Duty Session 363: Slime Machine

tThe hunter guild was at it again, handing out missions to go out and solve problems, for pay no less. Just who do they think they are. Now there is even a mission to go out and clear a dungeon of the slimes that live there, the nerve of them. So thats how Rizadoman ended up sitting here at the entrance of the dungeon reading a book and waiting. Eventually more would come , or he would run out of books. Either way he would be happy.

Yeowang arrives in fairly short order, having accepted the slime-clearing quest. They must be too plentiful for Uta to re-home them all, if there are some that need to be culled, but a hunter is a wildlife management professional, and Yeowang is a hunter. Or so her character sheet says, and she has made the attempt to be good at it, though it seems strange to her.

"So from what I understand," Shiruba murmurs as she trots up on her peko, "is that this is the dungeon Merek had to retrieve the thing for the Bandit King from." She brings the bird to a halt, swinging a leg over to dismount off his back. Takes out a citrus fruit and hands it to the bird to chow on and recharge his energy while waiting for them to return. "I guess the Hunter's Guild wants to keep it patrolled to keep the slime population in check, before we have any more sewer congestion issues."

    Fuka's friend is really *really* into slimes. a duty dealing with them should be fine! Fuka just won't mention it if it comes to mass murder. Or would that be mucouside?

    She's actually somewhat disappointed to see Uta's not there. It might be more than a little entertaining for a duty to be entirely derailed by the Spriggan's peculiarities. Fuka'd find it hilarious. But she doesn't mind who she does see there. Not as hilarious, but a good man to see. "Hey, D'man!" she calls out, bounding along cheerfully. "Shiba!" - even better. A strongly-competent group, it seems! And Fuka's doing pretty good herself, whether she says so or otherwise. Maybe she can flex a little bit along with the others.

    Fukaziroh peers at Yeowang. She recognizes her, she thinks, but can't quite remember. Oh well! Probably from some massive battle that would've killed anyone actually weak. This is going to be fine, what could possibly go wrong? It's not like slimes are actually DANGEROUS right?

    Slimes. First there was the culvert... err, well, and now there's a whole other slime dungeon? Huh.

    Mizuki is, at least initially, dressed in her ninja armor, midnight purple gi with long red scarf. She hopes this doesn't end up with her soaked in slime again... again... again. Euuuugh.

    "The... Bandit King? As in Gilgamesh because he's king of this island, or, is there a kind of actual bandits...?" Mizuki asks, trying to follow along. She slumps a bit. "Ugh... I thought I always wanted an immersive world, but it's hard to keep track of everything... I should've known, I wasn't exactly great at History and social studies back in OUR world, either..."

Slimes, thus Uta. Such is an immutable truth.

Or, probably? Surely she's not responsible for an entire dungeon full of slimes, right? That would just be... A bit much, even for a slimeologist of her peculiar pedigree.

"The Bandit King is an anomaly in the game, it's surprising to me that they'd reach out to anyone but those with whom they have had prior vested interests," Prophylaxis muses aloud as he lazily taps his staff against the stone. "Well, whatever. It's a dungeon, thus it must be cleared out in the name of loot. Fufu~"

    Rizadoman lets out a sigh as he sees people are showing up and stands putting the book on his belt and mumbling to himself, "Had hoped no one show." With a stretch and a yawn he looks about as he pulls a shield from his back and grips it with his right arm. " Alright then! So down into the depths of this dungeon we go. Per usual dungeon guidelines, stay close, don't randomally attack things and..." His eyes fall on Fukaziroh and Prophylaxis, " Keep an eye on your spells blast radius. "

     Down into the dungeon the groups goes and the first thing they come across is a blocked path. It appears that, possibly, someone didn't pay attention to their blast radius and thus had cause a cave in. Either way if the party wants to continue they are either going to have to move these rocks or find a path large enough for a seven foot lizardman could get through.

    Fuka would be shocked and scandalized were anyone to blame Uta for the slimes. Not that she wouldn't necessarily agree; she'd just be shocked and scandalized they'd mention it. Fortunately no one does. They just ... disparage her spell control??? She stares at Rizadoman, as if offended either by the implication or the lack of a gushing confession of how much he's missed her. "Hey I have plenty of spells that don't blow up!" she claims indignantly. Well, not too indignantly. "They're just not as much fun!" Fuka insists. "Right Prof?"

    "Why would you hope no one shows...?" Mizuki wonders. "Trying to solo a dungeon is one thing when it's a for-funsies challenge, but even if we respawn in 24 hours, do you really wanna risk dying?" She asks Lizardman.

    And then her ears turn as she hears a familiar voice: Prophy! She turns towards him with a smile, "Hey, Prophy! Good to see you again!" Although... she quickly starts looking like she has something on her mind she can't spit out. But is the middle of a dungeon really the time to discuss medical concerns?

    Anyway, there are fallen rocks in the way! The cat ninja takes a deep breath, and then starts doing martial arts moves as she tries to direct the stone to move!

Yeowang smirks as our showing up compels the lizard into action. "You can't just sit there sunning yourself on a rock forever," she observes flatly. She nods a greeting to the others, and then we're going. She will follow along, though toward the front as she is, ostensibly, the explorer type, but she pauses to take stock of the rockslide aera. Well, she will use her sense for the earth, such as it is, to find the smallest rocks and move them first, moving up to the heavier boulders, working efficiently to help clear the blocked path.

As they make their way into the dungeon Shiruba takes the lead alongside Rizadoman, it's just in her nature to do so as an explorer. Though she's staring more at the pipes poking out of the cave walls, to the point that she almost walks smack into the rock pile. "Oof." She takes a step back, looking the pile over. Eyes narrow, then she takes a few more steps back, and reachs to select an arrow from her quiver, nocking and drawing it taunt in her bow. "Give me a little room." She aims for the small space between some of the rocks, and fires. A little extra magic causes the arrow to spin as it flies through the air, picking up enough speed that it bores through the rocks like a drill, loosening up the pile so it will be easier for others to break down and move.

    "Oh hey neat, drill arrow!" Fuka notes with approval. She herself is going for entirely non-flashy artes - SEE, RIZA? - just repositioning small bits of stone to be sure she helps support the partially-collapsed cave, not wreck it further.

    At Yeowang's comment, Mizuki ohhs, "Sunning yourself on a rock sounds really good though... Laying in a sunbeam is the best! It's so warm and comfy, you can just drift off... right?" She smiles cheerfully at Rizadoman.

"The more dungeons you run, the higher your rank in the Adventurer's Guild, no? Which means more dangerous adventures... and greater rewards. It's to your advantage to do something like this, I think," but maybe the Lizardman just wanted to spend some time basking in the sun or something? Prophylaxis knows not, he knows only that there are rocks in his way.

And, perhaps to Fuka's disappointment, the doctor... does /not/ break out the cannon spell yet. Instead he simply taps the base of his staff-- and the Earth Elemental Crystal inlaid there-- into the offending stones. The land rumbles and sluices away, leaving dust and debris and a relatively clear path in their wake. "Sometimes it's useful to have spells that don't necessarily blow up, too. Earth moving is a very useful technique, I'd say."

The doctor inclines his head at Mizuki as well, upon her greeting. "Indeed! Good to see you as well. Please watch for anything that might attempt to ambush us, if you would be so kind?"

    "Sometimes the warm sun at the end of winter is rather nice, however the truth is I got to a good part in my book. You see the hero just almost saved the queen but then an assassin appared and killed the queen. Now t... " Why is it that Rizadoman is not being helpful in clearing the rocks, it is because he is now giving a detailed summary and analysis of the book he is reading. Fortunately even if you put a dime into the jukebox, there is only so much Rizadoman can talk about. By the time he looks at the rock slide he blinks, " Huh this wasn't as bad as I thought there is a path right here. " He points to the path that everyone else made and completely didn't notice all the hard work from everyone else. " Well how lucky we are that this was just here, ok lets go."

     After the fallen rocks, they come upon a room with several large measurement scales. It appears to open the door on the otherside of the room the scales must be balanced and it is up to those in the room to find that balance or all hope is loss. Well maybe not all hope, worse case scenario they blow up the doors.

    Fukaziroh can get the appeal of lying around in the sun, though she's more of an active person in her hobbies. The only passive luxury like that she indulges in are hot baths, and even then not for long. Still that won't stop her from wanting to tease the hell out of Rizadoman... But she can't quite bring herself to do it. He's just so earnest, going on about his nerdy hobby. That's never something she won't find endearing.

    So she teases someone else instead. Listening to Proph's lesson, she nods along attentively. "Yes! That's exactly why I've developed those artes!" she agrees. "Do you like it when the earth moves for you, Prof?" she asks, not entirely innocently. Okay, not at all innocently really. She leers like a sailor even if she sounds mostly innocent.

    Once she gets her due reaction, Fuka grins playfully and sets about trying to solve the puzzle. One of those water-and-bucket puzzles right? Those are always easy. This one's broken though, so it'll involve a bit more brute force and magic rather than pure logic. Well, fortunately she has both. The problem is she's a bit slow and by the time she's finished listening to others, snarking, and plotting math puzzles, others have already solved the problem.

Yeowang hrms at assassins appearing to kill the queen just as a hero arrives. "Melodramatic," she points out. "A skilled assassin would have come and gone by the time the hero arrived. Waiting until the hero arrives is just taunting him. And then again, it is a weak queen who is vulnerable to assassins." Which may be why she was trained in martial arts since age 6. Apparently she feels a queen should be responsible for her own safety.

As to the strange puzzle before us, she peers at it for some minutes, tries a couple things, and then turns away to let the eggheads figure it out. She's tactical.

    Mizuki listens curiously to the story of the book. Eventually, she realizes: "Wait, they have storybooks to read in here?! Maybe that's what I've been missing... I haven't read a book or watched anime or anything in over a year! Where do we get storybooks?!"

    Once that's answered, she nods dutifully to Prophy: "Sure thing, Doc!" Her sharp were fang eyes and ears are kept out, looking for trouble! Which also distracts her from whatever was on her mind before...

    Until they come to a puzzle room! Mizuki starts waterbending, but as others try to budge the giant dial and struggle, she steps forward. "Well... what's a were fang like me made for if I don't have useful beast strength, right?" She pounds a fist into her palm a couple of times, then places her hands on the dial, braces herself, and HEAVES! "URRRRRRRGH!"

Shiruba turns her attention from Riza's story to look up at the scales. Hmms softly. Then ahs as she gets an idea. This time she doesn't draw a physical arrow, instead using the elemental properties of her bow itself to create an arrow out of ice and arctic wind. That she fires at one of the two cups of the scale. The magic shot causes ice to form across the cup, increasing the weight on that side.

"Hmmn," Prophylaxis says impassively, words sliding off him like water from a duck's back... Or maybe he just didn't catch the innuendo? He's sort of a dork, so this is probably the more likely explanation. "In traditional medicine, it was thought that the balance of elemental forces in the body was primarily responsible for health, and ailments of body, mind and soul alike. Is it a surprise then that, as a doctor in this strange world, I would be adept at the manipulation of the elements? Though I suppose there isn't a ready analogue for 'metal' here, is there? Nor one for wood. Perhaps if we considered the elements of the Gogyou instead of the Wuxing, it'd be more on track? Darkness instead of void, in this case..."

Absent-mindedly, the doctor points at the empty scales and... casts CREATE WATER at the vessel until it's full. "Well, whatever. Maybe I'll just need to develop a 'metal' spell somehow. If wood is the combination of water and earth, then maybe metal is the junction of earth and fire...?"

    Rizadoman looks over at Mizuki and nods his head, " Yes yes, well I suppose you could see this as a work of fictional history. It is retelling a story from the scrap princess war. " Forunately he doesn't break in to a deeper explination. As he steps forward he reaches out and begins to fill the scales with magical water , adding more weight and letting Shiruba handle the freezing part. As the scales find balance the doors open. " The doors have opened, move quickly before the water disappears. " With his command shouted he begins to inch towards teh door while watching the others, he would make sure he isthe last one out .

     They all manage to get through the door before it closes shut again. The room they are now in seems to be covered in slimes made of oil. The type of oil that is quite flammable judging by the scorch marks on the wall and floors. On the otherhand, the thickness of the slime is increased due to the oil like nature. One could just as easily kick them away while making their way to the exit. Of course if Uta was here she would have that intern of hers pick up everyone and properly catalog them.

Shiruba gets up after ducking and diving through the door, and dusts herself off... then notices its something more than dust on her hands. ".. Is this oil?" Or oil slime would be more accurate. "Huh." She makes a face, mostly because they're Monsters rather than Animals, so she can't do much in that regard. So instead she examines the rest of the room with the scrutiny of an experienced dungeon explorer. "There." She points one way, then to the other direction. "And over there. Drive the slimes back in those directions to put the most distance between them and the entrance for us to pass." She pushes one of the slimes closest to her, causing it to slip and slide in one of the indicated directions because being made of oil doesn't really give them much traction to resist with. A big enough push might even get other slimes to stick to them and be dragged with.

    Fuka TRIES to be lewdly obvious. She may have some claim to purity of soul, but her mind at least is pretty corrupt. Proph being oblivious... frustrating. But not *too* frustrating, because she does like dorks. She'll just have to find other opportunities to tease! She knows he has a sense of humour, so it's a matter of finding the right angle of attack!

    The obvious solution for the next room is to fireball it, but Fukaziroh recalls Rizadoman's warning. With a sigh she pushes up her sleeves - or at least her bracers - and sets to work. Brute force should actually be a specialty of hers, but it's not her best moment. Not that she's bad at it. She's a mighty battle fairy after all. She's just not on top of her game, and the slippery slimes make mock of her attempts to force them around.

Yeowang hurries through the door once the clever people get it open. "What's the point of fictional history?" she wonders curiously. "It gives people the wrong sort of idea about how the world works. It's well and good to believe in nobility of purpose and good character, but if you don't have planning and resources to back it up, all the ferocious martial resolve will get you is your ass handed to you on a plate."

Then there's the fire slimes. She grimaces as kicking one sets her boot on fire, and she has to dump a waterskin to put it out. After that, she herds them somewhat more carefully to get them situated so we can get through.

    Oh, it's history? Still, a dramatic retelling of history from *within* a fictional world, is that a form of fiction? Mizuki rubs her chin in thought. And an expression flickers across her face, and her ears twitch when Fukaziroh says that. Although, then she finds herself wondering: Is that idiom the same in Japanese, or was it culturally translated somehow...?

    And then there are oil slimes. Mizuki wants to just burn them... but everyone's avoiding it? "Uh, is there a reason we're not using fire?" At least she's amply capable of fighting slimes physically, too... although, she switches to her pirate outfit, which is a bit more waterproof, and her human form, which can wear boots, to do so.

    Once a path has been cleared, on her way to the exit she sees her reflection on one oil-slick wall, and stares for almost a second before re-transforming and shaking her head, then walking on.

There's a reason they're not using fire, it's that Prophylaxis did finally break out that big ol' cannon spell and it turns out that these oil slimes are actually too heavy, molecularly speaking, to burn properly! They're not gasoline slimes, they're more like... diesel slimes.

Which honestly is probably for the best, otherwise they'd all be on fire right now...!!

    Rizadoman looks at the slimes and grins, as he reaches up to the shield on his arm with his left hand and with a simple move the shield falls apart in to a pair of twin blades, the chain connecting the two. Taking a step forward he begins to move through the slimes and slashes through one aafter another after another. When his attac is done he grips the center of the chains and in one smooth motion pulls the blades back into their shield mode. As the blades click back together flames begin to appear across every slime he hit. Watching all the slimes burn or be tossed aside he shouts out, " We should move on before one of them decides to explode. "

    Into the next room they find a combination of both slimes and puzzles. There is a maze of spinning windmills that will cause the adventurers to wander into a pile of slimes if they take a wrong turn. It is up to everyone to figure out the safest way through without anyone becoming slime chow.

    The big weapons come out. Perhaps surprisingly it's not Proph's mighty cannon that actually captures Fuka's attention the most. She's seen it a few times now, and loves its sheer destructive power, but currently it's Rizadoman's new weapon that has her full attention. Ever since she helped in that project, she's had ideas for a weapon of her very own, using her own specialties of enchantment and air. The combination has her slightly giddy with the possibilities.

    This is bad, of course. Terrible. Fuka giddy is more than a little dangerous. She follows along behind Rizadoman cheerfully, only stopping when she sees the upcoming threats.

    "So how are the fangs? Are they as powerful as you'd hoped?" she asks Rizadoman casually. Then, unable to hold her cheer in, she explodes. Not literally. She just sinks into an arte trance, muttering a string of syllables pertaining to Air. Air, Air, more air. A chorus that repeats and harmonizes. Anyone who knows Fuka's style of magic, and anyone with an ear for music, might get concerned at the repeating refrain that builds. That or the rather ridiculous amount of mana she's channeling into her hands; electrical energies building with every refrain.

    She reaches the crescendo, unleashing a bolt of pure lightning forward into the room. It rips through anything in its way, but that's only the beginning. It stops, then lightning pulses out from it in repeated waves, striking down whatever's nearby as well. Overkill probably, but sometimes overkill is just enough! And they'd still best hurry and be on their guards besides. Whatever path is opened up may easily and swiftly close again!

Shiruba takes a moment to examine the mechanics of the puzzle maze. Not just what the receptors react to, but how they react to the discharge of other attacks. Some spin on their own, some cause others to also spin. "Okay... so..." She quickly spins one back to put the barrier back up near some slimes almost turned loose by Fuka's barrage. Then starts analyzing farther with her appraisal skills to figure out which ones are best to trigger to make the most efficient path through while not releasing any more slime swarms.

    "Decides...?" Mizuki wonders about that.

    Anyway, there's another puzzle room and some kind of clue? She can't read whatever language that is -- or the words just don't make sense to her -- but she gets the idea to try Appraising the clue instead to see if the description text might tell something! ...But it doesn't get anything. Her ears and tail droop as she is DENIED CLUES. Hopefully the others find a way through she can follow...

Yeowang pauses as we enter to look over the arrangements of slimes and windmills that makes her think of miniature golf designed by a madman. And writing on the walls. She goes over to look at that, ten spends some time reading. And then a bit more time reading. Then she goes over to the windmill maze and walks through in a stilted and irregular pattern, with pauses and sidesteps and waltzes through with no mishap.

    Mizuki overhears an odd question from Fukaziroh though. Perhaps she doesn't understand the context... "Huh? Ah, I know lore-wise were fangs are supposed to be pretty powerful -- enough for the nonhuman races to find us kinda scary... but I just picked this avatar because it was cute!" She smiles enthusiastically.

"If pressed into a corner, monsters like fire slimes and floating bombs and the like can sometimes use the Self-Destruct skill," Prophylaxis says with the tone of a man who has probably seen the DPS stand too close to such a kabooming creature they weren't paying enough attention to. Then they'd even have the audacity to demand heals afterwards, like the fact they were suddenly missing most of their health bar wasn't entirely their own faults.

Ingrates!!

But that's the last puzzle. Now... there is this puzzle. Well, 'puzzle.' Really, more of a test of raw air power. Prophylaxis gestures, conjuring a tremendous vortex of howling wind at one of the pinwheel-like devices. "You know, that's all four elements, isn't it?" He says, thoughtfully. "And there's supposed to be an elemental machine down here... Perhaps there's a connection? Hmm."

    Rizadoman looks over at Fuaziroh for a moment, "I still need to practice my dance more before I am ready to progress on to the next step. " It is the only answer that Fukaziroh is going to get because ancient markings catch the lizardman's eye. Standing over there quietly he reads a few things before he says allowed, " It appears if you take a right turn in then a right turn out and then a left turn in and spint about, you will find the exit." Hmm by the time he finished though it appears everyone else had found their way to the other side. He is certainly moving slow today.

     As they make there way into the next room Rizadoman looks over at the doctor, " What sort of connection do you think exist here between this machine and elements?" As if the machine was listening it has begun to move and fall over, ending up revealing a slime. That slime quickply splits into two slimes and then begins to mutate. One white slime and one blackk slime. Could it be some deep boss fight mechanic or is it just another point where if you burn things down fast enough you could ignore the mechanic. The adventurers will have to decide that themselves.

Shiruba watchs the slimes split and manifest into two polar opposite types. "Oh, oh, I remember this kind of boss mechanic from the original Elder Tale game." She takes a moment to inspect the boss(es). "They're still linked to each other, we need to take them down at the same time, or they'll revive the other. Be careful what element you use on which!"

That all said, she draws back an enchanted arrow in her bow to form a magical bolt that, when fired, turns out to be some manner of arcane split shot that hits both of the slimes at the same time, causing the same amount of damage to both since it was not an elementally alligned attack.

Yeowang will have to decide for herself which slime to kick. So she does, she's usually pretty straightforward when the decision is either simple, or else so convoluted that a doctor of slimology would need an hour to work it out. She simply leaps, and nails one with a flying roundhouse kick that would make Chuck Norris's eyes water, taking down a bug chunk of health bar. She then works on the other one, so that they're both DPS'd about evenly, trading off so that they can both be killed together. It's that sort of fight, she's thinking.

    Fuka's not sure if she's puzzled more by Mizuki's reply or Rizadoman's. She ponders both, and can't quite decide if the werefangs are being deliberately confusing, philosophically deep, or just plain daft. This is a condition Fuka's quite used to, but more often it's her inflicting it on others instead of them inflicting it on her.

    She chugs down a mana potion. It's not really important who's being profound or daft, she supposes. She's still mostly tapped on mana, at least until she replenishes it. Casting Lord of Vermillion was never entirely outside her ability, but it took some time for her to have enough to cast the spell while still having enough mana left over to not simply collapse afterward.

    It becomes quite essential when she realizes what the seemingly final challenge is. Light and dark slimes. Well, she's not sure who here can do what. She can tank of course, but she's hardly the best of the group for that. She's able to handle both light and dark magic equally well. So she holds back, waiting to see what others will offer, readying to bring forth her artes.

    As she sees how the combat is shaping up, Fuka begins chanting runes of protection and light, of area and negation. Calling on the power of Sanctuary to negate darkness, and moving so her sphere of Arte intersects the darkness slime rather than the light, keeping mobile and maneuvering like a champ rather than a typical DPS drone so as to maintain pressure without compromising the party's position.

    "Ah, but that's not the elemental system we seem to have here, I think?" Mizuki observes. "There's no Wood or Metal, but there *are* Light and Dark."

    Speaking of slimes, there's a lot! Elements are flung at the slimes, and Mizuki tries to track which does damage to which slime. Fortunately, as a Ninja, she has access to every element but Light! "Dark Bolt!" She contributes the less-common Dark element against the slime weak to that.

"Well, an elemental machine is not necessarily a construct-type monster, right?" Prophylaxis asks, letting his words hang rhetorically in the otherwise quiet air, "But the ones that are tend to drop elemental crystals. Considering we've seen a handful of elementally-aligned slimes so far, I'd hazard a guess that they've probably been injesting spare elemental crystal cores and becoming aligned appropriately."

But if that's the case, then what happened to all the elemental machines that were supposed to have been down here...? They only spit out those crystals when defeated, so it stands to reason that... Well.

Perhaps they should worry about that... later.

"Yin-yang slimes now...?" The doctor's expression darkens-- no, wait, that's just literal tendrils of dark magic crawling across his face and down his arm. With a hushed curse, he extends his hand toward the white one of the pair. Tendrils of inky, tenebrous magic reach out and entangle the creature, before enveloping it in a bubble of jet black energies. "Kill them simultaneously, if possible. I don't want to have to deal with regeneration cycles if I can avoid it!"

    Rizadoman himself works as the party's shield, as his scales turn blood red and he does his best to get infront of any attack and while he does feel the attacks, it is more like someone shoving him then an actual attack. While he plays living shield the others go to work qickly tearing apart the pair of slimes. As the slimes die all the doors they came through open it as well as a new doorway. Through this doorway is a hangar of old broken down elemental machines. On the otherside of the hangar is a stairway leading out of the dungeon to safety.

Yeowang will gather up a few of the broken elemental machines, in case there are any that might repair them. It could happen. Anyhow, that's preparing for the unexpected. Beyond that, all there is is grabbing the gold and heading out. "That wasn't so bad," she observes.

Shiruba keeps her bow up as they advance into the other room.... until they are certain the machines aren't going to suddenly activate. "... Does this mean all those slimes were penned here as an elaborate defense system? I mean, they didn't seem to be roaming and random like the sewer infestations." She shrugs, and after inspecting the broken elemental machines a little more because that's what explorers do, heads for the exit that's revealed itself. "At least some gnome had the forethought to include a back exit."

And their reward is...

A bunch of wrecked elemental machines-- in a room that looks very much like some kind of giant robot hangar!? But the 'wrecked' bit is important. "Hm, you did mention that Merek came through here, didn't you?" Prophylaxis asks, crossing his arms at the ruined dross that once could have been an awesome giant robot of some stripe. "...Well, looks like this was a bust after all. Not even any decent parts to bring back home. Awful, just awful..."

Oh, well. They... /should/ still be getting paid for this, right?

    Rizadoman walks through the room of broken macines and has a scornful look on his face. " Things of the past like these should be forgotten." There is certainly the sound of disgust in his face as he looks at them and raises his hand in the air about to strike one before the mention of an exit. " Good find, lets head back to the hunter's guild and inform them of the completion of this quest. "

    "Monsters that rez eachother are a pain in the butt!" Mizuki agrees!

    "Everyone alright?" she asks, once the battle is won. "I dunno if slimes were necessarily penned here... maybe they were the first monsters to move in, and there was plenty of food?" Mizuki wonders, following along as they move into the next room. She opens her mouth to say something and then--

                                     *GASP*                                    

                              "ARE THOSE MECHA?!"                              

    Mizuki stares in wide-eyed excitement at the machines, recognizable for what they once were even if only ruined hulks now. "THIS SETTING HAS MECHA?! Oh my god do you think we might one day get to PILOT ONE?!" She turns, bouncing with excitement, "I mean, sure, in FM World we had mecha, sort of, but they're more like Ride Armors, these are the real deal! Full-size!" She turns to look at another ruined elemental machine. "Ooooh... I never thought I'd get to see a real mecha... even just in ruins like this..." she zips over to look at part of one more closely, then another part. "So coool... I've always liked mecha ever since Power Rangers and Mechwarrior..."

    Mizuki climbs into one of the hulks in a position where she thinks a cockpit might be, and poses like she's sitting and gripping imaginary control sticks. She mimes putting on some kind of helmet and presses an imaginary button, then affects a calm computer voice: "Reactor, online. Sensors, online. Weapons, online. All systems nominal." Grinning like a kid on christmas she moves her hands slightly and makes sound effects that are probably suppsoed to be heavy metal footsteps and various kinds of weapons fire.

"They certainly look cool," Shiruba replies to Mizuki, "But trust me, they are a pain in the floofy ass to actually fight." She's speaking from experience, too.

    Fukaziroh peers between Mizuki and Rizadoman. The two werefangs are confusing her even more. Why can't they be NORMAL? Like Kauchemar? "I guess I can see the draw of magical mecha." she says, having some affection for that sort of thing from her childhood. But she's a little dubious. Would such a thing wreck the game? Or would they replace the game? And what of that part of this world, whatever part it may be, that's not really a game? It's troubling, and probably something for a deeper philosopher than her. She's okay with using magic to improve things, but a massive warfare engine may not be such a great thing.

    Big bags of coins, however, that's something she can appreciate. She sighs happily. "This was a good adventure. Easy and rewarding. And we didn't have to crawl through garbage either!"

Yeowang considers for a few minutes and says, "You'd need considerable magic to make those things work here. It may be worthwhile to attempt it, but it seems that we're all weapons, mecha or no." She's taken some of the parts along for others to study, but she nods at what Shiruba says. "Yes," she adds to Fukaziroh's comment. "Plus one vote for not crawling through garbage."