Duty Session 173: Is It Wrong to Pick Up Slimes in a Dungeon?

     There's been a request for assistance made by a man known as Reno Sunshine--but everyone around these parts just calls him Sunshine. The game identifies him as a Charlatan, and if you're the sort to keep an ear to player gossip, word is he's known to be a charlatan with a lowercase C from time to time, as well. The request he put up seems to be in line with that--TREASURES BENEATH ALNE reads the title, meant to catch the eye and divert it away from the truth of the matter--that he doesn't know if there are treasures down there, but knows that Adventurers go down there and don't always come back. If you decide to take him up on that offer, he provided a tavern as a meeting place, and he won't be hard to miss at all. As his notice stated: 'I'll be the fella with the disarming smile and the pretty guitar.'

     Indeed, when you enter the tavern to begin planning and preparation, you'll do so greeted by the sound of his playing and his singing. A couple of Landers are gathered nearby his table, bobbing their heads to a merry, mischievous sort of tune. "...when I awoke/the Dire Wolf/Six hundred pounds of sin," he sings, his voice a pleasantly drawling tenor over the meandering resonance of his guitar. "Was grinnin' at my window, all I said was--" A nod, directed towards any Adventurers coming in. "'Come on in!' Don't murder me, I beg of you, don't murder me. Plea-ease, don't murder me." He stops his strumming, smiling broadly. "Alright, folks, that's all we got for right now. Gotta get down to some business, here... howdy!"

It feels kind of odd walking into any other tavern now that she operates her own, but Vertina takes it in stride. Since she is here for Adventurer business and not brewer business. She ambles in, and takes note of the bard wrapping up a performance for the patrons. "That must be the guy looking for help with the subterrainian matter." Since he's the one that comes with up with a name and profession and specific icons when inspected and not just the general denotation of the Landers.

If nothing else, Rylen knows another showman when he sees one, and it is enough that he just leans against the wall, arms crossed, listening to the tale being spun. The Beastmaster and part-time circus performer has an amused sort of smile on his features. He's dressed in a basic sleeveless shirt with a thicker coat over it, rather than armor. "Aww. I was hoping to hear the rest of your story." He chuckles.

"Perhaps another time." Raising a brow, he asks, "I assume you're the one who put out the notice?" Since this is an Adventurer he isn't particularly familiar with, the Pooka offers an incline of his head, "Rylen Corvus. Beastmaster and acrobat. Pleasure to make your acquaintence."

Introduction out of the way, he raises a brow. "I only know of two quests that go below the city. So the real question is less what sort of treasure we might find, and more how much my cleaning bill is going to be when we get back."

Goldenblade comes into the tavern eager to follow up on the unlikely offer. Indeed, likely or not, she doesn't sit still well, and given the choice between a wild goose chase and sitting on her backside, she'll take the exercise. She looks around for the person with the guitar, then, and will head over, taking a seat closeby and saying, "You the one with the mission?" Straight to the point, it seems. She offers a nod of greeting to Vertina, who she recalls, but she's not sure from where. She nods to Rylen, who she knows a bit better, and ohs as he introduces himself. She ought to, also, and says, "Call me Goldenblade." Which is tons easier than the name that overflows the box when she's inspected.

The Doctor of Tolbana has been a little... spookier than usual. This is not exactly /strange/ per se, as his character design certainly rolled straight into 'this is vaguely unsettling' and he's done very little to try and work against what the appearance randomizer gave him. But the rings under his eyes are deeper in recent days, and his gaze seems to dart around to any sign of injury or disease in his fellow players.

That is to say that a trip into the dank underbelly of Alne in the hopes of clearing out its perpetually slime-infested waterways sounds like exactly the kind of thing he needs to take his mind off of... certain things.

"Prophylaxis, Doctor," the Cait Sith says to the entertainer. Charlatan, actually. What's the difference, anyway? "I'll be taking care of all our medical needs. Please let me know immediately if you take any damage. My methods may be unusual, but it's... For the best, probably. Especially in a place as filthy as a sewer."

Beat.

"Though if you would like to keep singing, that would be fine with me. It's a welcome distraction." Prophylaxis inclines his head at the Beastmaster, then. "Rylen. Good to see you too."

    Slipping in behind the doctor the necromancers follows behinds looking among the crowd until looking over at the small crew that has gathered to go clean the sewers. As the doctor introduces himself Setsuna can't help but add, " And I am the one that will help get you back on your feet if the doc's methods don't work out." What exactly that implies who knows however Setsuna seems to have that grin he wears when he thinks he is being funny as he looks from face to face. " I take it this job is something a simple sanitation crew can't solve?"

     "It's a great tune," says Sunshine, in response to Rylen's remark. Then, introducing himself, both to the Beastmaster and to Goldenblade, "Yep! That's me. Reno Sunshine's the name, and Sunshine's just fine." He gives a two-fingered salute and a grin. Rylen seems to have figured out pretty quickly that there probably won't be treasure. "A cleaning bill..." He waggles his right hand. "Yeah, might be that you'll have one." Yes, it's That Quest. He shrugs his shoulders, shifting the green guitar in his lap.

     Like a used car salesman, he's already winding up a pitch why this is actually Good. "But, hey! You know how some folks are always biting off more'n they can chew? Well... might *also* be that we all head down there and find something nice for our trouble. Y'never know... maybe one of 'em left something behind, tryin' to get out of there." Essentially, this is the same logic of gambling addicts--play the slots, and you might get the jackpot. Or you might just get nothing.

     "I mean, worst case scenario," he says, the phrase of wisemen and poets laureate the world over, "We do the quest and we get what we normally would. I like quest rewards, me!"

     "And for that matter, I like the good Doctor's attitude, too. Singin' is just fine by me--I'll make sure to whip up somethin' good for us, if we end up havin' to fight." He pats the guitar proudly.

     Setsuna earns a nod from him. "Seems like we might just, too," he says. "I dunno if they've gotten meaner down there or what, but a few of the regulars went down there oh, two, three days ago--not all at once, mind--but I ain't seen none of them back."

     Sunshine stands. There's no sign of a conventional weapon on his person. "So, we got... one, two, three... seven, total," he says, beaming. "Counting our newest arrival. Howdy, there! Well--that strikes me as plenty, especially since we got a healer. Two, if I take your meaning, ah..." He takes a moment to Inspect. "Setsuna."

     With that, there's nothing left for it but to party up and head down to the sewers. As it happens... there IS something that was left behind, but not by Adventurers. Food, which has attracted several slimes, dripping down the walls of the sewers.

Rylen is returns the nod to Prophylaxis, "Doc. Always a pleasure." He offers with a grin. Then, he pushes himself off of the wall, stretching his arms out over his head. "Well, luckily I don't mind getting my hands dirty."

It comes as no real surprise that they end up down in the sewers, facing down a tunnel full of bouncing slimes. "Ah, yes. The slimes do tend to build up in this part of the Alne underground." Though it might be easy enough to just punch and kick his way through the low level slimes, Rylen just chooses to step around them instead, bouncing from foot to foot, sometimes balancing in strange positions until they manage to get out of the way enough for another jump.

"These ones are pretty easy to deal with, but there are some nastier ones the further down we go. Just... be careful." He advises.

Goldenblade will follow the group into the sewers, to where we encounter the first bunch of slimes. Pretty harmless, but in the way. What can you do? Goldenblade whirls around, both swords extended, and stabs the slimes on either side, working to clear a path for everyone by killing any slimes that come too close, though the ones that stay a ways back, she doesn't bother to go after. It's about clearing the path, at this point, and these slimes, at least, don't seem too aggressive.

Vertina climbs down into the well, and makes a face at all the slimes and slime left behind by slimes bouncing and oozing around. "Ugh, good thing I wore boots this time." As much as she prefers going bare-foot, a sewer is not a place she wants to do so.

Boots also do make it easier to just kick some stray poporings out of her way like little jelly hackysacks, bouncing them off in the opposite direction from where they want to proceed.

So another day another dungeon, that was fine with her she needes resources and doing things to help out the Landers. She would take a moment to check her fear and fall in with the rest of the party. It doesn't take long before she's now dealing with a horde of bouncing Poporing and she'll attempt to force herself through them not seeming to be too worreid about them. They are porings after all they are not that dangerous, right? She just kind of barrels through them heedless of them.

    Setsuna is now concerned that he might be asked to heal something if his joke was misunderstood. As they make their way down into the underground he sees the bouncing blobs, "I suddenly think I understand Uta a little more. " Then another and another , they are all so cute. That is before several jump on Setsuna like a pack of Compsognathus trying to feed on him as if he was food. He is to slow to dodge either as they are right up next to him and instead he spends the moment people slime off him. " Never mind, I don't understand Uta at all."

"The most important reward is clean water," Prophylaxis answers with a tired chuckle. "These things are making the water in Alne downright unpotable. Waterborne illness is notoriously prone to spreading wildly out of control, you see."

But then, they find out that... there's just crap floating in the water. Not like, literally (though these ARE sewers, so that's probably still a thing in places), but someone has been dumping food down this well. Again. Prophylaxis makes a face as he gingerly sets fire to a mass of rotting cabbage. "I thought I told them to stop throwing this sort of thing into the sewers... Ugh."

His brief segue is interrupted by the distinct *poing~* of slimes hopping around. Prophylaxis huffs and dodges cleanly out of the way of their haphazard advance, clearly quite unwilling to get all that sticky goop all over him. It's unsanitary.

It also deals damage.

You know, like what Setsuna experiences.

Prophylaxis' gaze flickers towards the necromancer. "When you have a moment, Setsuna. I'd like to examine that wound."

     As he'd said, Sunshine does indeed make use of that guitar. As a matter of fact, at the sight of those slimes, idly creeping between discarded bits of food, he returns to that same song. This time, however, there's magic woven into it. The words seem to take on new meaning, as he picks up where he left off. "The wolf came in, I got my cards, we sat down for a game," sings Sunshine softly, creeping between them as energy slowly envelops his body. Flickering faintly in the dim light of the sewers, the merry, mischievous song appears to be shielding him from the worst of them as he bobs, weaves and jukes his way through. "But the cards were all the same," he sings, particularly fond of that line.

     A discarded chicken bone nearly sees him land face first into a smattering of poporings fighting over some mouldy bread, but miraculously, he not only swerves, but keeps time as he repeats the chorus with a laugh. "Don't murder me! Don't murder me, I beg of you. Ple-ease don't murder me!"

     At the sound of someone getting mobbed by slimes, he continues playing to keep that shield up. It looks like Prophylaxis has got that covered. "Good on ya, Doc," he says, slowly marching backwards in time with the pulsing of his shield. The magic dissipates, though he continues playing. Why not? It's catchy.

     Unfortunately, punctuating the strumming of his guitar, to a concerning degree, is the sound of more slimes. "In the backwash of ol' Alne town, the dark and stinky mire, the *hunter slime* collects his due, while the boys sing 'round the /fire/," he hints, heat building up around his person as he weaves bardic magic into the beginnings of a fire spell. It'll take him a moment, however... and as he begins the chorus, his voice is just a *little* concerned.

     "Don't murder me, don't murder me, I beg of you... plea-ease, don't murder me. Alright, now..."

Goldenblade continues along with the group, following ... well, she's not sure where we're going or what path we're following, so she's following the rest of the group rather than following a course or plan. The Hunter slimes that we encounter are a bit fearsome, but Goldenblade's pretty ferocious as well, and quite bold. Lighting a homemade torch, she advances on them, driving them back with the intense flames. It's not /just/ a burning torch, or better to say it's not a /normal/ torch, it burns an intense blue, much hotter than the garden-variety torch, and she wields it fearlessly as she drives back one of the hunter slimes. She's not clever enough to counter-hunt the slimes, but when you can generate flames that hot, you don't need to be.

Taking his time as they wander through the tunnels, Rylen hears the Hunter slimes before he actually spots one. The wilder cousins of tabby slimes, they seem to be quite a bit more threatening. "Well, my little slimey friends, let's see who is the better hunter."

He takes taps at his inventory, withdrawing what looks to be a trap of some sort, made crudely out of natural sticks woven together with twine. A bit of raw meat is tossed into it, and then the trap is given a toss into the mess of slimes.

It takes only a moment for them to smell the meat, and for a good number of slimes to all try to cram themselves into the trap. Tails lash, they make a ridiculous sound that resembles 'blub-nya', and then Rylen darts over, closing the cage and sealing the group of them inside. "You know, they'd almost be cute if they weren't so vicious." One snaps at him through the cage.

Miho seems to be doing pretty well ad she looks to Sunshine and laughs a bit.

"It could be worse right I don't mind a bit of a cleaning bill against the other things we might deal with."

She would think for a moment "Hah let's just keep out spirits upright?"

She would keep ready with her gear as she looks to see what they would have to deal with next. Miho joins in with Sunshine's singing, she's not a bard but she seems to be having fun.

She however will fall off singing as she starts to turn the hunter slimes into the /hunted/. This little Salamander is no goo monster's prey.

Slimes that are hunting like cats. Well isn't that cute? But what happens when the hunters become the hunted?

Looks like this is just the group to find out.

Vertina leaps into action, pouncing one group (pack? pride?) of the Hunter Slimes before they get a chance to pounce on the Party prepping their tactics. The blades of her battle gloves, fashioned with the lethal sharp-edged hook of a large dire-beast's claws, slice easily and deeply into the gooy cytoplasmic flesh. The combo of lashing punches rips the slimes to ooze and pixels fast and efficiently, dispatching them and leaving less overall for the entire group to deal with.

    Setsuna eyes the doctor warily and looks at his burn marks and irritation from the slime, "No I mean , it would really be a waste of time. I am sure you could use that time more..." He trails off as he looks over at the hunter slimes and hushes as he moves to a spot in the shadows and waits for the hunter to come closer before stabbing it in the face with a sharp rock that Setsuna has been known to carry on him from time to time. The hunter slime seems to stop moving as Setsuna goes to town stabbing the unmoving slime till it doesn't move anymore. Looking over at the doctor he takes a breath and then continues, " I am sure you could use your time doing something more productive."

Prophylaxis is not certain what to think about Sunshine's absolute dedication to his performance even in the face of what clearly appear to be some kind of vaguely predatory slime subspecies. Cat-slimes, apparently?? "I appreciate you," he says, after a moment's consideration. Is it because the doctor respects absolute dogged determination in the face of a potentially life-threatening foe? Or does he just recognize the value in having someone vocally drawing all the enemy's attention away from him?

He's a squishy wizard, you do the math.

It does let him focus on more important matters, however. That is to say, those slimes that are certainly stalking toward the bard instead find themselves being set ablaze by a burst of fire magic cenetered in the middle of their hunting formation. It's a nice, clean AoE set-up, courtesy of Sunshine's musical accompaniment. With his job done, he turns again towards Setsuna.

His eyes may glow just a little bit, inexplicably.

"It won't hurt a bit," he promises, pulling a roll of bandages and some kind of vaguely mango-scented ointment out of his inventory. "Just hold still."

It's MEDICATING time...!!

     "Right you are, Rylen," calls Sunshine over his playing. Generally speaking, the suffix -ling tends to mean 'cute but nasty,' in his experience. He grins at Miho. Spirits, he can definitely do. When she joins in with him on the chorus, he harmonizes, effortlessly adjusting his sonorous tenor to a lighter, higher note to complement the sound of her voice. He's happy to share the stage!

     He twirls and ducks beneath a leaping slime, pressing his back to the wall to avoid a second. This fire spell just isn't cooperating, but despite his dire straits, despite the fact that he's attracting a lot of attention, he still has the dedication to chastise Setsuna with an improvised verse. He ducks and tumbles, pointing at the Necromancer with a frown. "Setsuna said, 'don't bother,' weeell, this doctor gon' work for free. Ya might not like them treatments, but, it beats dy-sen-te-ry."

     Finally, the heat around him rises to a broil, and as he reaches the cheeky chorus, his next chord blasts a gout of flame straight from the head of his guitar, melting the two slimes that had been harassing him, and allowing him a path through the narrow hallway.

     That hallway empties into a large circular room, with grating that serves as most of the floor. The walls are lined with a network of rusty pipes, many of which have been broken off. Metallic slimes bob and bask in the water which runs from these burst pipes, in great enough number that passage to the other end of this circular chamber necessitates, in some way, dealing with them.

     "I'm already warmed up, y'all," says Sunshine in a swaggeringly confident kind of way. "Gonna try an' turn up the heat again, melt these suckers." He breaks into a solo, the heat building up around him once more...

Goldenblade's torch may prove useful again, this time using it on the water-loving metallic slimes. They don't seem to like that, so she does it more, applying the flame liberally among the slimy occupants of this section of sewer. The fire seems to melt these metallic slimes, though, and that's quite all right by her as well. She pokes the slimes with her special torch, boiling, or melting them away. Whatever it is, it seems to be effective. Looks like the word of the day is 'Kill it with fire'. Well, the phrase of the day, at least. It's effective.

"You know, when I get done with my business in Ninetails, I could probably use a good musician for some performances, so long as you don't have an issue with circus folk." Rylen offers, still seeming to have a light mood about the whole situation they have found themselves in.

Stumbling upon the circular room with it's cooler water and strange metallic slimes, he cracks his knuckles. There seems to be a moment of consideration, as if he were choosing what sort of technique to call out in order to fight the slimes. Eventually, he seems to settle on taking it a bit easy, it seems. He extends a hand, forcing mana to the end of his fist and then forming it into a small ball of fire.

Then, he tosses it towards one of the slimes... only to have it miss and sizzle out as it hits the water, instead. The slime turns towards him, and then begins to bounce in his direction, "No no, it wasn't me." But no one, not even the slime, believes him. Luckily, the Pooka is pretty quick on his feet.

Vertina turns to smile at Sunshine with her sharp little dragon teeth. "If Mr. Bard wants to lay down some hot beats, I say we oblige him!" Besides everything is more spetacular when you've got a musical accompaniment. The Salamander takes a few sprinting steps before leaping into the air. She actually jumps over the Metal Slimes, to hit the opposite wall with her feet and using them to kick off of it, stepstool off one of the busted pipes, and launch herself straight up. She took note of the issue others had with shoot fire near the water pool, so she will do something about that!

Which means she's going to come straight down. Her right fist winds back, igniting in a glorious blaze of flames. Thankfully she got her cestus enchanted to not burn up when doing this. She drops to the pool of water the Metal Slimes are huddling in, slamming down her fist as she does so and bellowing at the top of her lungs. "RAGNAROK'S WISDOM!"

There's a huge explosion of embers and steam as her impact flash vaporizes the pool, the fiery shockwave sending the slimes scattering away so they're easier for the others to get at with their own attacks.

Vertina stands up afterwards, in the middle of a now empty pool, no more water for the Metal Slimes to hide from fire in!

    Setsuna looks at the doctor and eyes him for a moment and then sighs heavily allowing himself to be bandaged and the ointment applied. Seems ok enough as they move down the hall into the room. He casually scratches at the arm where the ointment was applied as he notices the metallic slime. "Ok just some simple fire applied to the right spot." He begins to cast his spell and right before he is about to launch the spell he stops and scratches more at his arm. "Doc what is in this ointment?"

MEDICATION COMPLETE.

Prophylaxis is just desummoning his conjured items when the party enters a room that makes his skin crawl even more furiously than whatever the heck is happening under Setsuna's bandage. "This..." he breathes, shocked and horrified, as he stares agog at the cavalcade of broken, rust-shod plumbing. "This is a /hotbed/ for tetanus. Be careful, everyone. Tell me immediately if you cut yourself on anything--"

Setsuna gets his attention. He shrugs and says, "Beeswax, various anti-inflammatory herbal extracts, secret ingredients. Nothing that you should have a reaction to. Are you having a reaction? I will have to examine you in more detail once we have a moment to catch our breath."

Someone evaporates the tetanus-infested lagoon that the slimes were inhabiting. It's only then, amidst the sound of steam rising from the masonry, that the doctor seems to even notice the slimes. He makes a sound of mild disgust before hurling a massive fireball right into the largest concentration of the creatures. The best thing about slimes is that they are so prone to organizing themselves into neatly-shaped and distinctly nuke-able templates.

The last time Miho did something lioke this it wnded with her arms being too short to reach the thing she had to get to. shge frowns but this time maybe this time she'll get it done. She looks to Sunshine for a moment and did notice that they didn't take poorly to her joining in. She'll have to friend Sunshine when this dungeon is finished. As they find the next room full of slimes metal sliome she gets an idea. Her arms flare up with the motlen looking tatoos again and she'll just go up and start to shape and move the metal slime just out of the way or melting them as needed.

     "Not an issue at all!" calls the Charlatan merrily over his little interlude. "Glad to do it, partner." He loves circus folk.

     'Kill it with fire' is indeed the prevailing attitude here, as Goldenblade may have noticed. Just as Rylen throws his fireball, Sunshine has a ray of fire ready, coalesced into a white-hot pinprick at the head of his guitar. When his solo dips into the upper register, meandering there like any good folk guitar solo, that pinprick extends into a ray, blasting the slime menacing the Beastmaster and splattering it across the ground. He's struck in the back and startled by another, his fingers still working those frets as he cries, "--fire and save matches," the first word drowned out by the clank of the slime hitting the ground behind him.

     Wheeling around, he blasts it point-blank, managing to save both his posture and the tail end of his solo. The good doctor's fireball evaporates the largest gathering of them, giving him a minute to finish the solo and return to the chorus. Turning his back and looking over his shoulder at Prophylaxis, he asks, by way of the chorus, for a cursory examination. "Don't murder me, don't murder me, I beg of you, don't murder me, plea-ease don't murder me." There don't appear to be any cuts on his back, just nasty icky slime ooze from where one tried to tackle him to the ground.

     That done, and the slimes cleared out, the circular room empties into another stretch of hallway, this one narrower than the last, as if whoever dug this place grew increasingly tired with the labor of doing so the further they went in. As Sunshine brings the song to a close, he wrinkles his nose--that line he'd come up with earlier about a 'dark and stinky mire' is all the more appropriate here. "Well... it sure is a sewer!" Even with his sunny (har) disposition, he can't quite sell that as a positive. He coughs. Eventually, the source of that nasty, stinky water arrives in the form of a large cistern full of stagnant water, within which sits a massive ooze monster.

     Oh, boy. He begins working on a new spell, this one... a little different. With a riff decidedly more angry and bluesy than the last, he sings a verse of warning reproach. "Mmmh... in the heat of the night--yeah--when things ain't goin' right... no, no, no no, you *will* remember mee..." The monster burbles and flails its oily black arms, attempting to strike the party, while its massive shape threatens to splash them with waves of tainted water!

Goldenblade tosses her torch at the massive, bubbling slime, but the slime ignores it, and the flames gutter out after a few moments. This looks like a straight-up fight, for her anyway. Blades out, she stamps a foot on the ground, and the earth trembles. She darts in, and the earth gives way under the bit of the monster just as she's about to strike. That staves off its counterattacks and gives her a better target, less able to defend itself; she dances back, then in again, stomp-slash, stomp-slash, setting the slime boss off balance just before each strike. It's not -super- effective, but she's contributing to the DPS.

It is the smell that hits Rylen first... an all too familiar smell. "Ugh. I thought we flushed this one the last time." He raises his sleeve up over his nose, trying to block out the stench. It isn't exactly successful. So, instead, the Beastmaster goes into his inventory, taking out a bit of cloth to wrap around his face, which only seems to offer minimal protection from the stench.

"Alright, let's see what we can do about getting a breath of fresh air." He steps forward, sweeping his arms in a wide motion that looks to be reminiscent of a mantis technique. The expanse of it seems to take air with it, sending a blast of air forward through the chamber. It not only causes the flan to jiggle, but it brings with it a bit of cooler air from above in the tunnels, where it isn't quite so stinky.

    "Secret Ingredients?" Sestuna eyes the doctor as they continue on down deeper. "What exactly do you mean by secret ingredients?" At least the itching is letting up, maybe it was just the burns mixing with the ointment. AS the enter the final chamber the poor guy feels his stomach flip for a moment due to the smell. He takes a cue from Rylen and begins to try to channel the air down to suppress the smell, however whether it is the smell or part two of side effects his vision blurs and he gets a bit dizzy where he has to catch himself with his staff.

"Gah!" As soon as she steps into the next section of the sewer Vertina has to clamp a hand over her face to cover her nose, her cussing slightly muffled by her own palm. "What in the desert blazes is that wretched stench!?"

A black slime? ... Oh, no! It's a black Flan! That's a different and entirely worse monster. "That's some nasty shit alright."

Much like Rylen she pauses to make a few gestures to help her focus, though hers are more just quick hand motions. That form a glowing org of divine energy in front of her.

Which Vertina promptly spins on one foot as she whips up her leg to slam one of her powerful soccer kicks into the glowing orb and send it hurtling towards the Black Flan! "Ki Striker!"

Oh boy, someone is actually /volunteering/ for a quick medical examination!! Prophylaxis heeds Sunshine's request with perhaps just a bit too much enthusiasm, but his expression is all business when he goes to inspect the injury. Or maybe it's disappointment? He certainly makes a *tsk* sound when he sees what he's working with, and does no more than break out a clean cloth and some high-proof alcohol to clean the area. "Nothing problematic, just a bit of heavy metal ooze. As long as you don't get any in your mouth, you should be alright."

Beat.

"Something's wrong," the doctor says, hesitantly. He sniffs. Sniff-sniff. "Something smells... Awful."

Awful. Indeed.

What they find up ahead is certainly awful. But the only reason they see what they're fighting at all is because Prophylaxis makes the grave mistake of casting an Electrical Fuzz spell around the head of his staff when the stench becomes too grave /not/ to investigate. The party is treated to the sight of the good doctor turning various shades of corpsey pale when he realizes just what it is they've... encountered.

"No." He says, simply, taking a few steps back and clear out of range of ANY of this business. "I'm... Sorry, going to sit this one out. Hrf--"

Oh god, the stench. It's in his mouth. Not even a mouthful of mild, dental-grade alcohol is enough to clear it. The best he can do is to just... stay out of the way, where it's relatively cleaner.

He needs to be able to treat injuries /without/ being a walking vector of infection, you see.

It's not just that whatever mania has crawled into the doctor's brain lately is making him particularly squeemish around... this exact kind of thing.

Miho is very pleased this time her abilities worked and her being tiny didn't sabotage it. With this in hand and the metal slimes handled she'll press on with everyone else she'll look over to Sunshine for a moment.

She's not sure about the song but hey it works and she now turns her attention to the monster and she sighs. She draws here Katana the blade flares up and she'll lunge at the monster intending to put it out of the party's misery.

"TWIN DRAGONS!"

Miho will skid to a halt and nearly ends up tripping over her own tail, she recovers. Then makes another run keeping an eye on Goldenbalde.

"Right just keep at it Goldenblade."

AS the battle ends she'll pause for a moment.

"There's always more slime do you not know in the beginning? A slime appeared? Rylen?"

     "Glad to hear it, doc." He really is--this seems like a doctor that's a little... reminiscent of the old 'mad scientist' types. Sunshine'd never say that out loud, but Prophylaxis can probably glean he's relieved for more than just concern of being cut.

     Some fresh air would be... ideal. "Let's!" says Sunshine, nodding at Rylen. As Goldenblade tosses that torch, the slime monster attempts to bat her away with a massive oily tendril, only to be knocked off balance by the following stomp. One of its tentacles goes wild, the tendril rapidly whipping out towards Sunshine. The bard responds by striking a chord and beginning an uplifting, whimsical kind of tune that flies in the face of that angry blues riff... yet... kind of works, really. It must've been some sort of spell, because he's suddenly quick as a whip, bursting past it and ducking below another with a powerslide, before rolling out of the way of a third.

     Vertina's Ki Striker flies into the gelatinous mass, displacing huge quantities of it and splattering them against the walls of the cistern. "Doc, Setsuna, y'all good?" The smell is... not great. All he can do to counter it is to pull the collar of his shirt up over his nose. It doesn't do much, and evading all of those tentacles and splashes of disgusting water is occupying all of his focus otherwise. Thankfully, Rylen and Setsuna's blasts of air clear the stink away in a measurable sense, as well as disrupt the flan's efforts to strike back, the jiggling from all of Goldenblade's stomping and all that air disrupting its cytoplasm. Miho's technique splatters away the last bit of it that managed to retain cohesion, and with a stomach-turning gurgle it winnows away into a pool of stinkwater.

     Sunshine breathes a sigh of relief. There's one last chamber, large and circular, huge in a way that would almost call comparison to a cathedral, were it not for the lack of windows and the stale stink of the place. A falling rock comes dangerously close to striking him, and he scrambles out of the way ungracefully. Yet, as the King Poring drops to the ground with a splat, Sunshine is grinning from ear to ear. "Y'see?! I told y'all there'd be somethin' good down here. Look at this guy--crown and everything! He musta ate *something* interesting."

Goldenblade acks as the King Slime descends down. "This one's gonna be a bit tricky," she says. But /she's/ saved her best moves, too. She darts in, so fast there's a trail of fire where she stepped, and she slashes with her swords, then ducks out before the huge slime can counterattack. There's no intention of deflecting or bearing up under such a hit, it's dodge, dodge, dodge. With slahsing in between, of course, her blades cutting into the slimy flesh, for what that's worth.

The others want to capture it? "Are you all insane?" But they're doing earth magic at it, and ... well, she could, but she's not that good, so she continues to hop and jump, evasing the attacks like a jackrabbit on crack, slashing it here and there when the opportunity presents itself. Maybe if they can weaken it, someone -can- capture it, but that's a question way above her paygrade. She's just here to smoke cigarettes and stab monsters. And she's all out of cigarettes.

The ground rumbles slightly beneath Rylen's feet as the King Poring makes itself known. "It looks as if it might have eaten some other Adventurers, by the look of all those weapons." He eyes them, then smirks, "Unfortunately for him, we're not an entree."

Rylen dashes forward, but stops a good distance from the boss, taking a leap and then slamming his feet down into the ground. It seems to send boulders up all around the arena, shooting up into the air. It might not seem like it had any real effect on the monster, at least not at first, but after a moment of dodging around the creature, the Beastmaster seems to have built up enough mana to activate his final attack move.

Raising a hand skyward, he forms another of those flame spheres in his fist, then punches it up in the air. It connects with those stones, still hanging there by magic, igniting them. Then, one by one, the flaming balls of rock begin to pelt down on the King Poring, making sizzling, bubbling sounds where they impact jellied flesh.

Vertina stops and looks up as they finally enter a chamber that doesn't make her height feel so cramped. "Just how far below the town does this so-called sewer go?! Because those ceilings are looking pretty vaulte--Look out!" With lightning reflexes she jumps to the side as the large bestooned slime *PLORPS* right into the middle of the chamber in all his jigglyness. "Did it eat something, or did it just find a costume? I mean, if Grunties can try to dress up like people, why not slimes?"

In the end probably a moot point, unless someone wants to bring up the topic with the aspiring slimeologist at a later date.

She glanced up again, this time taking note of the chunks of stone that also feel with the King Poring's entrance. Grins that hothead action girl grin of hers, sharp teeth and all. "You just make this too easy."

She slams a foot into the ground, using Tremble Step to kick several of the stones back into the air.. and then with a flurry of punches knocks the stones flying back at the Royal Jelly!

    Setsuna was glad to get fresh air as they got past that black jelly ooze creature. Stumbling into the chambers he takes a deep breath and several following deep breaths. Not even taking the moment to really notice the Royal Slime as he just tries his best to gather himself. Finally managing to focus he looks over and blinks, " That ointment must be making me hallucinate now. The slime has a mustache." He seems to be willing to ignore that as he gets to casting, "Those fallen warriors in the ground. Heed my call, obey my commands. Take back your weapons and strike." At his call the skeleton warriors come out of the ground and leap to retrieve the weapons buried in the royal slime. After retrieving the weapons they would try to take revenge on the royal slime.

The fact that he basically wears a labcoat around everywhere is probably good reason to think that Prophylaxis is definitely some kind of Mad Scientist type. Also a good indicator: the way he stares at every other injury or sign of physical debuff with just a little too much interest.

But right now, he just seems like a poor guy who is briefly overwhelmed with germophobia and the indescribably awful scent of a sewer being... sewer-y.

"Guh," Prophylaxis groans and stumbles after the rest of the group, looking altogether green around the gills in a way that is definitely not flattering when contrasted against lavender hair. "Don't worry about it," he says to Setsuna, because secret ingredients are secret ingredients you see. "I'll take a look when we're... done here."

There's a giant slime.

It has a giant crown.

It has many weapons sticking out of it that look way too big to be wielded by any adventurer, and some that are not so large.

"Hm," he says, curiousity creeping through the lingering disgust. "No, if anything is making you hallucinate, it's the fumes. Because I see the mustache too." This slime, however, does not stink nearly so badly. In fact, he doesn't seem to have very much in the way of ranged attacks at all! So Prophylaxis just... conjures a series of large stone pillars out of the ground to cage the creature in. It might also damage the vaulted ceiling in a way that crushes the poor thing... Or maybe not! Maybe they'll be able to bring this thing to a certain slime breeder for double cash rewards...!?

Miho seems very pleased with herself after this assault and will grin as she cleans up her blade and looks over to Sunshine with a big old grin.

"This is going pretty well"

Well with that over with now they have to deal with something else and she sees -a Poring big enough to swallow her whole. She makes the choice to not engage it in close combat as she draws her bow, lines up a shot.

"BURST SHOT!"

The arrow glows for a moment before it's let fly from the bow and it will hit the King poring dead on from the looks of it and Miho dances back not wanting to get close to a giant slime monster.

     "That's how y'know it's worth it," calls Sunshine to Goldenblade, still grinning. The trickier the hunt, the better the prize... right? The King Poring intends to make it quite a tricky hunt--as it's apparently taken Sunshine's jawing as some sort of challenge.

     It leaps, its gelatinous body shifting the position of a greatsword in its body, attempting to impale the bard with it. Sunshine yelps, scrambling not nearly quickly enough to avoid a nasty cut that travels all the way down his back.

     The gelatinous mustached mass pins him, vibrations in its form clubbing him in the side of the head with a jeweled cudgel. "See?" he wheezes, as the weight of the King Poring crushes his chest. "Treasure!" Even getting walloped, he's going to take any chance he can to look like he was correct and Informed. He did say there might be treasure.

     The skeleton warriors summoned by Setsuna are quick to retrieve their weapons closing in on the King Poring and hemming it in, bludgeoning, stabbing, slashing away at it with the tireless energy of the dead. Between them, and Goldenblade's frenzied, agile offensive, it's driven off of Sunshine, who takes a deep breath, getting to his feet only after Miho's arrow is loosed. That arrow rips through the red jelly, tearing out a bit of its semisolid core.

     Driven back, the King is unprepared for the cage conjured by Prophylaxis, essentially held in place while it's pummeled and broiled into submission by the stones Vertina and Rylen knocked loose from the ceiling. Essentially entombed by a cage and a pile of hot and room-temprature rocks, Sunshine sums it up.

     After a cough, that is. "If he's still together in there, he ain't very happy." Nothing seems to have leaked out--they've either subdued it, or entombed it so tightly with pillars and packed stones that none of it can seep out. Either way... that should solve the issue of potable water for a while yet!

Potable water? Oh, right. Goldenblade had forgotten our original purpose in coming here. "Well," she says, looking at the stone burying the slime, "That seems to be that. Is anyone hurt?" She'll look around the area, recovering a bit of jewel that might have been from the crown, but she continues to look. There's got to be something else interesting, since we've come through so much, right? Well, maybe.

    Setsuna looks at the pinned and unhappy slime in his new cage and shakes his head as he wonders around it to make sure it is properly caught before looking at the party. " So can get somewhere that smells better now? I am rather done with the whole sewer smell. I will take horrible rotting flesh golems any day...or even an escort caravan duty." He shrudders as he says that as it brings up bad memories. However He wasn't really waiting for others to say something, he would be heading out now to find a hunter guild associate to pay him his fee and then go find somewhere to bathe.

From the crown or one of the various other weapons that were stuck in his body, it doesn't matter. Vertina has learned by this point not to question things like why certain Boss Monsters drop certain kinds of loot. "At least we didn't get the drops off that hideous Flan." She drops the gem in her inventory, then jabs a thumb towards Setsuna. "I'm with him, I'm ready to get out of this dank hole and get something to drink."

Well. That wasn't actually so bad! Prophylaxis makes an approving noise as the slime is summarily buried under a good section of Alne's underground. "I hope that doesn't cause any issues down the line," he thinks aloud, musing at the collapsing ceiling and the city far beyond. "You know, it's a sewer system like this one that makes me wonder whether Alne was built on top of, like, an even older city. You know, the 'ancient buried dark lore' sort of thing."

They aren't going to uncover any such mysteries today. Instead the party must settle for crystal-shaped loot.

...But what Goldenblade says seems to get the doctor's attention again. "Yes! Indeed. Please let me know if anyone has any injuries that need to be addressed!"

Yes.

Please do.

Miho's tail goes straight up for a moment as the King is finally pummeled into submission. She'll grin over at Vertina and Rylen.

"Good thinking you two on the and Shineshine right? It's good to have met you."

Miho will fire off a friend request to Sunshine and it's up to them if they accept it.

"I would run with you again if you are ever up for it."

She will put her weapon away and now looks about to see what she can loot for herself after this run.

"So what next? Get something to eat if we can that isn't like soggy crackers."

     Is anyone hurt? At the risk of letting Prophylaxis at him... yeah. "Yeah, he rang my bell good," says Sunshine, slipping his guitar back on and slinging it over his back. He's got a bad cut from the greatsword, and that royal scepter clubbed him pretty hard in the head. It's not terrible, but it ought to be looked at.

     Setsuna, however, has a point. "But, uh... maybe you could look at it someplace more fresh!" Sunshine gives an enthusiastic nod in response to his and Vertina's assertions. "Matter of fact," he says, pointing affably at Prophylaxis, "What say we head back topside, I let you gimme a clean bill of health, and we can talk about what it'd take to maybe box that bad boy up, over a bite to eat?" Miho brings up a good point--adventuring is hungry work. Moreover... maybe with that thing out of the way, they might one day be able to come back and see whether the good doctor's supposition about Alne's history is right. There could be all kinds of things lurking deeper... anyway, that ought to be enough to call it a day.