Duty Session 308: Abandoned Springs

    Deep in the hills of the ninetail domain lies a winding pass that all starts at the beginning of a n old beaten gravel road, outlined by the yellow grass of the coming winter. The hunter guild had posted a new quest, and the meet up point oddly, very accurately, pointed right to the beginning of this pass. Setsuna could be found at the beginning of the path with a person of the land, who is explaining the situation.

    "We're not entirely sure what is beyond this point. There used to be an old onsen at the end of the trail." A nervous looking Lander fidgets as he stands by the trail marker. The lander would prefer to not have to have to go much further, bad things happened to those that did. "Clear out what monsters you can and report back to the guild. That's the task." He explains, then clears his throat.

    "Best of luck to you all." Just as he speaks, a chill wind blows in their direction, causing the Lander to huddle deeper into his coat and traveling cloak. "You'll need it." He whispers.

Goldenblade is here at ... wherever this is, she's been all over this small part of the world, it seems, and she's got a hard time keeping the places straight. She wanders up as Setsuna is chatting with the nervois Lander, and calls out a greeting. "Hello," she calls out.

Having called out, she'll head closer and see what's going on. "Somehthing about -another- cursed spring?" she wonders. "There was one the other evening, some idiot had put a ton of traps on the approach. It was crazy."

SpritesHero is here as well. Probably because the Hunters Guild Strongly Suggested that he show up. Hint. Hint. And why? Because he took a -couple- days off to try and enjoy the hot springs. Perhaps get his thoughts in gear. And yet, here he is. Yes, monster hunting. He does not look pleased.

Oh. He has a sword strapped to his belt too. It's a very pretty, shiny sword, that's probably brand new. No, he doesn't look like he has anything beyond the teensiest, most elementary idea of what to do with the thing. Confidence inspiring.

    Wisteria shrugs "I mean you had me at onsen." she says with a bright smile. The tall albino girl stretching. "We're gona like soak after we kill all the monsters right? I am not going to a hotspring, doing a bunch of battle, and then NOT soaking." she says. Her dark armor might threaten to curse the springs herself.

SpritesHero's lips curve into a...well, it's a smirk. There's no way around that. Yes, this duty has officially turned him into one o' them -smirkers-.

He leans against a stone wall, fig-leafing his hands in front of him, and lifts his chin by just a touch. "Not one of the standard hotsprings, I'll wager. After we kill all these monsters," he opines, "we'll be so covered in heaven-knows-what that I'll be -amazed- if they let us anywhere near civilization, let alone a hot-spring," he comments.

So here she was she is perked up at the idea of a onsen, even if it's old the springs might still be good and that's something that makes the elf eager and raring to go. She'll fall in with a big old grin on her face. "I think this iwll be a fine adventure!" It's a damn shame her party was busy, but hey. She can give them a full report on it once she's had a chance to check things out here.

    Setsuna looks at the mountain as he tilts his head at the old Lander before he shakes his head, "You know what good sir. I appreciate the vote of confidence in our ability. " With the laugh of a crazy man he looks at the others and nods his head at Wisteria. " Oh absolutely, we will be soaking else I think their will be a horrible accident." With a grin he pulls his dagger from behind his back and points to the path, "Onward to mysterious and hot water."

    As the group travels the path it would quickly begin to split and merge and shift, it was hard to say if they were still on the same path or a different one. It would be up to those who had good senses, good eyes , or overall a good sense of direction to keep the group moving in the right direction. Otherwise they may indeed not make it to their destination for hours, if not days.

Goldenblade follows along bravely enough, though as the path grows harder to follow, she sighs. "Another hot springs that doesn't want to be found," she complains. "In Japan, you get signs marking the way, and they want you to come in and spend money there. This place, it's like all onsen owners are independently wealthy and customers are a bother." That said, she is absolutely lost bt now, and will be trying to follow the party members that seem to know where they're going. Because she doesn't understand that RL requirements, like income, do not matter in a game.

SpritesHero looks even more worried now. And all of that worry seems to be heaped on Setsuna. At least initially. Once they've been going for a while, his worry redirects towards other points of concern. Like the fact that this area doesn't seem to have any well-marked trails, and far too many poorly-marked trails. With a distasteful twist of his lips, he pulls to halt, closes his eyes, and lifts his nose a trifle pertly.

He sniffs, with far, far too much delicacy, sampling the air. "I've got a slightly metallic tang thataways," he opines, inclining his head towards some foliage that may be hiding something like a trail. "No sulfur though."

The elf looks to Setuna for a moment and soons he'll get to work she'll take a moment at the paths at they go she would take a moment to pause keneel and star tyo check out the gforundf for signs of passage and any other tell tale signs of someone ot something passing by once she's done she would rise up and point.

"This way."

    Wisteria pulls out her notebook, sketches a bit and then launches skyward with a few kicks off of air runes. She nods to herself in the air and sketches out the paths nearby. Then she starts checking or the trail markers to test her theories. "Okay I think I've got enough information to keep the right path on the map." she says showing a quick map sketched out in her journal.

    "Wait, there's a cursed spring?" Mizuki asks Goldenblade. Then tilts her head. "Could the traps have been to keep you away from it?"

    She pats Wisteria's shoulder. "Yeah, of course, if it's still there."

    As the wind picks up, she huddles in the cloaks she's wearing for wind protection. Her fur is great for cold, but not so much wind... so she's wearing her grey cloak over the ninja gi and her blue cloak over that -- the cloaks and her long red scarf -- actually pulled up over her muzzle instead of hanging around her neck for once -- flap in the wind.

    As they start looking for the path forward, she pulls her scarf down to sniff at the air, echoing Setsuna's findings.

    Setsuna looks at the many paths and relies on ancient divination and calling of the spirits to guide his way. Taking his dagger he places it tip down into the dirt gently and lets it go, whichever way it falls is the right path obviously. Before he checks the results he looks at Goldenblade, " I mean this onsen is suppose to be abandoned so maybe its like an ancient alv onsen. High tech water filtering, water that heals the dead, that sort of thing. At least that is how it always was in the stories." Looking at how Robert chooses to determine things based on smell. Looking back at his dagger he notices the dagger pointing over the cliff and hmms, " So who has a better way? " Looking around it seems the group has come to a consensus and Setsuna follows along. Then again, maybe their destination was at the bottom of the path and the dagger was suggesting a shortcut.

    The adventuring party did manage to find the right path and are lead into a garden that has grown well above and beyond what anyone had ever planned. However one can see the beauty of it all if they use a little imagination. Back in the day it was probably wonderfully nice to just sit here and enjoy the sound of the waterfall, with the mountain flowers for comfort. Now thick vines block the path up towards the Onsen house, and need a proper gardener, or maybe just a weed killer. Though if someone could make out the words on a plaque pointing out the secret entrance to the garden, all the better.

Goldenblade nods to Mizuki, "That's exactly what the traps were there for. And some old Lander made us carry his worthless butt up the hill." She hrmphs, having been the one to carry him part of the way. She hrmphs at Setsuna's navigation techniques, and at onsens in stories. "That's stories for you," she says. "I've been to hundreds of onsens, none of them lost or hidden or forbidden or Alvish or anything."

Faced by thick vines and short on patience, she draws both blades, and proceeds with the mother of all hedge trimming. Flames burn so hot that creepers are consumed before they can light anything else on fire, and she carves her way through with savage sword strokes.

SpritesHero has a sword. Things need to die. Granted, the things that need to die are not, perhaps, your standard monsters. And a sword is not, perhaps, the ideal tool for this sort of thing. But it's all Robert's got, and the sword's craftsman is not here at present to start complaining.

Thus it is that Robert whips out his sword and just begins slashing at anything in his way that isn't a member of his party. He approaches the distant Onsen path, grim and silent, save for the thwack-thwack-thwack of his blade against vines. He at least has the courtesy to make certain he's not back-swinging into any of his companions, but it's -definitely- obvious at this point that he doesn't really know how to throw a cut properly.

    "Wait, did the guild say it was from *that* long ago?" Mizuki wonders aloud. She walks up to the stone and Appraises it, then Decrypts it. "...Nothing? I guess it just LOOKS like words... like L is real 2041..." She looks around at the garden, hands on her hips. "I have *no* idea how long this has been here. Maybe about as long ago as whatever war Spatjahr fought in was... so I guess it *could* be an ancient alv spring!"

    She gives the vines a yank, then uses her fire to weaken them before starting to cut through them with her dagger.

    The tall albino girl looks over everything, "Time to relive the legends of Amaterasu." she says drawing her sword. "Just call me Kusanagi." she says as she starts to shuffle forward, her blade going snicker snack and behedding plants left and right as she clears the land like a divine wind.

things are going good so far, and she heeds the bit about the water and she wonders. How could the waters heal the dead. Wait could it effect those turned into undead? She would have to figure this out later and she keep pushing on ahead and would pauyse again looking at the vine she smirks a bit and will pull her dagger and get to work on trying to ahck through them as best she could.

    Setsuna looks at the overgrown garden picks at a thorn vine for a moment, "You know I bet this was beautiful a hundred years ago. " With otu a second thought he to follows suit as he cuts down vines as well. In fact as the entire group cuts down shrubbery, plants, weeds,vines by the end the entire garden looks presentable and ready for planting next season. It is quite impressive work to do with melee strikes.

    When the group manages to make their way out of the garden they come to the most dastardly of challenges. Yes it is the type of challenge that would keep out hoardes of people, and stand the test of time. An old locked gate, with a single lock. No no don't try to climb it , or shake the chain hard enough to break. It won't work. One must either pick the lock or destroy some of the gate, or connecting stone wall to make it pass this structure and finally enter the courtyard of the onsen.

    Wisteria looks and tries to manipulate and rumble the wall as she tries to not bring the whole thing down. "Nah.. too unstable... I'd drop the whole wall if I tried to stomp or rock my way through..." she grumbles

Does it take multiple people to pick the lock? No, no it does not. Thus, Sprites doesn't immediately pick the lock at all. He simply drops to one knee in front of it, squints at it for a moment, then steps back. "Shouldn't be too hard," he hazards, leaving the actual work of lockpicking to someone else. For his part, he just stands off to the side, trying to clean sap and ooze and whatever else off the blade of his sword.

    
We could just Stone Catapult our way over...
Mizuki muses.
Still... I guess it's simpler to just break through the wall...
She drops into an earthbending stance and starts to move, then freezes.
Wait!
She stands and points.
Is that a PICKABLE LOCK?!
She runs over and pokes it.
It IS! Oh man, this game never has stuff where thief skills are useful...
she rezzes lockpicks that haven't left her inventory in who knows how long, and there's a series of clicks before the lock pops open. She smiles, then her ears and tail droop.
Okay, thief profession, you had your 15 seconds of fame, now back in the useless box you go...
%

Goldenblade looks over the gate, and goes to work on the lock when Robert steps up. But then he just looks at it, and she looks at him. "What?" she says. "If you're going to get all judgy about it, you should step up and do the job." She does step up and do the job, working the tools in the lock until there's a click. "If I'd screwed it up, that would have been a rude comment," she points out. "If you can do a thing, do it. Otherwise you're just talking smack." She shrugs, steps back away when the lock has been opened.

Erufu says "It could be made wonderful again with some hard work." The elf comments as she now moves along she's whistling a little bit as she goes. she looks to Mizuki for a moment "Well get to it my dear cat burgler." She laughs a bit while she goes to work with som earth based techs to trry and help losen things up a bit or make it easier for thsoe lock picking to get through.

    Setsuna looks at the wall and looks at everyone gathering around the gate all as if the wall was infinitely high. Taking a moment to look at the wall then over at the others then at the wall he nods his head and raises the earth to create a hill highenough to get to the top of the wall. Then just a kid would do to fences protecting them from the other side he simply hops up on it and looks at the others. " So are the rest of you going to be coming to this side of the wall anytime soon?" Setsuna grins and seems to have some eerily 4th wall breaking timing of saying it just when the lock falls to the ground from Mizuki and Goldenblade's work. They now can access the Courtyard.

    The courtyard is large and spacious with several buildings designed for many purposes. Obviously the main house is up ahead of the groups. Several of the hotsprings are visible due to the buildings around them in some state of disrepair, and it is true , the once dried springs are bubbling up wth new water. From the mud and murk of the hotspring rises a new problem though, frog warriors. Spears , tridents, sharp boads, all being wielded as the frogmen approach, ready to croak the adventurers.

SpritesHero offers Goldenblade a rather dramatic roll of his eyes in response. "If you'd have failed, I'd have blamed your lockpicks," he offers, still cleaning off his sword. "So no, by -all- means, I defer -entirely- to you, my..." And Mizuki pops the gate open. That works too. He pauses. Blinks. Shrugs. Heads through the gate along with everyone else, though he notably keeps his blade out.

While it's true that he has his blade out because he's cleaning it, rather than anticipating a fight, it must be admitted that this turns out to be fortunate. He's just gotten the last splotches of sap off his blade when frog warriors show up. Not that he waits for them to get organized. There's a blur of movement, some sickening sounding clangs, slices, and crunches, and his blade is...dirty again. Frog bits this time, all over it, from pommel to tip. He's even managed to get all over his forearms right up to his elbows. "Ugh," is all he can say to that.

    Wisteria moves like her class title implies. She moves like a shadow, the frog men never able to actually pin her down with any of those spears. The dark armored albino woman shuffling along the mud and stone, sword flashing darkly in the courtyard as she deals out monster death like the Odyssian she is.

    Mizuki eyes Setsuna. "Look, that was actually pretty fast..." As the springs fill, she oohs. "Proximity sensors and automatic pumps? I guess it really IS an ancient alv hot spring!"

    Suddenly she has to dodge spears. "Hey! Look, can't we stop and talk about this?! Or are you the kind of monsters that are just here to get killed by us?"

    When the attacks keep coming, she sighs, then holds out a hand. "Strike from the ground with glistening blades! FROST DIVER!" The spell travels underground towards one of the frogmen, ice spikes shooting up from the ground as it goes, freezing the mud. Mizuki runs up on the frozen mud to get closer, pouncing and stabbing!

Goldenblade bumps shoulders with Mizuki as they work on the adjacent locks, one in each gate, and ohs, "I had no idea you could pick locks also," she admits, chuckling, "They /are/ pretty uncommon, aren't they?" She shrugs to Sprites, "You could blame what you like. But just commenting snidely and not doing anything is kind of a jerk move." But then there's javelins incoming, and Goldenblade takes off like her feet are on fire. Though in fact, it seems her feet -are- on fire, dashing around so fast she leaves a trail of flames where she's been. No hope for the bad guys of hitting her, either, they're way too slow, and when she's like this, she can see their moves as if they were in slow motion. Which makes it a pretty one-sided fight. They never stood a chance.

There are monster they are coming out of the springs the elf lets out a yelp and will go to draw her bow and will just start shooting at the creatures that are coming out of the mucky water. She will just start shooting and sometimes she'll fire off several arrows at once at the frog warriots. "Frogs?! FROGS!?" Well it's not goblins but it is a form of green skin techinally

    Setsuna lets a third eye of magical energy appear in the center of his head as he fires a barrage of magic missiles at the frogs that miss horribly. Now he simply must play keep away. As he does so he notices the four battle sized toad looking ones fighting and losing horribly to Goldenblade. Other's being frozen and impaled by Mizuki, and then another gets impaled on the dreaded Robert impaling another. It was a very one sided fight and as Setsuna finally comes to a stop he notices that Wisteria was also playing the same game. " So do you think we will get tasty frog meat, like the whole rats in the cellar."

    The frogmen have lost and any of them remaining are running. The party has succeeded and there is a moment of silent victory. That is until someone notices a puddle of water vibrating and another. Then there are glimpses of red-gold fur that is moving behind the buildings. Moment later the wearer of the fur is visible as a large monkey-creature, with a metal headband around it's head and holding a large support post as a staff weapon looks down at the group. Without waiting another moment the beast launches in to battle landing admist the group , spinning the makeshift staff with skill and sweeps it out at the adventures. A popup reveals just what is happening as it reads: 'The Monkey King has appeared.'

SpritesHero is evidently -still- on about that darned gate. "My sword needed cleaning," he informs Goldenblade with a shrug, the barest little up-down of his shoulders. "And I wasn't about to sit on y'all, trying to cram a third pair of lockpicks into two holes." And oh look, it's the boss. It seems to be the Monkey King.

Robert looks at the monkey. He looks at his gore-coated blade. He looks back at the monkey, far more intently this time. There's a quick invocation of a hefty debuff spell, which he quickly tosses in the Monkey's direction. He then sets about bludgeoning the monkey with his blade, apparently trying to bludgeon its hp down to zero. Alternatively, he may be using its fur coat to wipe frog bits off his equipment. Could be either, really.

    Mizuki scratches her head as the frogmen run off. "Uggh... I'm not sure I wanna take off my armor and try to relax somewhere there's monsters around... Pretty sure I had that encounter already in the Oriental Adventures game... Fortunately, I was a sorceress so I could still fireball... I guess I can do that now, too... hey, what's that!?"

    She widens her stance at the rumbling, looking around, ears turning this way and that, and then-- "Son Goku?! Okay, seriously, can we just TALK about what's going on here?!"

    She leaps over the nyoibo and rushes forward with her dagger, "HA! Won't get me so easi--HURK" And then it sweeps the other way and sends her flying into a wall.

    "I'm okay..." she calls out as she gets to her feet and rejoins the fight!

    Wisteria shakes her head and shifts to her bunform. "I've read enough light novels to know what to do in this case..." she says letting her armor snap chains of dark energy onto the monkey king and then into the ground. Dipping in and out of combat to let the chains keep snapping into place. "Sun Wu Kong is vulnerable to binding curses... who needs damage?" she grins and laughs as she bounces around the king to keep him cursed and let the others work on his hitpoints.

Goldenblade looks around after the frog-men are driven off, and she says, "This hot springs is definitely on the outs. Zero out of five, would not wash my ass here." Her review of the facility completed, she frowns at Setsuna, "You kids, what is it with eating strange things like it's some kind of contest. The reason people took to eating weird crap like that was that there wasn't anytning else to eat." She blinks at Sprites, still on about the gate, and she sighs, "You're just digging yourself deeper, now."

Then the monkey king appears, with a pop up for anyone too slow to catch a giant freaking monkey with a red fur on and a staff. She melees him immediately, pressing him hard, her swords flashing as she takes his HP bit by bit. The others wear him down, she concentrates on interrupts. If he looks like he's trying some special move, she'll body check him, or slash a hamstring, keeping him off balance while the party beats the stuffing out of him.

So they party is able to get past the frog she picks off a few of the fleeing frogmen who might end up trouble for other people if she does not however she's forced to stop as something else shows it's self. A massive monkey shows up and she looks at it for a moment.

"...Son Goku...?"

She takes a moment and trhen she gets into the fight she'll attempt to quickly speed up and get in close for a quick attack but the elf gets caught up side the head with the monkey king's bar and she gfoes flying

    Setsuna looks at the monkey king and gets wide eyed as others, "Oh damn. I ...I really really wish I had my autograph book. " Then the damn monkey begins to swing his staff and Setsuna frowns. " Why do I always have to kill the monsters that I am a fan of. " With a heavy sigh Setsuna summons his skeletons to fight the Monkey King but his heart isn't really in it. Evn as Mizuki and Erufu are sent flying he can only manage to step it upjust a little. Really in the end, who would want to be the person who killed the Monkey King

    As the Monkey King fights, that staff seems to start to defy the laws of the system. It grows, it shrinks, it bends, it really was just a normal support column right? Either way they manage to eat away enough of the monkey king's health that he steps back and pulls at his hair in frustration. With an annoyance glare at the adventurers, the Monkey King climbs on to the main house and howls into the air. A moment later he leaps high into the air and seems to be running on a cloud, or maybe it is just a cliff side covered by the mist and fog. Either way the Monkey King will live to fight another day.

    Mizuki looks at Goldenblade, "Hey, the rat meat *was* tasty! And when we first found it, remember, there was no prepared food with taste!"

    "Wait, what's the difference between Son Goku and Sun Wukong?" Mizuki asks, during the fight. She at least is passingly familiar enough with some version of the legend to not be caught off guard by the nyoibo's ability to stretch and shrink.

    "Tch, he ran away... I wonder how long we'll be safe for... What was the mission again? ...Right, we weren't making the place usable, just reporting back on its status... Guess that's mission accomplished, then... err..."

    She adjusts her scarf and does a dramatic ninja pose. "Ninmu... kandyo!"

Catching his breath, Sprites looks himself over. Sniffs himself questionably. And just walks off. "I don't care if this place is haunted, abandoned, or monster-infested," he declares, fading off into the mists. "-I- am going to wash up. And then -I- am going to soak. With toads, if I must." The last visible action is that of clothes being stripped off and tossed into the air. Mercifully, everything after that is hidden.

Goldenblade watches the monkey king scarper off. Looks like our princess is in another castle. She peers at Mizuki, and asks incredulously, "You actually -ate- it?" She gave it to some workers she had working one of her projects. "I remember the tasteless food. That was pretty bad. But .... rat? Seriously?" Hesitantly, she asks, "So, what did it taste like?"

She peers Spritesward as he declares his intention to bathe, and she says, "I'll think I'll stick with a menu bath, this place is a bit too much of a dump. Maybe we could clean it up, though?" That's her sort of project...

    Wisteria shrugs "I ate some of the Tasty rat back in those days... it was tasty... said so in the description." she says of course who knows what being a werefang does to your taste buds when you've shifted forms, they've proven it gives you better resistance to food poisoning debuffs.

    Setsuna watches the Monkey King run off towards the west before he looks at the others. " I think I will agree with Goldenblade. I will stick with the Bathhouse in Tolbana. " Sighing as he looks at one of hotspring pools and is tempted for a moment. " Maybe next year this place will be cleaned up and good to go. " He does take a moment to gather some of the fur pulled from the Monkey king and looks it over. "This is impressive stuff." WIth that he turns to walk back towards civilization.

    Mizuki looks at Goldenblade. Asked if she actually ate it, she opens her mouth wide and points at the muzzle full of sharp teeth for ripping and tearing meat. Then closes it. "The item description said it was tasty and I hadn't had any food with taste for weeks!" She insists, defensively, then looks like she's remembering. "It was... good. You've had sashimi, right? Kinda like that, but a different texture... kinda like a cross between that and the best barbecued chicken I ever had. Flavorful meat after weeks of soggy crackers seemed like the best thing ever, but... I guess now that we have food... still up there with sashimi, maybe a little better. It turns out the enchanter summoning the rats has specifically figured out how to summon only the tastiest rats, and was trying to summon them as a food supply for the people of Yamato. The meat's even better cooked, when you can convince someone to use it."

    Mizuki tilts her head. "...I guess it *does* sound of rather questionable provenance, but... it's right in the name, the description doesn't lie! Anyone with Appraisal can check that it's a good cooking ingredient!" She nods to Wisteria.