Duty Session 387: Isle of the Terraformers

Even before the happenings in the Palace Lands, there were some unusual occurrences throughout the lands of Yamato. Strange, hunched, almost humanoid creatures were spotted near to certain areas of power. Not only that, but Mikage had explained to the others that these creatures were threatening the Divine Beasts, one of the sources of elemental energy in Yamato.

She had been tasked with trying to stop them, or at least to thin their numbers enough that they would no longer be a threat to the Divine creatures of this realm. That is what had brought them to this strange island, far South of the Fourland Dukedom. They had come to shore in longboats, the Landers refusing to set foot on the island.

"This... is definitely the place." Mikage murmurs, having only just recovered from their sea-voyage, resting momentarily on a rock near the shore.

The island is overgrown with highly unusual plantlife. It grows high up, stretching into the sky. The jungles are so thick that it is hard to see anything. Still, there are signs that there must have been some ancient Gnomish facility here at one point. Strange stone structures loom out of the foliage. Puffs of steam plume up from locations around the island, suggesting that whatever facility lies beneath, is still quite active.

"There used to be some kind of Gnome settlement here, but it was abandoned a long time ago. Though... maybe not fully abandoned." She murmurs, looking at the steam clouds.

"If you spot strange black creatures that identify as 'Terraformers', those are our targets." Miki explains, pushing herself to her feet. Rama is already sniffing at the edge of the jungle. "We should get going."

    Merek looks around and follows with Mikage, taking his time to adjust the gauntlet which he wears along with the strap. Then he nods, "Alright, looks like a place we might find an elemental machine, do you know what kind of powers these things might have?" the man asks. The hood which he wears is up along his features while he takes the twin blades from the hips.

An upset in the balance between the Elements would be a very bad situation. The last thing they need on top of all the other problems facing them is the world starting to break on the fundimental levels because of some disruptive intrusion.

The dire situation doesn't stop Shiruba from taking a moment to admire the sheer magnitude of the jungle-like island they've found themselves on. She considers the challenges such an overgrown environment will have, which actually makes her tail wag a bit. Her exploration spirit was already running high. "Best we don't spread out too far then. Getting seperated and lost would not function well for an expedition." She looks at the falcon perched on her arm. "That goes for you, too. No straying." The raptorial hunter tilts her head, but seems to acknowledge before taking off from Shiruba's arm and perching in one of the trees until they move on. Better view from up here, as long as she stays below the dense canopy.

Cyrus whistles, impressed at what he's seeing. They already saw some of it approaching. But now that they're actually on the island, it feels like its own world in and off of itself. "We aren't even /that/ four south from the Fourlands Dukedom. I don't think we should be expecting this kind of thick jungle." He pulls a thick machette from his Inventory and spins it around in his hand.

"This blade is so going to lose its integrity as it dulls, isn't it?" He mutters, looking down at the blade, before turning to Mikage and Rama. "Feeling better?" She's always a bit off after a boat trip. For someone who loves to travel, Mikage sure has one of the worst traveling traits.

Divine Beasts seemed like an interesting thing to look into. Elemental energy could make for all sorts of things in the artifice world and imbalancing it generally sounds bad. Haru is hopeful that the humanoid creatures aren't violent but his optimism is tempered with the virtual reality of where this is. Onward to the boats!

"It is a very fertile area," Haru observes, taking a moment to observe the natural earthen energy going through the place. A hand goes along a buttery jungle leaf and handles a small bug onto his finger before moving it to another leaf. While everyone is getting situated, he sketches out some ideas. Travel is great inspiration for creativity in new things. He wouldn't have easily thought of such verdant scapes while on a boat or in town. The sketching goes away when people mobilize, thinking losing visual with this density would be bad.

Yeowang has volunteered for this mission because she felt it would put a keener edge on her martial arts skills, and training has been her priority since day one of starting this game. She has some interest in world affairs, but generally thinks of those in a political sense rather than the magic underpinning the world. It's not that she doesn't believe in it, it self-evidently works. It's just that she can't understand it and come to grips with it very well, so maybe this journey will aid in that a little bit?

She has her long hair pinned up in a loose bun, to keep it out of the way, and looks around curiously as we put ashore, scouting the terrain. She's slowly coming to grips with party roles, and does a better job now than she'd done at the start, though there's still a few things she needs to use the menu for.

The signs of steam are at first encouraging - someone has developed steam technology? But then, much of what science she's seen is the 'mad' variety and she's suddenly less sure. But she will peer out into the undergrowth and see what may be seen.

    Fuka was quick to sign up for a Hunters Guild expedition, especially one which mentioned elemental energies. Always willing to lend a hand, the idea of learning more about elemental energies, or better yet the possibility of claiming an elemental item, was an ideal lure. She's done her best to keep the trip amusing thusfar, singing sea shanties for morale and being (relatively) helpful overall.

    Fukaziroh too is a little overwhelmed by the lush jungle. It's not exactly her chosen environment, but then that's fine. It's not like she's unable to cope, and she has a ranger friend with her! Always bring a ranger when exploring the jungle, that's Fuka's rule!

    "Stick close. Aye aye!" she says, saluting Shiruba in a way that would probably seem mocking if she wasn't so obviously playful about it. "Also, if I see a black creature, kill it." she nods. Then pauses. "Does that sound rude to anyone else?" she asks absently.

The strange happenings had got Tomoe's attention. so here she was ready to go check out this strange island. She looked wary about this and she looks over to Mikage nodding.

"So they could be some old experiment by the Gnomes who lived here then?"

She looks to the entire group but she seems uneasy as memnories of an quest in Fallout New Vegas pops into her mind. Worse this is real and not a game so far as Gwen sees it.

"I admit this makes me uneasy..."

"They didn't seem like Elemental Machines, at least not the ones I've seen before." Mikage answers Merek with a shake of her head. "But the Gnomes do tend to be associated with strange sorts of machinery. So who knows what we'll find. They did have some sort of ropes that were powerful enough to hold a Divine Beast, but they didn't seem to have a lot of HP the last time I encountered them."

Shiruba's falcon companion does, indeed, get a good view of the place from above. There are multiple places where those ruins stick up out of the dense jungle. Much of it seems to be buried, however, suggesting that there was once a larger civilization that was simply overrun by whatever force had changed the island.

Mikage looks over at Cyrus, offering him a fond smile, "I'm fine." A phrase he has heard many times before from this girl, by now. Haru's observation is also given a nod at this point, "By their names, I'd guess the creatures were built to change the landscape somehow. Not that I understand all that much about them." She looks to Gwen, afterwards, answering, "That's my guess. Some experiment gone haywire."

As the group heads into the dense jungle, it becomes clear that no one has traveled here in quite some time. There are no obvious pathways, which means that they mostly have to pick a direction of one of the plumes of steam and head in that direction, trying to spot it through the dense trees. Shiruba's falcon helps a bit in this, helping them to keep on the right track.

Eventually, they find an overgrown stone entrance, with a domed roof and a circular stone door. It is inlaid with gold filigree and metal gears along the outside. There are indentations on the structure, as if something were meant to be placed in the door to allow it to open. Writing can be seen along the wall in ancient, Gnomish script, likely needing a keen mind to decipher.

"Huh..." Mikage murmurs to herself, touching the edge of a broken set of vines, "Looks like this has been opened recently but... I'm not sure exactly how it works." Rama sniffs at the air, then starts to look around, as if he were trying to find something.

    Merek looks at the entrance to the place, and will begin to read any of the language he can find. "It doesn't make a lot of sense to me, though I'm not that great at these kinds of things," the man admits, while he nods a little bit to the party.

    Fuka sees the filigree-encrusted door and her eyes light up. No, not with greed, not this time. A puzzle! And if she's not mistaken, one with magical patterning she can work through!

    Unfortunately, once she gets started tracing magical pathways, Fuka's mind begins to wander. It's a bit hard to trace the outlines of THIS puzzle when another puzzle entirely starts occupying her mind! Fuka's mind isn't so much off-track as completely derailed, at least right now, and she's of little help in the actual solving of this one.

Cyrus sticks with Mikage, monitoring her condition for a little ways into the forest, before he seems to relax and focus on the mission at hand. Swinging that machette at times to cut a few branches out of the way for an easier path. "So far, it doesn't look like any people live here." Cyrus points out after a little ways. "Sure, we see steam, but..."

And then there's the golden looking opening.

"... huh."

The youth steps forward, looking at the cogs and the make. "This looks like it's of Gnome make, based on the stone and all of that. But..." He gives it a closer look. "I haven't seen this kind of gold work as much with the culture that's near us in Yamato. Interesting that this has survived as well as it has. It almost looks 'maintained'." He points out, before he starts trying to push some magic into the gears themselves, trying to get them to start turning.

Haru takes in a deep breath. Magic is something he can get behind as he brushes back some of his white bangs with static electricity breaking off as if a cat was brushed. The artificer doesn't use his eyes so much as feel for the current in the area. "It follows a pattern," he says as the sparks flicker around like fireflies shorting out on dust. "Generators produce a lot of output so it helps identify the source," he says, not smling but thinking a bit on this. Not speaking to anyone in particular as he pushes through the scenescape of emeralds and exotic sounds. Noticing Fuka doing a similar pattern, he heads over and produces another spark line. Enchantment.

Shiruba tilts her head back to look over the door. Almost immeadiately her attention falls on the indentations. "Those are odd shapes, but too regular to be natural wear." She mmms, then turns her head to look up to the trees. "Windburn, you see anything from up there." A brief clicking call that almost sounds like a 'no no' is the bird's reply. "Okay." Shiruba instead tries her scanning Relic, sweeping it over the holes, then turning to scan over the jungle brush around them. The red lights swish and swoosh... and then all fade.

Shiruba frowns. "I'm not finding any 'keys' lying around unfortunately," she reports. Admitably jungle is not an environment she's as familiar with as she is forests and mountains, so having to rely on one device, as powerful as it is, doesn't provide the best options.

Yeowang walks with the party, maintaining a keen watch, though given the uninhabited look of the land, not even game trails, it looks entirely uninhabited. That's no reason not to be wary, of course. Who knows what guardians have lain dormant, waiting for explorers like us.

Approaching the door she'll peer at the script and hrms. Not that she's a student of this, but ... she kind of is. She doesn't think of it that way, but she's picked up a smattering of the old languages somehow in her studies, and she'll read aloud, which conveniently gets autotranslated for everyone's edification. Hopefully that will help us to work out the puzzle.

Gwen says "They do tend to be pretty good with machinery as a whole Mikage."

Gwen wills start searching and things won't turn up anything she just has no luck with this. She seems a bit miffed but this doesn't last too long. They will find their way to the stone door. Gwen pauses and will start looking about to see if she can find anything of note here.

"I wonder why the Gnomes left here..."

Where Cyrus and Haru push magic into the stone door, the wiring seems to light up with their combined energy. Yeowang reads through the instructions, which seem to suggest that they need to channel energy into certain points on the door, and unlock it with an elemental 'key'.

While the others work through figuring out the process of the door, Rama manages to find what looks to be a faintly glowing crystal, nearly buried entirely underneath one of the nearby bushes. Trotting over, Mikage takes it from the cat, ruffling his oversized ears. "Good boy." When it is placed into one of the slots on the door, with the help of Cyrus and Haru's enchanting and Yeowang's translations, the door begins to open.

It creeks on hinges, revealing a long passageway which echoes with the hiss of steam and the clank of machinery. There are signs that this place is very much still 'alive', and yet the dust and spider webs seem to suggest it has not been used by any living thing in a long time.

The walls are carved finely out of stone, covered in metal plates and fine wires that seem to make the whole structure some part of a greater mechanism. As the party enters, a series of red lights begin to blink in the darkness beyond. First one, then another, then many.

Then, a clattering sound follows as robotic spiders move their way forward through the tunnels, obviously alerted to their presence and ready to defend the facility. They shoot a strange, sticky filament to try to capture the Adventurers, or crawl up at them and prod at them with sharp, metal legs.

"Landscape alteration would explain the strange jungle environment." Shiruba raises a hand in a 'Come' gesture. "Stay with me Windburn. I know you're not fond of indoors but it's too dangerous to wait out here alone." The Peregrine hops off her branch and glides down to follow Shiruba and the others into the ruins.

Turns out to be a smart move. As the first direct threat the expedition comes across is magitec arachnoids. "Spiders, why did it have to be spiders," Shiruba mutters as she raises her bow, but then has to duck instead when a siderbot sprays some adhesive threads at it.

Which is followed by the "KE-KE-KE-KE" shriek that is a falcon's warning cry, just as Windburn swoops past her and tries grab the construct with her talons and jab her beak into the 'eye'. It gives Shiruba long enough to reorient herself, and fire one of her piercing arrows through the relative head area of another.

A good hunter knows to find the weak spot, regardless if they are Man or Beast... or both, if you're a Cait Sith.

    Fuka ooohs in delight at the ancient magitech, but decides it can be studied at a later time. No, now is the time to explore instead. Reluctantly tearing herself away from the fascinating display of magic and ancient steam-tech, she follows along with others.

    "Because they Spide us!" Fuka cries out shrilly in answer to Shiruba, hastily chanting a protective barrier - in this case, a fire wall to block off the spiders. There are however too darn many of them, so she's unable to efficiently corral them. With some luck she'll buy time for others at least!

The mechanical spiders gives Haru an audible 'aw'. The look in his eyes on the craftsmanship and integration of the arachnid kind is nothing sort of inspired. He pats down his sketch book, a dull thudding against his jacket, but thinks better of it given the immediate risk. It doesn't stop the Artificer from reaching out and attempting to treat with the creatures. Plenty of electrostatic still is on him from earlier in finding and opening the door, leading to audible pops. He booped the snoot, never boop the snoot. "I could spend forever in here," he admits, if not for the obvious threats. Like the ones that want to stab him with pointy bits.

The pun gets a slow head turn to Fuka and a thumb up. "Excellent," he smiles. Genuinely.

Yeowang is pleased as her translations help us to get the door open. This is looking positive, at least, but then she steps inside. She peers as the party enters, and frowns. This place may be in use, but not by anyone with basic housekeeping skills. Then robot spiders begin to swarm.

Well, this is the class she signed up for. The one she doesn't know very much about, but she's been making an effort to learn after realizing that it's actually important. Like all necessary job skills, she's pursued it single-mindedly, until she's achieved at least a passing ability with the basics. In this case, her bow comes out, and she's able to shoot the scuttling spiders as they swarm, pinning them to the walls and ceiling where the bowshot doesn't impact one already damaged by one of her allies and kill it in a cloud of pixels.

"Ick... spiders." The moment they are inside, before it's even clear the spiders are mechanical, Cyrus already has his little bottle of light out. He activates it immediately by shaking it a certain way, causing a bold beam of light to shine the way of the spiderous monstrocities.

"I hate spiders, I hate spiders, I hate spiders." Cyrus starts to repeat, shining the light at them, trying to blind them. "Someone please take care of the spiders." The Cait Sith mutters, while hiding a bit further in the back lines so he doesn't have to deal with the spider web filament being shot their way!

    Merek looks to the spiders while he takes the time to try and bring up a light. He could work a little better on it, though it doesn't look like it does all that wonderful. All the same he will keep with the party.

Gwen is actually okay with normal spiders, they eat blackflies, mosquitos and other pests. These things are not normal spiders at all she stares for a moment.

"I have this."

Gwen notes and she marches forward it's been a very long time since Shiruba saw Gwen take the stance she is currently making. she takes her sword out kneels down mutters some sort of pray and drives the sword into the ground.

"GRAND CROSS!"

THen comes the holy magic which Gwen hopes will thin out the spider's ranks. Though anyone checking on Gwen's status? It's clear she's spending her own HP in part to do this.

Luckily, the spiders do not prove to be too difficult an enemy to face. Windburn is able to blind one and then tear it apart with her talons, sending the pieces clattering to the floor before they burst into pixels. Fukaziroh's fire wall would normally block off reinforcements, but the mechanical spiders seem unconcerned about fire.

Yeowang manages to take out a few, pinning them briefly to walls or finishing off those damaged by their allies. Cyrus' blast of light throws back some of them, causing a few to skitter back towards the nearby walls. Gwen's Grand Cross seems to do much the same, the force of it eliminating a number of them and sending a few more skittering into cracks in the walls or hiding around corners.

"Don't worry, we've got this." Mikage tries to offer support to Cyrus, as he has so often been keeping her going as of late. Rama charges forward to pounce at one of the spiders, but it seems less than effective when one starts shooting sparks at the cat, sending him fleeing back behind the Adventurers.

After a moment, it looks like all the spiders are cleared out, the sound quieting. "Looks like we're good." So, the group continues onward, until they run into the first signs of the 'Terraformers'. A trio of them are at the end of a long hallway, seemingly trying to dismantle a piece of the ruin wall.

Spotting the group, they turn, fleeing further into the dungeon. However, as the Adventurers move to follow, they find themselves halted by a trap, likely activated by movement or pressure plates. A wall of fire shoots up from the ground, blocking the entire path. It seems wide enough that walking through it could be dangerous for those who aren't superbly tanky.

However, there might be a way to douse the flames with enough water, or find some means of cutting of the chemical accelerant which fuels it by figuring out where it might be located in the walls.

Windburn would of chased after the metal spiders, but she abruptly backwings from the flames erupting to block the path. The bird is not fireproof, so she curves back to perch on Shiruba's shoulder. "It's okay girl, you did fine. We'll handle this." Wolven eyes narrow a bit, spotting something amongst the flames. "Find the source if you can, We'll take some heat off of you, so to speak. Gwen, help me clear some space?" Shiruba pulls the Glaive of The Fallen from her belt, narrows her eyes again, and throws the five-bladed weapon into the firewall. It's exceptional defensive properties allow it to pass through the fire with ease, and then some of the jets flicker and sputter down as two of it's points get wedged into the alchemical jets spraying them.

Hopefully that will give people some room to get closer to the source.

    Merek of course will look to the chemical fuelant, then he takes the time to place a few charges along it to explode. Well, it is alchemy. The man nods a bit while he works on that, checking each pipe to disable it, assisting people a little while he works along the place.

Yeowang winces at Fuka's Spide joke, and gives Haru a skeptical look. "You would certainly tire of being attacked by mechanical spiders before long," she suggests. Cyrus is given a sympathetic look, she's not good with bugs per se, but these mechanical spiders don't seem to freak her in the same way. Gwen's attack is impressive, though, and she nods appreciatively.

The first sight of the Terraformers is curious, and she peers at them dismantling a wall. Why? Who can say, but that implies that capturing them for our use is certainly a bad plan. The wall of fire covering their retreat brings her up short, and she looks around for a fire extinguisher, because that's what you do. But this isn't that world, so she will try to channel water. But she's not that good at it, and the amount she can channel, less than a garden hose, does nothing to the flames other than filling the air with steam.

The white haired artificer stops on a dime when the flame starts pouring out. Haru felt it before it ignited due to his high affinity to magical Fire. "Our party is on fire, but it doesnt need to be literally on fire," he says against the roaring flames. Blue eyes look to the source, trusting more in his flow of energy as he looks to the device through his monocle. A series of statistics fly off of it as he runs a hand along its edge as if it was a camera lens needing focus. "And there you are. Doing your best, but we have to press on. Sorry about that," he says to the machinery with a smile, moving to the intake valves and making some adjustments to the mixture while focusing on the readouts. Magic per square inch versus pressure and draw. He puts a cutoff in place in case the combined efforts go counter to the fine tuning. When it is all said and done, he stands and dusts off his slacks. "We are all really talented," he observes, A-team effort going on here.

Cyrus wasn't much good around the giant spiders, or the pictures of Driders back in the spider dungeon either. And take of some kind of 'super spider species' in the Palace Lands have made the youth a bit on edge too from time to time. Mechanical spiders most certainly are easier to handle for him, but he still is very much <not in a good place> when it comes to them.

He grimaces a bit at Fukaziroh as she gives him that look. Still flightily looking around for more mecha-spiders. "What's next, cowboys and trains?" He mumbles to himself. Then suddenly, fire!

"Hee!" His tail puffs out as the fires burn wild around them. And the youth is /quick/ to pull out something that he smashes on the ground near the flames. There's a sudden explosion of bubbles and foam that starts to smother the flame, turning from white to black as it absorbs the energy. "Stupid... rassinfraggin traps!" He complains.

Gwen is quite happy with the results of her Grand Cross. She mutters about things that should not be allowed to exist as they come to the end of the fight.

"So what could we be dealing with...flame wall."

It had to be fire didn't it? Gwen will ready her shield and start popping various abilities it seems she's going to march through the flames...

"Aye Haru we're hot but this is a bit silly."

She hasn't run with Haru before, though she seems to like him so far. She'd cast him a look, clearly thinking about something. Shiruba would know that look, she'd know that look very well. It vanishes though after a moment as Gwen turns back to the fire.

    Rather disgruntled at the spiders going RIGHT THROUGH her firewall, Fuka complains in annoyance while others actually solve that problem. "Who ever heard of spiders not burning? Everyone knows you use fire to solve spiders and spider-web problems in dungeons. These mechanospiders are DECEPTIVE!" she complains, neck-deep in the meta. Not really offended or upset, but definitely wanting to sound like she had a plan that was better than 'set them on fire!'

    Of course 'set them on fire' is a perfectly good plan; witness the next challenge. Fuka's quick to recognize what's going on and eager to help. "That one." she points, aiding Haru. "Reduce that flow next, I think. If I make my guess, that'll keep it all from exploding." she notes. Explosions are great and all, as long as it's not her and her friends that are exploding!

    After a moment, satisfied things are going well, she steps back and lets the pros handle it. She's not terrible at chemistry and this world's equivalent, but it's not exactly her thing and she's well aware others are better. Once she's said her part, she'll leave the rest to those who specialize in the task.

Water doesn't seem to do much against the fire wall, turning into steam which blows back at the Adventurers. Luckily, those who are more skilled in defenses are able to keep the heat and steam from injuring anyone in the process and are able to defend those who are working to deal with the source of the problem.

Soon enough, with the aid of quite so many trained alchemists, the group is able to disable the trap, the fire sputtering down and eventually fading out completely.

Rama looks a little singed around the edges, and gives the device a few kicks as if he were trying to bury it.

As they follow the path the 'Terraformers' had fled, they find themselves on a narrow stone stairway leading down. The entire path is strewn with rubble, making it a little difficult of a climb downward.

However, they do eventually find themselves in a large, underground room that seems to have been entirely taken over by unusual plants. Even the experts likely wouldn't have seen all the varieties that seem to exist here. It is hard to grasp just how big the room is, as the expanses are overgrown so it is impossible to see just where the walls are.

Above, there seems to be some sort of observation deck, likely used by the Gnomes to watch over whatever experiments were done here. Out of the jungle, below, though, comes more of the 'Terraformers' The dark creatures seem to move more erratically here, as if these were more 'experimental' versions of them. They move throughout the foliage, only a few paying heed to the Adventurers.

Now is a great time to strike from stealth or darkness, taking out a few in the process. A skilled herbalist might also be able to turn the plants here against them, turning their creations into their doom.

As they step into the large underground room, Cyrus runs his hand through his hair and along his fluffy ears. The youth just takes a moment to just... stand there and marvel. "Imagine the processing power needed just to simulate this room..." Cyrus mutters. "It really makes you take a step back and wonder 'is it really all a simulation?'" The youth notes, looking at the various leaves, plants, everything laid out. Stepping in a little ways, he kneels down, distracted by all the plants he doesn't recognize.

Most certainly, they are trying to follow those Terraformers, but unfortunately, Cyrus is just too distracted as he starts running an APPRAISE on every plant he comes across he doesn't recognize. "This one can be used for antidotes!" He mutters. "And this one is an anti-inflamatory!"

Once the fires are down Windburn flies up, grabs the glaive with her talons to pull it free, and return it to Shiruba. A bit of jerky is given to the bird for the successful 'fetch' without being told and then the group moves on.

Shiruba points at one of the 'Terraformer' creatures moving about the internal jungle. She may of been right about there being a connection between them and the overgrown jungle, and the only thing that keeps her from outright saying it is not wanting to tip off their presence before they're ready to deal with it.

Instead she draws two arrows embued with Dark magic from her quiver, nocks them in her bow, and fires. The arrows shoot towards opposite sides of the chamber, releasing arcane energy into expanding globes of darkness. If nothing else it gives people a chance to get through while the creatures are hopefully disoriented.

Yeowang's ineffectiveness with water and the successful use of alchemy by so many others has her realizing that this is a chemical fire rather than a simple one. That's got to be why water was ineffective. Well, she has no way to synthesize firefighting chemicals, so there wasn't much she could have done anyhow. Luckily, everyone else has firefighting foam of some variety or other. How fortunate.

Moving on to the arboreum, it seems like this place is where we find ourselves, she looks around at the confusing maze of plants and Terraforming units. It seems like a good place to strike from stealth and cover to take down a few of the robots, but cover in plants and dim lighting is not really effective cover from the Terraformers, it seems, and rather than an ambush, it looks like a stand-up fight. And a hard one.

    Unfortunately Fuka is not a very sneaky Sylph. Or maybe she is, and Sylphs just aren't very sneaky in general. Especially when they're wearing somewhat clanky armor!

    Fortunately, Fuka has magic and can cloak herself in darkness. Unfortunately, darkness does little to muffle clankiness. Fortunately, Fuka's pretty good in the resulting fight even if they're not terribly stealthy about it. Unfortunately, that means they probably get in a fight and end up depleting far more health and mana than they would've done if they were properly sneaky. Fortunately, that'll mean Fuka gets to have fun, and any dungeon where Fuka's having fun is a good one. So... who really cares about stealth anyways?!

    Merek will assist with the plants, though it doesn't look like he is managing to do a lot. All the same, he nods to the party, "I don't think we're making a lot of progress, we should try to evade from it, if we can," he will offer, while he weaves.

The timing is all off on this one. Haru manages to react both too fast and to slow to turns the plants against them. It comes off as a big mess of mixed signals to the plants for which Haru smiles, "You can learn as much from the mistakes as the successes." So long as you survive to learn! Which is a handy trick for the adventuring types.

Gwen is a Paladin more or less, she's also in partial plate armour. Sneaking? That's going to be hard but not as hard as Gwen trying to use dark element. The odds of her being sneaky are far better so that's what Gwen's going to try to do. It doesn't go well sadly for her. Still if they can take everyone out before the alarm is sounded...

It becomes obvious that this place is far more dangerous than it looks on the surface. Some people are far too distracted by the array of plantlife to figure out how to use it against the enemy, attracting more attention than eliminating it. Others aren't as good as sneaking through unfamiliar territory than it seems.

In the end, Shiruba and Mikage are the ones that are able to sneak through, eliminating some and finding an actual path that seems to lead to one of the walls. There, there is a large crack that seems to open into the stone surrounding the room, as if these creatures have been digging their way out.

The neatly carved walls with their metal accents are left behind in favor of rough carved stone that seems to be dug out without care for aesthetics. The ground is uneven enough that it might catch people's feet along the way.

Eventually, they are greeted with a low rumble in the ground beneath them, leading to a natural cave. Inside, there is a strange drill-like machine, being piloted by two smaller 'Terraformers'. It is revealed by INSPECT to be a monster called the 'Terraformer Drill-Digger'.

It's obvious that this must be one of the sources of these new tunnels, and that these destructive creatures have been trying to burrow their way off of the island through the rock below.

One of the 'Terraformers' notices them, the large device turning in their direction. The ground rumbles again as it revs up, charging into battle against the Adventurers. ?

Cyrus eventually gets nudged by Rama to come along. Tugging on hits pants the feline brings Cyrus along the path that has been blazed by Shiruba and Mikage. "Sorry about that, I got distracted." Cyrus remarks, apologizing by giving Mikage a pretty flower he managed to find, while looking off at the natural looking cave. "There's a lot going on in this place. How big do you think the tunnels beneath this island are? What else might be down there?" He wonders out loud.

The youth then steps along with the rest of the group into the tunnels, winding their way until they find the drill-like machine. "A drill... digger... I mean, that's accurate." Cyrus points out. "Welp, and now it's coming our way." He quickly throws one of his flasks to the edge of the drill, which quickly splashes its white misting substance across the side and tries to freeze it in place!

    Satisfied after battling robots - the terraformer bots were much more fun than the spiders because the spiders were creepy - Fukaziroh shoulders her great axe with satisfaction. Cutting loose, so to speak, is fun... and she sure did manage to show that as much as she likes her magic, she also likes swinging around a weapon almost as big as she is! Suddenly her clanky armour probably makes a whole lot more sense for someone who seems to identify heavily as an Enchanter these days.

    As the party progresses, Fuka seems reluctant to set aside her axe for subtler things. Oh well, screw it. Fuka can't be subtle all the time! Besides, this group is full of enchanters, archers, alchemists and the like. When there's a boss battle to fight, naturally Fuka's going to default to the role that's most needed. In this case, that's the role of tank!

    "I really DIG what you've done with the place but I'll have to AXE you to stop!" she cries out, charging forward with her axe readied, and leaping high to come down hard on what she sees as a weak point. The driver. Okay so that's more a DPS move, but she'll at least draw some aggro!

Shiruba stops for a moment to marvel at the sheer magnitude of the cavern they've found themselves in.... then her ears slick back as that leads to a horrifying revelation after Cyrus' comment about the size of the tunnels. "If they can dig deep enough to get below the ocean, and tunnel to mainland, and cause this amount of ecosystem change in the environment..."

The thought is interrupted by the digging machine being turned towards them and moving faster than it should be able to. "Dammit!" Shiruba pulls an arrow and tries to aim at the rocks hanging from the ceiling, but the operator seems to realize what she's doing and swings around to slam one of the digger's legs into the wolfgirl, sending her careening across the cavern. Windburn squacks and circles around so no one loses track of her master, but without some form of instruction she can't do much else against this metallic monstrousity.

Haru is being aggressed! "They may not want people interupting their work," the blue eyed man says as he shakes off the stray vines on his hands and plucks leafs out from his hair. He spends more times with metals and minerals than flora and this is a clear indication the he should branch out more.

There is a motion to Fuka with one of his gloveless hands as he moves another to draw up sand into the machinery's gearworks. "Alright, you know the drill. Lets take them down," as he alternates his heavily innate affinity to Earth between the sand and the occasional debris storn of rocks.

Yeowang is luckily lead clear of the fight in the greenhouse. Why do robots even need a greenhouse? So many mysteries! But getting clear of that fight, lower on HP than she'd like but certainly not out of the fight, she will join the others as we make our way further into this mysterious place. "The architecture is interesting," she decides. "We're quite sure the builders are no more?"

Though, it seems their machines are, and they have machines that operate machines. That seems like entirely a bad plan, one that's been in movies and fiction for years. Machines that operate machines are /never/ good for people. On the other hand, she's a highly trained martial artist, and this looks like it's shaping up to be a fight. A hard fight, perhaps, but she's had hard fights before. They usually go like ... Yeowang dashing forward, leaping into the air, spinning like a dancer. Feet extended at the last moment for torque-based impact, slamming hard into the giant machine. Hard enough to take a chunk of its health bar, but that's the power of an Epic attack. The rest of her fight is possibly not as awesome as that, but she gives a good accounting of herself.

Gwen is getting the idea of just how dangerous this place is herself. She stares at the Drill-Digger and then makes ready she'll look at the party for a moment and then the monster. She moves in pulling its attention as she casts a powerful spell.

"SANCTUARY!"

Glowing squares appear on the ground radiating out from Gwen which will heal her allies who step into them while Gwen keeps up her assault on the boss.

"YOU WILL FAIL!"

She's getting into it perhaps a bit too into it.

    Merek will take the time to protect the party, although he's not making a lot of progress. All the same, it looks like they are successful in that!

"It's alright." Mikage replies, probably quite used to Cyrus nerding out about various things by now. She has been traveling with him for over a year.

The sight of the monster trying to dig free is more concerning to her. "We can't let them escape from here." She explains, "If they do, they could cause havoc in the rest of Yamato." Mikage had seen, first hand, that these creatures could nearly capture and harm a Divine Beast. That isn't something she can let happen.

So, channeling a magic aura, Mikage begins to pull down stones from the roof of the cavern above, crashing them into the drill while trying to stay out of the way of the charging machine.

The device was clearly not meant to tangle with Adventurers, as it doesn't seem to have all that much in the way of health and it only seems to only be built with a few area of effect attacks. However, it does have a high armor rating, meaning that it takes a long time to actually damage it.

Eventually, though, the monster starts to tremble. Then, it explodes, doing damage to all the Adventurers, but not enough to drop any of them, thankfully.

All that is left behind seems to be a shards of a cracked power crystal, and a few hunks of scrap metal.

"Ugh." Mikage pushes herself up to one knee, "Role call, everyone still alive?" Obviously, she could read that off of the party health bar, but... it's important to check.

"At least... we stopped them from getting off the island. Hopefully that should be enough to help Kirin and the other Divine Beasts." Miki murmurs.

"Yep, still alive." Cyrus remarks in the aftermath of the detonation, helping Mikage up from her on-the-floor position. "I think we get out of here for the time being. We can come back to this later." Pause. "I want to come back to this later. I can do without the spiders. But there's some interesting things to discover here."

Shiruba sits up and pushes aside some of the debris that landed near her. Windburn perchs on a bit of broken metal wedged into the ground. "I think the only thing bruised is my pride."

But she also notices one of the gleaming pieces of stone in the rubble and picks it up. "Oh this looks interesting." She gets to her feet and dusts herself off. "Let's get back to the surface before more of those creatures come to inspect the explosion."

Gwen says "Yup I'm still here Mikage!"

Gwen seems pretty chipper and she's pulling food out of her inventoy.

"Anyone want some food! I made it before we headed out!"

The towering woman is just about bouncing in place.

"Right we'll eat when we get out!"

Yeowang raises a hand when Mikage roll calls. "Yeowang here. I am fine." And not much more need be said. She picks up one of the odd chunks of ... whatever it is. She will peer at it critically, then put it into her inventory. When Gwen offers food, she is about to volunteer, but then remembers these are players. "It's not rat, is it?" she asks nervously.

Haru dusts off an earthen crystal shard with his hand and takes it under appraisal for how stable it is. Satisfied he says, "This is a triumph." Of the victories so far, he feels really good about this one. There were plants and spiders and lots of magical energies. The whole area is Artificer heaven. Though he owes a roll call back to the expedition leadership, "Still alive." He is being so sincere right now.

    Fukaziroh groans as she hears the role call request, and raises one arm. She seems to have found herself sprawled flat out on her back, ears ringing. "Ow." is her first statement, but she also lifts a thumb into the air at the end of that arm.

    After a bit she lowers her arm and props herself up into a seated position. "That was a blast!" she says enthusiastically, after feeding herself a little bit of healing potion and removing the worst of her current crop of aches. "And I've got SO MANY GOOD IDEAS now! These gnomes really know how to build stuff!" she nerds aloud.