Duty Session 366: Obligatory Rat Maze

    Once again back beneath the shops of the city, it looks like the shopkeepers rat problem has become a thing again. So once again adventurers are tasked to go under the cellars and find the source.
    This particular cellar is seemingly clean under the flickering torchlight, but there are signs of rodent activity. Crates have been gnawed, there are droppings here and there- there's a reason the shopkeeper is clearly upset.
    Akatsuki is here, examining the large crack that runs up along the wall of the cellar. It's an uncomfortable squeeze for most adventurers, but she's able to get in well enough due to her small size; the air from below feels cold and has a terrible smell to it, and the distant sound of squeaking echoes up from the old spiral staircase that descends into the depths below.

    Trying to get back to basics is hard.

    Fuka was originally conceived as a Heavy Blade, a mighty battle fairy who pulled out a giant weapon and murdered things, and had a bunch of magical effects to pull out of a hat to assist. One thing led to another, and she became somewhat more infamous for her spells and utility artes than her giant axe. It's time to fix that.

    And what better way to test oneself in a purely physical challenge than to go back to the newbie zone, and challenge a rat cellar? Even though she's faced this challenge a few times now, plumbed its depths and raided its rewards; since she's trying to return to her roots, can there be any better option?

    Fukaziroh appears, her axe at the ready, her armor polished, her golden hair bound back in a simple ponytail. It's an almost tanky look considering how often she plays support/DPS, and considering she lacks verticality as much as Akatsuki does. "So, we ready to clear out some trash....y rats? Man, this is going to be tough. Every time I've gone in here the group's been really heavy duty on fire...." she muses. "It's actually kind of fun, watching how Scales do stealth mechanics. Ever seen it?" she grins.

Shiruba stops to look over the crack in the wall. "As I thought, another opening into the deeper rat infested catacombs." She's not alone this time though, as there is a Bun-Bun, currently sitting on her shoulder. She had kept hers from the Bun-Bun Festival races last year, but Yojimbo had just been a vanity pet. Until now, as she had the skills to actually take a companion animal onto missions with her. She hasn't started training a new companion yet, so for now, it's him and her Peko, and Tradewind is still mainly a mount and racers.

You think a Bun-Bun isn't dangerous? You haven't see one hungry. Or mad. Or both.

At Fuka's remark she snorts softly. "I'm not sure not leaving any witnesses alive counts as stealth, regardless of what Scales think."

Yeowang descends into the cellar, following after Akatsuki, favoring one foot, at first, at least until she can verify that the other is doing all right. She's got her long hair coiled and bound into a loose bun on top of her head, and a fierce expression as she looks around for signs of rats. Far too many, but none right now. "Well, let's do this," she says, then rolls her eyes at Fukaziroh. "Not so much fire here," she explains. Clearly, that left her unqualified for Scale.

    "Ready as ever." Akatsuki replies to Fukaziroh as she clambers through the crack in the wall and starts heading down the stairs. "That's a form of stealth." She does say to Shuriba.
    "Just not a very good one."
    A lack of fire is probably fairly assuring for the moment. As the group reaches the end of the staircase, the ground is uneven; sharp spikes stick up in places, and something crunches underfoot as the party draws nearer.
    They're bones. The floor is littered with them. Some are small, likely from rats, others seem to be more monstrous in nature.
    At first there seems to be no exit, but distant sounds and scents might capture attention...
    "We need to find the path."

    Fuka's used to getting looks and eye-rolls. She generally considers it a sign she's saying the right things! "If a Scale explodes a dungeon and there's no one left alive to see it, does it still make a sound?" she asks in a wise-old-philosopher voice. Never mind she's speaking malaphors instead of sage wisdom.

    She also agrees it's stealth, and not very good stealth. But still quite effective, even if it might be a bit difficult to pull off.

    Still, no need for fire here. "Roger!" she agrees, tossing a lazy salute towards Akatsuki, and begins searching through piles of stuff, poking about with one end or another of her great axe. "There's an entrance somewhere, I know it...."

There's a cracking creaking underfoot and Shiruba instictively jerks back two steps and readies to defend herself from a trap! ... that never springs.

What does spring is Yojimbo from her shoulder, hopping to the floor and snatching part of the bone in his mouth to start gnawing on. If he's really trying to bite it apart or just trying to show it's not dangerous is hard to tell. "Well, at least it isn't the filthy garbage pit this time," Shiruba remarks with a scrunching expression at the thought.

Then the Bun-Bun pauses, looking up from the bone bits. His long ears twitch at hearing something out of sight, and he hops across the room to dive into one of the bone piles. Shiruba follows, and starts digging in after him to see if he found something. "Try looking -under- the bones."

Yeowang is on the spot as finding the path becomes an issue. She will attempt to use the menu interface to activate her tracking skill, but that doesn't tell her what she needs to know. So, she will try to search and follow the way that will put them on the right path. But that doesn't work out for her, either. Just one of the frustrations she feels when trying to use game skills that she knew zero about in RL.

    Eventually the group finds the trap door built into the bottom of the room that leads further into the dark below... The only choice is to jump and Akatsuki jumps down.
    "It makes the sound of an exploding dungeon."
    Akatsuki is not very good at humor it seems.
    The dungeon seemingly comes to an abrupt end... At first. The party finds themselves in a cylindrical chamber with no obvious exits, but there are unusual gaps in the stone here and there that look like keyholes. But there's also strange writing on the walls that looks like it might be in some language that explains something about the chamber.
    What's really out of place is the lute that looks pristine where it lays against the wall. A rat peeks out from behind it, squeaks at the party and runs into a hole in the nearby wall.

    Dropping easily into the dark tunnel below thanks to her wings, Fuka sets off down the new tunnel and seems happy to take the lead. The tunnels eventually lead into a musical puzzle chamber. "Hey I remember this!" Fukaziroh cheers enthusiastically. "Though I never have managed to figure out exactly what solves it. We usually just seem to play a bunch of random stuff and poke all kinds of long cylindrical things into holes and finally something just... opens up."

    She sighs, looking around. "Does anyone know the writing? I'd kill to find out. Well maybe not *kill* exactly. I'd do a lot of killing in a dungeon but it's not like blood on the walls here would help decypher things. Or would it?" she adds thoughtfully.

    Fortunately for everyone, her musings are cut off by the idea of playing her way to victory. She picks up the lute, holding it in both hands above her head while humming a four-tone ascending sequence like that of a certain game she played in childhood. Though now that she's looted the lute, she has no idea what song to play. She offers it to another if they have any ideas, or waits to play a song should someone have some clues from examining the writing or the puzzle elements in the room.

Shiruba and her companion jump down the located hatch. Yojimbo lays back his long ears and glares at the rat, and when it retreats he hops over to sniff his wiggling little nose at the crack.

Shiruba's attention is immeadiately drawn to the markings on the wall however. "Ooo, cryptograms!" She scurries over to investigate, running a hand over some of the markings while murmuring to herself as she translates. "Well, I can't get a full translation, some of these are too worn down. But there is a connection between the holes, like some manner of locks, but the 'keys' to open them," she nods her head towards the lute, "May not be the typical door opening variety." Old civilizations love word plays to sound more cryptic.

Yeowang follows Akatsuki and the others to this strange room, and she's trying to puzzle it out as the others work on solutions. Puzzles were never her forte. Kicking twelve kinds of crap out of people is her forte. She's fairly decent at business management, something she's done for her father's corporation. Puzzles and magic? Not so much. Finally, she gives up with a sigh.

    The party spends a few moments in the dark cylindrical chamber before figuring out how to proceed, thanks to Shiruba's guidance an Akatsuki's deft hand at picking locks. This is all well and good because getting trapped in a small room for a while would have been kind of embarrassing. Nevertheless once through the path beyond, the tunnels beneath the city weave and wander, and the team hits blocked off passages at points before finding the trail of rats down into what looks to be an old set of catacombs.
    Unfortunately this place has fallen out of repair and is now littered with debris swarming with rats.
    This COULD be where the rats are making their way up from, but scratches on the wall suggest something... Bigger.
    Unfortunately there are way too many rats to risk drawing attention, low level or not, they could easily overwhelm the group!

Yeowang will try to avoid notice, the number of rats being far too many to fight. Even if it's just a matter of stepping on them, she'd wear out her boots stomping all these rats. So, she will take the path less travelled and slink, such as she can, through the darkness. She is not good at it, but that's good because the rats don't see very well anyhow. They -do- smell very well, but it seems like for this moment in time, at least, the wind is in her favor, and she is able to creep by unratted.

    Sadly, it seems yet again Fuka will remain in the dark as to the nature of the writing. Fortunately, the group only needs to trigger the right locks in the right sequence, and they're well-equipped for it, so the chamber isn't a complete loss. Fuka sets down the lute, patting it carefully like it was a sleeping puppy, and follows the group on down to the next challenge.

    In this case, it's a mass of tiny rats. She knows how the Scales would solve this. And this is what she was thinking of when she mentioned it. Halloween is kind of amazing at dealing with stealth situations, when it comes down to it. Not the best way to solve the problem, but it's still kind of hilarious.

    She's about to tell the others all about it too, but fortunately she's *actually* more into the *other* sort of stealth, and remains quiet. Instead she gestures and points, miming herself as some kind of giant rat with her fingers standing in for teeth, then pointing at everyone and a path she suggests they follow to avoid attention. It's a terrible rat pantomime, but it does show some pretty significant understanding of rat pack tactics and how to avoid attention from large collections until they're well past the dangerous points.

Once a way past the not so dead end is found Shiruba scoops Yojimbo up under one arm so he doesn't get left behind, and heads through. It's still a venture through various passages, collapsed rooms, and switchbacks until they finally find some catacombs. That are no longer really catacombs because the various crevasses and stacks of funeral linens have become infested rat beds. Shiruba frowns at the defacing of what might of been a historical sight, and sets Yojimbo back down. Then she stands back up and from her inventory she pulls a bright blue whistle.

No, don't worry, she doesn't blow it or anything. Holding onto it is enough. After a moment, her gaze seems to partially glaze over, as if looking at something somewhere else. Which, in a way, is somewhat true.

In Shiruba's view, she's now seeing the catacombs through the Bun-Bun's eyes. Hearing the rasping breaths of sleeping rats through his ears, getting a whiff of their filthy odor via his nose. But she's mainly focusing on the view, as she now sees the chamber from the viewpoint of an animal similar in size and shape to the rats.

She's apparently got her own awareness of the room still too, as she follows her companion with little issue as he finds a way between the infested nests and rat piles left by said rats to get between here and there and the small paths to the upper levels. It's all going good.

Up until near the end and Yojimbo squeezes between two piles. Shiruba tries to scoot sideways to follow, but her tail still slaps one of the stacks. This gets a yelping curse out of her, as she drops the sync, grabs the Bun-Bun, and bolts the rest of the way to the exit!

Once past she slumps against Fuka's side breathly and catchs her breath. "I.. still need practice with that..." Tucks the whistle back in her inventory so she doesn't lose it.

    Moving right along, the party manages well enough. Though Akatsuki of all people steps on a bone that crunches under boot...
    A blushing ninja vanishes from sight immediately after this, not to be seen again.
    Fuka's rat pantomime probably helps, while Yeowang travels through the dark itself, and Shiruba's Bun-Bun helps lead the way while she syncs with the critter's senses.
    "It is an interesting trick to say the least." Akatsuki does comment.
    It's not much further down a larger set of tunnels that the group begins to hear something strange. Like metal scraping on stone.
    A dimly lit chamber lays ahead and as soon as they enter the room a series of armored ratlings turn in perfect unison. They wield a variety of weapons of low quality but move in perfect lockstep with one another, one in front makes a squeak that sounds like an order...
    And with a high pitched yell the army of ratlings charges forward! Poking and prodding with their little weapons. It'd be cute if not for the fact that it hurts!

Yeowang makes it through the dark, and she's rewarded with enemies she can fight. "Finally," she sighs, something I can actually contribute to." Her contribution is absolute whup-ass, smashing rats with sweeping kicks, knocking them back or pixilating them entirely with savage kicks and piledriving punches.

She wades through the ratlings like a lawnmower, and the rats are mowed down by her onslaught as she drives a swath into their mass. While her special ability lasts, though, she is queen of this particular dance floor.

    Fuka gives Shiruba support while she recovers from bunnification, even putting an arm across the wolf-girl's shoulders. For support. "That was amazing!" she says in a quiet (for Fuka) voice. "I thought I was doing good at becoming the rat and you!" she pauses, then repeats for emphasis. "You BECAME the rat!" she stage-whispers.

    It's possible she's teasing. She does that sometimes.

    Regardless she resumes her place once Shiruba's recovered, cheerfully ready to murder whatever remains. Except, well, it's the armored rats. She ends up squeeing a little. "They're so cute!" she claims cheerfully, shouldering her great axe and stepping up. Cute will not save them, unfortunately. And she does something she *never* does.

    Normally, in this situation, she'd hit the rats with a big spell. Fireball when she was weaker, or Lord of Vermillion when she has the mana to spare. This time though, she calls upon her stamina, summoning up a sword arte instead. Instead of casting a wave arte, she channels her racial specialty to empower her physical strikes, using the force of the gale to allow Fukaziroh to breeze through the foe, whirling and chopping with unstoppable speed and force.

It might be teasing, but Shiruba flusters a little all the same. "I-its still a new ability," she quickly stammers at the praise. "This was the first time I used it in an actual mission..." she admits. They found their way through though, and can continue to move on. "Technically I became one with the bunny, but his point of view was similar to a rat's and I could see the routes they move through the chamber by. They're just... a lot smaller."

They're continue on though, and Shiruba who has been into variations of this Duty a few times already, smirks when the warren defenders cross their path. "We're getting close to the end now..." And then the rats charge. "Quick, take them down!" She throws up one of her air barriers to hold some of the bipedal rats back, but while she's focusing on that she can't do much to actually attack them. The team is going to have to handle this one

    Wow look at Yeowang tear right into those ratlings. It's like watching a Bruce Lee movie. And then Fuka follows suit, with her speed and prowess cutting down rat soldiers left and right while Shiruba flusters. Also Shiruba fends off more ratlings with her barriers.
    There are several ratlings that just mysteriously die on their own in the fight. Akatsuki re-appears when it's over, wiping off the blade of her kodachi out of habit.
    Once again the group enters another series of tunnels before they open up into a wide chamber...
    Hint: It's a boss room,
    Static tingles in the air, then a bolt of lightning darts across the room. All around the chamber are broken bits of metal rods, they may have been a prison at one point but not anymore as a glowing yellow rat zips around the room aggressively targeting the group almost immediately with its lightning and air elemental assault!

Yeowang follows the group through to the final boss room, pleased with herself now that it looks like she's actually able to contribute rather tha being carries by the party. But this is an unusual final boss, zippng around, dashing this way and that. She can hardly keep up.

But she doesn't need to keep up, per se, she just needs to avoid the zipping yellow rat. She does so, using the minimum effort to sidestep the bolts of electricity, the charging golden rat, and delivering hard kicks or punches to the back of its head as it passes. Punches like that are illegal in boxing and a few other fighting styles because they're particularly likely to result in traumatic brain injury. This is why she uses those attacks.

    Fuka peers in to see a familiar-looking lightning-rat. One she's defeated once before, and one she plans on using as inspiration in crafting herself a legendary weapon. There's something rather fitting, deciding to go all-in on physical combat and meet a lightning-spewing boss on the path. "First, you must overcome your former self." she states in a cryptically-wise voice which really doesn't suit her.

    Suit her or no, she's perfectly okay charging in to fight the little raibugger. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. Or in this case... float like a sylph, sting like a heavy blade? Or possibly float like you're half-covered in metal armor and sting like you're carrying a significant fraction of your body-weight of metal against a monster of elemental lightning.

    What, that stings okay?

    So yeah, Fuka kind of facetanks a monster pretty much perfectly designed to defeat her under her current self-imposed limits. Who'd have thought that would be a bad idea?

Even before the group reachs the final chamber Shiruba can feel the crackle of static in the air. Yojimbo does too, by the way his whiskers twitch and his tail gets all frizzly. Shiruba's fluff is thick enough to bristling isn't as obvious, but it's there. "Feels like the moments before a thunderstorm," murmurs the weather-centric Spell Fletcher. "Be ready for some kind of electrical boss..."

Sure enough, that's what it is. And it's a hyper one, too, zipping and zinging about the chamber while trying to zap them, or tackle them with volts, or... there's something oddly similar to this nagging at the back of Shiruba's mind, but there's no time to think about it when she has to focus on the Boss itself.

In stark contrast to Raiju's amped ramping about the wolfgirl strides into the chamber with a measured stride of preparedness. Lightning arcs, but her pace is unbroken as she walks right through the erratic bolts. At one point Raiju charges her, only for her Bun-Bun to countercharge, headbutting the static super-rat to knock it away again.

Shiruba stops, stoops down, and then stands again after snatching one of the broken metal shards from the ground. Then turns, taking aim as that shard is what she draws back in her bow, and fires it like an arrow at the boss! How do you deal with lightning? You give it something much more conductive to discharge into instead!

    Fukaziroh picks herself up groggily, having utterly failed to dodge lightning. Fortunately she's tough, and the party's ability to overcome the boss keeps it from having the time to turn her into a charcoal bricquette. She laughs then, sincerely amused at her really bad planning and how it worked out in the end anyways.

    Chugging back a healing potion, she turns to the others. "Well that was fun! And please, I'd love some feedback on how I did. So on a scale from one to you wish Fuka was a man so you could have your wild way with her and maybe one day have her babies, how satisfied are you with my performance today?"

    So the party has to deal with a speedy lightning rat. That's a thing.
    Working their best to evade the blitz and lightning bolts, it's not long before the party whittles the fast critter down until it's little more than red pixels, between Yeowang rabbit punching the thing, Fuka's facetanking the thing, and Shiruba launching a lightning rod right at it.
    Akatsuki gets some good hits in too.
    And soon enough the rat is dead!
    Leaving Akatsuki to just kind of stare at Fuka in silence.

Yeowang flateyes at Fuka, as if checking to see which abilities are off cooldown. But it's just the deathglare and silence. Finally, she says, "Let's get out of here. Too many rats..." That said, she will pich up a broken lightnin rod, Inspect it, and stuff it back into her pack.

Shiruba just stares at Fuka for a long moment. ".. Don't let Morrigan hear you say things like that." Then coughs softly. "But as your Guild Moderator I dare say your effort to improve your skills by approaching a Duty in a manner you are less familiar with is to be commended." Even as she's making this reply as stoicly as possible she picks up one of the larger broken rods. "Life has many successes and failures, but true defeat is when you stop trying to improve."

    Fuka seems perfectly happy with the reactions. She didn't expect anyone to declare they wanted her babies after all. That would require some amazingly high levels of satisfaction after all! And perhaps more than one double entendre. Having people stare at her with disbelief and deathglares is all the reaction she was looking for.

    "Everyone seems so scared of this Morrigan person. I'm going to have to meet her! She sounds fun." the little Sylph bravely claims. "All right, let's get out of here. Thanks Shiba!" she adds, for the encouragement.