Duty Session 246: Goblins in Mac Anu

It's not easy to do all the walking Jazz has been doing lately, but there you have it. Now she's gone to Mac Anu, to help mop up some of the goblins that've been a problem for a while. Fuka and Uta have, over chim, made arrangements to meet her there. Fuka, because it's an opportunity to help Jazz learn her neat trick about MULTIPLE drownings, and Uta because...

...well, Jazz may have CASUALLY implied that she thought Uta was already there and it must be the girl from the menu.

That's why Uta beat them all there.

"Hi, Uta," she says as she arrives.

"Where. Is. she!" Uta asks, glaring around, staff clutched in her hands. "I demand to know where that scoundrel has been hiding." She peeks behind nooks and crannies, under rocks, and finally raises her weapon to the heavens.

"Reveeeeeal yourseeeeelf!", she sings, as if it was the operatic end of a Wagnerian passage.

Her staff lights up accordingly, and lightning strikes behind her.

Seems like Kauchemar's theatrics are rubbing off on her.

     Fuka, meanwhile, has been around the area of Mac Anu for research and practice purposes, so frankly... she was easy to arrange a meetup with for doing things with the goblins! Because she was already literally in that city area looking for her perfect Arena to properly fit her Skills as the leader of the arena. So actually... Uta didn't beat her. She was just being lazy and talking her dear sweet time getting to the meetup point! Totally. That's what it was.

     "She's in your shadow." Yuri says with a playful little smirk towards Uta. "But not literally, I'll let you think on that one while we go col-- I mean murder some goblins." She idly lifts her trident towards the entrance to the sewer, casually opening it. "Let's go, I can't wait to see what the adorable little monstrosities have done to the sewers of this gorgeous city." Look, Uta likes slimes, Yuri likes... monsters in general really. She's not picky. She has a giant beetle after all!

"She must've sensed you coming," says Jazz to Uta, faux-sadness in her eyes. Actually, there's nothing faux about it. Jazz is always sad, she just isn't sad over this. Mostly.

The lightning and drama just makes her roll her eyes, though, and her attention turns to the others. Then she's finding the entrance to the sewers and dipping into with the two of them behind her. "Let's get this over with," she says with a heavy sigh, her feather duster out and pointed, the tip of it swirling with watery energy. It isn't long before they find themselves in a cavernous, maze like set of tunnels that go ... everywhere, constantly.

"Ugh, this is a colossal cave adventure. It's a maze of twisty passageways that are all alike."

It is, in fact, a maze of twisty passageways that are all alike.

     "Wait. You invited us. Why on earth are you acting like you don't want to be here?" Yuri frowns as she looks towards Jazuhanzu. It's not really an /upset/ tone, just... she's kind of confused as she slips into the sewers, holding her trident at the ready. "Anyway, you're right, let's get through this." She lifts her hand, casting a couple of quick chants, summoning her twin pufferfish monster summons to float in the air around her in small spheres of water and prepare for combat.

     She walks forward calmly to take the lead, regardless of if she's leading them the right way... but she probably was. She was using her Tracking skill to follow goblin tracks, so she could probably do it fairly well enough. "Let's see... goblins, goblins, goblins... OH HEY LOOK GOBLINS! Aaaand they're aiming at u--" Ka-chunk. Fwip. The crossbow bolt grazes along Fuka's cheek. She frowns as she walks forward. "Hey. That hurt you little shit, I wasn't going to just kill you guys but I will if yo--" Fwip fwip fwip. "HEY NO STOP THAT!" Aaaand Fukasa is being peppered by crossbow bolts for her hubris.

Uta swivels on one foot and points the tip of her staff downward towards her shadow, the other hand raised above her head fencing-style. "She could /literally/ be there! One time I was fighting with Kauchemar and she tried to stab me! My superior deduction skills have revealed to me how this dark silhouette that keeps following me is suspiciously Girl-from-the-Menu shaped and sized! Coincidence? I think /not/!"

She squints down at her shadow. "I'm onto you."

In response to Jazz's comment, Uta flicks her menu open and materializes a brass lantern in her hand. "We should avoid areas that are too dark. Who knows what's lurking there."

When in the sewers, Uta seems strangely enthralled by the... /walls/ of the sewers, for some reason. "Fascinating...", she trails off, quietly.

"You know?", she finally explains. "Cyrus pointed out that there is variety in the nature of sewer walls, across cities. I had never noticed before, too focused on the... ah... local fauna, especially the kind that tries to murder you, but actually, look at this." She runs one hand over the wall. "Absolutely smooth. It looks so modern. How did they do it?" She turns to face the team again. "This is truly the work of-" She leaps off to one side to dodge the incoming attack. "Oh hey, what were we saying about the fauna trying to kill you, again?"

"Doing a thing doesn't mean *liking* the thing," says Jazz to Fukasa, "I don't exactly like wandering around in sewers and getting --"

ANd then there are goblins. Goblins shooting at her. She manages to fail avoiding them entirely and isn't able to get her magical shielding up in time, and diving for cover doesn't work as she takes bolts in her back that pierce her long coat and leave her wincing in pain as her HP drops substantially. Thanks for the pain dampeners, game designers! "Urgh!"

Then the foot soldiers charge in. The fight is brief, the adventurers able to dispatch the goblin warriors and their crossbowman, but not without taking a bit more HP than you'd like from simple goblins. Guess they're still not to be underestimated for obvious reasons.

Once they're reduced to pixels, they're able to move on to a more heated cavern. With a Hobgoblin. That's ... on ... fire.

And charging. And yelling unintelligbly. And swinging at them.

Jazz just blinks her lambent eyes at him and says, "Are you shitting me?"

     "...Uta I think you're being paranoid. If Kauchemar made her attempt to stab you it was probably just an illusory clone of her." Yuri comments towards Uta with a soft chuckle. "Anyway..." She pauses. "..." It's endearing, so she's honestly fine with it. Uta was one of those people that she found amusing, so was glad to have her around.
     Still, there were more goblins shooting at her, and she just... eventually gets annoyed, and points towards her puffer fish, and then towards the goblins, taking several more shots from the goblins with a grimace while unleashing several rounds of pufferfish needles towards them to start removing the initial goblin problem. Of course, said goblins probably had enough time to skitter away into the shadows.
     So Yuri was beginning to follow after them! Peppering them with more of those pufferfish needles! Huff!

     "Yeah, well, you could... you know... try to be ... a bit more... interested seeming at least!" She says, of course, it's hard to be happy when being stabbed with bolts and by goblins. And then... then there is...
     A hobgoblin. That is on fire. "Oh man this is perfect, a fire elemental monster and we have /two/ undines here! Quick! Jazuhanzu, use Water Gun!" Speaking of water guns, Fukasa points her twin monster pufferfish towards the hobgoblin.
     "Drown." She points towards the hobgoblin, and the two unleash a massive pile of water on the hobgoblin to make it, well, drown. And possibly trigger Uta PTSD.

Uta's stare does, indeed, go completely blank.

Heartbeat noise.

Increasingly loud and fast heartbeat noise.

Cue terrified screaming as she runs for cover somewhere.

The shockwave of the screaming does seem to hammer at the Hob-Goblin and dock HP from it, though. That helps.

Jazz's reaction to the hobgoblin is a lot like Fuka's. She calls upon a torrent of water that drives him back, dousing him in it and leaving him sputtering. The now drenched and distinctly not flaming Hobgoblin is made quick work of. This is one challenge that the two water-breathers were extremely well prepared for. Of course, Uta might've gotten sprayed in the process. It'd be unfortunate if that happened. Good thing there are no cat people in the party.

Jazz, still bleeding, steps over the dissolving, pixelating body of the Hobgoblin and moves into tunnels deeper, expecting them to follow. It takes her a while to pay enough attention to realize that they're lost, and in fact, it's about the same time that she does notice and starts retracting their steps that the hit and run goblin attacks start up. Which she is trying to avoid.

"Now... I ... hey! Knock that off! I'm trying to check my map here," she mutters. She does manage to erect a bubble of water around herself for protectioin, this time. It buys her enoiugh time to concntrate on getting them un-lost.

"...Water! WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE WATER!", Uta complains.

Attacking goblins provide a welcome distraction.

"Don't worry! I got this!", Uta screams, and launches herself into the thick of battle.

Where she gets the pounding of a lifetime, her HP bar getting chunks and chunks and chunks docked off at each attack, sending her from an almost perfect green down into the red.

No, she didn't 'got this'.

     Oh great. They were lost. They were very lost. And... they're lost enough that they're ... really lost! And frankly she... was just getting annoyed at all of the monsters that were buffetting them and slowly wearing them down. Her shield skill was not that good, and the monsters were not really letting her use her evasion skills all that much at the moment, so she spends most of the time fighting them off as best as she can. But even with her shielding, she's... taking chip damage and going down slowly as they navigate the area.

     FINALLY they get a moment of silence to try to gather their thoughts after a long and grueling battle! And that's when she spots it. A lone goblin. One that was not angry and trying to stab them. "...Hey. That one's not attacking us. I want it. FOLLOW IT!" Fuka calls out, and ... she starts to chase after it, following its footsteps. She was grinning like a lunatic.


...Who are we kidding?
She is a lunatic.

"Wait, where are you --" but then Jazz is having to chase after Fukasa, who is chasing a Lone Goblin, and who is no doubt being chased by Uta. Her small nature makes running abysmally inefficient for her, but she is at least able to keep them on point, at least, with her sense of direction. It pays to be good at exploring and keeping track of where you are in twisty tunnels. HEr HP bar has taken some more damage, but not as much as Uta's, who's status effects are getitng her a wary and actually briefly worried look from Jazz.

... still, it is about this time that they stumble out into confronting an entire camp full of goblins.

"Oh," says Jazz.

"Should've seen that coming."

     They chase the goblins, and Fuka, Jazuhanzu, and Uta manage to keep up and find their way to its destination! And... it's... a camp. Full of goblins. There were a lot of them. They were dangerous and going to potentially damage the city and yadda yadda yadda okay yeah no Fuka didn't really care about that. But what she did care about? That sweet sweet loot. She wasn't going to torch the entire place. No. She was going to make it a very, very wet place though, as she lifts her trident.

     "Ancient depths, I call upon thee. Drown these goblins that confront me." And Fuka points towards the goblins with her trident. At first, it seems like nothing is happening. That is... at first. And then the sound of rushing water can be heard, as a small wave begins to rapidly wash over the area. Clues? What are those? Fuka doesn't care about clues. No. She's got a chance to just... drown things.

     And drown things she does. Frankly, it's probably why Uta's attempt to shield and weather the storm... is kind of wasted. Because she's busy making sure /she/ doesn't drown too. But hey. The goblins are gone!

Water.

All.

That.

Water.

One can see something breaking beyond Uta's eyes. An atavistic instinct, a maelstrom of terror and fury, stirs in those depth, and with a blood-chilling scream, it is unleashed in a rage of jumping from Goblin to Goblin and unleashing unrestrained violence on the monsters, in a terrifying display of muscles and teeth.

With everyone's combined effort, the camp is cleared, and Uta remains there, standing, panting, the amount of health left on her rarely having reached such low values.

"...anyway, as I was saying..." Propping up with her staff, she reaches one wall, and points up. "So large. Expansive. No pipes or metal, mind you. That distinguishes these sewers from the ones we're used to. But still, they look so magically modern..." She turns to the rest of the team. "This is the kind of thing you find in root cities. For instance, in Tolbana the sewers are much cruder. They probably require constant maintenance." She squints as she taps the wall with her knuckles "This bad baby, meanwhile, looks like it hasn't been touched in a looong time."

Yep. It seems like her priority, in her almost dead state, is to continue the tour guide to the sewers.