Duty Session 383: Slime Machine

Having returned to the Eastal region for a while, Cyrus has glad to be rid of some of the stress that the Palace Lands brings with it. In general the place has been wonderful to explore. But the threat of the higher level monsters to the east, and the distance that they'd have be fall back to if they perished continues to be a problem. Luckily, both Mikage and Cyrus so far have managed to avoid this fate.

"So supposedly there's some kind of large old machinery down there." Cyrus points out to Mikage as they stand at the entrance to the dungeon. A simple old building, which almost ends up looking like a crypt due to the lack of common entry and exit.

He runs his fingers along the writing along the outside of it. "Gnome." He notes to Mikage.

During her time in the Palace Lands, Mikage had been left with far more questions than answers. Where Cyrus might be more worried about the negative effects of delving too far into matters, the Were Fang didn't seem that concerned. As much as she might want to investigate further, there are other things that often drag her back to the lands of Yamato.

"Old machinery, huh?" Mikage raises her eyebrows, motioning to her bow, which has been set into a simple rod along her back, rather than it's usual form. "I'm always up for poking my nose at anything that might lead us to better understanding of the old machinery of these lands."

She takes his word for it on the language, nodding her head as she follows, keeping an eye on things while Rama trails behind, making sure no one can catch them from behind.

"It certainly might be some good information to bring back to those of Dol Dona. They seem to really be in love with Gnome inventions. Even with as few Gnomes as they have remaining over there."

He then leans in a bit and taps that bow of hers. "And having more knowledge of their machinery may lead us to some neat upgrades on this thing." Cyrus adds as he begins to step into the old building itself.

The crew head down into the depths, with Cyrus having to duck a bit. He's a tall one, certainly compared to most of the Gnomes. "What have we got here?"

It's a relatively plain hallway, were it not for various pipes. A few of them are broken, and are cleraly no longer transporting much of anything. Still, it is reminiscent of Dol Dona's lower levels.

"Curious." Cyrus notes. "Hmm, and a dead end? I think there's been a small cavein. I think I can use some of my earth magic here." He remarks, motioning his foot forward, and raising his hands. Normally, Mikage would see him using his potion bottles. But he doesn't have anything readied for this, so she actually gets to see him using magic without any enchantments.

"I'm not sure how much information I'd want to share with them." The girl had shown herself to be quite wary of the Landers of the Palace Lands. Perhaps because of the fact that there were simply not as many Adventurers as their should be. Everything felt 'off' to her.

As he taps her bow, she smirks, "I'd actually to be more interested in reforging my sword. I'm still using the same one I had from level one." Most people would have moved on by now, but the weapon allowed her to channel her magic through it in a way that other swords couldn't quite duplicate.

As they move into the dungeon, she looks at the structure curiously, but her focus is on the caved-in way forward. "Shouldn't be too hard to move these out of the way." She takes that same sword, stabbing it into the ground and begins to use her earth magic to move some of the rocks out of the way.

As they manage to pass through the hall, moving earth by means of magic and raw physical strength, it isn't long before the tunnel is at least cleared enough for Rama to peek on through. And knowing it's safe, they soon clear out enough for the two of them to manage to get through.

Once following the tunnels, they find more and more damage. "The Monsters from a few generations ago must have come through here. I think some of this damage is battlewear. Look at this. Doesn't this split in this pipe not look like claws tore through?" Cyrus asks Mikage, motioning her over.

Once she's close, he notes; "And we can look at getting that sword an upgrade. What are you thinking? Something that can fold up? Maybe a chainsword?" He asks her. "The slot itself should be viable with some more Elemental Machine pieces. But it depends on what the rest is that you want to do." He points out as they move on and come across an old mechanism showing a set of scales.

"Why would they even make something like this? There are times where I truly think this is a game. But then these guys manage to make it make sense somehow. But this... this I have no clue." He then takes out a bottle of compressed water magic, and begins filling the scales. "See if you can help move that gap in the door. I bet it's going to halt."

Getting a close look at the damage, Mikage nods her agreement to his assessment. "Agreed. Definitely looks like monster-caused, but... we haven't run into any so far." Perhaps it is a sign that there are things to come?

"I have a few more pieces of various Elemental Machine parts, but I'm not sure which ones are useful or not. Usually I need someone like Miho to help figure that out." Crafting has never really appealed to her, though she certainly has ideas for upgrades for her various equipment.

"I bet it's to keep out monsters." Mikage answers as Cyrus tries to figure out the reasoning for the strange mechanism. "Most of them wouldn't really stop to think about how to get past even the most simple of mechanical locks." She shrugs, then moves forward to try to push at the gap in the door, but it is Rama who really helps, pressing on it with his paws and then channeling lightning energy which shoves at the mechanism.

"Ah, no, that makes sense. Damnit, why did you have to make it make sense? Any human could figure this out, but the monsters of course can't." He runs his hand through his hair for a bit, then rubs behind his fluffy round right ear.

When they gets the door open, thanks to Rama as well, they enter a room. At first it's pitch dark, but Cyrus pulls up a little potion that starts to glow, and puts it like a necklace around his neck, casting a glow forward. "What's that?" He asks, pointing at the moving darkness.

"Oh... oh those are Slimes." Cyrus is about to take out a fire potion, when he notices their gleam. "Probably play it easy on the fire, or we burn ourselves." He points out to Mikage, before he runs up to one and tries to soccer-kick it!

"It's because I think like a monster." Mikage chuckles, tapping at the side of her head with a pair of fingers. As of yet, Cyrus has still not guessed what monster blood runs in her veins, and she hasn't offered particularly much in additional hints on the matter.

The moving pools of darkness have Rama almost immediately scrunching his face up. Oil doesn't smell particularly nice to his senses. "Ugh. Do they have to smell so bad?" Apparently, Were Fangs aren't fond of the stench, either.

"Yeah, not as if I can use fire magic anyways, but..." She tries to just sneak her way beyond them, but one ends up latching itself onto her leg, causing her to shake the creature off. However, it does leave her leg covered in oil. "Ick..."

"Hmmm, is that so? I guess that is why I can fall asleep anywhere?" He teases Mikage in return. In truth, the monster within people rarely affected them in a real manner. But there is a certain sense to the psychology where people start acting due to their own visualization of themselves. Their way of self-realizing can go in two directions. With Mikage generally remaining in her human form however, seems to turn it more into a joke.

Cyrus continues to move through the chamber, his movements reminiscent of his former training as a Monk character. Using just his foot to slowly kick out the Slimes. Getting to Mikage eventually to tear that last one away from her. "There... I think that's thinned them out enough. Let's keep moving. They're low level luckily."

Except, there's more of them. "These are a bit higher level." Cyrus calls out to Mikage, guiding her to take the front lines again. "Looks like a variety of metal slimes. So be careful not to dull your blade on these." The Cait Sith notes as he grabs one of hit potions and throws it forward, launching it into the creature, and detonating with lightning that quickly chains between all of them!

"Probably." Though it might seem like a joke, Mikage seems happy enough to play along with it. "Though if it held true for everything, I would imagine you'd be okay with the cold, which you aren't." The girl smirks, "Which is a shame, because you're pretty warm to snuggle into when it's cold."

Even as she admits that, there is a hint of color that shows on her cheeks. She still isn't quite used to this relationship stuff.

Alas, there seem to be more slimes along their path, which causes her to curse under her breath. "Let's see if we can't use some magic to find a way through." However, once again, Mikage's own magic seems to be less than effective at figuring out a solution. Likely because one of the slimes interrupts her casting, having to be swatted away by Rama.

Cyrus makes a bemused chuff of a sound, glancing away with a shy blush on his own cheeks. "You are always welcome to make use of my warmth." He answers her, rubbing behind his hair and along his ear. The two continue their assault on the slimes, but it takes a significant amount of resources as they keep pushing through.

When they push through, they come across a large slime that slooowly, drooly and gooeyly splits apart in twain. It would not be long before they'd have to fight this one. "Dang. This is a party boss. They didn't tell us there was a harder boss down here. Prepare for a longer battle, Miki. I'll keep you healed up with healing magic. But I'll be depending on you to take a larger brunt of the attacks here." Cyrus notes.

"Oh fuck..." Mikage mutters at the sight of the boss. It is obvious that Cyrus wasn't prepared for this needing a larger group of Adventurers to complete. Thankfully, the two of them are higher level than most quests seem to be expecting.

"Yeah, I'll do my best to keep up the DPS." She looks to Rama, "We'll need you to act as distraction." It isn't quite as bad as it looked at first, in the fact that they act more like a group of three than a group of two, with Rama at their side.

The girl takes a lot of damage, though, as two targets both contribute to losses on her health. By the time that they manage to finish off the boss, Mikage is looking pretty haggard. She pants and drops to one knee as the quest completion shows on her HUD.

"Thank the goddesses." She lets out a breath. The problem being that they are left in a chamber which looks just as broken as everything else. "This seems... strange. Shouldn't there be more here?" With some measure of confusion, she looks at Cyrus.

Cyrus looks back to her; "I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Though it would have been nice to find a bit more here." He looks at the door lifting up as the machines come back to life. "We can stick around for a bit to look into things and get a read on this tech. Maybe take some etchings." He suggests.