Duty Session 156: Spinner's Deep

    EARLIER TODAY

"Hey, wait a minute." Att suddenly looks up from his newspaper and breakfast. Observant fans will notice the lorem ipsum placeholder text on the on-screen model. "Did we ever actually look into that boss room in the stupid spider mine--?"

    RIGHT ABOUT NOW

They're back in the stupid spider mine. Att has had a Flame Wall primed since they walked in the first cavern.

It's been a pleasant trip, if a claustrophobic one, though; the mine is in working order, all cleared out and cleansed of the world's worst enemy type. The path down into the depths has only been paused by the procession of miners going past, and, thus far, there's been no reason to ignite the air itself and burn the filth contained within these walls from the surface of the world.

Att has strong feelings about spiders, and all of them have to do with traditional game mechanics.

"Okay, here we are." He taps his staff against the floor. There are runes on the wall, and a circular platform that, "Looks awfully teleportery. Proteus, you're the expert; can you make heads or tails of the inscriptions?" Att notices some of the runes lit up when he made noise with the butt of his staff, so he wanders around investigating that. He's pretty sure he can't sing a spider-hymn genuinely enough for it, but maybe he can throw magic at the problem?

     EARLIER TODAY

     Shin, who is coming down the stairs, spinning a quill in one hand, pauses on the bottom step at Att's question.

     RIGHT NOW

     "I guess we didn't!" Shin whistles. "You'd think we'd've thought of that, right?"

     The teleporter responds.

     Beat.

     The belt buckle comes out. The belt snaps around his waist. A fingersnap. The belt begins to flash.

     Intense, high-action Insert Song music plays as Shin heads over to the teleporter like he knows exactly what he's doing. "Hey, hey!" He turns around and waves at Proteus, "See if you can synch up the music to the lights! Seems like it's a key, right? Maybe there's some code here."

"Okay, no one can blame this one on me this time." Proteus points out the moment they're back in the Spider Mine. "Also, I've been down here before, I can help with some of the problems. Some of them."

She gets right to work once they work their way down to the teleporter. "The teleportation pad operates on music induced by a sequence involving these runes. You're actually more or less right on target, Shin, see if you can match your music to the runes in this order." In this case, Proteus begins simply trying to guide people through the sequence as best she can. She's not a musician, so that's up to other people.

Earlier...

Yobi puts the final plate down for breakfast, sitting down himself as the question is asked...

Now

Yobi points his hand towards the dais, trying to get it to respond to his magical talent.  It does not seem to work, to which Yobi looks disappointed.  "Hm...perhaps it does not wish to work for me, or perhaps I am attempting the wrong talent."

"Also what happened here before?  Or is this just like the offline version?"

EARLIER,

Whiskey Sour, sitting at the table with her forehead flush with the board, grunts.

"We totally did."

They didn't.

NOW,

Whis, having deteriorated even more, shifts her weight from one foot to another like someone sore after a workout, bleary eyes not really taking in the sights and sounds of The Stupid Spider-Dungeon Take A Dozen Or Whatever.

"Magical talent? Talent schmalent. That's just your starting point."

Like some sort of JoJos character, Whis' body glows blue white with ripples of energy pouring off of her - an undirected casting of her signature 'explode a man, to death' favored pillars or palms of light.

Instead, she lightly touches her fingers together, thumbtip to thumbtip, pointer to pointer, a triangular window with the dias in the center.

She whispers something. It sounds irrelevant.

Att cancels his near-casting of Flame Wall, and utterly fails to figure out how to DDR his way to victory, magically or otherwise. Fortunately, the quick thinking (read: solution-having) Proteus points out the proper order of things, which means that Shin, who actually is fairly musically inclined, if highly specialized, can figure out the proper tones he needs to produce to make them light up and do... something... to the raised platform. It glows a little, but it isn't enough to turn it on. They need more gas, so to speak.

Whiskey provides GAS, GAS, GAS, and it turns on. The teleporter light is way brighter than it has to be. "Yeah, okay, that'll do it." Att squints, and walks towards the light, where he DIES IMMEDIATELY.

No he just teleports to the next room. This is way more dungeon-themed, with dampness, darkness, torches and dirt. Att brushes a web off his shoulder. "Yeah, this is more like it." He waits for the group to start appearing, and then moves on, humming to himself (the Heroic Theme that Shin was playing, in fact) as he walks forward.

Into another dead end, with another spidery edifice.

"Alright, that's... creepy." Att pokes it from afar with his staff. Nothing happens. "Um... offerings, I guess. Did anyone bring any big, juicy flies for the spider?"

     As they teleport to the next room, Shin resumes whistling the other half of the track Att is humming. Every so often he pauses. "You know - I never learned how to play an instrument over there. I always sort of thought I'd have time."

     With that odd statement out of the way, he goes back to whistling the other half of the track. Right up until they round the bend into the spidery edifice.

     "Man, that has 'evil base' written all over it, huh?" He leans forward to poke the statue. "I don't think I wanna transform just yet. Feels like being the bug here might not be the best idea."

     "Sorry, though." Shin sniffs. "I'm not picking up anything around here that might be useful."

The teleportation effect takes them over into the next room, Yobi looks aghast for a moment at all of the spider webs everywhere.  Maybe he's afraid of spiders?  

"Tsk, do giant spider creatures have no sense of cleanliness!  Forshame..." he says, apparently not afraid of spiders, but instead by poor cleaning techniques.  Taping his shoulder for a moment, and following the hand of the statue, he frowns.

A sacrifice, huh..?  He looks around the plate for a moment, seeing if there was a trick to it, and then...

Drops a container of beast blood on it.  "Leftover from tonight's meal.  I find you never know when these misc items will become useful!"

Proteus nods to the others and hops onto the platform once it activates. "Nice and easy." She points out. They teleport...

And arrive in a room that she wasn't expecting, by the look on her face. "Weird. The last time I came down here it was a ruined area with unstable bracing. It was something of a mess." She grunts, and shrugs. "Well, if nothing else..."

She looks over the spider-statue with a frown. "I hate this place even more now." She states, and rummages around for something she can use.

A cheeseburger is placed in the hand along with the other sacrifices. It probably doesn't help.

The teleporter works EXCEPTIONALLY well, because it is FULLY JUICED.

And there are no observations about the inherent suicide-state of matter translocation, no worries about the inherent cessation of one self and the spontaneous creation of a second self with all the same memories but without the continuance of personage in a straight line.

No, this is an isekai teleport. It goes vroomvroomvroom and then you're translocated. Whole. Not in digital pieces.

Thanks, Dungeon Teleporter. We'll get existential with *you* in a different media format.

"So... It's a spider statue. This is what we missed? A spider statue in the back?"

People start offering things to it... with some success. "Well, the good news is, after the fifth time I did the previous Spider dungeon, I found a particular kind of mushroom that's like catnip, but for spiders. They just love it."

Whis produces a mushroom and carefully places it in the mandibles of the spider-statue, where it floops fungally.

"It's perfect. Okay, let's leave."

"No reason you can't learn here," Att tells Shin. "Maybe invent rock music after you finish revolutionizing the manga world?"

Att starts to rifle through his possessions in the form of making flicking motions with a finger in the air. He's in his inventory. "Oh, right, I was gonna say before -- stuff," he vaguely says towards Yobi, "this is like the Lost Mines of Arach'ni in the offline game, but I think the similarities are pretty much just an homage. Or, like, a... stylistic nod. It's got a different layout, and there isn't a fire spider ambush on the second level like there is in Arach'ni. I mean, so far, anyway."

Floppy mushrooms and blood kind of work. Rounding it out, Att picks out a piece of ore from this very mine and adds it to the pile. The statue's hand curls closed with a grinding sound, and the altar shakes, sinking into the floor! The wall slowly grinds downward, opening up the way forward!

The cheeseburger remains forgotten on the floor.

The tunnel winds forward. The lack of giant spiders to kill is not complete: they do run into some trash mobs on the way down, speedbumps meant to break up the monotony of the exploration of the place. The floor gets sticky at one point, making an irritating 'bwow' noise and slowing down their footing. It's basically the worst. It's basically --

-- a room full of the worst. A gap over a chasm, with webbing going across it. *Things* skitter below. Waiting. All it takes is one misstep. Is the darkness down below the absence of light, or the presence of a churning mass of spiders?

"Okay," Att whispers, "slow and careful. No Flame Walls." That part is important with this crowd.

"It's true. There's always room to improve. This world being what it is should only make it easier and better to improve instead of how it was in the old world." Proteus clearly concurs with Att. "Come on, let's go!" She points, grinning as their efforts prove to unlock the damn statue and opens up a path. "It does kind of resemble that but trust me, the resemblances are only superficial. There's no fire spiders down there. It's /all poison/." Proteus shudders.

And then she shudders more once they get to the nect proper area. "This place again." Proteus hisses. "Be careful. Be VERY careful. Last time, we brushed against the strands and caused a massive spider to chase us until we got to safety." She pauses. "I was one of the ones being chased." She adds, as if anyone needed confirmation.

Unfortunately for the Imp, she promptly blunders into some more webbing right as she's warning everyone else. It would be comical if it wasn't for horrible spiders.

     "I thought about it, but honestly, I'm thinking about animation. Can't be that hard to learn shadow puppets, right?" Shin laughs, his hands going behind his head. "Then again, it wouldn't be too bad getting the Landers playing my theme. It's pretty catchy."

     He watches Att curiously. Shin is tall, so he can easily peek over shoulders and watch people do things. He watches Att put the ore on the altar. It starts to shake, grinding downwards.

     Alright then.

     Shin takes point along the tunnel.

     And promptly nails his forehead on the ceiling, because he is, as previously mentioned, very tall.

     When he bends forward and grabs his head, the angry, pained noise he makes, well...

     That does it for silence.

"Ah, that would make some sense, and now that you mention it I can see it," he comments to Att, as they pass some pillars.  Trash mobs are barely a speed bump for the group, as Yobi uses FIST ARTS to punch through some of them.  

Then they come across the worst room in the entire game.  Webs everywhere, and they need to get through to try and avoid mobs.  To everyone else, Yobi appears at one end of the strands and appears on the other, seemingly unscathed.  

In SLOW MO speeds, Yobi moves like lightning through the field, magical energy powering him as he narrowly avoids strand after strand.  Thankfully, his natural dodge skills and magical enhancing spells keep him going.  

"Everyone alrigh-" a beat.  "Oh."

Whis is pretty out of it. Each challenge is like a puzzle she's just waking up for. Something is definitely Wrong.

"Huh?" she repeats, as Proteus explains they've been here.

Her mind wanders. Heh heh. A giant spider. Doesn't that sound cuddly? After the months, weird chittering horrors just seem normal. Friendly, even.

Whis, her lower quarter entangled in webs that merely stick lightly to her, looks up at Proteus. "Be what?"

"Shadow puppets, huh..." Att trails off. He starts to creep across the web. He spends a moment examining it, standing perfectly still as he finds the patterns in the webbing. If he looks just right, he can make out the individual webs and the way the strands interweave. He crouches, the universal sneaking stance, his natural Spriggan sneakiness coming into play.

Enormous red eyes open below them. Then, they split. *Two* giant monster spiders skitter up to the top of the webbing. They make horrible gnashing, skittering noises, and begin the CHASE SEQUENCE. It's a CHASE SEQUENCE because there's not enough space to fight them without plummeting to your death.

One CHASE SEQUENCE later, the group is on the far side of the webs, in a narrow passage, the enormous spiders gradually losing their interest. Yobi, already there, is probably fine. Att brings up the rear, having been a sneaky bastard the whole time. The sticky floor doesn't go away, but it's at least backed by stone now, the tunnels ever deepening until... SPIDER CAFETERIA.

"Spider cafeteria," Att says, quizzically. There's a herd of grunties, and big, long-legged spiders roaming around, herding them. One eats one right in front of them. Att stares. Then he slowly, gently... nudges Whiskey forward. "Tell them we come in peace," he asides to her.

NARRATOR: They do not come in peace.

Proteus stops as she feels that familiar shuddering of the webs. She cringes, looking up at the heavens so far away behind tons of rock as she calls out, "WHY? WHY AGAIN?"

Moments later, she's running. "RUN! THIS SPIDER ENCOUNTER IS BEYOND ANY OF US! RUUUUUUUN!"

ONE CHASE SEQUENCE later, Proteus gasps for breath muttering while the Doom Spiders lose their aggro. "This is so stupid and annoying. I hate this place. I hate it so much." She grumbles, before they push on forward. "Let's just get this..."

SPIDER CAFETERIA "... Over with." She blinks, stopping as she sees the spiders chowing down. "I HATE SPIDERS!" She yells, clearly revulsed at the consumption of an entire Grunty right in front of her face as she immediately tries to bust out Empyrian Arrow only to promptly fumble the activation sequence and waste a ton of MP doing it in her panic.

The pair of eyes look at them from the dark.  

Moments later, cue Yobi running down the corridor with the same speed because the magic effect from earlier was still there.  

However, this brings them to the Spider Cafe.  Spider food: for spiders, by spiders, OF spiders.  Of course, the squeal of the Grunty causes his gaze to turn towards the spider eating the thing whole.  "Disgusting, they aren't even meant to be eaten like that.." he says and brings himself into a stance.  

A dash forward, causes a fist to repeatedly slam into whatever parts of the spider he can reach, aiming for joints and other sensitive parts.  The hand moves like a flash to those without butler speed, appearing as if he only struck once, instead of the dozens of times he has.  

"Oh were we making peace?  Uh, excuse me then.  I would like to borrow a...cup of spiders?" he asks, sure the spider he just punched was likely a bloody mess.

     CHASE SEQUENCE

     Shin is surprisingly nimble for somebody as lanky-looking as he is. Must be that Isekai Protagonist Energy he's got going on. Isekai Protagonists always seem to be able to run really really fast and avoid really really stupid stuff. When the Spiders are nipping at his heels, Shin turns around to kick one of them in the face, then springs backwards along the web and resumes his run.

     He is grinning, though. He must still have some aggression to work out.

     Can't imagine why.

     Still, he got most of it out the other night, so it's just lingering frustrations now, the occasional twitch of the finger. A finger-twitch that happens right as they walk into Spider Cafeteria.

     Shin sighs and scratches the back of his head. "Unfortunately," he says, "We don't come in peace, do we?"

     He steps forward. His right hand at two o'clock. His left hand at four. His right hand rotates to eleven. His left rotates up to one.

     Both hands come snapping down across the belt.

                                "Transform."                                

                        0 01 0
                      1 /----\ 0
                     0 /      \ 0
   ARMOR BEETLE    ====|  /\  |====  CODE: ALGOL
DEFENSE OF DESTINY ====|  \/  |====    COMPILE
                     0 \      / 1
                      1 \----/ 1
                        0 10 0

     The belt jewel blazes red. White stars light across his body. Slowly, the red light fills the stars and their connectors, until Shin's body is bathed in an ominous red light.

     He steps out of the light and motions with an insectoid finger.

     "Masked Ranger, Algol."

     "The Demon Star will light your way back to Hell."

     He runs forward into the spiders. Black chitin fists come swinging in to shove enemies into the paths of his allies. He runs through the spiders with sliding kicks and axe-kicks and wheeling flip-kicks, spiralling through the battlefield. He backflips off a spider and lands back with the party.

     One hand curls into a fist.

     He starts hammering the fist against the top of the belt. The red light starts to glow, brighter and brighter. Finally, he snaps his hand across the jewel again, and crimson circuitry grows down his leg as he leans backwards on one leg.

     The belt sings.

                               CODE: BREAKER                                

    'Algol' leaps up into the air. It's a high leap, as high as the ceiling will allow. He flips forward. His foot bursts into crimson light. He hits the ground like a shooting star, a wake of ruby glow smashing through spiders as he skids along the ground, knocking them aside.

     'Algol' comes out the other side in the Iron Man pose. There's a long trench of earth behind him. The blazing starlight dies. He raises one hand.

     Snap.

     A whole bunch of spiders explode from the heart, falling over backwards and turning to pixels as 'Algol' stands and looks over his shoulder.

MOMENTS AGO:

Whis looks down at her sticky feet, and the general state of 'the lair of a Chase Sequence' that she sleepwalked into.

"I hate forgetting steps."

ONE CHASE LATER, Whis is curing cuts and scraps and peeling spidersilk off her feet.

"What do you meeeean 'this spider encounter is beyond any of us'. I clearly heard you say 'beyond any of us'! That's..."

Att Syne turns to Whis, Spiderfriend, Controller of Carapace, Barterer of Beetles.

Yobi and Algol, framing Whis on either side by finisher kicking and beltsound screeching in the distance as both spiders are dominated, create a strange atmosphere for the sleepy, almost serene druid.

"Alright. We come in peace."

She takes Att by the hand, and leads him straight through the center of the area. To Whis's addled mind, she's walking through a bunch of garbage and thinking 'peace' very hard.

To the outside world, as two chunky lads beat the shit out of spiders, Whis Araki-walks straight down the center, stanced up, exuding a pure ara-aura of 'play stupid games, win lethal prizes'.

She may not 'come' in peace, but she leaves in it.

The fight is swift, brutal, and extremely wet and crunchy. The exploding spiders from Algol alongside Yobi's butlerized (it's like brutalized, but classier) victims make for sprays of ichor and ichor-like fluids, with very loud snapping, cracking, and popping going on all around. Proteus fails to draw aggro, which means she doesn't have to be chased around the room, and Whis just... takes Att's hand and leads him through the whole place in an aura of peace, tranquility, and Fuck Around And Find Out.

A couple of little spiders Find Out.

By the time they're clear of Spider Cafeteria, everyone is a little more worn and a little less okay with spiders. It's nice and peaceful, now. Grunties continue to graze on moss in the corner. Att briefly considers trying to take them along, but has no idea what to do with it. "Thanks, Whis. Remember your, um, steps."

Yobi loots 1x Cup of Spiders. It's about as creepy as you'd expect. It's also a consumable, but it only hurts you??

Things start to glow as they move on towards what feels like an end point. The wall lifts as they approach, splitting into pieces in kind of a cool, grinding stone doorway. The boss chamber looks... a lot like the last one, actually, but more green and pitted. "Huh." Att looks up as they walk in. "Same style. I bet there's another layer under this one, too."

The boss makes itself known, materializing in the middle of the chamber! It's some kind of terrible armored drider, with glowing red eyes. Att draws his sword and steps up front, grinning. "Okay, this is more like it. Let's dance, everybody! You all know the steps!"

     As usual, 'Algol' doesn't talk much once he's transformed. He just takes point wordlessly, bug-eye domes glowing a deep red, his scarf flowing behind him. As usual he has that presence when he's 'Algol' that he just lacks as Shin. No goofy Isekai Protagonist Energy. Just the hardcore justice machine that is the Masked Ranger.

     When the boss enters and Att gives the order, 'Algol' flicks two fingers forward over his shoulder. The belt lights green. The circuits start spreading down his leg as he snaps his hand across the jewel.

                                CODE: THORN                                

     His foot comes smashing down.

     A tower of thorns erupts out of the ground directly underneath the monster. They go shooting upwards to bind it in place for everyone else to attack more cleanly, more easily.

There is a moment where the boss jumps down, revealing itself from the twisted nature of this place.  Half-human and half-spider, it is the terrifying strength of a monster, with the armor and weapons of a human.  Truly a terrifying sight...but...

Yobi moves in like a flash, dark magic on his hands as he tries to use the room's lack of light to his advantage.

However, as he strikes, his hands are met by the spiders.  This is bad, as his attack is countered, and he's sent flying back with an injury for his efforts.  Still, with the effort of everyone...

The beast goes down.

Well, at least she doesn't draw aggro. She just kind of sulks as she draws in behind Att and the others, working her way over to the inevitable boss room.

Once they reach said inevitable boss room, Proteus simply seems to have quite enough of things, especially as she sees the Great Drider make his appearance. "You jerk. I CAN'T EVEN ROLL ON YOUR DROPS!" She seethes, clearly having had Quite Enough of this. Her hands snap out, and she begins twisting the air, writing something into the inputs.

                                   ( ! J                                    

Sizzling purple light warps into black locks that begin fastening over several places on the Drider, interrupting and shutting down several of its attacks. "It's over for you. I have already found the solution to your puzzle."

'It's also a consumable, but it only hurts you?'
The same can be said of most spice, all alcohol, and many electively interesting activities.

Kicking some ichor off her feet, Whiskey Sour turns to look at Att while he considers looting the grunties.

"I'm fine." She's not, but it's not a problem to solve right before a fog door. "I'm almost done, but the workshop project is taking a lot out of me. I basically think in stirring pots these days."

Observations that this boss room is just like the LAST boss room, and thus, there is a boss presently arriving, is not lost on Whis.

In an approximation of taking a battle stance, Whis rifles through her pouches and pockets, withdraws a tightly-folded black cloth, and holds it in her fist.

With a flourish exactly like a stage magician revealing the results of their legerdomain, Whis disappears herself under the shroud.

She doesn't come back, though there's a few 'pap pap paps' of feet and a tired 'whumph' against the floor as she moves to a corner and sits down. She has faith the party will beat this boss, too. She'll be over in the corner.

Supporting.

It turns out that The Squad is quite capable of just decisively annihilating a single target when they put their mind to it. Repeated applications of thorns, feet, '''support''', and filing complaints with the devs prove to be its undoing. The creature gets a few big area attacks off, but all of them are impaired, ill-aimed, and easily avoided. It's kind of a mess -- for the boss. For them, it's just another afternoon adventure.

The creature is destroyed. A barrier of light appears, and Att immediately Inspects it from where he's standing in tank stance. He frowns when he sees the level requirement, but perks up plenty at the Treasure Chest Full of Loot. "Armored plates... not bad. Plenty for everybody; usual split. Good work!"

A pause. He looks at the barrier. "Maybe we won't forget about it this time..."

Whis, not invisible any more, hefts the large plate over her chest. Her shoulders disappear behind it, for she is a slight Isekai Girl and the plate is a physics object, not an inventory line item yet.

"Nice fighting, but... what the heck do we do with this? Dinnerplates?"

She holds out the slightly sloped plate.

"Wok." She decides, already planning the heating element for noodles.

Proteus kicks the Treasure Chest lightly, mainly because she is inexplicably unable to acquire another one. Instead, she stares at the barrier, and raises a hand at it. "I wonder if..." She says to herself... But then she pauses, before turning away. "Not yet." She mutters, before stalking off. "Let's get out of here." She simply says as she heads out.

                                END OF LINE!                                

     'Algol' flickers away in green light. Shin reasserts himself, picks up the armor shell, spins it around, and whistles. "Doesn't this just look familiar?" He says cheerfully, putting it against his chest. "Can't imagine where I've seen one of these before!"

"And deeper it still goes..?" Yobi says with an interested tone.  

"Definitely a wok," he asides to Whiskey.  Thinking about it after a moment, he wonders if he COULD have it repurposed into a wok?  That would be interesting.

Looking towards the chest that Proteus can't open, he frowns slightly.  "Well, how about dinner?  I can at least make something you like for helping us!"