Duty Session 208: Karluin Reclamation - Town

It's important to set a good example. When you're asking people to put their (limitless video game) lives on the line, it'd feel awful to just stand back and let the inevitable grind of humanity deal with your problems for you. And so the Doctor of Tolbana has called upon all available Scale Emblem Alliance members to assist him in the first push into the goblin-infested fortress of Karluin since the raid on the floor boss. The gate he stands by has already been cleared by a small army of Alliance members, who have pushed a roughly semicircular area into the city beyond. The position is tenuouous, but the ramshackle, improvised defenses have thus far held up.

It'll be their job to make sure that they /stay/ up.

This may be easier said than done. Something is making an /awful/ racket in the distance-- it almost sounds like a building being demolished.

    "Damn Doc, you sure throw some hell of a party. " Setsuna says as he looks at the remains of the fortress, he hadn't been here for the floor boss so hadn't seen the scene yet. " Did you try to tell these guys the party was over. I mean they don't have to go home but they can't stay here." The necromancer was jesting as he was looking through his inventory, health potions check, mana potion check. Seemed like he was all good. Setsuna was eager to get out there and start clearing things, " I wonder if they had a mad scientist room somewhere."

Schneider has shown up at the call of his guild. He hopes that a little fire won't hurt the city too much. Proph's known for fire, but that's mainly because Schneider was slacking in the background for so long. He totally lives the excess fire lifestyle. "I'm here," he calls out as the Guildies assemble. "Loaded for Goblin." Of course fire works on everything, so it's not just goblin he's loaded for. But it's a matter of sounding cool. He sounds cool, right?

"What's that noise in the distance?" he asks worriedly.

    Merek takes time to adjust the gear which he brought with him, from that potion belt along to the beltcape which he wears, pulling the hood up on that as well. The man nods a bit to Prophylaxis along with anyone else in that party, and looks to the place.

    Even though she has fur, today Mizuki wears a dark grey hooded cloak over her ninja outfit. Maybe it's still cold... It covers her face and body, mostly, but sometimes the tip of her muzzle is unshaded, and of course the ends of her digitigrade feet poke out underneath. Occasionally a bit of flame curls around her feet or out from her muzzle as she uses natural fire magic to counter the cold. She's quiet today... until someone else speaks.

    Mizuki chuckles at Setsuna's comment. "It was already ruins when we got here. The boss fight wasn't THAT epic..." A bit of a smile can be seen on the tip of her muzzle poking out from under the hood. "Although, it WAS pretty epic. There was a giant goblin wearing mecha-size power armor with lasers!" There's also a bit of movement under the back of the cloak as the tip of her tail twitches excitedly at the memory.

    She turns her head to Schneider. "It sounds like a building being knocked down. But why would the goblins bother doing that now?"

Gwen has all right religions with Scale even with her view on their ultimate goal may screw her over? The time has not come for that and she owes Amalthea a few times over so here she is. "Sorry I'm late I'm here to clean house here. Heard you had a small infestation problem here."

She notes with a grin s the somewhat infamous fashion tank shows up tp join the party.

"Glad to see a decent response," Prophylaxis says as the Scale Emblem delegation appears, accompanied by a couple of outsiders as well. "I've only taken a peek inside the walls so far, myself. It's a real mess in there; whoever's leading the goblins now knows what they're doing." There've already been a few casualties, and far too many near-misses for his tastes. He nods at Mizuki, then shrugs, "If I'd wager a guess? I bet our Goblin Slayer friend left more than a few buildings full of bombs. Of course, it could be something else, but the man's already shown he's willing to blow up a townhouse to take down goblins, so I wouldn't put it past him."

"Come on," he says, leading the party in past the gates and around the makeshift barricades and the platoon of Scale Emblem archers and casters manning the garrison. "We've got a demolition crew further in. Hopefully they've cleared us a path through-- Wait."

The sound is gutteral unmistakably rude, even though none of them can understand a word of the noise gurgling out from up head. Suddenly, a hail of crude arrows sail through the air, digging into the roughshod battlements! A detachment of goblin outriders charges into view. Each greasey-skinned rider is mounted atop a mangey, slavering wolf. They nock another barrage of arrows just as the garrison mounts its own counter-attack. Soon the thoroughfare is home to a veritable shoot-out! It might be best to just find cover and wait this one out, but...

"Cover the garrison as best you can," Prophylaxis orders, a barrier of gleaming energy building outward from his outstretched staff. "We can't let this position be overrun!"

    Setsuna hears the obscenities follows by barely being missed by the crossbow bolts. "Oh yeah! Well your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries!" As if such a taunt was preprogrammed to get a response more bolts come towards him as he ducks down avoiding being shot. " Yeah well same to you assholes!" As he ducks and weaves through the arrows trying to reach a source of the bolts to bash in their head with his staff.

Schneider nods thoughtfully to Mizuki as she characterizes the sound we heard. "Maybe they don't like buildings?" he guesses randomly. "Or, y'know, general scortched-earth tactics?" But Proph's guess about Goblin Slayer leaving them a few surprises sounds about right, too. No way to be sure except to check it out. So here, he's riding out with the outriders when they come under fire from a raiding party.

"DAMEDO! Magic shield!" he shouts, casting, and a transparent hemisphere appears before him, arrows deflecting away. Goblins at range? This sounds like a job for Bal Volt, and he raises one hand dramatically, shouting the words, and raw energy torrents into a goblin archer, knocking him from his mount.

    Merek begins lifting up a hand while he draws a magical shield along the garrison, and nods a bit to the party, "I will do all I can to protect the garrison," the man will note while he takes a moment to adjust and take twin blades from the inventory.

So the group si heading in and she'll look to Prophylaxis for a moment as she listens.

"Right watch out for traps he left. That man is quite clever I can only guess what he might have done here."

She takes a moment and then gets ready to move but as the attack comes Gwen will push herself into the line of fire, good she might keep others from getting hie. Bad for her? Several shots get past her defences and now Gwen has a pair of arrows in her which she's going to try to pull out and down an antidote right away. She has not forgotten the cave, nor would she ever.

"Keep them off the garrison!"

    Mizuki turns towards Prophy as he speaks... then laughs as he suggests that possibly the noise is traps left by the Goblin Slayer. "Ahahaha! ...I hope he still gets XP for it."

    Just after they clear the barricades, her ears twitch. "Look out!"

    And then her cloak is skewered by goblin arrows!

    ...But she's already leaped out of it, twisting through the air with her long red scarf flowing behind her and doing acrobatics across the barricades to dodge the arrows, at one point blocking an arrow with a kunai and then throwing it perfectly to intercept another arrow! Eventually she lands behind Gwen, using the tank as cover to spit a fireball into the enemy lines! Although, it seems Gwen's taken arrow fire... "Oh no, it wasn't more of that awful poison, was it?" She shivers and bristles at the thought of anyone having to feel full, un-dulled pain for this adventure.

    Once the fight is over, she retrieves her cloak, making a 'tch' noise at the damage and derezzing it.

This garrison represents the first forays into reclaiming the bottom layer of Karluin. To lose it here would mean that they'd be right back to square one. Thankfully, it doesn't seem like that's going to happen today. A series of interlocking shield spells rise to intercept and absorb the goblin barrage while allowing the snipers behind the embankments to fire with impunity at the raiders. An arrow shatters Prophylaxis' barrier mere moments before Schneider's magic takes down the archer responsible, while Merek and Setsuna take bloody vengence on the goblin responsible. "Keep on them!" The doctor yells as the wolves turn tail, "We've got them on the run!"

Alas, he's stopped short on his charge when the sound of heavy footfalls cuts through the din of combat. Out from the same place the outriders sallied through comes a tightly-packed phalanx of heavily armed-and-armored goblins. Each one carries a tower shield and a powerful melee weapon. "Tch, they must have raided an armory in the fortress..." Prophylaxis grunts. He watches as the garrison's arrows plink helplessly against the goblins' steadily advancing shield wall. A direct attack is going to be rough here... "Take out the ground underneath them if you can. If we can disrupt their formation, we'll give our friends behind us an opportunity to help take them down!"

    Merek looks to the Knights while he begins to sheath both of his weapons. The man then takes a moment to pick up a few potions along that potion belt, which he begins to throw into the knights. They begin exploding along them in shimmering, while he nods a bit to the party, dancing about in an explosion.

Schneider shouts exultantly as the goblin mounted archers are forced to flee. "Take that, you little pests!" he shouts after them, but not for too long, because the goblin heavy infantry is taking their place, hoping their heavy armor will protect them from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. This works, more or less, but they haven't met Dark Schneider yet, and he casts, "GUNZENRO!" in a loud, commanding voice. Fire by the bucketful pounds these armored goblins, armor quickly heated to blistering hot, and still he presses it, pouring in more fire after the initial blast of fire. And after that, he'll hurl some fire at them as a novelty. So, it's less like armor and more like Jiffy-Pop for the poor goblins.

    Setsuna takes his revenge for being shot at before moving with the group and frowns at the sight of the goblins dressed in the armor. " Well damn, I didn't think they would be smart enough to do that. " At the suggestion to take out the ground he smiles. "Well if you insist, I supose we can rip the rug out from under them. " The summoner stands straight for a moment, " Mother of Gaia, I summon your powers to move the earth itself. " His staff takes on a golden glow before he smashes it on the ground sending a large compression wave along the ground towards the goblins. " This should bowl them over."

    Mizuki drops to all fours to chase the wolves, then suddenly stands self-consciously... but they have new foes to fight. "Seriously?!" She dives behind cover. "I'll cook 'em in their armor!" She pops her head out from behind cover to sweep a plume of flame over the phalanx, but it's turned aside by their shields all the same as she has trouble positioning it right to go through the cracks. "Ugh... easier said than done, I guess... You're right, I shoulda used earth..."

Oh great armored goblins, just what she needed. She will once again head on in to engage the enemy, she's a bit beat up but she's doing fairly well. The goblins will find Gwen trying to cast various firespells on them thinking. Hey they are in armour right? Might as well try to heat the metal up. Sadly for her? This isn't heat metal it doesn't go so well but hey the rest of the party seems to be doing better than she is. SO long as she keeps attention on her? Damage she can do is just a bonus.

Where /did/ these goblins get all that equipment? If there really is an armory that they're raiding, then what other weapons have they gotten their grubby mitts on? Considering that the floor boss had been wearing a LASER GOLEM for armor, the sky really is the limit...!

But for now, at least, it seems that good tactics carry the day. Setsuna pulls the earth open to swallow up the goblin phalanx as Schneider and Merek pile in with the fire. Alchemical napalm bursts alongside plain old ordinary magical fire, superheating the goblins in the hole like coals in a kiln. The creatures scream in agony as their armor cooks them from the outside, the added weight preventing them from scrambling to safety. Soon, there's nothing but a burning pit in the ground and even that disappears with time.

Prophylaxis holds a hand up to signal a temporary pause, just to make sure there isn't /another/ unit of goblins coming their way. When it seems the coast is clear, he nods and gestures for the others to follow as he leads the party...

To another set of makeshift defenses surrounding a collapsed building. A bunch of Adventurers (and a handful of well-paid Landers!) stack what look like barrels of gnomish explosives to try and blow through the blockage, while others stand guard at the defenses, though they all seem rather beleaguered. Maybe they've been turning away similar assaults to the ones the group just defeated?

The foreman pauses when he notices the party approach and hurries over with a desperate look on his face. "Doctor, thank God. We've got a party stranded on the other side of these buildings. They were holding the fort down on the other side while we were getting ready to clear the place properly, but all that shaking collapsed our only safe path through. We need to get this rubble cleared ASAP!"

Prophylaxis looks to the others, then nods, "You heard the man. Let's do whatever we can."

"If we can't get through," the foreman gestures down a nearby alleyway, "There've been goblins coming down that street over there. Might be a way through that way, but with the kinds of forces we've seen march through, it's been too dangerous to send anyone in to check it out."

Schneider broils the goblins alive like lobsters in a pot. Apart from having zero desire to eat them. Eeeyuck! Schneider is not within his area of expertise when asked to help people, though. Blowing things up is pretty much his gig. When not blowing things up, setting them on fire is his next best trick. Since blowing up the wall would drop debris down on the victims and setting the debris on fire wouldn't actually clear it away, he pulls out his old fallback, golem summoning. Chanting cryptically, he indeed summons a golem, but made of the same collapsed material as the wreckage. It can't even hold itself together, much less do anything, and it soon collapses back into a pile.

    Merek normally knows a lot about explosives, although at the moment, it looks like he doesn't have the mana needed, and begins working. With that in mind, he does not find anyway to assist.

    Setsuna approaches the wall and frowns before he bashesit with his staff. If he had any stats in strength he would need a new staff, however he doesn't . " I think it would be best if we went around. Maybe if we hurry we can get to the otherside faster then it would take for us to get through here." It's his recommendation as he looks at the party for a moment as he hopes for consensus. "Unless one of you thinks they can get through."

    Yeah, at least the armored goblins didn't have LASER TURRETS or that might've gone differently.

    When Prophy holds up a hand, Mizuki's ears perk up, and rotate around, and then she shakes her head.

    "Oh no!" Mizuki exclaims when the adventurers explain the plight of the trapped team. "Don't worry, I'm sure we can find a way through!" She puts that were fang strength to use, easily moving large pieces of rubble... but finally coming to a piece too big for her to lift! She tries to use earth magic to reshape the rubble around it but she's no demolition specialist, and only makes it worse.

    Once it becomes clear they're not getting through, she slumps her shoulders. "Sorry. I could climb over..." She looks back at the party, "But I guess that wouldn't help us, huh..."

"If we try to climb over, it might just set off a junk-slide, and then this entire operation would be in jeopardy," Prophylaxis admits with a grimace. "And we'd have no way back ourselves. No, as much as I hate to admit it, we're not going to be getting through here."

The Foreman's expression is grim but determined as he nods, "Don't worry, Doctor. We'll blow our way through from this end. We'll get our folks out of there."

"Right, we're taking the long way," Prophylaxis decides as the party's final efforts fail to bear fruit. "Come on, over here. And-- keep your guard up."

The alleyway that is the only way forward is a cramped, dark and dismal affair. It's a claustrophobic place that seems to press in tighter on either side the deeper they go, and the dim lighting and boarded up buildings surrounding them make it the perfect place...

For an AMBUSH!

Cackling with glee, a dozen goblins leap from behind boarded up windows and out of pots, drop in from rooftops and climb out from gutters. Each brandishes a wicked weapon dripping with foul fluid that can only be... "Poison! Everyone, guards up! Don't let yourselves get hit if you can avoid it!"

Schneider doesn't much like the narrow confines of the alleyway. It'd make the perfect spot for an ambush. If he were a goblin, he'd hide there and there and leap down from ... "DAMEDO!" he shouts, "Magic shield!" and it snaps up barely in time to thwart one of the little bastards, coming at him from behind a bit of rubble and trying to gut him with his nasty, nasty dagger.

Schneider is having none of that, however. With the magic shield up in time to keep him safe in the ambush, a quick, "ZAKO DAMERO!" blasts a goblin, pounding him straight into the ground from this angle, and he looks around for any more targets.

    Setsuna was feeling the tension in the air as they enter the alleyway , or maybe its claustrophobia setting in. Then as if the GM suddenly picked up the dice and rolled before saying roll initiative, the ambush starts. Goblins everywhere, and one of them charges at Setsuna, knife in hand as the necromancer does his best to shove the knife away and fortunately into another goblin. "Well that was close." With his own not in immediate danger, he turns and tries to help another of the party members.

Where are those Goblins getting gear from that worries her, was there an armoury here? She has to wonder about that but as the goblins go down there gear goes with them unless somehow some of it drops. However, she'll have to worry about that later. They have more thing to worry about Gwen's going to put some muscle into it. Given her superhuman strength at least compared to the old world. It doesn't' go well however she's getting ready to move on with the party.

"So when's this over I had an idea though I'd like us ..."

She never gets to finish as the ambush happens and while she responds fairly fast cutting down her attacker? They manage to score a hit and Gwen? Starts to not feel very good and soon she'll have a debuff icon. She's taking dot damage for one, she also feels woozy, she also has a fever if anyone was to check.

"Damn it... them and poison again..."

    Merek looks to the goblins when it looks like they will ambush the party. The man takes a moment to begin casting the spell to draw the divine shield about him, then he begins to protect the entire formation of the party upon one side while he keeps a place for anyone else to do it along the next as well.

    Mizuki pouts slightly at the failure, but onward they move, glumly.

    At least the closed spaces and darkness don't bother her so much. There are benefits to being a cat!

    Unfortunately, 'immune to stabbing' isn't one of them. Before she knows it, there's a knife in her side. And it's almost certainly poisoned! "AAAGH! NO!" She lashes out with fire and claws that might wound her assailant and keep others from approaching, but as the poison kicks in and she feels weak and dizzy, it's probably enough to stop her from actually killing any of the goblins unless they get exceedingly careless or are driven into her attacks while already weakened.

    Once the immediate danger is over, she inspects the wound to see if it looks any different than the usual red pixels. "That didn't seem like it hurt more than usual... but I've got debuff indicators..."

It's a damn good thing that the party was halfway expecting an ambush at that point. The gleeful, snaggletoothed grins on the goblins' faces give way to baffled despair when their daggers fail to find purchase in Schneider's ribs. His spell blasts his assailant into so many motes of light and carries on to take down a couple more beyond that. Setsuna parries his own attacker's assault and kills another goblin in the course of his defense.

The others aren't so lucky. Merek manages to shield them and prevents the worst of the immediate damage, but the barrier still allows the dogpiling goblins to nick half the party with their poison daggers...

And then something goes *ZAP* and Prophylaxis staggers out from under a pile of charred goblin corpses. He's smoldering, himself, an after-effect of using an electrical spell as an emergency goblin-zapper, and shares the very same debuff Gwen is suffering from. "Not... today," he snarls, and stabs a syringe full of /something/ directly into his arm. Immediately, his HP begins to creep upward as the DoT vanishes. He moves quickly to follow-up, jabbing both Gwen and Mizuki with identical syringes. The remedy takes effect immediately, staving off the worst of the accumulating damage. "Not after the /last/ time you bastards got me with poison. I came prepared...!"

The rest of the party is able to tear through what remains of the goblin ambush. Despite getting the drop on them and being armed with poisoned weapons, the goblins are pretty easily dispatched once they no longer have the element of surprise on their side. Soon, the party exits the alleyway, and finds...

...Something /awful/ waiting for them.

"God," Prophylaxis murmurs as he stares up at what looks like a sort of vertical shanty-town. It's a hodgepodge of strapped-together construction built up around a sturdier inner core, and positively /crawls/ with goblins. "There are so many of them...!" But it doesn't seem like the party has been noticed either. "But if we can get close without being detected... We might be able to bring the whole thing down!" And /that/ would be a massive win for a first incursion. "Keep your eyes open, too. There might be some way past the blockade from here. Maybe if we take down the shanty, it'll clear a path?"

Schneider is, alas, not mentally cut out for sneaking. He's the sort of fellow who, if he were sneaking, would sing about his cat-like tread at the top of his lungs. He has a limited ability to shape the darkness around him, but it's more suited to cool effects than actual stealth. "This is not going to go well, is it?" he mumbles as he steps on a cat, which mrowls and darts away.

    As they leave the alley, Setsuna is starting to feel the wear and tear of clearing the place. He had thought it would just be come up , kill goblins for an hour and then go home. Then he gets to the point where he sees the shanty and then hears the good doctor suggest the sneak. Setsuna looks at Prophylaxis like he is crazy, then the group, then himself, then back to the doctor. " I mean I suppose we can try that." Taking a deep breath he begins to try his best to channel dark shadows around him, but this really isn't his expertise.

    At least she doesn't have to endure the poison for long! She looks up at Prophy gratefully. "Thanks..." although she still seems a bit annoyed at her failure.

    Things don't get better in that respect. She simply nods; she doesn't need to SAY that a ninja cat is extra-good at sneaking, right?

    But there's only so sneaky you can be when someone unexpectedly STEPS ON YOUR TAIL. Mizuki yowls in surprise and covers her mouth, then darts for cover!

    Merek does not know a thing about sneaking, that's been known for a while about the man. As such, he does not even manage to get a few feet and he's bringing attention to himself while he walks along.

Yyyyyyeaaaaah this is maybe /not/ the party to do anything even remotely close to 'a stealth mission.' Prophylaxis had high hopes! He really did! Mizuki is even here, and she's a /ninja/ so it's only right for her to be good at this kind of thing!

Except maybe when she's the cat that got stepped on. Whoops!

But it's not meant to be.

Maybe the problem is the shrieking cat. Maybe it's that they're all trying to cloak themselves in darkness in broad daylight. Whatever the case, it isn't long before the shanty goes up in a cacophony of noise and alarm. Someone had spotted the party on approach! "Damn," Prophylaxis cusses, erecting an emergency WALL OF STONE moments before a cascade of thrown projectiles rains down on the party from above! "This way! Down this alley!" It's not the best solution, considering what just happened to them in the /last/ alleyway they ran through.

But it's the only option they have. There are too many goblins that are now painfully aware that there are forces moving to tear down their makeshift home. The deluge of projectiles is too thick-- so thick in fact that the party might not even notice the shadow flitting along the wall...

"I think we're safe," Prophylaxis sighs, rubbing a hand across his forehead. "We're going to have to keep that location in mind and come back to try again sometime. Come on, we might still be able to find a way around the rubble at lea--"

A scythe cleaves through the good doctor...'s mirror image. Prophylaxis snarls as he dodges narrowly out of the way of the wicked sickle arcing through his emergency illusion. "Thought I saw something... But this--"

It's a terrifying sight. A menacing figure with a jolly red cap that seems a bit too close to the color of fresh blood for it to be a coincidence. Rows of jagged teeth, filed to dagger-points spread a rotten, yellow grin. It lifts its scythe high again-- and darts forward, vanishing in a sudden flurry of murderous motion.

This thing can only be one of the legendary Red Caps, high-tier goblin assassins which dye their namesake hats in the blood of their victims and rejoice in the carnage of murder and slaughter. Its scythe is almost too fast for the eye to follow, but... If they can kill this thing, it will remove a powerful threat from the backstreets of Karluin.

    Merek begins to assist in the fight. He does the best he can while he tries, though there is a lot to deal with. Even if they are winning eventually, the man notes that he might have quite a lot when it comes to learning about fighting.

So, stepping on a cat's tail turns out to be the least of Schneider's worries. He hustles down the alley as Proph urges the party onwards, ducking and hunching over to avoid the occasional random arrow or poisoned dart. He gives Prophylaxis a skeptical look when he suggests we may be safe here, just as his mirror image is cut in half. "That looks painful," he remarks dryly, taking in the terrifying red-capped goblin with rows of teeth filed to points.

The red caps, then, goblin assassins and then some, but Schneider knows a thing or two about them that few do: They have a strange vulnerability to certain rare kinds of magic. Luckily, Schneider -knows- that rare kind of magic, and his words twist as his hands glow white as he says what he says. The words are, perhaps, so holy that they game does not permit them to be heard by mortal ears. Or maybe Schneider's just mouthing the words? Whichever is the case, the red capped goblin finds Dark Schneider to be his match, unable to use his unholy stregth and speed at all against the exploder wizard, who fights him with his flaming sword, which glows also with a holy light. Or possibly cerenkov radiation.

    Setsuna looks at the redcap with the scythe and grins at the weapon of choice, " I mean he has good taste in weapons doc, maybe these guys aren't so bad. "As if to be proven wrong Setsuna is slashed at losing a sleeve in the process...though the benefit of wearing robe like items is that they are so much fabric it is hard to see the body, and Setsuna reveals his arm was missed, mostly. There is a digital cut across it. " Damn it never mind, he's an asshole destroying clothes. " As he snaps his fingers and the summoning circle appears from underneath him two dead goblins rise up and take a run at the redcat. However they were dead for a reason and get cut right back down. " I should have seen that coming."

    Mizuki's not sure which is worse; being chased by goblin archers or the sound that just came out of her. She doesn't need more people teasing her for being a cat; she's been feeling kind of self-conscious about it lately but were fang powers are too good not to use.

    ...Besides, the nonhuman traits help reinforce the idea that it's an avatar and in some sense not him. That and the reduced power just make the human form seem more disconcerting...

    ...But the appearance of a Redcap pushes such concerns out of Sam's mind for a moment. He's got a fight to focus on. He's familiar with the basic idea of a redcap, at least, but what are they specifically in this world? Aren't they a kind of evil fairy in D&D? Here apparently they're a variety of goblin...

    Well, they die to damage like everything else, right? Mizuki manages to avoid direct hits but accumulates scratches and bleeding DoTs from close calls. Schneider comments that perhaps this is a clothes-destroying boss. "Tch, he better not..." When she finally gets an opening to attack, she takes a deep breath... and coughs and sputters as wisps of smoke curl out of her mouth. Out of MP! She chugs an ether, but the moment is past as she loses her chance to contribute DPS for that boss cycle, making the battle take that much longer...

So here we go Gwen has a nasty poison and she's too out of it to think to use any remaining item she has on her and thankfully? The Doctor is in she gets a jab from a syringing and feels a hell of a lot better shortly after. However, that's not the end of this. God damn urban fighting is hell no matter the nature of technology. Inwardly she wishes they had the sort of kit the jarheads on the base her family company's served right now. Or hell even just Kaydon here. An actual marine would be even more badass. However, this isn't the case as there are more goblins they have gone loud and there. There is one high off Goblin or is it more? Wait? High-level Goblins like this? Here? This was bad Gwen doesn't even think twice while she doesn't have Grand Cross she does have her own Divine Wind.

"DIVINE WIND!"

Gwen breaks into a flurry of wind and light elemental sword strikes as she just lays into the Red Caps in a frenzy...

Fighting a red cap in the middle of a narrow alleyway is a recipe for disaster. The monster is nimble, its every strike is aimed either to kill or to brutally maim, and it's only by some small miracle that Merek isn't torn apart by the creature's blade. Setsuna's attempt at rallying a couple of undead minions goes little better, and he too is made to bleed ('bleed') for his attempt. At the rate this is going they'll be ripped apart long before they track down that missing adventuring party... But then the tides shift.

Armed with holy incantations on his lips, Schneider parries the unholy creature with a sword that shines like the highest choirs of angels. Maybe 'Dark' Schneider should change his name? 'Sunny' Schneider sounds a little more on-point right now. Maybe 'Sunshine' Schneider? The creature certainly seems to recoil from him like a vampire exposed to sunlight! Gwen joins in as well, a flurry of rapid sword-strikes that each flash with the brilliance of the dawn's first light. The creature hisses and darts away, clearly giving both holy sword-wielders a wide berth... But it seems to rally as it turns its attention to Mizuki, taking advantage of her momentary distraction with the MP potion to try and cut her down in a single stroke...!

But just then, there's a wave of heat unlike anything the goblin has ever felt before. A towering surge of flame blasts upward, stretching beyond even the rooftops... And then it condenses down, imploding into a distinctly humanoid shape before the roaring blaze gives way...

To Prophylaxis, glowing like the sun at high noon. His eyes radiate intense heat and overpowering light, rivalled only by the sphere of flame igniting in the palm of his hand. "Spirit of Flame, I walk alongside thee. With the light you and I share, let us burn away all shadow..." He gestures, "FIREBALL."

The ensuing explosion is...

Somewhat more apocalyptic than usual. Though simultaneously also more /contained/ somehow. Instead of radiating outward, the blast stretches upwards, consuming the Red Cap completely. It doesn't even scream.

All it does... is leave behind a pile of ash and a handful of teeth.

Prophylaxis sighs with exertion as his self-buff fades. He sags into his staff and groans, "There. One down, at least... Good job, everyone. Now, let's find that adventuring party."

PLOT TWIST: The Adventuring Party was in fact literally just the Goblin Slayer and his friends, up to do some light goblin slaying. They were never in any real danger! Ha-haaaa!

(Ending C complete, try again and rescue the actual adventuring party next time...!)

Schneider's holy incantations may have inflicted wounds that bleed pure light from the redcap, but the light of the power in the incantations, when one looks more closely, is not Schneider's power. In fact, the light is so /outside/ that the sorcerer indeed seemed darker by being in their presence. Maybe that is the real source of his full name. But the light and the darkness both fade when the fight is over, and Schneider is looking quite impressed by Prophylixis's fireball. "Apocalyptic explosions for the win," he says with a grin. "I was starting to get worried. Nice job pulling that one out." And he will join the others in finding the adventuring party.