struggle of some of the others, though, she makes the effort to stop. Utilizing the same trick she has going for herself, she attempts to boost first Akatsuki out of the water. We'll call it smolidarity.

    Giganpor says towards Schneider, "Not a problem. Let's see..." Looking out at the bog, he considers before his buckler shield glows a slight blue. Then a gesture has another path alongside Jazu's to help them across.

    Finally, he gives a grin before tapping his buckler on the water areas to turn them more solid by icing them over.

    Between that, and the help to get Akatsuki and Schneider across, the party makes it across the bog.

    And is greeted with a dense forest. Sparse leaves and thin branches are on the first trees they encounter after multiple ice and water platforms/paths. That quickly changes to the trees being thicker, denser, and impossibly hard to see out into the forest except for the path. And then comes the number of forks they suddenly find. Even forks after forks in the path.

    Giganpor looks at the different forks, then at the others, "Yeah, this is going to be one of those weird ones... so... which ones do we take? 'Cause I didn't bring a map here. Anyone else?"

    He turns to look at the others, not used to the exploration aspect of this it seems.

Schneider makes his way out of the bog with help from Giganpor, boots soaked, embarassed. He's not a very useful exploder wizard in a swamp, it seems, and as they proceed into the forest, it becomes clear he's not useful here, either. "Spirits of earth," he calls, but the only spirits he can call up shatter the ground and explode trees, and none of these things are much help in finding his way through a maze.

But then again, maybe they are?

Schneider's progress through the woods can be tracked by cracking treebark, foundains of earth, and a more-or-less straight path through. This is how an exploder wizard finds his way through the forest.

    Smolidarity, ho!
    "Thank you." It's a simple statement of appreciation as Akatsuki is aided out of the muck thanks to Jazz's control over the water. She reaches up and snags Naotsugu's hand to get up the rest of the way.
    But she's still huffy over being called pipsqueak, and she looks about as pleased as a wet cat.
    "I'll be fine." Replied in regards to using him as a perch, though; opting to closely follow the others on a more solid path.
    Only to come across so many forks in the path.
    Akatsuki pauses, kneeling to the ground as she takes a moment to inspect the surroundings.
    "That way." She declares.
    "There are tracks that don't turn back on themselv-"
    She doesn't finish that statement as she takes a sudden flying leap-- knee aimed clean for Naotsugu's face.

    To say that Ainkli looks perplexed when they get to the thicker trees and paths is an understatement. Her tongue sticks out and she slowly swivels her head, and waves her staff here and there, trying to suss out, maybe, that there's a better path, but... no, she's not really sure what's the best route to take. So... she chooses to follow Schneider's route... mostly because she wants to be there in case he pisses off the wildlife or something. "... I guess this works..." she says, seeming uncomfortable with the most direct solution to the problem but not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

    She sings a little song. Her vibrato makes her seem like she might cry, though it's meant to help her keep her composure. She seems to be singing 'I need a Hero' gently to herself at a cadence that sounds kind of peppy.

Jazz's expression flattens with annoyance as Naotsugu continues speaking, and thus, she can only look on approvingly (to say nothing of impressed) as Akatsuki's flying knee does whatever it's going to do. As they come upon the rather more maze like area, she sticks her tongue out the corner of her mouth a moment and then reaches into her overcoat. She produces a blank parchment and a piece of charcoal, beginning to take quick swipes that lead to the formation of a quick map as they go. It's going to help, no doubt, assuming they can keep their sense of direction.

"I'm a man," she adds to Naotsugu casually a moment later.

    Aaaaaand Naotsugu, as usual, was sent flying by the grace of a powerful knee to the face from the little pipsqueak Assassin! "HEY! Let me finish, you stinkin' half-pint!" His face was a mess after that! A very well-defined knee-imprint. Something like that wouldn't develop from one hit alone... this has the look of something that has not been the first time of it happening...!

    Naotsugu being thrown back like that from the impact of smol destruction just set his feet moving in that direction... something about this particular path felt right... as he walked, he decided just to mess with the half-pint... "Betcha you wouldn't do something like that to SHIROE if he were to say that..."

    Aaaand the biggest thing to break Naotsugu to date... as the Undine passed him, rather beautiful and gorgeous... he couldn't help but remark with "Hottie alert!" before the Undine dropped the bombshell on his face... he just suddenly stood there and looked even more dumbfounded than when he'd been knee'd in the face by Akatsuki...

    Akatsuki immediately whirls around to Giganpor, though she has a finger pointed directly at Naotsugu as she does.
    "Giganpor, may I knee this pervert in the face?"
    ... She asks after the fact.
    "My lord Shiroe would never say such a thing because he is not a pervert like you, Baka-tsugu." She does point out in reply to the Tank.

    Using a bit of earth magic to blow the leaves away, Giganpor almost misses it. The flying tank has him blinking a few times, then looks towards Akatsuki. Then to Jazu and Ainkli, then to Akatsuki, "Sure. Just make sure he can tank if we need him."

    Yep. Giganpor just said Akatsuki could do it. Poor Naotsugu.

The group manages thanks to a combination of destructiveness of Schneider and Jazu's cartography, plus the flying tank marking a tree or three along with the rest of them to find their way through the maze. It takes a bit, but the eventual thing is the paths stop looking so much the same and more different. Then the leaves start to change. Monochrome coloration becomes the coloring, and even one or two brushed against just... crumbles. Literally it's dust.

    The group eventually makes it down the path and quite frankly there's an eerie, dark feeling that just speaks of the very trees and land being not so vibrant and green even if the leaves didn't give it away. To make it worse, the party is inexplicably starting to get a bit tired.

    Salvation may be in sight as they come upon some sort of strange, dome-shaped structure that's obviously seen better days. Vines cover the walls, but among the vines looks to be some sort of objects that seem to be making whatever the odd tired and dark feeling around them grow stronger as they approach it. It's quite obvious for the group that these objects are very, very likely the cause of it. Perhaps even the problems in the forest itself such as the maze and the bog. The question is, what to do about it before it starts to sap HP away as well or worse?

Schneider snickers at Akatsuki and Naotsugu, amused by their byplay. Such good friends! Also, note to self, do not flirt with smol ninja. He peers at Jazz's revelation. Or undine. He smiles as Ainkli follows him, nodding gravely as he leads the way. Making his way through the forests's uneven and freshly churned, no thanks to him, terrain, he's happy about the company, though it seems there's no monsters here, attracted by the noise and fuss. Any animals, it seems, are sensible forest creatures who flee well in advance of Schneider's arrival, warned by the crashing and thunder.

Schneider hrms at the sight of the stone igloo with the door off, when he arrives there. He'll proceed inside to investigate, and he hrms as the task involves quickly evaluating some strange objects. He's got a pretty keen eye, himself, and he will pick one he finds quite likely to be a source of the Dark, and incinerates it with a short but intense burst of FIRE before the dark can suck down too much of his HP. Once clear of the dark, it seems to regenerate quickly enough.

    Now that they reach a place of grim darkness and slowly whittling HP totals, Ainkli's wavering voice levels out, and her demeanor stiffens to something more... sturdy. She approaches the structure that contains the local threat, determined to locate what's causing this grey death. And instead of, well, locating any specific source of darkness and death itself, she decides... fuck it.

    "Hah!!"

    She slams the bottom of her staff into the floor, and a mandala of bright silver radiates out around her, brute-force pushing back the power to the point that it even brings color back to the area directly around her in a shockwave of rainbow-like light.

    "This should help!" she says, plaintive even in her victory. Good heavens, she really is a full-on Cleric build.

    After his brain-stupor had finally worn off... as well as some grumbling about Akatsuki being a jerk and being such a small shrimpy thing... and then Giganpor gave permission to Akatsuki! He's worse than Shiroe! "You-... why-... what-..." He just hung his head in defeat...

    Soon, the area changed. And with the change, he decided to take things a little more seriously since the glade seemed to change from greenery to very dark and toned down. He pulled out his shield and sword. He actually used his abilities to cause his shield to glow green and cause some light to echo through the place and keep the area lit up for the group. The 'side effect' of which being that whatever darkness was trying to creep over the group was definitely being pulsed away from the group and not encroaching too heavily upon the group. "Hurry it up, stumpy! It's gettin' a little too creepy!"

    Akatsuki has permission to bean Naotsugu.
    The little ninja nods sagely at this, and life goes on.
    "Don't worry, I won't kill him." She says in regards to making sure he can still tank once she's done.
    And then the forest turns so bleak.
    The dull lusterless lack of color and life that pervades through this place makes the ninja frown. But as Ainkli and Naotsugu shed their light she's quick to move.
    "Don't call me that." She snipes to the Paladin as she pulls a set of tools from the pouch at her hip.
    The little imp is quick to work, picking locks on the various containers in that dark and foreboding dome house, tail flicking absently behind her as she pops them open one by one, destroying the contents each time she does to reduce the sapping drain on the area all around.

"What, never heard of crossplay?" Jazz replies to Naotsugu, dryly, with a shrug. "Ehn." She kneels down by one of the vines and runs her fingers along it, studying it. Then she begins to the tell-tale sensation of her HP beginning to sink.

"...well, this is comforting," she remarks. At thios point, she looks uncertain as to what to do, glancing towards te othres in hope that one of them may have an idea of what to do. She wobbles, woozily.

She does not have qa great deal of HP, after all.

    Well, this certainly turned into a dungeon. Giganpor tries to appraise which one it's likely to be, but doesn't know a thing about containers it seems. Which leaves it to the light shedding pair to stave off the infection and Akatsuki to get to the lockpicking. Once it's narrowed down, Schneider's incinerating actually gets the job done as well. With the plant life looking better already, and the dark and foreboding feeling having lifted, the group moves on.

    Another good distance down the path, with the stone building no longer even in sight, they begin to notice something unusual. Trees have strange plants hanging from them. Just one or two, but then there's more. A good look at the plants will be result in them sudden coming alive a bit. Trying to grab people who aren't that wary of them. And there's a lot down the path, too! Like seriously, a LOT of them! This can't be good for going through at all.

    Giganpor himself has to tug his weapon free whenever a plant tries to snag it, and he's looking around to check on the others as the plant trapped path looks pretty serious. "Well, anyone got some ideas on how to deal with killer plants!?"

    Once they were past that little hurdle... suddenly the killer plants... "Best bet is just to hack at them until none are left! Try to aim for the roots! If they can't use the roots, they can't recover and will die quickly!"

    As if to prove this point, he began hacking away at the killer plants and slashing away as quickly as he could, but some of them got past him... he was managing to at least cleave a path for the group in any case... "C'mon! This way, hurry!"

Schneider proceeds with the party further into the forest, peering as the plant life grows thicker. He's got the best solution for plant life, normlly, but our mission is to investigate, not to burn, and you can't really investigate if it's burned to the ground. Sadly, investigation is not his forte, either, and he spends most of his time being grabbed by vines. But vines that are grabbing him -are- fair game, and so the progress of his failure to investigate the woods may be tracked by the occsional flares of intense flames consuming the vines gripping him. This happens a bit more often than he'd like.

This happens every few feet.

    With the HP sapping darkness dealt with, Akatsuki moves on.
    The verdand and highly aggressive flora the crops up next... Could be a problem.
    Drawing her kodachi, the mini-ninja begins hacking at plants in her path, yet despite her normally high DPS, for every one she cuts down another two reach out to replace them.
    "Ugh...!"
    They're actually beginning to wear down her HP as she staggers and stumbles through the brush looking even less wet-cat happy than before.

    Feeling good about their progress so far, Ainkli is a little less wary about the challenges ahead. This proves to be folly soon enough.

    The others would note the incident first from the shriek of surprise, and then "GOOD PLANT, PUT ME DOWN PLEASE!!" And it seems Ainkli is briefly lifted off the ground by a vine plant grabbing her and holding her in a compromising position by the ankle, turned upside down. It takes her a solid minute to untangle herself by wedging her staff into the vine, and she thuds violently into the ground when she does, shaving off a small sliver of her HP with an audible complaint noise.

    "It was going so well, too," she mumbles as she stands and muscles her way through the rest of them.

    It's a harrowing experience. Even Giganpor trying to use some rock snakes doesn't make it easier for the group. The only one who appears to be safe is Naotsugu and that's just his barrelling through. Everyone else is currently busy dealing with the well... tentacle vines. And having to cut them down. Literally. Thorns, some even have flytrap like mouths that try to snatch clothing.

    Eventually passing through, the group is ragged, looks like they lost a fight with a lawnmower in some cases, and generally tired. Because that was a lot of freaking vines to fight through!

    Just when they think they are safe, the area they came out to is a big clearing. With a big tree that shades the area pretty well. And has symbols all over it. Magic tree, anyone?

    But, there's definitely something wrong with the tree. Branches have been broken or cut off everywhere, and there's a particular large cut from what could be a massive freaking axe.

    And then there's movement near the base of the tree. A massive, thirty foot tall creature that dwarfs even Naotsugu and Giganpor, the two tallest of the group, moves. It was easy to miss, but now massive foot falls make the ground tremble. And a massive axe is in hand.

    The overgrown ogre's nose twitches as it looks at the Adventurers, then roars as the register of a battle starting happens to pop up.

    Giganpor, looking up, sighs, "Aw, nuts. And this was getting to be fun." He looks at the others as the ogre starts to bring down the axe.

    Giganpor slams his buckler into the ground, calling out, "Rock Cradle!" As the earth erupts upwards to attempt to block the axe. Said axe happens to smash the stone apart and knock Giganpor on his arse. "Bit of help now?"

    Naotsugu rushes forward and tanks up, bringing his shield up and deflecting the axe with ease! "Don't worry about it! I got this! HEY, UGLY! COME AND GET SOME OF THIS! SHIELD SWING!" Swinging his shield wide, he caught the Ogre in the shin! The high enmity move brought about the Ogre's wrath unto the Guardian! "You guys should get on this thing quick! And don't fuck it up this time, squirt!"

Schneider pushes his way through the forest, having left behind his unsuccessful attempt at investigating unusual plant life. Aaaand, here's Johnny. If Johnny is a thirty-foot tall giant. His monologue is garbage, too, and Schneider derides it with a sonorous chant of, "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!" Sounds pretty dire. He completes the spell with a cry of, "EXODUS!" And a burst of flame fires out from his hand, striking the giant and sapping his HP. Schnieder proceeds to unleash his extensive repertoire of fire magic on the giant, to the giant's disadvantage.

Turns out Schneider knows a /lot/ of fire spells.

    There's something to be said for being too confident, Ainkli thinks, as they arrive to the clearing with the big tree that seems ... mangled. That doesn't look right. And her feelings are proved correct soon enough when the massive ogre comes out into view, and she brings up her shield with a meek squeaking noise. However, her voice and posture doesn't match her actions, and she's stepping in to try to play defense the moment she sees the creature.

    It doesn't go so well. She gets pretty floored and her attempts to protect people with her spellwork fails pretty miserably. She can't time her spell use very well today!

    "EEK!"

    And then she gets swatted and rolls ass over tea kettle away from the ogre for a solid twenty feet, her HP dwindling by half. But... "Gotta... keep aggro," she murmurs, soon getting up and marching back into the fight, which will be over before she can do anything identifiably useful.

"...aw, c'mon," is what Jazz says after a long moment. A quick stumble back from the immense creature. Her magics are just not likely to be enough, this time, but she does give it her all. Kelpy vines spring from the earth, snatching at it, trying to slow it down. It does... for a few seonds. It pulls free with ease, and given its size that's no surprise. Still, it might buy someone a little time as they continue to snake after it.

"Spirits of the drowned, come from darkest abyss to my aid!"

A pause. She looks back and forth.

Nothing.

"Oh, COME ON."

    It... Takes a little too much work getting through the plant life.
    But once through, aside from looking ragged to hell and back, the little imp says nothing.
    Pausing, she kneels to a low crouch, inspecting the ground.
    She's specifically looking at a massive footprint.
    "Whatever it is, is close." She points out, before the ogre makes its appearance and-- the ninja vanishes.
    She's just straight up gone. Up into a tree as she lets others get into the fray. Once she's sure Giganpor, Ainkli and Naotsugu have all the aggro...
    She waits.
    She watches.
    Biding her time for the perfect moment to strike, Akatsuki lunges from the shadows, kodachi in hand as she leaps from her perch and starts CLIMBING the ogre, as quick and nimble as a cat.

    "Assassinate!"

    It's a simple, direct, and lethal declaration of intent as she brings her blade into the back of the huge monster's neck in a single all-or-nothing high damage dealing blow.

    The ogre was about to take another swing until it was aggroed by Naotsugu and Ainkli. Then Ainkli gets to be a flying lizard. Probably the first in Yamato history as she ends up rolling a few times.

    And then there's a blast of fire from Schneider as Jazu has spell problems. Probably the incantation going wrong somewhere. It's hard to get right with the Ogre making the ground quake!

    It's Akatsuki who follows up, however, as the ogre just looks cross-eyed for a moment and starts to hack at the tree in some sort of rage mechanic. Between the beating that Naotsu was giving it and the fire from Schneider, it was already pretty down. Akatsuki just managed to make it all the way down a lot quicker before it dissappears into pixels.

    Giganpor groans a bit as he gets up, "I'm surprised that thing busted a Rock Cradle!"

    Loot appears, of course. Oddly from the tree as Akatsuki had managed to hit the ogre just as it was about to swing the axe downwards, which results in said axe getting stuck.

    And some sap starts to come from the tree. Strange, amber colored liquid. And there's handy clay jars for it that the ogre was probably going to use from the looks.

    That has Giganpor looking at it curiously, "Huh... tree sap? And I was tempted to ask about the axe.... probably have to drag it back to town, unfortunately. That sap looks interesting, though."

    He looks around, "Everyone okay? We can heal up and get back from here, I hope."

    Naotsugu sees Akatsuki finish the job. As is natural, of course. That's what she did best, after all! "Nice one there, short-stack! You're getting better everyday! I'm sure if Shiroe were here, he'd tell you the same thing!" His eyes narrow to the side... "As well... he won't say it because he's just a closet perv... every man out there has some manner of pervertedness in them! It's the REAL men who can stand proudly and proclaim 'I'M NAOTSUGU, AND I LOVE LADIES UN-'" Incoming...

Schneider gives Giganpor a thumbs up, he's OK. "Yeah," he sighs. "But it's magical event tree sap, so it's pretty special, actually. Tree sap's not normally my thing, but this might be useful, I think. In some magical preparations." He peers at Naotsugu and wonders if maybe the big guy's a bit maso? He guesses all tanks are. It'd be a strange world if we were all alike.

    No sooner than she lands, Akatsuki lunges for Naotsugu, knee-first. Incoming indeed, she doesn't even bother looking at her loot once she gets her hit in on the ogre and it turns to pixels. She just goes right for the face.

"...y-yeah. Let's get out of here. That thing was huge."

And then Naotsugu is talking again and she just turns and sort of starqes at him. She rolls her eyes and is about to make a comment when there's a too quick to even see it knee goingn at the warrior's face. She barelyt has a chance to grasp what happened. Then she blinks.

Slowly.

"... huh," she says, raggedly. "...welp."

    There is now a Naotsugu-shaped imprint in the base of the tree... which still has a Naotsugu in it... just... twitch-twitch... and a small grooooooooan... he really was a glutton for punishment...

    The fight comes to a close with Akatsuki's attack, which is good, because that was worrying the lizard something fierce. However, without much time to enjoy the loot...

    "Uhh..." Ainkli doesn't know how to feel about Naotsugu's comments, mouth hanging open for a second. A look that closes up when the guy gets a swift knee to the nose.

    "Heh..." She smiles at this in a warm manner, for the first time since she showed up, because it feels like the banter of friends. She shuffles over to pry Naotsugu out of the tree, using her staff to wedge him out of it. "I'm starting to think you're doing this on purpose," she tells him, though her face and voice show little sympathy for his consequences.

    Naotsugu has no reply... he's just out of it after that hit... he's a tad bit twitchy still, but that's about all he can muster as he is pried out of the tree. It still has an imprint of him in the tree itself... but knowing how these dungeons are, it'll probably be reset for the next group that comes in. It acts like the game in the strangest ways, after all...