Duty Session 221: Karluin Reclamation - Town

    The necromancer had been jailed for so long, so damn long, but finally he had managed to work out a way to escape his prison. After years of plotting things had came to fruition and he had finally managed to ride on the wings of freedom. Of course they would be looking for him if he went out into the world, so instead he went up. Now a fugitive on the run he would have to make friends and solve their problems while staying one step ahead of those who are after him. For he was Setsuna, The Fugitive Necromancer
    On the other hand it could be that he had only been at the clinic for a day at best and had just told the nurse at that time he was going for a walk and then limped his way up to Karluin out of some delusional fantasy induced by many things. Either way Setsuna was now in Karluin and had told the Scale Members in charge of manning the defensive camp to put out a call that an adventurer group was going to clear goblins. So Setsuna simply waited infront of the warm fire cloak wrapped around him, standing normally, whistling and waiting for others.

Goldenblade was up to her armpits in road construction, and the project was ticking over with almost disturbing precision. Precision that was not being helped by her tendency to micromanage details, so she was gently encouraged to 'go out and kill some goblins'. She was sent up into the Tower and chivvied along when Setsuna's request went out, so here she is, showing up to where Setsuna waits for allies. "Hey." Not very talkative, it seems.

"Setsuna! You're here!", exclaims Uta as she comes into view with her white caduceus-inspired staff. She frowns. "...There was something related to you I was supposed to do... something important..." Seconds of concentration lead to nothing, and she shakes her head. "Anyway, let's make this quick. I was supposed to watch a patient over at the clinic of Tolbana, but my patient told me he was going for a walk and I took the opportunity to sneak here and carry out a duty real quick. We have to be done before he comes back and notices I'm missing!"

    "Are you sure you should be up and walking so soon?" Amalthea quietly asides to Setsuna as she follows him to Karluin. Her face is a stone mask though. Whatever had been discussed with the Mayor of Rovia the night before, she's managed to keep her outward calm despite all the [Internal Screaming] that has been going on between her and Doctor Prophylaxis. "Regardless, I'll have your back for this."

This is Estelle's second time at one of these camps, in recent weeks. And she spends it looking out over the city, silent and thoughtful. Her tails swish behind her as she remembers the last jaunt through its broken streets, and the chaos and battle plaguing them. "Hello, everyone." She greets simply, glancing over at the chipper sound of Uta's voice. "I hope you're prepared for a more... coordinated defense than usual, from the Goblins. It will also be a bit aggressive for a 'defense', if the patterns hold."

Still, her reading of the Stars is hopeful for things, and she can only pray it goes better than last time. Even if they did win.

    Setsuna nods his head towards Goldenblade, reflecting ones own lack of chattiness with another. Looking towards Amalthea he nods and responds , " I guess we will see if the new or the old was better. " At the voice of Estelle he looks up and nods, " Yeah it will be a difficult run, it always is but either way we need to do this quickly so our good nurse here can get back before her patient needs her." Setsuna grins as the The Fugitive Necromancer had found those he would help this week.
    The party sets out from the camp , into the rubble of the fort, and initial reports said that the area was cleared however only a few minutes out of the gates the sound wolves can be heard before arrows begin to rain down on the adventurers. Goblin Archers seem to be taking evasive hit and run patterns to try and weaken the party without directly engaging. Given the tactics at hand it is likely that the riders will disperse if there tactics are proven to not work.

Goldenblade joins the others in setting out on this mission, though she seems distracted. This may be why she takes a couple arrows before ducking into conver. "What the hell? I thought you guys had this place locked down?" she says to Setsuna accusingly. She will pop up and fire back with her bow, taking another few arrow hits for her trouble.

    Oh hello goblin archers.
    Before Amalthea can even reply, she raises her shield, arrows spanging off the heavy plate in her grasp. "Get behind me!" Called to the group as a bright flare of green light suffuses her body.
    "Anchor Howl!"
    It's kind of early to be blowing her trump card, but those arrows are numerous. It should draw aggro off the group and onto her though.

The Astrologian is... alert. She knows that danger can lie around every corner, here, and that the goblins are cunning things in these ruins. So, when the howls ring through the broken street, and the arrows fall, she's ready. "Just like last time." She muses aloud, as the goblins respond to their entry with focused aggression. But she's ready for it, now, and her wand flicks out, her voice rising in one of her rhythmic chants.

"Scutum, shield of the skies, I bear you now to protect my allies. A bulwark of stellar might, to guard in the darkest night." The veil of silver light familiar to those who have adventured with her makes its new appearance, curling in around everyone as a stellar bulwark against the rain of arrows, ferocious teeth, and goblin blades - even as Amalthea draws them to herself, it should helps safeguard the rest from errant strikes.

It is a flurry of greetings. "Hi Amalthea! We haven't seen each other in a long time. How are you doing?" "Hey, Paula!" "Oh, hi, Estelle!", Uta greets. "I've been told you had some slime samples for me to analyze, you know, from Reinigerin the Dungeon- wait, Goblins? GOBLINS?!"

Unlike Amalthea, her face is more fit for charades than poker. While she stays silent, the internal screaming is patent. "...I don't like goblins. I've been told that..." Silence. "No. I don't like goblins."

In fact, soon enough, she's in the middle of the battlefield, and arrows start shooting left and right. Despite her showy wuxia style dodging on her way to Amalthea, she ends up getting a couple in the chest, one in the back mid-backflip, and one in the arm. "UGHHHHHHHH!", she exclaims, as she falls to her knees behind Battle Grandma, and starts to perform the proper procedure to remove the projectiles from her body. As she does so, the intensity of her expression of pain seeming to track the luminosity of the impact points. "These things /hurt like heck/."

    The riders were always out at this time of day, night, whatever time it was outside the tower. Either way the riders mounts gave them away as his hand glows with magic, pulling forth the bones of the fallen from the ground that form into a shield to deflect the arrows as he limps his way to cover. As he makes it to the cover and hears Goldenblade's question he responds, " Oh well we have the camp covered, not so much the rest of it."
    With the help of Amalthea pulling the aggro from the party and Estelle granting everyone a shimmering shield of protection it appears the riders realize their job is done and quickly disperse. Who knew that monsters could manage hit and run tactics.
    With the riders gone the party has a brief calm allowing them to move a bit deeper into town and it appears the goblins have more surprises. Before the group a large phalanx of heavily armored goblins holding some high quality weapons. It would appear the riders were trying to soften up everyone in exchange for this group to take care of them. Standing in formation , they don't seem to give over to aggro anything, almost like they have a plan.

Goldenblade hrmphs as Setsuna alibies his compatriots. She does breathe a sigh of relief as the others in the party bail her out of that stiuation. She'll have to pay better attention to what she's doing. This place is pretty serious. She's only a little distracted, honest. The archers taken care of, she looks over at their backup. "Just softening us up for the heavy infantry, is it?" She smirks.

She'll rush out to meet these goblins in the melee they desire, but she's packing way more heat than they can take. Their close formation is their undoing as each of her strikes that hits a goblin splashes flame across the goblin's immediate neighbors, and soon there's a flaming hole that Goldenblade is carving into their formation, and it's growing larger with each flaming swordstrike.

    "Hello, Uta dear, I'm doing fine, just fine." Amalthea greets amid arrows plinking off her shield and armor before the archers decide they're done. It's when the group moves on and encounters the more heavily armored golins that Amalthea pauses.
    Crystal blue eyes narrow.
    Their armor is shoddy. There are breaks in their formation.
    Their shields have gaps.
    Amalthea strides forward, soon enough her steps are carrying her into a full-tilt sprint as she charges the goblins in a bll rush.
    "Hrrrraaaaaaaaahhhh!"
    It's rare for the old Paladin to give such a battle cry, but as she slams their shields with her own, she meets them with her blade, stabbing into armor gaps, hacking at straps to further weaken armor integrity, cleaving clean through poorly crafted goblinoid armor as she begins gutting goblins left and right taking advantage of their crappy armaments.

Uta, luminous wounds still glowing, manages to teeter onwards with the help of her staff as a crutch. She begins to sing a holy-sounding song, but she has to cut short after a few notes.

"Ah, c'mon! Can't one even heal in peace here?!" A grimace passes over her features as her wounds flare, but it's gone a moment later. She sighs and wields her staff. "Fine then." She rushes into battle, vocalizing a magical song that absorbs magical, glowing amber tendrils up from the ground, and begins shooting at the golems. One, two, three golems shatter into pieces as her Earth spell annihilates their cohesion. She pivots on one foot, ready to address a different set of goblins-

...but she's too slow. They dogpile on her, and beat her down into submission with their weapons and shields.

"I have a sample, yes. We can talk about it... once we're done with this, and your round with the patient is finished up." Estelle agrees, in Uta's direction once things have quieted down. The goblins fleeing from their places, the riders turning tails. She takes a deep breath, and in out, as they continue forward.

"... Mmm. Good job breaking the advance... Amalthea, was it?" The vixen congratulates their bulwark. But she's not done with her wand, as more goblins make themselves known in short order. A proper formation, too, equipped with shields and good weapons. Estelle frowns at that, considering, even as shield and flame break it open - their diligence no match for their leading duo. So she shakes her head, and follows Goldenblade's example.

It's not the season for it, like last time she invoked it, but... "Oh Symbol of the South, with your wings aflame, I guide you now with mortal aim. Cast down crimson feathers with searing blame, and show the world your boundless flame." A harsh, jagged sweep downward with her wand is echoed by feathery sweeps of fire, washing over one of the flanks... and the pile holding Uta down, the fox trusting the lingering shield to keep her safe.

    As the armored goblins stand ready, with the melee warriors charge towards them they ready their shields and spears creating a wall to throw themselves against it , but it appears its not so easy to stop Adventurers in motion as Amalthea and Goldenblade break their ranks and they scatter out. Finally the fox fire rains down and begins to spread through the ranks goblins burning and being cleared. Meanwhile Setsuna and Uta do their best to not be clobbered unconscious or worse, so with their earth magic they manage to keep the goblins at least at bay. After a couple of minutes the goblins are cleared and so is there path forward.
     The adventurers finally make it to a friendly camp, a stop over for people to rest and such. However it seems there is a problem, as several people are working trying to clear a cave in. The one leading the effort turns to look at the group, "If you can help we need it.. The path collapsed, people are stuck inside. If we can clear it back up it should be easier to go deeper in and clear things out from the heart. Any help you can spare, we need." It seems that this isn't the only path to get around but it would be the easiest path if they could clear it, plus the people matter too.

Goldenblade comes to the fore as her engineering expertise turns out to be needed. It's strangely useful, she's found, and it was only chance that led her to include her RL experience with it in the questionaire during character generation. It has, since then, proven wildly useful, far beyond her expectations.

"I've dealt with this situation before," she says calmly as she looks over the fallen-in section. She proceeds to direct the other party in which pieces to lift clear first, and efficient ways to manage the debris and how to safely extricate people. She's clearly done this before.

    "Aye, it's Amalthea, and the pleasure's mine." The old Paladin says once she's through with the phalanx goblins. So moving on... To a collapsed path. The old tank purses her lips for a moment. But thankfully Goldenblade is on the case. Waiting for instruction, she starts to work on clearing debris. But she's woefully ill equipped to do so.

Given the proper time to focus, Uta's quiet, rhythmic, ostinato song leads into a cycle of a block of construction material rising from the ground, guided by amber tendrils of light from her staff, to deposit in the right place, and so on. Soon, her part of the job is done.

There's a shake of the vixen's head, as they come upon the collapse. This is far too common, really... But she moves to help as best she can, even if that's not much at all; she's not quite sure what's best to move, without bringing down too much, and so her invocation of Taurus isn't as effective as it could be. But at least she tried to help. Still, she talks while she works. "I'm Estelle, as Uta said. It's good to meet you."

    With Goldenblade leading the charge, the demolition crew and construction workers follow her guidance. It appears that is how everyone is doing it , Setsuna's skeleton workers listening to instructions, Amalthea clearing what Goldenblade points to. Uta providing the extra material and Estellee doing her best as well to help clear the way to help the adventures.
    As the path is cleared finally there is a large cry of triumph and cheering that last for only a moment before one of the trapped adventurers run out. The healer runs out begging for help, her hp is almost gone and a full stack of poison says she won't last much longer. Then you have the knight still surrounded by goblins, and he won't last much longer then his healer friend The party will need to act fast to save them.

Goldenblade puts a cloth over her face as the rubble collapses safely. Or as safely as anything can happen here. "Ugh." But what can be seen after the collapse is not reassuring. Not at all.

Goldenblade does not hesitate to leap into the fray, though. It's the same attitude that gets her type of DPS character referred to as a Floor Tank. As in, face-down on the floor. But the lead-in to floor tanking is the headlong charge and the savage dishing out of damage. If she can sustain a high enough damage output for long enough, the bad guys won't be able to overcome her comparitively weak defenses. As it turns out, though, she can't maintain the damage output hard or fast enough to defeat the goblins in time.

There's a shake of Estelle's head, at the scene in front of the party. But she takes a deep breath, and weaves through more crowd-control. It takes her a moment to think of what would be best, though, with goblins swarming like that and so many players in the line of fire... before she nods to herself. In, out, in...

"Vela, the wanderer's sail, I call upon the winds you jail. I turn them to a mighty gale, and loose them with freedom's wail." The motions of her wand are a bit 'breezy' - vague and wide, the swirl gently swirling. The touch of the wind upon her clothing is just as gentle. Past that, though? It tears into a group of goblins, scattering them like bowling pins with brine-touched stormwinds.

Uta loses no time. She flicks her menu open, and a healing potion materializes in her hand. "Here, drink this!", she urges, and takes the vessel to the healer's mouth. "It will taste a bit bitter, but it will be good for you."

A goblin jumps out of nowhere, silent, to ambush Uta from behind.

She doesn't even flinch, she doesn't even turn. She simply jerks the bottle away from the coughing Healer, SMACKS the goblin in the face with the bottom of the bottle, leaving a full trail of liquid from the patient's lips to the opening of the bottle, adjusts the angle of the bottle, and jerks it back to the patient's lips, the new trajectory corrected to compensate for gravity, so that the trail of liquid is caught seamlessly into the bottle again. "Sorry for that, emergency face smacking," she says.

    Past the collapse and it's right into a fight.
    Amalthea draws her blade and tries to pull aggro.
    It does not go well for her as she ends up pulling TOO much aggro and puts herself in a precarious situation that she barely makes it out of by the end of the fight, resting one hand on her knee and huffing breathlessly.
    "Ah damn that didn't go so well."

    The goblins see the adventurers coming and scatter about, its like no one can pull aggro and hold it. Goldenblades charge does allow her to get a couple of hits and keep them away from the knight, but now they have started to flank Goldenblade, striking her from behind. With Amalthea's help though while they take some serious hits they manage to clear the goblins around the knight. Setsuna is worse off , hearing the healers pain he freezes up, throwing a shield around himself that is weak and flemsy and he gets stabbed in the side. Fortunately a gale force of wind saves him , as Estelle begins to call upon nature to help them. Uta manages to help the healer and keep her from dying right away, making a goblin fall back and regret the day he met Uta the Goblin puncher.
     However there are now two parties worth of adventurers in dire need of healing and as any doctor would know , sometimes triage must occur. The demolition crew step up to help as best as they can. There is also something foreboding one of the wounded adventurers that was trapped mentions, they said they found something further ahead and it was BIG.

Goldenblade grimaces at the outcome of the fight. "I guess I shouldn't have rushed in?" she murmurs apologetically. Leroy Jenkins. Looks like they won, though at what cost? She's down a ton of HP, the others that we just met are even worse, the one still falling to his debuffs and DoTs. She doesn't really understand healing here, in this game. She knows how to do very basic first aid in RL, anyone does who's sat through as many safety briefings and mandatory trainings as she has. But that training's not as useful here, where wounds are just red light on your avatar. Still, she tries her best, and it does seem to be a little useful.

    Well this sucks. There are now two parties that need healing. Amalthea sucks in a breath.
    "Who's most wounded?" She asks, before working her way up from most to least injured, hands glowing with a soft white light as wounds mend and some stacks of poison clear off before the group needs to move on.

There's a sigh, as Estelle looks around and sees the condition everyone is in - both from the party itself, and from those they were working alongside and rescuing. Only Uta gets a nod, as she managed to keep herself - and the healer - intact. "Everyone gather close, then. It seems you all need some tending..." She muses aloud, even as she steps in near the downed. There's a moment's consideration of what to do, before she nods. There's poison involved; best go for something with debuff clear, even if it's not The Best at HP damage.

"Monoceros and your healing horn, defend us from the ills you scorn. Make hale and hearty of the ill, your healing light I now instill." A silver unicorn briefly stands beside her, tossing its mane and tail. And then the starlight making up its form disperses, washing over those nearby - cleaning away some of the glowing red marks, and the normal debuffs in play.

Uta, meanwhile, is doing things the old fashioned way. Administering healing potions, setting bones, building splinths... seems like someone has been reading Prophylaxis's recently published book. And deicided to try her hand at some of the techniques learnt there.

    Setsuna looks at the wounded and just stands there like a deer in the headlight. Taking a moment he gets an idea as he digs a bottle of something he took from the clinic and gives it to someone to drink. They immediately spit it back out and Setsuna frowns, " I guess embalming fluid doesn't help till after the fact." Fortunate they are not relying on Setsuna to heal people, they have other much more qualified healers, as Nurse Uta is on the case and Estele uses the stars to help heal. Even Goldenblade's first aid training helps out to at least make sure no one dies off before one of the healer gets to them.
    With the excavation crew's help all the adventurers hp are able to recover and the wounded are safe. It appears that the adventurers can continue forward, and it seems like pretty much there are no goblins down here. It appears to be clear skies from here. That is until a near by building explodes and an enormous elemental machine burst through the wall. Oh yeah it is also wearing a construction helmet , so obviously its purpose is construction but it has started to go wild and charges the adventurers.

"... Oh, one of /these/ again." The vixen growls, as the massive, mechanical being smashes it way onto the scene in the wake of their triage. She shakes her head, sighing - and falls back on the tactic she used last time. "The joints are vulnerable!" She calls out, even as she turns her focus towards one of the massive thing's legs. Or, more specifically, its knee. Her wand flicks out, and curls back in - just as a drill of winds do, alongside her chant.

"Oh Tiger of the West, with fur of shining white, I beseech you now to aid us in our plight. Lend me the winds of your domain, that I might show the world the strength of your reign."

Goldenblade will square off against this new enemy, and though this time she's careful to let Amalthea pick up aggro before she wades in. She'll slip in behind it, flames burning in her path as she uses her high speed dodging ability to dart in, choose a structurally unstable spot of armor, and thrust her swords in, levering an armor plate off with a grunt of effort. When it turns to strike at her, she's not there, just her flaming footprints.

When it turns on the tank again, she slips in, and carves off another plate, leaving it vulnerable, now, as she divests it of its heavy protection. Each blow seems more intended to flay away plates than direct damage, she'll leave that to others.

    Sooooo. A building freaking explodes. That's not ominous.
    And then some kind of mechanical construct comes busting out.
    Amalthea takes to the front of the group, shield raised to draw aggro once again... She narrows her eyes.
    Analyzing the creature's armor she finds it's weak point...
    And strikes it for all that she's worth.

More potions and herbs are prepared. More are administered. Uta moves from patient to patient, until, well, the Elemental Machine shows up.

"...Wait a minute... Goblins have access to Elemental Machines?!", she exclaims, livid.

"HOW. We barely found one recently, and it took me a /ridiculous/ amount of research and preparation to find it... in goddess-forsaken /Ezzo/ of all places!" She trurns towards the members of Scale Emblem. "Has anyone researched HOW this could happen?"



'Herculean' is a good word to describe the amount of effort it's taking her to compose her features. "Stay calm... stay calm..." She inhales. She wait, she exhales. "I'm calm. I'm calm."

A raging scream erupts from her.

She sings a furious song of tempest and storm, pivoting from one foot to the other and back as she advances, doing a 270 degree turn at every step, until she picks up speed, the air around her begins to accelerate, and soon...

...soon she's lifted up by a small tornado, the Spriggan hanging at the edge of it through careful positioning of her wings (it's not flying -- it's carefully catching the wind), and she sticks her staff out of the column of air, to repeatedly smack the machine as the wind dances around it.

    You know what adventurers are good at , killing monsters. So the adventurers run in charging forward and tear into the elemental machine, Estelle carving a way through the machine with wind itself. Amalthea slices away chunks of it's armor and flames glowing along her sword Goldenblade strikes along the unarmored wounds. Uta's own magical tornado lifts the machine up and rips away pieces and parts. Setsuna however creates a magic circle but seems to never do anything with it, frozen and hesitating. However it doesn't matter as the others manage to take apart the machine, all that is left is a fragment shards of the elemental jewel that powered it.

"... The goblins aren't controlling them, I don't think." The vixen offers, as she stands well back of the thing's remains. And from Uta. "There were catacombs beneath the city mentioned, last time, and a great gap into their unexplored depths; suspicions were that they were from there, waking up and trying to... fix things, and causing problems when their plans and reality didn't match any more." Her tails flick behind her, as she lets out a sigh. "I haven't seen much evidence either way, though."

    Setsuna looks at the machine and then towards Uta and then the town ruins of Karluin. " It's the first I ever heard about one of these things being up here. However I doubt any research into the how can be done until the goblins are finished. " Limping forward he picks up a shard and then looks at the group. " We should get out of here, goblins won't stay away to long . So we likely want to get out here. " Pocketing the shard he looks at the others.

Goldenblade nods gravely about getting out of here before the goblins come back. "One vote for getting the hell out of Dodge," she agrees, and will follow Setsuna out. Estelle's comments are waaay confusing for her, and she huhs? "What's going on?" she wonders. "The simple version for the cheap seats," she adds. "You gamer types never like to say things plainly."

"Chim Chims!", exclaims Uta. "Once we've cleared the place from goblins, we must see if we can find any Chims!", a sense of urgency in her voice. "First of all, we must protect the little things. We know they can 'die', but we don't know if they respawn or not, yet. Also-" The sense of urgency leaves her, and she returns to her distracted, relaxed self. "...getting to study chims here is SO much more convenient than doing it in Ezzo... and risk being glitched..."

She shakes and clears her head at Goldenblade's urging, the sense of urgency returning to her. "Right! Get out now. Research later." She grabs a crystal shard, and runs for her life. "Oh, make sure you mention to Merek that there could be Chims! I'm sure it'd be a great motivation for him."

"I haven't seen those at all, though I've heard Merek had an... interesting time of things." is the vixen's response, on the topic of Chims. Still, she does heed the talkf of getting out of the situation and back to the camp - and a less ravaged world, from there. Her ears remain perked at every step, eyes scanning the city around them and wand at the ready. Who knows what else this place could throw at them?

    Setsuna looks over at Goldenblade and shrugs, " For once I have no clue whats going on. I can only hope to figure it out one day. Sounds like that taking back the town will only lead to more trouble. Told the doctor that we should just firebomb this place. " Setsuna does begin to follow Goldenblade's lead of getting out of here as he really was in no position to be caught off guard. Looking back over at Uta he speaks up, " I bet your patient is going to beat you back to the clinic if you don't focus Nurse Uta."