Duty Session 284: Obligatory Rat Cellar

Angela Lansbury can sing about Beauty and the Beast being a Tale As Old As Time, but when it comes to video games, nothing says newbie quest like rats in a cellar.

"Hello Adventurer!" Says the NPC as the party gathers in the General Store, each for their own reasons. "My food stores are being overrun by rats! If someone doesn't help, I'll be ruined!"

Michio nods to Yeowang and Prophylaxis as he sees them gather in, "I swear, I've run this duty so many times I've lose count, but it won't cough up that third reward." He then inclines his head towards Rori, and after a moment grunts, "Good day to you. Looks like we share not only an Alliance, but the same guild as well. I am Michio Asa, it's a pleasure to meet you."

Yeowang nods to Michio, and agrees, "I'm hoping for the third reward as well." She hasn't run it countless times, but hopefully we'll all get what we want. She nods to him and Rori, but onlt sharing an alliance, she says nothing. It hasn't seemed to count for much lately. She'll accept the quest from the questgiver, and then stand ready for when we get down to it.

Rats, again! There is never a short supply of rats in this or any other world. They breed, as it happens, like rats! Multiplying over and over in their tiny holes until they become an infestation that simply cannot be ignored. And considering the kind of public health hazard they pose, it's little wonder that Prophylaxis, doctor that he is, has taken an interest in eradicating every last trace of them.

"Indeed! That last reward has eluded me as well, though I'm always glad to take a little time out of my day to absolutely obliterate an infestation. Nothing makes my heart soar more than seeing such persistent vermin rooted out. I am Prophylaxis, by the way-- a doctor! Fufufu~"

Or so he claims.

The diminutive roly poly cait sith had managed to wander into the store a touch late as per usual. She'd heard there was a duty to be done but she'd certainly taken her time getting to it, she'd never been to type to rush things and there were virtual flowers that needed smelled along the way. A smattering of overexcited waves came in with her as the little bell at the door rang and she immediately distracted herself with the noise, glancing up for a moment with a blinking intrigue, "That's a nice bell, 10 out of 10 would ring again."

Yes Rori, it's an exceptionally good bell, we get it, thank you for the review "Oh Hello!" the girl chipperly replied, now turning her attention to Michio as he introduced himself, "I'm Rori, it's nice to meet you too." the high-spirited chirp came from her mouth as she scuttled over to shake hands, her bug-like carapace making a soft swishing noise when she halted her feet.

Michio says, "Well, here's to hoping! And welcome to the outing, Rori. Always glad to meet a guild member." The salamander offers a toothy smile, then begins climing down the ladder.

As the party descends into the depths of the first chamber, the only light that can be seen is that of the entrance above. It's almost as though some fel energy absorbs the very light from the air. The sounds of scurrying feet echo about, but the darkness makes the chamber feel at once immeasurably vast and constrictingly small.

Yeowang blinks as we head down into the darkness, and when it gets particularly dim, she'll light a torch. That was easy. Rats scurry off, and she'll peer into the gloom, continuing forward now that the dark has been alleviated. "Yes," she agrees, echoing Michio, "Welcome to the big leagues. I only recently took off my training wheels, so I'm not too familiar with the game, either," she explains.

"A good day to you too," Prophylaxis answers, shaking this cait sith's hand. "Best of luck, eh?"

Onwards!

Into... A terribly dark cellar, you say? Well, unfortunately this particular wizard doesn't pack anything in the way of casual lighting spells outside of something like Electrical Fuzz-- but there's always a way when magic is on hand. Prophylaxis snaps his fingers and... summons a series of floating, burning orbs, each one shedding flickering firelight into the gloom. A damn sight better than trying to navigate in the dark, though it's still not particularly bright.

Rori was pretty sure she had a lantern in her pack somewhere and that could probably shed some light on things. The oversized backpack wasn't exactly the easiest thing to pull gear from though and soon a comical struggle of her attempting to locate the lantern without having to take off the pack ensued, complete with plenty of bumping into this and that as she fumbled about. "I...almost...have it." no she didn't, she wasn't even close. More huffing and puffing came along until she eventually gave up and unbuckled the strapping around her stomach, letting the hefty bag slam into the ground before rummaging through the rucksack and pulling out the lantern. "Always be prepared." such a motto, now if only you could get to your things in a timely manner. With a snap of her fingers a magical flame appeared and lit the oil lamp, shining it's light out into the darkness from the vantage point while she reclaimed her belongings.

Boop. Doesn't get much easier than that! The other thing as old as time is a fear of the dark held by sentient creatures. The most expedient way to expel the dark? Light! And what makes light?! FIRE!

Michio makes a simple incantation, "Flickum, biccum!" and then he has a small violet hued flame hovering above his index finger.

Looking around at the rest of the group he sees them gathering their own methods of dispelling the gloom; Yeowang lights and takes a torch, Prophylaxis does an OH SNAP, and Rori actually comes prepared!

Looking down the long dark hallway, rife with side passages, Michio asks, "Anyone have a ball of string?"

Yeowang does not have a ball of string, but she can try and follow the tracks of people who've been through here before, to see which way they went. That's a good plan, but the tracks she finds and follows were of someone who was, themselves, utterly lost. So, being able to follow them does her no good. Hopefully there's others in the party she can follow? They look pretty reliable.

A maze! A maze...? Prophylaxis frowns thoughtfully, as if considering his options. He /could/ just try to blow a hole through it, but... that seems like it might backfire pretty horribly? But maybe he's got something else in his bag of tricks...? A ball of string? No, not quite. "I've got an idea. Give me a second," Prophylaxis says, tapping his staff against the earth. There's a sound like a crack of thunder as the doctor... vanishes?

No, he's just moving very, very quickly. He zooms in and out of corridors, back and forth through hallways, before finally emerging out of a nearby door. "Found us a way forward," he says, thumbing back in the direction from whence he came. "Let's keep moving?"

A ball of string? Of course Rori had a ball of string and of course the question had been asked just as she'd reclasped her pack onto herself, "I think I do." the cheerful isopod assured with a bobbling nod as she waded through the passage and up towards Michio for some assistance getting to it. "Here, it should be in the sixth pocket from the left, in the middle row, behind the one with all the moss in it." so many questions, first off why was there moss there? Secondly, What type of person collects moss? Third, why did this girl carry her entire house on her back? And finally, how was she not encumbered from something so large? "What are you going to do with string? Make friendship bracelets?" that's an idea, but probably not the one Michio had in mind and likely not an activity to do in the middle of a duty. "I've got some different colored ones in there too." how tempting, friendship bracelets for everyone then?

Salamanders are normally natural hunters, but the gloom and thick layer of dust over everything aren't doing Michio any favors. At first he follows Yeowang, thinking she looks like she knows where she's going, but then he suggests they take a different turn, which proves hopeless.

Thankfully Doc and Rori have things covered. As Rori offers her pouch to Michio for the string, the Ki Master withdraws it and then, on one of Doc's reappearances, he hands the ball to him and lets him flash about down tunnels, using the ball as an extra aide to not get lost.

"Now we're making good time!" Michio offers encouragingly.

And then the group comes to a room of rowdy rodents, romping rudely.

Yeowang is more than a match for some rats, wading through the middle of the melee and heartlessly kicking any that get too close, sending them flying, sometimes two at a time. She's got a very solid kick. She then proceeds across the room with impugnity, step, rat, step, rat, step, step, step, rat.

There are some downsides to the spell Prophylaxis just used. Principally, that it is damn tiring. You try sprinting at ludicrous speeds down a bunch of corridors without being a little bit winded by the end! It's not fun!

"I'll... need a sec," Prophylaxis wheezes, gasping for breath at the front end of the room. He'll need a bit before he's recovered enough to adequately punch rats, it seems...!

Taking some damage in a rat fight is inevitable and as the two swarms ascend onto the groups a few ticks of damage start to roll in from the melee. Being the overzealous healer that she is a solid heal over time spell is tossed out across the group before she began playing whack-a-rat with her hammer. "Okay, there's really a lot of you, maybe you could try forming a single file line?" the request fell on deaf rodent ears as Rori's bopping continued onward. The mousey menace outright refused to let this fight happen in a form fitting manner and chose the path of hectic chaos instead.

Zero fucks are to be had by Yeowang, who merely wades into the epic rat battle...

*CRONCH*
*SPLORK*
*SCREEE*
*BLRCH*

Doctor prescribes himself a breather, and lets the others do the work for a minute.

Rori works her way through the crowd, tossing a group heal to help the team deal with any wounds.

And Michio walks in, claps his hands together, and creates a concussive blast that sends rats sprawling to either side of the room, before grabbing Prophylaxis and dragging him to the other side.

"Now, this guy looks mean..." and Michio begins chanting under his breath, clearly preparing a spell.

Yeowang follows along, leaving the epic rat battle and finding herself in a magical rat-lord's chamber. Of some sort. The other rats avoid it, but the rat sitting on a huge pile of cloth scraps is definitely not normal. The first couple punches and kicks do no good, which dismays her.

"Magical protection, then?"

So, it's this again? She's not comfortable with magic, and not much good at it, but it -can- get her out of an impasse such as this one. The spell is not so much a damaging spell as one that drives it mad, fighting itself in its own mind, hate and rage swirling around inside its head as imaginary demons torment it. "That works," she comments dryly.

The self appointed Rat King didn't look like the type of monster to mess around, he also looked a bit like he might be carrying a multitude of diseases with all of that froth billowing from his mouth hole. "Ew, is he okay? Do you think he has rabies? Poor thing." yeah, he might Rori, I think the best course of action is euthanasia, it's a dirty job but someone will have to do it. Her magic immediately sprung forth as a variety of viney thorns burst from the ground and protectively wrapped the party, ready to deliver some spikey pokes to the creature when it aggressively lunged at her friends. "I kinda want to pet him, but I kinda don't think he'd like it." the giant monster simply hissed in response to the possibility of ear scritching, which roughly translated to 'Try it and I'll eat your hand'

The doctor has recovered! It's nice having capable <s>minions</s> compatriots to do the dirty work of punching rats for him. It also helps that the good doctor is packing a handful of stamina potions to help shore up his meager (relatively speaking) constitution.

But he doesn't have long to rest. There is something terrible waiting for them all up ahead. Something... Truly, truly awful.

"It's like some kind of dark ritual... But for rats. A dark... ratual?" Prophylaxis frowns and rubs his chin, then raises his staff. A rippling, aurora-like pattern of light flows out from the headpiece, peeling layer after layer away from the rat's awful enchantments. A successive series of counterspells, peel away the magic reinforcing the ratty monstrosity's like the shells of a particularly vile onion.

Michio takes a breather on this one, letting his mana bar recharge.

Yeowang plays mind games with the nesting rat, whose already rabid state put it into a frenzy.

As the rat begins snapping at the party, Rori's thorns impale it, sending it even more wild. The more damage it takes sending it further and further into apoplectic fits, and the harder it tries to snap at the party, causing itself more damage!

Doc's counterspell peels off not only layers of fabric, but also health points, until finally the thrall is deafeated.

And next is... the Were rat! Where rat? THERE rat! And there's another one! He keeps summoning them! Stop him quick! Clearly this is the source of the infestation as this demi-rodent summons forth vile vermin.

Yeowang /did/ spend time in a monastery studying. She appreciates that it might not be obvious, but apart from shaolin kung fu, they also taught her some weird, esoteric stuff that doesn't come up often. Now, though, is one of the times it comes up, and she instantly recongnizes the rat summoner for what he is. She shouts a counterspell, which makes the portal flicker, and then she joins the melee, punching and kicking the snot out of the summons while the summoner tries to reopen the portal. But with her having counterspelled it, it's not happening, and he's forced to fight. It does not go well for him.

With the battle going on and everyone doing their best to take out the wererat summoner and his rodent minions Rori rushed to the front lines, getting in a few bludgeoning blows with her hammer before quickly finding herself overwhelmed by the retaliation of wererat himself. "Oh gosh, um, um, um..." her health was dropping pretty quickly as damage was dished out and she had to reactively take a defensive posture. That defensive posture being dropping to the ground and curling into a ball. With a very kickable soccer ball just asking for it, the boss focused his attention on the curled up creature while the other party members came in for the rescue. If nothing else Rori was an excellent distraction and was managing to back tank a good portion of the attacks. "Ouchy, that's not nice!" the muffled yell came from the ground as she was rolled about between a few of the summons. "Meanies!"

You know what works exceedingly well against swarms of rats?

If you answered 'rat poison,' you would be correct, but that's not the solution the Doctor of Tolbana has prepared today.

The Ratty Enchanter weaves his magic, summoning legions of twitchy, disease-ridden rodents. If he's not stopped, the entire town might be overrun. But...

It seems he has no answer to a man on fire.

Literally. Prophylaxis snaps his fingers and promptly ignites, wading into the swarm of rats and setting each ablaze as he passes. It turns out you can't bite someone if they put themselves on fire first. Are arts ninjas? Irrelevant! They burn like ninjas, and that's all that really matters!

"Go on and take care of the mage," Prophylaxis instructs as he unleashes a seemingly endless torrent of fire bolts upon the verminous legion. "I'll take care of these creatures."

"NIGHTMARE SPHERE!!!" shouts the Ki Master, throwing his hands forward. A sphere of dark energy surrounds the were-rat, as well as his companions, and then the beatings commence. Yeowang jumps into the fray with her counterspell leading the way, and Rori... Rori's. It's adorable, even if it's not super effective.

Doc, meanwhile, circles back to where everything in this duty began. With flame and fire! Soon all that remains of the were-rat and his legion of rodents are pixels and... a disturbingly tasty looking piece of meat for each participant.

Might be good for.. ratatouie?

MISSION COMPLETE.

Yeowang looks at the drop she got skeptically. "Tasty rat meat? Why do I find that wildly unlikely?" She eyes Michio, then Doc, then Rori. "I think I'll just ... save it for later. Much later." She'll tuck that into her inventory, and then lets get out of here. "Any reason to hang around?"

"As long as it's cooked properly, it should be fine," Prophylaxis says with a shrug. "People eat rabbits fairly frequently, and I think chinchillas, gerbils and hamsters are all eaten in certain parts of the world. So, you know, why not?"

"I'll probably use mine in some sort of concoction. It appears to have alchemical properties." Michio offers with a shrug. "I'll have to give it a closer scrutiny to see what sorts of uses it'd have exactly. Maybe a stealth potion of some sort."

Eventually uncurling and springing back to her feet Rori wandered her eyes over to Prophylaxis as he spoke. "People eat chinchillas?" you learn something new every day. "I didn't know that." obviously if you phrased that is such a question you didn't know it Rori, but thinking aloud is one of your super powers. "I wonder what they taste like?" a curious shrug adorned the roly poly girl's shoulders as she began casting a few healing spells to get her HP back to a reasonable amount.

"Here, let me help with that..." Michio says to Rori as he approaches the Cait Sith, a softly pulsing healing energy surrounding his outstretched palm. As he extends it towards her, but not quite touching, the rate of her health increase jumps a little.

"Rori, I have something of a business proposition, if you'd be interested. When we get back to town, would you join me for a little chat? Or it could be another time..."

Yeowang arches a brow at the list of thing people eat. She's certainly used to a much classier menu, though since coming here, it's been mostly menu food. It's one of the most annoying things. But overhearing Michio's comment to Rori, she wonders, "Business proposition?" Now that's something more her speed! "Is it something I might possibly help with?"

The little isopod girl beamed a toothy smile over to Michio as he helped get her heath back from the brink, she'd already exhausted herself a bit trying to get there alone. "Thanks a bunch." she voiced with an appreciative thumbs up as Michio popped his business proposal "I'd love to..." there's that trail off, despite her being overtly intrigued by the possibility a but was coming on "...but..." called it, there it is. "...I'm a little out of energy right now, can we maybe meet up tomorrow and then we can chat?" she did still look pretty tired, fighting wererates and swarms of other rodents had been pretty exhausting.

Nodding to both Rori and Yeowang, Michio offers a quick, "Sure, that'd be fine. Yeowang, you're welcome to show up and hear as well. In fact, if you could both make your way to Breg Epona, we could meet at the inn there and then I'll tell you all about it. Would that be okay?"

Yeowang nods to Michio and Rori. "Tomorrow in the inn in Breg Epona, I'll be there. No rat neat, though." She frowns at the rats, and will get going.

Rori nodded her head half a dozen times, happily curling her lips as she began to waffle her hand and find her way out. "Sure thing, I'll head over that way." she hummed out, belatedly gathering her cut of the rat steaks and heading off. "See you soon!" she called back, taking off to go and get her power nap on.