Duty Session 166: Totally Typical Tomb

Goldenblade has put out the call for hunting undead in a graveyard. The Landers are wary, and Goldenblade does not sit still well. Anyhow, after the debacle with the undead army not so long ago, she needs to pare the undead back in any way she can. Not that the two are related. But, they might be? And it's not like Goldenblade has a good idea of what makes causality happen in a game. It's all down to the plot designers vision rather than some hard and fast logic that might be worked out.

And so here she is, by the entrance to the gravetard, guttering torch in hand, waiting for everyone to show up and signal ready. "This is going to be hard because I don't know what I'm doing in this game," she warns. "But if you can carry me though, this should go OK." At least she's honest about it.

    hat does one expect to find in the graveyard, skeletons, graves, and of course a friendly neighborhood necromancer. Setsuna himself had been to this particular graveyard before for similar problems and approaches Goldenblade. " Don't worry, for once I feel rather at home with this particular quest." He looks around , "So who else is coming with us?"

    Merek walks along and into the place, while he nods a bit to the party. He seems to be wearing his dark attire with what looks to be the scarf which he wears. The man nods to people while thinking about it, "I will assist." There's a nod along to Setsuna as well as to Goldenblade, "I'm glad you all look to be alright."

With all the other Undead problems going on, clearing out a graveyard seems like a easy enough task. And it's a job from the Hunter's Guild that Shiruba hasn't had a chance to pursue yet, so she came as soon as she heard others were making a venture upon the task. "This will be a fine oppritunity to practice anti-undead tactics before any more encounters with the unliving army." She chuckles a little at Merek. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised you're ready to leap back into action."

The undead army may have been driven back from the Ninetails Dominion, but that doesn't mean they can afford to just rest on their laurels! Now that it's known that monsters can set up 'nests,' there's some renewed incentive to charge boldly into infested ruins to try and root them out before they can grow to be an even larger problem.

Not that it's happening here, necessarily, but it's still good to clear undead infestations out. They're tremendously unsanitary.

"Hopefully it's not inhabited by those same undead," Prophylaxis says with a soft huff as he follows towards the back of the group. "Though I suppose it'd be nice to wipe out another one of their holdings before they can take advantage of it."

Goldenblade eyes Merek, and she says, "Back from the dead, and already eager to fight? Well, full marks for being froggy, but that sword of yours keeps getting you into trouble." She nods to Shiruba about the tactical opportunity, "That's just what I was thinking." She looks relieved at Setsuna being comfortable with the quest, and she nods vehemently to Prophylaxis, "That's just it. They retreated from that battle, but did they try this as a flanking move?"

While walking between the tombstones, the party encounters a large group of skeletons. "Looks like the info was good about there being undead here, at least," she says as the skeletons clatter forward.

    Merek nods a bit along to the party, "Well enough, I know. It's not like I am able to..." The man then looks to the skeletons while he begins to use the magic and he begins to swing along rocks up with that into the creature.

    Setsuna looks at Merek and seems about to comment before everyone else does and decides instead to stay quiet. " It is really hard to tell which undead is which. Do you think Queenie could put warpaint on her undead or something so it would be easier." He comments as he looks at some of the skeletons walking around. His magic is already in motion in response to the enemy, "Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust, return to the earth from which you came." Skeleton hands rise from the ground and grab one ofthe skeletons by the ankles and pulls it underground as if it was never even there .

"Basic skeletons? That's good for a warmup at least." Shiruba nocks an arrow and fires at one of the skeletons. Midair the magic turns it into a sharped spiked of stone like a stalagmite, piecing through bones and shattering the skeleton. She repeats a few more times as necessary to get through the area and keep the boneheads at bay.

"If every graveyard and sepulchre is a potential hotbed of the living dead, we've got more problems than a single army," Prophylaxis answers with a mild shrug. "Though I suppose they could have only come this way to replenish their numbers. Plenty of dead bodies to go around."

Like those skeletons charging at them out of the mists, right there!

Prophylaxis' frown deepens as he taps the butt of his staff against the moist earth. Suddenly, the ground opens up underneath the charging skeletons-- and promptly snaps shut before those that couldn't get away in time can scrabble out. "You know Setsuna, you might want to consider turning your talents toward figuring out how to reverse player-undead transformation if you can. Or just, any kind of undead transformation."

Goldenblade looks pleased as Merek seems able to pull his weight. Of earth, in this case, slamming rocks into skeletons. It's super effective. Setsuna's magic returns skeletons to the earth, which swallows them up. Shiruba's arrows shatter skeletons in a wide swath, leaving shattered bones. "Proph is right," she says about having more problems than a single army. He opens the earth up to swallow them, though, and that seems to do the trick. The one or two stragglers that haven't been crushed, Goldenblade is able to smash with her swords, turned backwards to smash with the flat edge.

That done, Goldenblade will lead the way toward a mausoleum, which it turns out is guarded by skeleton archers in rotted leather armor. "Auxiliaries," says Goldenblade. "Not too tough, I think?" She will rush upwards toward them, while the others do their thing.

    Setsuna grins as he hears the suggestion, "Funny you should mention that. I happened to steal one of the undead from the queen, who can perform that trick. So I am working on using him to learn how to do it. " An arrow whizzes by his ear, " When I am not becoming a pincushion. " Turning to the source he begins to charge towards the arrows being shot at him dodging the arrows being shot while trying to get close enough for an up close attack, "These guys are worse shots then the ones from the other day, pehaps it is because they don't have a leader." He shouts in between breathes, " I think leaders add buffs."

    "Uta mentioned it as well," Merek notes, while he takes a moment to skeleton archers, taking a moment to lift up both hands, then he draws a mystical frost shock that begins to shimmer along the creatures, beginning to freeze and offers a shock along their form.

Shiruba steps aside as arrows are shot haphazardly at the group. "Tch. They think they can just give any stack of bones a bow and they can be an archer." She nocks an arrow and shoots it into the air, where it turns into a cascade of snow and ice raining down on the calcified bonemen. "I'll just chill THEM to the bone."

"Oho," Prophylaxis laughs, "Excellent news, Setsuna. If we can reverse or prevent whatever is being done to those people, it would really help out the war effort--" He's cut short, then, when an arrow shrieks by the side of his head, while another lucky hit grazes his shoulder and leaves a trail of blood-red pixels flickering over the wound. "Tch. Maybe right now isn't the best time to be having an in-depth discussion. I'm..."

He's raised his staff to cast... /something!/ But as it turns out, the rest of the party is very good at killing undead archers, and well ahead of him in getting the job done. So instead Prophylaxis just frowns and lowers his weapon. "...Gonna save my MP. No reason to chuck a fireball into a bunch of half-dead skeletons at this point."

Goldenblade rushes up to the archers' line, taking evasive action so they can't get a good shot at her. Or trying to, she winds up veering wildly off-course to try and shake their unfortunately accurate fire. Setsuna is taking the same tactic much more successfully, his moves confounding their aim. Merek and Shiruba's icy spells freeze many of them, preventing them from attacking, shattering a few of the weaker ones. Proph, alas, is not quick enough with a fireball to fire before the melee is joined. Once in melee with Setsuna, the archers are quickly finished off.

Entering the mausoleum, the party descends a set of marble stairs that lead deep into the ground. The stairs end in a platform over a pit of dark earth. At the bottom of the pit is a horrifying amalgamation of flesh. What looks to be hundreds of zombies all melted together into a writhing pulsating mound of horrible. The thing flops pseudopods made of rotting humanoids along the rim of the pit to try and crush and draw in the party. "Ugh," says Goldenblade. "What the hell is that?"

The party makes their way down into the catacombs and to some kind of pit, but Shiruba scampers back a few steps when the THING starts flailing around limbs of clumped together rotting flesh and bone. "That is SICK and WRONG! Speeew!" She fires a few shots at the edge of the pit to try and knock in in on the horror, but the foundation of the pit is a lot more stable than the ceiling. She's a little too squicked out to consider that though.

    Setsuna frowns at the giant 100 headed beast underneath the broken platform. "That is ugly. That is what it is." He looks at the group and takes a breath. The doctor has been saying to try different tricks with necromancy. "Sticks and stones, turn to bone. Build a path over this foe." Shoddy spell but for a moment it seems to work as skeleton warriors pop out of the ground and seem to create a bridge of themselves to cross. However the beast below smacks one of them and they all fall into the pit, turning to piles of bones. "Damn."

    "Oh, whatever will we do with that," Merek notes, then he takes a moment to begin swinging his fist forward, "Ragnarok's Wisdom!" The man begins to sweep into the creature while he begins to swing his feet with a nice kick along into it as well. "Oraoraoraoraoraoraora!"

Prophylaxis is most certainly not too slow on the draw this time. He manages to begin his incantation just as the horrifying mound of meat manifests out of the murk. "That's not sanitary," the Doctor of Tolbana concludes resolutely, despite nobody at all needing to be informed of the fact. "That's not sanitary at all. Purging!"

With fire, specifically.

"Everyone, hold your noses! Burning flesh is a smell nobody needs to get used to!" Prophylaxis instructs as a red-orange orb of roiling flame ignites overtop his staff. He grabs the shaft with both hands and /swings/ the fireball down at the monster at the base of the stairs.

The fireball goes 'boom.' Everything that follows is as it should be.

The horrible thing is much too squicky for Shiruba's sanity, her few shots at the earthwork not causing more than a few pebbles and a small shower of dirt to fall on the creature. Setsuna is entirely correct that this creature is ugly, but his attempt at constructing a path over is not successful. Prophylaxis, Merek, and Goldenblade all have the same idea, it seems, and KILL IT WITH FIRE turns out to be the winning plan.

Proceeding through the tunnels, the group arrives at a large stone room. There is a bier with a skeletal sphinx atop it. The sphinx is talkative, it seems, despite being dead, and asks a riddle. Solve it, it seems, is the standard way to get past without being eaten.

Shiruba is all too glad to just run through the chamber after that, holding her nose the entire time. Burning flesh is not a good time to have heightened racial senses!

It's not until they make the next chamber that she stops and leans back to catch her breath. Then realizes they're not alone in the room. A sphinx? "Okay, that's kind of cool." Too bad it's undead. And insisting on the whole riddle bit. "Sorry, we don't have time to play games!" She fires an arrow that explodes into a powerful blast of wind to try and distract it. "Let's just move on!"

    Merek looks to the sphinx, then he tries to shock its mind, while he begins to use magic. "Ah, well it looks like I'm not able to do a lot, next plan, we find a way away!" Then he takes off and tries to flee.

Aren't sphinxes supposed to be /guarding/ the undead and not actually undead themselves? Clearly this one missed the memo, though its precarious state of unlife is certainly not making solving its riddles any easier. Prophylaxis makes a befuddled noise, before shaking his head and just... Reaching over with a handful of thorns to try and snatch the keys from around the sphinx's neck?

It probably won't work, but it's better than trying to sort out the answer to a riddle posed by a sphinx whose brains have probably mostly rotted out by this point.

    Setsuna holds his breath as he catches a whiff of the burning stench, as they pass through the pit and come against the sphinx. The riddle appears to be some sort of pop culture reference he vaguely remembers and tries to give the answer, "Klaatu barada..." He goes silent as he can't remember the last word. He just had it. Finally he tries something he hopes works. "Ni..." Setsuna breaaks into a coughing fit and then looks around. "So did I get it right?" Given his teammates are attacking the sphynx now he had to guess not.

Riddles seem to be a problem for this party. They're not here to answer questions, it seems. Shiruba slams it with a distracting arrow, and then Merek tries something clever also, but not -as- clever, it seems, and the sphinx takes a swipe at him as he rushes past. But then Prophylaxis is trying to steal the keys, and he takes a swing at Proph going by, but then Setsuna is confronting the sphinx with the keywords from The Day The Earth Stood Still. But he can't quite recall the words, they're tougher than it might seem, he's not the only one who would swear he got them right. Goldenblade, meanwhile, attempts to sneak by in the confusion. Like the others, she advances after being smaked down by the sphinx and loosing a pile of HP.

Having reached the heart of the tomb the party enters a room of black stone, creepy music plays just above the level of being inaudible. Yellow smokey candles send streamers of smoke into the air from an array of candelabra made from bones. In the center of a complicated magical circle stands a female salamander in a sinister black robe. "I see the Hunter's guild has sent more fools to oppose me! Now Die!" she says in a gravelly voice and starts summoning undead to attack the party.

    The necromancer looks at the necrodancer and tilts his head as she summons more undead to face them down. While the others draw the fire of the undead he simply looks at the summoning circle and then the salamander. "Um you know you shouldn't draw your summoning circles into the ground. Unless you are doing ritual stuff. It sucks in combat because some earth magic can reeally cause you problems." To demonstrate his point Setsuna taps the ground and simply removes some of the circle drawn into the ground breaking one of the circles. "Like so."

"This Duty is turning out to be a bit of a workout!" Shiruba yips as the party makes it by though not without some blows to a few people. But no one has died so that's always good.

They've made it to the depths of the catacombs and found the source of the undead rising above it seems. "A necromancer. Should of guessed." One that likes to talk and call people fools, apparently. "Sorry lizard lips, not tonight!" She fires one of her fragmenting arrows to scatter the attack to pelt necromancer and minions alike so their own necromancer and the doctor don't get overwhelmed disabling the add summons.

    Merek nods a bit, then when it looks like people are unechanting the circles, the man takes a bow while he begins to fire on the necromancer, "We can win!"

Nope! That's not gonna work. Prophylaxis dodges back just a second too late to avoid a direct hit! He yelps as he's launched backwards and quickly quaffs a potion as he scrambles to his feet...!

But somehow, they manage to get past the thing, only to find themselves... In somewhere very, very spooky. Extremely spooky. Almost... too spooky to actually still count as 'scary?' Prophylaxis frowns as the necromancer reveals herself and gives Setsuna a look. "She's making you look bad. Does the decor come with the job, or is it just personal taste?" He shakes his head, taps his own staff on the ground and...

Tears up the /other/ side of the magical array from Setsuna's vandalism. "Honestly. At least put it on the ceiling where we can't reach the thing."

It seems that while riddles are hard for the party, bossfights, with or without adds, are right up their alley. Setsuna's deft countermagic, with Proph on the other side of the circle doing much the same, interrupts the summoning circle before too many adds can be brought in. Shiruba's arrows rain down on our foes, and their HP bars shrink rapidly. Merek's attacks sap the boss's HP further. Goldeblade stomps on the ground, and the earth trembles underneath the adds that appeared, unsetting them and leaving them vulnerable as she hacks and stabs at them, cutting them down in waves.

When the fight is done, the boss's body shatters in a cloud of pixels, leaving behind Corrupted Bones for those who want them. Goldenblade takes one hesitantly. "All's well that ends well?" she says hesitantly.

Shiruba picks up one Bone by pinching it between two fingers, wanting actually touch such a thing as little as possible. Not because it's the bone remains of a kill, she handles stuff like that all the time. It's dark and corrupted, that's more what she's worried about. "Another job done, another notch in the Hunter's Guild checkbook." It's deposited into inventory, she'll find a use for it eventually. "Guess this boss tried to roll the bones and failed."

    Setsuna retrieves one of the bones and looks over at Prophlyaxis, "Well good doctor, I did not get a creepy tomb when I took the necromancer abilities so I think it is more of a question on how willing someone is to give in to the cliches. I believe you can summon the undead and still have some class." He looks at the necromancer as she shatters and picks up a bone. "Oooo maybe I will have this made into a chandelier."

The necromancer explodes into...

...More bones.

Prophylaxis grimaces and very, veeeery gingerly picks the corrupted thing up off the ground and carefully allows it to disappear into his inventory. "I have no idea what I'm going to do with this," he says, just a little bit uncomfortable about owning an evil bone. Maybe he'll just sell it? "Well. Whatever. Maybe we can use it to coerce that captive skeleton...?"

He gives Setsuna a look, then. "...I think you're going to need more than just the one bone for a chandelier."