Hunters Guild Request: Missing Firelizards

     It had been strange. Seemingly just... overnight, the firelizard population nearby the hive of Anthome had just... seemingly disappeared. Due to the proximity to anthome, there were obvious suspicions as to why they disappeared, but at the same time the Hunters' Guild doesn't want to poke the swarm unless they have to.

     Which is what brought our intrepid adventurers together today, heading across the desert sands to the firelizard warrens right on the edge of one of the larger oasis in the Holy Empire of Westlande. A relatively pretty place, as far as desert oasis' go, with several trees, generally a fair amount of animal mobs gathering around it for water, and even a few patches of hardy desert grasses and flowers.

     There's even a few ant workers here that are gathering water into their abdomen, drinking it up until it swells, only to zip off into the desert along a line of ants like that, guarded by several larger, dangerous looking ants. They don't look like the talkative variety like those in Anthome, and if examined they read as aggressive mobs.

    Merek walks along with the party, his dark attire on in addition to the scarf which he wears. The man looks to the ants then nods to the party, "Well, it looks like we might need to fight," he notes, while he shifts a hand to draw his sword, spinning that about while he finds a place to watch from. "What do you think anyone would want with the firelizards?"

    Setsuna was walking near the back of the party and with him walked a monster wrapped in a cloak, to help keep suspicions down. Only adventurers would be able to see the information 'Skeleton Knight, Owned by Setsuna Kibo' and for the most part the knight paid no mind as it just followed in Setsuna's footsteps. As Setsuna looks around at the workers, it was almost like he looking for a particular worker but it was really unlikely she would be here. He does answer Merek though, "Maybe the ants wanted to turn them into fire ants." Laughing at his own joke he looks around at the guards. " I mean you could always go ask one of them."

"Their Queen seemed to be of a particularly fiery persuasion," says Prophylaxis of the Scale Emblem Alliance, who is also here to see just what mess these crazy ant-people are getting themselves caught up in this time. He wears his wide-brimmed mushroom-cap-like hat to keep the glare of the harsh desert sun out of his eyes. But otherwise, it seems like the magus is content to stick towards the rear of the party. After all, he's not a skeleton, he's not disposable! Fufufu~ "You may be closer to the mark than you know, Setsuna. It could be they make use of some chemical extracted from the Fire Lizards. Maybe they're trying to replicate the use of explosives now? Hm?"

    A quest is a quest is a quest. That's why Yuuki's here. Because she's not done this quest before! Besides, Yuuki feels a bit of an affinity for the ants that have been occupying the areas of this region. From that one time she played a VR game where she was an ant. It was weird! But fun. And was an interesting display of just how create the whole VR experience can be if you think outside the box.

    Yuuki shrugs as she walks along with the others, "Maybe the lizards got squirrelly and bolted. Could also be unrelated to the ants. But this region is where many of the ant quests are so that's unlikely."

    Yuuki walks up to one of the non-aggro workers ants, grinning at it, "What do you think, big guy? Think they're just a bunch of scardy lizards?" She doesn't expect the ant to actually reply back. But who knows! Devs can be weird with their questlines.

Another day, another job. She needed money for her long-term plans after all, or materials she could trade for it. So that's in part why she's here. Another part is? Hunting something other than goblins for a bit would be a good change of pace. It would be a bad thing for the elf to get rusty on dealing with other types of monsters. She was singing a bit as she arrived with the group and she was now getting into a more serious mindset. As she starts to scope out the situation.

"Materials, ranching them, a trap in a dungeon? This should be a good bit of fun, though."

She gets a big grin on her face at this.

She will eye the ants but since they are not picking a fight she's not going to pick one with them.

     The worker ants were just gathering water what makes you think it's their fault the firelizards are gone?! Setsuna, sadly, does not see any ants that are similar to Tenda, not that it would be easy to tell if she was full ant like this, she didn't have that many distinctive features, after all. The anthome ants all looked like they could be twins to each other, beyond the hair color differences.

     Anyway, the firelizard warren is a bit to the north of the oasis, but the oasis is a good resting point from their travels. The party could either rest here for a bit, or go straight on to the warren.

    Merek nods a bit to all the answers people offer for what they might want it for. All the same, he seems content to follow along while he begins to shift that sword about, waiting to make a way to the warrens.

    Setsuna watches the guards for a moment longer before looking north, "So is this the only Oasis around here ? Do firelizards need water? " It was a question before he looks to where they were told the warren was, " I guess we should check out the scene of the crime before we blame the ants." With it said he to begins to follow after Merek towards the warrens keeping an eye out for tracks or signs of lizard or ant for that matter.

Yuuki, no stop, they might think your head is a coconut and take you back to the hive or something!!!

Nah but she's fine. Prophylaxis shrugs. "I mean, it's possible they're unrelated, sure. They've only declared their desire to dominate the world to me basically point blank, but that's not /necessarily/ damning them for killing or kidnapping fire lizards."

Just, it's suspicious is all.

"I'm easy, whatever you all want to do." Prophylaxis shrugs!! "Though if you want to ask the ants anything, I strongly recommend preparing some kind of sweet fruit juice to bribe them with first."

     The worker ant that Yuuki approaches... does not respond! In fact it doesn't even acknowledge her at all, just doing its job of gathering and walking away. Though one of the guard ants was now looking at Yuuki and seemed to be watching her. There's the sense that if she keeps pestering the workers, she might aggro the guard ants.

Erufu seems to be curious about the worker ants. They don't seem hostile for right now. It could change in the future, so she keeps in mind where they are. "There are a few but this one is rather large so far as I'm aware." She is a ranger after all, right? "Sugar is a good bribe for ants, I'm fafraidI didn't think of that idea. So I do not have anything like that in my inventory."

    Yuuki is ghosted by the worker ant. She quietly awwws. But noticing one of the guard ants turn her way, Yuuki eyes it. She then grins and waves to it, before moving away. She coooooould aggro the guard ants. Fighting them might be interesting. But better to stick with the actual quest line rather than wear yourself out on unrelated mobs.

    Yuuki looks over her shoulder at Prophylaxis, "I've tried the world domination thing! It's hard. I managed to make it to Germany, but they kept wiping out my forces." She's definitely talking about a game. Unless she's a reincarnated emperor or something.

    Anyway, back to the quest at hand. There seems to be about a question about whether they should rest or head on towards the lizard warren. Yuuki pumps her fist, "I'm still good to go! I say we march onwards and show this quest who's boss!" She points forward and starts walking.

Prophylaxis is /pretty sure/ Yuuki isn't some kind of reincarnated god emperor or something.

She might be Napoleon though. Maybe??

"You know, if you're playing as the UK, you really just want to bypass Germany and take over all of Africa first. That way you can grab all the important resource nodes and push up into the eastern front to reinforce the Russians, and if you manage to get boxcars on the research roll, you can just throw bombers at Berlin until it implodes."

...They're probably talking about a game.

"Indeed, sitting around isn't going to help matters! And I have brought some wine if we need to barter, so worry not, friends!" Prophylaxis!! Follows after Yuuki, having apparently stocked up on booze.

     Marching onwards! The party finds their way to the... rather... abandoned looking lizard warren. There's not really much in the way, and there's no tracks heading from here to anthome. Not that that really rules out burrowing creatures. At the entrance to the warrens -- or rather, the more obvious, larger entrance that was probably the main entrance -- Erufu, Merek, and Setsuna spot some tracks that aren't lizardlike at all.

     Instead, it was something more spiked and singular, and... large. As if someone had taken a spiked pole and shoved it into the ground several times for 'tracks', and it came up from the east of the warrens. Frankly it was kind of hard to miss, and it was going into the warrens itself. So... whatever had made them disappear... was probably rather large.

    Merek looks to all of the tracks, while he nods to the party, "It looks like something came through, something we don't want to fight, though probably will need to," he notes, beginning to follow that path.

    Setsuna's eyes glow with magic as they walk and was quite enjoying the new found use of his spell. Not only did it dull things that were of little interest to him, like sand and dirt, the dullness also effected the light so in some form or another he had invented magical sunglasses. As his eyes can the dirt , the tracks do stand out. " Spikey likee tracks, either this was a mad tumble weed OR I'd say this is some pretty evident evidence that our six legged friends were not happy sharing their world. So then do we follow the tracks? "

    Yuuki ooooohs as new tactics are provided to her along the way to the warren, "That would make things easier! I'll have to try that some time. I was just throwing troops and tanks at them. Ended up causing supply problems..."

    Finally they arrive, finding no lizardfolk. Well, that seems to fit with the quest they were sent here for. "HELLO!? ANYBODY HOME?" Yuuki calls out, just in case there are survivors hiding nearby.

    When the tracks are mentioned by the others, Yuuki walks over to look at them herself. She then blinks at Merek in confusion, "Why don't we want to fight it? I thought that's why we're here!?" Well, they're technically here to find out what happened to the lizard people. But a quest isn't a quest without a big bad to fight along the way. Unless it's one of those boring investigation quests... Oh crap, is Yuuki on one of those!?

    Hoping that's not the case, Yuuki nods quickly to Setsuna, "Yes!" She starts following the tracks.

Oh no Yuuki did you accidentally sign up for one of those quests where they actually expect you to use your brain and not just stick everything with the pointy tip of your murder stick!?

This is probably not Prophylaxis' fault. Probably.

"I mean, are you sure it's an ant? Ants usually have more legs than that. Maybe it was actually some kind of... Sandworm?" Prophylaxis shrugs!!

Other people charge headfirst into the cave. The doctor... does not.

...

Look, if the healer died in the first pull, that'd put a serious damper on everything, wouldn't it!? Better let the tankier folks draw aggro first.

The elf's ears twitch a bit as Erufu heads on in with the rest of the party she will take notice that something wen though ahead of them.

"look at that those are not lizard tracks..."

She takes a closer look alongside Merek trying to get a better idea as she is a tracker after all she might be able to decern a little bit more before she heads further in.

"I don't like this..."

     Those that continue into the depths of the warren find it abandoned, with a few branching paths but one big, main path that the tracks were going down. Leading to a rather large central room that looked like it might have been some sort of food stores for the fire lizards. Upon entering the room... the ground seems to suddenly shift. It was sudden, almost instantaneous, a massive creature rises out of the ground, grabbing for those that were in the room! Yuuki manages to evade being grabbed, however the other two that had entered into the warren were not so lucky.

     Which leaves Prophylaxis and Setsuna with the /option/ to jump down into the swirling sand pit in the center of the room, or stay up with Yuuki and help her fight up the other creatures that were beginning to pop up out of the ground along the edges of the room and skitter after the 'scraps' left behind by their king.

     Meanwhile, those that go down into that sand vortex find themselves face to face with... a boss monster.

            Gloomstep, The Antlion King.


COMBAT START

    Merek takes a moment to look to the boss when he falls upon the floor of the cave. Then he stands up, taking a look to the creature. The man begins to draw his axe from the inventory, and nods a bit while he sheathes the weapon in flame. "Well then, it looks like a fight," the man swings about into the antlion, the flame dancing along while it sweeps about.

    The ground begins to rumble. Yuuki reacts quickly! The swift imp rushes across the quickly shifting sands, before leaping to a wall. She runs up it a short distance before leaping again. She reaches out with a hand to grab hold of a outcropping in the rock. Then proceeds to just dangle there, looking down as the sand quickly swirls, forming a whirlpool with a big bug in the center of it. And she can see a couple are already trapped. Yuuki calls out to Prophylaxis and Setsuna, "Bosssssssss!"

    That's not all though. Yuuki can see smaller but no less ugly antlions crawling out of the walls and tunnels. If they jump in on the boss team, that's going to be a big mess!

    So Yuuki plants her feet against the wall and proceeds to leap off it. She arcs through the air, drawing her sword at the same time. With a twist and a flip, she comes down on one of the Ambushers, attempting to drive her blade into it and apply a Bleeding status. She then leaps off that Ambusher, to land on a second, doing the same thing.

    Finally Yuuki leaps for a last time, to land upon solid ground once more, raising her sword towards the mobs she likely just aggroed, "Come at me, bro!"

    Setsuna looks towards the doctor as they are left to choose, " Stay up here and help Yuuki." Setsuna dives into the pit to help the others and regrets it. Over the party chimlink he shouts, " We have a boss down here so the sooner up there is resolved the better. " With a flourish he throws a bright ball of light into the air acting as a flare as he stares at the boss. Then he grips his left hand hard shouting to his knight friend, " Get down here you bone head." Moments later the knight drops down from above, the cloak left behind and its sword brandished, still wearing Helena's reinment, obviously having not been re-equipped by Setsuna. A gold ring on the knights hand glows before charging against Gloomstep.

Erufu is pretty good at paying attention, she's also fast on her feet. Today she's not fast enough as she presses forward. Then she loses her footing she let out a cry and soon she's falling down into the sand vortex. One she gets a status debuff. Sand in places you never knew you had, two? She falling she will land and have to pull herself up afterwards. She then face to face with Gloomstep the Antlion King.

She lets out a shout of warning draws her bow. Lines up a shot and lets it fly as she's scrambling backwards.

"BURST SHOT!"

Prophylaxis is instantaneously vindicated.

"Huh, antlion," the doctor wonders aloud. "You know, I really should have seen this coming. Ants probably would attract antlions, wouldn't they?" Oh, but several of his companions are already spiralling down the shifting sands and into the yawning maw of the Antlion King.

Well.

They're not Yuuki or Setsuna, so this too is fine. Though maybe he should toss the Elf a rope, at least? If Merek gets eaten, he's at least liable to give the antlion some serious indigestion.

...Ehhh. They'll be fine.

"Yuuki! That's rude!! You don't need to be so..." A smaller antlion bursts from the sand behind him. It looms large, and goes to chomp down with its enormous mandibles...

Only to be SET ON FIRE because Prophylaxis, himself seems to have also been SET ON FIRE. "Ant-agonistic...!" His hand darts out from within his labcoat, hurling a trio of steel scalpels from hidden compartments in his sleeves. Or, they /start/ as steel scalpels. They very quickly turn into FLAMING STEEL SCALPELS immediately after leaving his hands.

     === GLOOMSTEP TEAM ===

    Merek's blade strikes against a burning defensive wall, which unleashes a wave of burning, the damage mostly mitigated and returned with a flash of fire onto Merek's own form!

     Meanwhile, Erufu lands and finds herself face to face with that giant monster! Which hasn't started to attack yet! But Erufu fixes that relatively quickly by attacking first, striking out with her arrows that strike true!

     Meanwhile, Setsuna doesn't strike immediately, no, instead there was a defensive wall of that skeleton attacking the boss creature, only to find it striking off of a sudden wall of stone that builds itself up in front of the antlion creature. Crack!


Meanwhile, the creature in response gathers up magical energy, before unleashing ... VOID FIRE! Which... is just a slightly reskinned fireball it looks like, as it lands among the party and explodes in a burst of black fire!

    === AMBUSHER TEAM ===

    Yuuki immediately gets attacks off on the antlions on the surface, gouging the sides of their bodies and leaving wounds that lingered with the red markings of a lingering injury! The antlion immediately responds by stabbing Yuuki with poisonous ... fangs? Mandibles? Whatever they are, they're sharp!

     And... FLAMING STEEL SCALPELS and FIRE are unleashed on the antlion that was attempting to sneak up on Prophylaxis and ambush him. Whelp. That ambush didn't go so well! But even as those flaming scalpels are unleashed, it /does/ follow through with a precision strike right towards the center of Prophylaxis' back!

     Meanwhile, the entire room seemed to be rapidly filling with kicked up sand that chokes up and makes it hard for everyone to breathe... along with starting to tick their health down with a SANDSTORM status effect.

    Merek lifts up a rock cradle to defend against the strikes coming his way, then he swings about with the potion of alchemist's fire, which then explodes along that antlion, blasting into it along with a flame that begins to shimmer along the enemies frame. The man nods a bit to the party, while he swings that axe about. "Come on then!"

    Yuuki eyes the Ambushers as they close in on her. She takes several steps back as they approach, snorting at Prophylaxis, "Yeah, well... I'd be lion if I said these guys dig bug me just a bit! So it's time to squish them!"

    Yuuki charges straight into the Ambusher pack! They get their sharp pointy poisonous things into her, cutting red along her body and causing the poison debuff symbol to appear in her view. Yuuki winces at the feeling, but focuses on taking this mobs down as quickly as possible!

    To that end, Yuuki's blade begins to glow with a sickly green as she returns the favour, unleashing heavy slices into the Ambushers with her poisoned blade.

    Setsuna was a mmo gamer, he knew the number one rule of a boss fight. Only N00B$ stand in fire so he quickly moves away while positioning the knight to help take some of the damage. As he lands he grins before beginning to cough , probably just the smoke but it burned his lungs. " Any more of that and we are going to pass out from smoke inhalation. " Setsuna unleashes a multitude of spells and uses his knight as the point of channel. Around the knight several sharp rocks of earth leap up and as the knight grabs a pair of them and throws them as hard as he can at the boss, they burst into flame.

"They're really not so bad once you get to gnome them," Prophylaxis retorts, because he is approximately the worst person. But then he stops, because an antlion ambusher managed to get into his blind spot and stab a PAINFUL POISON STINGER directly through his midsection.

A poison debuff appears on his status bar. Prophylaxis does not approve.

"I think you will find that they're just looking for someone to really undersand them," he continues without missing a beat, the air around him rapidly increasing in temperature as a wall of flame erupts between he and his assailant. He hops back a step and a jump, his hand again snapping out of his robes. Again, steely knives tear outward...

But most of them miss. In fact, only one of them actually hits its target! Oh no, did he goof!?!?

Or... does he have something planned?

His staff humms in his grip, electricity courses down its length and races across the ground. It leaps from one scalpel to the next, connecting each in a chain of conductive material... before finally finding the last link at the mouth of the warren.

...A spark leaps into the sky.

And a MASSIVE LIGHTNING BOLT races down to meet it, carries down further into the scalpel, and then surges along the conductive chain all the way to the scalpel embedded in the hungry antlion's chitin...!

Well things are going a bit better than Erufu could hope in a situation like this. She doesn't get floored and she's able to keep some level of defence up this is what keeps her going. It's better than ending up on a trip to one of the churches after all. She has the monster coming for her she'll shoot it again. A second before Void Fire is cast, it's pretty big and she's just able to get out of harm's way only taking a little bit of damage from it. She'll chalk that up to a win, she's back on her feet again. Was her shot enough? She's not sure as she makes ready for the boss to have another trick or two up its sleeve.

     Up top, the attacks were rapidly tearing off of the health bars of those adds! And it seems like.... Yuuki and Prophylaxis are making quick work of the antlions, between rapid lightning bolts and poison blades cooking and cutting up the antlions! And... their health bars drop to zero, and they drop to the floor! The ambushers not... exploding into those red pixels of death? There was a sudden shifting sensation betneath Yuuki and Prophylaxis' feet, and that sudden whirlpool of sand comes into place again.

     Above the rest of the party, there was rapidly beginning to be sand dropping from the ceiling, slowly filling the room with sand and reducing area that the party can move. That is, until... the roof outright COLLAPSES, AoE attack indicators flashing on the ground and leaving the party with a small area right on the top of the sand pile that is safe to land on as several rocky chunks fall to the ground with Yuuki and Prophylaxis on top of them.

     The antlion is now on its second health bar, and screeching in pain and rage as a RAGE status effect effects the creature, and it starts unleashing wild attacks upon the party with its massive sharp pincers!

And... behind Yuuki and Prophylaxis... rather suddenly? Those fallen Antlions unearth themselves from the sand and attack the two from behind with their pincers!

    Yuuki skids to a stop after slashing past the last antlion. It collapses along with the rest. Yuuki raises her sword and cheers, "Woooooo-" But it changes to a confused tone as she notices something, her sword lowering, "-ooooo?"

    Suddenly the ground begins to crack, Yuuki looks around with further confusion, before crying out in surprise as the round beneath her falls out from under her. The imp plummets into the darkness, never to be seen again...

    ... For a few seconds, after which she plummets into the boss room below, bounces her fallen chunk of ground and rolls across the sand with a grunt.

    Yuuki climbs to her feet once more, checking her arms and legs are still there and that her HP bar has suffered none worse than a minor sliver. She then dusts the sand off herself, saying to no one in particular, "I meant to do that."

    SUDDENLY ANTLION!

    The monster bursts from the sand behind Yuuki, pincer slicing down towards her. Yuuki quickly dives to the side, going into a roll and coming up on one knee. She winces a little, though she dodged the attack. The poison from the previous one continues to flow through her.

    Still, Yuuki's not about to let that slow her down! She rises to her feet, bringing her sword up in both hands. She then stabs it into the ground. A visible pulse is unleashed at the impact point, the sand rippling out from Yuuki. It disrupts the antlion's balance. At which point Yuuki charges in, a dark wind forming up around her. Yuuki proceeds into a rapid series of blows from multiple directions, trying to land multiple hits against the offending antlion before it can recover too much.

    Merek looks along to the boss when it comes about for another strike upon the party. The man lifts up a hand while he takes a moment to call a firebolt, blasting that into an explosion along the creature, while he shifts that axe about and lifts up a hand, "Ol Repth!" The glove shines while a healing light will begin healing Setsuna. The man nods to Erufu, "Alright, let's flank!" he notes.

    Setsuna does his best as the shield of bones and dark energy covers him, still pressing him down in the ground. The boss can throw a tantrum all it wants, Setsuna wasn't going to put up with as he reaches out and curses the gloomstep with Thorn bind hostage.

V I C T O R Y.

Prophylaxis nods slowly, the scent of cooking antlion filling the air (for some reason, very reminiscent of grilled crab) filling his senses. That's it then. They just need to beat the tar out of the thing at the bottom of the pit and they'll be done.

Except...

The Antlion King... has a second healthbar, and it is very dedicated to getting a decent meal out of the adventurers today.

Prophylaxis hisses a colorful series of curses as the floor gives out underneath him. He crashes into the sand below, followed shortly thereafter by a veritable deluge of debris. By his reckoning, he just barely escaped taking a chunk of catastrophic fall damage from the impromptu trip into the Antlion King's lair. "Yuuki," he calls over, "You alright? Not too many scrapes--"

An antlion, the /exact same antlion/ he just cooked, explodes out of the ground behind him and goes to gnash its jaws around his everything.

...Only to find itself biting right into a wall of stone, erected out of the very rubble that fell down after the doctor. He clicks his teeth, eyes glowing bright as an arcane enchantment begins analyzing the antlions for any sign of weakness-- or barring that, any method of putting the creatures down on a more /permanent/ basis.

He has an idea already, but he wants to be /sure/ of it first.

(It might be fireball)

Erufu was right to consider the boss wasn't done with things. It's got another health bar. The pooka keeps moving, and this keeps her from ending up too messed up. However, she's gained a second status effect. Poison and it starts to ticks down. She feels ill but it's not quite enough to stop her as the rage status effect, she manages to keep clear of the pincer and she counter attacks firing off burning arrow at the Antlion.

     Yes. You definitely meant to do that, it wasn't a boss room transition at all, Yuuki. When she strikes out towards the antlion, Yuuki finds herself... striking against those large chitinous 'shields' that the antlion had, skittering off of it as it retaliates with several quick stings of a stinger, each one burning like FIRE if it strikes!

     A firebolt is sent flying towards the boss... which is suddenly covered in a pair of stone walls which raise out of the ground and envelop the creature in a dome to weather the attacks from.... just about everyone in fact. Setsuna's Thorn Bind Hostage... goes to waste, it seems. Those thorns wrapped it well, of course! But it wasn't struck in such a way to trigger them.

     Prophylaxis finds that the zombie antlion is exactly that, a zombie antlion. Noted as a Summon of Gloomstep, the Antlion King. It's also suffused with some sort of dark, necromantic energy! So yes, the answer is probably fireball. Undead generally don't like fireball.

     Erufu is left with a burning arrow striking stone wall as well, which was being rapidly built up by the monster in its defenses. Though the combined attacks break down the shield eventually!

     And the shield explodes into a burst of more of that sand hanging in the air, slowly ticking down everyone's HP with poison damage. From the roof, a sudden AoE attack circle seems to be following... Merek. Eventually, a Stalagmite falls from the ceiling towards him!

     Prophylaxis, meanwhile, is taking several stabs of the zombie antlion's mandibles aimed towards him! Erufu recieves... the focus of the boss itself, which stabs at her several times with its clawed foot!

Because of GM absentmindedness, Setsuna gets off scott free.

    Setsuna does not let absentmindedness go unpunished as his skeleton knights body begins to ooze with dark energy. Those who had challeneged Setsuna before knows what is coming and its absolutely devastating effect. To help setsuna summons a small barrage of fire to distract gloomstep. Meanwhile his knight charges in and leaps right up and tries to boop the boss on the snoot , passing the cursed energy along . Teach the boss to ignore him, the necromancer will.

/Undead/ bugs! It's twice the awfulness in the same bug-shaped package. "Aren't you things supposed to be /infesting/ the undead? Also didn't I fry you a second ago!?" Prophylaxis demands, as the zombie antlion once again snaps its jaws at him. With a sweep of his staff, the magus conjures a bubble of translucent light around himself. The antlion's mandibles squeeze-- tight, tighter, tighter still...! Spiderweb cracks spread across the shield's surface as the wall deforms and flexes and finally--

                                  !!ping!!                                  

Prophylaxis is sent flying like some kind of human bouncy ball! He pinballs off a stalagmite and sails into the air just as his shield finally fails... And right into perfect position.

All of the zombie antlions, plus their master, are standing within a thirty foot radius burst from a point in his line of sight that he can draw a line to from his vantage point. A spark ignites atop his staff and he sends it on its way, then hits the ground with a harsh roll. Groaning, he pulls himself out of the sand and checks the party's status...

...To find that Yuuki has taken quite a beating. Have they been focusing on her this entire time? With a soft grunt, he draws a syringe from his sleeves...

And launches it like a flying dagger to plunge its payload of CONCENTRATED HEALING POTION directly into the Zekken's neck!!

    Yuuki stares down the antlion she's facing off against. She slowly circles around it, waiting for it to attack. It strikes out with its stinger! Several times! Yuuki ducks and spins and jumps away to avoid getting hit, only taking a glancing blow as she leaps away. Unfortunately it's enough to apply the poison debuff. Again. Yuuki grunts in annoyance.

    Then suddenly, there's a familiar sensation in her neck. And something warm spreading through her, offsetting the poison. Reaching up, she pulls out the syringe. She complains to Prophylaxis, "Always sticking me with needles! Habits die hard, huh?"

    Returning her attention the antlion that's apparently also a zombie now, Yuuki charges forwards. Her dark blade grows even blacker as the Twin Darkness sword arte activates, Yuuki quickly unleashing a short series of blows against the antlion, letting that darkness seep in to the mob and weaken it.

    But just when you think Yuuki's finished her assault, she moves again, her sword arm lashing out in a blurry movement!

    Merek begins to watch while the antlion sweeps along into people. The man nods a bit, healing up Setsuna and noting Proph will get the healing for Yuuki. The man takes a look to the boss, while he sheathes away the axe, then he draws a belt potion, which he swings about and into the creature. While he takes the strikes which the boss offers, the man keeps on swinging with magic then, an explosion of the fireball, then an explosion of dark arcane manage. The symbols begin to appear while they shimmer. @>#.

Erufu is still in the fight as is the rest of the party. She tracks the spell going about that her allies seem to be pretty good at dealing with this but this bug likes fire. It's not something she would expect honestly. She has an idea though as the arrow strikes home she'll follow up with something else to follow up with. AS the poison ticks down she will return the favour launching several positioned arrows of her own at the Antlaion as she keeps on the move. The poison still doing the vast share of the damage to her and it is starting to add up with how much it's taking out.

     Honestly, if these antlions weren't mindless, they'd be entertained by the Prophylaxis bouncy ball, but unfortunately, these are ... just mindless monsters. That is... of course... until the fireball, which washes over the group of antlions, barely defended by a series of walls of stone and the antlion's own defenses and resistances to fire. Except the zombie antlions. They hate that shit. Which is why they immediately leap onto Prophylaxis for a piercing strike! Attempting to stab right through him again with those massive pincers!

     Meanwhile, that absentmindedness doesn't to unpunished at all, as that curse and those attacks go after the boss! It's effected by the dark energy, which it takes the time to remove and shake off, before unleashing a stab in return to Setsuna and his skeleton, attempting to stab straight through them!

     Circling... waiting... the antlion was shifting uncomfortably as Yuuki gets ready to attack... and... then that counter-attack, the dark blade striking at it, dealing a small amount of damage to its health bar!

     Merek goes... all in. Focusing on it. And attacking with everything he has! This does a small chunk of damage to the boss's second health bar, and ... gets its attention focused on him. Once more, one of those AoE indicators floats above his head, while the boss skitters over towards him, lifting it's claws to attempt to stab at him repeatedly, and then... lift him up into its mouth and BITE DOWN with a powerful poisonous bite.

     Erufu is working out pretty well, doing her job... and... poison rushes over the antlion's form! Filling it with another poison debuff! It ... doesn't seem too interested in attacking Erufu this round, as Merek was doing his job as a tank well!

    Yuuki faces off against the Zombie Antlion.

    Zombie Antlion faces off against Yuuki.

    They both charge each other at the same time!

    Zombie Antlion's pincer comes streaking into Yuuki to cut red across her.

    Yuuki's sword bursts into flames as she cries out, swinging the blade upwards into Zombie Antlion.

"It's only kind of my /job/ Yuuki!" Prophylaxis shouts over the chaos of combat. His staff whirls, curtains of arcane energy briefly flashing in the air around him. Is he preparing a spell of some sort? The zombies aren't having it. The undead insects know that the best thing to do to a tricksy wizard is to grapple him to death, and proceed to attempt just that. They leap at the magus, jaws snapping and mandibles gnashing...!

...And strike empty air.

The 'Prophylaxis' that stands there seems to flicker ever so slightly, before the image disintegrates into a billion motes of glittering light. A duplicate? Or...

There's another Prophylaxis about ten feet away, a half-dozen more standing within a yard of that one. Each one stands with the heads of their staves ablaze with a spherical helix of flame. The monsters were able to avoid a single overwhelming attack, but...

...What about a barrage of dozens of illusory missiles, an onslaught of fake firepower that hides the true projectile in a cloud of falsehoods.

Wizards! They're a tricksy bunch!!

    Merek looks to the antlion while it begins to sweep into him, the man managing to bring up what looks to be a shield, which is made with wind. Aero sweeps away a little bit, even then it seems like a lot of the aggro is on him at the moment. The man is launched back until it looks like his bar is about out of HP. WARNING. The man takes a look and will sweep a hand along it, "I can't leave you all here until we win, I need to keep fighting." The shimmer of the marks on his avatar will lift up.

    Setsuna looks at the antlion and then to the party and notices that he is doing a little better then the others. " People should start falling back if they need. " He feels the burning the sensation of the ant lion's attack but it was worth it. Raising his hand to his face , covering his right eye for a moment. As he pulls his hand away he lets out the call for the spell, "Hunter's eye!." As it glows with energy he tosses a ball of darkness at the antlion, enhanced with dark energy.

While this is not The Elf's normal party she's come to find she's found a good party here. The boss is however proving to be very tough here, very damn tough here. Things are not looking good for her friends at the moment. she's keeping up her attacks on the Antlion firing another salvo of arrows but things don't go so well this time even as she keeps laying down arrows.

"If you need to go do it, I'll cover you!"

     Flaming sword strikes Antlion. Antlion gets burned! In fact... the antlion zombie burns /up/ and breaks into red pixels, exploding away into nothingness as that fire strikes through it! Yuuki gets some experience and a pittance of gold. Like two or three pieces. Basically worthless, but she has it!

     Sadly, Prophylaxis' attack doesn't fare so well, hitting another one of those earth walls that builds up in front of it, taking all of those illusory missiles and reducing their damage to mostly nonexistence!

     Merek had managed a return strike that... mostly broke down the defenses of that creature, leaving that stone wall mostly broken and about to fall down... until.... that ball of darkness strikes, breaking through the wall of darkness and causing it to fall, leaving the creature open for incoming attacks!
     Which Erufu takes advantage of! That salvo of arrows striking true, as well as a stray arrow taking out that other zombie antlion, leaving the party to just focus on that boss!

     Which is a good thing, because that boss is charging the party, swiping out its sharp claws to attack the entirety of the party with several sweeping attacks!

    Merek looks to the creature while it begins to try and sweep into him again. This time he begins drawing his axe, while he takes a moment to make a stance. "We all will win! I am going to weaken it, when I do... You all need to strike it, make sure that you don't take damage. This is all I can do, it's been a pleasure fighting with you."
    The man will begin charging along into the antlion while he lifts up his axe to use a shield. Only a little of the whole strike manages to hit him. Then he comes from it while that red shimmer will flow from him. It looks like he can't take another hit from the enemies, then he lifts up his axe... "Frozen amid fields. I draw forth the power. FROST SHOCK!" The man swings that axe right into the antlion, while a wave of ice forms, then lightning begins to draw along, taking away its defenses while he watches.

    Setsuna doesn't seem to be doing much to protect himself at the moment, he was trying to bring as much 'fire' as he could , to hopefully pull some aggro off the others. His summoned lightning rains down on strategic spots that the hunter's eyes provides him. Then he realizes one way to make sure he gets the things attention. " HEY QUEEN! I KNOW YOU'RE THERE! Just so you know, I am going to steal your drones, just like I stole the other queens knight, I will steal your's too." With a cocky grin on his face as he runs his mouth..the best taunt ever.

Did you know?

Where there is one mirror image barrage...

THERE ARE USUALLY TWO MIRROR IMAGE BARRAGES!!

Seriously though, there is inexplicably just another dozen Prophylaxi standing in the direct opposite corner of the room from the first set, and all of them have firebolts to launch, too. Sure, the boss' massive attacks are able to wipe out several of the illusory magus copies at a time, but the fact remains...

...That this wizard is clearly some subspecies of cheatyface.

    Yuuki's dash past the charging zombie antlion comes to a stop as she turns around to face her foe. Only to find it exploding into pixels. This seems like an actual woo moment. Rather than the previous, fake woo moment. Yes, "Wooo!" Now that the add has been dealt with, Yuuki turns her attention to the main boss itself. She grins.

    Yuuki charges forward, rushing across the ground straight towards the boss as it's charging the party. But she manages to avoid its charge by laping into the air. Landing upon one of its large pincers, she runs up the limb. As she reaches its body, she stabs her blade into it and starts pulling it along with her. She puts a huge gouge into the boss.

    Finally, Yuuki pulls her blade free and leaps off. She lands upon the sandy ground once again, spinning around and skidding to a stop to observe her handiwork.

     As the damage continues to come in, the party is faced with... very suddenly, a casting bar above the boss's health bar. It is going forward slowly, and it has gone mostly defensive in its positioning. Meanwhile, Setsuna's call is falling on deaf ears, because the queen has nothing to do with this! At least not the queen he's thinking about.

     Merek's attacks come in, that weakening effect on the boss striking hard and preparing for the party to attempt to do the damage rush because that slow ass cast bar doesn't seem like it's a great idea to allow. Luckily there are more mirror image barrages coming towards the boss, starting to damage it further! While the Thunder Fury strikes the boss true! And... brings it down to 0 HP, right as that spell goes off! ... Dealing... low damage, instead of full damge to the party, still, it was a burst of fire and stone, sending stalagmites and stone fragments flying all around!

     Even as HP ticks down... there was... suddenly, a healing spell that goes off, washing over the party just before anyone would tick down all the way to death!

     A young looking Person of the Land is on a firelizard mount standing nearby... having just finished casting her spell. Before she skitters off back out of the firelizard warrens and off into the night, before the party can even address her.

                    V I C T O R Y!

    Merek lifts up a hand to draw that repelling shield before him even as the antlion would try to keep killing the party. It looks like he's about to be killed, his whole form seems to be shimmering in red, then it drifts along upward... Before that healing spell comes upon him, while the shield manages to keep that antlion from managing to kill him. The man looks about the place, watching and panting, then looks to where the person on the firelizard went.

Erufu has got pretty good at the whole actually being a Ranger thing. It's much more interesting than her old life was that much is sure. Hopefully, the venom from her earlier shots are still working as she keeps firing more arrows of various sorts and keeps moving but the Antlion is getting far better at things. She can't let up she's not about to let Merek go down. It's lost on her that everyone here will get back up if they fall. It's due to often partying with Landers who are part of the Hunters Guild, notably a certain Goblin Slayer.

"Is everyone all right?!"

    Setsuna watches the boss go down and throws up a shield of bone and darkness and even has to have his knight step in and take some of the fire too. In the end he is exhausted as he sits down. "Ok good job everyone. Lets say we just take tomorrow off. I think we earned it." With that he lays back and closes his eyes for a moment...only a minute he swears.

    Yuuki phews, rubbing her forehead with her swordarm as the big antlion finally explodes into pixels. While she had managed to avoid the majority of the ending move thanks to a well timed speed sword arte, she notices that her HP is a lot better off than she had realized. Looking around, she notices someone rushing away on a mount.

    Yuuki huhs, "Must be a story NPC." Oh well.

    Yuuki sheathes her sword, giving a wave to Erufu, "All good!" She starts looking through the loot she got from that boss fight.