Duty Session 269: For Whom the Bell Gnolls

     Gnolls in the forest, harassing newbies? When word reached Pela of this... which took way longer than it probably should have, she decided to act! In that she, well. Goes out and starts gathering a party via the standard channels. The looking for group systems. While she would like to handle it solo, well... there's not much that is safe to solo anymore, so Pela was waiting for a group to arrive at a small camp that she set up near the zone where the gnolls were supposed to be attacking newbies at. Simple alarms and such had been set up around the camp to let her know if gnolls decided to come attack, though they were crude, they would hopefully keep her -- and her party -- safe while they gather.

    Gnolls being a problem yet again? It's not the first time Amalthea has heard of such trouble, and it's not the first time she's come responding either, muttering about big undead gnolls as she approaches the camp.
    "Ah, Pela dear. You sent a party request right? Well here I am."

You see, Scale Emblem doesn't care -just- about the Tower. Every so often the gnoll population needs to be thinned down, so the lower level players can get up to speed with more advanced quests, and hopefully decide to help in the tower. Which also means coming through Tolbana and engaging in other activities like the tavern (which she owns) and the new bathhouse (which she just really likes). Or some vage reason like that.

It's mostly because she's a tomboy thrillseeker that likes beating up monsters, and you don't really need more reason than that.

"And she brought help!" The Salamander martial artist chimes in, brandishing her clawed fist weapons.

Schneider is in the are, studying ... what is he studying, anyhow? But he's got a bunch of book-shaped lumps in his pack, like he's been picking them up and collecting. He hadn't been planning on joining, but the place he's going requires him to go /through/ the gnoll zome, so he'll join up with the party. Safer that way.

"Good afternoon," he offers as he approaches. "I'm here to blow up gnolls." Looks like this will be a scaley time...

     The first arrival! It's Amalthea! Oh good it's people she recognizes! Or at least one of them is. Pela dips into a curtsy towards Amalthea. "Yes. Hello! ...Welcome! ...It's good to see you. ...I will have to go out to the tower again to help more with the goblins soon." She says with a small nod. Huh. A party of Scale Emblem people, it seems. ...She's fine with this. She doesn't care as much about the 'alliance lines'.
     As Vertina arrives, Pela gives a polite curtsy towards her -- and Schneider in turn as they arrive. A light party it seems. That's fine, easier for her to manage. "A pleasure to meet you both. I am Pela Clarpuff, a solo player from the New World Alliance." She straightens up and points towards the gnoll tracks nearby. "I managed to find these. They should lead towards the gnolls."
     She turns and starts to walk alongside the tracks, slipping her twin ninja-to out of their sheathes in preparation of a fight. What they find... isn't gnolls immediately though. It's... some sort of ... altar? "...Looks like some sort of ritual location, or possibly some sort of a ... warning? Trying to scare people off?" She muses as she looks at the altar, examining the stuff there, but not touching anything just yet as she tries to puzzle out what this bloody mess was all about. "...It smells." She nods sagely.

Vertina briefly bows back to Pela. "Vertina Ketobasu, at your service." Then true to form as soon as she's back upright she sprints off ahead, never being one to shy away from taking the lead. It's a mix of that daredevil attitude, and Salamanders being natural hunters.

Though after a few strides she slows down again, frowning. "Something is making my scales crawl." Her tail lashes with a sudden bout of irritation as she squints, but the stench of foul magic and fresh sacrifice is making it hard for her to focus. ".. Ugh. Let's just find who made this mess and make a mess out of them instead of trying to understand it." Did we mention she's a little on the side of... impatience, or maybe overeagerness to fight would be more accurate.

Schneider introduces himself as, "Dark Schneider." He's been putting together tiny hints and pieces of information all month, it seems like, and when he looks at the altar, he sighs. "It's one of these," he explains, and he takes the small doll of a gnoll and moves a couple of the other bits as he explains, "It's a bit like a magic circle, where you've got to make all the lines add up, but a bit more symbolic. Sory of..." As to what it's for, he explains, "It's supposed to enhance their power, in general. Like a buff for the whole gnoll clan, sort of thing..."

    Amalthea did indeed bring help, beaming rather brightly at Vertina's arrival. Schneider being in the area is just as equally fortuitous and she waves the two on over to join up with the group. "These two are mine. Odyssia Knights, and I'd trust them both to pull my hide out of a fire if I ever needed it. You're in good company, Pela."
    So it's time to get a move on and what's the first thing they see? A bloody sacrificial ritual altar of some kind. Amalthea rubs her chin as she examines it for a good long moment.
    Before she decides to fix the problem the only way she knows how.
    With a bit of good old Heroic Vandalism.
    Amalthea brings a boot up... And proceeds to kick the altar and everything on it clean over in hopes of disrupting the dark energies and leylines and bad juju by simply ruining the altar.
    "Problem solved." She says regardless of the outcome.

     And Vertina sprints ahead to the altar! Which... Pela is honestly fine with, she's more cautious, even if she is usually the scout, so someone else taking the lead was more than okay. "...Probably all the blood everywhere, really." She comments on the crawling scales issue, as she starts to ... move things around a little bit finally. Hmm. Maybe... if she... nope. Not really. Hm.
     "Oh... huh... mass buff huh, well... then we should definitely destroy this mess. Yep!" She moves in towards things and starts to just... get ready to destroy shit! ...Which... Amalthea beats her to! "Good to know... I will try to be just as reliable." She says with a smile, and then... well... she's standing next to Amalthea, joining her right in on her heroic vandalism. She nods in agreement. "Yep... good enough." She says with a grin.
     Regardless of if it actually did anything or not... it's... well. It's hard to know really. One thing is for sure, though, the altar has been thoroughly beaten into submission at the very least!
     Moving on further into the forest from that location, following trails and such... they start finding... traps and messes in the foliage. Some sort of hanging ropes that had been attempting to hold something in... hm. "This looks like... something was kept here instead of ... the other way around. I don't think this is a trap for us..." She muses thoughtfully.

Schneider is trusted to pull someone off the fire? That's not the usual relationship he has with fire. His class doesn't read 'Exploder Wizard', but it probably should. He double-takes as Amalthea kicks over the altar as he's adjusting the figures, and shrugs. "Well, that's one solution, I guess," he says with amusement. Problem solved, indeed. He doesn't mention that without undoing the spell the right way, it'll decay slowly rather than immediately.

He follows along deeper into the forest, stepping carefully to avoid traps as the way gets progressively more unnerving.

    Problem. Solved.
    Clearly kicking over the altar was the right course of action and Amalthea is sticking to her guns on this one. That's all it takes to clear away Bad Juju.
    Nevertheless moving on into the forest, the heinous sounds of hideous gnoll laughter don't go missed as Amalthea steps around traps and dangling ropes and nasty bloody trees.
    "I think it's coming from over there." She says motioning in a vague 'that way' direction after following her ears.
    "What's say we go that-a-way and sackbeat us some gnolls, eh?"

Vertina beams at the praise from Amalthea, and snickers a bit as she just takes the direct approach in kicking over the alter. "If nothing else, that's a good 'we don't want your shit here' message to send! Let's move on."

Once the group proceeds a bit she slows down again. Once away from the corrupt stank of the sacrifical site she can pick up the distinctly musky and foul odor of actual Gnolls, and pick out signs of their presence like a proper hunter. "Something has been this way." After a few more steps she pauses again, pointing at the side of a tree. "See that." She reachs over to hold one of her Direclaw Cestus next to marks in the bark. "Someone has been sharping claws or claw-like weapons on these trunks to rip the bark off. Be ready for something savage and possibly armed."

     "Let's see, it looks like... whatever it is went... that way?" Pela muses out loud as she looks in the direction that the bloody trails and broken leaves lead, starting to follow after it carefully, keeping low and careful as she does. "Sometimes. Brute force is the easiest puzzle solution." Pela says with the tone of someone experienced in such things. Look sometimes when you're solo that's all you can manage when the puzzles are meant to be done by two or three people.
     "We are seeing a whole lot of no gnolls so far which is weird. Hearing, but not seeing." She says towards Amalthea after her comment. Still. Go and sackbeat some gnolls? That sounded good to her. She was the technical 'party lead' but... well. She's fine with not actually leading. She could leave that to people more used to actual leading. Yep.
     "Savage and possibly armed? That... that sounds like Gnolls to me, yeah. But they're just gnolls, how bad can they really b--." 'Hoo hoo ha, hoo hoo ha, hoo hoo ha'. Right as Pela bites herself in the foot with her comments, that's when the chanting starts. And there was a sudden sound of rustling and breaking trees, as a giant armored gnoll appears, charging in with antlers visible on its head! "...It can be a hunter, apparently. That looks flammable." Pela says thoughtfully, glancing towards the salamander that's with them. "...I say we fire this gnoll from the game." Wait. Pela made a joke, what.
     She draws a small slip of paper that is inscribed with the kanji for 'fire' on it, and murmurs a quick little incantation. And draws a ball of fire from the paper, before flinging it towards the gnoll. "Burn." She states simply.

And it turns out Vertina's assessment of their possible opposite is pretty accurate. Looks like the massive fighter was ripping down bark and brush to make his armor. Of course, even an enhanced Gnoll isn't very smart, apparently.

"Stop him before he gets close enough to strike!" she suggests. Then takes a breath. Exhales a gout of flame, as Salamanders often do, unleashing a powerful wash of fiery wrath to ignite that improvised armor on fire and turn the gnoll it one big brute bonfire.

Schneider follows Pela along. Whatever else Exploder Wizards do, finding their way in the woods isn't part of it, and he's just following and avoiding the gnolls' traps as he spots them. Then suddenly, there's a giant gnoll all in armor with antlers and he nods at what Pela says. "This -is- Scale," he reminds her with a chuckle, then simply says, "GUNZENRO!"

Which is apparently the fast-and-quick starter fire spell, but cranked up to eleven because he's Dark Schneider, and Fire is his thing, it's less of a tiny flare and more of an agonizing conflagration, which sets the gnoll on fire and Schneider grins smugly as the gnolls HP plummets as the ON-FIRE debuffs stack up.

    'Be ready for something savage and possibly armed' Vertina warns.
    Amalthea takes that warning into due consideration and readies herself by drawing her sword, strapping her shield tighter to her arm and approaching cautiously. But.
    Amalthea moves into melee. It's what she does best as she spams her taunts to hold the thing's aggro as she scrapes the blade of her sword on the ground.
    Kicking up a spark, her sword comes to life blazing with fire, as she starts to go to town, wailing on the big gnoll with her blazing sword.

     The gnoll appeared. And it just... it was almost instantaneous. It arrived. And immediately there was just. Fire. Fire everywhere. So much fire. If monsters respawn, the poor thing might have PTSD from all of the fire. It's immediately screeching and dropping to the ground, rolling around and trying to put out the fire. But it just... it just makes it spread on the gnoll. As quickly as it appeared, the gnoll almost as quickly burst into red pixels. It barely even had a chance to attack. And even that attack had been deterred by MORE FIRE.
     "...I honestly don't know that much about the Scale Emblem beyond that you guys are trying to get home to your lives and climb the tower because of it." Pela responds to Schneider's comment. "...So uhm. Scale likes fire? Good to know." And... yep. Yep that's a very burnt up gnoll.
     Speaking of gnolls, the forest almost suddenly seemed to come to life, gnolls now visible in trees and watching, but wary enough to stay back. Watching carefully... and then... then there was another large general type gnoll. Giant. And wearing dark leathers. Red runes are burned into its fur, and it is wielding a scythe. "...Uhm. Is this one your cousin?" She asks Schneider almost playfully.
     And then it was charging them. With its scythe at the ready to attempt to cut them down. To which Pela responds by repelling its attack with a twofold spell, a quickly drawn slip of paper with 'earth' inscribed on it. A wall of earth is summoned to stop the attack, while spikes shoot out from that wall to catch its charge!

As soon as the next opponent makes their presence known Vertina smiles, with several sharp teeth showing like a cunning predator. "I'll distract him, someone do something about that corrupt magic!" But instead of her weapons Vertina pulls out a tightly bound pouch that makes the rustling noise of several dried botanicals and powders when shuffled. "I can mix more than drinks at the bar after all." She flicks the sack from her hand, then winds back a leg and uses her football striker skills to kick the bundle right into the Gnoll's face! The sack explodes on impact, unleashing it's contents of irritating dust and spore to get in his eyes and mouth and disorient the feral fiend.

Schneider looks over at the runed gnoll, and smirks at Pela's question. "No relation," he says. But the runes do seem ... familiar to him. He's done waaaay too much reading over the last month, and he says, "Hang on..." and then something in a language that doesn't auto-translate. But the runes he's marked with fade one by one. "Much as I'd prefer to fireball him," he explains, "This way is so much easier." And indeed, once the runes he's dispelled have faded, everyone's hits start taking much larger chunks of health.

    "Going home is the plan, aye." Amalthea replies with a nod of her head. "I have family waiting for me back there and I'd like to see them again before I keel over from age." She says in a lighthearted jest after the flaming gnoll is reduced to pixels.
    But then there are so many gnolls. And an even bigger one covered in Literally Satanic Writing All Over Him steps out to meet them.
    She does peer at Schneider as he says some Actually Magic Words that begin to dispel those runes.
    Snuffing out the fire on her blade it comes to life with a new, white hot, holy glow as she reels her arm back and starts laying into the Abyssal gnoll while Pela and Vertina have its attention.

     This fight was ... a bit more drawn out and protracted. A proper miniboss fight. In fact this had almost been a series of boss fights, even considering that they'd more or less just sackbeaten with fire. As Pela focuses on defense and Vertina distracts with spores, the creature gives a roar of both annoyance and anger from the irritating spores in its face.
     That angry roar becomes a bit panicked and louder as rather suddenly its runes were fading, its buffs just... disappearing and weakening it with each moment, each lost rune even reducing its size. Which just makes it that much easier when Amalthea draws forth that white holy blade. It didn't take many hits before that thing was just... dispersed by the holy magicks, its unholy nature revealed and quickly destroyed.
     "...Yeah. ... It's why I uhm. Don't... want to stop you guys, that's for sure. ...Even if it turns out you can't get back then, well. If we'd been trying to stop you... then what? Then we have a bunch of people stuck in a game they don't wanna be stuck in that we actively hurt and hindered their attempts so like..." Pela shakes her head. "...Yeah. Anyway." Pela looked like she wanted to say more. Like she had more that she wanted to get off her chest.
     But now wasn't the time, as when the infernally runed gnoll is destroyed, a sudden... silence falls over the forest. The yips. The chanting. The jeers of the gnolls from before as they had expected a good fight with the adventurers being destroyed just... silences.
     But it wasn't because of the loss. No. They could almost FEEL it as the next gnoll begins to approach. That there was something WRONG coming. Something awful. Something horrifying. The forest itself seemed to twitch and shift as a possibly-familiar form crashes into the middle of the party, breathing a heavy, growling breath out as it runs towards the party. Haggar. The gnoll boss from before. But... something was off. Something was wrong.
     And its huge axe was swung before the party could even react, chunking off a massive amount of health from the party as they try to get ready for the fight. "Agh! S-something is wrong with that gnoll!" Pela calls out, shifting weapons quickly, using the signature style of her main class; that being the ability to use basically every weapon type. She draws out a massive scythe, shifting into a heavy DPS stance to begin to attempt to hack away at that boss. Each attack seeming to get faster and faster as she activates her sword arte, her scythe and body glowing until she was moving almost as if nothing but a blur. Meanwhile, Haggar is... well. Not relenting. No. It was fighting. And fighting hard. This was not going to be an easy fight.

    With the Satan-Gnoll handled Amalthea purses her lips.
    "Mm. I'd prefer not to think that way. But if we can't get back well. That's a bridge to cross when we get to it." The old Paladin murmurs.
    But now isn't the time for talk as an even bigger, more monstrous Gnoll.
    Haggar she remembers.
    'Haggar DEATHCLEAVER@X&!777Q' is entirely new.
    The fact that she gets *caught* by the initial weapon swing before she can get her defenses up nearly floors her. But Amalthea gets up, gritting her teeth as she storms to the front of the group and braces her shield.

    "Anchor Howl!" She declares defiantly.

    And starts wildly spamming her taunts and damage mitigation rotations to hold Haggar's attention while the others lay into him.

Vertina tilts her head briefly at Schneider. She's listening to what he's saying, even though it doesn't translate. She's got some scripture knowledge herself, but whatever Schnieder has discovered is beyond her understanding. "I guess all that time with your nose in the books in the new library is paying off!" Then adds to the other conversation, "I'm not so worried about getting home myself, being crippled. But I'm here to help the people that do have reason to." As Almathea explains. "And Scale knows were to find all the real challenges, Tower or otherwise!"

Their combination of tactics, countermagic and Light beatings scatter the gnolls. And then, it's Haggar!.... Except there is something very very WRONG with Haggar. "Holy tanuki junk, what happened to him!?" Though after a moment her toothy, slightly unhinged grin returns. "Maybe this time he'll be a challenge!"

It's times like this that the teamwork the Odyssials have honed in Raiding shows. Knowing Amalthea is going to go for the front the quick-footed Salamander follows her lead. She dives and rolls under Haggar's massive axe swing, to get into a position behind him. Because if there is one blind spot such huge AoE sweeps tend to have, it's directly behind the swinger.

"TANK FLANK AND SPANK!" she roars like a battlecry as she leaps, aiming to get on Haggar's back where he can't get at her easily and dig her Direclaw Cestus deep into his glitched flesh.

Schneider nods to Vertina about the time in the library paying off. "Yeah, it's definitely turning out useful," he agrees. "But the libraries all have slightly different variations. Like they were copied by hand, but the copiers only copied the parts they were really interested in. It's a bit frustrating."

Then Hogger. He looks up, frowns. "Oh, this guy..." He scowls, then chants, the tone just a bit creepy, "Brain, brain dead. Obey your blood oath, come forth from the land of Avalon. Fire of Gehenna, become a fiery blast and burn everything around us!" He pauses, takes a breath, then concludes, "EXODUS!" This is clearly a level up from his GUNZENRO spell, and it hits Hogger, setting him aflame and only the strength of Amalthea's taunts keep it from biting his face off. The flames eat Hogger's health fast, and while it may be tank and spank, it's a bit more like tank and incinerate.

     "I, uhm, don't think it's that! I'm sure you can get home. I hope you do. ...I don't have much to go back to. But you do, so uhm... yeah!" Pela gives a simple nod, as she dodges under an incoming attack, and Amalthea begins her Anchor Howl to draw its attention! And starts unleashing damage mitigations and taunts. Which lets Pela continue her own relentless assault.
     Vertina's comments get a small smile from Pela, not that it's possible to see it. "Yeah. ...I'm... kind of in the same boat. ... But ... well. I dunno. Misgivings ... about the waves of Calamity. .... But ... mm." She shakes her head, weaving around the flow of battle as Vertina jumps onto the creatures back, tearing at his health bar and chunking health off of the boss. Haggar fights back of course, reaching a hand to attempt to grab Vertina to throw her off of his back, only to trigger Anchor Howl's effect, dealing damage to it and causing it to screech in the sudden pain.
     The talk of the books and the copiers not copying all of the parts the same. That actually makes Pela frown. "...Going to have to check on my book, make sure it's all properly copied... maybe we can work together to make all three of the libraries have more... proper... information by combining the three versions of the books into one."
     And then... FIRE! Even more fire. And gnolls are... well. Flammable. Quickly burning down its health bar and possibly forcing Vertina off of Haggar's back. It's... not a quick fight. It takes a long time. Several health bars, multiple phases, and Haggar is straight up /invulnerable/ in several of the phases. Soon, the monster's last health is taken. And... Haggar... flickers. Jitters. And seems as if it's going through attack animations for a few moments that do nothing. Until... it just... freezes. And starts to crumble away, slowly breaking into motes of light from its head to its feet, until finally... it's... gone. And in its place is a chest, full of strangely colored monster pelts. "...Phew... that's... that's over..." Pela mumbles, flopping down onto her back at the end of the fight, staring up at the running gnolls, eyes flicking between them, making sure they don't decide to take advantage of the tired and weakened party. They seem more interested in running, thankfully.

Schneider is panting hard by the time the fight is done, having hurled fire so, so many times. He admits to Pela, "The copying errors are more on the old books than the new one in the Alliance Libraries. But all the information on the really old stuff is in weird, obscure places. The fact that they even put it in the game hints that there's some advantage to knowing it, but I haven't worked out what that advantage is."

As far as going home, he sighs, "Yeah, I just started college and in good health, I had not planned on being here for the rest of whatever. I'd like to get out, y'know, and finish college, get a job, get married, and all that. That's why I want to get out."

Vertina manages to twist out of the way of the awkward grab, using her fist claws dug into Haggar's shoulders for extra grip in doing so. She rides it out as long as she can, until the flames start to lick at her own scaled forearms and she kicks off his back. But by that point she's cut chunks from his HP and left some wicked gashes for the flames to farther char, getting Haggar to finally go down.

She takes a few steps back, just in case his glitchy form does something weird on dying. Inhales slowly to catch her breath. "I wonder were Shiroe got off to. He'd probably want to take a look at this guy's weird state, if he still respawns like he use to." But hey they won, and that's all good. "Yeah. I'm not so bad off I'm an invalid, and can work at my family's inn. That's how I learned to handle barkeeping. But.. I guess it doesn't matter either way for me, other than I can do things here I can't do in reality anymore." She pauses to blow a few sparks of fire between her lips. "And more."

     "Yeah... it's kind of how it always has been to be honest. Weird, obscure places. Lots of little secrets..." Pela says, her tone growing almost fond as she muses about that. She pauses. She shifts her gaze away. "I, uhm. I ... have... a basically useless body left in the real world. So uhm. That's my situation. I... had a stroke because of the Flash of Death virus. I don't have any use of the left side of my body... basically can't do much of anything on my own anymore."
     Pela shifts uncomfortably. "But... I mean. Just because, well. Just because all I have is a broken body to go back to doesn't mean others don't and I don't want to stop that and I want you to be able to but also I'm a little afraid that you guys going home means this might... be... destroyed in the end... i mean... I don't fully believe that you guys are causing the waves of calamity but it's hard to ignore that after the tower bosses are destroyed they come. But I just..." She shifts a bit awkwardly. "...Just... uhm." She takes a deep breath. "...I'd rather everyone work together in the end. Regardless of the outcome... because fighting amongst ourselves just makes us weaker if the waves of calamity /do/ come without a boss being taken down..."

Schneider smiles to Pela, winces at being a stroke survivor. "You're lucky that doesn't cause you problems using the nerve gear," he says thoughtfully. "But yeah, no reason to expect a logout button appearing will cause the game to shut down. As far as the waves of calamity, that's a game mechanic the game designers put in, isn't it? It'd be like blaming players for water being wet. Anyhow, I know a few of our people burned a lot of resources getting to the Waves in time after fighting the floor bosses. It's why I'm trying to re-invent air travel. It's why we're doingt the planes, trains, and automobiles thing." Trains, anyhow.

"I got hit by a drunk on a suicide drive," Vertina replies. "Not paralyzed, but even with reconstructive surgery and braces I can barely walk on my own. Definitely can't play sports anymore." That explains a lot of the football/soccer stuff in her techniques though. She jabs a thumb over her shoulder at Pela. "See, this girl gets it. Let's be honest, we're not going to all get along, but we still need to work together to endure.... Besides, there's those assholes from the other worlds that keep using the Waves to their advantage, so it's not like Bosses dying is the only reason they're occuring." She flicks one hand in a casual salute to Pela. "Feel free to call next time you need more monster beat up."

     "...If it had I'd probably have..." Pela pauses. "I don't know what I'd have done." Pela says, frowning at the thought. A small shudder runs up her back. "It's bad enough I can't... really... do what I used to enjoy doing in the real world anymore." She shakes her head at that. "Anyway... y-yeah. Yeah. I don't blame you guys for it. ...It's... just how things are. ...And like... if you're just trying to go home then, well... who's the bad guy if we're trying to stop you? ...Not you, that's for sure."
     Pela smiles a little bit towards Vertina, giving a little nod. "Yeah... enduring together. T-that's the best thing in the end. I uhm..." She pauses. "I've been... kind of thinking of possible, like... maybe things... I honestly suspect I might be ending up in a fey mood soon... I'm starting to think about so much enchanting lately." She nods a bit. "Anyway! i'll, uhm, let you know if I need more help later." And then Pela sends friends requests to Schneider and Vertina both. And she... was starting to leave again, her presence suddenly almost completely disappearing. Like. She was still there. The two could still see she was there. But it was hard to see her as if she didn't belong. It just seemed normal for her to be there as she walks away, hard to see her as anything other than part of the forest. Nin nin nin.

Vertina Accepts the friend request... and in the moment she had to look away to the menu commands to do so is enough for Pela to slip away. She blinks at this a moment.

"... New World has a lot of ninjas don't they"

Schneider accepts the friend request and also loses track of Pela. "Them and Olympus," he agrees with Vertina. "Do we have any stealth people?" he wonders idly.