Duty Session 222: Goblins in Mac Anu

    Rizadoman was standing outside one of the many entrance into the sewers of Mac Anu. It was becoming a bit of a routine, every few weeks to try to get enough adventurer together to go into the sewers and clear the goblins out. Who knows if they were lucky they would find more of the map pieces tha some of the goblins seem to have and could get a full picture of things. For now the lizard man simply sat up wind of the sewer entrance and waited, every so often measuring the time of day by looking at the sun and counting how many knuckles until it set.

Yeowang has joined this goblin hunting expedition hoping to hone her combat skills. She's pretty serious in her training, and she's got quite a serious expression as she arrives and waits. She offers a nod of greeting to Rizadoman, but doesn't worry about the time. It will be done when it's done. She does seem to be paying attention to her chimlink. Not talking on it, but paying attention to it.

    Goblins. Goblins goblins and more goblins.
    First in Karluin now in Mac Anu.
    Amalthea is here though, the old Paladin approaching the sewer entrance.
    "This is where we sign up to do more goblin slaying, aye?"

Kauchemar trots up (literally, being a horse). "Is this where we're gathering? Shouldn't we be outside the city somewhe--" She stops when her hoof thunks on the cover to the entrance to beneath the city that Rizardo is standing near, and ohs softly. "Nevermind, I see now. No surprise its a sewer. That's where all the shit gathers."

    Yuuki wanders along the path heading towards the meetup location for the run into Mac Anu. She's been pushing herself lately to improve her ability to sword things. By swording things. And this is another chance to sword things! Probably.

    Admittedly, Yuuki hasn't done this particular dungeon yet, so she's not quite sure what she's going to find down there. But she's confident she'll be able to handle it.

    Yuuki sees some people waiting at the entrance into the sewer system. She waves to them energetically as she walks up, "Heeeeeey, guys! You're here for the dungeon run?" Glancing over them, Yuuki recognises most of them. Though seeing Amalthea, Yuuki grins, "Oh, hey old lady! Haven't seen you in a while!" Part of the problem with non-functioning Chaos Gates. Makes it hard to get around this big world!

Goblins? Again? They just keep popping up like weeds, horrible murderous evil green weeds. It didn't take too long to get Gwen who had been on a trip to Mac Anu for crafting supplies to join in. She comes up on Rizadoman.

"I haven't been here since Fragment it's good to see the city is still here."

She notes with agrin then she pauses for a moment as she puts a greenish-brown liquid on her sword. "Let's see how the little demons like Merek's new creation."

She then grins widely seeing that Amalthea is here.

"Yes my friend and hey Yeowang."

Soon Yuuki, and Kauchemar also join the party, this was going to be quite the run she thought.

    Rizadoman opens his eyes and looks over at Amalthea, " That's right. Down here in the sewer, it appears Mac Anu sewers have become infested." At the sight of Yeowang he gives a bow of the head to acknowledge and tosses out two party invites. More invites sent as Rizadoman is happy to see so many, " With this many perhaps it will be the last time we need to go in and clear out the damn cretins." Turning his head to Kauchemar he adds, " I feel I must now give the obligatory, watch your step. "
     Rizadoman's head swivels to the mention of the poison and takes a deep breath but says nothing before looking over to Yuuki, " Yes this is the dungeon run, if you can call it that. " Finally all the party invites sent out and Rizadoman gestures towards the entrance, " I guess we should get this party moving. "
    As the party ventures into the sewer they are faced with the stale foul smelling air of the sewer and having to watch their steps. However as they come to a crossroad they now have to deal with something else, as Gwen can feel two crossbow bolts pass by her. One taking a lock of her hair and the other glancing off her skirt. If it wasn't armored it would now be sporting a hole.

Yeowang nods her head gravely to Gwen. She accepts Rizadoman's party invite and will proceed into the sewer with the rest of the party.

When the incoming fire comes in, she dashes up to the archers to deal with them, dodging, just barely, as the goblins panic and fire point blank. Once she's dodged those attacks, though, it's all boot-to-the-head and facepunching and mayhem. She's pretty good at the mayhem. Better than the archers, anyhow.

    Ah, and there's Yuuki. Just seeing the girl has Amalthea all smiles.
    "Yuuki, dear, it has been a while." She agrees. "Have you been doing well?" And there's Gween to boot.
    "Perfect. I haven't quite filled my quota of Little Green Bastard Murder for the week, so here I am."
    Fun fact. Amalthea does not like goblins.
    Not since finding out they can cause Actual Serious Honest To God Pain.
    Even if these goblins can't do that she's not going to take any chances as the group pushes in and-- are immediately ambushed. Up comes her shield and she tries to advance. But a crossbow bolt that spangs off the heavy plate stumbles her into inaction for a beat, cursing under her breath.

Zing go the crossbow bolts! And Kauchemar is... already gone.

Don't worry, she didn't ditch the party and run. The Nightmare is just being true to her nature, taking advantage of the dark and grimy environment of the sewers to step out of the crossbowmens' line of sight.

A moment later a *CRACK* resounds across the sewer as her whip lashes out from a different angle, grabbing one goblin around the wrist. But instead of making him drop the dagger she pulls back sharp, pulling up his arm to stab himself in the face! "Quit hitting yourself!" Followed by a sinister giggle. "I've always wanted to do that."

Gwen is ready to head upfront, she looks to Rizadoman for a moment. "You all right?" She muses "Tunnel Ratting..." She muses odd term but some might know it as she makes ready to head in and she gags a bit at the air soon she'll let out a yelp, and star to move, one shot has clipped her hair the next catches her armoured skirt which is about what saves her. Lucky she was wearing /that/ today. She doesn't seem very happy as she now attempts to turn about and maybe just maybe get a spell off at one of the attackers. Sadly no dice for her on that today.

    Yuuki woos as the party invites go out, "Those goblins aren't going to know what hit them!" Accept! Yuuki grins at Amalthea, "Well enough! Been helping Wake clear the orcs out of Castle Eas. Won't be long now till it's all ours!" But for now, it's time to go...

    Into the sewers...

    Yuuki moves a hand to hold her nose as she gets a whiff of the smell. She pauses for a moment at the edge, glancing at the ugly looking water rushing by, "Wouldn't want to fall into that... There wouldn't be enough menu cleanings in the world to get rid of it!"

    As they come to the branch, two bolts almost hit Gwen! Yuuki peers down the tunnels, before spotting some of the archers responsible, "There!" Yuuki draws her sword, starting to run.

    The speedy imp zips to the left to avoid one bolt, jumps and twists to the side to avoid another, then drops to the ground to dodge beneath a third as she quickly closes in on the archer responsible. As she skids across the ground, she lashes out with her sword at the goblin's legs, leaving red marks behind, before pushing herself back to her feet, spinning her blade in her hand to reverse the grip and then driving it into the goblin's back.

    As the goblin vanishes in a burst of pixels, Yuuki glances around to see how the others managed, "Everyone okay?"

    Rizadoman hears the whistle of the bolt and ducks and rolls before charging towards one of the goblins and upper cuts, claw out taking out one of the goblins. Amalthea may be pinned for a moment but as the others do their thing , she is able to press forward and just straight up smack a goblin against the sewer wall. A death gurgle is heard as Kauchemar manages to get a goblin to stab themselves, which if this was still a game likely would of netted some achievement title 'Stop Hitting Yourself' probably worth about 10 achievement points. Yeowang manages to smack the goblin between the eye before axe kicks straight up and then back down to finish the goblin off. Yuuki's quick sword work finishes all but one off , it was the one that shot at Gwen. However that doesn't mean he was unhurt, the quick turn of Gwen's skirt had caused the bolt to ricochet around the tunnels and right back into his chest. Yes the goblin shot himself.
     Taking a look at all the adventurer's infront of him the goblin looks among the group for a moment before dropping the crossbow and begins to chant in goblinese and a giant fireball appears above his head. Finally he is just about to throw it before? it explodes in his hands and now this goblin is running around screaming as loud as he can panicking. If someone doesn't do something soon the entire sewer will know something is up.

    Yuuki finds just one goblin remaining. She readies herself, but the goblin chooses to ditch his weapon and switch to magic. A very powerful spell to! This could be bad!

    Yuuki blinks as the goblin's fireball explodes him instead of the Adventurer party. She then winces, moving her free hand to cover her ear as the goblin screams in agony. Yuuki quickly walks up, raising her sword. She then gives the goblin a quick whack to the head with the hilt of her weapon, hoping to apply a stunned debuff and shut the flaming mob up, "Shush!"

Kauchemar hahahahahas as the dumb fool sets himself on ablaze. "And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the only way a goblin will ever be a hottie."

She starts to weave a countersong to nullify that screaming, but it doesn't seem to do much more than change the pitch into more of an unfortunately just as audible whine. She makes a face as she looks up and around. "Ugh. The acoustics in here are so not on par for that sort of technique."

Yeowang grimaces at the flaming goblin, looks around worriedly for what she can do. She pulls a water flask from her hip and takes off the stopper. She squeezes it out in short squirts, aiming the water carefully to try and douse the flames. She can pummel him afterwatrds, but kicking a flaming goblin is a good way to set your boot on fire. She's trying to get some of the water in his face, hoping that'll choke him.

There is a goblin, the goblin is on fire. While she might be using a water spell against the goblin? She's not trying to put out the fire she's just tyringt o use a focued blast of water pressure to hreut it, and that doesn't go so well the spell doesn't go off right and impacts on a wall. Gwen thankfully has good companion and she does comment to Kauchemar. "....I should dunk you into the sea later for that."

    Amalthea watches as Yuuki so efficiently stuns the flaming goblin.
    "Careful you don't burn yourself on him, dear." She does idly note.
    Before she tries to just punt the flaming goblin into the sewer water while the others try to douse and drown it.

    Rizadoman winces horribly at the screaming goblin before he summons a ball of water and throws it at the goblin trying to put the fire out , "Quiet you beast." It seems others have the same idea, as between the fire, the smack from yuuki's hilt. With Gwen and Yeowang's help the goblin is nearly drowned where he is standing before Amalthea just does the smart thing and smacks it into the water. It doesn't come up. Fortunately no one is alerted thank to Kauchemar's shifting of the sound.
    After the goblin is dealt with as they head deeper into the tunnels, the maze that is a sewer takes there toll and they have become loss. It would require expert map skills and sense of direction while the rest of the team protects said person to be able to navigate them to safely, else they wlll have to rely on dumb luck. As if this wasn't enough pressure, goblins keep ducking around corners taking a shot with some ranged weapon and then running off leaving them with no targets to fight against.

    "Who has a map?" Amalthea says-- before taking a good look at whatever is provided to her. What she does next may be a little weird.
    In the middle of the dark dank sewers... She pulls out a spyglass.
    Proceeding to completely ignore the goblins while she looks through it, the old Paladin squints.
    Once a day the Monkey's Spyglass can be used to SEE THROUGH WALLS.
    Between that and the map, she starts leading the way.
    "Come now, this way, this way."

Once the goblin molotauv is dealt with the group heads farther into the sewer, which is starting to become less clear on the paths to take. "Why does everything in this world turn into a maze?", she complains to no one in particularly. "Anyone got a map? A compass? A--" She stops abruptly as her eyes flash. "--Look out!" She turns just as a goblin peaks around a corner to snipe a shot at the group. She snaps her arm up and her posessed shield leaps off her back to intercept the shot. "These little bastards are giving being sneaky a bad name!", she snorts as she moves to cover Almathea. "Someone take the other side so they don't surround us."

    "It's fine, it was just a glancing blow!" Yuuki isn't even singed!

    Moving on, Yuuki glances down one tunnel, then another, then another... They all look the same! Yuuki scratches her head, "How do we even know where we're going?" But apparently Amalthea has a magical spyglass, excellent!

    Yuuki begins to follow, until a crossbow bolt suddenly streaks into her shoulder, "H-Hey!" She pulls the bolt out, leaving a small red mark behind. She begins to go and chase the goblin that fired it, only for another bolt to strike her in the side. She pulls that one out too, turning to go after the new goblin. Before yet another bolt strikes her in the leg from yet another direction. Yuuki cries out in frustration, "How are they doing that!?"

Yeowang will try to protect our navigator as we fumble our way through the labrinthine passages. But she's not good at protecting others. It's just never been part of her skillset. She can avoid damage just fine, but protecting others was never really a thing she's had to do before. She's not good at it, her blocks not well-coordinated or -executed. Hopefully the others have better luck.

The goblin is put out of everyone else's misery. She does not give it another thought once the thing turns to shards. She's got another thing to worry about namely there are more goblins on the way. She'll quickly tag the less durable members of the party and then trigger a tank skill. Green wind flows from Gwen as she does this. "ANCHOR HOWL!" She'll keep the large majority of the combing coming up against her as they run face-first into her rather formidable defences. She will trust the others to figure out which way they are going to go.

    Rizadoman looks over the should of Amalthea as she reads the map and well the Lizardman is a bit of back seat driver. Sure his way would of gotten them out, but it as the long way?the really long way, including two double backs. As the proceed with Amalthea's directions arrows fly by here and there , some striking yuuki, but better Yuuki then Amalthea at the moment. With Kauchemar and Yeowang managing to cover the rear and other side of Amalthea, the sound of Kauchemar's shield echoing through the sewer as more and more arrows hit. Gwen taking the front and managing to deflect many arrows heading towards Amalthea, even stopping an arrow that was only a breath away from striking a hole in the map. It was quite impressive.
    Finally they make there way to what must have been an underground lake at some point with a bridge now built across it. In the middle of the lake though, is a boat with goblins on it. The boat is obviously hand made on some level and they appear to think they are safe as more crossbows rain down on the adventurers.

Yeowang tries to dodge the arrows fired by the goblins, but she's not quiye up to the task. As she tries to take cover from their arrows, she finds them either lucky or skilled, and is wounded several times for her trouble. She frowns at her poor performance, unhappy, but what can she do?

    The group walks out into what looks like is an underground lake! Yuuki whistles as she turns her head, "This is impressive!" Unfortunately they don't have long to admire the beauty of an underground lake, as yet more crossbow bolts rain down on them. Yuuki jumps left and right to avoid them, while looking out towards their source: A goblin boat on the water!

    Yuuki looks around, then runs off! She's heading for the closest wall, however that's going to help. But as she does so, the soles of her boots begin to glow. Yuuki then leaps, planting a foot against the wall. And then another. And another! Yuuki quickly makes her up the wall of the cavern as it curves into the ceiling. Until she's right above the goblin boat!

    Yuuki pushes off the ceiling, quickly accelerating downwards. She stretches her sword arm out in front of her, unleashing a cry as she plummets down towards the boat to strike it with a high speed powered blow!

    Annnnd the goblins have boats now.
    Amalthea glances up from the map as she hears the drums... And then there are more crossbow bolts to deal with.
    Amalthea raises her shield, arrows and bolts spanging off the heavy plate or embedding in it.
    Plucking one such bolt free from her shield, she concentrates on it, weaving a little bit of fire magic into her hand... To set the crossbow bolt on fire.
    Before she hurls it back at the boat to try and set the thing ablaze.

"How the hell did they get a BOAT down here?" is Kauchemar's first question. Followed by a short hmmm. Then a shrug. "Oh well, can't be built too well one way or another. I know what this kind of vessel fears while safe from storms."

She holds up one hand to direct her gheist shield to deflect arrows, and then draws the sword that goes with it with her other hand. "o/~ Buried in metal and a million memories... The temperature is rising to a thousand degrees! o/~" The blade of the sword ignites in flames, and then Kauchemar hurtles it at the boat. The Binder weapon swoops like a bird to impale the deck. "o/~ I never learn to let go of the pain, so I'll make it all BURN until nothing remains! o/~" Flames roar from the sword to surge across the deck, igniting wood and goblins alike.

Things are going pretty well, all things considered. Gwen will look seeing the goblins are on a freaking boat now? "Who taught them to do that!?" She has no idea she may never know sadly. She does end up makingt o go after the goblins by not going or the boat but turning one of her own powers against them. "DIVINE WIND!" She'll ssnd arks of cuting wind to hack and slash up the boat hopefully breach the hull.

    Rizadoman and Yeowang each toss fire towards the boat, however the waves of the lake seem to cause their spells to extinguish before doing any real damage. However the flaming cross bow bolt of Amalthea's and the blade of Kauchemar's both strike through and seem to be a much better source of flames as Goblins are trying to put it out. The winds and cuts of Gwen's attack spreading the flame and hacking it up to provide extra tender. Obviously a few more minutes of this and the boat will go up in flames. However Yuuki has another plan, as she drops from the ceiling straight through the boat you can see several red pixels fly up into the air as the goblins disappear.
    After the party dispatches the boat they finish crossing the bridge to find a camp of goblins, though it is a bit small. Perhaps just a satellite camp of the bigger infestation. As they prepare to attack Rizadoman speaks up, " We need to be careful to not destroy the camp and do this as quickly as possible. The goblins have had maps of the tunnels and I believe friends of mine are leading a cause to put the pieces together. " They would need to work close together to make sure the goblins didn't have enough time to destroy the map pieces.

Kauchemar recalls the ghost sword to her hand as the boat is going down. "However it got here, now it's just going to the bottom. Moving on."

Finally we get to the meat of the issue. The source of the problem. The camp that cramping the city's subterraining style. "Heh. I got this." The Nightmare, with sword and shield still drawn, disappears again. Though once more she's just moving too fast through the darkness to be seen properly.

Or at least that was the idea. Be it through mystism or something else, the Shaman Goblin forsees her coming and turns just in time to block the blade as Kauchemar emerges from the shadows behind him. "... Well, that's a bother." She quickly disengages, and brings the binder shield forward to block their retaliations. At least she got their attention from the others.

    Right then, the boat is handled. Time to move along and cross that bridge.
    And when they do and find the goblin encampment, once the plan is laid out, Amalthea leaps into action.

    "ANCHOR HOWL!"

    Her plan? Be as utterly obnoxious and draw as much aggro as she possibly can to distract the goblins and make them focus on her more than destroying key information.

Yeowang grumbles, down on HP and having done poorly on the mission and not happy with her performance. She crosses the bridge and advances on the camp with the goblins and the shaman, and there is definitely a fight. Delivering swift kicks and hard punches, taking them down one by one, Yeowang, even without the goblin poison, beats several into pixels. She's careful to avoid collateral damage, though that was probably more for the fireball types. Her style of melee DPS is not prone to collateral damage.

With hard low licks, she smashes the goblins' guards back, though it's not a one-sided fight, and she pays for the slaughter of goblins with several shots, mostly to her kicking leg. While not sufficiently dominating to win the encounter, she can at least give a respectable showing.

    Yuuki floats back to the bridge on a piece of wood broken off the goblin boat. She climbs back onto the bridge, stretching, "That was fun!" But now to move onward, they're almost done!

    Yuuki follows with the others into the goblin camp. Her eyes light up with joy at the sight of mobs just waiting to be slain. Yuuki twirls her sword, "Let's do this!" Yuuki rushes forward, darting from one goblin to the next as her sword lashes out, leaving streaks of red behind and soon enough goblins are exploding into pixels left and right!

    Unfortunately, Yuuki fails to recognise a magic trap emblazoned on the floor ahead of her. She steps on it during her approach to one of the goblins.

    BOOM!

    The firery explosion sends Yuuki flying into one of the goblin tents. The imp groans for a moment, before she starts thrashing about, caught up in the cloth, "Help! I'm caught in some kind of evil magical trap!"

    But Yuuki soon realizes her sword can actually do something to help as she cuts through the cloth, creating a hole for her to poke herself out of, "Phew. That was insidious!" Looking around, it seems like the others are finishing off the last of the goblins.

    Then Yuuki looks down at the ground beside her, at a folded piece of paper. She picks it up, "Oh hey, it's a piece of a map!" It must have been contained within tent she was blown into!

With the boat out of teh way they had to deal with the Goblin Camp. Gwen is in pretty good spirits all things considered. She will lay in wait with hte others as she makes note to not wreck things do they can look for clues afterward.s With that in mind she'll leap in to the camp and start taunting the goblins on to her. "Hello green skins! I'm afraid time's up for you all!"

    As the majority of the party does everything they can to pull aggro and raise shields Yeowang , and Kauchemar do seem to have free range to clear the camp. If a goblin isn't pulled in by Amalthea's Anchor howl, Rizardoman's protection spell or Gwen's taunting pulling them and distracting them. In the end it may take a moment but the goblins are indeed wiped out and a handful of map pieces are found by Yuuki that people are welcome to take, as like monopoly piecces from that one fast food place, they are all the same piece.

The goblins are mopped up and the group are able to find some map fragments in the aftermath. "Well this is one more nest down but I doubt it's the end of this." Once they have anything of worth to party taken? Gwen will brun anything that's left. She does not want to leave anything for other goblins to make use of in the end. "Well lets get out of here I think we all need a bath..."

     Rizadoman nods his head, " No there is some hidden source of all these goblins. Hopefully the map pieces will tell us where one day. " Looking from the party to Gwen he nods once again at the suggestion , " Yes lets get out of here." Together they would all head out together.