Is It Wise To Pick Up Utas For a Dungeon?

"Well, here goes nothing."

A somewhat put upon looking Jazz has arrived at the Slimarium. If we're honest, here is not a place she wants to be. It's nothing personal, of course, but anyone who knows her, knows her well enough to understands that she'd be rather out ... there ... somewhere. Doing *something*. Shiruba is following her, of course, and for whatever reason they're here and Jazz is caling out in nher undeniably distinctively anime-girl voice.

"Uta!"

"Are we sure this is a good idea?" It's probably not the first time Shiruba has asked that. "I mean.. You know how she's going to react." Still the wolfgirl has relented to come along, since getting info on monsterous threats is part of her job, both as a ranger scout and as the leader of the New World's main exploration/combat division.

There is rustling, thumping, tumbling and various noises reminescent of the sound of a Spriggan tripping over things or bumping into walls, with a thud of something heavy and sturdy being knocked over thrown.

The sliding sound of a latch being opened from the inside is followed by a creak, as the door, slowly, veeeeery slowly, is swung open.

What appears is a Spriggan in a modestly cut nightie with (you guessed it) a slime design to it, two eyelids that are winning the valiant attempt at prying them open, and a pixie-bob of hair in bad need of being combed.

She yawns. "....quiet, it must be midnight or something!", she whispers, her voice a bit hoarse from apparently having just woken up. "You'll wake the Pekos, and I doubt Rylen is going to believe me that /this time/ it wasn't me making a ruckus at stupid o'clock!"

"Just imagine how she'll take it if we don't tell her, dealt with it, and she finds out later? She'd be crushed. I don't want to crush Uta. Do *you* want to crush Uta? I mean, look at that." A single long nailed finger is pointed towards Uta and her nighty without another word.

She then pads towards the spriggan, her own hands coming up behind her head to go throiugh her lengthy purple hair with a sigh. "It's not late, Uta. It's early. And we need your help with something." She blinks her large eyes up at her, tentacles twitching.

Ears twitch at the rumbling tumbling noises inside, and a soft sigh follows. "I know, I know," Shiruba replies, then quiets down as the door latches are being clicked and the door creaked open. Eyes half-asleep Uta in her nightgown.

"I guess Pekos don't crow like roosters in the morning."

Uta's eyes kind of remain in the position they are, pointed at Jazz (not sure if looking /at/ her, or through her), her jaw kind of hanging there for lack of effort at containing it, leaving her mouth semi-open.

It takes a few of seconds for her brain to catch up.

"Uh... sure?" Uta says. "I mean, my planned Slime Labs activities have temporarily been put on hold by intervening circumstances in the form of a preliminary Monster Safety training before I can grant myself the proper certification to run this as an official enterprise as opposed to a hobby project, so I find myself with plenty of time to-"

She yawns, with no hand in front of her mouth, as it is customary in Japan. Huuuuuuge yawn, so huge that staring into that mouth might make the Old Gnomes that designed the Ancient Cave Systems red with envy.

"...what were we saying again? Oh. Uh. Good point, Shiruba. Maybe I can prime a slime with a feather from one of the Pekos, and so... I could keep it here in my lab, to crow and wake me up at the right time..."

"So, Shiruba, myself, and some others went to a dungeon on Alne. Typically, a not too terribly difficult one, right? But we noticed it was conspiciously absent of mobs today, along with a lot of rusted equipment laying around. This was obviously a bad sign, but we pushed ahead since we need to find a passage in there that might lead us out sneakily innto the deeper ocean. Evenntually, we found the source of the problem."

A beat.

"A monster called 'Reinigerin, the Dungeon Devourer'. Inspect had it as level as a bunch of question marks." Another pause as she lets that sink in before she forges ahead, "It was a giant, nearly transparent gelatinous ooze, Uta, that devoured an entire dungeon's contents on its own, unsurprising given the sobriquet."

"Either a higher level monster somehow got into the dungeon.... Or a glitch spawned it there. Neither is a pleasant thought." Wild child ponytail sways a little as Shiruba shakes her head.

"The thing ate -the other monsters in the dungeon-," she emphasizes, "And by the signs of it another Adventurer group that tried to explore... It's composition is apparently highly destructive. It tried to eat Miho, and most of her gear suffered considerable stability damage. Good thing she's a smith and can fix her own gear, but still. Something that can strip away defenses like that is not to be taken lightly."

She shrugs. "But it might be related to slimes or such, so Jazu wanted to fill you in."

Uta stares, slack-jawed.

If this was a game, one might suspect her avatar glitched and left her frozen with her two eyelids at different heights, disheveled hair, one hand still holding the door she's just opened while resting the other on the doorframe for support, so that her face can stick through the crack.

She remains like that for ten or fifteen seconds.

Then she slams the door in the face of Jazz and Shiruba.

* * *

Two seconds later, the door cracks opens again. Uta sticks just her head out again, just like before, but this time she is dressed in her iconic gi/nurse's uniform, fully washed up and cleaned, her pixie-bob is flawless, topped with her usual nurse's cap. She utters a curt "Let's go." before exiting, shutting the door behind herself without even turning to look, standing in front of Jazz and Shiruba, magical staff held tightly in one hand, her posture and look indicating she'd clearly appreciate if they moved out of the way. "/Her/ composition. /She/ tried to eat Miho," Uta corrects.

Jazz, it would appear, was expecting something like this. While she doesn't smile, she does turn to look at Shriuba after this display of enthusiasm with an arched eyebrow that just screams someone is saying 'See?' before her attention swivels back to Uta. The tips of her tentacles raise up, though, and the scales and spots of her face briefly illuminate. WHile she may not smile, she is not completely unamused.

"Not yet," she informs Uta, gently. "Estelle got a sample of residue it left behind, which was also very acidic. I've asked her to bring it by to you for analysis. We're hoping we might be able to find a way to neutralize, weaken, or protect ourselves from it, naturally, with your help, but we can't just dash off to hug it... her... are we assigning genders to slimes now? Without a plan, anyway." Hug. Hug it. She knows Uta.

And Jazu's look gets an 'I told you so' one in return when the only thing that keeps Uta from dashing off on her own is the fact that the two of them are standing right outside the door. That is -exactly- what Shiruba was concerned about.

"We need to know more about this thing before going back to deal with it. There's samples to examine instea--"

Shiruba trails off. Stares at Uta. And what Uta said.

"How can you even tell if it is--" Then waves her hands and shakes her head "--On second thought, nevermind, I don't -want- to know."

"Not 'we'." Uta corrects Jazz again, deliberately ignoring Shiruba's request of not wanting to know, "It was whatever it is that names things in this world that assigned a gender to her. 'Reiniger' is German for 'Cleaner' or 'Cleanser', and the additional suffix '-in' forms the feminine form of the noun."

She stands there for a second or two. Possibly three. She squirms a lot, and finally sighs. "...I /suppose/ we could analyze it, first... yes. Maybe... maybe I could even prime a much smaller and low-level slime with it, so we can practice on it? On the other hand, we might accidentally create the tiniest and most adorable dungeon-wipe monster known to imanity... and... I have mixed feelings about that."

She sinks into silence, and rubs her chin. "...besides, you two wouldn't tell me where the dungeon is before I've taken all the precautions, would you?"

"There's a reason I said 'a' dungeon and not a name," says Jazz, casually, to Uta.

"Yes, we're going to wait for Estelle. Maybe you, Estelle, Cyrus and myself can figure out some protections and precautions. It may also have abilities we don't know about yet... not that it already didn't seem pretty potent. It even had a *quest* associated with defeating it. Sure, the quest had a bunch of glitchy text in it, but ... a quest, all the same."

She casts a look down at her hand, studying her nails for a moment in thought. "And, huh. Didn't know that. So it's technically Cleanser, the Dungeon Devourer. Makes you wonder if there are /other/ cleansers or devourers out there for other environments. Something to ponder." Of course, Jazz would find a way to make things worse out of this.

Okay, she's going by the foreign language name and not... other methods of identifying gender that Shiruba doesn't want to know about. Fair enough.

Japan really likes to use other languages in it's media.

"Right now, the only weakness we know is that it was -really- slow... and that doesn't entirely count because it can stretch itself really far to grab things." She shudders a little. "Like big slimy tendrils." She's careful to not say 'tentacles' when there's an Undine with octo-hair stand there with them.

"The quest was in pural. It's very likely there's more. Or several combined to create the big one." Shiruba is not as shocked by that idea as you might expect.

When Shiruba starts to explain that there may be many, Jazz's eyes widen slightly and she turns at her and tries to give her a look to say 'stop, don't do it!' but it's too late.

Uta beams at Shiruba mentioning that the quest was in the plural.

"Grammatical suffixes. So versatile, right? You can figure so many things out of them! The same holds true for slimes, and this is why it's great for me to get to work with both of them."

She slings her staff behind her back, and it somehow sticks there. Either she's got some back-mounted accessory to hold it, or she's learnt to use her wings to keep things in place.

"Alright, let's do this thing then. claps her hands together, and rubs them. As soon as Estelle is ready, I'm looking forward to tackle this behemoth of a grammatical suffix!" Her lower lip bitten, her grinny smile widens so much her cheek push up and give her eyes that 'upturned crescent' (or 'banana') shape. "...and if I can get a Monster Catcher involved, I think I've finally found my mount..."

She side-eyes to Jazz. "...I have mixed feelings about all those glitches though."

Shiruba just slaps a palm over her face. Way to put your paw in your muzzle, wolf.