Duty Session 259: Karluin Reclamation - Keep

Karluin Keep is an imposing structure, visible from every street corner and thoroughfare. It's just as ancient as all the other buildings in the old fortress, but considerably more vast. Its stalwart masonry makes it almost impervious to direct assault, and there's only one main entrance into the keep itself-- one defended by an imposing gate and a pair of turrets that, even from a distance, you can tell are bristling with goblin defenders. For now, the party gathers in one of the larger plazas near the citadel, where local adventurers have set up a number of tents which house makeshift supply depots and kitchenettes. Soon, the assault on the keep will begin, but for now there's a moment to rest and prepare.

Yeowang is waiting here, having gone through the process of notifying the Guild that she intends to make a run. She's cleaned up from her misadventures yesterday, and her long hair is coiled up in a heavy bun atop her head. She seems poised and prepared.

It's not uncommon to find Scale Emblem's resident artist somewhere within Aincrad. She is commonly set to various tasks that keep her quite busy from day to day. Everything from building structures to acting as note taker at meetings to aiding with defense against monsters within the Tower.

At the moment, she seems a bit put out, though. Dealing with Karluin and it's resident host of goblinoids has not been one of her favorite experiences. The black mage is dressed more suitably for combat, with trousers beneath her usual dark dress and a cloak over her shoulders to offer some kind of protection.

"Well... let's get this over with. I don't like this place and I wouldn't be here under normal circumstances, but apparently the guild wants everyone to take a bash at reducing enemy numbers." She pushes her glasses up on her nose. "Of course, Jurou had to choose the combat-focused guild." Kita mutters.

There's been a lot of goblins lately. Too many goblins. Or in the case of the last time Lin was here, entirely too few goblins and the lights set far too bright. He's ready for another try. He arrives for the Hunters' Guild job promptly and with a friendly, "Hiiii!" to the assembling group of adventurers.

Uta walks into the area. No strange shenangians accompany her entrance today, just her holding her staff, wings held stiff pointing straight down. She's all business. The other main difference from recent time is that, courtesy of Gwen , she's out of her newbie scrubs-and-gi-jacket getup, sporting a more MMORPG-y outfit, a sleeveless dress with opera gloves and long boots, still designed to have a vague 'nurse's-uniform-blended-with-a-martial-artist's-gi' vibe, in a white-with-black-trimmings color scheme. Oh, and a nurse's cap is still there, only this time it's all white without any symbols on it.

"I don't like goblins either," she comments to Kita. "I was completely at a loss as to what guild to pick... I suppose I was lucky Crescent Moon took me under their wing when I was a clueless newbie- well, okay, technically I still am, but I meant, more so than now. Anyway. Goblins. Hate them. They make me nervous. VERY nervous." As if to prove that point, she flicks her menu open (which, to other people, looks like her swiping at thin air), and after some sliding and jabbing of her index finger, she selects the final option. A little sphere of light shimmers in her hand, which resolves in a... little red ball, which she squeezes repeatedly. "Thank goodness for stress balls."

Uta turns at the greeting. "Oh, hi! I- Hm. Your voice reminds me of something. Where have I heard it before...", she frowns.

When everyone has assembled, some Scale officers offer a tactical briefing on the situation in Karluin. Yeowang seems surprised, but impressed, by their level of organization. The soup isn't bad, either. She smiles to Kita, and agrees, "Reducing the number of goblins helps everyone. And of course affords us good training, as players." Which is her main goal, it seems. She nods to Lin as he joins the group. "Welcome." She nods gravely to Uta, and says, "You're fortunate that you chose your guild well." There's a subtle undertone of dissatisfaction there, but she doesn't elaborate.

There are maps and intel reports, including descriptions of possible enemies and their tactics. "Let's looks over all this before we go in," she suggests. "That way we're as prepared as we can be."

"I probably would have ended up with the Dragons, but..." Kita murmurs, "No way I was joining a different guild than my partner. I've dealt with enough separation." Though many knew of her search for her Salamander companion, just how deep that cut goes is something she doesn't often talk about.

Giving a glance to Yeowang, she just nods once. Though she can sometimes be a bit on the dire side, Kita tends to at least take things like this in stride. "We'll just hope it only ends up as a training experience and that these ones don't have access to that strange stuff the other ones had." The mage is likely referring to the substance that turned off pain inhibitors.

She steps up to the documents, points at one, "This looks interesting. Like there might be some other way into the keep. Take a look?"

"We've met! We've done guild missions before!" Lin takes being forgotten by Uta in stride. He grins broadly and points at her hand. "You wanted me to look at your spooky stress ball too, but we can get to that after all this." The Pooka smiles and turns to the task at hand. Attacking the castle.

"If we were stinky jerks, we'd totally be hiding behind secret doors." He mumbles, leaning over the table of plans and deciphering some of the notes. Kita's suggestion looks like a good one. "That way's worth a look."

"Oh, I... didn't really choose the Crescent Moon life. It's more like, the Crescent Moon life chose me. Truth to be said, I'm a terrible fit for all alliances. Some of the finest people I know are members of Scale. Oh, and Setsuna is in scale too!"

She reads through the textual part of the dossier at an impressive pace, seeming oddly skilled at absorbing information.

"OH! RIGHT!", exclaims Uta. "Sorry, I... uh... sometimes have trouble focusing. Especially when under stress... uh... Lin it was, right?", she says. "Oh, yes! The ball, right!", she exclaims, and hands it over to Lin. It's small, made of a squishy red substance which can be stretched at will, but never loses its integrity. Considering how there seems to be no rubber in Yamato, that's an unusual sight.

Yeowang looks around as the intel is divvied up according to everyone's talents. But that seems to be a good thing: Uta lays out the maps so we all know where we're going. Lin and Kita tackle some of the confusing reports, making sense out of them, while Yeowang sorts and organizes the reports and maps for the others to analyze. She nods to Kita about an alternate route. "Good plan." Lin's comment about secret doors gets a 'Huh?', must have been too quiet for her to make out? Uta gets a wry smile. "You're lucky, your guild hasn't done anything entirely reprehensible. My guild claims it hasn't, but some members have given us a black eye that ... hopefully no one will hold against other guild members." There is clearly heartburn there.

Based on the notes we've pieced through, it seems that goblins have been reported emerging from underneath the main bridge leading toward the castle gate from the town's east side... Which, given that the town has otherwise been cleared out, means there's probably some kind of secret entrance down there. The question is whether we'll be able to find and unlock it before any goblins are able to use it to get the drop on us.

Leading the way out, Yeowang leads the way to that area we found in the reports and looks over the area where the secret entrance is suspected to be. "All right, let's find this as quick as we can. Goblins could swarm us at any moment."

"Seems stupid to blame an entire guild, or even an entire Alliance for the acts of any one member." Kita replies with a slight shake of her head. "I'm sure some folks frown at Scale over Xander's actions, too." She shrugs, seeming indifferent to the whole issue with the conflict. "If he wasn't my friend, I'd probably frown at it to, but I'm a bit biased when it comes to soldier-boy."

She falls quiet as they set to the task of trying to discover a way into the keep. Investigations aren't exactly something she's particularly strong at, so she seems to let the others take the lead as she fishes through her inventory to pull out a lockpicking set that looks as if it has almost never been used. "Suppose this might actually come in handy, for once."

Once there is something pointed out for her to actually pick, Kita sets to that task, squinting behind her glasses, her wings twitching slightly with concentration.

"Goblins! They're sneaky jerks that hide behind doors." Lin explains his comment. When Uta offers the ball for inspection, he holds up a hand. "One thing at a time! If that thing's as weird as you say it is, we'll probably be unable to pay attention to the mission." The crimes discussion seems to fly over his head. Who's Xander? Certainly nobody that's saved his life before.

When the party sets off to find the secret door he moves methodically, tracing his hands over stones and looking at the surrounding area to determine the most likely place it could be.

"I have no idea of what a lot of members of Olympus are up to most of the time," Uta mumbles. "It could very well be that we're doing far worse things, and not even our members would know." She shakes her head with a smile at Yeowang. "It is wrong to hold people accountable for matters they had no choice in, isn't it?"

"Fair enough," Uta replies to Lin, and moves to begin to inspect the structure. "Let's see if we can find any weak spot..."

Her idea of finding a weak spot consists of, yes, tossing the bouncy ball at various bricks and seeing if anything gives or moves.

Yeowang says to Kita, "It would be, if it were just an individual. But at least -some- guildmembers /did/ know, and didn't stop him, or report it. And others supported it. So, if someone were to blame the Guild, I wouldn't say that's an unreasonable view. Others did object, when we found out, but it's not all one way or the other." As far as frowning, she says, "If this were real life, and we were at war with the goblins, giving them weapons would earn the seller what is colloquially known as 'a brief cigarette and a wall to lean against.' I find the fact that most people don't much care more to be worrying. Xander's the only one that seems reasonable, to me." She can only shrug to Uta. "No one tells me anything, so, I am as you find me. Which is not a situation I'm accustomed to."

Luckily, the others are being useful while Yeowang complains. Apparently she feels very strongly. But Uta and Lin are able to find the secret door, and Kita is able to open the lock. Successfully locating and opening the secret passageway leads us into a dank and dark tunnel underneath the keep. It smells of goblin down here but, more pressingly, of danger. A single misstep causes a poison-coated stake to shoot out of a nearby wall. This entire hallway is trapped! "All right," says Yeowang. "Heads up! Go carefully, this place looks like it's got traps instead of guards."

As the secret door opens Lin has his spellbook raised, ready to battle goblinoid horrors. But it turns out the goblinoid horrors are closer to goblinoid machinations. A hallway full of poisoned traps. Lin wrinkles his nose and sighs in quiet disappointment. "I'd prefer the guards, honestly." He admits to Yeowang before moving in with the group, carefully noting where traps are and stepping gingerly around the triggering mechanisms.

Kita steps in, oblivious at first to the fact that the corridor beyond might be trapped. She is too busy stowing away her lockpicks and dusting off her dress to be worried about it. She steps forward again and immediately hears a click.

"Uh." Freezing in place, Kita seems uncertain exactly what to do. So, she pages through her spellbook, then starts weaving some dark magic around herself to try to act as a barrier against whatever is about to come at her.

Unfortunately, it isn't quite successful, and when she tries to run forward away from the trap, she ends up having a few arrows glance her arms and legs, leaving small red lines behind. "Right, I should be paying more attention to my surroundings." She mutters, "Stupid."

"'Reasonable' is not a word I would use to describe Xander most of the time, although he does have his moments.", Uta comments to Yeowang. "And for ther record, he's not my dad." Wait, where did that come from?

Uta stops at the entrance, mumbling and muttering something about poison. She studies the layout of the place, kneels down, presses her cheek against the ground, and studies the floor for any irregularities. She stands up, inhales deeply, while leaping from one foot to the other, then she zips forward by leaping from spot to spot, as if she was jumping through stepstones in a pond.

"Not stupid," she follows up to Kita. "It happens. Let me take a look at it later. I am a healer, I am sure I can do something about it."

Yeowang is still distracted, it seems, or else is not as fast as she'd like to be, stepping on traps in a couple places and grimacing at the HP loss. She's a face-to-face figther, she's got no real experiece with traps. Luckily, Lin is better at finding the traps -before- stepping on them. Kita loses a few HP to the traps also, though not enough to endanger the mission. Uta's comment gives Yeowang pause; "He's ... not? Oh. Right. That's normal, I think. My father doesn't play video games, either. My younger brother does. He would like this game a lot, I think..."

Our trek through the underground leads us to a strange chamber, indeed. There are a number of blocks arrayed in a recessed section of flooring, some of which carry metal torches. Words in an unfamiliar, glyphic text cover one section of wall, and similar symbols can be seen on the ceiling. Moving the blocks into the right position to illuminate particular glyphs might just open a secret passage? And we'll need to move them anyway, since it looks as though the goblins have turned the entire place into a makeshift living area and have moved the blocks completely out of order to accommodate their needs. It's a mess in here, and the only way we're going to open that door, or even just get to that other hallway at the other end of the chamber, is to do some block pushing.

Out the other end of the hallway, Lin takes a moment to catch his breath. This is far too tense. After saying to Uta, "I regret not taking a look at that stress ball now. All this sneaking through danger stuff is really getting to me." he heads into the puzzle room.

One aspect of the chamber immediately captures him - writing. It's everywhere and it's all he can think about now. The Pooka rushes over to a wall, touching it and gazing up to the ceiling. "This is amazing! I wonder what they say. They might be a hint to positions..." Lin starts to count on his fingers, glancing between the disordered rocks and wall glyphs.

There is a confused expression that Kita offers towards Uta, "Why would people think he's your dad?" After a pause, she comments, almost off-handedly, "He's usually fine, most of the time. Though when he's drunk..." She laughs softly, "At least I didn't end up sleeping with him, as tempting as it was." Wait, whut?

Moving on from that comment... Kita doesn't seem too bothered by the trap-induced injuries, shrugging them off. The things that really seem to get to her always seem to be when someone gets up close and personal.

With the strange block-puzzle left before them, Kita cracks her knuckles. "Let me see if I can clear some of the mess away for us. That should make it a little bit easier." And, in true Scale Emblem fashion, she starts casting a fire spell, which is luckily aimed away from her allies. It sweeps across the room, neatly taking care of most of the Goblin trash.

Then, she motions with a hand, inviting the others to look at the puzzle in earnest.

Uta replies to Kita, "Oh, I think it's because he, much like Crescent Moon, took me under his wing early on. He's one of the very few people I have met during my first game session on ETO." She switches to mumbling, "...session which was cut short by the Apocalypse." After a short pause, she adds, "...or...uh...'cut long'?", scratching her head in confusion.

"I saw a videogame like this once, in an arcade," Uta remarks casually as she pushes blocks around. "There was this penguin who would push around blocks of ice and... uh... if it pushed the borders, they would wobble and-"

Gaze lost in the distance, she stops, and after a brief pause, she goes to check what happens if she gives the walls a push, intending to resume her work immediately afterwards.

Yeowang will help Kita with the removal of the goblin refuse, while Lin investigates the wall glyphs and Uta uses brute force to move the recalcitrant walls. With the puzzle solved, the symbol-covered wall seems to fade away, revealing a hidden passage that leads deeper into an unexplored section of tunnels, and then to a vertical shaft and a series of platforms leading deeper into the underground. The moment we begin our descent, though, a nearby wall lights up as an ancient magical sigil begins to glow. A split second later, the symbol unleashes a beam of blinding, obliterating light straight for the party! The more we run, the more glyphs ignite and open fire upon us.

Xander's crimes remain beyond Lin's current understanding. He's too preoccupied with the wall glyphs to eavesdrop too hard anyway. Sorting them out is a challenge, but not one he hasn't been practicing for. "But where are the goblins? This place is supposed to be filled with them!" He's not complaining this time, though. Deciphering ancient scripts is plenty of fun compared to doom bosses. He heads off into the tunnel with the other Adventurers, smiling until being caught completely off guard by the next round of traps. With a shouted syllable, he lifts the stone from the ground, forming a wall that blocks off some of the lasers. "Run!"

"It was Jurou's first visit to Elder Tale, as well. We heard rumors that they were going to open up cross-server play, so I thought it was something we could do when they went back to the US for school. We were going to watch the New Years fireworks together in-game and then..." Kita motions a hand, as if encompassing 'all of this'.

Luckily, as they move into the next passage, Kita is paying more attention this time. She is on alert when the laser starts to come in their direction, weaving her hands in the air to form a barrier of dark magic which helps to absorb some of the impact and prevent it from passing through.

Then, she runs, trying to keep those barriers of darkness up as much as possible to protect the others.

"That's part of what got me into the game," Uta mentions. "I was hoping to get to meet with European users. Discuss Renaissance poetry. And yes, the fireworks were-"

Hey, what do you know? The party gets a bespoke fireworks show! A murderous one, but still.

Uta runs. Just... runs. Runs for her life, terrified face with gnashed teeth as her arms bent at ninety degrees swing to and fro, in the manner of olympic runners, while the obliterating beam of light hits the ground just behind her. "...Are we even supposed to have /this/ kind of magic in this world?!"

Yeowang is off guard for only a moment as the defenses open up and attack us. She throws a spell over her shoulder that seems to disorient some of the beams, luckily, while Lin blocks them with chunks of earth. As to where the goblins are, Yeowang can only shrug. "Maybe there are not as many as we feared?" We should be so lucky. She sighs as Kita mentions cross-server play while blocking the beams with darkness and Uta simply outruns them. "I was hoping Jae Gu would be able to connect from Korea."

We finally reach safety as a set of stone gates close behind us. The party stops to catch its breath when suddenly a golden crescent cuts through the air and buries itself in the ground at our feet. A crimson, humanoid figure, clearly mechanical in make, stands atop an elevated dais at the center of the chamber. Behind him is some manner of gate- albeit one that is presently sealed off. As we take notice of it, the thing suddenly springs into motion. It's blindingly fast, and seems to be able to conjure more of those crescent boomerangs from out of thin air.

Lin dashes down the hallway, hugging close to the raised wall of stone that blocks some portion of the laser attacks. He mutters a string of curses the whole way. "Gnomes and their ancient underground gnome lasers..."

What was hoped to be safety at the end of the tunnel turns out to be the exact opposite. It wouldn't be a boss fight without the climactic fight. Lin jumps backwards, then to the side, just barely predicting boomerangs and getting out of the way in time. "It's got a pattern! Two more from the left, then one big one straight!"

"It's possible the world is connected somehow, now. But with those damned leviathans in the way, there's not much chance of us finding out anytime soon." Kita comments, some frustration measured there. "I count myself damn lucky that Jurou was with me when all this went down." If the two had been separated, Kita would likely be far more manic about returning to the real world...

That line of conversation halts as they end up stood before the strange, mechanical being. "Crap. I'll try to keep some defensive barriers up for everyone. Be careful." Though she has no idea what sort of abilities this creature even has. Motioning her hands around in a circle, she starts to weave magic together, creating dark, shimmering barriers for the others, helping to reduce some of the damage taken.

As for Uta? She jumps straight for the monster. "I'll try to catch it! Look ou-"

...let us just be merciful and say it doesn't end well.

At the end of the censored scene of ruthless family-friendly violence whose apex of gore is plenty of persistent red light, Uta is sent flying backwards and sliding along the floor, her HP firmly in the red. But as the quote goes, she did do some chip damage to the monster's hand with her face...

Yeowang is left in the unfortunate position of attempting to harness her magical potential against the enemy on an elevated dais. This is not a recipe for success, sadly, as she seems not to have worked out how to use that part of the game mechanics. She is definitely not a full-spectrum player, only using a subset of her abilities with any facility. Luckily, Kita and Lin are much more capable and are able to cover those bases, Lin predicting the attacks, and Kita defending us all. Uta is left with the more difficult task by dint of everyone else picking something in their wheelhouse, and attempts to ... do what she did. Yeowang can only boggle. Luckily, Kita's shields hold as the construct goes ballistic, shaking itself apart and finally disintegrating. And not a moment too soon.

Lin's general lack of mobility hasn't hurt him this time around. All he had to do was stay one step ahead. After the mechanical monster explodes, Lin bends over with his hands on his knees, panting. "We didn't even clear out any goblins. Wasn't the job to end the goblin infestation?" It was a success at least. He can't complain too hard. After a slow recovery, he straightens up. "Uta! Now we can talk stress ball!"

"I think it's important that we know there are things /other/ than goblins in this place." Kita replies, pushing her glasses up on her nose as she takes note of what they had encountered. It would be something she could bring back to Scale Emblem, in order to give them better guidance about the dangers that could await them.

Then, closing her book, she tucks it under one arm. "Let's just hope it's as quiet a path going back out as it was coming in." She doesn't seem that interested in sticking around to chat. The Imp always seems to be busy, these days.

Uta props herself up to stand, still wobbling because of all the violence unleshed on her. "... I... oh... right... I...", she says, and swipes her menu open. The red bouncy ball from earlier shimmers into existence once again, and is offered to Lin with a slightly trembling hand.

Yeowang nods at what Lin says, but offers, "We can say we killed all the goblins /we found/?" That's 0/0, but ... she nods to Kita. "I agree, that's an important piece of information." And she agrees about getting out of here. "Yeah, let's move." She will offer Uta an assist, if she needs it.

Yeowang's analysis is the best kind of correct. He nods an affirmitive to her. "We did, we did. Making us the most successful goblin attack team ever. No surviving goblins." He walks over to Uta and offers a helpful hand as she recovers. "You okay there?"

When he receives the rubber ball, he lifts it up and gives it a thoughtful stare. Then an appraising squeeze. "I can feel the stress melting away already." The Pooka flicks open his menu and pulls out an overcomplicated set of glasses - each eye having a series of coloured lenses and levers that allow them to be viewed in any combination. Glasses on, he begins flicking through views. His face grows more and more serious with each manual click. "Okay. So. You've been treating the Core of the Narehate like a kid's toy." He reaches into his inventory for something to scribble notes on, then begins to write.

"It's got a whole backstory. But Monsters love this thing, they'll flock to and follow it. If that's not crazy enough for you, it's got healing powers. Once a day you can cure a disease or other ailment with a red liquid that can come out when you squeeze it." Paraphrasing over, Lin flips up all the lenses on his glasses and hands the small red orb back.

Uta stares while hanging onto her staff for support.

She blinks. Opens her mouth. Gapes. Pulls her jaw up again.

"...not a /kid's/ toy.", she says, taking the little squishy red ball again. "Stress is a very adult prerogative, thank you very much."

Yup, she's squeezing the ball again. Stress, stress, stress.