Duty Session 235: The Mountain Memorial

The Landers hiring escorts are standing there in heavy coats and hiking gear... and then you have Kauchemar standing over them in her usual shoulderless short skirted dress and cloak. Granted, with her affinity with the elements of water and cold, the potential weather ahead probably isn't going to bother her too much while waiting for the entire gathering to arrive.

    How in the -hell- did she get roped into this?!

Arashi was shardseeking nearly on the -other side of the world- when she got a message from Kau about needing a hand. ... There was a long moment of just staring at the message, eventually a sigh, some gear purchased, and a ship boarded for a really, really, really long voyage. Meh. Maybe this would be a good thing? She hadn't seen these folks in a long while. She had .. as she often does .. gotten back into her solo-player habits. Deeply.

    At least Shimonoseki was sort of close to the destination. That helped. She still had a lot of supply left, so getting back wouldn't be a big deal either. So. One step after another until the Dire-shire finally found Kau. "Do you know.. how far away, I was?" It's hard to tell if she's mad or not.

Kaydon gives Arashi a little bit of a look, and then grins, "It's only once a year for a week, you'll live." He says, pulling his blade out of his scabbard and checking it over for a moment, "Trust me, it'll be worth it."

Which gets a somewhat smarmy grin from the Nightmare in return. "Do you think it would of mattered if I did? Besides," she gives her mane a hairflip from her face, "you wouldn't of come if you really did not want to~" You can't say she doesn't know her aquaintences well, even the ones she does not encounter so often. "Ah, and here is Kaydon as well. Excellent." She turns, and begins to usher the commonfolk along. "Well, shall we be off? The mountain won't climb itself." Is three Adventurers enough? Well the Landers don't seem to object. Or aren't programmed to. It's hard to tell these days.

Up up up we go, up the slopes and into the woodlands and.. bears. "Let me guess, the dead body is Goldilocks?," Kauchemar quips even as she steps in front of their escortees. "This mission is already un-bear-able." The terrible pun is followed by a thundering boom as she sends a surge of air out to keep the beasts at bay.

    Snort. Whatever! The nightmare isn't getting a spoken response. Arashi just moves to follow along with Kaydon and the landers. Though, Kaydon's words get her attention, "What's once a year? ... Is this an event? I haven't really been looking at the calendar for those things lately..." she admits as they go. "Four shards, at least.." So... +1 in all that time? Not great, but better than nothing.

    Oh. Bears. Angry bears. Familiar anggry bear noise. Rather than engage right away, the were-shire takes a step forward, leaps, and comes down with her broken blade from pretty far up.

    Well she's been keeping up on her training at least.

Well Kauchemar is going to make puns, but Kaydon is going to take things seriously, at least. He grins at Arashi a little bit more, "Yeah it's an event. Part of the Summer Celebration or whatever they're calling it." He replies.

The roar of the bears gets the gnoll to rush forward, ahead of the group. He has his blade out and ready to go, and he meets with the biggest of the bears, blocking it with his sword and shoving it backwards to try to force the bear to retreat.

It takes just a few good smacks and the loud boom in the air to get the bears to back off, having had their fill of the previous kill, and disappearing back into the woods so the group can venture on.

The path leads through the woods and farther up the slope, and into an old abandoned mine. The Landers insist it's faster than going around the mountain, but that doesn't stop them from huddling together and hanging back to let the Adventurer trio take the lead. Up until rocks block their path. And little lizard-rat men swarm out of the dark corners to harass them. "Really? Really..." An ear flicks, even as the nightmare summons some of the rock together into a form resembling a large dire armadillo made out of stone and dirt, and sends it to 'play' with the kobolds so they can get the Landers past. "I can't tell what they're saying, but I bet it has to do with taking candles."

Kobolds, great. Kaydon doesn't /really/ want to hurt these guys, but there's a lot of them.

The gnoll were fang moves up towards a large group of them with their rusty spears and jagged swords, and pulls his shiny damascus blade down to one side. He tilts his head for a moment, popping his neck, before he makes one massive swing of his sword.

It takes a moment or two, but all of the spears and swords wielded by the kobolds fall apart, shattered by the blade breaker. Kaydon then leans down to look directly at them.

"Run."

    Well, that was easier than expected. Arashi was going to come down from above at one of the bears.. but if they're running before that? No problem. That just causes a shrug and a continued trek up the mountainside.

    The cave doesn't even give her pause. When the landers do pause, however, she slips right on by. She'll take care of whatever if no one else does. ... Like these kobolds? Meh. These aren't kobolds. They're awful, that's what they are. Her broken blade is brought up, she moves beside the blacksmith, and then starts to swing out at them in a similar fashion. She just has to get a little closer. "Or don't. I don't care." Stomp. Groundshake. A little emphasis doesn't hurt.

The earth elemental does little more than stand there and be an obstacle, letting Arashi and Kaydon close in to dispatch the filthy little cavedwellers while Kauchemar ushers the Landers along, finding a gap in they can slip through in the rock obstruction. Once the duo rejoins them they continue their trek up and onward, eventually back out into open air.

The peace is short-lived though, as avian skrees echo overhead, and several giant eagles break from the trees and swoop down. "Someone has a sick sense of humor... Cover your ears."

That's the only warning the Landers are getting as Kauchemar digs a hoof into the ground. "o/~ You can't escape this Nightmare... I'll twist your minds with musical flare.
It's time to get up, get ready to fight... o/~" And unleashes one of her deep blasting sonic screams into the air. "o/~ AND BRACE FOR THE BASS TO DROP TONGIHT! o/~"

    Another encounter solved by mostly unviolent means? Works. Not as much exp, but it works. It was a dungeon after all, maybe it could be solved in a non-lethal way? Who knows.

    Outside, the sunset is screencap worthy so... Arashi menus for a second to see if the option still exists, then marches onward.

    Birbs. Mad screeching birbs, flying, and out of reach. "Ugh..." this was still a problem for her load out. So. What's next? She just grabs the first thing in her inventory and throws it at the nearest bird. Turns out it was an item labeled 'wall steak'. Weird. Seems to distract the raptors though. "When did I get that..?"

Well for his part, Kaydon doesn't have much in the way of ranged attacks. Instead he runs back and forth between the various locations where the Landers are about to get hit by birds, blocking them from being struck with his blade as a shield, and keeping them safe while the other two fend off the avian attacks with their sonic screams and masterful meat missiles.

The eagles just stay the hell away from whatever the noise the Nightmare is making. Kaydon keeps the Lander's covered from bird swipes... and then one of the eagles gets smacked in the face by Arashi's improvised projectile. Then realizes what it is, quickly grabs it... and then gets jumped by one of the other raptoral ruffians. They seem to realize it is some form of questionable meat item, and as it doesn't fight back like the Adventurers do, and would rather bicker with each other over the less dangerous meal. "I am not asking where you got that from," Kauchemar quips.

So far, this has proven to not be too difficult... But that might change when they come to where there is suppose to be a bridge. "This was not broken befo--" The elder Lander is cut off by the noise of something large climbing up from beneath the remains of the bridge.

Kauchemar just makes a face. "Really? Really?! A TROLL bridge out here? This is crazy even by my standards of expecting weird references kludge together." She then shrugs, and takes off at a dash towards the troll. "Hey, big and ugly. Over here!", she taunts, then with a surge of water beneath her hooves leaps away as he swings his weapon. The water rolls away from her, with enough force to actually push the troll back and maybe even knock him off balance for the others to deal with. "The tides of change shall change your fate!" How did she do that? Waterslide isn't -that- strong.

    "Kau, -I- don't know where I got it.." Arashi quickly points out before they get moving along. "Or how long I've had it.." she didn't buy it with her supplies? How long was that in her inventory? BLECH. The birds don't seem to care, at least. Good enough.

    Up and up, up some more. Getting dark. Stars coming out. It actually causes Arashi to produce some paper and ink to chart a few things on what looks to be a well tended map. "mm.." glance up. Troll. Bridge. ....

        "... Nope."

    Not even dignifing that pun with a response. Instead she takes one step forward, leans forward, and with a loud clap and rumble, she's just behind the troll in the blink of an eye, Sword out, pointed at his spine. "I said nope."

Troll Bridge. Kaydon puts one of his hands over his face. It's hard to tell if he's laughing or ready to straight up murder the dev who made this one.

"Okay no time for that." He mutters, before he quickly rushes out ahead of the group.

He pulls something out of his pouch on his side and quickly smashes it over his sword, and then drags the weapon across the ground, sending up sparks which ignite the blade.

Kaydon then quickly leaps upwards through the air, using the distraction provided by Arashi's backstab, to deliver several flaming strikes from the blade, ending with a stab to the chest, and then he'll ride the blade down until he's close enough to the ground to leap off.

Water doesn't do much harm to a troll, but it does push him back away from the more vulnerable Landers they're escorting. Arashi gets equally quick hooved from the opposite direction to stab the brute in the back while it's disoriented... and then gets slammed with a flaming blade. He staggers backwards, thankfully -away- from the bridge, before slipping on loose rubble at the edge and tumbling down into the canyon. While still on fire.

"Good thing he didn't fall back on the bridge." Those planks are rickety enough as is. But as long as they don't all try to cross at once, they're fine, and continue on their trek.

"Not much farther," the elder Lander speaks. That in itself should of been a clue of things not being over just yet. If it's not, there's Kauchemar stopping, her eyes flashing as she sees something unseen. "INCOMING" she brays, even as her ghostly shield pops up to block one of the boulders being thrown. Then glances over it. ".. Last time I saw a yeti there was more flashing lights involved..."

    And here Arashi figured that the troll may have been the end of it. ... Meh. Of course it wasn't. Still, the sight of the massive snow beast so near the memorial has her figuring there could be... maybe one boss left if the dungeon wanted to be really nasty. Hopefully not. "Hmm. Alright. No more pulled punches," she decides. Boulders? Meh. The shire darts forward, looking to introduce her broken blade rather forcefully to any bit of the beast she can get at. She is -not- pulling punches. It's pretty brutal, actually.

It seems that Kaydon is aware of the same thing that Kauchemar is referencing, as he gives her a quick glance when she mentions it.

"That one is generally harmless, at least compared to this!"

He dodges the thrown rocks, and closes in towards the yeti. He moves around to a side away from Arashi, so she can get to work hitting it with the broken blade. Kaydon himself goes to town with the damascus sword, tearing into the Yeti with all the might he can muster, and trying to dodge attacks it throws his way.

Kauchemar doesn't actually strike back, she just keeps using her haunted shield and her divination to see the incoming boulders and keep them from striking the Landers, and shouting at her companions. "Left! Right!.. He's gonna try to roll that one!... And if he starts calling anyone George I'm leaving!" It's not an easy fight, especially when one of the three is only defending and calling out attack patterns, but between Kaydon's force and Arashi's skill they manage to whittle away at the Yeti's large health bar. To the point that it roars in frustration, turns, and vaults away to climb farther up the mountain away from the disruptions.

From there, it really isn't much farther to the small memorial site. The Landers go about their ritual, while Kauchemar finally draws out her lute. That might get a few worrying looks from Kaydon and Arashi... but no, she's not playing her usual loud and disruptive sort of music. Instead she settles into something a bit softer and more somber while still lighthearted.

o/~ You would not believe your eyes, if ten million fireflies... Lit up the world as I fell to sleep
Cause they fill the open air, and leave teardrops everywhere... You'd think my rude, but I would just stand and... stare.

I'd like to make myself beli-eve.. That planet earth, turns, slow-ly.
It's hard to say that I'd rather stay awake when I'm alseep... Cause everything is never as it se-ems o/~ "

    Oh. Not-dead Yeti? OK. So they only killed a troll today. ... Nothing of value was lost, then! "Well, that wasn't so bad," Arashi decides before finishing the trek to the memorial, getting the reward ... sort of zoning out for a moment once she has a good look at it.

        "Oh."

    Well it wasn't the sort of reward she was expecting, that's for sure.

Kaydon holds the stone in his hand for a few moments, "Hm." He doesn't know if he'll be able to use it himself, however he has no doubt that it holds special meaning, "Thank you." He offers a bow to the young Lander who gave them the stones. He turns to look out over the view, "At least the path back is clear for them. Wonder if we could make camp up here or if it'd be best to head back.."

Kauchemar finishes her little addition to the ceremony, and accepts the offering. It doesn't seem like much at first... but her eyes do that weird flickering for a moment. "Well, isn't this interesting.." Then she shakes it off, and shrugs a bit to the others. "Oh the way down is never as dangerous, it seems."