Duty Session 170: Goblins in the Rotting Forest

    The problems of goblins in the Eastal Free League had paled in comparison to the problems in the Ninetail Dominion, but recently there was a bunch from the most recent Waves had been causing trouble. Which had resulted in Giganpor taking notice and with it being so near Fort Ouph, which he had started to see as a major place to do some grinding, it's obviously time to look into it.

    That and Giganpor had heard of some oddities about this bunch. Curiosities that made him want to try to investigate and figure out what was what. This had lead to Giganpor setting up a party call in the Fort Ouph region, specifically with the request to take on Goblins in particular while in a lay over from Shibuya. If nothing else, it was time to at least try to bash in some pesky Goblin heads. Like seriously.

    That's what lead to him being out with the Hunters Guild bill and in the eerie feeling area of the forest. The controlled burn from attempting to stop the Soul Eater's Curse had left an unhealthy black-purple burnt shade all around and the trees here were bending in towards this new 'opening' in an unnatural fashion.

    Giganpor himself was in his human form, his massive hammer-axe spear in hand as he eyed it, and his buckler strapped to an arm. He looked around for those that had answered the call back in Fort Ouph, since this was a bit out of the way and all from the usual travel roads.

Schneider answers the party call and arrives, he was grinding in the area as well. "Hey," he calls out, the breeze blowing back his mane of hair dramatically. He is also in human form, but as a human, that's the only form he has. It's less dramatic that way, but he doesn't have to worry about whether his pants will fit tomorrow.

Vertina has already dealth with goblins in the corrupted part of the forest a few times before, but she's always willing to come beat up some more of them. The hominid vermin usually give her a good workout. Now that they were on-site she took a few moments to retrieve her fist weapons from inventory. Once strapped on they make her hands look kind of like a pair of fearsome beast's paws, with the big claws hooked out over the backs. "Okay I'm ready to rock and rumble!" Which there might be a lot of if the end up down in tunnels again. Goblins seem to like caves and tumbles as much as gnomes do.

    The lizard man makes his way through the brush , his tail batting away a branch as he pushes his way through. Rizardoman looks at Giganpor and nods his head, " I heard that you were seeking some for goblin hunting?" He asks as he looks around for the others before adds, " I came this far to offer my services I hope they are still needed." Looking at the other Rizardoman gives greeting as well before looking in the obvious direction they must head.

Miho had become aware of the goblin problems, but had been focused on the undead, thanks to the current efforts of many Adventurers and even Landers? The undead had been pushed back enough that she'd turned her attention here. She was behind Giga her tail swishing as she went. "So more gobling to deal with? Think it's going to be a nest like that quest I heard about a few weeks back?"

She tilts her head looking to Vertina and Gigam, then to Schenider and everyone else in the party in turn.

"We should clear it out while we have the chance."

    The exotic imp has not been very talkative, but this is because the Lady Magus has been very busy with her own personal project. Trying to perfect it, make it better, make it stronger. A weapon, a tool, that could change /everything/ not only about combat, but perhaps war itself.

It was her own private project and project she has been obsessing over, including getting herself in more and more dangerous situations. Thus when the the imp arrives, she arrives in her normal sultry way, but an eagerness in her glowing, lavender eyes. A dangerous fire really glinting in those glowing orbs.

    She does not recognize everyone here, but she does know a few, giving them a proper little wave with her fingers, before a curtsey to those she does not know. Here eyes though eventually fall on Giganpor. "Well, well, if it is not big and muscular himself. I have come to give my," She generates a dark orb on her finger tips. "Magical touch to your little crusade, should you have me, Giga-man." She says with a wink.

Yep, even with her obsessions, she was still Katherine Tanzer.

    Giganpor gives a nod, "Yep. We're hear to figure out what these things are doing, just so you guys know. We'll see if we can't take a few with us on the way out as well."

    Turning, Giganpor leads the group into the opening. He keeps his weapon ready, but the first thing they do spot after a good hour walk? A goblin! A goblin scout at that!

    Giganpor considers as he crouches behind one of the burnt trees, then comments with a whisper, "Think it'll lead us back to more? I mean, it looks like a scout. And they don't travel alone."

They have plenty of big intimidating people along this time, so Vertina opts to try and be more elusive about it this time around. She goes tiptoeing behind one wilting tree, then another, then an--
*bonk*

--and walks right into the stub of a broken branch, falling loudly on her butt while cussing. Not that it hurt, it smacked into her horns mainly, but it surprised her and ruined the attempt at stealthiness.

Schneider turns out to be one of the ones who are chosen to sneak after the scout. It is not his forte, but he give it his best, staying low when the goblin looks back, avoiding the gravel and crunchy ground, and he generally remains hidden as the party follows the goblin scout.

He winces as the others do less well at following, but in truth, he was mainly lucky. He's got no innate skill at stealth, he's very much an exploder wizard. But every once in a while the sun shines on ... things that are normally in the shade.

    Katherine follows the group, they spot a goblin. The imp stares at the scout. There was a dangerous grin on her face. "... Will you work?" She whispers to herself.

Before anyone can stop her, Katherine takes off. She places out her hand as a staff appears into her hand, and with it, she attempts to leap into the air, as it glows. Then she attempts to hoof stomp the imp into the ground, "Be my next subject!!!" She cackle out.

However the goblin quickly evades and tries to run as Katherine yells loudly. "Get back here you little green blooded devil!"

    Taking a deep breath as they approach the lone goblin he steps on a branch cracking it under his heavy weight and gains the Goblin's attention. "To late it has seen us." He charges towards the Goblin ready to end it's existence but sadly is to slow and lumbering in the forest and gets caught up in the brush and the goblin avoids his attack.

Things get going and it looks like they have a scout to chase after. She's going to draw her Katana. To use it in a way that might not honor the samurai. She's going to use it ot hack through branches that get in her way, as she chases after the Goblin.

"GET BACK HERE AND FIGHT LIKE A MAN!"

It does not go well as the goblin is no man, it's a goblin. It also runs like hell...

    Well, the fact is the two that should be the loudest are actually the quietest in this case. And then there's the fact that apparently the idea of sneaking is not something this band of Adventurers is used to.

    That leads to a rather epic chase of Katherine trying to test whatever it is on the goblin and everyone else following after.

    Katherine's experimentation is probably the scariest thing as the goblin leads the group on a wild chase all over. And then, like a comedy sketch after the goblin gets way ahead of everyone else chasing it now, it runs into one of the old Living Trees that was obviously a part of the forest. And slams the door. The group nearly ends up running into it as a series of locks are heard turning. One can almost imagine the goblin barricading the tree and making sure no one's following it.

    Giganpor pants a bit as he catches up. And he looks at the group, "... okay, we bring someone sneaky next time." Then he blinks a bit as he looks at the Living Tree house. "... alright, that's cool. Not seen one of those in a while. Too bad we need to follow it. I think these have underground passages or something. So... we trying to break in or what?"

Schneider is panting by the time they chase the goblin into a tree. "Wait, he's -in- the tree?" he asks. He looks up, just in case the goblin actually climbed it, but no, it seems he went inside. He's got no talent for locks, but a small talent for earthmoving, and so he, under the assumption that the tree contains an elevator down, will start excavating next to the tree, in an effort to go around the locked tree and intercept the goblin.

    Katherine chases that goblin. She chases it good and one might see bolts of magic here and there as she does. That was until she gets a door slammed in her face and she says with a huff, "How rude!"

She peers around, even as Giganpor catches up with a huff. Her eyes looking at every inch before she goes, "You think this door will stop me! Ha! I am Lady Magus, Katherine Tanzer!" She then has her staff disappear back into the aether.

She moves out her hands, as magical energy swirls around her. Her eyes glowing brightly. "Your pathetic attempts to hide yourself will /NOT/ work on me!" Then with her hands clutching into fists and rising them up slowly. The ground shakes and rumbles. She is commanding the very ground to give way; Probably with the help of soon to be other earth magic casters.

Vertina gets back on her feet quickly and joins the chase. And only stops before running smack into the door because she's done this enough times before to know the slamming door was coming.

"Cute, he thinks we're going to take the time to try and open the door the slow way."

The kung-fu Salamander does her thing she does when she's not playing with fire, manifesting the energies of the Earth and nature itself around her fists, and uses that to just start hammering through the wood of the door until the combination of everyone having similar ideas breaks the damn thing down.

    Rizardoman frowns as he was discovered earlier , as much as a half lizard half man can frown really. As the group gives chase he follows along tagging behind the group, and blinks when he realizes where the goblin has ran off to hide. " You don't see something like that every day." He looks at the ground as Katherine begins to work the land to cause the ground to give away and works his own magic to assist. " Shame Dowafu is not here, he is much better at this."

Things are far from over at this point as Miho chases afte the Goblin but she'll pause at the idea to be stealthy, all right. She'll take a moment to use some earth related skills to help pres sthe group foward. "Well we should not dally for long should we?"

She looks to Vert and Rizadoman for a moment. 5R
"No you do not even not here, but I think I can fill in."

She'll chain off another earth move to help force their way forward.

    Between the others, they manage to loosen the door. Which has Giganpor shoulder bashing it before the wood and earth simply give way causing him to stumble into it. And apparently the fearless leader ends up stumbling on to the underground passageway. And sliding down steps some. He looks at the others, "Okay, earth magic next time on that one, too... ugh."

    Travelling down said passage, they find a new problem. Namely, that it splits off. Into multiple passages. And no signs of where the goblin's gone at that! Seriously, lost the goblin down here. Picking the wrong one is obviously going to be a bad idea in this case.

    Giganpor sighs, looking at the others, "Right... anyone good at tracking?"

Miho get the diea of what to do next ahse'll look to Giganpor and nods.

"here we go again."

she grins a little bit and then trigger another skill. "Earth driver!"

She'll take a moment and then let it rip trying to figure out which way to go. It doesn't work so well... in the end leaving her looking very confused.

    Katherine watches Giganpor slide on down after she easily goes down below, using her imp wings to 'featherfall' really into the tunnel. When he asks about tracking she grins at him. There was a slyness there, before she walks over to him and reaches up to 'tap' his nose. "My dear. Why do tracking, when you can have the very earth tell you?"

Katherine turns to look a the tunnels, which Miho and probably others also have the same idea. Let the ground lead, and using her magic she channels the very ground to do just that before walking in that direction. "This way loves!"

Schneider has no idea where that goblin has gone, and by now he could e anywhere. He's no tracker, and he can't see any sign, so he'll rely on the sense of earth spirits. "Earth spirits, hear my call, seek the one ..." but the earth spirits he calls to do not answer, and he's left feeling a bit useless. What's the point of magic if it doesn't work?

Indeed Katherine is not the only one thinking such things, though she did put it a lot more fancifully than Vertina would. The martial artist closes her eyes, hands steeped together in a meditative manner as she takes a few steps... then turns back and takes a few steps a in another direction... before finally turning to one of the tunnels. "Feet recently tread this terrain before. If not our prey, his colleagues are also down here."

This is one of the reasons she tends to go barefooted. It's easier to commune with the Earth when you're in direct contact with it.

    Rizardoman walks along the dirt and looks at the different paths before he runs his hand through the soil and then looks back at the others. " It is as the others have already said. This way is the right way." This is certainly a different experience for him, often his trio of friends tend to have their own roles and the overlap appears to be something fresh and almost relaxing.

    With all the earth magic going on, it's all too easy to find the little scared goblin. And the resulting fight is more of a beat down on the poor guy. Literally he doesn't stand much of a chance. Probably the worse part is that Kat gets to experiment a little before it goes into death motes.

    But the good news is they found out where he was going thanks to it!

    The bad news... there's now a pair of Hobgoblins in the way. Grotesque looking things that look like bored, if capable guards. The specific underground chamber that the goblin was headed towards is behind the door that these two are guarding. And it seems as if they heard the noise of the fight, despite how much of a beat down it was. They are definitely peering the group's way, too, and looking ready to attack.

    Giganpor huhs, then looks at the others, "So... door number one, or let 'em live?" He asks the group.

Step one in taking out these hobgoblins, is Schneider surrounding them with a wall of flame. He gestures dramatcally, and there's something that sounds like the name of some band, but superhot flames surround the hobgoblins. The flames pen them in and prevent them from being too agile in avoiding attacks. Or if they want to be agile, they can be crispy, too.

Vertina turns her head just enough to peer side-eyed at Giganpor. "That's a rhetorical question, right?" she replies, before smirking a bit and darting down the corridor. "Out of the way!" She leaps through the flame barrier that's being put up to get into it with one of the Hobgoblin guards. There's plenty of punching and kicking and jabbing with her fist claws. She can't seem to quite get through his armor, but maybe she can keep him occupied enough for someone else to shoot him in the back.

    Katherine sees the guards, they are blocking their way and the imp growls gently in frustration. "Make way!" She orders those guards and without a care for their lives, she raises up her hands, charging magical energy into orbs of magic.

Then with a spin of her body, launches the orbs directly at both guards, one orb for each. She will not be denied entry!

    Rizadoman doesn't hesitate as he runs towards one of the hobgoblins, obviously taking door number one. Putting himself in front of one of the hobgoblin to absorb any attacks from him as he body checks the guy into the tunnel wall trying to drive his bone scimitar into the goblin. "By my naga ancestors, you shall not live past today."

Miho is still in on the hunt thankfully things go well at this point.

"Lead the way Rizadoman."

She will follow along keeping an eye out for more trouble. She'll keep going though as she looks around and humms for a moment.

"Let them live I don't think so."

She'll be relying on brute force again as she moves to try and get at hte goblins intent to elimate them.

    Rhetorical question or not, it's obvious that hey, they need to take care of Hobgoblins either way! And that results in the flaming wall from Schneider that cuts off any escape. Even the door handle gets hot for a moment as the Hobgoblins go to fighting stances and take on first Vertina, then Giganpor when he busts through the fire as well. Unfortunately the martial artist and tank aren't doing so well until the orbs of magic from Katherine knock their assailants away for the bone scimitar of Rizardoman to slice into them, followed by Miho dodging in and taking the other down.

    Once inside, they find a bit of an odd sight. Apparently they found the roots of the Rotting Forest above. And a small, inexperienced looking Goblin Shaman that is trying to do a ritual that appears to be tainting and destroying the life from it. It's got an unusual insignia on its tattered robes, visible before it turns around and lets out a viscous screech of a sound that has a small team of Goblins rushing to respond.

    hat's not all, though, as Dark and Arcane magics start to fly at the team from the Shaman while his obvious minions rush the party in an attempt to stop them!

Giganpor calls to the others, "I think someone needs to return fire! And this is why I hate caster bosses!"

    The lizard man steps up and looks at the shaman, " We have to stop the Shaman!" He shouts before he takes a deep breath and begins to call upon his naga magic. Draketooth skeleton warriors rise up and charge the shaman head on to try to disrupt the casting.

Schneider hadn't planned on being a defensive caster when he made the character, naming him after one of the least defensive characters in fiction. But he was built in a more general configuration, and so sometimes he winds up better suited to roles he hadn't planned on. This final battle is a case in point.

Schneider conjures a magical shield to blunt the attacks of goblin shaman and his flunkies. The clear, shimmering field flashes when an attack strikes it. He flexes, pours more strength into the shield, and it bears up under the strain, but holds a while longer.

As soon as they step into the next room Vertina assumes a battle ready stance. She's anticipating the big final fight and she's not disappointed. "Deal with the shaman, I'll help give you some space to work!" Once again she charges headlong into a fight like the glorious hothead she is, but it's not without some consideration of tactics.

Vertina puts those Direclaws to good use, taking swipes to gouge the Goblins' arms and hamstring their legs. Weakening their movements makes it harder for them to dogpile on attacks, which makes it easier for her to finish up the job with some of her hard hitting kicks once they're crippled.

Goblins minions fly left and right from the slashes and kicks, the ones unfortunate enough to not die from the kung-fu blows being flung into the line of fire of others' attacks.

    Katherine is at last out magic it seems. She /does/ try to go head to head with the shaman, but fails, being knocked back and hard into the wall.

The imp woman winces, before nearly sliding down to sit on the ground. Perhaps she placed too much energy or maybe it was due to her lack of proper rest; At least though the others have it in hand.

Things are getting pretty serious now they seem to be near the end of this mess. She will use her blad to parry attacks and a blast of magic. She'll dart in quickly, tail moving in time with her legs. Somehow she keeps her tail in order for once. She get in close and will stake a strike at the shaman once she finally gets close.

"That is enough of you!"

    There's a few screams from the goblins as Vertina sweeps through them, the direclaws going to work and making way for the others to get down there quickly.

    By the time Schneider's shield comes up, Giganpor has added to it on the physical level with his as well as he blocks the Goblin Add's advance on them.

    It's finally the skeleton warriors of Rizaroman that takes down the Shaman, though, and that's saying something as it ends up pulled limb from limb by the skeletons.

    After the battle is said and done, they find a series of strange icons as the loot. Which look very questionable with the way they are made.

    Giganpor looks around, then sighs, "Right. We need to get out of here. Could be a lot more goblins or worse around. I'd rather not deal with worse after all of this."

Schneider looks over the strange loot we've found, but agrees vehemently with Giganpor about getting out of here. "Sounds like a good plan to me," he agrees, and will join Giganpor in departing, helping anyone who needs it.