Duty Session 264: Karluin Reclamation - Keep

Goldenblade has organized another run into Karluin, though organized is a strong word. She did put the word out, and she did come here, but the Guild is doing a lot of the announcing, and of course a lot of the infrastructure is Guild-based. Or else provided by Scale, given the location. For now, she's gathering people by one of the larger plazas near the citadel, where adventurers have set up a number of tents which house makeshift supply depots and such. She's sharpening her swords while she waits, though she's poised. Goblins do attack from time to time.

    Wynfei was one of the people pulled for this, well he's also on Goldenblades friends list. Still hands in his pockets, and he seems to be bouncing just slightly as he steps, he yawns a little bit. "Hey Goldenblade!" he calls as he waves to the golden warrior. His tail waves slightly behind him, he has a dark brown staff that is sheathed behind him.

Vertina had a nice relaxing evening in the new Tolbana bathhouse with her friends, so she's all rested up and ready for some actual action. Though upon arriving and seeing who's here she jumps in to give Wynfei a big hug from behind. "Hey, long time no see monkey boy!"

Goldenblade smiles to Wynfei, "Good to see you!" She bows her head to Vertina, and asks, "Bath house? Very posh. I may have to try it out, if it's open outside your alliance?" Before we start on this mission, there's an intel brief, sponsored by Scale Emblem Alliance, where they present some documents summarizing the latest on enemy positions and tactics. Maybe even evidence of a secret entrance that can bypass the front gate entirely... We shall see.

    Waving his tail to Goldenblade, "I know right!" he exclaims. THen he 'Ooofs!' as he is hugged from behind. He turns around and hugs Vertina tightly, "Hey you!" he says to Vertina. After the hug is over, he looks to her for a long moment, "Yeah, I needed to get away for a while and I needed to get out of my head and do some pretty damn hard training." he says to her. "It's helped me." he says to her and he moves so that he can look at both women. "I'm kinda out of the loop on things you two so I may just keep the guarding you two and help where I can until I'm more up to date." he says.

"It's as open as the rest of Tolbana is," Vertina replies, even as she's handed some of the documentation. She sighs. She hates paperwork. Especially administrative paperwork.... Though this is field intel, which is something she can at least make sense of for the most part. It was similar to reading the playbook of strategies before a football game. "Don't worry Wyn, there will be plenty of guarding to do. Goblins tend to swarm like rats as soon as we show up." Looks down at the parchment. "Well, we don't have the doctor or people with fancier abilities with us, we're probably best off just going for the direct approach and try to smash our way through as far as we can get."

It's a bit like drinking from a firehose. The amount of information is huge, and Goldenblade can only get her head around so much at a time. She says to Wynfei, "These missions are kinda tough, but keep your head in the game and we should do OK." She sighs at the information overload and nods to Vertina about going for the direct approach. "Can do." She's a very direct-approach person.

The party proceeds onward to the so-called 'dragon bridge.' Flanked by two turrets on either side and a ramshackle and hastily repaired but never-the-less imposing front gate, even approaching the keep will be difficult and fraught with danger. Goblins fire down with bow and crossbow alike, and upon getting close to the gate, pour over a tub of boiling oil down on our heads!

"Something with a cool name like Dragon Bridge shouldn't be infested with goblin scum." That's the dragon girl's take on the matter as they make their charge. "Keep your heads down and get to the gate!" She snaps even as she throws up her arms, firebending a barrier to intercept a barrage of arrows from the crossbow wielders above them.

This goes all well and good until the oil comes, which collides with the fire shield and proptly combusts, making the matter worse. "Shit!" Vertina hoofs it hard to barely escale getting washed off the bridge by now flaming oil streams.

    Wynfei is moving, "Alright, I will be able to keep up with you two and do what I do!" he laughs. Always jovial and upbeat, Wynfei keeps his word, when they make it to the cool bridge, "I like the name of this bridge." he laughs and as the arrows start coming down at them and Vertina firebends, he grins, though the oil is another thing, he doesn't have anythign for that so he picks up his speed, leaping up and running along and leaping from side to side on the bridge showing hsi agility and leaps, making it to the clearing, rolling and turning so that he is able to catch both Goldenblade and Vertina.

The cluster at the entrance could have gone better. Goldenblade trying to control the water basically meant everyone nearly drowned and she's soaked to the skin. This is going to need serious oiling to keep the rust off her armor. And she'll probably need the bath house after we're done. At least the water mostly covers us from the exploding oil. Luckily Wynfei is able to make that dash safely, and then we're in!

But then we're past the entrance and into the passage. But like most castles, most serious defensive castles, anyhow, the first passage beyond the gate is lined with murderholes, and goblins are firing at us through them. So we're not out of danger yet! The passage does lead straight ahead, as long as we're OK with goblins and murder slits.

Once they're in the passage after the gates Vertina stops to catch her breath, and make sure nothing actually got burned. Sure fire isn't much of a problem to Salamanders but oil makes things a bit nastier. The little breather is interrupted as an arrow thunks into the wall right in front of her face, missing only because she had stopped moving. She grabs it, pulls it out to look at it, then throws it over her shoulder. "Oh, good, I was worried it was going to get boring once we got inside."

She does a few quick hand gestures. "MIRAGE PHASE JUTSU" And in a flash multiple Vertinas take charge down the passage. Arrows fly at the multitude of targets... and the mirages are the ones going poof when they're struck while the real Vertina bounds her way to the end.

    Wynfei wasn't free of getting wet, but it's something he's used to. Training and all, but still he is glancing around waiting on Vertina, he glances back towards the entrance as both Goldenblade and Vertina makes it in. He shakes his head, this isn't the time to fight right now, they needed to be moving and keep moving so that they can accomplish thier mission. With that, Wynfei streaks into the entrance, and if there is a way to clsoe it behind them he would so that they only have to worry about one side and not enemies coming at them from behind.

As Vertina and a number of doubles bound down the hallway, duplicates occasionally fading out, Wynfei tries to close the entrance, but the enemy fire is too heavy. So Goldenblade grabs him and puts on the afterburner, literally, and sprints down the passage so fast she leaves flames along the ground in her wake, well ahead of the arrows meant for her.

So, the good news is our sprint carries us past the murderholes. The bad news is this is as far as the maps in our briefing showed, so we're on our own as far as navigation. The place is a maze of barricades and passages, and there's no telling what way leads to our goal. "Any ideas?"

Vertina stoops down to inspect some of the barricades. Tracking isn't her strongest forte but Salamanders are natural hunters and there's been enough activity around the ruins for her to pick up on some obvious clues. "These were recently repaired." She points at were some boards were cracked and hastily nailed back together with more planks, and some bits of scrap and tools scattered farther down a passage. "They've fixed the blockade and traps this way, and they'd only bother if it was actually an important route."

    Wynfei is yonked by Goldenblade, "WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" is all that is heard from Wynfei. Once they've stopped he seems a bit wobbly on his feet and it takes him a moment, and he shakes his head. Moving towards the rear so that he can keep an eye behind them, "If it was repaired, then we better be careful and keep quick on our feets." he says as he glances back twoards the two.

Goldenblade manages to work out which passages out to lead in the direction we want to go with the air of Wynfei, and with Vertina verifying that bad guys went that way and which barricades they passed also, it's a good conclusion that we're going the right way. It's a comparitively short jaunt to the throne room, though that place is locked up tight behind improvised fprtifications. Goldenblade advises, "If we can get through this, the final fight should be just beyond this barricade."

Vertina looks up and down the fortified entrance. Looks over at Goldenblade starting to pick the locks. "That's good... but it will take too long for you to pick open -all- the locks. Let's give her a hand Wyn." And Vertina means that literally, as she ignites her fists and feet in flames to smash off some of the less resiliant bindings, ending it with one big fiery kick to the center mass of the door and a quip of "And this is how you get your foot in the door!" Despite it being a harrowing quest she's still got some witty one-liners in her.

    Wynfei nods his head, "Alright, I will do what I can, I don't normally pick locks, maybe bash them in but that's it." he says. HE turns around and looks at the two and begins helping with the locks, though he occassionally glance behind them to make sure they aren't getting snuck up on.

Goldenblade smirks at Vertina's one-liner. "The problem with getting your foot in the door is not having it chopped off while it's extended," she observes. Wynfei is able to do some of the heavy lifting

We make it through the barricades easily, but when we get through, it becomes clear that the boss isn't here by himself, but with a large entourage - small horde of elite goblin soldiers that stand between our party and the king, plus a shieldwall of hobgoblin knights. "Holy crap," mutters Goldenblade. "OK, let's do this by the numbers. It's going to be a hard fight, but not impossible if we play to our strengths."

As soon as the way is open Vertina rushes into the throne room without farther concern. This is entirely typical for her, without much more worry about the situation. There's Goblins here, and that's all that matters. She isn't even really noticing there's some kind of royal Goblin leader her, with all the other targets. She's already cloaked in flames, even as she headbutts right into the first goblin dumb enough to get in her way. Good thing she's got horns and a hard head in general.

"Squatting time is over, jackasses! Time to move out." She grabs another and hurtles him back into the pack, and without missing a beat she goes full kung-fu beatdown on goblin after goblin with her fire infused fists and blazing kicks. "AND WE'RE THE EVICTION NOTICE!"

Wynfei does do the heavy lifting but he is the last to get into the throne room, he quickly rushes in and he looks around and he laughs. "Oh this is going to be fun!" he shouts as he bounces on the balls of his feet. Chuckling a little bit and he looks to the ladies, "Oh I'm tired of running and ready to break some heads, hope you;re all for doing the same." he laughs.

As Wynfei shields the group, keeping the goblins in check, himself, Vertina's fiery kung-fu attack drops enemies in good time, their HP bars falling like rain. There's a lot of enemies, so that attack has to go a long way, which Vertina does, backed up by Goldenblade's similar bladework. There's inspiration there, clearly, though the bladework falls short at the end, her flame going out before the great goblin is engaged. Still fighting the last of the bodygard, she grimaces and takes a few hits as we watch the goblin king bail out an escape hatch. She still struggles to end the fight, down on HP pretty badly as we survey the remains of the throne room. The king left his crown and jewels behind on his throne in his haste to escape, and several chests full of gold and riches wait in a nearby treasure chamber

Vertina pants a few times at the end. "Now that is a morning work out!... We thinned out some of their numbers, at least." She grabs one of the chests of gold and hoists it onto her shoulder with little issue. "Let's get this loot out of here, the Hunter's Guild and the Alliances can use it to fund pushing farther in... after we take our share for the Duty, of course."

    A workout!? Yes this was a workout! Wynfei kept the pressure on the goblins, wave after wave the Monkey danced in and out of range. He did get hit, no one was not gettign through this unscathed, but when things got hectic, the solid sounds of his staff slamming into bodies or heads came back repeatedly. Even as he fought jokes could be heard or just laughter eminated from him as he moved. Though once things were done, he was breathing hard and he sheathed his staff and walked over to where teh two women were, he grabs a chest and waits to leave.

Goldenblade is chucking gold and loot into her inventory as fast as she can. She nods to Vertina, "Let's grab what we can and make ourselves scarce. I'm all used up, I think. I feel like I've been rode hard and put away wet." She smiles to Wynfei, tells him, "That was a good run. We'll have to do this again sometime."

    Wynfei grins, "MOst def, granted I'm going to be around more often so let me know when you need me. Both of you." he says to Goldenblade and Vertina. Rubbing the back of his head a little, he yawns and begins filling up his pockets and bags as well so that they can get out o fhere as quickly as htey can.