Duty Session 320: Obligatory Rat Cellar

In each of the starting cities, there are at least a couple of poor merchant landers who have developed mysterious rat problems. This is clearly bad for business! A worried looking Lander stands outside their shop, rubbing their hands together, looking anxious, flagging down any passing Adventurer they can find to help.

Difficulty:    Easy
Rec. Party:    3+
Rewards:       3
World Rewards: None

Kaydon
Shibuya - Main Square

One part of running a city like Shibuya is ensuring that the denizens are taken care of. So when a rat infestation strikes, the group will need to help the Landers with the problem. The issue had been relayed to the Hunter's Guild in town and Kaydon just happened to be walking by at that moment, "I'll help out, sure." He was planning on running it solo, but he may not be alone.
Arashi
Shibuya - Main Square


    Of course he isn't alone. There are rats to be killed and a dire-shire in need of something to do. That's why Arashi shows up without any amount of fanfare. Just here to get something done. ... No it has nothing to do with Starshadow why do people keep thinking that..?
Shiruba
Shibuya - Main Square

"At least it's not slimes again," Shiruba muses. "Had some of those get down here during the festival and took valuable recreational time away from that." Hey, she's Guild Leader, and technically kinda sorta one of the people running Shibuya from the Alliance, you think she wouldn't hear if there was a rat problem going on? She looks at Kaydon, then at Arashi, and folds her arms to put one hand at in chin in a 'thinking face' gesture. "You know I've been seeing the two of you together at the same time a lot lately... Don't let Morri see it, or you'll probably end up on her Shipping Board."
Kaydon
Shibuya - Main Square

"With all due respect to Arashi, I think she mostly wants her sword back. It's almost done, it's just very particular metal.." Kaydon muses, though the other two might notice he's wearing the shiny new gauntlet on his left arm, "Come on, lets knock this rat infestation out and then we'll talk about the sword after."

Leading the group down into the cellar proper, he frowns a bit, "You'd think that for this guy having a rat infestation there'd be a lot less spiders around here!" Maybe they can burn them out...Maybe not.
Arashi
Shibuya - Main Square


    Scandal! Lies! Untruths! "...Quiet you." But maybe there's a shred of honesty to it. Still, as the group gets underway, the loaner weapons are drawn. The spiders have a chance. The way Arashi's moving through them, its kind of like a veteran coming back to a newbie area. "Wasn't this harder before..?"
Shiruba
Shibuya - Main Square

"Let's save the fire until we get deeper inside. Don't need it to, you know, get back up to the town." Shiruba remarks, even as she conjures up a burst of wind and lobs it across the room to sweep several of the webs and dust away. "It's an early level Duty, Arashi.... Though it has changed a few times. And if I never see that one sabotaging merchant again it'll be too soon."
Kaydon
Shibuya - Main Square

While the team begins to make their way through the webs, Kaydon decides to charge forward and push his way through.

It doesn't go well and soon he is covered in webs. Thankfully the two of them use air magic to blast the dust and webs away, "Thanks." He says, though his tone is a bit embarassed.

Once the trio makes their way deeper inside, Kaydon finds himself a bit turned around, "Uh." He looks at Shiruba, "I think this is your show."
Arashi
Shibuya - Main Square


    A rune marked passage? It reminds her of something. "So... should we try different languages for the word friend?" She's at a loss and this is not her forte.
Shiruba
Shibuya - Main Square

"It's curious how certain Duty's can have similar contents even when they're in entirely different parts of the world." Shiruba snickers a little at Arashi, but shakes her head. "No, this is more like a combination lock." Shiruba walks up, takes an arrow out of her quiver, and uses the tip to hashmark some of the runes. I, II, III, ect. Seems she has no trouble understanding what they are. "They need to be attuned in a certain order to unlock the seal on the doorway."

She punctuates by jabbing the arrow into the rune she marked I and discharging it's magic into it.
Kaydon
Shibuya - Main Square

Kaydon taps his foot a little bit as Shiruba works on the puzzle. He seems to be thinking it's taking too long, as he takes a step back and then boots the door with an armored foot, smashing it open, "Sorry." He says to her, with a faint grin, as he leads the group further in. Now they're finally in it, as they have arrived at the rat warren, "Alright, now for the fun part!"
Shiruba
Shibuya - Main Square

"What matters is its open." Though as Shiruba glances inside she makes a face. "Though you seem to have attracted a lot of attention," she remarks, even as she draws one of her runic arrows and fires it into a nearby wall, causing several large stones to spawn from the surface and fall to crush rats beneath them.
Arashi
Shibuya - Main Square


    Rats. Lots of rats. A big swirling mound of rats. .. "Yay.." She doesn't seem so thrilled about it, but whatever. Instead, the dire-shire starts stomping her way over, enough to get the ground quaking, before she starts slicing and dicing at the furred mass of squeaking teeth. Lots of red pixels start flying off as they start getting sliced up. "Whatever works!"
Kaydon
Shibuya - Main Square

Kaydon goes into the pile of rats like a blender, ripping through them with his blade as he tears apart the group. It'd be impressive if they were bigger than rats. Still, there's a lot of them, but the group manages to crush enough that the warren breaks and scatters. They have found, well. Something

The group will need to do their best to take out this strange, mutated rat. How it wound up that way is less of a concern than its threatening stance!
Shiruba
Shibuya - Main Square

"Gwen hates this guy, " Shiruba notes to no one in particular. Though it's not hard to see why, treating fabric like it does. This time she draws one of her special obsidian tipped arrows, and uses it in conjuncture with Thundersnow Howl's powerful draw to fire it at the thrall rat with tremendous piercing force!
Arashi
Shibuya - Main Square


    A thrall... of .. what is this nonsense anyway?! Well whatever it is, Arashi does in fact go after the damn thing, trying to use a significant burst of speed to catch it off guard, only to get a big blast of the miasma... Nope, that didn't work at all. Cue coughing fit. "UGH."
Kaydon
Shibuya - Main Square

Kaydon tries to leap on the weird rat and use the cloth to tie it up, but he misses rather impressively. The other two do their best to take it out, but it manages to scurry off with some of its hoard, "Damnit." Kaydon slams his fist into the stone, "We'll have to get it next time. Come on.." He gets back up to his feet and leads them on further.

It doesnt' take long to find the last chamber, as the bone pile in the middle springs to life as soon as they're inside, the glowing empty sockets of the Bone Rat staring at them. It charges, claws digging into the stone and letting loose a battle cry as it attacks the group.
Shiruba
Shibuya - Main Square

"It doesn't seem to be what was attracting the rats, though." Shiruba is sure enough proven right, when they entire the final chamber and a heap of bones assembles itself into a giant skeleton rat. Which roars angerily at them before attacking.

Mayhaps to the notice of her companions though, Shiruba doesn't raise her bow. Instead she pulls out what appears to be some manner of throwing glaive, five bladed arms that curve to wicked points, and with similar precise aime throws it at the bone rat! It slams into the monster's head, briefly disrupting the start of it's actual attack pattern, and leaves a big gash in the thing's skull as it rebounds off and returns to Shiruba's hand like a boomerang.
Arashi
Shibuya - Main Square


    There isn't really a special tactic for this guy. No big edge of shadow, no nothing. Instead, the warhorse rushes in, blades ready, a flurry of slashing meant to break bone. Not much else she can do! Victory happens none the less. Huzzah!
Kaydon
Shibuya - Main Square

Just as the rat attacks them, the trio decends upon the rat. Shiruba uses her shield in an offensive manner, while Kaydon gets right on top of the rat to draw aggro, using his damascus blade to block every attack as it comes in with picture perfect timing.

This leavs Arashi free to batter the rat with a flurry of attacks. It's not pretty, but it just works. When the rat is finally defeated, it falls over, broken and shatters into pixels.

Now having enough time to look around, Kaydon spots the altar. He moves over to it and grabs a few of the icons there, handing one to each of the other two, "Well it ain't much, but the gold we'll get from the Hunter's Guild should help suplement it. Come on, lets get out of here."
Shiruba
Shibuya - Main Square

Sometimes the best offense is a good defense. And vice versa.

Shiruba tucks the object back into her belt, behind her quiver where it's still in easy reach should she need it again. Looks like all that training she did really paid off though. "That and all the businesses we've spared from rat contamination issues, too."
Arashi
Shibuya - Main Square


    Huzzah! That being said, Arashi spares a moment to take a look around, find what loot there is to be had, and then slips back to the other two. "I suppose you're right, being an easier run and all, still, it had a few tricks. WE got through it, either way. Yay us. Yeah?"