Duty Session 317: Travel with Triffids

    Wisteria has heard that there are triffids to hunt... but more so there is a giant dire bun... this needs investigation to see if it would make a good mount. A bun needs to bun after all. She's gathered an elite force of whoever she happened to track down at the hunters guild before she headed out. Typical Odysian.

Lin, available at any store where Lins are sold, needs no encouragement to join a group. Even moreso when it's for the Hunters' Guild. He bounces up to meet with the party, one sleeve missing from his coat. "Hiii!" Completely unaware of any impending disaster.

Syx also has heard that there's a giant bun bun out here and he wants to see if he can suplex it. Because it supposedly runs rampant around everybody that's tried so far. So he wandered his way down here and found a few other adventurers getting ready to run the mission anyway, "Sweet. Saves me the trouble of soloing it."

Uta wanders in and looks around, staff in hand. "Uh, is this the right place to go capture the Pirates? I was supposed to do that thing for the Hunters' Guild..."

    The party arrives at the beach the migrating triffids were sighted on. Wisteria looks about "Well lets see if we can find these triffids... if not Setuna says there's a giant bun that is also hunting the triffids soooo be careful." The trail is difficult to find and follow but the party will do it's best heading into the woods. Wisteria shifts into her bun form to try and track down triffids... too bad caerbannogs are carnivores.

Lin lifts his nose and sniffs. "So... triffids smell delicious? Or what's the right way to track them down?" The Pooka sniffs at himself suspiciously, then looks disappointed. "Well, we'll find them. Giant buns sound good. I could really go for a pork bun right about now."

    Wisteria leads the team on into a clearing.... that is not full of triffids to be killed and harvested for their rare herbal properties. Instead the crashing crunching sound of the armored king bun comes from the treeline before the giant dire beast charges. It seems it's territorial... or just doesn't like competition for it's triffid hunting.

"I think we should go...This way!" Syx says, as he points with one hand and then immediately heads off in that direction. Syx doesn't know if that's actually where they should be going but that's where he's heading.

Uta sniffs the air. "They kind of do, Lin, yes... Hm. Good point, I've never had to track vegetables before. That's a first."

As the bun approaches, Uta squints at it. She vocalizes a tune, light dances in sync with her melody on her staff, coalesces in the gem, and BLASTS at the Bun, in a spell meant to constrict the plates and make movement hard for the dire beast.

"That's a fun change. Delicious smelling monsters." Lin smiles at Uta and then frowns when the Bun shows itself. Wrong kind of bun. He lifts his spellbook and casts a spell, lobbing a magical rock in the bun's direction.

"Ah hah! There it is!" Syx, upon spotting the bun, immediately rushes towards it, no hesitation, no fear. He's going to aggro it first.

As he approaches, he drops down and slides under it, so he can get behind it, and immediately grabs a hold of the stone armored plates cover its back. It looks like it takes a bit of effort from Syx, but the bun does come off the ground and get slammed back into it a moment later, cracking the stone in multiple places from the force of the impact.

It also leaves Syx in dangerously close proximity to the boss.

    Wisteria slams a large foot into the ground to send fissures and cracks out to try tripping the bun up, only to have it leap over her cracks. "Right.. jumping..." she says with a sigh as the fight starts in earnest. The beast goes into a fairly predictible but damaging serries of passing attacks. Charging in, circling the clearing then charging in again.

Uta launches into a series of dodges, of all kinds of variety: plain dodges, dodge rolls, pole vault dodges, wow so dodge very evasion so avoid, leap-spinning over the charging beast in the best wuxia style, and a combination of all of the above.

Also, plain old running away while being chased. That one's a classic. "Anyone knows how to best damage a dire bun-bun?"

Not willing to be crushed to death despite his close proximity, Syx deftly studies the movements of the giant bun, and slides out of the way each time it charges like someone well practiced in predicting an opponent's movements. When you need to counter someone in wrestling, you have to study them and know their tells. The bun has tells, and Syx is able to use that to his advantage to avoid taking damage, "Come on you big son of a bitch! Lets go!"

Lin frowns as his attack doesn't have the fully intended effect. The great king bun begins to go on repeated charges, and he takes a moment to assess the situation. Predictable means easy to not get in the way of. A long cast time will do fine here. Massive bolts of lightning leap from his hands at the giant enemy crab... bun. Giant enemy bun.

    Wisteria sends out arcing sheets of darkness with each slash of her sword. The smaller bun staying out of squishing distance. However the light attacks ment to curse and disorient just don't seem to be getting through the thick armor of the stone skinned king bun leaving her doing just chip damage. Once the party finaly manges to push the boss under half health, a sparkling line comes bouncing out of the forest. A normal sized glowing holy bun boops the king in the snoot applying regen to it with a burst of light mana. "Well... crap.. STOP the healer!" she shouts out as the have to start chipping against the regen, but anytime the health drops below half or stays below half for a certain period of time, the healing bun comes zooming out to boop the king and refill its regen buff.

Uta is on it! She narrows her eyes, and as the healer bun zips into view, she begins to intone a melody which swings up and down and up and down... and a blast of green departs from the gem of her staff, towards the bun! Sadly, the healer bun is far too quick, and the green beam is lost into nothing.

The fight's raging! Lin is giving it all he's got. Lightning bolt after lightning bolt lights up the area as he strafes to stay close to the back of the party. Finally, he ends his assault with a massive fireball that explodes into a cloud of embers and sparks. "That'll do it!"

    Wisteria has her curses... and little holy bun's should not deal with dark curse buns it's just bad for their health. She snaps out a curse that sends black chains of energy snapping into the little holy bun, slowing it, making it clumsy. That is enough for the rest of the party to take out the healer. Taking the healer out however does not make for a win... yet. It does however start the next battle phase, the Bun King roaring in rage at the death of it's little healer. The stone plates of it's armor falling away exposing it's slate grey fur. The crown does not follow therest of the stone leaving him with a mighty battering ram, and far enhanced speed. The Bun King now moving at speeds to rival the little healing bun, but with it's own mass and that spiked ram atop it's head. Lukily it also means it's lost it's armor and it is easier to harm... when hits land.

Uta assumes a fighting stance, clutches her staff, and declares, "Don't worry, guys, I got thi-"

SLAM!

A shed plate SMACKS her right into the face, the violence of the impact docking half of her remaining HP.

SHe staggers back to stand, front part (especially her face) glowing red as damaged Adventurers are known to. "Don't worry, guys, I got this!", she repats, trying her hardest to sound convincing.

She inhales as deep as she manages to, and lets out a single note, ear-shattering, a sonic blast which causes the air to ripple and SLAMS into anything it washes over...

"We're doing it!" Lin calls out, spellbook in one lifted hand as the battle goes on. But then the plates drop, and the crown begins to glow. "Another phase!? Is this a tower boss or something?" Beams of glittering light spear from his fingers, bursting into flashes of rainbow light against the dread bun.

Syx decides to unleash one of his most powerful attacks on the bun, however without the armor it's faster than he was anticipating. While he does manage to catch a bit of it with the Ragnarok's Wisdom, the impact is not as solid as Syx would have liked. Still, it's close to down now, "Finish it off!"

    Wisteria notes the bun going faster and faster, and she just has to show up the boss. "No no, I'm a caerbannog and no earth bun is going to out speed me." she says and starts one of her patented pinball style attack patterns. The armored bun leaping from air rune to air rune in an almost random pattern. Her sword flashing out with crackling black curses over and over as she bounces around the boss and his own fast attack patterns. Until the team finaly manages to drop the boss. Wisteria drops to the ground panting. "Well... that was a bigger bun than I was really expecting... probably too big to make a mount." she pouts as she shifts back to her albino human form picking up one of the stone plates that hasn't vanished with the pixelizing boss.

Uta slumps back to sit on the ground, and pants. "Man, was that one hard..." She picks up the plate that has so violently impacted against her face earlier. "...wait a minute, I thought we were here to hunt pirates? We haven't seen a single pirate. Hm. I guess the Hunters' Guild won't be paying us, today..."

Lin snaps his book shut, a few tiny particles of rainbow light flying away as the last of his spell energy fades away. "No kidding! That was so hard. Like real boss hard. What is that doing down here?" He groans and looks up at the sky. "I doubt it was pirates. I know what pirates smell like and the beach was waaaaay too good to have a pirate infestation."

    Wisteria laughs "We were trying to find a bunch of man eating plants." she says with a soft laugh. "But no we aren't gona find any pirates either..."

"As long as we avoid the man eating pirates. I want none of that right now." Lin jokes.