Duty Session 197: Goblins in Mac Anu

Mac Anu. The beautiful water city of the Fourland Kingdom. It's white and blue and colorful thanks to the various flags and market stalls everywhere. Though the main source of color comes from the small ships that move through its various canals, and the many Undine that use the canals as their main mode of transportation.

The bustling and beautiful Root City is home to the main governing body of the Fourland Dukedom, and a significant population of the Dukedom in general. It is also the go to stop for many Adventurers as of late, as it's the closest to the port, and more importantly, the source of a recent big name posting for the Hunters Guild.

There's been activity of Goblins underneath the city, which is getting investigated.

"Some people are concerned the Mirror that was stolen near Eastal may be the source of some of this monster activity." Cyrus explains to the teammates who've shown up for this particular run at the dungeon, motioning his hand as they step into the sizable sewer entrance.

He raises a potion, which lights up as he removes the cork and exposes it to the sewer air.

"There's big canals beneath this city, as much as there are above." He explains, stepping down some stairs leading down with the rest of them. "Goblins are not native to Mac Anu. There's the occassional Slime or Flan... but not Goblins." He explains. "We're to figure out their source, and then report back."

"Honestly, I don't know much about the Mirror, or what has been going on in Eastal." Kita explains, the witchy looking Elementalist from Scale Emblem raises an eyebrow. "I mostly stick around Tolbana, so if it doesn't happen in the tower, it's not usually something that reaches my ears." She smirks, "Outside of the undead menace. Everyone knows about them."

The way Kita talks, she sounds like a stereotypical Scale Emblem person, self-absorbed in only the tower and the affairs surrounding it.

She looks over towards the taller girl beside her, giving the Salamander a look. "You wanted a challenge. I can pretty much guarantee this will be one. Goblins are pretty nasty and I don't like dealing with them in the best of circumstances."

Then, to Cyrus, she gives a nod. "I'll do the best I can, but fighting isn't my strong point. I just don't want to see trouble end up on our doorstep."

"I...I've seen goblins before, in the first quest I went on", Jurou says with some trepidation, and glances at Cyrus, "With you, actually. It went - okay." She puts an arm on Kita's shoulder, "You can work on staying back and doing mage-y things, and I'll keep them at range for you." and she gives a warm smile to the imp girl.

She had asked Kita to take her out to get better at dealing with this game, this world, and so here they were about to get attacked by angry gross little green things. Well, she did ask for this, she thinks as she lets Cyrus lead the way down the stairs, he seems to know where they're going.

There's a small knee-jerk feeling in his heart as Kita talks about the world outside of the tower like that, but he easily shrugs it off. He'd been the same way in the past. He was all about the Raids, and could not have cared less about some of the Lore. It wasn't until the Tenth Floor mess that he really learned to focus on other things.

"I heard about you from some friends. I think you'll do just fine." Cyrus notes. "If you survived the most recent floor raid, you are going to do at least decently well here." He imagines that part of the reason this woman must have come here, is because she's come to understand just how nasty the Goblins are.

Cyrus then taps one hand to the other. "Oh right, I remember seeing you - we also fought in the Tournament! Ehm... Jurou, right?" He's pretty decent at names. "I am afraid we're all mage types. But I still know some tricks from my previous build." He remarks. "I used to play a Godhand type, so I still know some of the inputs."

He continues to talk, looking back at them, when suddenly.

TWANG.

ZIP.

A red line shows over his cheek, Cyrus alerted. "Shit, I've never seen them this close to the entrance! Ready up!" He remarks, before he rushes in, ready to fight. Two Goblins wielding knives have come around the corner, with a third stepping out from behind them holding a crossbow, re-arming it and aiming it towards Kita!

"They've gotten to be more of a pain." Kita elaborates. "At least as much as I've heard, anyways." She doesn't re-iterate how slow news travels sometimes, especially for those who are more focused in one area of the world.

The gothically-dressed witch tips the brim of her hat slightly. "We'll see. Fair warning, I don't do well with melee combat." Her stormy eyes look over to Jurou, offering the girl a more genuine sort of smile rather than her usual wry ones, "That's why I depend on her to keep me out of too much trouble."

She gives Cyrus a peculiar look, "She's a tank." She adds, deadpan, pushing her glasses up on her nose in a not so subtle hint that maybe the cat needs to get his eyes checked.

Not much time to dwell on that, though, as the arrow comes flying their way. Kita does have relatively good reflexes, naturally moving to the side to avoid being skewered.

"Yeah, Jurou." she confirms for Cyrus, "Don't worry, I can annoy things and get hit - so you don't have to!" she says with a smirk at both of the squishy types.
As Cyrus cries out, Jurou hurries a few steps forwards to do just that, ducking as the first salvo comes towards all of them, and the arrow aimed at her clatters on the stairwell wall. She fumbles to pull out her oversized sword and take a position in front of the others.

"Sorry, I meant the two of us." Cyrus answers Kita in between dodging a dagger being shanked in his direction. "I know her class. She took ages to get through, damage wise, during the tournament." He points out, spinning around the Goblin.

He kicks it towards Jurou, so her blow can come down to chop it apart, and Kita has a chance to assist with her magic to eradicate the remaining Goblins after succesfully getting out of the way, ensuring her concentration doesn't falter.

"Phew... okay. Right, focus. These bastards, you never know what to expect."

He motions and starts heading in deeper. "I wish I had a map for this place. But no matter what Lander I asked, none of them seem to have a map for the sewers. A few Hunters had some sketches, but there are so many places to enter the underground waterways, and so many levels to it, it's hard to keep track of what is where. You'd need some kind of 3D model."

They head down a sewerway, going unassailed, and then start heading deeper down, until suddenly, a new threat. "Who's there?" Cyrus asks as he sees a flame around a corner. "It may be an adventurer or Hunter on the same quest. But let's be careful." He remarks, just in time to look back at see...

A Hobgoblin, the same size of a person, rushing their way while on fire. "What the!?" It is rushing their position, looking to mow them over with its flaming body! "Just jump into the water, you stupid thing!" Cyrus groans. But to be fair, the waterways have some pretty heavy rapids in some places.

With the goblins now a more present threat, Kita takes up her position behind Jurou, ready to use the other woman's tanking abilities to her advantage. "I imagine that most people don't go wandering around sewers if they don't have to." The Imp comments, "It isn't exactly pleasant down here, even without the goblins adding to the stench."

She lifts a gloved hand to her nose, then shakes her head. "I could try to map them out, but I'm not really a cartographer. It would look pretty, but probably be grossly innacurate."

Then, the Hobgoblin appears, and Kita just steps back, gaping at the creature that seems to be on fire. "How in the heck... you know what, I don't want to know." She draws up some water magic, trying to splash it across the creature in quick order.

"I certainly wouldn't have picked the sewers myself. This place is the absolute worst. Who's idea was this?" Jurou says, her attention drawn away from slicing down one of the many goblins by the reminder of the godawful smell of this place.
As the flaming hobgoblin charges them, the salamander girl is unfazed, a little fire doesn't worry someone who is routinely on fire themselves. She counters his charge with one of her own, and puts her shielded side into the charge, slamming him back across the floor and leaving a firey trail behind him, and as he struggles back to his feet, Kita's water douses the rest of the flames, leaving a soaked, dazed, sad looking goblin standing in a puddle.

"Ugh, this screaming is alerting all the nearby monsters." Cyrus groans as the creature continues to run at them. "Quiet it quickly." He remarks, as he grabs a potion and throws it right at the Hobgoblin's head. The Drowning spell immediately activates, covering its head and silencing it...

"Phew... that should quiet it down." Jurou then counters it with her shield, bashing it and unbalancing it, allowing Kita's quick water move to send it plunching into the rapid waters - which them slam the hobgoblin into a nearby pillar, which shatters it.

"Okay. That could have gone a lot better. Glad to have a Salamander on my side when dealing with fire." He thanks Jurou, before nodding to Kita. "Nice water moves." He remarks. "Good precision behind them."

The crew then goes lower, and he grabs a piece of paper from his inventory. "Alright... so..." He ponders for a moment. "Based on what I've got here, we need to go... ehmmmm." He turns the map around. "These Hunter sketches are /awful/. I know I was following this right. I think it's..."

He points in a direction as multiple Goblins let out their sounds, and start approaching from all four sides. "I will have this in just a moment." Cyrus claims.

It wasn't that long ago that Kita had mentioned her inability to handle anything in the way of maps. So, as they end up lost in the Goblin tunnels, the Imp is left to curse her lack of any kind of sense of direction. "You better figure it out, Cyrus, because it's dark down here and sooner or later we'er going to run into ..."

And that's when Goblins start to fire at them. Kita makes a sound similar to a squeak as she throws up an instinctive barrier of shadow energy, the power swirling around them briefly in an attempt to ward off the arrows.

"I'll try to keep this magic running as long as I can, so try to keep it between us and them." She offers, weaving her hands in the air, looking as if keeping the spell maintained takes quite a bit of mana.

"Don't look at me when it comes to map stuff, I can't make heads nor tails of them." The salamander says as they wait, the momentary lull in action a little awkward while they try to figure out where to go. "So Kita, next date, perhaps not a sewer?" she jokes, holding her nose with a free hand.
Then the goblins come out of the shadows, and it's time to fight again. Kita reacts fastest, and brings up a shield around them, so Jurou lets her handle the defence, and hovers by the edge of the shield, stepping through it to swing at one enemy, then stepping back though it to deflect the goblin's counter attack. It proves a little difficult mostly because they're coming on all different sides, but Jurou gets through it without taking more than a few hits thanks to the shield spell.

"I've got this. Just a moment." He hops down a small side-alley, looking around its corner to get a better idea of the directions, then backtracks quickly. "Got it. It's this way! We can create a chokepoint on the bridge ahead." He remarks, rushing down while Jurou and Kita are doing their best protecting him. If it wasn't for them, he would not have the opportunity to check around corners and get a better idea of the orientation of the map.

Cyrus' tail dances with each step he takes, getting the heck out of dodge, making it to the bridge, where they can properly plan a counter attack. "Nice defense spell!" He calls out to Kita, nodding to Jurou as she keeps her own shield up, protecting him from the sides.

The trio continues a slow retreating fight, luring the Goblins closer. And with them working together, they finally manage to make their stand and clear off the last goblins. Except for last one. Which turns... and runs. "Follow that Goblin! It may lead us to where they are nesting!" Cyrus calls out.

Jurou's comment gets a playful glare from beneath the brim of her witch's hat as Kita looks at her companion. "Hey, you're the one that wanted to test your mettle against monsters, not me." She points out, nudging the armored girl in the shoulder as she walks past, releasing the shield spell as she goes.

It was quite a drain on her mana, but as a mage, Kita has lots of it to spare. What she doesn't have is a lot of skill in the usual adventuring abilities. So, when the goblin begins to run, leaving them to give chase. The mage completely ends up losing track of the thing, with absolutely no chance whatsoever at finding it.

It is only by the graces of Cyrus and Jurou that she doesn't end up wandering down some strange tunnel and getting herself ganked by a bunch of waiting goblins.

As the straggling goblin turns and flees, Jurou takes a moment to pause and relax - at least, until she's told they need to give chase, and with a groan, she does.
The big girl, dressed all up in armour and with a big sword, is surprisingly, keeping on the goblin's tail and leaving a gust of embers in her wake for the others to follow. She doesn't have much chance to look back as she rushes down the corridor, after only a couple twists and turns, she slides to a halt at the edge of the camp, her greaves scraping on the stone surface in a manner that echoes around the sewer.
Some of the goblins, leer over at her, and she glances over her shoulder to check she hasn't rushed too far ahead.

Cyrus stays in the middle between Jurou and Kita, noticing the girl falling behind. "Try to keep up with me!" He calls to her, as he grabs a potion of some kind of glowing green liquid, and begins to let it drool all over the ground.

It leaves a trail for Kita to more easily follow, and makes it so they don't get lost! After all, during a chase like that, it's all too easy to get lost!

When they finally catch up to it, they arrive at a larger goblin camp.

"This is too small to be our goal. But..." He looks around, trying to get a better look. The Goblins are already being alerted by the fleeing goblin. "There! A Shaman! And he's holding something. Quick, let's defeat the Goblins before they can get rid of the evidence. There might be a hint here!"

As he mentions that, he quickly rushes forward and throws a firebomb into the Goblin area, which spreads and creates a 'wall' they can hide behind and stops the Goblins from getting through. "Jurou, the flame wall should be friendly to you. You can get through!" He calls out, before motioning for Kita. "Let's bombard them!"

There is some measure of confusion and exhaustion that sets in as they run through the tunnels. Too many familiar looking sewers, too much overwhelming stench of refuse and goblin. So when they finally do arrive at what appears to be the end, Kita is left panting and out of breath. She is not a runner, nor a person used to long bouts of physical activity.

Looking on at the camp, her glasses tilt slightly off of her nose in a comedic fashion as she takes that in, "You want me to fight /that/?" Yes, Kita may be feeling a little overwhelmed. "Uh... so long as you keep them from getting too close." She gives a look to Jurou, knowing that her girlfriend would understand just how deep Kita's fears run. "I should be able to keep casting from a distance."

And that is just what she does. However, at some point during the fighting, a couple of the goblins do get a bit too close for comfort. It leaves Kita trembling and wide-eyed by the end, obviously not dealing well with just how near they had gotten.

Jurou steps into the flame wall, using it as a shield on both her sides so she can focus on wielding her sword against the rush of goblins in front. And - it mostly works, to start with. The great sword weaves, hacks, and divides the weaker goblins, and Jurou lets loose with bursts of flame that draw many of the goblins towards her.
The sheer onslaught of foes makes it impossible for Jurou to keep up, though, and some goblins, enshrouded either in protection or a burst of overconfidence by a shaman's spell, burst through the flames on either side to attack the mages who were doing most of the damage. Jurou steps out of her defensive position to hack at a goblin that gets past her, and it falls to a bloody heap in front of Kita. She's doing her best to keep the goblins away from the mage, and takes quite a few hits when she has to chase after strays.
By the end of the fight, Jurou's exhausted and a few surviving goblins disappear down dark tunnels, away from the three tired adventurers.

When the Goblins get too close, Cyrus is close. The occassional slash gets to him, before he manages to eliminate them. But he starts noticing Kita's discomfort. He expected, someone who hung around in the Tower would be a lot more comfortable with monsters. But Kita quickly proves just how wrong he was.

"Hey, are you okay?" He asks. "Slow, long breaths. If they hurt you, it feels more like getting softly slapped in the face, rather than feeling their weapons." He assures Kita. "And I've got enough healing potions to make sure you won't be in any danger of falling." Cyrus adds, offering her a potion.

He then offers a healing potion to Jurou. "Good job keeping us covered. Good tanking job." He remarks, as the flames subside, and he steps towards the now fallen Shaman. Kneeling down and grabbing a piece of paper it dropped. "What's this... it's... part of a map." He remarks, standing back up and looking out over the waterways, thinking to himself, rubbing his chin.

Though Kita's breathing is fast, it isn't quite the level of full blown panic attack. She has been there before within ETO, and it had not been an enjoyable experience. Kita's eyes flick from Cyrus to Jurou, locking on the red-head. "I..." Trying to explain the cause of all this is a long story, and not one she wants to go into just now.

"It's ... not the pain. It's up here." Kita taps at her head, then slowly walks over and takes Jurou's hand. It's almost a look of desperation there, as if she really did depend on Jurou as not only a companion, but a rock of stability in moments like these.

"We... can deal with the map later. Let's get out of here." She looks at the two of them, "Please."

Slumped to her knees now the fighting is over, Jurou looks up at the proferred potion, and takes it. "...Thanks" she says tiredly after downing the whole thing.
She takes a couple deep breaths, then, jamming her sword into the humidity weakened rock, she hauls herself up by the grip and by Kita's hand, and puts an arm around the mage girl, "You're safe now, let's go." she speaks into Kita's ear, holding her firmly in the protective embrace.
Breaking the embrace after a long moment, Jurou snatches her weapon from the ground and slides it into the strap on her back, and she looks to Cyrus "Do we have everything? Let's get back to sunlight." and she starts heading out, holding Kita's hand.