Duty Session 362: For Whom the Bell Gnolls

Recently, there has been a shift in the behavior of the gnolls who dwell within the forests close to the newbie leveling areas. They had always been a threat, but it seems as if they have started to change their tactics as a result of Adventurer activity in the area. They no longer strike only at night, meaning that the forests are now a dangerous place, even during the daylight hours. With a number of both Lander and Adventurer deaths attributed to the gnolls, the Hunters Guild has put out a call to thin out their numbers, in the hopes it might return gnoll activity back to normal levels.

Difficulty:    Moderate
Rec. Party:    3+
Rewards:       2
World Rewards: Reduce gnoll activity in new player leveling areas.

Fukaziroh
Shibuya - Main Square


    Apparently the gnolls are revolting, or something. Fukaziroh is all for a little casual murder, especially when it helps out the lowbie adventurers, the landers, and the Hunters Guild. Not to mention helping out her pockets! The call goes out for Adventurers to thin the murderhorde.
Merek
Shibuya - Main Square

    Merek walks along with the party, his dark attire on with the blue rose on that armor. He does take the time to check his twin blades, while he nods a bit, and will wait to keep on with the party.
Uta
Shibuya - Main Square

Uta marches into view, staff held tight in one hand and employed as a walking stick. She stops in the middle of the field, and surveys the holographic tombstones.

"Nope, nope, nope," she says, and turns to leave. After three steps, however, she comes face to face with Fuka and Merek. "...oh, you're here too?" She turns towards the field again. "...I guess we have better chances to make it together, then..."
Goldenblade
Shibuya - Main Square

Goldenblade has heard that the gnolls are revolting, and of course she replies, 'They certainly are,' because that's the thing you reply to a set-up line like that. Not saying that is ... well, it's an old joke, but Groucho was her era, and she loved that joke back in the day. She's killed a lot of gnolls in her time, but this is more about service to the community than a need for rewards. It's also about training, of course, she's always been very keen on training, and so she's here with snug black coat and trousers over her typical mail, and she wears a close-fitting black hood also. She appears to be in ninja mode. But it's not just ninja training, because just doing one thing at a time would be slacking for an old-timer like Goldenblade's player, who grew up without TV, so is used to finding things that need doing.
Fukaziroh
Shibuya - Main Square


    Fuka handwaves dismissively. "We got this, Uta my dear. Nothing can possibly go wrong with me bravely leading the way! Unless we get lost." she says. This may well be an ironic comment.

    Still, the bloody tracks of the gnolls seem easy enough to follow. The group has no trouble following the murgergnoll party tracks, and soon come across a stone altar crudely made. It's covered in dried blood, as if this is the site of many horrific sacrifices.

    Amongst the blood, there are a number of trinkets which have been laid out, as if this were some kind of morbid ritual. A child's doll, an Adventurer's dagger, a smith's hammer, a bard's flute, a pipe, some nails, and a number of other items that must have been taken off of fallen Landers or Adventurers.

    There is a hum of magical energy here, as if these things have been arranged in just the right way to enhance the gnolls' power. There must be some way to disrupt the flow of that power and weaken them, at least for a time.

    Fukaziroh wrinkles her nose at the sight more thna the smell. "Why THESE things? It's kinda twisted. I have no idea what they're doing beyond killing things. For which we will kill them of course! But might be good to know what we're up against huh?"
Goldenblade
Shibuya - Main Square

Goldenblade will look over the magical detritus placed here for mystically significant reasons, and shrug. It's just trash and gewgaws to her, so she has no idea what to do about it, so she watches the others and keeps an eye on the perimeter in case of ambush, which is her actual concern.
Merek
Shibuya - Main Square

    Merek nods a little bit to Uta, while he then will walk with Goldenblade and Fuka, "Alright, I think I will be able to fix that," he then works on arranging each magic energy.
Uta
Shibuya - Main Square

Uta paces around the items. And performs the magical ritual Arte known as 'poking things with a stick'.

"Hmm."

Poke, poke, poke. "I need that disruption might involve poking things out of place. But someone set up some sort of... magical bomb or something. I can sense it. So someone needs to sense whether we need to cut the magical red wire or the magical green wire. Metaphorically speaking."
Fukaziroh
Shibuya - Main Square


    Puzzles aren't exactly Fuka's thing, but she's played enough games to recognize one when she sees it. And it seems the group is likewise clever enough to figure out something of what's going on. Not that it's an immediate help of course, simply part of the pattern they get to try to understand in the hopes it leads them to the true root cause of everything going on. To put a stop to it... or at least get better rewards!

    Deeper into the forest, there are more and more signs of gnoll activity. Branches have been sharpened into spikes which stick out in all directions. There smears of blood that coat the nearby trees, as well as ropes which dangle from the foliage, as if something had been trapped there.

    That is when they start to hear laughing. It is a maniac laughter that seems to resound from all around them, echoing in the trees. It's hard to tell exactly what direction the laughter is coming from, but it has a distinctly... gnollish sound to it.
Merek
Shibuya - Main Square

    Merek looks around while he thinks about it, and nods a little bit. It doesn't look like he knows where the gnolls are at the moment, watching the place.
Uta
Shibuya - Main Square

Uta's pointy spriggan ears perk up. She swivels them around to follow where the sound comes from, and once she believes to have locked on the source, she heads in the chosen direction, andjusting her course along the way. Which means that, in practice, she ends up walking in circles around the party.
Goldenblade
Shibuya - Main Square

As far as telling the direction of the strange laughter, that's pretty much impossible. But Goldenblade saw movement over there, or she thinks she did, and points, "Over there, that way, something was there for a moment, but ran off." She will go after it.
Fukaziroh
Shibuya - Main Square


    "I think you're hearing *us*, Uta." Fukaziroh comments dryly, grinning. Hey, she knows what it's like going around in circles! "We need to do a bit of searching I think. Go this way, see if it's louder, go back. If there's echoes, we need to echo-locate!"

    Wait, that's a bat thing. Anyways. The idea's at least sound, and the group proceeds with a little effort.

    The sounds of gnoll war cries begin to sound amongst the trees. There is a steady rhythm that follows, a 'hoo, hoo, ha' that repeats itself as if a group of weaker gnolls were calling out one of their brethren.

    That is when an armored gnoll appears, wearing a helmet that looks as if it had been made from one part metal and one part animal parts. A huge set of antlers extends from the helmet, almost brushing the edge of the canopy. It gives an answer to the chant, slamming a mace against a wooden shield.
Merek
Shibuya - Main Square

    Merek looks to that armored gnoll, and instead of managing that with the flame magic of his alchemist potion, he will swing a bit of fire magic, although that doesn't really manage to do a lot.
Goldenblade
Shibuya - Main Square

Goldenblade knows what to do about a fight, at least. All the searching and thinking business is a bit over her head, to be honest, but she knows how to fight like a maniac. Though what she does to the gnoll is more like immolation than assassination. Well, it's a bit of both, striking with her swords, and each impact sparks a burst of intense flame, searing the target on impact. Her blows set the target aflame as she moves around it, sliding sideways as she avoids its counterattacks, thrusting deep into the target with each strike.
Uta
Shibuya - Main Square

Uta's ears perk up! "The Gnolls! They are acknowledging that we can hear them! They sound ridiculously like Fuka, though, and-"

Those ears droop. "...oh. Snap."

Enthusiasm is restored in the Spriggan's expression as soon as the chanting of gnolls is heard. "Now, /this/ is more like my jam!", she beams, and with a grin, she cracks her knuckles.

*Big inhale*

An aria is intoned. It harmonizes with the gnolls' chant at first, but it progressively grows stronger, louder, higher in pitch, spiraling up in a melodic spire until it pinnacles into an ear-shattering shriek which sends shockwaves to impact against the gnolls, air rippling and all.
Fukaziroh
Shibuya - Main Square


    "It should be super fun to disrupt the chanting, break his morale." Fuka notes, figuring out what the 'intended' solution is. Then, muttering a few words, she triggers flame artes and sets the gnoll on fire. "Then again, it's also super fun to disrupt him this way too!" she cackles gleefully. Besides, it sends a message to all the gnolls in the woods who aren't yet engaging in the fight. The message being something on the lines of 'set a gnoll on fire he'll be warm for the rest of his life'. It's not like he's a flaming poisonous bear or something dumb like that.

    The woods seem to grow in activity. The furry forms of gnolls can be seen in the trees, but a number of them seem wary of coming anywhere close to the Adventurers. Possibly due to all the fire. These are lower level enemies, the sort that likely suit the newbie status of this area, but they seem smart enough not to engage.

    No, that is left to the generals of the gnoll armies. From the trees, a large gnoll wearing what looks to be dark leathers. Black wolf fur covers one shoulder, a series of bat wings dangling from the monster's belt. Most eerie is that there are a series of red runes which seem burned into the gnoll's skin, snowing some kind of infernal nature. In one hand is a massive scythe, which is turned to point at them.

    With a spit-slathering roar, it begins to stomp forward, swinging the massive blade.
Merek
Shibuya - Main Square

    Merek lifts up a hand while he takes the time to begin to bring the magical sanctuary about, then he takes the time to bring up defense as well as to heal the people.
Goldenblade
Shibuya - Main Square

Goldenblade dodges aside from the creatures massive attacks, counterattacking with both swords. She gets the status readback: Immune to Attacks of this type. Well, crap.

She scrolls through her other abilities, calling on the forces of earth to unmake this strange abomination. She does that earth channeling thing, sucking up the monster from the force of the planets' elements, and killing it slowly as she ducks and weaves. This is, in a way, what she came for, so she's good with the slow, dodging, earth-channeking fight.
Uta
Shibuya - Main Square

Uta wuxia jumps and dodges the axe as Deathcleaver ????? swings it, and she does so by bouncing off trees and rocks. "Stand /still/, by the Goddesses. I need to know what that rune arghhh!!"

A powerful slash catches the Spriggan unawares, and she's sent flying off with a massive diagonal slash across her body, pulsing red. Her HP just got drained from Green to Red in one go.
Uta
Shibuya - Main Square

Uta dances around the blade. Each blow and jab finds nothing but thin air and the closest to kinetic lines there is in this world. Probably a slight Uta-colored blur?

"Stand... still..." she keeps repeating. "I need... to... read... those... runes..."

As she jumps to avoid a blow which ends up splitting a log lying on the ground, Uta mumbles, "...dang. Reminds me of when you try to read someone's T-Shirt without being too conspicuous... except that this is in hard mode."

Sadly, it appears that reading those runes is too hard for her.
Fukaziroh
Shibuya - Main Square


    Fuka feels like using nature magics is the way to go. Others use various natural or light magics, and it's enough to quickly overcome the dark-infused gnoll. Probably has something to do with how the group figured out something about the evil rituals earlier, or something like that. The gnoll general falls swiftly to the combined magics.

    Still, the battle isn't done, not even with the defeat of the gnoll general. A subtle shift in the air comes, along with an ominous silence from most of the lesser gnolls, suggesting there's something even darker to come.

    The group continues down the path, to come across a wide clearing that just screams 'boss chamber'. There is a loud sound as a huge creature lands with a massive crash in the arena. Others who have fought the gnolls before would recognize Haggar, but something seems very wrong about him. There are glitched pixels around the edges of his form, and an INSPECT has a series of strange characters that follow his new title... Deathcleaver.

    He stomps forward, dragging the huge axe, swinging it in a wide circle that seems to catch everyone in a radius in front of him. It looks as if the boss has gotten a power up since the earlier dungeon encounter.
Merek
Shibuya - Main Square

    Merek walks along with the party after they win with the gnoll, then he notices the glitched monster boss, taking the time to consider it. "Alright," the man lifts up the hand of his while he draws the fingers along the strap first. Then he points that towards the monster. Within his mind, he focuses upon the knowledge of the phrase. 'MEREK_TEIWAZ_BANDIT_KING.' A green light will dance along the strap and to the hand.
    "AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!" Circles begin appearing along his wrist where the bracelet and gauntlet which he wears is at, then it sends an arc of green light into the monster. That beam seems to draw from it, pulling it back to him, taking the power from within it. It begins sealing its ability to fight with the party as well as it usually would.
Goldenblade
Shibuya - Main Square

Goldenblade draws the darkness around her as we catch sight of this glitched boss. She's not quite sure what to make of it, and what Merek does is wildly baffling. On the other hand, she's got her own plan. She fades from sight, both of the players and of the monster, slipping into position slowly and carefully. Then suddenly, there she is, behind the stabilized boss monster, her swords running through the creature, transfixing it and sucking down quite a huge chunk of HP. After that, the monster can only take a few more hits before crumbling away rather than exploding into pixels like other monsters do.
Uta
Shibuya - Main Square

Uta wuxia jumps and dodges the axe as Deathcleaver ????? swings it, and she does so by bouncing off trees and rocks. "Stand /still/, by the Goddesses. I need to- arghhh!!"

A powerful slash catches the Spriggan unawares, and she's sent flying off with a massive diagonal slash across her body, pulsing red. Her HP just got drained from green to red in one go.

She peels herself off the ground, and with a grimace, she charges back into the glitched monster, only to-

She boggles at Merek's display of power, and remains in her stupified state for long enough that-

"No, no!" She shakes her head, and bounces back to take care of the fight. That thing has multiple health bars, every moment is precious! And off the flying kicks, roundhouse kicks, punches and and karate chops impact, chipping away at the monster's bars.
Fukaziroh
Shibuya - Main Square


    Okay, THAT gets Fuka's attention. She remembers the glitched pixels from a certain tower battle. And when Merek steps up and begins conjuring his green light, she turns to watch what he's doing.

    "Hey! Big and ugly!" Fukaziroh yells, pulling out her necklace from its normal concealment. The necklace is ... a bit horrible, made of bits of a whole bunch of different monsters. "That's right, you! The ugly one! Yeah, look over here!"

    Fuka intends to draw aggro, to let others do their thing. Merek can data drain, and the others can go on the offensive without fear while Fuka tanks. Only she's distracted by the data draining, and ends up getting disarmed. Chopstick falls to the ground, followed by Fuka's arm. She shrieks in pain, though of course she still has some protection from agony... it still hurts! And she DID kind of get the boss's attention, right? This may not have been her brightest idea ever.

    Still, despite that, the boss goes down a fair bit more easily than it might otherwise have, given Merek's removing its glitched protection. It allows Goldenblade's attack to hit with overwhelming power, and the group is then able to batter down its multiple remaining health bars quickly enough once it's reduced to a simpler boss mob aimed at weaker parties.

    Fuka still participates by kicking the gnoll boss when it's down. It's hard to wield a great axe one-handed. She finds the experience somewhat cathartic.
Merek
Shibuya - Main Square

    Merek looks to the boss when the party wins against it, and will take the time to look to the party. Then he walks along to where Fuka is at and nods to Uta, and to Goldenblade. "Well, that was an interesting way to use that power," he will note, while he takes the time to watch the place in thought a little.
Uta
Shibuya - Main Square

Uta rushes over to Fuka in a panic. She swipes her menu open, and begins investigating the health status of her friend.

"...According to medical inspection, you're missing an arm," is the Spriggan's diagnosis. "Don't worry, that is easily cured in this world." She navigates through different options, and materializes a compact glass flask. "Here. Have some of this limb-regrowing potion. This one is particularly effective if your other arm is still intact." She nods deeply as she hands over the item. "I got it at the Second Hand store."
Goldenblade
Shibuya - Main Square

Goldenblade looks over to Fuka, who's been disarmed, but Uta's already got the situation, and the puns, under control. "It's weird," she observes. The limb-loss game effect seems to happen all the time with some monsters and never with other monsters. It's lucky it didn't happen to more of us." One of the advantages of attacking from stealth is that they don't know you're there until after.
Fukaziroh
Shibuya - Main Square


    Fuka rearms herself, quite literally. "Sure, *mock* my pain!" she complains at Uta. Of course the complaint is rather undermined by the grimacing grin she gives, not to mention the giggle-snort at the absolutely terrible pun. Besides, it's her fault for distracted tanking. Or possibly Merek's fault. Yes, it's clearly all Merek's fault.

    Once Fuka's fully repaired, which takes a brief time, she claims her reward and then stomps over to confront Merek. "What did you DO?" she demands, sounding angry. "How did you do that! AND CAN YOU TEACH ME?!?"
Merek
Shibuya - Main Square

    Merek will look to Fuka while he thinks about it a moment, "Data Drain. I am not sure that I am able to teach it, although I can probably teach you more about what it does. That might take a while, I'm working to generally learn that myself." Then he nods a bit, while he takes a look along to Uta and Goldenblade.
Goldenblade
Shibuya - Main Square

Goldenblade can only shrug when Merek looks her way. Who understands about these kids' games anyhow? She's only playing because she's stuck and she's not the type to sit around idle when there are things that need doing. But understanding the intricacies of the game design are way past her level of understanding.
Fukaziroh
Shibuya - Main Square


    Fuka was fairly sure it was data drain, given how the corrupted samurai had green shields and the group had been told that only data drain would allow them ot win that fight. When Merek used his attack and apparently destroyed the glitch, she figured it must have been Data Drain. It's good to get confirmation however.

    "Oh." she replies, much less aggressively. "Huh. So that's what it is! Well I've been looking into that myself." she pauses, then does a quick inventory scan, bringing out an odd-looking spike and presenting it for inspection. "I *would* like to learn more though. I hate bugs! Not the creepy crawly kind though those are kind of disgusting too. I mean like virus bugs. And those are horrible too! Viruses, I mean, not bugs!"