Duty Session 149: The Vanishing Forest

So, apparently there's a timed event up, and by timed event we mean 'there's a specific time of year that this area is accessible'. How you look at it depends entirely on how RP you want to be.

Proteus called in a couple fellow members of Plant Duck to check things out. Whis, naturally, is one of them, and someone probably pulled Haseo out of the corner lest he actually grow edgy mushrooms.

Of course, the journey immediately begins with some issues, there being a murky, annoying bog of treacherous ground. Proteus produces her magical light beam device, scanning the ground to try to pierce through the thick fog to reveal the safe paths. "Anyone remember to bring a ten foot pole?" She jokes.

"You complained so much about not having good parties I'm here to rescue you." Whis deadpans, looking at Proteus as she asks the hooded woman about the status of their readiness for a journey.

Which causes Whis to thumb back at Haseo. "I've got a five-foot something manlet pole, is that good enough?" She teases, before looking out over the bog.

"I know I said that you don't really get clean, you just move dirt around, but... I really don't want to swim in that. Eugh."

With a gesture towards the bog that sends ripples across the surface, a lacing of ice begins to holds the stones together.

"Thankfully, this is kind of my best field."

"Why the hell would I carry a large stick? Also, you absolutely don't get to call anyone short, buddy."

Haseo, Manlet of Darkness, just kind of shrugs off both the question and the attack on his height.

Taking a page out of Whiskey's book, Haseo uses water magic to freeze his way to victory. Except he's really impatient about getting across to the other side and nearly takes a spill into stinky swamp water several times.

"Of course I do, because you're the one who is please-take-caring of me. If I'm please-take-caring of you, it's a special service." Whis grips Haseo's arm before he takes a pratfall into the bog.

"Try not to lose your low center of gravity, Haseo-kun."

"If we end up getting lost I guess we can use Haseo as a ground detector." Proteus jokes. "But I don't think that will be a problem." Between the spotlight, and the other two using ice magic to lend solidity to the ground, they're out of there lickety split. "You know, something tells me that please-take-caring of someone is getting some weird meanings." Proteus asides.

The small group of Ducks makes their way through the bog thanks to their general comptetence, the group managing to penetrate the marshy area in order to reach the forest beyond. The forest quickly begins getting thick. At this point you can practically hear the classic SNES theme. Proteus scowls at the situation and begins probing the paths, taking one path, then another, and then another...

Finally, he looks to the other two. "Well, this is annoying. I left my chalk with the Villain in Glasses." She comments. "Any ideas?"

"Yeah. Yeah. Keep on laughing it up."

One day, manlets will rule the world, and they'll rue the day they messed with the future king. But until then, Haseo will just grin and bear it.

In the meantime, he'll take out his pent on anger on figuring where the hell they're going. Screw these trees for being taller than him. He'll show them.

"You won't get lost, Proteus." Whis chides warmly. "Don't worry about it. I have a perfect sense of direction."

Haseo is emasculated by a tree, always something worth chuckling about, but--

"You didn't want the sempai treatment. Do you not want this one either?"

Whis becomes entirely distracted by Haseo's grumbling, uselessly ignoring the path and the darkened boughs.

"Just tell me how you want it, Haseo. You don't want one of the boys, and you don't seem to want a 'cute girl', so..."

"Don't worry about height, Haseo. You're not that short." Proteus says. "People just jab you about it because it pisses you off. What's more important than height is your DPS, anyway, and I don't think anyone here has a taller DPS bar than you do."

And then Whis begins asking pointed questions about Haseo's porcupine heart. Proteus gives the pair a sideglance and decides she is going to have nothing to do with that as they walk on.

The group finally managed to wend their way through the mazelike paths, figuring out the specific sequence of passages in order to win through, likely to some kind of mysterious theme as well. Proteus sighs in relief as they reach the sudden change in scenery... But then her eyes narrow. "Do you see what's going on with those?" She says, pointing at the trees who seem to be taking on a rather unpleasant coloration. She reaches out and grips a leaf... And it crumbles in her fingers like ash. "..." She scowls, looking at her hand... And then suddenly shaking it off, rubbing it clean against her cloak. "Something's consuming the life force of this area."

The barrow, of course, becomes an obvious tell. Proteus points at the entrance, and lets Haseo go in first because he's the PVP master. "You're up, Haseo." Of course, there's no actual enemy inside but YOU NEVER KNOW. Instead, there's a lot of locked caskets leaking THE DARKNESS. Proteus sighs. "Well... Let's get to work. If we don't banish this curse we're probably next on the life drain list."

"Why do you care so much about my love life? It's kinda weird. If I'm keeping it private I'm keeping it private, so just butt out."

There's an almost exasperated tone in his voice as he's busy lockpicking chests like it's going out of style. He makes it look easy. Because it is easy. He's a god damn pro at all forms of grug, and there is nothing more grug than forcing a lock to open.

The group manages to wedge the caskets open with some lockpicking swag thanks to the combined powers of Haseo and Proteus, and they manage to extract a number of accursed trinkets that get promptly crunched for Curse Dust, rendering them thankfully harmless.

Proteus just continues to hang at the edge of the probing between Whis and Haseo. "Always the porcupine." She simply says as they move on...

Only to run face first into strange, angry plants. "Did we go from the Lost Forest into the Mushroom Kingdom? These plants are rude." Proteus grimaces, falling back before the lashing, snapping enemies as she tries to hurl the just-acquired curse dust at them. It worked on those plants, why not these?

"Your love life?" Whis stops dead in her tracks, bare toes standing on bogwater as the corruption seeps around from the cursed barrow that they approach. She's so exceedingly tired that her eyes have a perpetual dark-circle half-droop that looks like she's got a cosmetic on. Her whole body slouches forward, in the way of a wage zombie on a Monday.

She's a wreck, and gotten worse recently what with being abducted and tied up without her delicious grape alchemy cocaine and Weird Mushroom supplements.

So it is perhaps understandable when the atmosphere grows intense. Droplets of water begin to coalesce in the air about her, fat globules hovering and conglomerating like a ring behind her back.

Her hand draws back, and the water follows. The backhand is shallow, but the gesture sweeps the whole ring of water into, largely, Haseo's face, soaking his hair through like a blast from a garden hose.

"Haseo, what are you even on about?! We are people trapped in a video game! Do you really think my name is 'Whiskey Sour'? Or that she's got a devil tail? No! We are in the middle of a stupid, cursed forest where I am actually relying on you with my real life and also a BUNCH of important things to me, like the sanctity of my lived experience. For loot. Loot you get a roll on."

"I'm asking you how you want to be treated, you enormous idiot. Either treat me like an adult, or stop acting like a child. Preferrably both."

Turning, Whis walks along with Proteus, her fury directed at the mushrooms. "Just give me a second. I'll dig out the rest of the problems if we're tearing things out raw."

If it's mushrooms, there's no way Whis will fail.

Evil plants get the scythe. It's that simple. His evil is greater than theirs so it's no so hard for him to pinpoint them and snuff them out. That's how it works, probably. There might have also been some guessing.

"Do you think I'm stupid? Of course I don't think your name is Whiskey Sour. And of course this is a damn video game, I tell that to people all the damn time! You're the one who brought up what I'm into, how else am I suppose to take it!?"

Now he's mad. Frustrated. Bootyblasted. Is he stupid? Does he just not get GIRL? Shino was similarly cryptic at times... No, he is not stupid, it's Whiskey that's wrong! Shino made sense... Kind of... Damnit. No, he's just bad at this. He's not going to openly admit he is bad, though he openly wears the look of someone who is annoyed and flustered because they're internally cringing or something similar.

Luckily, he doesn't have to focus on his cringe because he has an outlet in the form of a big dumb ogre, something he takes full advantage of as he melds into a cloud of shadows, only to reappear moments later as begins pushing the blade of the scythe deep into the monster's back.

Haseo unleashes his edgelordness and the plants just can't handle that level of evil lawnmower power. May as well just call Haseo the Lawnmower Man for how he's dealing with all this.

That said, Proteus just gets out of the way as an angry Whis goes plant-picking. Very out of the way. The plants never stand a chance between them all.

The plants conquered, the group of Plant Duck Adventurers move on (likely with already a good number of additions to Whis' plant collection). The clearing beyond the barrier of angry plants proves to be something of a verdant wonderland with a great tree carved with symbols. Proteus immediately is drawn to the symbols on said tree, but there is a little complication in the form of a massive whistling axe strike. Proteus hurls herself out of the path of the attack mere moments before her prior position is cloven in half, the ground shattering under the mighty blow of a mossy ogre, whom stomps forward. "Where the hell WERE you? Ogres aren't supposed to be stealthy!" Proteus grouses. "Well, let's find out if you are photosynthetic, shall we?" From her cloak, she removes a glittering metal contraption formed of a filagreed set of metallic framing and triangular tiles. Each moves along the grooves in a complex three-dimensional grid, making a distinctive clicking noise as Proteus suspends it between her hands, twitching her fingers. As she moves, the tiles begin realigning. "Initiating the first alignment...." She states, the puzzle rapidly swivelling in the air as windows open around her, an Ability being activated while the thing twists before her, the tiles clicking in an ever increasing tempo... + ) |

As the final piece snaps into place, the puzzle flares, splaying open in an array of reflective petals, almost lotus-like as she holds the radiant device forward. "Cast open the gate of light... BANISH!" As she calls out, there is a burning lance of light that stabs outwards, shattering into a dozen rays that blast forward and pierce the ogre with overwhelming magical force.

Expressively burning emotional and physical energy to rise to the occasion of Haseo's incredible chuuni idiot Skeith-head thug, Whis fires her spirit bomb of energy and it...

Deflects off. Fails to penetrate. No effect. He doesn't get it.

It just impacts on the surface, like the sweep of water on skin. Exactly alike.

"Haseo if I wanted to sleep with you I'd just ask you, I'm an adult. It doesn't get more direct than a slap in the face. I'm asking you how you want to be treated, because we are stuck here, and I rely on you. You rely on me."

Meanwhile 'in the background', Proteus has solved all the puzzles and advanced all the dialogue and room texts and rubbed all the Lost Forest progression mechanics as Haseo and Whis bicker with ice foot enchantment on their minecraft boots.

"I'm absolutely certain you're not really an asshole. One hundred percent. Hold on."

The OGRE looms, with its health bar blasted through by Proteus' banish.

"I'd call a councilor, but this time -- that's me."

Her fist glows with an awesome power. Its solar glow shines through her blazing grip.

Flash-stepping from the ground to an aerial drop-fierce, she bears that glowing fist down like a lightpillar on the crown of the ogre's head.

"You just ask? You're joking right? Nothing in life is that easy."

Haseo just kind of blows a bang out of his face as he collects his very awesome and cool loot. Yeah, right. He can't be honest even if he wanted to.

"You don't think I'm an asshole? Really? You think I'm some kind of bad boy that has a heart of-guh." He's working himself up, only to cut himself off and deflates. He's just proving her point. Just ignore the question. Skip over it.

"Anyway. I've got your back. I've got this whole group's back. Don't worry about that. I've just... Got my own problems to sort out. Tri-Edge shaped problems."

The ogre doesn't stand a chance. Plant Duck, when faced with a problem solvable by Applied DPS, performs. The lifebars on the monster vanish almost as fast as a newbie sending Haseo an accidental party invite, and the Ogre dies as Proteus unleashes a blazing blast of light from in front while Haseo informs the Ogre that there is nothing personal about this event, child. Also, Whis powerbombs the thing with some sweet crossover overhead tech that leads right into a touch of death assist combination... But not before it turns and buries its axe into the ancient wood. It shatters, leaving behind...

Nothing. The axe remains in the tree, the ancient wood bleeding a slow, thick amber sap from the impact. Proteus wastes no time in collecting a vial's worth for herself, then looks to the others. "Well, looks like that worked out. Did you get everything you were looking for, Whiskey?"

Whiskey is right, someone is calling for a councilor, and Proteus is absolutely not it. She does, however, hover about as mysterious/ominous semi-moral support. "We're going to bring down Tri-Edge. Well... You probably are, you're the anti-PK expert, but we'll be backing you up. That's just how we are." Proteus assures Haseo. "I guess we're all just making sure you're okay, right?"

"Did I get everything I was looking for? Maybe? Yes?"

Whis looks at the steaming mess of the ogre, kicks it over, and starts rifling through its pockets.

She wiping her hands off on the ground afterwards, she shakes her head.

"Still no."

Haseo proves her right a lot, which doesn't really bring her any additional pleasure. "Yeah. It's because I'm an adult. I can use words to explain the things I want. And what I want is for you to stop meet my eyes once without needing to rely on spite or pride."

Whis moves to the axe, and yanks it out with force, setting a trio of metal flasks under the weeping sap that begins to pour forth.

"But you're right. You're the one making it hard for you to smile, or crack a joke. It's not Tri-Edge. That's the thing I don't get. He's dead and he doesn't know it yet - I get that. Proteus gets it. They're going to get rubbed off a list and it won't make you feel better to do it. You're the one giving it real estate in your head. Rise above the line items and stop letting it affect every other part of your life. It affecting just the one is enough."

Proteus backs her up. Whis relaxes just a bit. Her hackles come down, and with it, her overall lack of energy.

"Proteus can tell you, this is how it works for everyone." The 'friend hazing' Att and Whis had got up to, towards the once-far-moodier Imp.

Whis starts passing out the sap-loot.

"If you're not relentless, you lose. I hate losing. Let's get out of this hole, my feet feel gross."