Duty Session 290: Totally Typical Tomb

    June is spending another day being June. The small frumpy woman in her best barbarian princess cosplay picked up a quest at the Hunters Guild, and then just started walking. Sending invites to anyone she walked past who looked like they weren't doing anything until she had enough warm bodies to run the dungeon in question. Folks may or may not be getting use to June but she is the queen of PUGs.

Yeowang is, in fact, making arrangements with a merchant over something or other when she gets a party invite from the wandering barbarian princess. Well, it must be urgent if a player is going around spamming invites, so she'll accept and hurry to catch up. "What's going on?" she asks urgently, as she follows June to ... where is it we're going, anyhow? She looks around. Is this an emergency? She's not sure...

    Merek walks along and to the place where the people are gathering for the posting, while he takes a look about the place. There's a nod to June while he thinks about it a little, "Evening, I will assist if you need!"

The creepy foggy graveyard has turned up once more... and it's no surprise to see Olympus' resident mistress of spooky things show up to investigate. "I wonder what it will be this time. I have yet to see two of these instances bet entirely the same."

    The queen of PUGs has sent out a call , and Setsuna has accepted the invitation as he smiles at the topic of todays PUG. " It has certainly been a while. I don't think I have squeezed everything that rock can give. " So the necromancer falls in line behind June and begins to gravitate towards the cemetary. " I do hope we don't come across the blob oflesh this time."

    June smiles "Oooh, we're gona go clear a graveyard. Reoccuring issue. Not really a huge deal but if we don't clear it out who will? It's not like we have new low level players joining all the time anymore, and the graveyards still need clearing." she shrugs under her fur cloak.

    "It is one of those things you can find, well hopefuly it's something with good loot, but any way you look at it, the graveyard needs clearing." she says as the group gathers up around the entrance to the graveyard, the spooky atmosphere and looks around. "Everyone ready for undead shinanigans?" The librarian barbarian says with a wide smile.

Kauchemar doesn't have a hat but tips her head to make the same kind of gesture with her hand anyways. "Lead the way. If nothing else it's practice for anti-undead techniques that can be used in Ninetails."

Yeowang nods slowly as June explains the mission and purpose. She nods slowly, and gathers her long hair behind her head, tying it back in a ponytail. Normally she'll put it up for a duty, to keep it out of the way, but that's a bit time consuming for the immediacy of the mission. "Yes," she agrees. "Please lead on."

    Setsuna nods his head, " Yes I have many undead and can cause shennaigans. Yes that is me." The necromancer grins as he meets the comment with a joke. He thought it was funny at the very least. "One day though, some adventurer is just going to get annoyed with this quest and firebomb all the cemetaries then they are going to have to rebuild the cemetaries. Its really a vicious cycle. " Looking at June he points in a direction, "So this way?"

    June looks out over the gravestones, memorial markers really, since there are no actual graves in a graveyard here. And once the party passes the gates the skittering and rattling, clattering and silent furious squeaks of the undead rodent horde starts. "Oh these again... well it's worth noting that they're a pain in the butt.. literally... last time some got inside my cloak and I had to shift just to keep the nibbles off me."

Yeowang remains wary, and gives the alarm when she spots the rats. Or skeletons. Or skeletal rats? "Enemies!" she calls, and that will have to do for a summary for now. She steps up, though, kicking them hard, and sending them flying when they're not dispatched with a single hard kick. A few try to climb up her boots, but they discover that her fists are no less potent, delivering brutal blows as she clears her immediate area.

Kauchemar huhs. She was expecting bone dogs or that annoying trumpet skeleton. Not skeletal rats. But oh well. "Let's get this show started!" The Nightmare Bard opens her mouth wide to amplify her voice to a certain frequency that rattles several of the rat skeletons to the point that their bones crack and shatter under the assault of sonic pulses.

    Setsuna smiles and doesn't seem to have to many problems with the rats as he simply keeps turning one of the skeleton rats on another until they are war at each other. "Some odd reason, taking control of these rats makes me feel dirty. Like I am some dirty rat controlling kobold. I don't know why." It doesn't stop him though he simply continues to use magical control to have the rats continue rat on rat violence.

    Merek will begin to sweep the weapon of his along at all of the monster rats that take up the place, then he nods a little bit along to the party.

    June smiles watching the party wreck house, and joins in, her fists and feet glowing with light magic as she punches and kicks her way through the horde. Once the horde is so much broken bone she grins "You know, you're cute when you're kicking butt?" she says offhandedly to Yeowang and heads towards the mausoleum. "Ahh.. uhm... look the secret tunnel there, it's fun and all but I think we might be better looking for the real boss maybe it'll stay free of undead a bit longer this time..." she looks "Might as well patch the wall up and then head in." she says "Just in case."

Yeowang arches a brow to June, but nods acceptance of the praise a bit arrogantly, as if she'd heard that before. "Thank you," she says politely enough, and nods about the wall, heading over to see what there is to see. At June's suggestion, she shifts some of the bricks, but rather than to gain access, she works to close it off, so whatever's in there will have a harder time getting out.

"We can at least make this less of an issue for later." Kauchemar grabs a fallen pillar and pushes it up in fron the secret tunnel. You wouldn't expect a songcaster to be strong but she is an equine after all. "That will at least slow down anything else trying to come -out- of the passage while we're looking for the actual core of this problem."

    Merek tries looking to the wall while he calls up magical Earth, although he doesn't make any progress with that while he nods a bit to the party, "Alright, well I think we should find a way to look in that place."

    Setsuna notes the secret tunnel and nods his head. " Ok patch it up you say. " With a flourish of magic the surviving skeleton rats come running and then into the earth they go as they try to collapse the tunnel entrance. " That is right, right? Close the tunnel? " Seeing the pillar and such he nods and continues to have the rats do what they do.

    June nods "Good job, lets see what waits for us down the main path." she says as the team manages to close the tunnel to to make sure Not One Eyed Willie stays in his cave. She leads the way into the entrance and down the stairs rather than down the secret tunnel of movie references. "Ooh hey... so... jousting, who's up for jousting?" she grins "We even have birds." she laughs.

    The mounted skeletonin black jousting armor on its peko begins moving, his helm is crowned with an effigy of the Beautiful One. On his left hand he appears to be missing his ring finger. "None Shall Pass! Who bless not the beauty of my lady! Or best me in the Joust!"

Yeowang will hop up on the skeletal peko and ride to the end of the list, where she will wait for the knight to make himself ready. Lowering the lance, she will urge the mount forward, when the joust is started, and she lunges forward at just the right moment to slam her lance into the knight, knocking him from his horse. That accomplished, she'll dismount and walk the peko back so another challenger can use it, while our opponent picks himself up and remounts.

    Merek nods a bit while he takes a moment to throw the potion of alchemist's flame in front of him while he will begin to joust with the man.

    Setsuna steps forward as he draws his dagger, the blade glimmering in a light that goes unseen. Staring at the knight he doesn't wait. No when others begin to run towards each other to fight with honor he throws his dagger and strikes the knight's arm , before it glances off back to the dirt. That is all it takes though as the knight would find it's movemnts slower then normal. A move that any hand to hand fighter would know is almost a guarantee of death. He would be retrieving his weapon when the joust was over.

Kauchemar lets the people that actually want to joust the dark knight on his terms have at it. Get it out of their system, as it were. "Are you all done playing around now? Ok? Good."

The Nightmare finishes one of her summoning spells, the circle appearing in front of her, out of which rises a lance... and nothing else holding it. Must be a Binder animated one, much like the sword and shield she typically calls upon. "o/~ No lady to hear you; no one left to save. o/~" She just hurtles the possessed lance as a whole at the knight to knock him down again. "o/~ I ruin your hope, now return to your grave! o/~"

    June shifts to her Were Fang form and mounts the Peko.... its a full metal cowgirl... on a death chicken... there's a joke in there somewhere. When she takes her own turn at the lists she manages to unseat the knight and sends the peko back to it's starting point leaning on the wall to wait till folks finish up and then heading down the corridor "That guy is ... NOT good at jousting." she snorts and shifts back into her human form shaking her hair out.

    And then there's a large room with a skeletal sphinx awaiting them. She announces in a clear feminine voice with a bit of feline rasp to it, a riddle and then waits silently for the answer.

Yeowang arrives at the sphinx and waits for the others, then listens carefully to the riddle, which sounds familiar to her. She looks quizzically at the sphinx, speaks her answer quietly, and proceeds along without looking back. Either she's very good at riddles or this one is a standard, if obscure, riddle.

"Oh, this is wonderful." Kauchemar puts a hand to her brow, but it's not in thinking over the riddle. "What nimrod included a sphinx and totally missed the oppritunity to make it mummified? Seriously. Missed oppritunity. If you're going to borrow from other mythologies for your puzzle bosses, at least get it done right!"

Little triad aside, Kauchemar summons up a surge of water and uses the elemental force to propel herself headlong into the sphinx, intending to slam into it with enough magical force to just knock the skeletan beast off it's perch. "Whatever, we don't have time for these stupid games. Surf's up!"

    Setsuna retrieves his weapon and looks at the knight and shakes his head before following in the foot steps of others and then he hears the feline rasp a greeting. WIth a sigh he looks forward and sees the sphinx. Taking a deep breath he holds his hands up to his head and looks at sphinx. " I am using my magic to read your mind... the answer is..." Setsuna walks up and whispers it in the sphinx's ear before the attacks start and he walks on by.

    Merek nods a bit, then he walks up to answer the Sphinx. He's been at that riddle, he knows what it is, the man seems to be content to offer that while he smiles at the woman.

    June just calls out her answer, and keeps walking. She's that kind of person and well she has so much literature knowldge rattling around her brain it spills out easily.

    She heads on into the next level down. "If they got everythign right, they wouldn't be game designers. maybe she got added in crunch time." she shrugs. Then she looks "Oh a Necromancer... I'm shocked... do you guys have a club or something?" she looks to Setsuna. Then drops into her combat stance, iron scales climbing her body.

    Merek will begin to use the magic of the shield and healing that Sanctuary will then provide while he takes a moment to begin assisting the party.

"The guild indeed has indeed sent us to oppose you," Yeowang says to the female salamander in the sinister black robe. When she starts summoning undead, Yeowang considers, then begins casting her own spell. It's a healing spell, and of course it's a damage-over-time when applied to the sort of minor undead that're being summoned. She then joins in the melee as the minions hemorrage HP moment-by-moment.

    Setsuna looks at June and then the npc necromancer and sighs, " No, this guy is a wanna be." Stabbing his dagger into the ground and skeleton minions appear out of the ground to match the necromancers minions one for one. " Everyone wants to control death and yet , at the end of the day. I am the only one who seems to be courting it. " WIth that he raises one extra minion , to go after the npc.

"So shocking. And by shocking I mean totally not shocking." Kauchemar draws her whip, if only to flick the length loose and twirl the handle in her hand so it's upside down and she's holding it like a mic. "Looks like it's time for the showstopper and drop the curtain on this bitch." She takes a deep breath, and gets down to dropping the bars on this boss fight!

"o/~ Testing fate with every stare, but I fight on I don't care
Can't help thinking 'Is this real, or now just how I feel?'
Tried so hard, and got so far, but in the end does it matter?
I's too late for me to say, it's time to save the day! o/~"

Sonic blasts from her powerful voice pummel necromancer and summons alike, knocking down the adds faster than they can be summoned, and forcing the necromancer to try and handle multiple fronts at once.

"o/~ A worst nightmare right in front of our eyyyyyyyes. And you can't tell what is truth or the liiiiies
Somebody tell me this is a dream; trapped in a world nobody has seen
And all you can do is succumb... to the NIGHTMARE'S SCREEEEEAM! o/~"

    June stretches and starts with a prayer. "Oh light of the heavens, spirits of purity, empower this servant with the blazing light of your wrath. Let us bring light unto darkness and crush the minons of darkness under hoof." she growls her eyes flashing as a golden halo of light gathers between her horns. She charges in, smashing through minions with golden light clinging to her body. She contines to smash around like she's taken especial dislike to a china shop owner. Once the team drops the necromancer finally. She stops panting, green mist puffing from her muzzle. "That was fun..." she says with laugh "Nothing like wreaking distruction with a cute girl, a guy with a nice butt, a necromancer, and the second best Nightmare moon I've seen." she sticks her bovine tongue out at Kauchemar and laughs rolling her bovine head to make her neck crack.

Kauchemar pfffs at June. "You should of seen my Shadow Festival costume. And at least you're a much less obnoxious minotaur." She picks up one of the bones left by the numerous undead they just bashed. Tosses it in her inventory. "This could be useful later..."

    Chuckles "Yah he was kind of an ass of a bull." she puffs her green misty breath out. She picks up her own bone and stretches. "Well this house is clean." she says in English before laughing again.

    Setsuna looks at the bones of the fallen and just shakes his head and when one of his own skeletons picks up one of the corrupted bones and Setsuna snaps at it, "Put that down. You don't know where that bone has been have you. " WIth a sigh he dismisses the bone heads and looks over at the others. " So back to the top of the slide and we do it again? "

Yeowang inspects our reward for some moments before placing it in her inventory. "I may be able to sell it for a decent price," she says as the others speak of uses they might find for it. June gets a puzzled look, as does Kauchemar, because she's somewhat out of touch with events. She nods about returning, at least, and agrees, "I think we are done here."