Duty Session 365: Totally Typical Tomb

    Wisteria picked up notice of a gravesite in need of cleansing. She hangs about infront of the Hunters Guild, the tall albino girl in her wisteria kimono and purple hakama relaxing and offering greetings and invites to Adventurers. It's not a high level quest but it's one that needs doing over and over, and she's pretty sure she hasn't poked every corner of the dungeons that spawn with necromantic energies.

    Rizadoman had been making sure to always take on a couple of the hunter guild's request everytime he was back here in Yamato. If only to alleviate some of his guilt for not being here all the time to try and handle the local problems. Today it appeared that he would be taking on clearing out the undead today, accepting the party request from Wisteria. " Greetings Wisteria, I hope you are doing well today? Another graveyard to clear?"

    The tall Tank-Bun is very bored, and upan seeing someone wanting help with a Quest? Allynna goes into adventure mode. She hits her chimlink. "Merek, Hunter's guild, quest time." She says before walking up to the albino Bun and ovvering a wave. "I'm in!" She says with a cheerful voice, wearing her iron armor with her black long surcoat over it, looking very mighty at her almost six and a half foot height.

    Merek will take the time to come along with the party to check on the hunter guild quest, taking his time to check his weapons, then he nods to Allynna. "Thank you for the invite," he will offer, then he's taking a look along to the place, "Well, I know the way these missions go, I don't like to deal with skeletons," the man admits.

Goldenblade is on a quest to do all the quests. She's rep grinding, and so when the call goes out to clear out a graveyard, she'll join up immediately. "Hey," she calls, recogizing Wist, who she's worked with before. On a tomb quest similar to this one, as it happens. She will look around and nod greetings to Allynna and Rizadoman as well, getting her gear situated. Unlike when she normally goes adventuring, she's come today with a dark cloak and her mail coat tinted dark gray. Camouflage facepaints are applied, and she looks a bit like a green beret wannabe.

    Wisteria smiles, showing off a maw full of triangular razor teeth stacked in like a shark rather than the bun she resembles. "Hey there, Yah Riz, Golden." she waves "Always one more graveyard to clear or we'll end up with undead stacking up and we don't need another undead army right?" she laughs a bit and shrugs. "I've got the directions to the current infection so I figured clearing it out comes to us, I mean no new players means no low level players to do the little grindy quests right? Besides, I've already found two secrets in this quest maybe I'll find the one to get home one of these days tucked in some forgotten back room in the crypt."

Allynna blinks. "Home? This is home... That's why we clear out the nasties." She says with a nod. Looking to merek she smiles and places an arm around his shoulders. "Don't worry, I'm your tank remember, I'll keep you nice and safe Merek." She says with a smile as she then waits for Wisteria to lead the way.

    Rizadoman would end up falling hiend the Caerbannog , " The undead problem is definately something we don't need to exasperbate, so it is defiantely a worthy cause." The Lizardman looks at the new comer and decides it is better to not get in the middle of that comment. Instead he takes a moment to move the shield on his back to his arm and readies for what was ahead.

Goldenblade arches a brow curiously, but nods to Wist about maybe finding secrets. "Worth a shot," she says guardedly. Her tone says she thinks it's unlikely. "We won't find out until we do it, right? But until then, undead are definitely bad. And the Guild pays for killing them. re-killing them, that is."

    Wisteria bounces along, she's learned in the last year or more to ignore arguments that might come around about where home is. She isn't going to stop anyone else from wanting to live here after all. She leads the way to the graveyard, where the usual gloom and foreboding that indicates an undead infestation sets in. "Well here we go... first wave is usually pretty easy if any of you haven't done this clear before. Then we'll head in to the crypt and work our way down to the boss. There are a couple of secrets so if we come across them I'll point them out and we can always go that way for loot if anyone needs it." she says brightly. She is far more game savy than she was last year that is for certain. Her armor appears, a dark suit of samura armor with dark smoke drifting from the joints.

    The clicking and clacking of skelletal rats swarming through the memorial stones. As folks know there are no bodies to bury, the undead are manifestation of the dark energies of undeath and necromancy. The horde comes on and the party reddies for the battle.

Goldenblade has expressed her desire to go home before. This place is interesting, and she's retired so she has no obligations, but she'd really like to see her grandkids. But there's monsters here that need dealing with, so swords come out, and it's the chop for the rats. She has no compunction about killing rats, or skeletal rats, and she's quite aggressive about stabbing and slashing all around her to tke them down just as hard ands fast as she can. It quickly becomes obvious why her class is called Blade Dancer.

    Merek looks to the skeletons, while he thinks about it. A nod to the rats, "Spooky skeletons!" The man tries to sing that although that doesn't really seem to be all that great while he takes the time to follow along into the place properly.

Rats... litteraly.. Allynna smirks though as she takes out her shield, and then smiles as it splits into two. "Time to mow the dead." She says as both shields produce spikes at their edges, and then start spinning as Allynna readies to wade into the horde of undead and make mince... bones... of them.

    "Merek, have you been skipping ypour music lessions?" She says to her friend.

    Rizadoman steps forward as he looks at the rats and shakes his head as he simply steps on the rats as he goes, his big lizard feet to stop then back into the ground. " We shall have to clear that which continues to bind their souls. Only then can these poor creatures rest." With a thump he swats one of the undead rats away with his shield and looks for a source but it seems that these undead rats do not have an undead piper to go with them.

    Wisteria shakes her head at Mereks singing but hey the party is stomping rat skeletons and in the end that's what really matters. Wisteria herself is dancing from location to location letting rats attack her, dark chains of smoke and magic lashing them to the ground to let others crush their little boney hopes and dreams. The albino bun occasionaly slashing dark magics into the larger packs with her katana.

    Once the horde is down she smiles again, showing all those razor teeth. "See, first wave is easy." she says and then her long ears perk through her helmet slots "OOoh hey look, it's another of these failed rituals... means this infection is the undead worshipers again... or some idiot wanting to gain the favor of a hero." she shakes her head "Well, best thing to do here is to finish the ritual and head down to challenge the Hero. They tend to go away peacefully once the ritual is done correctly cause they're not actually bad guys just looking to guide the young in their paths to Legend."

Goldenblade looks around at the remains of the ritual gone wrong. Not that she has much idea what would make it go right. Her grounding in fantasy tropes is marginally worse than her grounding in the cultural anthropology it's (very) loosely based on, and the best she can do is what is referred to as a WAG. A Wild-Assed Guess. It's not even a Scientific Wild-Ass Guess, which is at least ... helpful, sometimes, and occasionally useful. But there's an element of graphic design in the layout of the bits, and based on that ... Well, they say the sun shines on a dog's ass once in a while, and in this case, when she arranges things, it actually flashes once to show the arrangement is correct. "Well, shit," she observes, surprised.

    Merek will assist with the ritual, taking the time to begin drawing the symbols along the wall, then he's following along with the party, "Well, I am wondering what we will do when we are at the next point, I'd like new content, probably."

    Rizadoman is very familliar with summoning circles in regards to summoning ancient heros and all that. He has called down ancestors plenty of times to help and as he looks at the summoning circle he stares at it for a moment and then stares some more . He continues to stare and then shakes his head, " I see yes, that is indeed a summoning circle. " He is obvious not ging to be of much help here.

Allynna smiles, Finish a ritual, why not? She locks her shield back together and steps forard as a brillian light emits from her, then she starts to sing to cause the light to spread over the ritual site.

"Tiiiime

Try, dare the dead tread ahead on a road that is borrowed design

Through the sum of their sons do they seek tomorrow

Tonight, witness then as the end shall begin what was final

Their lies, folding back, further back, ever back to primal."

    Wisteria has done this before, besides she's been studying enchanting of the ancients, dark magics, and curses to help her break her way out home. So dark smoke rises from the bun, darker lightnings crackle and charge the circle before she tosses down a crystal matrix that stabilizes the magics and makes the enchantment hum slowly. "There that should stay stable till we can get down to them. Thanks for all the help, this is a cool side path and not every party can manage it even when we find it."

    She leads the way in until she stops a door. "Hmm which one is this...." she taps her lips then looks it over. "Looks like this is the brute door... Golden you should be able to help pretty well, earth magic buffs and raw strength are also good for moving this big pain in the butt."

    Merek looks to the door, and will walk up to it, to try to assist people in working to open it up. He doesn't do all that wonderfully at that, though he does try for the party. "I don't think that I've went this way before, it might be a bit new to me."

Allynna smiles as she walks over to the door. "Hmmm..." She ponders before hooking her shield on her back and moving to bend at the knees and find purchase with her fingers. A few breaths to steady herself and then she locks her elbows and pushes with her mighty Bun legs. "Remember merek, use your knees... and have a pair of killer thighs!" She says, still being snarky despite attempting to hoist a door.

    Rizadoman hears the word raw strengths and nods his head as he grins. " Oh anicent naga emporer, I call upon you to grant me your strength. " Rizadoman's scales change from the teal blue to a blood red as he begins to help Allynna lift the door. " You should also summon the power of your ancestors Merek, they can give you strength."

Goldenblade follows along, then hrms as Wist mentions that she can help with the door. "Well, oh, yeah," she says, "Because you do this, then you do this, then over here you do this..." It's half vocalized internal monologue, half actually attempting to explain what she's doing, though kids never seem to pay proper attention anymore, do they? She does what, if someone -is- paying attention, some pretty complicated convolutions to rebalace the set of the door, and incidentally disable the bar and some other technical things.

    Wisteria buffs herself with Earth magic and tries to lift... "If... this were my real body... I swear I have more muscle than this..." she says as she strains with the others to lift, it isn't really much that she adds but hey she's in there trying.

    Then it's on to the challenge of greed. "This room is always hard to figure... it's really to test your greed I think, anyone who tries to take everything will end up weighed down or poisoned or cursed or something depending on which challenge this is so... just be careful and try not to take any of the bad stuff if you're going to loot."

"Fake.. fake.. that one's probably cursed... fake... shiney, but fake..." Allynna says as she walks along the room and shakes her head. "Yep, most of this is junk..." She does take her shidl from her back, who knows what's comming up next?

    Rizadoman looks around the room, every so often his hand reaches out and he almost touches this or that. In the end though he never picks up anything. Takng a moment more he reaches the end of the treasure and looks at Allynna and nods, " Yes this one is correct. The true treasure is not a single one of the items but the experience and bonds we have made along the way. That is the true treasure."

Goldenblade is not used to adventures yet, she's only been doing this a year, so the tropes of random treasure rooms are not a hazard she's familiar with. In fact, her inventory is so full that she's taking movement penalties by the time Wist's words sink in, and then Allynna's comment about it being fake and junk. Sigh. "Well, I guess it was too good to be true," she observes, and then it's another ten minutes of cleaning all the junk -out- of her inventory. She smirks at Rizadoman, "That's what they say when they can't be arsed to pay you for working overtime."

    Merek looks about the place, and will begin to appraise the jewels as well as the packs, then he nods a bit while he takes the time to place what he can into each, then he's walking along to the place of the next challenge.

    Wisteria pulls out... a jewlers loop? She examines things through it, picking up a jewel here and another there then sweeping the room again before heading on. "Most of it's junk." she says putting the loop away again. "Now, we talk to the hero and see what their challenge is... get ready for boss fight music." she grins "It's almost always a nock down drag out." she flexes her back and rolls her head before drawing her katana and leading on to where the ghost of a Salamander hero of legend is ready.

    "Greeings young heroes. You ahve this opportunity to prove to me that you are worthy of the legacy of a hero." He draws his blade, and the promised boss battle begins.

Tank entality, Allynna rushes in, and prepairs to launch a magical attack. "THORN.. CALAMITE!" She says as the spell casts, but doesnt do much of anything as she prepaires for an attack with both shields up. "I shoulda took Anchor howl..." She mutters to herself.

    Rizadoman looks at the salamander hero and takes a deep breath, " It is a great honor to meet you. " Placing his hands together he bows to the hero before he touches the back of is shield and it falls into a pair of twin blades, connected by a single chain. " I Rizadoman hear by accept your challenge. We shall dance together." Stepping in he begins to swing one blade after another in a pattern of movements meant to clear the hero's weapon and then catch him with a double slash as he steps past. The moment his blades finish connecting the marks burst into flame. " I appreciate this opportunity. "

Worthy of the legacy of a hero? "Blow that for a game of soldiers," Goldenblade remarks under her breath, then fades into the shadows by the entrance. She is not seen for much of the fight, apart from occasional glimpses, but there are occasions where the boss's HP drops by a large chunk without apparent cause. It's hard to be dramatic and not seen at the same time, so she will have to settle for her work being unsung, but she's contributing, honest!

    Merek will take the time to lift up the weapon with him, then he takes a potion from that belt strap of his, throwing that into the hero and exploding while he takes the time to swing into them with the weapon while taking the time to DPS for the party.

    Wisteria bows before the battle begins and then as she often does, begins to pinball off the walls, and sometimes just the air, runes apearing under her feet for her to kick off of. Her slashes are textbook, but instead of being normal strikes the blade crackles with black lightining that saps the energy of the target, when she takes a hit on her strong lightweight armor, the smoke that drifts from it snaps into dark metalic chains that lash the hero and link him to the ground. She continues in this vein, sapping strength, and speed to allow others to do damage as she continues to ping and pong about the place like a fur clad pachinko ball. When the hero's HP bar drops she bounces to stop sliding her sword into her sheath.

    The hero stops and bows his head, in his soft whispery voice he says "Congratulations young heros, take my favor and go forth to raise your own Legend in the world." and with that the hero's challenge completed he fades back into memory breaking the hold of undeath on the memorial site.

    Rizadoman bows his head once again in respect before he takes the proof of the favor and makes his way towards the path out of the mausoleum. " We should leave soon and allow the hero their well earned rest." Taking his own advice he is already heading back out without another word.

Allynna smiles. "Well, this wasn;t hard at all." She says as she hooks her shield and walks out, patting Merek on the shoulder. "The Ramen is on me tonight." She says with a happy voice to her friend.

    Merek will nod a little bit to everyone, looking to the token in thought. "Alright," then he follows along with the party, while he nods to Allynna at the pat, "That'd be wonderful, if you would." He does take a look at the item while he will inspect, "Well, interesting. It looks like a Legend item in a way while you examine it."

    Wisteria laughs and shifts back to human form, the tall bun... becoming an only slightly less tall girl, still white as the driven snow. "Hah, you should try this pre level ten... man the hero that time beat us like we owed money to his Yakuza boss."

Goldenblade will take her congratulations and her favor and bid everyone farewell. She's got to see a man about a horse, and so will head out now.