Duty Session 243: Karluin Reclamation - Town

Welcome to Karluin.

It is a -mess-.

It is thanks to the shiny new weapons that the goblins posses that this town has become such a problem. Arashi has stomped her way from Shibuya to Aincrad, and ascended the tower to this point, all with the intention to ruin the day of some goblins. A lot of goblins. It'd be ALL the goblins if she had her way, but that is probably beyond her capability. Not without an entire army behind her. Thankfully, gear was supplied to her on her angry way out of town.

Goblinsbane was sent with her, and any that probably tagged along. The oil is here, in bags, waiting for anyone that wants to use them. At this moment, Arashi is applying some to her broken blade, and to her second one. This is the only calm that will occur for her tonight. . . Or not.

It seems the goblins are impaitent! Arashi just gives a snort as the arrows begin to fly, surging against the line that SEA has set up. "So that's how it is going to be...? ... So be it." Both her weapons are given a twirl. She doesn't seem to give the cross fire much regard. She's a were-fang on a mission, now.

Schneider is venturing out from Karluin on another goblin hunting expedition. Venturing's kind of a strong word, he's been living here, lately, in the nearby Scale camp. It's always goblins, here. There seems not to be an end to them. On the one hand. On the other hand, it's XP, on the hoof. He nods to the others, adjust the set of his tunic, and makes to venture out with the others.

That they're met almost immediately by an attack seems not to surprise him much, and he flips his hand up, chanting, "DAMEDO! Magic Shield!" And not a moment too soon, an invisible, or mostly invisible shield appears, arrows clattering off it and shattering, mostly, though a few arriving at shallower angles glance off.

Kaydon was after Xander, and that wasn't going to change. But Arashi had asked for help, and he wasn't going to let her down. She was a friend.

He had his Damascus blade and had put some of the Goblinsbane oil on it, as well as giving it a sharpening with his whetstone. Though when the arrows begin to rain down on the group, instead of taking cover or running, he just begins to swat the arrows out of the air with his blade like they were annoying flies, "Wonder if he gave them the bows, too."

    Akatsuki is here. She's been trailing after Arashi since she first left. The little Imp muttered something about how ninjas simply should not have as much free time on their hands as she does, but with Shiroe so busy these days... Here she is.
    Having already applied goblinbane to her myriad weapons and plenty of shuriken, the little ninja just...
    She just freaking appears from out of nowhere, carrying a big sack of weapons on her back. Knives, daggers, throwing stars, short swords, you name it, she has it.
    "..."
    Arrows begin flying almost immediately.
    One arrow catches Akatsuki by the bag... And tears it open.
    And all of the stoic ninja's weapons go falling to the ground.
    "-...-"
    She spent so much time packing them, too...

    Honestly, an ambush is just ... so much nonsense. At least Arashi had some help with this. Schneider isn't someone she expected, but any help is welcome help, here. The mare with a mission just wants to stab goblins. That's really all she wants. For now? Though? Time to try and avoid arrows. Kinda. She's just blitzing forward! If she avoids them, fine. If not? She doesn't care. Heads are going to start rolling quite shortly.

The last time Shiruba was up here it was simply because the goblins were infesting what could be the archeological ruins of a city. The only real reason she had to be interested in something in the Tower she otherwise didn't care about.

This time... was different. This was a mission of more dire means. "I know most of us do not concern much with the Tower climb. I know these actions were made not in the name of the Alliance... but if we are to be the world's defenders it still falls to us to do something to clean up the mess that has been made, before the threat can spread farther than it already ha--"
*fwoosh*
Shiruba is forced to duck as an arrow buzzes by, clipping a few stray strands from her wild mane of hair. "--How rude! Interrupting my effort at making a proper inspiring speech as Guild Leader!" Not the goblins seem to care, and Arashi is charging headlong into things in her.. uh.. more heated than usual mood.

"Oh how do I get into these things.." Shiruba stomped a foot to the ground, just as more arrows are fired, and there's a fwoosh of frost and ice up from the ground billowing around her.

Which the hunter charges out of, several of the arrows now sticking out of the layer of ice temporarily surrounding her. Several more chink into it but she keeps moving. "Gods above I didn't expect -this- to become part of my training, but at least I came prepared!"

Erufu has been here before, it's still not been cleaned out now here she is. Also part of this is Gigan's fault, well away she foes agian. The pooka is armed fairly well and on the move but she's not quick enough to get to cover in time. She takes an arrow, cries out. She'ls able to pull it out and keep up with her allies but she's already losing out on HP at this rate.

"It's that idiot's fault! I should tell Orcbalg about this!"

These are not very happy elf sounds at all...

    Sadly, Arashi doesn't really avoid all the arrows. One gets her in the shoulder, square. It's promptly ripped out and, held onto? What ever for? To return to sender. Now, though? Just a bunch of buildings? Seriously? "GET YOUR ASSES OUT HERE ALREADY!" she barks out, clearly still frustrated about the day before which is being added to by the lack of fighting person to person. At least she IS a map maker.

Schneider hustles out and away from the ambush, into the ruin's streets, which are, of course, ruined. It makes getting around confusing. Particularly if you're not a tracker or a scout. He's neither, nor does he have a map to refer to, so he will wander along and follow those who seem to know where they're going. Hopefully there are no handbaskets involved.

He nods to Erufu about bringing the Goblin Slayer here. "He'd have his work cut out for him here, that's for sure. One zillion goblins, no waiting." But there's things he can do, as support. Helping with the piles of debris that threaten to collapse on us is, not glamorous or cool, but it -is- helpful. Just don't tell anyone.

    It takes Akatsuki a moment to recollect all her weapons, and some of them are courteously sent back at the goblin outriders hard and fast, for their trouble. But then it's time to move on.
    Karluin is pretty bombed out though so once the goblins are dealt with, the tiny imp starts to scout ahead for the group, picking out safe paths and helping to avoid buildings that look ready to collapse.

Erufu has recovered enough to get back to work and she's now staring to track for a moment. "Oh he's been here, I was talking to someone else. SCALE hired him because of this place honestly." She nots and she'll start keeping track of where everyone has been, galling out to her allies as needed hopefully this should get them all through it unharmed, right?

Once they're out of the immeadiate line of fire Shiruba pulls one of the arrows out of her Frost Armor as it's crackling apart. "These arrows are crude," she replies to Kaydon, and tosses the shaft away. "They've likely used up any they were given and are cobbling together more. But crude arrows would still work in advanced bows." Speaking of advanced bows, she draws one that is a lot fancier than what Arashi has seen her with in the past. This one has arms reinforced with metal, both for better tension, and for being used to deflect melee weapons without breaking. The other hand pulls a piece of map parchment out, as she scribbled notes the last time they were up here alongside what the Hunter's Guild already had. She paces around the room for a moment, checks map, and then points. "That way. That section of buildings are in relatively less disarray, it should give us a stable route farther into the ruins... But keep your eyes out for traps. Akatsu--" pause. No ninja. "--She's already scouting ahead, I guess. Erufu, you're the goblin expert here, let us know if you see anything suspicious."

Kaydon is doing what he can to try to keep the rubble from falling down around them, but it's not the most successful as the debris is coming down around him here and there, "Damnit. You'd think maybe they could have not destroyed the place while fighting the boss.."

Schneider winds up following the others through to the small party scrambling to do some emergency excavation. He's not much help, though, the tiny earth elemental he summons able to lift only the smallest of rocks. Not impressive. He looks a bit chagrinned, he usually summons larger earth elementals. But for this one, he just can't ... do what he needs to do.

One of those falling bricks manages to peg Kaydon in the head. He lets out a frustrated roar and then begins to tear at the debris, starting to rip things open to make the path to the next section clear, but he's going to be very clearly focused on that more than anything else.

Eventually the group finds there way to a cave-in, and another group working to clear the way. It doesn't seem too out of the ordinary for an Adventurer's night, but when one of the other group's members mentions having people trapped on the other side, and actual -growl- emits from the wolfgirl as her ears slick partway back. "More collateral victims of... they'd never been able to cause a collapse like this without decent tools!" Then a gruff sigh to smooth her emotions back out, and she walks over to the wall of rock and rubble to inspect it. Then takes a few steps back again. "Okay team, let's do this. I know we came to kill goblins and retrieve the contraband weaponry, but rescuing others entangled in this mess is still important too!"

As others start tearing an opening through the obstruction Shiruba knocks a few of her stone-tipped arrows into her bow and fires them at the sides of the forming tunnel. The Earth energy released from them travels up and down the surface, hardening into crystallized pillars to form new support to keep the rest of the cave-in from collapsing on them.

Erufu says "Best to rescue them. You know what goblins will do to people they corner. They might be weak but they have numbers...and are sneaky." They ain't smart but they are not fools either after all. She'll channel some of her own earth based skills. It's enouth to help the pary get thoguh this without bringing it down.

"Don't worry we'll help I think we can spare the time."

    Scouting done for the moment, Akatsuki returns to the group.
    When it turns out there's a party trapped behind a collapsed wall, the tiny imp takes to a knee.
    "Thorn Bind Hostage." She murmurs as vines and thorns begin to spread from her fingers into the ground, winding into the collapse and beginning to loosen it up for the others to take apart.

Kaydon isn't going to let these guys die, at least not without a fight. Nobody else in the group is particularly tanky. So he throws himself inbetween the goblins and the knight, "Hey fuckers."

Consider that a taunt, because he's trying to drag their attention off the knight and onto him.

Once the smoke clears, Schneider sees that a horde of goblins is swarming over the defenders, who're looking to be in pretty bad shape. It's going to be a combined arms fight to kill the goblins gas enough and rescue the allies, and Schneider lays in with ranged DPS. "ZAKO DAMERO!" he shouts, the low-damage basic attack spell is enough to zot a goblin, and it recharges fast enough that he can spam the attack dozens of times and not put a dent in his mana bar. A big AOE would be nice, but that'd get his allies and the people we're here to rescue. No, one at a time, but they're falling quickly.

The group gets through the obstruction, and sure enough it's just what the Elf Ranger has implied. The Goblins trying to pin down people trapped by the collapse. "Hey! Path over here!" But interestingly enough she doesn't hang back like she normally would, but bounds to the front line alongside Kaydon. "Cover us!" She draws back the string of her bow, and sparks crackle down the lines and the arms to gather, without an arrow, to form into the projectile of electricfied aether. "Time to show them Thundersnow can do more than just offense.. Brake Wind!" She fires, and the bolt expands into a blast of sparkling air that intercepts several of the goblins rushing in at Kaydon's taunting, blowing them back from the front line and the wounded fleeing back down the path they made in. It's like she took an Aero and fired it into the enemy's faces instead of them coming to strike it.

    Into the breach and there are goblins to be slaughtered. Kaydon takes aggro and Akatsuki does what she does best.
    She ramps her DPS up to an insane degree. Kodachi in one hand, dagger in the other she wades into the goblins like a miniature blender.
    It's not pretty. There's a lot of red light and pixels when she's done.

Being a cartographer works out! Arashi's able to keep her sense of direction clear and marches her way through the broken, shattered buildings, on her hunt to find some goblins and remove their heads from their shoulders. Why is that being so difficult? Seriously? Argh. What comes next is ... unexpected. Another group? Saving people? What in the blazes is going on. She was told there were goblins to murder! She has only seen them at range! BLUH! While the pwny is seeing red, she can't just walk away without helping. It's why she marches up and just -beats- on the objects in the way with that busted sword. It -is- already busted, after all. A sharp eye would notice that while sparks fly, it doesn't damage it any further.

Smoke clears, people are saved, and then two issues are spotted. Arashi only sees one. The knight fighting the horde of goblins. Everyone here should know what she's about to do. Why is she humming .. something? It sounds like a song... from the USA? "Smashing through the boundaries, lunacy has found me...~" And then? She's just gone. You all blinked, and she is gone in that moment. In the next, she's behind one of the goblins, attacking the knight, blade through it's spine as she just whispers into it's ear.

        "Cannot stop the battery..."

And then she becomes a whirlwind among the ranks. It's ... a sight to behold. She isn't holding back. At. All. And this is probably the first time among people she trusts. This is the solo player that found her legendary weapon and -will- have it reforged. Someday.

Kaydon isn't a healer by any means, but he knows a trick or two when it comes to light magic. So he uses what he has in order to keep the injured adventurers up and running, and ensure they can make it through the rest of the day.

Schneider is left, in the aftermath, looking around at the scene and wondering what he can do. The truth is, he built this PC as Dark Schneider, with poweful fire magic, and insane regeneration. But the game didn't really do regeneration as a thing, so he has general healing, but usually only uses it on himself. But his big, dark secret, revealed here, is that his regeneration works on ... well, pretty much anything. It's not a named spell from his source material, and he never came up with a name for it. But the insane regeneration of the exploder wizard is shared among the injured targets, and it actually seems to be enough to help this desperate party to heal their allies.

Shiruba lets out another uncharacteristicly irrate growl as she sees the aftermath of the goblin ambush, her tail giving several quick swishes with her sour mood. "He should be here, seeing the fallout of what his actions did..." Not having any magical medical skills, she goes picking through the rubble trying to find anything else that could possibly help. "Find some scraps or something to make bandages from. Get them stable enough to be moved to safety." She's not medic but she's still trying to be a good leader and keep the situation under control.

    With some of the party injured by goblins, Akatsuki goes in search of healing items.
    She returns kind of empty handed, and awkwardly kicks a pebble because of it.

Well thing have been goiing all right for Elf so far. Having picked off the goblins back with the fight she lets off severl burst shot to deal with the goblins who hace come into the breachj and soon it's on to the next problem. She's looking to help with the other party she'll start searching for potions or anything else that might be of use however she comes up dry fo that.

That whirlwind comes to end after a LOT of goblins end up on the ground. There are red pixels -everywhere-. They evaporate soon enough, but it is quite clear that there was a lot of them that went down. Any weaponry that Arashi sees? That's not terrible? Looted. She has a place to take all of it.

    Hearing the wizard beg for help, the were-fang stalks toward one particular puff of pixels. Loot. A tonic of some sort. It's tossed the wizard's way. Thus, she marches ever onward. There's more to do.

There's a BIG something to do. A massive monstrosity of metal comes lumbering out before them. Arashi can't help herself. She just smiles. "There it is," she muses, knowing full well there was going to be something bigger than just a handful of goblins. She's off like a bolt of lightning, lunging upward, both blades ready to come down, deal damage, and then to orbit it like an electron around an atom. Fast, precise, and -violent-.

Now if there's one thing Kaydon is good at, it's finding weak points in armor. He could rush in and start whacking away at the creature, but that's not going to help the others.

"Go for the chest!" Kaydon calls out, "Or the spots at the shoulders! Or hips!"

He's eventually going to move in and strike, but he wants to help the team score the most damage before he does.

Schneider looks up as he sees this enormous mechanical creature erupting from the collapsed structure. "That's nod good," he murmurs. He ducks a huge hunk of debris, and says, "Oh, that's how it's going to be? Let's see how you like this." There's an air of a gauntlet being thrown down, and Schneider chants sonorously.

"Kaizard, aruzard, kisk! Hansay Glossik! Unleash total destruction! Sage of Hades use the seven keys to open the gates of Hell!" He gestures, and shouts, "HALLOWEEN!" The explosion is huge and intense. Nearby buildings shatter, there is a crater in the ground, and if there were a mushroom cloud overhead, no one would be surprised. There's a dark misasma about the explosion also, a dark aura lingers afterward, and Schneider grinning with smug satisfacion in the hellish aftermath of that forbidden spell.

"Get them and the other wounded back to a safe point, we'll meet you on the way out to escort to the exit." With that settled Shiruba sprints off to rejoin the rest of her group. Her affinity with the ground as well as air can already feel the rumbles of a really big thing moving. Which is exactly what it is. A stray and very destructive machina. "All the goblin activity likely disrupted it into activating." She's not going to risk her shield training against rubble being thrown around and dives to roll aside of a chunk of masonary being lobbed in her direction instead. With the quick move she rolls onto a kneeling position, her bow already up. Ionization can be felt in the air around her as she draws back on it, from the aetheral energies being channeled into it. "Find a weak point in it's armor, or aim for that crystal on it!"

She scowls, focusing her arm. Her hair and mane whip back in the air from the amount of power that's being channeled into her weapon, as Thundersnow Howl allows her to manifest certain elements directly into projectiles and in this case form an arrow from literal lightning. Breath... Aim...

"Lord. Of. VERMILLION!"

And release. There's a thunderous whail as the shot is released, the bolt of lightning screaming towards the magitek construct to strike it directly in the embedded crystal she mention. There's three brilliant flashes in rapid succession as the discharge crashed through the thing's frame!

    That sure is a lot of dead goblins around Arashi, just wading in so murderously like that.
    "Mmmm..." Akatsuki murmurs as--
    Something busts through a collapsed structure. Something big and metal and Kaydon points out its structural weaknesses.
    In an instant Akatsuki...

    Completely vanishes from sight.

    Only to re-appear hanging in the air upside-down over the construct, kodachi in hand.

    "ASSASSINATE!"

    She comes down, short sword at the ready, blade flashing with deadly intent as she suddenly maximizes her DPS in one complete an utter spike of pure, raw, murder as she drops on it.

Thankfully thge party is able to help the other group though no thanks to her, but it's far from over yet. They need to get them out of here, however they now have some issues again. The massive goblin has shown it's face again We,, if you could even call it a goblin. "YOU AGAIN!?" She would be moving at high speed as she launches a number of attacks trying to take this horrible monster down. It can't be the same one it just means there are ... more than one...

The deed is done. The urban monster has been felled. Goblins scatter even as Arashi glares about, hoping to spot a few more to deal with. Alas, they flee to quickly to be dealt with. Meh. She starts to turn toward the others, sheathing her blades, only to notice that her broken blade is .. glowing? It gets her to freeze, to look around a little, and then as she looks to the fallen boss mob, who isn't turning to pixels just yet, she gets a sort of 'oh hell' look on her face and darts toward it, inspecting, searching, possibly looting. Her efforts are rewarded! She has found not just one shard of her broken weapon, but -two-. "...That's never happened before.."

The monstrousity goes down. Goblins scatter, not wanting to deal with the Adventurers that felled such a thing. Shiruba is quick to go grab some of the weapons they've dropped.. she'll probably get one of the other smiths to smelt them down and reuse the materials for something constructive. Then Arashi sounds surprised and she looks up. "Huh.. Wait, one of your Shards WERE in the Tower?"

    That's about when Akatsuki just re-appears.
    Behind Arashi.
    A little too close inside personal space.
    "Have you blown off enough steam, yet?"
    She has more knives if Arashi says no.

Kaydon moves over to the pair nearby once the boss is down, looking at the weapons that Shiruba is picking up, "I'll take those. I could use the metal for something a bit more productive." Though when Arashi mentions that never happening before, he spots both shards, "Two shards? Wow..Wait that means you could have shards anywhere in the tower?"

Schneider peers at the elemental shard, then looks up, wondering, "Did I miss something?" He looks around, then says, "Let's get out of here. The goblins are gone now, but they'll come back." And he's fired off his big spell.

WIth the creature down and many og the goblins fallen but more escape. shes' not happy about this but still they have thinned them out. She'll look over to Arashi. "So got what you were looking for?" She seems pleased overall with how things have gone and muses. She muses at her own loot and seems to grin "Oh I think I can use this..."

Shiruba actually smiles a little as she passes the weapons to Kaydon. "That's exactly what I was intending for someone to do." Then she walks over to Arashi. "Two even. That's quite a haul, on top of the effort we've made here. Oh, which reminds me..." She puts her bow away and rummages in her inventory for a moment to pull out a parchment, and hand it to Arashi. "You guys were already on a boat by that point so you probably missed this..."

It's a copy of Bear's tariff notice. "He didn't say anything on the Chimlink because he didn't want word leaking out before it was properly posted."

"I had plans to start searching in Aincrad, I've been waiting for floors to clear so I would be uninterrupted... but two? There could be loads of them in here," Arashi considers, glancing around at everyone. Akatsuki gets a nod, "I'm fine.." then the poster about the tariff. "... And better still.." Huh. Good day, good day indeed. "Also, Kaydon, we need to talk... but maybe on the way back, then. This took a bit longer than I thought it would.."

"Is it about what I assume everyone wants to talk to me about?" He asks Arashi, as the group slowly heads towards the exit, "Because I'm all ears, whatever it may be."

    "Eh? No. It's about something else entirely. And why I'm glad you've learned to work with very hard, and very unique materials."