Duty Session 216: Is It Wrong to Pick Up Slimes in a Dungeon?

These days, those who need to go into the sewers of Alne have learned that there's ways to get down there without going down a well. There's some entrances under various homes and locations. The Hostess of Fertility is one such place. Cyrus has met up with Kita there in order to just get a bit of dungeoneering out of the way.

"No scary Goblins down beneath Alne. It's just slimes." Cyrus promises Kita, as he lifts the hatch revealing stairs heading down. Mia Grand, the Pooka that runs the place, taps her ladle on a pot. "On you go. And be careful, there may still be ruble from that abominable Wave of Calamity." She proposes to them.

Cyrus steps down along the steps into the sewers below. "Apparently it's important we keep these sewers safe. They're enormous, but there's always slimes to kill down here it seems. We should be on the watch for any dark colored slimes though. In case there were any left-overs from the battle."

There is a bit of a wary look that Kita casts in Cyrus' direction. The cat may be a good healer, but he certainly doesn't seem the sharpest tool in the shed, sometimes. "You act as if slimes can't be just as dangerous. Have you even /been/ down there before?" She asks, raising a brow and pushing her glasses up on her nose.

Regardless of the answer, she makes her way down into the sewer levels beneath Alne, seeming as if she's been through this particular quest before. There is, at least, some familiarity there. Being a member of Scale Emblem, she doesn't really respond to his comments about the 'Waves'. That silence makes it hard to tell what she feels in regards to that inevitable side effect of her people's climb of the tower.

"Well, it's your job to make sure our health is topped up, so hopefully even those won't be that much of a problem." Kita swipes at her menu, drawing out her spellbook, paging through it as they head into the dungeon.

"I have." Cyrus answers Kita with a grin. "I'm not saying Slimes can't be dangerous. But they're sure not as dangerous as some of the issues that have been cropping up with the Goblins." He points out. As usual, he touches one of his bottles on his vest, which turns on a 'light' within it, shining foward. The Cait Sith is nothing if not ingenious sometimes with his Alchemical works.

"I should be able to keep us topped up. The monsters around here are not too high level. But they can make our lives plenty miserable in large numbers." The Cait Sith then admits as they head further in. There's some marks on the walls left by Adventurers, to help them navigate this maze. He doesn't push on the topic of the Tower Climb. It's an uncomfortable topic for him as it is.

"I hear Tolbana has been growing pretty big." He instead offers, and is about to go further in on that topic when...

'Oooooo'.

The whispering whispers of a Whispering eminate from down the hall as two large ghost slimes ectoplasm their way out of a wall and begin to hover in their direction. Cyrus immediately grabs a set of Fuda Talismans and throws them at the both Whisperings, slapping it onto their faces.

The Whisperings immediately stop 'Oooo'ing and halt in place, becoming more physical. "They're all yours."

"Issues with goblins?" Though Kita has encountered them a couple of times, she hasn't really had the same experiences others have had with their advancing power. "The last few times I've encountered them, they seemed mostly mundane." She definitely hasn't done much with those in Eastal, it seems.

The drier parts of the dungeon always seemed better to Kita, perhaps because wearing a dress in waist high filth isn't her idea of a fun experience. At least she didn't drag Jurou along, as the girl would probably complain about her choice of date locations again.

As Cyrus questions her on Tolbana, the woman makes a soft, murmuring sound. "Scale Emblem has been working on developing it into a proper town. Though, as Prophylaxis has said... it's a never-ending quest. There are always improvements to be made."

She barely reacts to the ghostly slimes, watching as he puts those talismans on them. She seems to consider for a moment, then flips a page in her spellbook, flattening her hand to it and pulling up an orb of arcane energy. As she extends her palm outward, it launches at them, splitting into smaller blasts which impact some of the others.

It's a low level arcane spell, doing small damage over a wide area, but with Cyrus already weakening them, it's enough to destroy more than a handful and send the rest scattering into the walls.

"Aye. Apparently there's some Goblins out there that have managed to find a way to 'turn off' our pain inhibitors." Cyrus explains to Kita. "Some kind of poison a rare few of them have. Apparently it's green? I don't know. I luckily didn't have to deal with that mission. But it's something to take note of." Cyrus explains to Kita as she blasts her arcane power over the ghosts. Notably, Slimes like these are just as vulnerable to arcane magic as their undead counterparts. As such, they are easily disposed of.

"I'm glad Tolbana is getting bigger. It was always one of my favorite hang-outs back before all of this." He points out. "Though I guess it can only grow within certain limits. Especially as you and your crew heads up further and further."

They proceed to wander further along, until suddenly, from the crevices, multiple cute looking slimes with a 'robber face' bounce towards them, opening their maws and trying to bite them. "Oh shit! Hunter slimes!" Cyrus luckily doesn't have to deal with cast times, being an Alchemist, and is quick to jump away in preparation to put up a fire wall, but he's checking to see if Kita spotted them earlier than him and can take care of them.

There is a pause as Kita stops mid-step, turning to stare at Cyrus. This is the first time she's heard of this revelation, that much is clear. "That is... concerning." Likely more than concerning, but she probably doesn't want to get into just how alarming such a thing might be. She might have to talk to the others about it...

As they continue, she seems to consider his words. "Not everyone in Scale Emblem is a warrior looking to push the tower as quickly as possible. Some of us are more concerned with developing support structures. Without a proper home base, the climb wouldn't even be a possibility." She explains, tapping the back of her fingers on her book. "I think the good Doctor may have his eyes on developing something in that goblin town, eventually. But with the losses we've been suffering up there, it's not going to be for a long while."

The Hunter slimes do not raise much alarm from her, either. "Let's see if we can't just scare them off and move on." She suggests, pulling out a basic fire spell and launching it towards the center of the group of slimes.

They do fluff up briefly, but otherwise seem unphased by it. "Huh... usually that works."

"That's the understatement of the century." Cyrus answer Kita as she mentions the Goblin matter being concerning. "I imagine it has to do with that whole Enigma mess that's been going on. I've been trying to stay as far away from that as possible."

Kita's fire lands, and the Hunters do indeed fluff up. "I figure these ones must have been exposed to enough Adventurers who've tried that. I've learned that monsters are getting remarkably good at adapting to our tactics." He then throws two potions of Flame Wall, stopping them from proceeding. Even catching one of them, followed by the typical 'BLOORRP' of a slime exploding. A small amount of XP ticking up on his bar.

"Karluin, right?" Cyrus then notes, as they head further in. "I'd offer to help with that mess, but... I'd rather avoid the tower as much as I can to be honest." Across a bridge they go, avoiding stepping in the ugly waters of the sewers. "You know, I wonder where all this water comes from and goes." He idly muses. "This isn't a root city. But it's remaining remarkably clean."

Then suddenly, CLANK. Falling from two higher up and smaller sewer pipes, metal slimes come down. "Oh geez! That scared me." Cyrus grabs at his chest. "Ehm... Fire again?" He asks.

"Mmm." Kita makes a small sound of affirmation as he names the goblin city. "I don't really think about it as a city. Just as a monster nest." She explains, reaching some fingers up to brush white hair out of her eyes. "I wonder if what is happening up there is natural adaptation or not. It all seemed to happen too fast."

As for his comment about how 'clean' it is, she smirks, "Oh, trust me. Not everywhere in this dungeon is clean." She'd had to wade through her fair share of filth in this place.

When the loud sound of the metal slimes draws Cyrus' attention, Kita steps forward. "I can take care of these." Unlike before, where she had used a basic spell, the young woman turns a couple of pages in her book to one that looks to be hand written. She touches her hand to the page, then makes a few symbols in the air.

In the next moment, her hand ignites in a purple flame that seems to flicker with dark energy. "I can promise they won't like this..." She launches the fireball towards the slimes, the force of the energy exploding outward when it impacts, catching a few on fire in the process.

Cyrus notices one of the slimes about to jump Kita in the midst of casting, and quickly karate-kicks the thing back to his other buddy, before he backs off and watches that purple flame blast through the area and /swallow/ up the Metal slimes.

"Niiiice." Cyrus notes, "A new technique too. I'd not seen that spell before." He remarks, before lowering his foot back down. "A one shot kill. Nice." He remarks, and glances back to Kita. "Well, it's a Monster Nest until you get the Dungeon Heart from my understanding. After that, it's just a dead cave. Or in your case, a city." He notes. "Though I've not heart of Monster Nests being a thing in the Tower. I thought those only happened in Yamato."

The youth then motions and the two head further in, around a few bends. Cyrus takes out a crayon and marks a spot with 'metal slimes' in Kanji, and then proceeds further on. Passing some flaming waters. "Looks like we may have a firebug in here." He throws a Frost Shock onto a patch to douse some of the flames as they head in deeper. Trying his best to keep to the edges of the sewer so they don't have to step into the dreck.

Until finally, they spot the cause of all the flames. A round ooze with a massive mouth, belching small flames towards them. "Let's douse this as fast as we can! The heat is starting to affect our health." He quickly notes back to Kita.

"It's a combination of dark and fire magic." Kita explains, giving a small nod to the feline. "I've been trying to learn new ways of adapting the magic here. So far, the system seems as if you can combine certain techniques, it just takes time to master."

She shrugs her shoulders, looking somewhat clueless as to the true nature of monster nests. "Well, we've yet to find any heart to the problem up there. And I can promise you it is a nest."

As the water gets deeper, she can tell it isn't quite the same as what she's encountered before. The heat begins to hit, and the water does little to eleviate it. "I'll see what I can do." The Imp doesn't seem as skilled with water magic as with other elements. So, when she lashes out with it, it doesn't seem to have as much impact.

In the end, she ends up losing some measure of health both from the heat and the fighting, though not enough to be terribly concerning.

Cyrus and Kita work quite hard to deal with the flames. But the oil on the surface of the water is making the process harder. Enough so that Cyrus has to dig into his supply on Healing Potions to keep their health topped off at a nice and safe level.

When they finally finish, they're dealing with lower inventory counts on their potions, and less mana. But with enough application of Bubble and Jet Spray magic, the fiery ooze is finally devastated and shatters. "Phew... okay. Let's hope we don't run into trouble like that again."

Cyrus proceeds to douse more of the flames, and proceeds onwards. "We could totally use that kind of slime to create central heating though." He then thinks out loud. Until suddenly...

A few whisperings pass on by. Cyrus and Kita easily deal with them, as they enter a larger chamber... with an Ectoplasmic Ooze within it.

"Okay. Same tactic as before. I'll start with turning it physical, and I'll deal with its tendrils using my potions. You focus on the damage." Cyrus calls out. He then throws a series of potions out after a Fuda gets stuck right in the middle of the Ooze's head! Its long arms flailing and rushing towards them. But Cyrus' potions quickly slice through them, flying through the air like wind blades he gets to keep directing all over the place. His hands constantly moving, almost like a conductor directing a concert!

"I came up with a new technique too." He notes. "It's quite interesting. We used to be restricted to what the system gave us."

"I wouldn't know. I never really played that much before the Apocalypse." There are a number of people who joined for the prospect of what new additions the game had to offer. "I heard there would be cross-region play and thought it was something I could do with my ... my partner." She may have almost slipped there and called Jurou her 'girlfriend'. Sure, there were people that knew, but force of habit still has her not revealing such things too openly.

"Alright, you handle the potions, I'll take care of the damage." Back to the more traditional parts of her spellbook, she flips to a page with a red ribbon on it, obviously more powerful spells. The cast meter for it takes a long time, meaning that Cyrus has to focus the attention of the enemy for a while until she is able to cast.

When it finally does complete, a sphere of dark energy seems to close around the ghostly slime, little lances of dark energy causing damage while seeming to keep it contained in a smaller area.

"Yeah, there was supposed to be." Cyrus remarks to Kita. "We've gotten some hints that may actually exist, but with the Leviathans serving as some invisible wall for us to deal with, we've not really managed to get to any of the other regions." He adds.

The Alchemist continues to fight, using his potions to keep Kita protected. Luckily, he has a much easier time with the long ranged attachs from the Ooze. Cutting down long arm after long arm, until the big arcane spell drops on the enemy and falls upon its head like a hammer, squashing it within its magical might and eradicating it.

Leading to a notification of quest completion for the two of them. "Nice. Looks like that was what the Hunter's Guild was after this time." Cyrus notes. "Ready to head back?"

While Kita might get the quest completion, she gets little else in the way of rewards other than the experience. "I've already faced that boss before." She explans, closing her spellbook and giving a bit of a dramatic sort of sigh. No one likes feeling as if they wasted their time, and grinding experience isn't one of the more entertaining experiences.

"Yeah. Let's head back." Thugh she doesn't say it outright, it's clear the Imp is disappointed with the waste of time.