Duty Session 374: The Deadly Caves Of Toxic Death!

You know that saying about straying off the beaten path?

This is one of those times where going off the beaten path leads to something rather interesting if you're willing to put up with the scorpions and snakes that inhabit this area of the desert. And given the name, the Gorge of Death, it's not something that you'd want to go visit on your own at all or be taking a tour of if you're a tourist. Which is why it's strange that there's a tour guide for a place like this, until you consider why he's doing this.

Upon having everything explained by Mister DesertGuide (clever name,) Kotono nods to him and then says, "All right, you heard the Salamander! It's time to get moving!" She holsters her blades as she begins to climb down the rope ladder slowly, not wanting to risk jumping off too high and hitting something she shouldn't.

Yeowang has arrived here prepared for adventure, such as she can. Mainly, her long hair is tied up and back out of the way, bundled into a loose bun atop her head and falling down as a ponytail. She has met up with the group, and follows along without comment initially. Upon arriving at the way down, she peers over the edge, and then will take two steps back until the word is given to move out. When that word is given, she will descend the rope ladder easily, keeping a wary eye out for danger.

    Miyako nods and tucks her daggers away. "Ko-chan, remind me after this to see that weaponsmith, hey? It's been like two months now." She shrugs and heads towards the ladder. "Don't let me get distracted with another old manuscript this time, okay?"

    She starts down the ladder, easily hopping from step to step, keeping her balance with little flickers of her wings. "On the other hand," she says, pausing briefly halfway down to look down the length of the gorge, "I'd give my left little toe for a camera."

Straying off the beaten path is where all the fun and excitement is! So being the daredevil sort that she is Vertina really has no problem with doing such. Nor does she have an issue with not waiting for a turn with the rope down. She just hops ooff the edge, and uses a few puffs of air magic directed below herself to keep from falling too fast and land neatly on the ground in the gorge below. "Well at least the names in this place are descriptive."

    June is June which boils down to just going along with the flow. "I wonder if there are any herbs here I can chew to improve my breath." she says idly as she's walking with everyone. "I'd love if I could get people stoned faster." she nods to herself as the short middle aged librarian looking woman starts humming idly. Her fur cloak and scalemail bikini does not match her appearance, but she seems happy to rock it.

"Right, Miyako," Kotono replies, although whether her tone is serious or not is anyone's guess. She doesn't seem to be showing much emotion at the moment. "I guess you could say they're descriptive, not that I like them personally..."

"I'm not one who's skilled in herbology," She comments to June.

When they arrive, Kotono bites her lower lip. She's not liking what she's seeing so far. Things do not look good here.

After a moment of silent pondering, Kotono shakes her head. "We can't go back now!" She looks to the others. "All right, we're going to have to figure out something here."

Vertina waves a hand in front of her face to try and fan away some of the vaporeous fumes. "This place is rank." Then turns to her inventory. "Fortunately with a name like 'Toxic Death'," she produces several alchemical vials held between her fingers. "I came prepared for dealing with venoms and poisons."

Yeowang doesn't have special magic, and her command of the air, such as it is, just stirs the noxious vapors up without abating them any. She's been trying to hold her breath, but finally wheezes out, and when she drags air in, it's naaasty, and she hacks again, and shows a debuff now. This is going to be rough going.

    June shifts into her iron clad cowgirl form. The woman starts poking around picking plants and stuffing them into her mouth chewing. She sighs. "Well... nothing to help my petrifying breath... but this one seems to counteract the dungeon air... lazy coders... lets just put the antidote out in the open in the first room and call it a 'hard dungeon' then as soon as the message boards get wind of it no one will ever bother with the easy path unless they're a total newbie in which case the easy route kills them anyway." she rolls her eyes "Great job of invalidating your own work... idiots."

    Miyako hmms softly as she surveys the terrain. "Rank doesn't even begin to describe it," she muses, soaking a bandanna from her canteen and tying it around her neck, ready to cover her mouth with it. "This is going to be /so/ much fun."

    She sighs and rummages through her inventory for a vial, downing the contents. "So was I the only one who sank a thousand coin on a poison-resistance potion?"

While the others seemed to have things under control, Kotono underestimated her abilities it seemed.

The girl decides to try holding her breath after taking a few deep breaths, and it actually seems to do the trick... or so she thinks.

Halfway through there, she is no longer able to hold her breath and starts coughing... and then gasping from those toxic wisps. She is forced to lean on Miyako instinctively as she makes her way through. Almonds and wasabi, what a lovely combination.

Once they finally reach fresh air, Kotono breathes a sigh of relief once she stops coughing. "That's the last time I ever trust my own breathing skills," She says with a sigh. "I'll have to do better next time."

Yeowang stumbles forward under the stacking debuffs, but perserveres. She's still trying to channel the air to clear it, and pauses as it actually starts to work. There must be a source of fresh air nearby supplying the clean air as she channels the bad air back to where we started. Slowly her debuffs clear, one by one, and she wheezes as she regains her equilibrium.

"Yeah, I take it back, THIS place is really rank. Ugh!" Vertina makes a few flowing gestures, part martial arts posturing and part elemental manipulation, drawing some of the putrid air into a whirlwind around herself. Then using the cyclonic force to blow it away from the direction the group wants to go.

    Miyako nods and pulls Kotono into a quick hug before they move on to the next steps down into the cave. The poisonous vapors are still a problem as they climb, however, so she focuses for a moment on another spell. "By the Power of OSHA! Clean Air Act of 1970! Fumes begone!"

    June starts putting up Ofuda, each seal flaring into life and burning away and starting a strong breeze. Each breeze set in such a way to create a pocket of clean air to work in for climbing and adding onto the old structure.

"Thanks, Miyako," Kotono says for the hug, before following in the direction of the others. "Let's make things a breeze, shall we?" Kotono says as she conjures up an air spell and lets the winds get things better under control. Once things are taken care of, she leads the others onward. "We're making good progress..."

Only to pause as she sees a Toxic Jumper, also known as Dire Q*Bert... a video game that Kotono would not want to play as she prefers original Q*Bert better.

But she's not backing down either...

    June looks. "Man they really did buy everyone's IP..." she shakes her head and then she stomps, a pillar of stone pushing up, she starts her way up using her skills at a Godhand and a number of stone pillars to climb and dodge her way up and out of the room without getting Q*berted.

Yeowang has no idea what Q-bert is, that was her father's generation, maybe? She never played video games anyhow, but her little brother /might/ know it? She's got no idea about his video game collection, though he seems to prefer newer games. But she watches and starts to get a sense of how the jumping pattern goes, and what sort of things guide the jump. Finally, after some consideration, she will hustle up, pause to change some of the squares in Q-bert's path, and proceed on as it's diverted around her.

    Miyako sighs and shakes her head. "This is kind of silly, really. I mean... why?" She shrugs and starts climbing after the others, making use of the cleared spots they've created, and applying a little magic to add a few. Then she slips in a patch of poison and bounces several steps down. "Ouch! Ow! Itai! Nyaaaaa!" And she finally tumbles to a stop, smeared in nameless unpleasantness. Good thing she already took an antidote.

Vertina tries using her mirage clones technique to confuse and mislead the 'Dire Q*Bert'. Which seems to work... until she tries to climb up and discovers the color was more than just a palette change. "Ick ick ick it's poisonous!" She quickly scrambles, trying to hustle to a safe position where she can apply some of her antitoxin to her hands. "Should of hand my gloves on," she mutters to herself.

Sometimes the best way to deal with a threat is to avoid it entirely. Being a literal ninja, Kotono keeps out of sight as best as she can, using her limberness to her advantage as she sneaks past the threat undetected. But now things are starting to get a bit on the unhealthy side, so it's up to the group to figure out what to do now...

This place is really putting skills other than combat to the test, but that's okay, Vertina enjoys the challenge. "Hold on a moment." She takes out the Tortet's Jar, dumps one of her antitoxin mixes into it, and then sweeps it through the air to scoop some of the noxious fumes into the jar as well. Spits some fire in it to get chemical action going, then puts the lid back on, grips it with both hands and gives it several shakes to let the Relic do it's work. "There." Vertina takes the lid back off and offers it out to the rest of the groupp. "Everyone take a dab, put it near your nose. It'll help filter out the toxic particals in the air."

Yeowang wheezes as the air grows thicker, and there's no clear air around as she swirls it with air. Looking around as her debuffs starts to stack up, she grabs some of the mushrooms growing along one seam in the rock. Well, June found something growing in the first cave that helped, maybe there's something like that here?

So, if there was, that wasn't it, and so on top of all the other debuffs stacking on her, she winces as the raw habanero, or something like it, sears her tongue. No amount of water from her pack will salve the burning, either, so she wipes her forehead and marches on, her expression one of misery.

    June does as Vertina says, and then continues putting random herbs in her mouth... because she's June. It seems many of the herbs that grow here in the Deadly Caves of Toxic Death are antidotes to the poisons in the air. "Really.. just lazy coding, bet these were left here for play testers and then they just released the patch with them still in place."

    As sniffling and grumbling turns to coughing and hacking, Miyako soaks her bandanna again and pulls it up over her mouth and nose. "Damnit," she mutters, muffled by the cloth. "Fork this, Ko-chan, let's go home and have some nice hot spicy food to get this taste out of my mouth." She shows some relief with Vertina's poultice, but not a great deal, and constantly dabs at her eyes with another cloth.

Kotono would nod to Miyako, but she's gagging and coughing as well, trying to bring her soaked bandana up to her nose and mouth again as they struggle to get forward. "This just gets better and better," She says in between coughs with sarcasm dripping from her voice. "It has to end somewhere though!"

    June looks "Really... they screwed up MY monster? What the hell? Don't you look at me like that." she says scraping her iron horns against the walls and charging the glitched gorgon when opertunity presents itself. She doesn't actually get into a fight with it, but seems to have some instinct from her wereself on how to navigate the gorgons maze. "I just can't stand it... really... a glitched gorgon... that's just insulting... I mean I'm not glitched, nothing wrong with me." she says with a huff and a denial of her own issues that would sort of fall flat to anyone who really knows her.

Yeowang hacks and coughs and menu-tracks because she doesn't quite know how to use the skill without the menu. That makes it clumsy and difficult, but it allows her to get the best use of her skill, which isn't awful. But she does understand that the monster generally doesn't double back on its trail, so will follow it, taking care to stay well back, and finally exit when the backtrail passes by the exit out.

Vertina jumps back as a creature seems to phase into the passage with them. "Shit!" She dives for the ground to avoid it's petrifying breath, rolling between it's legs. "No offense June, but this one has breath even worse than yours!" She glances back, just to watch the thing phase back through the wall. "... Yeah, no fighting that." She turns and runs ahead, running a hand along the stone wall as she does, trying to use her geomancy to get a better grasp of the surroundings, and the creature moving through them. "It's going to try and come around, we need to find the exit before it cuts us off!" It's weird tracking something to run -away- from it, but whatever works.

    "And it looks like that's gonna be right here," Miyako answers Kotono as she watches the gorgon flicker through a wall. "Welcome to Glitchvill, population: Us." This most certainly does not bode well. "Just keep moving," she calls, "Don't stand still." Not following her own advice, she stands and watches its path for a moment, trying to discern a pattern to its movements. When she thinks she has it she makes a dash for it and - oh! So close!

    Bleeding from a ragged claw wound to her shoulder, Miyako slides past the monster to finally rejoin the party, coughing and hacking at the deepened miasma. "Gack.... exit please..."

Kotono finds herself tracking a path to nowhere... but a bit of pain.

"Dammit... not this!" She scowls as she moves forward with the others. "Why did I ever volunteer to come here?" She sighs. "I just want this over with!"

Unfortunately, her wish may be granted.

There's a monster that looks like a manticore or something, and it does NOT look friendly!

"Don't hold back! We can beat this thing!"

Yeowang coughs and chokes as we make our way to this final room, and it's a disturbingly high level boss. She winces, takes a deep breath, and turns to the side, gagging herself for a moment. She empties her stomach of the little it contained, she skips big meals when she knows there's going to be a mission, and now there's nothing /at all/ to come up. It doesn't help much, but it dilutes the burn of the habanero from earlier. Not really in a good way, but she's able to concentrate.

Stalking the monster, a Manticore, not that she knows what that is, and when it's attention is on her party members, she pulls out her big attack.

This really deserves the name big attack, because even as awful as she's feeling, the initial flying roundhouse kick she delivers does staggering damage to it. She lands, and throws some hard punches, then backs away as it starts paying attention to her. Letting the others distract it from her attack, she wipes her mouth with her palm, then bunches her fists and leaps in again, hard blows delivered with pinpoint precision and considerable power behind them as well. It's HP falls, blow by blow, and very quickly the fight's not looking so lopsided.

"Damn right we can!" Vertina isn't about to let feeling tired and queasy slow her down any, she's fought her way through worse. She takes a few bounding steps forward, then slams a foot into the ground and uses her powers to amplify the jump to launch into the air. Energy swirls around her brightly as she wheels in the air, bringing one foot up high at the peak of her leap as the ki consolidates to that limb.

And completes the aerial spin to bring that foot hurtling down at the monster! "HIIIIYAAAH!" As soon as the blow lands the ki explodes from her her foot, added an extra blast of Light essense erupting from the impact.

Kotono does her best to fight back, but unfortunately she finds her blades knocked out of her hands! She is forced to retreat and reclaim them. In the end she winds up barely landing any hits... but in the end they make it through the battle and find their way to the end, with fresh air indicating it might be a way out.

"Let's get out of here," She says, weakly leaning on Miyako. "I want to heal up and then take a rest."

    Snarling curses, Miyako doesn't move from where she landed, instead simply focusing on the monster as she starts inscribing her runes. The thick miasma lends the blue shine of her inscription a purple tinge, which under other circumstances she would think screenshot-worthy, but right now she's just focused on killing the monster. Which she manages to assist in by sending her runes to wrap around its head and tighten in to pin the monster in place while the others beat on it and she... attempts to glare it to death, apparently.

    When it stops moving, she picks herself up and slides an arm around Kotono's shoulders to support them both. "-Bath-," she insists. "For all of us. Soon as we get back to base. Then food. Then sleep."

    June starts to scuff her hoof against the ground building up to something, the were gorgon starts puffing out green fog that starts stacking petrification on the Manticore to match what many of the party have ended up with. And then she's charging in, her great iron horns smashing into the beast. She grapples it like an american football player, her head tossing side to side to her horns goring and smashing at flesh and stone alike.

    When it finaly does drop and dislove into pixels the iron clad woman drops to her rump and fishes out a big tankard of beer from her inventory. "To victory." she says before slowly draining the mug.

Vertina makes sure to pick up one of the Manitcore's stingers. "Yeah, let's get out of this stinkhole before something else comes along."

When June drains her mug after the fight, Yeowang winces. She's going to be eating nothing but menu food for at least three days after the miasma here, and glad of the taste of nothing more than crackers. The yuck is nearly overpowering. But when the fight is done, she looks over the manticore stinger, then considers it before stuffing it into her inventory.