Duty Session 152: The Vanishing Forest

    The Road to the South, normally impossible to pass, allows passage during this verdant period of the year. Adventurers will know they have reached the entrance when they see the tattered wooden sign in the shape of an arrow, pointing South. It usually comes with a vulture perched on top, and today it is no exception.

    The Hunters Guild has sent out a call for adventurers to explore the area and bring back anything worth of study, and Uta is already there. She observes the carnivorous bird perched on the sign from a safe distance and scratches her chin. "If animals and monsters shatter into polygons on death, what do vultures feed on? Drops from disintegrating animals?" She thinks a little longer, and then shakes her head. "No, I think I'm going to pass on petting this one." Another pause. "And I'm also not bringing it back to be studied."

Goldenblade arrives for the duty limping awkwardly, but with a determined expression. Examination will show her with a debuff called numbness, and down abou a quarter of her HP. "Hey," she calls, with no other hint of anything amiss. "How goes?" She is running this mission again, because she's done so badly before. She's been carried on her previous runs, but this time she's determined to contribute.

She eyes the vulture, and suggests, "Just another game inconsistency. You get vultures on signs to set a tone, not because they have a place in the ecosystem." Perhaps a bit meta, Goldenblade has not integrated into the game very much.

Rylen, being the resident Beastmsater, seems to consider Uta's strange question as he approaches, hands tucked into the pocket of his traveling jacket. Whenever there is the possiblity of running into trouble, he always seems to wear something that at least offer some measure of protection. "It's possible they feed on drops that are leftover from other animals which prey on each other. Though I can't say I've ever looked into it, your highness."

He offers a wink in Uta's direction, then a nod for Goldenblade as he steps forward, cracking his knuckles and seeming to bounce on his toes as if to loosen himself up. "It does set an ominous tone, though. A far cry from last month's bun-buns and colorful eggs."

Shiruba has done this event already but she was little trouble with coming to help a friend with it.

Doesnt hurt that the lingering status condition she had got healed earlier.

"Dont mind the buzzards Uta. They're not important to the task ahead. Just atmosphere."

Reika also takes a look at the vulture. She's tagging along for the duty, always eager to hone her skills, and find her lot in this world. It's not an easy thing after all, when ripped away from your reality, and given a harsh lesson on 'trust' afterwards. She has to rebuild herself slowly.

"They don't really need to eat in a game, I'm guessing, it's more like part of the programming for appearances... But then again, we need to eat, and we get eat no? So maybe it's the same for them, kill a target and get drop for subsistence." She shrugs, moving along.

"Does this world even /have/ Vultures?" Cyrus asks Uta, "It would be strange for a carrion species to evolve in this world, outside of Monsters." The fuzzy haired Cait Sith walks up to Uta as they consider this question. "Ah... but that's a vulture." Cyrus admits, rubbing his cheek, then pressing his index finger and thumb along the bridge of his nose. "Ahh... this world. Yeah - I guess they must be after the drops of animals that others leave behind? Or maybe they have some kind of ability to coalesce items after the fact?"

It seems Rylen and Cyrus are on the same track of mind of this as the youth continues heading into the forest, while checking out his potions for a moment. "Animals do have to eat though. That much seems confirmed. I've seen gaunt felins."

    Other quests usually change on repeat attempts. Does that apply to special holiday events? Only one way to find out...

    Mizuki winces at Goldenblade's limp. "I'm alright..." Then she follows Goldenblade's gaze to the vultures. "...Good point. Although, undead and graveyards turned out to have an explanation... perhaps there's a Lander naturalist we can ask. Or maybe Akumeiji would know..."

    Uta squints at Goldenblade. "My professional experience tells me that something is amiss." A flick of the fingers, some waving around what to other people must look like thin air, and a tsk sound. "Numbness, uh? Did you fall asleep on your leg? I do that occasionally. Then the leg gets revenge on me by falling sleeping on me."

    "Why, Sir Rylen," she begins in a jocularly exaggerated posh British accent, her posture shifting to a dignity to match her diction, "That is exactly why we need a Royal Society for the Study and Appreciation of Gelatinous Creatures. It shall give its contribution to the understanding of the mysteries of this world. Which reminds me..." She shifts back to her normal voice, "A few crates should arrive soon at the Quick-Feather Peko Ranch. Don't open them. Their contents is a surprise. Just make sure you feed them and... ignore the squeaky sounds. They're a spoiler. Also, don't stick your fingers through the cracks. It's another spoiler. And don't knock on the crates. It freaks them out."

    To Shiruba, Reika, Cyrus, and Mizuki she offers a simple, "...it's a mystery, indeed. One has to admit they do a great deal for the atmosphere though." More chin rubbing. "They probably eat the same way we Adventurers and Landers acquire meat, minus the cooking..." Cyrus gets an additional, "You should have seen Mr.Starvo's dog. A ribcage propped up on four sticks."

    Mizuki gets an additional question, "Who's Akumeji?"

    And then she immediately snaps back to look at Reika. She attempts to maintain a poker face, but her wings immediately spring from their relaxed, downward pointing posture to the extended X-configuration. Kind of like the Spriggan equivalent of wagging her tail. Yup, even if she doesn't say anything, she's gone fangirl at the famous idol again.

    * * *

    Uta leads the party down the road, more by virtue of having arrived first (definitely not because of superior experience). "Ok, uh, on your left you can see murky pools as far as the eye can see, but on your right, you have slightly different murky pools as far as the eye can see. Which isn't very far, because of the fog. If you look ahead... there seems to be, uh, gnarled trees? That's a nice change of scenery. If you look down, instead..." a pause, a squint. "...We seem to have your pretty average wet, spongy ground of decomposing vegetation. A bog standard bog." She groans. "Water. Why did it have to be water?" She tries her best to guess which way to go, sticking a feet forward to tiptoe onto what, hopefully, is solid ground...

Goldenblade agrees with Rylen that the vulture sets an ominous tone. "Well, we should be able to get through this, I think we've got a pretty well-rounded party today." She can only shrug at Mizuki's suggestion. "-Are- there any Lander naturalists?" she asks, now curious. To Uta, she explains, "I got poisoned by a monster I fought the other day. It hasn't worn off yet. It just needs to work its way out of my system. So here I am, walking it off."

That all said, she's following the group and facing a difficult challenge, again, her intuitive grasp of the ways of water insufficient to keep her out of the muck. She'll need a bit of help crawling out, and she's down some more HP, looking chagrinned at being stymied by such a simple obstacle. "I swear I can't figure this thing out no matter how many times I try. I can't work out what I'm doing wrong. Also, leeches do not cure numbness."

"Us Hunters have traits that increase the chances of meat drops, maybe some carnevor animals and monsters have similar," Shiruba muses to add to the conversation as they make their way.

Eventually they come to the boggy area. "Watch your step," she mainly warns Uta because of her space case tendencies. While pointing the relic with the name she can barely pronounce with her arm, the scanning light flashing over the bog and then emitting pointer beams at the solid spots that are safe for her to walk across.

"Mister... Starvo." He gives Uta a look. "With how rediculous some Lander names are, I can't tell if you are being serious or not. But being Uta, I am leaning towards that being a joke." The youth notes as he steps towards Goldenblade and offers his cane to help pull her back out of the big. He then takes a small glass orb into his other hand, and stares into it for a bit. "Just walk in my footsteps. I think I've picked up on a trail left by an animal that came through here ealier." He remarks, and carries on. It is notably the same path that Shiruba appears to be taking.

There is a long pause after Uta's rambling request about feeding whatever strange creatures it is that she happens to be having shipped to the ranch. Rylen raises an eyebrow, his expression speculative, but he just gives a faint incline of his head, "I will endevour to do my best." Because, what else is there to say when one of your best friends is bringing home strange creatures.

Once they begin forward, Rylen seems to hesitate as the ground starts to feel spongy beneath his feet. "I can't seem to get a sense for solid ground, here." He explains, taking a moment to trail his fingers on the ground, perhaps trying to read it through his earth magic. Instead, he has to lean on magics that are far weaker for him. "But the water seems to be flowing around this part. So maybe this way?"

He suggests... then steps onto what looks to be a solid platform, but immediately gives way under his feet. *SPLOOSH* A moment later, a bedraggled Pooka pulls himself back up on dry land, wet hair clinging to his face. "Not that way." He confirms with a wet cough.

Reika goes for what seems the more obivous route to her, hopping lightly along the footholds amidst the water. It's easy with her agility, one of the good sides of being a sort of ninja after all. She shows the way to some of the other people as much as she can, but it might be hard to follow.

"What a fantastic view here, but it needs a bit of coloring, maybe a touch of pink and blue over here." She says pleasantly, but mostly sarcastically.

    Mizuki looks between Uta and Goldenblade. "There were some really nasty hazards in another part of the forest. Even flowers that made us hallucinate... people."

    She blinks at the discussion of surprise crates. "Are you trying to make Peko Slimes...?"

    "Akumeiji is this NPC from some wizard's tower organization that studies all sorts of things about the world. So she might know about stuff like that."

    On to the bog! "Yep, this is still how it was last time. There's a safe path here..." and she walks over the bog without sinking.

    "Honestly, Goldenblade?" Uta replies. "So much stuff in this world, as it has just been said, looks like it's there more for the atmosphere than actually making sense, that I would not be surprised if leeches could cure a bunch of aliments."

    "Mister Starvo," Uta confirms. "Thin, famished guy. Some sort of newbie quest I seem to have stumbled upon in the early days. Kind of like a game of whack-a-mole for people with a musical staff." She waves her caduceus-based staff to stress her point, while leaping off the bit of solid ground she's in, and attempting to use her wings to, if not fly, at least feather fall a bit further away than the non-winged person. "You start off easy-peasy with Twinkle-Twinkle-Little-Star and eventually have to master way to Flight of the Bumblebee." She winces at some memory. Probably having to whack-a-mole her way through the latter. And then she frowns. "...at least, I /think/ that was the goal? I hope the point wasn't just to whack the moles, somehow, regardless of tempo and pitch. If that were true... I've accidentally taught myself combat xylophone."

    "And a whole lot of not being wet and depressing," Uta adds to Reika, before turning to Shiruba. "See, that would make a lot of sense. If we Adventurers can eat steaks and drumsticks, so carnivorous animals can eat the uncooked, raw materials. Somehow. "What's that thingamajig?", Uta asks the Spell Fletcher. "I've never seen anything like that."

    A hop, a glide, and Uta lands on the next bit of ground."

    She stops next to Rylen with a chuckle, and extends one begloved hand to him. "Here, Sir Rylen. Let Us help you out of your current predicament," She resumes in her posh voice. "We have reached out to you first, so it is perfectly fitting with protocol for you to touch Her Majesty's hand."

    Mizuki's words get all of Uta's attention. "...were they cactus flowers? That would explain cactus juice... and... uh... Peko slimes. No, that is not in the plans- correction, WAS not in the plans until now." She leaps to the next spot, finally reaching dry land. "Akumeiji and a tower that studies things in the world. I've been poking a lot at the world, lately, but mostly been looking into libraries and asking people. I should go speak with these wizards. Perhaps they can provide more interesting information."

    * * *

    Once the bog is passed, the gnarled trees eventually give way to less gnarled trees, and long story short, the whole thing soon evolves into some sort of hedge maze on fertilizers.

    "Ok, folks... this looks like a magically enhanced labyrinth whose difficulty level I'd estimate somewhere in the ballpark of 'spaghetti'. It is paramount that we all stick together, or we might- wait, where'd everyone go?" She turns around. "Oh, sorry, right behind my back."

Shiruba stops to pull out a small spyglass from her cartography and navigation tools. "I know better to think it'll be the same as last time. Better to be patient and efficient." As she walks along she uses the spyglass to check down various paths to look for dead ends and turnarounds so they can be avoided.

Goldenblade accepts Cyrus's help out of the muck and follows him as he leads the way through. "Thanks," she says with a sigh, leaning heavily on her staff. At least she's not alone in the drink. "It's harder than it looks," she says to Rylen with a smirk, and nods at what Mizuki says. "Yeah, those were actually the worst part, I think." When Mizuki crosses without incident, she sighs. "I shouldn've just waited. But I was sure I'd be able to find the path this time." To Uta, she says, "It'd make as much sense as anything here.

As she hurries to follow the others, her footsteps shake the earth, and from the reverberations, she can advise whoever's in the lead, "Ah, more left. Now come right here, then straight for a bit past the tree trunk there..."

Rylen seems more than happy to take the aid of Uta, a smirk on his features. Luckily, the others seem to be able to figure out their way through the bog. It is helpful to have people who have already been through a dungeon, they are quite valuable. "My thanks." He offers, taking off his jacket and quickly swiping is hand to stow it in his inventory, leaving him in only a sleeveless vest. It's still damp, but at least not cumbersome.

As for the maze of forest, this is far more familiar to him as there are plenty of similar structures at various points throughout Yamato. "It looks like someone else came through here recently. Possibly another adventuring party." Which, seems to help in pointing the right direction among the many twists and turns.

Reika ends up at the edge of her water hopping skills apparently. As she reaches the more solid section, it seems that her lightness can't help any when you stop almost straight into a hole.

Actually, right on the edge of it, and the ground giving out and slipping inward, capturing her foot. She yelps "Ahh!" Trying to pull herself out of it with her other leg, before she sinks in entirely "I was going to joke about vacation houses, but you know what, I think I'd rather not come back here if I can help it" ~_~

    Mizuki ughs at the idea of leeches curing ailments. And just sort of stares at Uta recounting learning Combat Xylophone. "No," she shakes her head, "They weren't cacti. It wasn't juice, it was... something in the air. Pollen, or a gas...?"

    And then, it's the same forest maze as before. Mizuki smiles, starts singing, and strides on in:

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!
Why try to cheat in a one player game? Just feels like crap and it makes you look lame!
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 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 Mizuki, dear, follow Mizuki, dear, follow Mizuki, dear, follow Mizu-
All just follow me! o/~

    Man, it sure would have been embarassing if the route hadn't been the same as last time, but she knows where she's going!

"Of course." Cyrus nods his head to Goldenblade, and makes sure she's ready to travel, before he continues on with his divining... until they finally arrive at the fork, and he realizes that. "Hey, this looks like the footsteps of the one who..." He's staring at Shiruba's footsteps. "... divination is so unreliable." He mutters, clearly having been following Shiruba's footsteps. Looking at the maze, and noting that he probably can't easily continue like that, he figures he will try to rely on his focus on earth magic to maybe get a 'feel' for where to go.

But that feel quickly disappears as someone starts singing about... super mario RPG?! It's very distracting, but in a good way, as Cyrus actually starts humming the song. It's that kind of 'I am singing along, but I dont want others to know I am singing along, so I am just humming under my breath shut up I don't like this totally'.

    Goldenblade's leads turn out to be effective, as does Shiruba's spyglass. They both find themselves out of the maze.

    "Aaaand, there goes the shirt," Uta teases Rylen. "You know what that reminds me of?" She panics, as if she had suddenly remembered something completely different from what she was going to say. "My hat! I've forgotten to equip a hat! Oh goodness. How can I develop a new obsession if I don't even remember to obsess over it?" She mumbles. "I guess I'll never rank very high in the showing-off-cool-hats side of ETO..."

    She turns and panics. "Oh, no! Sorry, someone else needs my help!" She rushes to provide Reika some help. Given how dirty bogs are, well, this time she will NOT mention how she's never going to wash her hand after helping Reika out (in case she accepts).

    Mizuki's song might not be as quick as Goldenblade and Shiruba's methods, but is just as effective and, let's face it, more fun. The panoramic route of maze solving. Because when you go with the song, you go all in. Maybe that is the reason why humming it doesn't quite cut it for Cyrus...

    The maze has been left behind, and what the party is met with is now an eerie, monochrome section of the forest with leaves that appear to crumble away into dust when touched.

    Could the mysterious rough stone domed structure with vines strangling it be the source of this taint? Perhaps some of the objects the vines are pushing against the walls? If so, it's better to destroy them as soon as possible...

Goldenblade proceeds through the trackless maze, gimping along with her staff, though she has to occasioally skip for a few paces or get left behind. The song is a reference she doesn't get at all. Her kids were too old for that, and the grandkids might have been the right age, but they didn't have videogames at grandpa's house, so he never saw it. She'll make sure Cyrus doesn't get turned around, and follows along through the forest to the odd hut.

She looks over the odd house, and will gimp inside to see what may be seen. This is one of those tasks that she has found she has a knack for, pulling a tool from a beltpouch and going at the containers' locks. They pop open relatively quickly to her skilled hands, and when the container reveals a source of darkness, she smashes it.

Reika phews as she's pulled out of that hole, grumbling a bit at herself but thanking Uta for the prompt answer "This place is not fun at all." She shakes her head, and carefully steps her way toward the structure. This is new at least. "Well, let's try opening up and seeing what's inside?" She reaches into the sleeve of her dress, pulling out what appears to be a lockpicking kit. Where she stores this is a mistery, but it's there.

She walks over to the door, and starts picking at the lock quietly. There"It's weird how I never done this in the real world, but here it's like things align so I can do it easily."

Cyrus rubs the back of his head as they get to the hut with the hidden boxes. "Darnit, left my cart behind before going in. Didn't think I'd need it." He remarks as they get closer and people start approaching. Instead of trying to identify them, eventually the Snow Leopard Cait Sith begins to work on destroying any boxes that the others designate, using his cane to try and crush them - with some magic added to the punch of needed.

"That barrow contains corrupt items causing the entropic effect," Shiruba points out. "Everyone spread to cover the most area efficiently either IDing corrupt items or opening the locked containers." There is plenty of people to search so she focuses on keeping it organized.

Rylen gives an indulgant roll of his eyes, "I'm still wearing a shirt. But a soaked jacket is a bit heavy if we need to get into any kind of actual conflict." The pooka /is/ still wearing a sleeveless vest. Odd that he used to go shirtless more often, but now he seems to avoid it outside of performances.

"This... doesn't look right." That is an understatement. Rylen runs his fingers along some of the gray-colored leaves, his connection to nature feeling as if this all were a bit 'off' at the moment. "Something is causing this."

Goldenblade, though, seems to know where she is going, so Rylen follows into the domed structure, looking around. "Let's see..." Though he rarely uses the appraisal abilities that come naturally to Pooka, he does at this point, examining a few objects before finally settling on something that looks like a humanoid figurine. Tugging it free from the vines, he offers it out. "This is part of the problem."

    Mizuki beams, proud of herself for striding into the forest with a song and indeed leading along the correct path. That HAD to look badass, right? Stuff like that doesn't happen in real life, it happens in a musical montage in a TV show.

    At the end, though, the quest continues to be the same. "Things aligning so we do all this stuff is kind of the point of a game like this, isn't it? ...These again... I don't think they even have any treasure, I'm not sure what the point is..." She gets out her lockpicks and starts fiddling with the locks. Click, click, click... SNAP. "Damn it..."

    Under Shiruba's coordination, the team does a pretty good job of reducing the entropic effect. Everyone seems to do a really good job at either lockpicking, like Goldenblade or Reika do, or removing the humanoid figurine.

    Everyone, that is, except Cyrus. Why does he seem to smash all the wrong objects?

    "That small jar over there, Cyrus!", exclaims Uta. "I'm sure that small jar over there- eeeeeeeew... rotten... whatever it was! Ok, that was not it. How about the small chest- whoops. Sorry. That wasn't it either. Then it's clear, it must be-" her staff is pointed at a third object, which is promptly cane-smashed. ".../Seriously/?! How can we be wrong three items in a row? I'm sure that if I knew statistics, I could prove that it's a statisical impossibility!"

    * * *

    Once the source of Taint has been removed, the forest extends into a lush display of all sorts of colorful flowers and plants, intertwined together in a masterpiece of colors on a backdrop of greenery.

    "Ah, finally. This is where we gather whatever it is that the Guild wants us to gather, I guess. There certainly is no shortage of... uh... anyone an expert on Herbology here? I'm not sure it- HEY!", she shrieks, as a vine that had slowly creeped up to her snaps around her ankle and pulls her up, like some sort of trap, leaving her dangling upside down.

Goldenblade nods as Rylen finds another source of Darkness. She sets it in a somewhat clear area and draws her sword, smashing the figurine. Then it's back to opening locked containers. She nods at Reika's observation, "It's the same for me," she agrees about the lockpicking. Who knew?

Once past the odd stone building, she finds herself back in the forest with the party, examining the vines to try and find the best bits to sample. This requires a close investigation, though the hazard of that closeness is becoming entangled by the vines. Luckily, she spends less time entangled than she does finding samples. It seems this is one piece of the mission that she's improved on after several runs through the mission.

Perhaps it is because Rylen is still half-soaked from the bog, but the moisture dripping off of his clothing seems to draw the attention of some of the more dangerous plantlife. Before he even notices it, one vine has snaked up along his leg.

With a tug, he pulls his leg free, only to get grabbed by two more vines. "Uh, little help?" He ends up striking out at the vines, having to go into full blown combat to try to keep them at bay, but the Pooka ends up taking more damage than he would like in the process.

"For all that Pooka are supposed to be connected to the earth, plants are not friends." He grumbles, red welts rising up on his arms where some of the plant poison has seeped into his skin.

Cyrus is standing over the missmatched and various rotten things that are smashed... when everyone else is done. And he slowly turns to Uta with this dirty look. "You are just... /the worst/." Cyrus mutters at Uta with this tired expression. "I thought you knew what you were doing." He lifts his cane. It smells of the things he's smashed now.

He goes to find some water to clean his cane, and is back moments later and towards the various flowers and plants. "Oh... yeah. I can help with this." Cyrus glances aside as Uta gets grabbed by some vines. And he just kind of... leaves her dangling there.

"Alright, we just need to grab these. The ones with the red flowers are just regular herbs - we don't care about those."

"Here we go again." Shiruba mutters at the familiarly weird plant growths. Followed by activating her Arcane Eye buff and putting her bow to work. Except even with the accuracy buff moving vibes and briars are hard to effectively shoot. "Find what you can and we'll move on before we're overwhelmed!"

    While Mizuki fumbles with her lockpicks, the others cure the corruption. "Hmm. What was next, attacking vines...?" She looks over at the people grabbed by vines. "Right, yes, I snuck between them before. Hey!" She charges her daggers with dark-element and slices at the plants, then casts Arcane Eye to locate and avoid further plant monsters. "This way... be careful and quiet... I don't want to find out what vine tentacles will do to us..."

Reika looks proudly as she stores her tools back into her sleeve. "Good work. now what's..." Oh boy, plants. And hungry ones apparently. She fortunately has a very good handle on dark energies, and just hold her hands now, she can redirect the energies and plants away from herself and the group "I wonder what's at the center of this."

    Dangling upside-down seems to somehow jog Uta's memory. "...I am as surprised as you are, Cyrus. I thought I knew what I was doing as well. It turns out we were both mistaken." While she speaks, the plant keeps pulling her up. "I don't think I'm that bad...", she begins, self-conscious. "I mean, I might have made a few errors in judgement, but my intentions were the most pure and transparent, and I never mean harm to anyon-" By now she's been pulled all the way up and a giant carnivorous plant opens its maws in a sort of roar-hiss, at which point Uta's form shimmers with a disturbing thin aura of darkness and purple. "No you don't!", she growls, her voice tenebrous and chilling, as she intones a dark chant, and stabs the plant in the face with the tip of her staff, darkness draining through it into the plant.

    With a pained hiss-growl, the plant tosses away it designated meal on grounds of it having too much fight in it; said designated meal does a couple of backflips in the air and lands back onto the ground.


Shiruba does no quite manage to avoid all the vines, and bits of HP bar get docked from her. Reika and Mizuki, conversely, do a good job at keeping the plants at bay, and Goldenblade, thanks to her previous experience but possibly also because Cyrus's particularly inspired directions, manages to collect an interesting set of samples. And so does Uta, eventually, after taking some time to help Rylen. She makes sure to follow Cyrus's directions about which plants to collect faithfully, while hoping he doesn't direct her to some sort of nettle or hallucinogenic mushroom as a payback for the rotten thing in a jar...

    The team reaches the Heart of the Forest: living, pulsating, effusing life force. Hopefully the metaphor ends here and does not extend to 'full of blood'. A giant tree with carvings on it towers majestic, but it clearly suffers: branches have been torn off, and one side shows deep scarring from an axe-blade so large that... let's just not think about meeting who swung it. Uta approaches the tree in awe to study it better. "...let me try and decipher this... uh... fascinating. These must have been carved by previous adventurers. Even if they are in Japanese, my native tongue, I cannot understand what most of these mean. They must be arcane spells or something? Oh, wait, this one is in English. It says..." She squints. "'Kilroy Was Here'" She turns to the players in the party that she knows not to be Japanese. "Is this some sort of English-language enchantment?"

    Uta's ramblings are cut off by a roar so powerful to briefly displace Uta, clothes fluttering as she sheilds her face by crossing her arms in front of it. She opens her eyes, and stares back at the thirty feet tall creature. Green, twisted, bulbous and greenish, and makes the ground tremble at every step. It turns towards the adveturers again, and ROARS once again, straight at them. Uta undergoes the same being-push-back-by-the-force-of-the-roar-itself thing, complete with face-shielding and fluttering clothes. "...do you think it has spotted us?", she asks.

Goldenblade will help Rylen get free, leaning on her staff and hacking the vines free with her sword. She nods about the plants, "They're annoying," she agrees. She only stayed ahead of them by luck. When the party encounters the ogre, she tosses the staff aside and gimps forward. "All right, lets bring it on," she says, both swords out and held ready. She takes a breath, shouts out a "Kiyahh!" and hustles forward as best she can. She dodges under a swipe and lays in her best attacks, alternating left and right, slashing with heavy blows slamming home from both sides, whittling the boss's HP bar down.

At the very least, the last part of this strange quest seems to at least be something Rylen can deal with. The sight of the ogre has him cracking his knuckles, lightly flexing his fingers before he steps forward. "Well, tall dark and ugly, you've picked a bad day to take up the lumberjack trade."

Rylen utilizes some of his natural ranged abilities, avoiding the reach of the ogre's attacks so that he can call up large discs of earth, which hover briefly in the air. Then, sweeping his hands out in punches, the rocks follow, slamming into the back of the ogre one after another.

The notch of lost HP does little to dampen the wolfgirl's spirits as the team moves on. "We come to blows once more evildoer!" Shiruba proclaims as the party makes their way into the final center of the mysterious forest and find the lumberogre there yet again. "Careful he goes after the tree with a Rage mechanic if his health lingers low for too long."

Storm level winds concentrate upon the arrow she draws back in her bow. "The winds of change favor you not ... Typhoon Shot!" The screaming cyclonic projectile is fired with no restraint to blast the fiend.

    "The tree's still damaged. I wonder if this will be any different..." At Uta's question, Mizuki answers, "It's an ancient meme from before our time. I think I read once on Alexandria how it got started, but, I don't remember..." She shrugs.

    And then the monster roars, and Mizuki charges right on in, "Second verse, same as the first!" trying to do her jump-around-stab-in-the-back-claw-and-spit-fire-in-the-face routine that has worked so well in the past.

    It... gets a bit dicey, with the ogre getting a hit in on her and some grazes, but she's still able to deliver the DPS!

Reika's eyes widen at the roar, looking toward Uta's question "I think that part is obvious." She has a moment to leap out of the way, putting some distance with the rest of the party rapidly. As she lands, she removes her dual swords from her back "I guess all we can do is cut it down to size!" The bigger they are, the harder they fall, or something like that.

She dashes low, under the ogre's swipe, nimbly moving toward it's legs to unleash a rapid succession of slices from both sides, hoping to take out his footing. If it falls, it's easier to hit, of course.

Cyrus helps some of the others get down as needed. He's not actually the kind of person who holds a grudge at all. He just sensed that Uta wasn't in any real danger. He still gives her that quiet look - not answering her directly. But at least he doesn't lead her to any wrong plants.

Once in the Heart of the Forest, the youth whistles - impressed. "You know, I don't know if this was designed or not... this is still pretty impressive." He remarks, as he looks at the various writing. Right before the green creature steps out, and the youth backs up.

"Not taking that chance!" He answers Uta immediately, and throws two potions of fire - aiming it for a patch of dirt so that none of the forest would take to flame; a few water potions at the ready to make sure nothing goes wrong. "Guess this is what we're after as well? Maybe we can gather something from it to show to the Guild."

    Mizuki delivers her well tested routine: no warrior's curriculum can be complete without the time honoured techniques of jumping around, stabbing in the back, clawing, and spitting fire in the face of the opponent. Every medieval text on melee probably establishes them as the basics every knight must know. Maybe. Still, Mizuki looks pretty spiffy and awesome while doing so.

    Uta rushes into the thick of battle as well. Dodging and ducking and jumping all around help her avoid any incoming blow, and she takes the most favorable window of the monster finding itself off-balance for quick strike-and-get-out actions. Each blow might not be as powerful as the damage other people can inflict, but in her defense, she does score a lot of them, so it evens out.

    Goldenblade's limping blows and slashes keep pushing the monster back, gashes and patches of light appearing where she impacts, ground shaking at each stomp back. Reika gets in and her bladework works like surgery (or, since it's meant to damage... reverse-surgery?) on the ogre's legs right as Rylen's Earth discs hit it from behind. The monster is toppled over face-first, and if his steps were enough to make the ground shake, well, just imagine what the whole monster falling face-first entails.

    He gets up and lets out another mighty roar, and stomps towards Cyrus, who throws his two potions of fire at the patch the monster's about to step into.

    Shiruba's projectile strikes true into his chest, docking a sizable chunk of his HP bar and making him stagger (with associated ground shaking) and step right into the burning patch.

    The ogre eventually steps on a patch of dirt and catches on fire, which has the double bonus of delivering additional damage to the monster and distract it away from the party.

    A coordinated final attack by everyone makes the ogre shatter in so many polygon it seems like a rain of luminous confetti has exploded to celebrate the Living Green festival.

    Uta slumps to sit on the floor, exhausted but exhilarated, propping herself up with her staff. "We did it folks! We did it! We beat the boss and-" She turns to notice something sticky dripping from the giant tree.

    Sap

    "...Do you think we should bring this back as well?" She thinks. "Maybe keep some for us? I wonder if it'd taste good on pancakes..."

    Mizuki leaps off the monster as it shatters, but doesn't quite stick the landing. She stumbles a bit, hopping to avoid falling over and try to regain her balance. Fortunately, she's a cat, so she can then immediately look as if she meant to do that.

    "Yes, I think we should." She answers Uta simply, and moves to collect it. With another sap sample, she tries the identification skill again, relaying information as it comes up. "Ooh. 'A strange amber liquid that seems to be sourced from a mysterious tree that only appears at certain times of year. The sap seems to have strange, magical properties.' Useful for Enchanting, Woodworking, and Alchemy..."