Duty Session 179: The Tides of Summer

If one were to grab a thesaurus and look for synonyms to the word 'festive', there are almost none fo them that could apply to Jazz. She is not exactly known for joyous demeanor or chipper spirit, after all.

That said, she was more or less kidnapped by Uta for 'help' when she arrived back from her latest trip to Tsushima island and seems to be somewhat caught off guard, dragged along by the arm to appear here with the others to protect the wshores against whatever might interrupt the Lander's festivities... just in time for the war horn to blow that indicates that something is happeniung.

"...damn it, Uta," scoffs Jazz.

Kauchemar is once again on the beach scene, doing what Bards do best and providing music suitable to the activity. In this case it's been Oldies Rock 'surf' music and the occasional appropriate showtune. You don't realize how many musicals involve the water in some way until you actually look into it. A few songs get some recognition out of older Adventurers, while the Landers might not understand everything in the lyrics seem to pick up on the intended light-hearted mood pretty easily. It's the closest to a club party she's gotten. One hand is waved lazily in Uta and Jazu's direction.

And then the warning horn goes off. Because of course it does. "Welp. Guess it's time to go to work and start the show." The Nightmare lowers her legs from the seaside stone she'd been reclinging on to play and gets to her hooves. But doesn't put her instrument away. Nope she's going to need that, if things go into her doing what she's thinking of doing....

But first lets see who else is responding.

After the festivities yesterday, Rylen had decided to camp out close to the beach rather than heading home. The Beastmaster is dozing comfortably against his peko, who has their head tucked under a wing. He is reclined, wearing little more than a pair of stylish board-shorts, clearly fast asleep.

That is, until the horn sounds that warning. It startles the Pooka awake, causing him to blink and reach up, rubbing at his eyes. "What's that now?" The Peko stands, giving a squawk, causing Rylen to fall back onto the sands with an audible 'oof'. "Alright, alright, I'm up."

Getting to his feet, Rylen moves to approach some of the others who are already up. "So, what's all the commotion about?" He asks, stretching himself out, still looking half-asleep.

Uta points at the sea. "This is the place, Jazz. I called you here for a very important reason, a reason so crucial and vital everyone has to be dropped, even my investigation of the Tsushima slimes, and trying to determine whether stuffing a rat slime under my nurse's cap and letting it chew on my hair will grant me the <Cooking> potential." She frowns. "Wait, no, I'm thinking of a movie I've seen once, there. Nevermind, I got confused."

She leans over to Jazz, with an intense stare. "The really important thing I needed to ask you help with is-" She frowns. "...I forgot what it was."

As she rubs her chin, the horn signals an incoming danger. "Oh, great. What is it this time? I thought beaches were safe during the festival. At this point we might as well come here when there are monsters..."

As the crowd begins to panic and run up the beach and shout about there being 'something in the water', Jazz just heavily sighs and looks at Uta. Just looks at her. Her eyes narrow.

"...I'm going to miss Pixar while we're here," she informs her, then her gaze turns back towards the water. There's definitely white foam burbling out there that indicates there's *something in the water*, and whatever it is, it's no boating accident.

"All right. Get up the beach, everyone," she adds, morosely, "this looks like it's going to be annoying as hell. Underwater levels always suck!"

As she strolled out onto the sandy shore Kauchemar took a moment to run her hand through her long mane to sweep the lengthy locks over her shoulders and behind her back so it's out of her way. Fortunately she wasn't trying to use her long thick hair to Lady Godiva around the beach. That said, the swimsuit the large Were Fang is wearing is still more on the risque side than others. It has no shoulder or arm straps, instead apparently only held on by the criss-cross of tie strings down the very deep V-cut of the front. It likely barely meets what would be considerably appropriate even for an older gaming audience, and that's just the sort of boundry the showmare is happy to push.

Like much of the swimwear as of late, it's entirely Gwen's doing. And fortunately not her mother, who has much more... flashy tastes much like the Nightmare herself.

Looks like some of the beachgoers are already panicing a bit, mostly from the knowing there's trouble but not what the trouble IS. That's why many people are afraid of the water and the ocean in the first place. Being who she is Kauchemar will play right along with that instead of trying to stop it though. Some dark miasma flickers from her fingers and along the strings as she uses her magic to give the lute a much deeper and ominous tone than usual. Then starts to pluck the strings in a very deliberate manner.

o/~ Daaaaa Dun... Daaaaa Dun... Daaaaa Dun... Daaaaa Dun... Daa Dun.. Daa Dun.. Daa Dun.. Daa Dun.. Daa Dun Daa Dun Daadun Daadun daadun daadundaadun o/~

Some of the Adventuers recognize the leimotif. The Landers don't, but their inherent responsiveness to music seems to pick up on the pressing consern of eminent danger that tones transmit, and react much in the same way as those that do realize what the tune is.

Getting the hell off the beach.

It isn't long before Rylen's Peko is giving cries of panic and flapping its wings in alarm. "Trouble." He looks from the surf to the vulnerable people still on the beach.

"Alright, everyone, we need to evacuate the beach. Moko, go round up the kids." He commands the peko, who somehow seems to understand this. In fact, the bird goes so far as to pluck a smaller child from the edge of the water, hoisting them up by their clothing, and then trotting off with them, with a number of other kids in tow.

Rylen, himself, uses his charm to convince a few particularly attractive young lander ladies that they need to depart, as well. "I'm sure you'll be able to get back to sunbathing those gorgeous bodies of yours as soon as this trouble passes." That grin of his can certainly be used quite persuasively.

"I'm going to miss Pixar too. All those stunningly realisic computer generated worlds, those fantastic stories of people getting together and overcoming their shortcomings through the power of friendship, all those exciting adventures..." She looks around. "...it'll be a some time before we'll be able to get any of that."

When Jazz starts ordering people around, Uta does her part and heads to an area where landers seem to be ignoring the horn and just keep dancing.

"...I guess I will have to give these things a try." Uta reaches for the side rings at her hips, and detaches two magic wands shaped like miniature versions of her staff. "Alright folks! Time to play marching band!"

She vocalizes a march, and becins to twirls and toss her wands like a majorette would do with batons. The act seems to get landers interested in this new... Adventurer Party Game to them, probably? And begin playing along and following.

Just for that series of sentences, Jazz kicks sand after Uta. It is, after all, rough and coarse and getes everywhere so it should probably be hated. "VERY FUNNY," she informs her. She observes, though, as the others lead the majority of the Landers away throiugh acombination of song and more, instead turning her attention back to the sea. It seems like the others have it well in hand. She approaches the waves, angling to get a better look as they lap at her feet. "Hm, I think ... I think I see something," she observes, as several horrible crab-like things emerge from the muddy shore beside her. She doesn't appear to notice, at first, but then she slowly looks around her.

"...ah. The big one brought little ones. Hopefully, we don't explode if they bite us."

Ah, she's reminded of Cloverfield.

The Landers have evacuated, with the lower level Adventurers opting to escort them away rather than deal with whatever is going to come out of the water. Apparently, it's crab monsters. Probably other things waiting out in the water yet too. What to do.. oh. Oh that would work. Except she's already in her Were Fang form.

That's okay, as Kauchemar grabs some lumps of seaweed that washed ashore, smears it and some water down through her mane, tosses some in her tail. There. Now she should be able to pass as a kelpie. Just another water related monster, strolling out onto the beach amongst the other sea monsters on the shore. And this time she starts to play something more upbeat, close to Jamacian sounding as she puts both her voice and her swooning presense as a 'fellow monster' to use.

"o/~ The seaweed is always greener, in somebody else's lake. You dream about coming up here, but that is a big mistake.
Just look at the world around you, right there on the ocean floor! Such wonderful things surround you, what more is you looking for? o/~"

The nightmare-cosplaying-a-kelpie puts her monster charisma and vocal charm to use, weaving the showtune into a siren's serenade to pied piper the monsters back into the water instead of chasing the Landers.

"o/~ Under the Sea! Under the Sea! Darling it's better, down where it's wetter, take it from me.
Up on the shore they work all day, out in the sun they slave away.
While we devotin' full time to floatin'. Under the Sea! o/~

As smaller monsters begin to pour in from the water, Rylen stops in his tracks as he spots a particular one. It looks like a crab, but more monstrous. "You... you're the one I spotted last night, aren't you?" He shakes his head, "Hope you enjoyed helping yourself to my dinner."

Then, he looks over to his mount and whistles, "Moko, stomp!" To which the big bird does just that. In fact, the bird sort of marches up and down along the edge of the water, causing little tremors which seem to discourage the monsters from moving further up the sands.

Rylen, however, focuses on his dinner-stealing nemesis. He walks over, picks up the little monster, who flails and snaps claws at him. "You, my friend, aren't going anywhere." Then... he channels fire into his palms and cooks the monster. It poofs into pixels, leaving behind an item: 'Charred Crab Meat'. With a smirk, Rylen comments, "Told you I'd get my dinner back."

"AUGH! That song again! I had just managed to get it out of my head!", Uta screams at Kauchemar. "It's terrible, I say, terr-"

Uta metaphorically bluescreens, reboots, and shakes her head. "W...what was I thinking about again? Oh, right. The crabs. She intones a dark and ominous chant (which works as a really nice bassline for Kauchemar's song, to be fair), and with her wands, she draws swishy geometric figures in the air as her wands leave behind traces which... 'glow with darkness', for lack of a better term. in a sort of martial-arts-kata-slash-dance. The lines grow into clouds of smoke as Uta moves further on, and by the time she's circled the group and returned to the starting point, the whole group is hidden between a curtain of black fumes.

"I can't see a thing!" A lander complain. "Of course!" Uta replies, "Remember, if the crabs can't see you, you can't see them either!"

"...huh," says Jazz, squinting down at them. One of the crabs then latches onto a pink-bowed boot and proceeds to make Jazz spent the rest of the time, while her companions are desdtroying the majority of them so efficiently, trying to kick it off her boot. Eventually, she settles for wielding shield magics between its pincer and forcing them apart before booting it back into the ocean, where it scurries away in shame.

There's a moments respite, of course, before something just ... *bursts* out of the ocean. A great beast, its shadow falling over the beachfront while it siniously turns with an immense, trembling roar.

And then it's gone, back under the ocean. Silence falls for a moment before Jazz says, "...ah, shit. Tsunami."

She doesn't go anywhere, though. Instead, she raises her arms, as if to greet it.

Or cast a shield spell. Probably that last one.

Tucking the cooked crab meat into his inventory, Rylen turns to check on how Moko is doing dealing with the monsters, just in time to see the wave start to crest towards them. "Moko! Get out of here!" He gives a different whistle this time, which causes the bird to lift its head and then run straight up the shore and into the distance.

Rylen, on the other hand, stays behind to try and protect the beach and any people who might still remain. He leaps forward, slamming both feet into the ground, clutching his hands at the air as if he were grabbing on to something. Then, there is a rumble beneath him as the very stones beneath the earth are pulled up by magical forces, creating a wall of stone to hold against the oncoming waves.

Wait was that... it barely stays above the surface long enough to be certain but it's still enough to make even Kauchemar pause in her earworm sea-renade. That's probably the only good thing a Leviathan has done for anyone. Fortunately it stays out at sea, and only sends a massive wave churning towards the shore. "Oh, that's not good."

She gives her lute a fancy twirl by the neck before resumes playing position. Fortunately not anything that she sings along with this time. But it's again the 'surf music' style she's playing ( https://youtu.be/0woZPqLoaFg?t=2227 )

With it she summons a large water elemental of her own and sends the churning mass of hydromancy, nearly a living water spout in itself, charging into the other wave to help break it down by applying opposing force with it's vortex to pull away away from the wave and shrink it down to a more managable size.

The landers are now safe from the crabs, the cloud of darkness has been dispelled (not without much coughing), and Uta is ready to face the next challenge.

Challenge which turns out to be a Tsunami.

"I got this," she states. Eyes narrow, arms cross in front of herself, each of them clutching a wand. "Let's try something new." A leg is raised and a Kata is decribed in the air. "Oh powers of the Earth, I come asking for thy assistance. Grant me the power to find the pouch of coins I've accidentally kicked far into the ocean instead of my beach ball, and now only a Undine can- wait, THAT'S what I wanted to ask Jazz! It finally AAAAAAAAAAAAH"

Seems like the incantation has produced some effect, but said effect is opening a hole in the sand under Uta, which she's now fallen into.

"Oh, well, at least it's not that deep. I can probably get out withGLGFPEFLGLURGLEGURGLEGURPLRPL"

Oh, yeah. The tsunami has arrived. Good thing Uta's HP bar was full, because a good chunk of it got taken off now.

"Uta, stay back! No, don--," then the tsunami hits and Jazuhanzu is left there as it flows around her, it's impacted blunted by the powerful shield she's erected for the time being. It's nowhere near enoiugh, of course, but then the summoned elemental by Kuachemar and the wall of stone by Rylen do the rest of the work in blunting the wave of calamity. Er, the tsunami. Whatever.

Jazz finds Uta in the water, grabbing hold of hre hand and pulling her into the safety of her shield quickly. She doesn't swim, of course. She just sort of idly moseys through the water and goes with it, keeping her close enough to protect her from further damage.

After the wave rolls back out into the sea as part of its natural process, Jazz heaves a sigh, gills sealing back up seamlessly on the sides of her neck.

"... I *hate* beaches," she grumbles, but then there's a warbling sound from further down the beach. She cranes her head that way, damp purple hair wafting on either side of her like she's still in the water itself.

...Clambering out of the mud and detritus left behind by the wave are quite the number of fish-men-monsters. Sahuagin, perhaps. They raise their coral weaponry and burble, beginning a heady charge up it towards the Defenders of the Beach.

...and none of them even got Charles Atlas to train them.

When the wave finally falls back, Rylen allows the wall beneath him to sink back into the ground as well. There is a strange sloshing sound of sand and earth shifting back into place. He steps back, clapping his hands off as if that was a job well done, but then hears the strange sound of the fish-men coming from the water.

"These guys. Why do you even want to try to come on land? It's not like it's even a good place for monsters like you." Rylen shakes his head, extending a hand towards a nearby boulder and pulling it up into the air with his supernatural earth-control. It hovers for a moment before he steps forward, doing a spinning kick which launches the rock straight towards a cluster of fish-men, bowling into them.

"Ugh, these things. Why are these things always in the wake of Leviathans?" Kauchemar muses, remembering the fish freaks that would try to board the Ezzo rescue ships. "I don't think I can charm these ones into leaving."

So she doesn't. Instead she instructs her water elemental to blast them with water. Not going to do much harm to other water creatures, but the pressure in itself is enough to fling the ones it hits back out into the sea and hope they swim away instead of bothering to come back ashore.

It's all a coughing and sputtering for Uta, drenched, covered in seaweed, hair and wings dripping, one small fish stuck in her pointy ears. When she finally manages to open her eyes again, with much discomfort and redness, her first words are of gratitudes towards the Undine. "Thanks Jazz... if it wasn't for you, I might have died down there. I owe you one."

After a short silence, she adds, "...it must be cool to be able to wander through water freely, without worrying about drowning... explore all those undersea wonders barred from us landlubbers..."

Someone /clearly/ has never played videogames with underwaterlevels.

The fishmen make their appearance, and Uta looks at them not without a little concern. "The noise they make... I... I can't hear them properly, Jazz!" She turns her head one way, then the other. "I think my left year suffered some sort of damage." To underline the point, she points towards the ear the wiggling tail of a small fish is sticking out of. "It also feels kinda weird. Some sort of tremor. I'll have to try healing myself later. I hope it's not permanent..."

A lowered stance, a menacing kata-dance over an ominous chant, and Uta begins to seep tendrils of darkness. Her figure is soon enveloped in a dark shell, reducing the spriggan to a black silhouette of herself, her glowing monochrome eyes the only thing not completely black.

"You foul creatures," she threatens in thunderous voice, lower than her usual one. "By the power of Darkness that binds you to the Profundities never touched by Light, I command, begone! Abandon these beaches, forsake these wicked tasks you are carrying out in vain, make haste in retreating to whence you spawned. Back to the cursed depths of the Abyss, where your maledict progeny belongs. Return to the unfathomable trenches, as it befalls yor ilk, under the sea, under the sea, darlin' it's better down where it's wetter, take it from me. Up on the shore they work all day, out in the sun they slave away, while- Kauchemar, CURSE YOU!"

In a scream of rage, Uta unleashes the full power of her dark aura, BLASTING it like a jet of obscurity towards the fishmen.

Panting from the exsrtion, Jazz just sort of blandly replies to Uta, "You know, Uta, that *sounds* nice except for the fact that no one can do that and I don't even LIKE THE WATER." Funny thing for a Sea-witch to say. She snatches the fish out Uta's ear with a sigh and tosses it over her shoulder, glancing back towards the appearing Fish-men with a long stare before she raises her hand, "Deepest Ocean, claim what will remain your's and drag them howling into your blackened, waiting maw.'

...black vines of strangling kelp erupt all around them, dragging a number of them back into the seas where they surely won't drown, but the thorned vines definitely seem to be thinning their numbers, whereas Uta, Kauchemar and Rylen are further able to disassemble the supposed invasion.

Uta's latest just gets an arched eyebrow from Jazz. "Huh," she tells her. "Well, *that's* dealt with. Let's get out of here," she says.

But, of course, there's another surge of the ocena waters that laps at her feet and then pushes her up the beach with another strongher blast.

That's when the circular-mawed octopi arrives, massive tentacles stretching out with vicious, barbed suckers that look to grab qand pull the adventurers towards its ragged, if small, maw.

"Oh, come *on*," groans Jazz, wheeling about now to face it. A black nimbus of energy surrounds her, bubbling off her like the ocean's last breath.

"...denizens of darkest abyss, answer to me, take your bloody-handed vengeance!"

Screaming blackened viscages and bloated bodies, ghostly apparitions rising from the waves around the giant octopi and clawing at it with long, ghostly nails and hungry teeth. "O, Drowned Spirits, share with it your torment."

"Huh..." Rylen sort of stands there, looking at the massive octopus with some measure of amusement on his features. The fact that he's been battling the monsters of the deep wearing nothing but swim trunks probably just adds to the humor of the situation. "You know what... why not."

He seems to get an idea into his head and spurrs his own unnatural speed. The octopus lashes at him, only to have a tentacle follow him underneath another, over, around, through, until the creature has just about tied itself into knots. Its a way of disabling the creature without having to actually land any blows.

"Not a good day to be sea-food." Rylen adds.

The water elemental has dispersed itself in helping dispose of the fishmen... But that is apparently not the end of the problems as a giant octopus makes itself known to the beach. "Oh, of course. Of course there's something with tentacles." Which Kauchemar has no intent on dealing with. She's not -that- kind of Bard, don't stereotype her!

Instead she starts to rev up playing on her instrument, upping the rhythm and, at the same time, her own movements. "o/~ TEMPO TANTRUM o/~" Darkness flickers around her, making the Were Fang's form hard to focus on. It's like those urban legends of creatures lurking just on the edge of your field of vision but not directly viewable somehow.

With all that she is, quite literally, dancing between the thrashing tentacles and spewing bubbles, the distortive nature of her magic and her movements backing her an extremely improbable target to hit while keeping the fiends attention, or missing her and slapping the tendril in its own face. "Quit hitting yourself!" the nightmare cackles in her distorted musical tones every time it does.

Probably helps Rylen with getting it all tangled up like a knot, too.

All the darkness having been ejected as part of the arcane energy blast, Uta, back to her usual self, charges for the octopus. It's first a flying kick, a punch, some dodging as tentacles jab a crater in the sand where Uta was mere seconds before.

She attempts to hit the octopus with her magic wands, but the biggest effect they seem to produce is disappointing the Kung-Fu Nurse.

She pushes herself away from the Octopus's face, and after a double flip, she lands on the sand with a thud. A 'tsk' sound escapes her lips as she looks down at her wands. "Note to self, excellent for magic, not as good for whacking. Staff packs a bigger punch." Determination returns, and as the mega-octopus shoots another tentacle at her, she zigzags (zigging when she should have zigging and zagging when she should have zagging), and soon she's in the octopus face again, to deliver a kick with built in backflip.

As a small, dark silhouette flies up against the sun, onlookers might suspect that she kicked one of the octopus's teeth off, but when the item lands again on the sand, it turns out to be-

"JAZZ!", exclaims Uta, ecstatic. "That's it! It's my money pouch! I /knew/ nobody but you would have helped me find it! I'm SO grateful!"

Stunned silence.

She attempts a quick musical scale.

"And I can hear again! Jazz... you are amazing. I don't know what I would do without you! The only way this day could get better is- Rylen! You're here too! Hi, Rylen! Ok, /now/ this day can't possibly get any better!"

Reinvigorated with energy, she inhales deeply, begins the musical scale from earlier with more gusto, and after it has raised in pitch and volume, up to reaching unbearable levels, Uta directs the final note, a massive sonic blast that makes the very air ripple, towards the massive cephalopod.

"No Fisherman's Wives *here*," remarks Jazz, more than a little annoyed. Then Kauchemar is just .. all of a sudden there. Slapping it with its own tendril, while her ghostly servants are clawing at it and then Rylen is tying its tentacles into knots and Uta is ... hitting it with her most Guileish Sonic Boom.

You know what, this octopus has had enoiugh. It starts to withdraw, but it's simply too late. That last hit from Uta has it *explode*.

Into a shower of pixel and ... and meat.

Jazz watches as the meat showers around her with detatched disinterest.

"...you've got to be kidding me," she sayw ith a heavy sigh.

The landers, at least, are cheering for them from a safe distance.

One chunk of octopus meat goes missing. Because Kauchemar's Tabby Slime, which had been ignoring the whole fiasco to sun itself on the rocks in a cat-like faction, woke up and dragged it off to nom on. Because food trumps sleep, until eating puts you to sleep.

The rest is eventually gathered up. "Looks like we don't have to worry about supplies for another beach cookout!" Kauchemar adjusts her swimsuit. "And not once did I get turned into a bad attempt at tentacle porn. Good job everyone."