Duty Session 350: Obligatory Rat Maze

Once again the Hunter's Guild has sent out a duty for increased rat problems in the confusing depths beneath one of Yamato's cities. Arriving Adventurers are directed down into the cellar of one of the shops, where the gap leading deeper below has appeared. Shiruba is already there, tail flicking idly behind the cait sith as she inspects the large crack. An occasional squeak can be heard deeper within. "Mmmm, I still can't tell if the rat population somehow causes these to appear, or just takes advantage of when they do to pilfer more food and nesting material..."

    Rizadoman heard the call to arms,to fight the dangers of the rats , and so here he was carefully moving down the stairs into the cellar. He swears he can feel the steps bending a little under his wait but makes his way to the bottom safely. Looking at the crack he shakes his head, "It's hard to say, perhaps it is just bad construction. Poor choice of foundation, all the other potential risks of being a home owner."

Goldenblade is here to hunt rats again as well, smiling as we gather up, checking her gear and status and making sure she's ready to go. "I have no idea about that," she says to Shiruba, "but does it matter? There's sewage and rubbish and places people don't go. There will always be rats." She nods to Rizadoman. "Indeed, it's a constant thing, and I don't know how construction works into it."

    Fukaziroh is, as usual, happy to help in Hunters Guild tasks. She meets the best people this way after all, and she's reasonably sure she can prove herself both flexible and competent. Never mind she halfway blew herself up in the previous adventure, it all worked out in the end. Besides, it gave her some good ideas on the possible utility of weapons that don't require you to be in eyesight of the enemies you face.

    "What I want to know is, does the quest regenerate whenever there's enough rats in the area, or do the rats just appear because this is a recurring quest?" the little blonde thoughtfully muses. Her hair's done up today, drawn into a tight braided bun atop her head, giving here some perhaps-unexpected sophistication as well as helping ensure her hair isn't at risk of getting slimed. She looks over at Shiruba, shrugging. "Never really thought about it when this was all a game to me, but you can't help but wonder, can you?" she asks, more serious than her usual attitude.

So here we go again. There were Rats down here but there could be goblins and she figured she'd check that out. After all any way to drag Goblin Slayer about on some actual adventures. So here she was chipper as ever ears wiggling as she looks over ot Shiruba and then to the rest of the party.

"I think it's due to the population there was another group of them that ended up cleared out."

"That's a good point Fuka," Shiruba replies as she stands up. "But we'd be terrible explorers if we weren't wondering about such things." She glances over her shoulder to see all who is here, and nods. Several alliance mates and Goldenblade, who's always a welcome sight. "And the only way to find answers to wondering is to investigate!" Shiruba sidesteps to wiggle through the opening.

And immeadiately clasps a hand over her mouth and nose. "Yep.. they're still hording refuse at the entrance... Uuugh."

    Rizadoman looks at the mess left behind the rats and covers his nose. " They should lean to burn there trash." Removing his hand he breathes fire into the trash pit but alas some things are to disgusting to burn.

Goldenblade is perhaps a welcome sight because bad smells don't affect her so much. Or, rather, she knows a bit about toxic gasses. All that industrial training because toxic gas accumulations happen in construction. What she can do about it, though, is to remove the source of the reek, and clear the air as much as possible. This is accomplished by unleashing fire into the chamber.

Well, not so much fire as FIRE, because the amount is prodigious, and it just keeps coming. She's got a very fiery personality, and she plays to it, generating such an intense flame that the fume and yuck are consumed by the incinerating flames.

    "Why would they burn their trash when they have us to do it for them?" Fuka asks cheerfully. Not in cheer at the smell of the garbage of course, but cheer at the thought of firing it up. Sadly she doesn't have Schneider with her here this time... his fire spells are always so entertaining, and she's beginning to consider her options for acquiring some more big AOE spells! But Goldenblade steps up, and Fuka's jaw just drops. "W-wooow!" she calls out, voice excessively loud, her own flame-throwing dribbling somewhat off-course as she stares in pyrotechnic delight. Someone may have to duck!

Erufu thinks about what Fuka said it is something to seriously think about. She will and talk to Riza about it. She readies her bow as they go into the are and she stares the trash, so much trash. She stops takes a moment to pull out some arrows with oil woaks rags, she get flint and tinter out. Lights the arrows and starts shooting them into the trash.

Most people engage in using fire to burn away the filth left polluting the room. Which creates a lot of ash and smoke, so Shiruba goes for water instead to wash the smoldering remains off to the sides of the chamber. Last thing they need is a fire getting out of control and burning up to the actual city.

Doing so also uncoveres the trapdoor in the floor of the chamber. "Aha. There's the way farther inside." The door is sprung open and the party can climb down deeper into the pest infested depths.

But find a turbulent underground river instead. No time to enjoy the ride though, the group is going to have to protect themselves from getting tossed about and smashed into the tunnel walls before the current finally spits them out at the end.

    Leaping into the water, Fuka splutters at first. She then starts to laugh as the underground river pulls her along. "Shiba if this river is from you!" she cries out before getting pulled briefly under, letting out a gurgling noise. Judging by her laughter though, she seems not be not too upset. Just spluttering something about drowning and fire mages. She's nimble, and even without being quite prepared to cast magic (and water being among her weakest besides), she rides out the surf challenge through agility rather than power.

Goldenblade rides the river, made all the more watery by Shiruba's washing clear of the room above, but she's ridden watersides before. This is a bit like that, but what she mainly does is lay flat to avoid bashing her head along the roof of the cavern, taking quick breaths when there's air, and riding the watery slalom, going with the flow rather than fighting it. The channel of water doesn't get hung up, so as long as she stays in the middle of the passage, she'll keep from getting battered too badly. Her arms out, she guides her way along the torrent like a waterslide veteran. She used to go to to the water park with her kids, it's almost the same.

    Rizadoman is just happy to get out of the ash, and smell of the garbage it doesn't matter what lies ahead. Unfortunately it is right into an underground river with a rather strong current. The large lizardman tries to stand against the water and hold the current back. He was not one to let some simple water beat him. However, even mountains fall to a little stream so it is only to be expected a strong river could beat one destined to be a dragon. Wherever Rizadoman is going to end up only the current knows.

the elf finds things are getting a bit wild as they go deeper in ans she's looking about find they are now in an river. Oh great you now have a very wet elf. Some might like that she does not thankfully she's bale to keep herself from smashing into anything as she goes.

Shiruba goes with the flow almost literally as she draws some of the water around herself and partially freezes it into a barrier bubble for the current to push along, until finally spat out with the rest of the group from the pool at the end of the submerged river. The frost ball tumbles a bit farther, then collapses into slush around her as Shiruba stands and shakes herself off. "Well that was unexpected." She turns to the rest of the party. "Everyone okay? This room seems pretty empty doesn't--"

It's when she turned away from the darkness ahead that a glowing red eye opens, followed by it's match. Claws can be heard scraping on the stone as their owner moves, looms forward...

Shiruba stopped as her ears twitched just as the rodent of VERY unusual size emerges from the dark, and then slicked to the sides. "--There's a monster right behind me, isn't there?" She barely manages to avoid the creature's mad lunge forward. "That's too high level for us to fight easily down here, we need a way out of this room fast!"

Goldenblade looks up at the opponent, and around at the passageway. "Back down slowly," she advises, "I think I can drop the passage in its way." That said, she forgoes fighting to smash the keystone at the top of the passage. With the keystone shattered, the arch loses structural integrity and begins to fall inward, atop the enemy and blocking its advance. As we back down, she will pull another keystone, causing more passage to collapse and adding to te debris blocking the way.

    Rizadoman just stares at the eyes behind Shiruba and nods his head, " Yes there is, it appears some people have all the fun. " He smiles in jest before the creature is making use of the small tunnel and they are all backing away. With Goldenblade caving in the way they came he presses his hand against the wall. " May the ancestors of the earth shift and stir." With his words said dirt begins to fill in around the debris packing itself in, reinforcing the debris.

Erufu is now soaked all th way though but it could be worse she seem to keep her spirits at least. She shakes off some of the water and look around. She'll stop for a moment say "Yes..." She cries out as she attemp to use several earth related bow arts against the thng but the monster's just too touch for her shots.

    "Shiba!" Fuka cries out in warning and surprise as the rat lunges for the cait sith. Fortunately Shiruba's quick enough to dodge. For the briefest of moments, Fukaziroh considers one of her most powerful support spells to restrain the angry monster. That's what the spell's for after all. But as she sees the reaction of the others, she decides to support them instead. Grounding her axe, she delves into one of her stronger elements, drawing upon earth to bring up stone to help the others block the passage.

    When the effect seems to be successful, she comes up beside Rizadoman and raises her free hand towards him, palm upstretched and facing him, offering the dire lizard what could best be described as a medium-5. Both because she respects the stoic adventurer, and because she harbors a sliiiight gremlinish desire to see him slip his facade and behave like a human.

Well there is no question who 'Shiba' is referring to now. Glad we cleared that up. Could of done without needing such a terse situation for it though.

Goldenblade puts her construction skills to use for a little demolition, cutting off the giant mad rat from pouncing on top of them. A few stones smack it's head, briefly dazing it. Long enough for the group to use various Earth magics to shore up the barricade. "Well," Shiruba mutters as she steps back. "I hope we don't need to come back out this way. Let's keep moving."

Who knew the tunnels beneath the city go this deep? They do, and constantly wind about on themselves, or lead to caved passages that force backtracking. Plus they're trying to avoid going back into the room with the giant rat. Finally Shiruba finds a narrow passage between some fallen rubble, and leads the others squeezing through it to get back into the main tunnels.

Unfortunately it's also right back into rat central. This time several large rats that seem to be brimming over with magic. They hiss and snarl at the intruders, and while not as huge as the previous encounter something has made them more like monsters than animals, as they rear up to lash out with magically hardened claws and fangs.

Goldenblade fights the magical rats with both blades, slashing and spinning and laying out the damage. Which does not accumulate. Seems like there's some magic needed to complete this challenge, to let us do damage. She has no idea what that might be, though, so she fights on and will hope that someone can work the right enchantments to make her attacks effective.

"Die, rat," she shouts, blades striking over and over to no avail. Spinning and slashing with all the rats biting and snapping, but she plays through, waiting for the party to bring it.

    Back into the rat's nest they go and Rizadoman is at least happy he acctually gets to fight this time. As he steps in towards one of the larger rats he sends a wall of flames out to seperate him and the others so he can fight this monster, lizard vs rat. It seems like Rizadoman has thought this out until the other rats jump through the fire and completely ruin his plan. So he adapts and does his best to fight the rats head on.

How deep did this place go? She doesn't know but she's going to se is though to the end. Well or so she though as soon they are back in the land of rats. She's got a few ideas, she has some items picked up from goblin slayer that might be of help. Sadly she does not have his skill with chemical and her plan an flask of acid gopes very poorly so poorly she nearly gets it on herself!

    Fuka leaves her hand up in the air for a few moments after Rizadoman walks off, still seeking that high five, before twitching violently then allowing the hand to drop. She stomps off after him, quite peeved that she was left hanging for the sake of some silly adventure.

    As a result, when she sees the coven of arcanely-corrupted rats, she shakes her head. "GREAT BALLS OF FIYAH!" she abruptly cries out, lofting a burning orb at them. Probably not the ideal spell for this, or an accepted way of solving the quest challenge, but it suits her mood. And hey, who can argue with a great ball of fire?

Something about the magic empowering the rats makes them extremely hard to injure. The best people can do is knock them away and try to hold them at bay.

Then Fukaziroh drops a fireball, and that gets them to scatter. They didn't seem to mind fire, but there is something else in the Fireball spell's magic that is conflicting with their enchantment, forcing them to back off and divert around the fire. It's just enough of a space of time for the group to make a hasty tactical withdrawl down another tunnel though. Once they're gone from the area, the magic rats don't seem to care to follow.

Or maybe they know what lies ahead for our brave souls...

Eventually the passages wind into the large familiar sight of a boss chamber. Only this one is dimly lit, leading to long shadows looming from all sides. Enough to have Shiruba's fluffy hackles on end. "I'm getting the feeling there's more to this dungeon that's influencing the rats... and that creepy feeling of being watched..."

Sure enough there are eyes in the darkness. Beady red eyes. Belonging to a figure that almost literally shadowy, and vagely rat like. It moves like some misty pool of darkness, more like it's shifting from shadow to shadow to lash at the heroes with unnaturally cold strikes rather than actually run.

Shiruba is quick to go into tactical mode, even as sparks crackle along the bowstring of her weapon. "The center of the room! Gather back to back, cover each other's sixes. Don't let it get a flanking position or it could do critical damage!" As soon as she sees the red eyes flicker in front of her she fires a bolt of lightning directly from her magic longbow.

Goldenblade breaks when Fukaziroh's fireball scatters the rats. She follows the group to the final chamber, and there, she will move as Shiruba directs, forming up as she dodges attacks and avoids damage. And then, there's FIRE. This is a steady backbeat to Goldenblade's life here in Elder Tale, it puses like a heartbeat, inferno flames pulsing as she fans them around and over the enemy. This is going to hurt. The cold feeling is countered by the heat of her fire, which cuts through the dark elemental smoke. She pumps out intense flames over the enemy, consuming its HP quickly.

    Fuka's first instinct is, of course, more fireballs. How better to deal with something hiding in shadow? But her frustration is somewhat ameliorated by having already blown something up, and her more coolheaded tactical nature takes over. The better way to deal with shadow is, of course, light. And while light isn't her strongest element, she HAS studied a few spells, having thought that the ability to blind a foe might well come in handy.

    She focuses, charging the artes, and flares magic throughout the room. Light, she believes, is a somewhat underestimated talent, dismissed as only useful for healing. Well, that and for this! Trying her best to blind the shadow rat, she sends flares of light into the deepest and coldest shadows she can find, also conveniently lighting up the room for those with more raw firepower than she can muster.

    The lizardman hates to admit it but he needs to retreat from the swarm of rats and follows the group deeper down into the maze to try to get away from the swarm. Instead they end up in a dark room with beady red eyes, not just that but it was cold and getting colder. All he can do is try to spray fire at the source of the eyes but they always seem to miss their mark. Fortunately it is providing some warmth, so thats nice.

If elf was alone today she's be having a very bad time. It's rough but thankfully shge has firend wityh her. This give he time to get to the centre get back to back. It Even gives her time to light up more fire arrows. She doesn't score many hits but it does help keep the enemy off balance ahd open some chances for her allies to do things.

At first the elusive nature of the shadow rat, jumping between points of encroaching darkness, appears to be a complicated Boss to fight. It's hard to see, hard to predict, and difficult to hit as it seems to not be entirely solid in the first place. But grouping together at the center of the room gives the Party one tactical advantage, as someone can see in each direction and they can cover each other's backs, meaning the dastardly rat can't get any clear sneak attacks on them.

While elusive and resistant to physical harm, the Shadow Rat is not at an exceptional advantage when forced to fight it's prey directly. That puts him directly in line of sight and directly attackable. Light and Fire work best, the former drawing shrieks of pain as it withdraws, the later leaving glowing flares in their wake that illuminate more of the room and give him less places to hide. Magical strikes prove capable of overcoming the intangibility, flames and lightning arrows driving it farther back.

With every hit it takes the shadow rat shrinks accordingly to how much HP the hit took off, and with it the imposing bitter cold and darkness also recedes. Until finally there is a *POP* and the tiny remains of the creature bursts into motes of death and misty black remains that a quick hand can scoop up and contain.

Shiruba squints at the small sample of shadow afterwards, her eyes glowing briefly as she does. "Something or someone is definitely making the rats more prolific and more supernatural."

    Rizadoman watches the shadow rat die and the fighting is done, and how does the lizardman celebrate? He turns to the nearest person by him which happens to be Fukaziroh and in the way his people celebrate and give celebratory cangratulations he knocks his head against hers. " Yeah ! We did it !" He cheers afterwards as he looks around his eyes falling on Shiruba, " Someone you say? Another puppet master in the works? " His mood is soured a bit as he thinks of the great lich.

Goldenblade says to Shiruba, "There /are/ a lot of strange rats. But the game follows no logic but it's programming, so whatever strange things have been programmed in are what will happen." She shrugs. "It seems pointless to predict things beyond the tells we're told."

    Fukaziroh freaks out for a moment when Riza bends over her, momentarily mistaking his intent in a moment of wide-eyed startlement. Sure she likes the big guy but this is just so unexpectedly sudden! Doubly unexpected since he's such a straight-laced person, seemingly. She's left a little dazed by the actual head-tap, and not due to the force of it.

    "Wait, that's it?" she frowns upon receiving the celebratory tap. "You left me hanging back there and now you bump foreheads?" she growls, either annoyed or offput by her own subverted expectations. "Hey where I'm from..." she says, raising up a hand deliberately in front of Rizadoman, leaving the palm up there pretty much in his face.

    Of course, she has her own suspicions about the whole shadow-master and the rats getting elevated. She's seen it among pirates too for that matter. But first, there's the matter of that guy who just headbutted her. Like she's some kind of cat!

Shiruba doesn't agree it's 'just code' anymore, but otherwise Goldenblade has the right of the situation. "We can only try to understand, and prepare," she replies with a nod. "But for right now, lets get out of this dump. All this adventuring has worked up my appetite!" Not that the wolfgirl is ever not hungry.

    Rizadoman stares at the hand and tilts his head at it for a moment. Looking around the hand he looks at Fukaziroh, " I apologizes for leaving you hanging. In our alliance one does not need to raise their hand to ask a question. Please ask at your convienence. As we exit this place. " With that he turns and walks away, somewher ein the back of his mind he is remembering something the else the raised hand could mean...nope he lost it.

Erufu is hapy as the battle end all thing said and done she looks happy.

"Well done we got that done. Yes this may become the sort of rats are that are more monsterous. Something may be going on. The question is whom? The Bard charnged her ways so it can't be her."

Goldenblade agrees with Shiruba about getting out of here. She will head out with the others, getting while the getting is good. "Yeah, let's move. I don't want to be here when things respawn."

    The only thing stopping Fuka from smacking Rizadoman right now is the sneaking suspicion she's being played. And if she is, that it's one hell of a good joke. Still her hand twitches, and her fingers curl, and she makes a fist... almost.

    "It's NOT raised for a question! And I haven't been a student for over a year now! Aaaaaaaaah forget it!" She lowers her arm, scuffing a foot in a moment of annoyance that's quickly forgotten. "Actually I do have a question. Where are we going to eat? And is it a place with cake? Or ice cream?"