Duty Session 229: Karluin Reclamation - Town

     Ah yes. Goblins. Pela had promised to help with said goblins before. She started with working on preparing goblinbane, which her weapons had been thoroughly coated with before this attempt to clear out some goblins... plus she had a few extra bottles for those that were there. She'd actually put a fair amount of resources into this delve into Karluin, and after putting up the party request... well.
     She made sure to pass out those bottles of goblinbane to help counter the unnatural strength of those goblins that have been given weaponry and armor. "...I will warn. I have not done party level combat in a while, I have been focusing on exploration, sneaking, and herbology... so I will do my best to not slow down those of you with more combat experience." She says, though the small cat's hesitant smile turns a bit grim. "...But I am ready to kill some goblins..." Was that quiet hatred on her face? What the heck did the goblins do to this short little wildcait sith?

Yeowang is here, her hair up in a bun, which is /srs bzns/ mode. She's an unarmed fighter, so it's not like she can rub goblinbane on her fists. But she looks entirely serious enough not to need it. "I've seen what they do," she says. "I'm entirely ready to kill them." She rolls her shoulders, bounces on her toes, and nods to Pela. "I am ready also," she agrees.

It seems like Goblins have been a problem in a number of different places, these days. Mikage had followed them from Eastal to Mac Anu, and now into the tower. She isn't one of those who often traverses into the reaches of the tower, especially as the other members of her party flat out avoid that location whenever possible, but here she is, regardless.

"Every time I run into goblins, there's always some kind of catch to them." Mikage adds, giving Pela a nod as she steps forward, her lynx companion at her side. "So we should make sure we're on our guard."

There is some anxiety that catches in her voice, perhaps because there is so much unknown in regard to what they might face, here. Yet, she holds her sword defensively, lips pressed into a thin line.

    "I'm heeeeeere!" a cheerful voice calls out from above and slightly off to the side! Leaping off some higher tree nearby, an arc of red and gold streaks through the air. And down comes Atif the Salamander, golden scarf streaking up behind him and all. His feet land onto the ground and--

    Immediately, is feet end up slipping along the ice on the ground. "Argh!" Arms go flailing, but he manages to stabilize his feet enough that he doesn't go outright flying, even if he slides along the ground at rapid speed. All the way until he has to lift a foot to slam against the side of a tree to halt his movement. He looks all too pleased with himself. "Haha! Not this ti-"

    Cue a pile of snow falling off from the tree branch above him and thwumping him on the top of his head. "Bwghjg!"

    Hands go swiping at his snow-covered head then while he turns back to facing everyone else -- and then, giving a wave. "Hey, Pela! Its been a whiiiiile!"

    Apparently he bounces right back easily enough after some adversity.

There's plenty of thrill to be had in clearing a fortress of goblins. Lin joins up with the group with a happy-go-lucky smile. "It'd be bad to be caught off guard, but I'm sure we'll do fine. They're just goblins." He says cheerfully.

Lin pulls the book from his belt and opens it to a set page, readying a spell. "We'll deal with whatever the catch is when it shows up." Is the he really not taking this that seriously? It seems so.

     As the party is gathering, however, and before they even properly begin to set out on their journey, it seems they've /already/ met with a goblin ambush, it seems the goblins are very proactive in their hunting of adventurers in this zone! Almost immediately once the party gathers and begins to move in that defensive line... crude arrows begin to strike the area around them, breaking on stone, and disappearing into snow in several areas around the party.

     Pela was beginning to respond to Yeowang and Mikage when the arrows hit, "Yeah. They're not-- TSS!" Several arrows pepper her as she quickly starts to dodge away from the attack, seeking cover quickly as her HP bar starts to drop. "Really?! We haven't even fully entered the zone yet! What the fuck devs?!" She yells out, glaring at where the arrows came from.

     "...Hi Atif." She does manage to respond, quickly huffing as she peeks around that bit of cover she'd found, searching for any signs of where the goblins might have shot from. She quickly starts pulling arrows out of herself with a hiss, looking at them quickly and sniffing at them to check for any sort of poison. "I don't think they're poisonous this time!" She calls out. "Also ow."

Yeowang is just setting out on our little mission when the goblin attack comes. Not exactly a serious attack, more like a harassing sortie to test defenses, but now that she and the others are in the middle of it, it's a problem. Though, not -too much- of a problem. She's quite fast, and ... she's actually extremely fast, both seeing the incoming arrows and moving aside before they reach the top of their arcs. So she's nowhere near where the arrows when they land. "Not an auspicious start," she observes deadpan, looking over to Pela worriedly. And Atif.

A low growl sounds from Rama as they move forward, giving Mikage just enough of a warning that she is on the look out as arrows begin to rain down. She almost seems to vanish into mist, though it is obviously just a distraction. It obscures her movements as she travels along with the party, moving to try to get under cover.

"I'm not as worried about poison. There are worse things for goblin weapons to be laced with." She explains, pulling Rama close to her. "The ones in Eastal have worse things." She breathes out, pushing herself to her feet.

Lin's kind of paying attention when the goblin attack starts. He was really wondering how everyone else knows each other so well and thinking that he should spend more time trying to climb the tower, but at least his spell book was at the ready.

"They don't even wait for us to go in? Unfair!" He protests, flipping pages in his spellbook from attack to defense. The Pooka spits a rapid series of syllables, waving one hand in a wide circle. The air around him whips into action, spinning itself into a tornado that catches incoming arrows and flings them to the side.

    "Ack?!" So much for a friendly moment for some friendly greetings! Atif yelps out in surprise when th earrows come flying through the air. At least the Red Salamander is quick to duck down and sweep into motion to run The Hell Away. Though after seeing Pela take an arrow or two into her, he visibly hesitates momentarily. But she's still moving so she's probably alright. Right? At least alright enough that once he's slipped into cover alongside with the others (with an unnecessarily elaborate flip through the air), he can let himself take a moment only just then to look to her and ask, "Do you need healing? I got some bandaging and some healing spells with me..." with a measure of concern in his voice. "Anyone else hit?"

     "...No. Not really." Pela responds to Yeowang. It seemed that the goblins moved on quickly after that ambush, retreating back deeper into Karluin. After a few tense moments of searching the area for any more danger coming their way, Pela gives a slow exhale and starts to slip out from behind her cover. "Okay, let's move close to walls to avoid more ambushes like that..." She says, squinting around. Ugh, everywhere looked pretty much the same here. Snow snow and grey walls.

     She carefully began to move along the walls, doing her best to carefully steady things as they move, hugging the wall and pushing precarious looking bits of stone back into place. At least bits that she can reach, being 4'5 tall she seemed to have to stretch pretty far to do it sometimes! "This place-- world -- isn't necessarily.. mmh! Fair!" She says, stretching to push a piece of wall more properly into place to help keep it from falling. "Anyway... c-can someone... better at it... than me..." She huffs a bit as she gives up on a piece just out of her reach. "Keep track of where we are? This snow is hard to keep... you know... yeah." She pauses, nodding towards Mikage.

     "...Yeah... I need to go burn them later too..." She adds, frowning at the thought of those goblins that were destroying and poisoning /her/ forest. "....I'm okay right now, Atif. Let's save healing for later when I drop down lower, treat this by raid rules, save healing until you absolutely have to use it unless we know about mechanics that will drop us down to immediate death if not at full HP. I'm not down that far yet." Pela says, flicking a gaze towards Atif. Wait. Isn't Pela a solo player? How does she know about /raid/ rules?

Yeowang finds herself helping navigate the party through the ruins, her eyes alert for the signs of where we need to go. This is a skill she didn't have in real life, so she's a bit awkward with it. Added to that, her skill's not particularly high, and it expains why she's slow. Not hesitant, that's not part of her character, but she /is/ deliberate and careful. The broken mess of the city is hard to separate from the detritus of goblins' passage, but after some careful examination, she can confirm the correct direction. The snow helps a bit, but it lies haphazardly over the junk, so it's not entirely reliable.

The broken mess of a city isn't met with the dismay that some would expect from Mikage. Instead, she seems to be taking it all in, wide-eyed, seeming to relish in the new and unusual. What it also means is that she's paying a bit more attention to their surroundings as the group moves forward.

With a glance at Pela, she adds, "If you plan on killing more goblins in Eastal, just watch for a green coating on their weapons. Trust me, you don't want to get hit by those." A small shiver runs up her spine, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.

"I... think we need to stay on this path." She informs, crouching down. Rama sniffs at the ground around them, then gives a grunt of affirmation, his nub tail wiggling.

"Doing fine!" Lin calls over to Atif, his hair whipping about in the tornado. He tries to keep a bright face as the 'this will be fun goblin fights' idea fades into 'this will be ugly goblin battle' reality. He runs along with the party, heading for cover in the city. "Inauspicious start but there's nothing to worry about. We'll get through this fine. At least they're not poisoned!" He glances at the other party members, suddenly worried. "We're sure they're not poisoned or anything, right?" But the word on what poison coatings looks like calms him. "You're right, I shouldn't be expecting things to be fair."

The party heads into the rubble and he's quickly lost. More than once he turns around in confusion, clearly thinking 'weren't we here already?' He does, at least, have the sense to stay with the group.

    Atif frowns faintly at Pela with visible concern even in spite of her assurances. "...Alright," he breathes out, with a subtle slump of his shoulders. "Just let me know if it gets to be too much, okay?" As if there should be some kind of real-life equivalents of pain involved. Silly lizard.

    The path is a confusing and winding one for Atif, too. At least he doesn't make the mistake of seperating from the others. Much safer to acknowledge that his own tracking skills are not good enough to go this alone.

    But...

    "Oh! Hey, this looks like it could be a shortcut!" He calls out, and moves to a gianat piece of debris that's blocking a doorway. "Yosh, I can just..." He murmurs while ducking down to secure his hands to the bottom, and then! Hup! Lift!

    "...Nnrrrgh."

    ...Lift?

    The salamander's legs visibly shake and... the rubble does not move at all. "Come on come on come o-"

    And to add insult to injury, something comes ajar at the top instead... and a loose brick falls down to smack Atif right on the top of the head. "ARGH!"

     Carefully, Pela continued on that slow path with Mikage and Yeowang, following behind whoever was leading the guiding of the group as she carefully continues to help make sure the rubble is a little more safe with surprising strength and brute force. Even if she was short. "Okay, let's see... so... that way? That works for me, I... hm.... careful Atif, that is a very unstable bit of wall over there!" She says as she keeps up her careful effort to avoid walls falling on people. It was honestly possibly adorable, with how short she was... sometimes even jumping to push a bit of wall in as she moves, huffing out and grunting in effort.

     Pela is a serious catgirl though, don't pay attention to it! Huff! "I'm-- mm! I'm Pela Clarpuff by the way... I don't ... know some of you!" She says, between little grunts of effort as she makes sure the bits of wall don't fall on /her/ party. Hopefully nobody's on the other sides, sometimes she does intentional collapses to avoid danger for them. "I'm.. not... losing more HP, so probably not poisoned, no!" She responds to Lin. She'd already been struck by those arrows after all.

     Honestly, it did hurt. There was the pain dulling effect that made it only like a third as painful, but Pela was weathering through it. She'd gotten used to that. "I'm fine. I have Itadori to chew on if it gets to be too uncomfortable." She says, actually pulling out a small cut of the root to do just that for its pain dulling properties. Sure it basically did no healing, but it was good enough to dull the pain. As Atif starts to fail to lift...

     Pela moves to help him and winces at him getting hit on the head by the brick. "...Careful, Atif..." She says with a shake of her head. It's around then, that they realize, possibly to Atif's embarrassment... that they're not alone. A small party is there, and they're approached by a salamander who is presumably the party leader.

     "Are you okay? Do... do you think you can help us? We were working on clearing out the fort but our party got separated, half of us are stuck on the other side of the collapsed building over there. Maybe between our parties we can rescue them?" The salamander asks. Of course, the part of the party that was there must have been the back line. Low strength, high magic characters. Their tank and melee DPS must be the ones trapped by the rubble, then.

     "I... probably?" Pela says with a frown. Hmm. How could they... she taps her lip. She wasn't good at construction... she didn't think she could mine them out... "Oh... maybe... earth pillar or something..." She pulls out a few slips of paper with the japanese symbol for 'earth' written on them, starting to attach them to parts of that collapsed building. And then puts her hand together, doing a quick chant under her breath. Several pillars of earth pop up to try to support the building in areas that look more likely to collapse on the other party members. Making it more stable, hopefully.

Yeowang has found the trail has led us into another party. They must have arrived after our quarry passed by? But for the moment, the question is, can she help with the relief effort. The answer to that is Yes. One of the other things that this gameworld has gifted her with is control over the earth. She has no idea how or why it works, but she can exert her will, and earth is moved. Small quantities, to be sure, but it's enough to assist the others in clearing things out.

Normally, Mikage wouldn't react to a quest quite the same way as a social situation, so when Pela offers out introductions, she can't help but hesitate. She opens her mouth, making a sound before clearing her throat, "Mikage Yurei." She hesitantly rubs at the back of her neck, right over her Were Fang tattoo, obviously a little socially awkward, this one.

Then, her focus is on the task at hand. "I can help." This seems more in her wheelhouse, as she runs her hand along the flat of her sword, then stabs it into the ground. The earth magic easily pushes things out of the way where it is needed, and offers support to walls as it goes.

Rama, on the other hand, seems to be avoiding the strange attempts at magical construction and destruction, the little cat sniffing about as he stays clear of the Adventurer magic.

The ball is closer to Lin's comfort zone now. People in peril, the right thing to do is an application of force. He doesn't need anything more than a hint to flip the pages in his spellbook and develop an overenthusiastic grin. "It just needs a little shake!" A long string of syllables, quickly recited, has the ground wiggling. With a flash of special effects he stomps one foot and points an accusatory finger at the building. There's an explosive flash of special effects and the building begins to crumble. Unfortunately, in all his enthusiasm, he didn't target the spell too carefully. Nearby stones begin to crumble, piling onto the mess. "Nononono! Sorry!"

    The pain of both the brick to the head and the embarrassment hit Atif all at once, and the skin on the poor Salamander's face turns almost as red as the scales covering the hands clutching the top of his head. "U-uhm... I... meant to do that...?"

    There is no way he meant to do that.

    He manages to recover from it all fairly quickly (or at least physically so), and his attention is brought to the other party that beared witness to his stumble.

    "Well, we cant just leave them there..." He mutters, frowning at the pile of rubble. And ultimately-- "Yosh! Let's goooo!" He bumps his fist to the open palm of his other hand, before he's suddenly... just not there. In practically an instant, he's already been brought to the pile. And he's already hoisting large pieces of debris out and tossing them to the side!!

    "We'll get you ouuuut! Don't worry! No one gets left behind!"

     Pela is in a similar boat to Mikage, much more confident in 'quest mode' than in social mode. She's trying to work on that, but it's hard! ... Things happened. Like with most people. "...Think we already met, Mikage. ...I spoiled Rama." She smiles towards her. And then... Mikage joins in the earthen efforts! Supporting the bits that would probably crush people efficiently and effectively. Yeowang's efforts further seal it, and that door begins to fall forward, it would just need one more little nudge to open and let them through!
     That little shake from Lin... begins to make the building crumble, but Atif suddenly comes to the rescue! Using his brute strength he breaks down the door in such a way that the collapse barely matters! Between the efforts of the earth pillars and brute strength... a dangerous sight is revealed.

     A wizard carrying a healer that is nearly unconscious with stack upon stack of debuffs on them, their HP rapidly dropping from paralysis, poison, and other status effects... and trying to deal with it all... is a knight that is being attacked by goblins. Their HP is falling rapidly.

     And Pela doesn't even hesitate, she doesn't wait for the cries of help from the wizard. She shifts equipment, equipping a heavier looking maid outfit with proper armor on it and a heavy sword. Immediately she's slipping into place to interject between the goblins and that knight, fighting to attempt to tank the hits for them! She hisses out softly, quickly fighting... it's a long, painful fight... and EVERYONE is left in sorry state after this, particularly that healer and tank.

     In fact, the healer's HP is ticking down rapidly, if the poison isn't removed, she's going to die just from the status effects! Almost immediately, Pela shifts her gear back to normal, reaching into her inventory to pull out several herbs of various types, which she stuffs quickly into wounds and faces, working on quickly attempting to nullify those status effects on the two! Nevermind that her /own/ health was probably ticking down a bit, but that heavy armor had helped reduce her damage a fair bit.

After the wreckage clears, Yeowang and the others see the knightly type and allies standing against a horde of goblins. She rushes in immediately, without hesitation, delivering viscuous kicks and hard punches, but she can't DPS fast ennough, it seems, to keep up with the horde of goblins. She fights on savagely, but it's a DPS race, and all her big attacks are on cooldown just at the moment. She can't muster up enough brute force to take them down quickly enough.

"I meant... for the others. Of course, I know you, Pela." She stammers. Yep, awkward.

One moment, they are helping to clear debris, and the next moment there is a cry for help. Rama's ears perk in that direction, which pulls her attention away. As the dust settles a little, it becomes clear what the source of the problem is and the Were Fang ranger curses a blue streak.

She draws her bow, trying her best to help defend against the goblins, but a few manage to get a hold of Rama, which has an immediate effect. "Let him go!" She roars, eyes flashing briefly before she shoots one between the eyes and rushes forward to save her companion.

Pulling the cat to her, she ends up spending more time saving the lynx than helping the others, it seems. The lynx seems to share her health-bar, though, so it probably makes a lot of sense, as there is now a chunk of HP missing.

The plan is falling apart, but was there really a plan? Lin was here to slay some goblins. As a cloud of dust rises in the aftermath of his enthusiastic casting, he looks left and right. Is anyone blaming him? He's already ahead of the game there, inwardly scolding himself as he leaps forward into combat.

"There's so many of them!" Overpowered attacks are fun but this is getting serious. Keep it calm. Keep it together. He loudly shouts, summoning shield after shield around the party members, barely raising them as fast as they are broken.

Yeowang is standing there, panting, looking around to see what our status is. She's surprised to see the healer ad tank, while bad off, are still standing. Healing is another one of the powers she gained here in this game world that she's not familiar with. Perhaps some sort of zen connection to her fighting class? In any event, she'll head over and ... she's not sure just what it is. It's not really healing, or rather, it is to healing what menu food is to cooking. But it seems to have been helpful. She looks a bit tired, though, apparently it took a bit out of her. It's not a power she can use a lot of, then.

    "HEY!"

    Why Atif gives such a warning to the goblins when he flies in, no one knows. But it doesn't apparently stop him from driving both his feet into the side of one goblin's head when he does swoop in. "Cut that out you uglies!"

    The Salamander's rebounding flip from the dropkick might be impressive, but what's less impressive is, after his landing on the floor -- he immediately gets a sword driven through his side. "Guh?!"

    A quick kick pushes the responsible goblin awya, but it *does* still leave a sword very much... dug deep into him and sticking out. A valiant effort follows in fighting off the goblins -- but not without more cuts and slices making their way through his defense, and even more of the monsters and their overwhelming numbers slipping past him. "No no no no!"

    Despair briefly flickes in Atif's eyes. Not for himself, but for all the damage the others are taking.

    Nevermind that by the time the goblins have finally been warded off, his HP bar is flashing red with an alarmingly urgent frequency. He even still has that first sword sticking through him.

    "Ugh... Everyone... okay...?" He mumbles, weakly. He nearly lets himself stumble down onto his rear, too, but... after seeing the shape of the party here, he nearly seems to go on autopilot. Just weakly wobbling to the wounded (other than himself), and working out some basic first aid supplies from his pack. With all the pain and injury gathered on him, however, he... doesn't do a very good job of it. He can't even manage to gather the focus and strength to properly wrap bandaging around an arm.

It's time to regroup and heal. Lin gets to the wounded healer and tank and wastes no time in muttering healing spells over the pair. "How's everybody holding up?" He asks the party, "We made it this far. It can't be much farther. Big battle, maybe some kind of big boss goblin next. Then the loot. Right?" Despite how draining the battle was he stays upbeat.

When the fighting dies down, at least a little, Mikage is left looking a bit worse for wear, with a few red lines visible but most of the injuries showing on Rama's form rather than her own. The Lynx gives a yowl of disappointment as he is set down on his feet, gingerly keeping one paw up in the air. "Stay close. Don't go rushing off." She advises the cat, who huffs in reply.

Then, she sets to the task of trying to help the others who are injuried. "I'm... not very good at this, I usually leave the healing to Cyrus, but... I have a little magic that should help." She pulls a blue stone from her neck, which seems to glow faintly as she holds it between her hands. The power seems to stay on her palms as she reaches out to try to staunch the worst of the wounds with it, channeling healing magic.

     Honestly, being stuffed with herbs wasn't the worst thing that the party had dealt with today, considering the goblins. Luckily, there were people with more proper healing skills around as well! Like Lin with his healing magic, Mikage with her healing magic, and Atif ... who... tries very hard but doesn't really manage to do too much! Luckily Yeowang helps pick up that slack. Soon the wounds are mostly staunched and the most dangerous of the status effects are healed!

     That poor white mage is still paralyzed and their party is probably gonna have to pull out though, because really a party without its healer is just asking to have a wipe, and in a world where there may or may not be dangerous consequences that most people don't know about, a wipe is a terrible idea!

     Soon, the construction crew basically stops the party, warning them that they should save their mana and resources for the rest of their attempts to clear out Karluin! ... Which Pela gives a small nod about. "Okay..." She says softly, moving over to Mikage and Rama... who she reaches to scoop up the latter, gently starting to feed the poor lynx some of the herbs as well. Poor thing. Pela has no other form of healing.

     Continuing on... rubble nearby suddenly... explodes?! As a large, human-shaped... barrel... robot... appears! A gem glows on its chest and ... it gives off... earth energy! Attempting to throw rocks towards the party! ... Yeah it was time to break up this creature's rampage!

     Which Pela starts to work on immediately, drawing several air-element inscribed slips of paper. She quickly mutters several words under her breath, before pointing her fingers towards the center of that robot's chest. "Take it down! I think it's a boss!" She shouts, before a loud crack of thunder is audible and a burst of lightning is sent straight for that earth element gemstone.

Once the people are stable, Yeowang and the others move forward to see what else this wrecked town has in store for us. Cleaning the place up is certainly a chore. But ultimately worthwhile, if it will see the end of these evil little monsters. But what we find here isn't a little monster. Nor, does she think it's a goblin thing. An entirely unrelated threat, then, if no less potent for all that. "What in the world..." she grumbles, but that doesn't stop her from taking up a fighting stance.

But then, she looks more carefully, then nods and smiles. "You're going down," she tells it, with contemptuous confidence. Seems she's seen something ... and it's a thing that gives her an edge. She leaps on top of a piece of debris, then executes a spinning back-kick, pushing herself off it and back, landing on another pile of debris.

"It's got some kind of ground sensing," she warns. "If you can stay in the air, it won't be as effective against you." And, indeed, her attack consists almost entirely of flying kicks, leaping strikes, and when she lands, it's off the ground. Towards the end, she throws her big cooldown, a kick so fast it seems like there's a sonic boom along with the strike that makes the target stagger when it's hit.

With the boss soaring into view, Lin's upbeat smile turns into an almost maniacal grin. A giant mechanical monster - he was expecting yet another wave of goblins! Now it's really a party. "Don't have to tell me twice!" He shouts back to Pela.

The Pooka begins to cast, shouting eldritch syllables and happy with the unfolding events. Lightning spiders across the rock around his feet, gathering at his boots while a storm cloud forms above the giant boss. Lightning - simple, uncomplicated, and absolutely excessive - strikes the monster repeatedly, leaving searing afterimages of purple and splitting the air with thunderclaps.

Thre is a small look of relief that Mikage casts in Pela's direction as she offers Rama some of the herbs. It has the double effect of easing some of the cat's wounds, but also causing him to purr. Maybe there's some catnip in there somewhere...

Then, there is that brief moment of calm before the storm. The appearance of the golem has her darting to her feet, reaching for her sword. "Since when do goblins have golems at their disposal?" These ones certainly have been given a power-up, haven't they?

She closes her eyes, pressing the blue stone into her sword as she begins to channel nature magic into the weapon. It causes it to glow with a variety of elemental colors, eventually settling on yellow as she swirls air magic around herself before charging into the fray. Rama joins her, helping her weave in and out of battle, having done more melee combat in this one quest than she has in a long time, it seems.

    "Ugh..." Atif eyes the sword left sticking into him. Somehow he completely ignored that all the way up until triage with the other party was done. So it's only after him and his friends get to moving, that he starts considering his options with... well, that. "Maybe if I..." He mutters to himself...

    But his focus is duly taken away by the sound of something destroying the nearby wall. The sword's forgotten, and the Salamander just *stares* at the machine.

    "Is... that... a mecha...?" He mumbles, with utter disbelief, before taking in a deep breath, and adding in a lower whisper, "...So cool."

    Determination flashes in the Salamander's eyes, and he goes rushing towards the machine. "Let's do it!!" He roars out as he leaps up into the air, flipping several times over with one leg extended as magic gathers around it, the air itself seeming to vibrate aroudn the Salamander as he sails to aim an enormous, magic-assisted blow right at the gem in the cente-

    "Ghhgh?!"

    Except, the magic fizzles out, and his own body twists in an unintended way. Suddenly, he realizes he can't move his body right at all, and there's a sting of pain from--

    Oh. Right. The sword in his gut.

    And thus, instead of a glorious, flying, magic-infused kick, Atif's body smacks side-first against the barrel-robot, and he's left to ungracefully fall onto the ground. He's still managing to move himself, at least, working himself up to one knee and a shaky foot...

    Only for the robot to barrel (pun unintended) right over him, smacking a mechanical limb right into the lizard's head and sending him flying across the air to land limply onto the floor a few paces over.

    That hp bar looks alarmingly close to being empty.

     That poor mecha. It didn't know what hit it! Okay it did know what hit it because it attacked that party. And then immediately took ALL OF THE AIR ELEMENT. Lightning, flying kicks, an Atif to the face! Even more lightning! It's a fairly quick fight, surprisingly, in spite of seeming like a boss!

     Probably because of how many people who are strong in its weakness just happened to be gathered there. Mikage, coincidentally, was basically the last hit, that air magic swirling in around that sword... and... boom! The robotic barrel stops moving rather suddenly, its core fractured and damaged.

     And then Atif goes flying into it! THUNK! ... Oh that looked painful. Pela actually winces at the look, covering her eyes at the sight as the golem CRASHES into the ground, further destroying the building that it had come out of and possibly leaving Atif in a situation where he has to carefully navigate out to avoid taking even more damage. Luckily there were other people with healing magic for poor Atif, right? Because Pela can't really do much healing herself, just status effect removal.

     Meanwhile, Pela staggers over to start working on dismantling that golem with quick casts of wind magic to work at cutting it up into pieces. "Let's... ... let's retreat... that's... that's probably enough for this incursion, before we lost Atif or someone else."