Duty Session 334: Obligatory Rat Maze

Rats and Adventurers have a long standing history together. You need to train, find some rats to beat up. Rats need a place to infest, go find where Adventurers eat or buy stuff to scrouge.

They weren't going to get past Floor 10 without more training, so conveniently there's new Hunter's Guild duties to do. Though as she swats some of the dust and cobwebs away from the musty old cellar to eye the crack in the wall Vertina snorts softly. "Are we sure this is the new version? Doesn't look any different so far..."

There's rat noises coming from beyond the crack though, so at least they're in the right place.

Schneider has joined the quest, he also needs training. His boom is boomy, but he's not as high in level as he'd like to be, and he doesn't hit as consistently hard as he needs to, to do the highest level content. He knows about training to up his game, and that's what he's here for. In basketball, training was shooting baskets and sprints, here, training is turning rats into charcoal briquettes. "It /said/ it was," he replies to Vertina, aware that it feels similar.

Going for a good old fashioned rat extermination serves multiple purposes; Prophylaxis' eternal crusade on the behalf of public health is just one facet. The fact is that the events on the tenth floor have given him reason to distract himself with things that do not involve dwelling on the implications of an invincible monster capable of devouring data standing in their way.

"Rats are rats," Prophylaxis says, "No matter how much they grow or change, they shall forever be... rats. But in a way, there's something soothing about repeating well-practiced actions over and over again, right? It's a nice distraction."

    The rats duty *changed*? Well, it changed before, but the general premise and layout hadn't. Mizuki puts on a smile and tells the shopkeeper that *obviously* she's prepared to solve any rat problem, but inside her thoughts stray to 'has it really been a year of this? What could this change mean?' Seeing Vertina though, she gives Lizard Friend a hug and that seems to cheer her up. She nods at Prophy's comment about the comfort of the familiar.

    She points at the (clean, not molded-away) boxes and the crack. "Yeah, I've never seen this variation before. This is new." Once greetings are over with, she looks at the crack, detransforms, looks down at herself, considers, then retransforms. She's pretty short anyway, the reduced height of human form probably isn't as helpful as her were form's flexibility.

    A fighter such as Fukaziroh would usually be rather dismissive at a newbie quest like 'clear the shop cellar of rats'. Fuka herself, however, has no issue with it. She's still kind of a newbie, though one with a lot of tactical flexibility, and sees nothing wrong with learning from others and just having a bit of fun while she's at it. Since deciding to end her self-imposed exile, she's been seeking things to do which involve engaging new people, and this seems just fine to her.

    She peers dubiously at Prophylaxis when he makes his claim. "You make a habit of repeating actions with rats?" she asks, rephrasing it in not quite the worst way she can think of, but oh well. She wrinkles up her expression. "I think I'm just going to kill them, if it's all the same." she notes, hefting her rather large axe significantly.

    Mizuki adds, at Fukaziroh's question, "This was the first duty to appear all over the place. We did it a lot, early on, to learn about how they work after the Apocalypse. The possible bosses at the end have changed a few times, but there were only a couple of layout variations... well. The sewer maze layout was different every time, but the encounters were always like, one of two sets? So this is new." She blinks. "Aww, does this mean we'll never see the Armored Rat again? It was so cute!"

Miho has need for supplie so oince again she's picked up a quest and it seem once again she's running with a lot of SEA she's polite at least but who knows what could be going on between those horns. Given NWA's growing issues with SEA. Either way she's seeming to leave those issue aside for the moment, she comes in tail swishing and she looks over Fuka and Mizuki for a moment.

"Too bad we couldn't just toss a match down here and take out the whole infestion no?"

    "A match in a sewer? Isn't that an explosion hazard?" Mizuki answers. "Also, sometimes it turns out the infestation was caused by someone summoning extra-tasty rats to make into food! We wouldn't want to explode them and ruin-- augh oh god what is that smell?!" Mizuki covers her nose and then detransforms, fumbling her way through the crack in the dark until she can get out in the open and see someone's light source.

"Training is equal parts repetition to remember skills, and experimenting to learn new ones," Vertina quips at the questions about repeating actions. "Either way, we're not going to get much done standing here!" She has to duck a little due to her height to sidestep through the crack in the wall.... and finds some stairs on the other side. "I will never understand the random arcitecture around this world." Stair that lead down into a pit of stinking, rotting food. "Guh!" Vertina clamps a hand over her nose. "Yep. Rats have definitely been here. Looks like we're gonna have to slog through here."

You've got several Scale members, Salamanders, and Fukaziroh here. WHo needs matches?

    "Explosion hazard? It's not a hazard if that's the point, right?" Fuka grins wildly, nodding to Miho. "I'm admittedly a little fond of explosions sometimes. And fire seems a good way to deal with rats. But we don't want to blow up the streets above us do we?"

Schneider looks up at the mention of fire. "Did someone call?" he asks. He joined exactly the right Alliance, given his own flametastic proclivities, and he's known for his eagerness to use fire to solve, well, everything. If Fire doesn't solve your problems, he's said, you're not using enough. Well, down here in the stinky cellar, fire is just what the doctor ordered. Or will order, he's sure. But it's just what he's going to provide in any case, holding his hand up, palm out, and flame rises all around us, even from the water, burning the refuse eagerly, consuming and dissolving it. Ostensibly so it'll stop attracting rats, but also to cut back on the stink.

There would always be ROUS out there in worlds like this and this place is no exception. Her tail swishes lazily for a moment "I can breathe fir ..." Miho visibly gags sn turns green. This is a place of a certain British-made plague god to be sure. She knows what she has to do but to do that she'll need to take a deep breath. The blue-haired Salamander manages to not gag then let out a gout of flame to deal with a good deal of the trash in her way. Yes, fire, burn it all and she cares not if the rot gas goes kaboom it seems.

"Where's your sense of adventure?"

    Once Mizuki sees what the problem is, she changes her mind. "R-right... but this has gotta be incinerated... I don't smell methane anyway..." Wait, does it have a smell? She pulls her gi up over her mouth and inhales, then transforms and breathes fire all over the garbage, trying to incinerate it, followed by ninpo-ing up an air shield for herself so she can breathe. "Agh... right... I can make fresh air with magic... That's good to know..."

    She smiles at Miho when she sees the salamander doing the same! "Go team fire breath!" She holds her hand up for a high-five!

    "We're going to need some light down here." Fuka notes, somewhat obviously. Fortunately for a wielder of a big axe, she's pretty good at several different classes of magic, and Light is useful for a lot of things. "And I don't mean setting everything on fire!" she scolds. "This time." she adds in a stage-whisper, possibly directing this at Flame-Lord Schneider... or possibly at her own pyrotechnic self.

    "Well okay, setting everything on fire is fine I guess, but we still need steady light!" she notes, channeling some mana into her axe to set it aglow. "Don't expect this to mean I'm going to stand in front when we're attacked by rats! *I'm* not the one that thinks they're cute!" she adds.

"Rats are very useful experimental subjects," Prophylaxis says in reply to Fukaziroh, "And experimentation demands strictly controlled repetition. So yes, I do repeat actions with rats quite frequently, though they don't often survive." Ominous! Potentially. He /is/ some kind of medical doctor-y looking guy, just at first glance. But then, this man also has an air of... danger about him.

...Or maybe that's just the stink of garbage wafting up from the depths of the earth.

"Why would you want to breathe /anything/ under these circumstances?" The doctor asks, because 'breathing' implies letting that awful miasma into their lungs. And that's just awful! "Burn it all away! The only thing that'll properly purge this much filth is a storm of fire!"

...Schneider predicted his order well. Is Prophylaxis getting too predictable? Regardless, he adds to the firepower pouring down into the hole with a barrage of his own blazing bolts. Pew-pew!

To be fair burning the trash away is a pretty predictable answer no matter who's giving it. Vertina smirks as Mizuki and Miho get all excited about fire breath. "Yeah, it's nice, but watch this!" Vertina takes out a flask of her own brew, uncorks it, and chugs the entire contents down. Then unleashes her own fire breath.

Alcohol makes a wonderful fuel source, getting her breath hot enough that the tips of the flame are actually blue instead of red and orange as it incerates a path clear.

And they managed not to blow the places up in the process of so much pyromania. Keen!

They also managed to find a trap door under the filth, which Vertina pries open with one of her clawed cestus and hops down.

".. Well, cork my backside and call me a bung." The room below isn't very clear on what it is, or where the exit is. Just lots of grooves and holes that might be important in the walls. "I've got nothing here." She glances over her shoulder. "You're the braniac, Doc, got any ideas?"

Prophylaxis looks at the walls, looks at Vertina, looks back at the walls, and then just gives a great big ol' shruggerooni. "Nope, beats me."

    Fukaziroh cheerfully throws herself down the revealed trapdoor passage, using vesigal fairy wings to make the drop survivable rather than suicidal. Well okay, it's not far enough that she'd be in serious trouble even if she didn't have wings, but they make it far more fun. Of course she's brought up short when she realizes there are no exits from the chamber.

    She looks around. Keyholes? Writing? A musical instrument? "Oh hey, now I know we're in a dungeon adventure." says Fuka, pointing. "Look. Lute!" she grins. She rushes over, shooing the (hopefully non-giant) rat away and picking it up. "Anyone have any ideas what I should play? Maybe something that's written on the walls, if anyone can decipher it?" she asks, perhaps slightly more serious than she's been before this. She's somewhat genre-savvy, and figures this is a crafted puzzle with a clearly obvious solution, if they're able to put enough clues together.

Schneider follows Vertina down into the next room, and stands around, looking curiously. Puzzled, he scratches his head. "I'm all right with a lot of the game languages," he explains. "But this is like a cypher or code, somehow, it's not straightforward." He looks over to Prophylaxis, but feels better, at least. If Proph can't figure it out, everyone will understand that it's beyond /everyone's/ comprehension. And it's not just Shneider half-assing it.

The good news is they clear out a lot of th trasah likely making this place far less messy. "Well now we done pretty godo lets get moving shall we?" She'll trot out but finds the next room to have .. a bunch of ways thy might be able to ge out but she pauses is that a door? She's lacking lockpicks but Miho has an idea. She'll raise her tail and try to use the thagomizers on it to pick the lock, it doesn't go so well...

    A trap door? A little checking shows the fall isn't long, but once they're all down there... There's some sort of rune puzzle, and... a lute? "Hey, wasn't there a bard down here for awhile? I never met her..." Mizuki picks up the lute and strums it a little. "Oh, hey, cool!" She starts playing snippets of videogame tunes... underground/dungeon and puzzle themes, mostly. "I never did learn how to play guitar in real life, it was too hard to bend my fingers enough... but here it just comes naturally!" She's so excited about this she forgets to actually do anything to help.

Vertina punches a wall out of fustration. Which does little to help anything. Fukaziroh and Mizuki manage to strike a chord, so to speak. But with only the two of them making music it takes a lot longer for the arcane auditory apparatus appropriated within the aclove arcitecture to activate, availing them proper access onward.
Into more maze. Cornering paths of switchbacks and dead ends. Until they finally find, or more aptly accidently stumble upon, another proper chamber.

A chamber full of rats in nests of horded material and filth. They don't read very high level, but the sheer numbers here lend one to not want to poke the proverbial problem.

"I don't see why Indy worried about snakes so much," Vertina mutters under her breath.

Schneider really doesn't sneak very well at all. He's not a sneaky person. So, in a dark room filled with rats, he brings forth the light. " Kaizard, aruzard, kisk! Hansay Glossik! Unleash total destruction! Sage of Hades use the seven keys to open the gates of Hell!" Those that know Schneider or have adventured with him know what's coming, and it's not good news for the rats. "HALLOWEEN!" he bellows, and unholy wrath and intense flames wash out over the field of rats like a nuclear explosion in a movie, flames rolling out over the rats like inexorable doom. It can't get them all, there's too many, but it gets all the ones that are close. Like, in the same zip code. After that, it's a simple matter to rush across before the farthest rats venture forth across the scortched area left by that awful spell.

    Fukaziroh scowls as Mizuki steals the lute from her and then doesn't even do anything productive with it. They do eventually work it all out, mostly by strumming random notes and tunes until the arcane apparatus has heard enough to trigger. At that point she may forgive the luter, but it's touch and go until they finally proceed.

    Getting into the deeper catacombs, Fuka sees the horde of rats and signs of larger things indeed. A rat king perhaps? Giant rats? "Look." she says quietly. For her. "I figure we could probably burn all these rats, but some people think they're cute. I think we just need to SQUEAK THROUGH here and get to what's behind it all, okay?" she suggests.

    Assuming the group is willing to be stealthy, and not kill Fuka for bad puns, she sets out to lead them through the rat-infested warren. Only to watch as Schneider lashes out with hell-energy. "Or that, I guess. Well, whatever works! I hope we didn't murder any cute pets!"

Some Rats are not terrible such as Fancy Rats, she knew someone in America who had some as pets. These are nothing like those chill rodens no these are horrible monsterous things still she has some ideas of how to handle them with a bit of food in hand she'll start trying to distract the rat and get some of them to just get the heck out of the way of the party. Which would be a win for the rat as they don't end up in the way of the party's attack and shockingly she gets quite a few to follow..

    Mizuki's ears blush when she realizes in her excitement she grabbed the lute from someone else trying to play it. "Sorry... I just got excited..." They don't seem able to solve the puzzle quickly, though.

    "Ugh, another maze. Usually this would mean we're gonna run into the racist rats next..." But she doesn't sound like she thinks that's what will happen.

    Confronted with the rat horde, she suggests, "Maybe we should be quiet and sneak by? Well... I guess at this point someone always forces their way through the horde anyway..." And BOY DO THEY. She stares at Schneider's spell, and then hurriedly ninjas her way across before the swarm can cover the space again.

Hey, sometimes you just run into a puzzle that you have absolutely no hope of solving. It's okay! People need to know their limitations so that they know when to rely on others-- or when to break out the explosives. Fortunately, after some trial and error, the others manage to make something to work, leading deeper and deeper into the maze.

"Why," Prophylaxis asks the world, "Is there a place like this under here, anyway? Like, who built it? Why did they build it...?"

Was it just to contain a legion of rats!?

Speaking of which, there are many of those here. "I suppose we can't just burn them all this time. Too much risk of accidental gas explosion," Instead, Prophylaxis resorts to a much more... Direct way of killing them. They are living things, after all, and as a Magus, he has access to an element that is very well suited to dealing with those.

Schneider lights them all on fire anyway, but Prophy takes a subtler tack. The shadows thicken in ripples as he strikes the floor with his staff. Waves of flesh-sloughing energy plow through the churning mass of rats, reducing them to piles of dessicated ash in its passing. "Eh, it's fine," Prophylaxis says to Fuka, "I like animals too, but I make exceptions for rats."

Vertina is NOT trained for handling animals. People might recall her method of 'handling' grunties on the convoy was to wrestle them into submission and probably resulting in a bit of damaged goods so to speak. So she'll just let the more apt people take care of this one. Even if only the cat (surprise surprise) is actually sneaking, and others resort to darkness and just making sure there's no witnesses. That counts a stealth right? That and Fuka and Miho actually knowing how to get through the rat infested room gets the job done.

More tunnels. This time the sounds of rat squeaking mixing with metallic clinks and... marching? That's weird.

And finding the source isn't making it any less weird, as they come across a squad of armor clad rodents, matching on their hindfeet so they can stand and wield weapons. Which upon seeing the intruding Adventurers they stop, one squeaking out what's probably orders as they bring the makeshift weapons to bear, and charge!

It's cute... but it doesn't make it any less dangerous!

    Fortunately Fuka doesn't hold grudges. She's quick to annoy, but faster to forget and forgive, particularly for a comrade. "Are you sure this isn't a rat... uh, what are those things called where you have to work a crappy job? Rat maze? No wait, rat race?" she muses. And continues on musing semi-aloud as they navigate. Unfortunately none of her mumblings are particularly relevant or useful.

    Upon entering the room with the squad of rodents, she looks back at Mizuki. "Okay, they ARE kind of cute." she admits, seeing the tiny little sharp weapons and armor and beady little eyes, not to mention the upright stance. "But I'm still gonna blow them away! Gale of SWORDS!" she cries, summoning a globe of air to her axe (ironically) before swinging it and launching a storm into the array of tiny warriors.

Schneider is not a suffifiently skilled swordsman to fight a bunch of tiny ratlings, rattling around, attacking us. And he blew his big fire spell, what he's got left would only get a few before they're overwhelmed. But he does have another option. Summoning a small air elemental, it slashes at the rats as it dances among them, picking up aggro, which they spend uselessly on stabbing air, or else one another, which solves our problem nicely. Schneider stands well back and lets this happen.

. . .

OK, maybe it /is/ a little cute to see a bunch of tiny rat-people sally forth in their tiny little rat-person armor. That /is/ pretty frickin' adorable.

And yet, Prophylaxis seems poised to set them all on fire in some way, shape or form, or so says the conflicted expression on his face. He gives the charging ratmen a glare that could curdle milk, lifts his hand, and...

...Conjures an electric blue-colored potion to chug.

"Sorry, need a sec," the doctor says, "OOM."

Please wait warmly while mana bars are refilled.

    "'Rat race' is the metaphor... I suppose the mazelike qualities of this dungeon *might* be meant to bring to mind the mazes scientists use to study rodents' mental abilities though, as well." Mizuki answers.

    And then the next group they find is...

    A whole GROUP of armored rats! Mizuki raises her paws to her cheeks, eyes sparkling. "Oh my gosh there's a BUNCH of them now! They're even cuter in numbers!" But, she doesn't let her guard down, dodging away, trying to stab the rats in the back between the plates of their armor, apologizing as she does so. "Sorry..."

    "Can someone hold aggro for a moment?" Once the rats are all focused on someone else, Mizuki stands clear, holds out her hand and incants: "Swirling bolts, gather and strike with power! LIGHTNING BOLT!"

    Lightning should get some kind of hit bonus against enemies in lots of metal armor, right? Maybe? Does physics even work that way here?

Miho looks at the armoured clad rodents she's got a bad feeling about this, yes yes. She looks them over before they move into change. She'll engage the twisted cousins of Reepicheep. No that would be an insult to the gallant mouse knight, wouldn't it? She would however know just how to take their weapons apart with her own strike where to strike to break them to shatter them and render them asunder!

Vertina watchs the rats charge. "Now ain't that cute...."
One swings it's sword, longer than the rat is tall, at her, which the martial artist does the classic 'catch sword in hand', partially in thanks to the protective covering of her battle gloves, and partially knowing enough about weaponry to know where the makeshift weapon's balance is and can restrain it successfuly.
"BUT ITS WROOOONG!" she bellows in the rat's face, then punts it back across the room.

Dealing with the guardian rats is quick and effective, and the party makes their way to the final room. There's a tingling in the air, not unlike it being ionized just before a storm. Bits of broken metal rods lie about the room. One more clatters to the ground just as the group arrives, as it' chewed through by a strange glowing rat. Which then starts running around the room, trying to bite and kick people while it's movements send bolts of electricity arcing around the room!

    "Say, this room looks kind of familiar..." Fukaziroh muses thoughtfully. She's actually fairly quick to spot the static effects, considering her skill with air and lightning magic. "Oh hey it's a lightning rat! Take a peek at chu, little guy!" she grins.

    The grin fades quickly when she comes under lightning attacks. "Hey! No fair that's my trick!" she insists. And she can't even use Chopstick, considering that'd be hefting a rather large metal object in the middle of a lightning storm.

    Fortunately she picked up a rather powerful Support Art recently, one just made for boss battles. Concentrating on the somewhat unfamiliar art, she makes the gestures while trying to stay relatively sheltered from the storm. As thorned vines lash out and surround the boss she cries out in (perhaps premature) triumph. "Sic 'im, guys!" she cheers.

Schneider is faced with a savage ... "Pikachu?" Well, that was what it was called when he was growing up. All the 5-year olds were in awe of the twelve-year old protagonist who roamed around on TV with his yellow lightning rat, and Schneider was among them. On the other hand, mastery of earth is a tricky thing, and the lightningly active electric rat is much less potent when appropriately grounded.

    Mizuki stares at Vertina. "Did they have Two Stupid Dogs in Japan? Or...?"

    Once they reach the boss room... Mizuki finds herself having to dodge lightning, which... isn't really dodgeable and may require finding some sort of pattern in how Raiju and the rods are positioned. "Aaah now I know how Team Rocket feels!" If she can get just a moment, though, she starts doing some martial arts moves in place. "But I have something they don't... magic!" She finishes with a rising upward motion, and stone rises out of the ground around the party members, forming into insulating plate armor that, to them, doesn't seem to have any extra weight!

    "Alright, Raiju... prepare to be grounded!"

Holding back and conserving energy for a final encounter is a viable and worthwhile tactic, as it turns out. When your gauges are all full and you're staring down a creature that, under less ideal circumstances, could do terrible things to you, but you know you will be able to keep it from doing so... It's a good feeling. A satisfied feeling. A notion that, for an instant, you've managed to outsmart the game.

There's a large yellow rat in the next room. It prizes its speed, and wields lightning as a lethal weapon.

"No," Prophylaxis commands. He slams his staff into the ground, and the ground answers with a low and ominous rumble. Thick vines erupt from the cobblestones, a tangle of fibrous threads that narrow the rat's viable avenues of escape until it's trapped in a cage of tangling strands. Finally, the wood wraps /it/ up as well, holding it helplessly in place for the others to do what they will.

"Finish it off," Prophylaxis says, though he doesn't need to at all. "I'll arrest its movements...!"

Miho looks about the last room for a moment she pauses looking at the metal rod then at the rat. Oh, this isn't good this is quite a shocking rat to see for Miho. She's got to get on the move to not get caught by it. It lighting and well she needs to dampen it somehow, the question is how? She sees some metal rods and ponders then she looks at the very earth itself and has an idea she'll use a sword arc to sunder the earth and makes an Earthern then wall to one protect herself, then send rock fragment at it.

"Lights out!"

Oh, a high speed boss with AoE secondary attacks that spam almost too fast to see the telegraphs! Vertina however has a strategy for just such a fight. She puts her hands together in a specific gesture while she closes her eyes and focuses briefly. "MIRAGE PHASE JUTSU"

And then there's multiple Vertina also running around the room, nearly as fast as the rat is, as they move to interrupt it's charges against her party members. Occasionally a jolt of electrical current hits, only for the Vertina struck to disappear in a cluster of motes and spent ki.

Just for the real Vertina to step in, and soccer kick Raiju back into the center of the room, where Fukaziroh and Doc's vines entangle the beast. It bites and claws at the bindings, but doesn't accomplish much despite it's speed. Plants are naturally grounded and don't conduct electricity very well, after all. It's arguably a more effective cage than the lightning rods were.

Also makes it easy for Miho and Schneider to pummel it with additional Earth based forces. The use of elemental weaknesses deplete the boss's HP faster than it's static field can it's foes, until a tiny sparkless rat drops out of the tangle of plants and scurries off into the cracks of the walls with an annoyed hiss.

When it's all said and done Vertina walks over to pick up one of the broken rods from it's previous imprisonment. "Lots of tourists at the family inn," she explains to Mizukichi while examining the rod. "Might be able to make use of this. Let's get back topside and let the Guild know the job's done."

    Mizuki still gets zapped a fair bit, the armor seems to not be as effective as she'd like. Still, she does her best working with the others! "Ooh, nice!" She calls out, at Prophy's use of vines!

    "It's... shrinking? That's weird, right? I wonder what it means..."

    After it runs off, Mizuki examines the drop. Reading aloud, she says: "'A charred piece of metal that looks to have once been part of a more advanced structure. There is a feeling to the metal, as if it still contained some electrical current within it.' Useful for Air, Metalworking and Construction. Hmm."

Miho looks at the rod she has taken for her owwn and nods to Vertina for a moment "I I certainly can do something with these I bet I'll need some time to change.

"So its a ROUS...no more." She muses before she packs her loot away. "So how about we go get cleaned up and get something to eat?"

Schneider pants hard as we emerge victorious. "I'll take luck any day," he says frankly. Because that's most of what he did at the end was get lucky. "Yeah," he agrees with Miho. "Lets get out of here and get food."