Duty Session 257: Karluin Reclamation - Keep

        ....Two Weeks Later.

Yes, Arashi is still here. Yes the war-horse is still taking on goblins wherever she can find them. Yes she's running low on supplies, and yes her inventory is nearly full with plenty of goblin weaponry, but only a certain kind. The sort with someone's forging symbol on them. The newer stuff. The shiny stuff. There's a purpose to it all, and she's almost done.

Others may be around, but she hasn't paid attention. She was refueling on some soup when the messengers came running with information. Information that honestly, she doesn't care about. She's here for one thing, and one thing only. Killin' Na- .. Goblins. She says as much and they move on, looking for more receptive ears.

        The keep looms in the distance.

Goldenblade is here to do two things: kill goblins and smoke cigarettes. And she's all out of cigarettes. When the messengers come in with information, she pays close and thoughtful attention. It doesn't help, the information provided is not sufficiently coherent to her to be of any use. "Plan B is kill every goblin we find," she points out. From her tone, Plan B is a frequent fallback. And not a bad one, all things considered.

Fortunately, Arashi has stumbled directly into and through a Scale Emblem Alliance encampment. One that is, specifically, operating under the watchful eye of the Doctor of Tolbana himself...!

Though admittedly, he may not necessarily be as famous outside of the tower. Still, he knows what a rampaging adventurer looks like when he sees one, and he /also/ knows that the keep is presently NOT THE BEST PLACE TO BE ADVENTURING.

Not like, alone at least.

And so Prophylaxis goes after this goblin-murdering storm of a person, taking with him at least ONE OTHER BRAVE SCALE EMBLEM MEMBER. "Heeeey," Prophylaxis calls, struggling to keep up because he's a squishy mage and not whatever the heck kind of ninja Arashi is. "You're gonna need a healer if you're heading in there...!"

Yea, she's still up here. That's what Shiruba had figured when they hadn't heard much from her. Mare on a mission was putting it lightly at this point. But once the wolfgirl has a bead on her trail it doesn't take too long to track her down amongst the ruins.

"Arashi," the only thing that keeps her from shouting to catch her attention is not wanting to catch the attention of a whole horde of goblins at one time. But if the shire is expecting some speech or whatnot trying to talk her out of this fixation and come 'home', she can relax. Rather as she catchs up to her side Shiruba pulls a bundle out of her inventory and tosses it to Arashi. "Figured you'd be getting hard on supplies by this point. Have much luck?"

"I'm bored." Kaydon had been sitting around near the encampment since the night before. He had a feeling that Arashi would eventually be headed this way, and Shiruba had wanted to check in on her, so Kaydon tagged along.

He grabs one of the maps that the Scale Emblem guys have, being kind of rude about it in the process, because he's Scale Emblem, and then looks it over, "This is dumb. Why aren't you guys just going in there?"

     Someone had been relentlessly, unendingly killing goblins. Something that rumors had spread about. Possibly a new Goblin Slayer?!

     The rumors had gotten to a certain woman, who was even at the tactical meeting, briefly! But she didn't, really, well. Read things. She crosses her arms as she stands in the corner, looking all broody and dark and even having pulled a hood up over her head that casts a shadow over her face.

     She had been called to join in by Prophylaxis, and she had answered the call. But it didn't mean she couldn't be in character for it. "Yes~. We shall murder all of them and bring this world closer to it's doom!" Hu hu hu hu hu~. Yeah she's being over the top kind of sort of. When she straightens up to move towards Prophylaxis, she leaves a trail of several fluttering black rose petals in her wake. For some reason.

    Bah. Information. Who needs it. Not Arashi. She has inadvertantly become a Goblin Slayer, apparently, and even had rumors going out? Sure, that's fine. She's just here for a certain someone's gear. That's all. She hadn't really noticed anyone, at least not right away. Prophylaxis gets a sort of 'sure, but keep up' hand motion. Shiruba's offering is taken, but at about the same time, the dire-shire opens a trade window with her. And Kaydon. And dumps an absolutley ridiculous number of swords into their inventories. "That's not even all of it," she points out. Oh yes, the delivery to that forge was going to be -talked- about. When the windows are closed, she just keeps marching for the keep.

    The keep comes into view. It is defended. Of course it is. There are turrets. There's BOILING OIL. There's all kinds of stuff. She glances back at the folks following. "If you have significant skill? Now is the time." Then she just -charges- that gate.

Kaydon is a bit surprised when Arashi dumps a ton of equipment on him. He accepts it, figuring he can throw it into his next big project he's been thinking about.

"Damnit, stay behind me or you're gonna get yourself killed!" He calls out, as she rushes forward. He's not far behind her, and the were fang gnoll is quick to move in front of her, his blade flashing through the air, slashing crossbow bolts and arrows out of the sky whenever they would pose a threat to the party. Those shots that are going to fall short, or wide, are ignored. It's like he has a sixth sense when it comes to which arrows might pose a threat.

He's not exactly going to be able to deflect boiling oil, however. So whoever's going to break the gate down better do it quick.

Shiruba just stares at Arashi's trade for a long moment. But accepts it anyways, if it'll give the werefang more room to get more stuff and they can get out of here before something goes wrong on this vendetta. "Well, that answers my question."

At least it does indeed keep things going, right up to the bridge and the hastily repaired gates. And that's when the Goblins finally get involved. Several people are rushing the gate itself, but as usually Shiruba hangs back a bit to take stock of the situation. So she notices the high position dumping out a huge vat of oil. "That's not good... watch your heads!"

Even as she says that she's drawing back on her bow, forming a large arrow entirely made of ice in Thundersnow Howl, and firing it upward over the group. Right into the spillage of oil. The extreme cold quickly spreads, and while it doesn't stop it from being dumped it, it rapidly cools and freezes it. No burns here, and the larger drops of frozen liquid are easier to dodge or deflect.

Goldenblade follows the group to the mission, looking up at the defenses as they come into view. Looks like heavy defenses, but when Arashi charges, she's right behind. Both blades out and cutting, they key is to do it fast before they can organize their defenses. Goblins are stabbed pretty brutally, they did say haste was of the essense, she's not keen on boiling oil, either. She keeps one eye skyward, just the same, if they do manage to get the oil into play, she'll need to back down. But killing them fast is Plan A now. Maybe it was always Plan A. These -are- goblins.

"Honami I'm pretty sure that murdering goblins does the opposite of that but okay," right now is not the best time to dispute the foundational logic of a brain so thoroughly pickled in chuuni-juice. Instead Prophylaxis focuses on... keeping up, as requested. He's actually not that bad at it, once things start slowing down a little bit!

The problem being that things are only slowing down because they're crossing Dragon Bridge, and that means being subjected to the harrowing hail of projectiles from on high-- and...

Boiling oil.

"Well, that's good to know," for later. For now, that's definitely not good to know. Prophylaxis raises his staff and conjures a dome of ice above them... But it begins to melt rapidly under the absolutely merciless onslaught of heat from above. Soon, the thing begins turning to slush coated with thick, congealed fat. "Get that door down quick," Prophylaxis presses, "I don't know how long we can keep freezing that grease!"

     "It brings doom to the world of goblins!" Honami retorts to Prophylaxis with a slight huff. "It made sense in my head!" She adds with a cross of her arms. Nevertheless she follows after the party.

     And the party moved on towards the keep! Honami equips her weapon, holding a large two-handed greatsword. It was actually pretty normal looking actually. Just a nice, relatively well-made greatsword. Seems she hasn't found a sword with the proper edge yet. As the goblins start to do ... standard castle defense tactics, the Demon Rose lifts her sword and gives out a warcry, as she lifts her massive sword and dashes towards the gate.

     With simple intent. Just wedge the damn thing open, moving her sword from side to side occasionally to deflect the odd crossbow bolt and arrow, even as her health slowly ticks down. It's fine.

     It's made /even more fine/ as her attempts to wedge open some of the damaged parts of the keep are aided by not being covered in boiling hot oil thanks to Shiruba's assistance, letting her work her efforts without having to dance around screaming.

    The charge begins! The goblins surge, start to fire everything they have, not wanting a party of adventurers to get past the front gate. Arrows fly, deflected by Kaydon. Oil is poured, frozen by Shiruba and Prophylaxis. Goldenblade, Honami, and finally Arashi, slam into the gate. Between their combined weaponry and skills, plus one -hell- of a shouldertackle from the warhorse, the gate's shoddy repairs giveway and the party is able to proceed!

    Beyond? Goblins. In armor. With swords. Some are -particularly- more shiny than others. The result? If folks were chattering at Arashi, she won't be hearing them. Not one bit. She's seeing red. She knows who made some of that gear. Maybe Shiruba or Kaydon should give the others a warning. Things are about to go -down-.

When the doors finally collapse inwards, and it opens up to armored goblins, Kaydon grins a little bit. His sword actually goes away, and instead he breaks out something about the same size, but with quite a lot heavier.

Kaydon rushes forward, The Hammer's Sigil lighting up on his arms, as he rushes into the pile of goblins, swinging his sledgehammer with both hands, the heated weapon shattering armor, rendering the goblins far more vulnerable with each strike that Kaydon delivers.

Assuming the massive sledgehammer blows don't just kill them outright.

Once past the gate, it's a scrambled melee with the goblins' heavy infantry. Swords aren't great against heavy armor, particularly not Goldenblade's katanas, but fire works like a champ, and Goldenblade's got fire out the ... well, she's got a lot of fire. The sworda drip with it, as if they were bleeding gasoline, and the flaming swords -do- hurt the armored goblins. A lot. It helps that she hits like a truck, but the fire does more damage than the steel. These goblins have pretty stout armor!

Shiruba starts to draw her bow again.... then frowns as the crystals imbedded in Thunderhowl's arms flicker and dull. "Shit, I'm out of aetheral charge." Her other DPS instinct kicks in, and that's to quickly move so she's behind Kaydon and Arashi. "I need time for my arcane energies to build back up!"

"Oh, well I guess it could," Prophylaxis admits with a nod that suggests he's not /entirely/ convinced, but sure we'll go with it. It's fine! "If we're ending goblin world, then there are no complaints here."

The front gate is breached. Within...

...There are goblins. Many, many goblins, all in armor that ranges from shining to ramshackle. "...You know, I think this explains why there weren't many of these things in the tunnels. They must have positioned them all up here to keep us from getting through...!"

Unfortunately, it looks like all that running... /might/ have tired the poor doctor out. Or maybe he's just feeling a little bit overworked?? He bombards the knights with bolts of flame, but... There are so /many/ of them. So many! "Ugh. Have they been hiding all of these things in here all this time...? Explains why we could barely get any scouts further than here!"

     See when an angry warhorse goes charging, you get out of the way. Honami didn't even worry about her sword, which was partially jammed when that brutal shoulder tackle came in. It is sent flying through the door as it breaks open, clattering to the ground beyond the gate, and once the warhorse is through, Honami is through after her, dashing for her sword as she gives a few acapella musical notes to draw forth some magic.
     Black energy coats the blade of her sword, and she dashes towards the heavily armored goblins, letting her blade drag along the ground in her wake, the dark energy breaking off into shadowy flower petals in her wake. She swings her blade up over her head towards the goblins, slamming it into the ground to unleash a wave of black energy. The wave of magical attack runs through the ranks of the goblins and... they... either dodge or shrug it off for the most part. Unfortunate. "Come now, goblins! Don't dodge, embrace the darkness of death with grace that thou might revel in the glory of its embrace!" She calls out cheerfully towards the goblins. As if it would do something.

"I know right? Get rid of the green little filthy things! ... I mean not that there's anything wrong with green filthy people but /these ones in particular/ are actually a problem. So clearly we shall have to eradicate them all!" She flashes a grin towards Prophylaxis. "Well, we'll have to clear them out for our scouts, so that we might push deeper into the keep." She's recovering pretty well from her relative failure, at least.

Into the fray everyone goes! Kaydon's hammer comes smashing down on goblins that have no understanding of physics, raising shields instead. Messy. Goldenblade's strikes may land on armor, but at least the flames help to soften it, allowing for others to take advantage. Moving behind Arashi? Good move, Shiruba. The pwny is about to set upon these goblins some significant pwnage. Prophylaxis' flames add to Goldenblade's own, softening MORE of their armor. Excellent. It allows Honami's blade to cut through a lot of it like butter. Goblins are falling left and right, but there's something they've taken a notice of. It's a strange sound coming from behind the heroes ranks.

There's no immediate charge, no rushing headlong into the carnage this time. Instead, there's a light whistling of a tune coming from behind everyone. Its coming from Arashi.( https://youtu.be/kvZEzEOPRfw ) It may not be a tune familiar to many, but one that is clearly well known to her. A goblin knight charges, brutally being smashed aside with the flat of the mare's broken blade.

        'A dark seed reigns in me..'

The whistling stops, but the humming starts as Arashi's second blade is drawn, both coming down upon the heads and bodies of the goblins that are rushing for her, and whoever else. If they're listening, they may hear her call out to those that have followed her here.

        'Wake up my dear young friends, And hate shall fade away.'Without another word, Arashi just vanishes, leaving a number of the goblins confused, nearly assaulting one another, letting the party lash out at them while the goblins are distracted. Huzzah for glorious teamwork. When Arashi reappears, its from above, coming down on the unwitting goblin knights with a fury that has only been seen two weeks earlier.

        'War and anger shall reign this day!'

In the aftermath of that brutal skirmish, Goldenblade looks around to try and work out our route forward. Between the maps we were lent and as much as she's seen, she can conclude .... absolutely nothing. She tries, turning it this way or that, but nothing makes the map more understandable to her. She will have to follow the others. Hopefully one of them can figure it out.

Despite the odds, the group pushes forward. Through waves of goblins, more goblins, and into the keep itself. A keep of corridors and blockades and twists and turnbacks and traps an..

Shiruba, even with her navigation skills, ends up getting confused. After several attempts to map out a route she crumples the parchment in frustration. "Grrrr!" She actually starts snarling and chewing on the crumpled paper, wolf side getting a little too much of a hold in the moment of frustration.

"Think you said 'embrace' twice there," he asides to Honami as...

...Well.

Things don't usually /bleed/ in this strange world they've all fallen into, but Prophylaxis is pretty sure that this hallway wasn't covered in dissolving goblin bits before. He doesn't recognize the song with which Arashi thoroughly eviscerates the mob of knights, but...

"You, uh. You alright there, champ? You need to take yourself a few breaths there? Have a nice moonlit stroll through the killing fields?"

He's not put /off/ by the level of hyperviolence displayed, but it is enough to cause at least some worry as they move on to... A maze of corridors and hallways and staircases and barricades. This is the problem with not having any maps! The scouts haven't been able to come this far, and the result is... Nobody knows where they're going.

This is /all/ uncharted territory now, and Prophylaxis has no idea where to go-- so he just follows along and hopes for the best.

Kaydon did his part to weaken the goblins and then got the hell out of Arashi's way.

He was actually a bit too focused on what she was doing to those goblins...Which honestly would earn this game an M rating if anyone saw it. He didn't even know goblin bits could DO that.

However once the carnage is done, he finds himself looking around, "Hey uh. Do you guys remember which hallway we were supposed to pick?"

     Cutting through monsters like butter was always fun, really. The explosion of red was very pretty! Almost like flower petals itself. And it was something that Honami stopped to actually... enjoy the sight of a few moments. "Death is so pretty here..." She murmurs under her breath, a hand running through one of the red pixels as it floats past her. And then, behind her. There was music. That was seeming to grow in tempo and loud.
     The whistling stops. Humming starts. And Honami was watching Arashi as she crashes through the ranks of the goblins. And she cuts off her own song entirely, just staring at Arashi. "..." It's then, when she realizes, she still had fighting to do.
     And she resumes her own efforts in the battle, dashing back in to swing that large blade into goblins, riding on the high of Arashi's own song. Yeah. That's pretty great, she can dig it. She'll have to start actually singing sometime. But for now she was going to just ride the wake of hyperviolence.
     "I did, it's fine! Sometimes you have to extra-embrace things!" She didn't sound annoyed though. She instead flashes a grin towards him as she pauses. Looking towards Kaydon she hums lightly. Before looking back towards the hallway. "Oh, that's easy enough. See, the goblins tend to leave marks as they wander, especially since these ones are probably not fully used to wearing armor, so if we just follow the trail from these knights back this way..." She points out a few scuffles and even a few cuts in the stone from the weapons that the goblins had been wielding. "Also the smell. You can follow the smell. The smell is not exactly fun either."

    Huff. Huff. Yup, that was a thing she just did. Arashi's a little tuckered, but Arashi was on the move once again. Heading further inside. Heading into .. a maze of twisting corridors and hallways. Hmm. All she seems to be doing is marching forward. A turn here, a turn there, a passage over there, but with no real rhyme or reason. She's just hunting. Searching. Waiting. Waiting for whatever comes next. Sure, she's a cartographer, but she only wants one thing now...

    And she has suceeded at it! At least, to her she has. She found a goblin. Not only that, she's found a goblin alchemist that's making SLIME GOBLINS. Where's Uta? Wait no, no one tell her. "You get one chance to stop what you're doing."

Goldenblade is lost, following the group tp this lab, where we find ourselves under attack by an alchemist and his slimes. Uta will have to hate her, because this is a 'kill it with fire' moment, and the slime monsters are instantly met with fire. She doesn't hesitate, and the heat is intense, but she's not taking any chances. Slimes aren't bad by themselves, but Goblin-Uta must be stopped at all costs.

Shiruba peaks out from behind Arashi and Kaydon when they stop, looking over what is clearly some kind of lab. Complete with MAD SCIENCE Goblin. With goggles. How come he gets goggles? Goblins aren't cool enough to get to be goggleheads!

Then she finally realizes what it is the goblin frankenstein is actually doing. "Oh, that is just sick and wrong! Even by goblin standards!"

She glances down to her side, and smiles when she sees the elemental gems of her bow are glowing brightly again, meaning they've recharged their energy. "Just in time." She moves to the side just a bit so she can aim around the rest of the party and draws back on the bowstring. Frost shimmers together, and then crackles with a few sparks of lightning as well around the forming projectile. "STORM BLAST!" The electrified ice crystal is fired into the Goblin Slime!

"Okay who the hell designed mad scientist goblin?" Kaydon asks, looking at thes cene laid out before them. He tries to conjure up a flame around his blade, without realizing that everyone else is kind of ahead of him. So he puts it out and lets them do their thing.

How does one assemble a goblin slime? Prophylaxis is not sure, he's not sure he wants to know, he IS sure that he doesn't want Uta to know. He's also sure that the cackling madgob standing astride the bannister is probably ultimately responsible for the abominations hurling globs of corrosive sludge at the party. It smells /awful./ Like, distilled Essence Of Goblin-levels of awful.

Prophylaxis, however, has a solution.

...Literally. He nonchalantly chucks a glass vial at the slimy swarm. When it shatters, it unleashes its payload-- a potent acid that somehow seems to destabilize the tenuous bonds holding the slimegobs together.

It does nothing about the smell, however.

     A maze of twisting corridors and ... marching... turning... occasionally Honami speaks up to quick stop various turns that would take people straight into a horrible choke point which would be too much for the party to enter without getting just straight up murdered. It seemed her natural sense for tracking was helpful at least? Soon they'd ...entered into the lab.
     With a goblin alchemist that was... coming after them with some sort of vile and unspeakable substance. And throws phials at them that burst open. She deflects one with her sword. Only to be met with a sudden goblinny slime on her sword. "Huh."
     Well see there was this issue now. There were acidic goblins around her. And while people were beginning to fight them off, she was surrounded by goblin slimes, herself. Hmm. "...Let's see. Some sort of AoE attack... ooh. I know what I'll call it when I refine it into an actual skill." But for now, she just lifts her sword, turning it upside-down so the point faces the ground. And she stabs it into the ground. And unleashes a wave of dark energy around her that spikes up into several massive spikes of darkness to tear through the goblin slimes, and attempt to catch the alchemist himself inside the area attack as well.

    Even Arashi doesn't know why she suddenly offered this goblin-scientist a chance. Tired from two weeks? Mad at the maze prior? Who knows. It doesn't matter since it continues to chuck stinking goblin-slimes at everyone. "So be it," she muses before both blades are brought to bear. While she may not have particular techniques for this situation, she has always known how to try and make use of elemental types over the years. When one is a solo player? They use every single advantage they can. Case in point? A quick dip into her inventory produces a vial that is broken over her blades. Water damage UP. Then she goes snicker-snacking all around the room.

    Fire is ALSO good. Fire is what Goldenblade uses, and it is what causes some slimes to go up in a puff. ... It makes the smell worse.

    The archer wuff goes next. An electrified ice crystal is produced, fired, and shatters a goblin-slime and some friends! This causes no change in the smell.

    Kaydon ... does nothing. Huzzah? Ok. Arashi will bonk him later for this.

    Prop hurls vials! It is a thing Prop does. It helps with the slimes and all that. It does NOT help with the smell. At. All. Ugh.

    Rose lashes out at the slimes with darkness. They do not have magic missiles to counter. Slimes are spattered everywhere. The smell WORSENS. The scientist screams and retreats to reveal HIS GREATEST CREATION. The CYBER-WARG. ... It's also the last thing he says since it -devours- him. WAAAAAAAAAAAARGH! Ded.

Oh, the woes of mad science. Dispatched by your own creation because you couldn't control it fully.

"I take back," Shiruba mutters. "THAT is sick and wrong." Screwing around with Elemental Machinery is not to be taken lightly. Especially when it's being shoved into other creatures it's not meant to be shoved into. Shiruba pulls a few normal arrows from her quiver and fires them, trying to give some cover to the people that are going to have to move in for melee attacks.

Goldenblade smirks as the goblin retreats and is eaten by the cyber warg. "That's mad science for you," she says with a sigh. But then the cyber warg is our problem. She draws her swords and wades in, blades flashing with fire as they ignite, and it's something like a lightsaber the way she slashes with them, cutting away chunks of the warg's HP with each stroke. Her blades windmill savagely, and she presses her attack hard as the party, er, dogpiles the cyber warg and lays down a savage beating. Bad dog.

"Hah, stupid idiot. Walked right into his own monster and..Oh shit!"

Now that the warg has turned its attention on them, Kaydon steps up to do his usual tank thing. His Damascus blade is brought to bear, and he does his best to maintain the attention of the beast, trying to slash and hack away at the beast while the others hit it from the sides and back

Wh--

Why is there a /cybernetic warg/ here!?

Prophylaxis cannot help but to stare absolutely dumbfounded at the wretched creature, somewhere between watchdog and watch.

At least it... saved them the trouble of fighting the mad scientist himself? "Hubris," Prophylaxis judges with a shake of his head. "He should have at least muzzled it before standing anywhere near its mouth. But I think he would have wanted to have gone out this wa--"

Prophylaxis shatters into a million crimson pieces when the Warg barrels into him. Instant death!? This monster has INSTANT DEATH MECHANICS!?

...

"That was rude," a voice comes, as a barrage of arcane projectiles come crashing down hard on top of the twisted hound. Prophylaxis steps out from the shadows, flanked by... two additional Prophylaxi!? Each one is firing magic missiles too!! Is this even fair!?

No, Mirror Image is cheating and Prophylaxis is a wizard.

     Splattered slimes everywhere. Great. That smell's going to linger for days, Honami can already tell. Even with the cleaning feature that she had acess to. She grimaces at that, trying to wipe off a bit of gross goblin goop from her sword. It just smears further. Great. She's going to have to replace /another/ sword. She goes through too many swords it felt like.
     And then the scientist runs over. And activates a cyber-warg. That eats him. She blinks a few times. "...Why would you use a warg though? Like... I mean. I guess it's big and scary but like." She lifts her sword, smearing more of that acidic slime over it with some cloth, which... rapidly deteriorates. Make use of the resources you have, friends.
     She lifts her sword, and then... dashes towards the warg, her hunting skill causing several flashes, showing a weak point on the warg's form. Right between two of its ribs were she could just... she lifts her sword, pointing the point towards the warg to just... stab right into the glowing slit that guided her blade straight into that weak spot, shoved in and straight for the creature's heart. Almost as if her blade was following a path that told her exactly how to move, it was an almost seamless motion.

CRITICAL HIT.

    Honami turns while holding onto the hilt of her blade, using the handhold to... tear the blade up and through warg flesh, doing and overhead slash that pulls the blade out of the warg, over her head, and straight into the ground in front of her. Where the sword breaks, the blade now in two pieces which were glowing red with damage, before shattering into red data.

     "...They have really easy to hit weak points if you have the hunting skill." Honami says, after straightening up and equipping a new sword, turning back towards the warg, regardless of if it's alive or not still.

    Warg. WARG. This ends with a -Warg-? Sure. Whatever. She wanted more goblin heads but, well, the only way to get that one is to probably tear the warg asunder and pull the little guy out. .... And while she THINKS about it, that just isn't how death works here. red pixels and all that, not so much anything else. Everyone gets their licks in on the cyber-monster and Arashi is next. It was pretty low on health, but when the warhorse gets both her blades in there and then just yanks them in opposite directions? .. Yeah. Kaydon was right earlier. This game would go up to M if anyone from the ESRB got stuck here too.

        Victory Fanfare.

    A glance is given the rest of the party, a nod, and then a pause. Inventory checking. ... mmm... "This will do." To Shiruba and Kaydon. "I have a stop to make and then I'll probably head for Shibuya."

Shiruba picks up one of the pieces of machina(?) that got knocked loose from the cyberwarg. "I would wonder where he's getting this stuff, but after that other Elemental Machine running rampant, it's not such a surprise." She deposits it in her inventory (yes there is still room, barely, thanks Arashi). Then tilts her head at the dire shire. "Wherelse could you possibly need to go? Before Shibuya, I mean." She knows exactly where she's likely going in Shibuya.

Another elemental machine piece...? Well, that jives with what they've been seeing down in the tunnels. That said, it also means that the goblins are either scavenging what machines end up on the surface, or... Have found their own way down. Troubling. Prophylaxis stows the bit of ancient technology away, then glances toward the... New World Alliance Members, of all things. "Thank you for your assistance, by the by. I appreciate you all coming by and being so... Thorough with your work. Please let me know if you'd like me to organize another sojourn into the castle. I think next time we might be able to navigate the halls a little more effectively."

Hopefully.

Provided the walls don't break them first.

    "Oh-eight-oh," Arashi points out as she tugs something from her inventory that isn't a sword. It is some food, some much need food after all of .. well that. She'll give anyone a bit of it if they want. Just some jerky of some sort from back in Shibuya. Something quick and simple before the trek north and then the boat back to Shibuya.

"Oh hey.." Kaydon says, "Next time you're in town you should check out the instant ramen they're working on." He tells Arashi, before she heads off. Hopefully by the time she gets back to town it'll be...Better..

     Some sort of elemental thing was the drop. Hmm. Honami starts to take in the piece, carefully examining and appraising it. And then tapping her lip. "Well, this gives me a vague, underdeveloped idea." She says, giving a small smirk as she pockets the machine piece. "...And it drops elsewhere too, you said? Hm. I'll have to collect more pieces then, for my ultimate plan! ... ... ... Okay my plan to replace the sword I just broke." She nods quickly.

     "Regardless! Let us retreat before more goblins decide to come and swarm us or something, because frankly, a victory is best relished in the safety of an inn room or at the very least a nice clearing or you know... not in the middle of a goblin-infested castle."