Duty Session 392: Isle of the Terraformers

    Despite the near-fey mood Arashi is having with her Other shards, the were-fang has wandered away from her little island 'home' to see about some hunter's guild business. Something about a massive jungle isle and some ruins within. Welp. Time to earn some coin .. for food.. before trying to mess with these stupid puzzle shards again. Why are things around here SO CRYPTIC?!

Dense foliage crunches under more than one pair of hooves this day, as the Nightmare Bard trots after the Dire Shire Pwny. "You have a weird taste in date locations Arashi," she ribs the other equine with a mischevious smirk. Needless to say she was acting more like her usual lack of normality and not the weird mood lack of normality.

Kaydon had tried to grab Shiruba but she had important guild work to do, because that's what happens when you get roped into a leadership position: You have to herd cats instead of having fun. But Kaydon is going to have fun.

"So what's this all about anyway? Some new quest? I don't remember seeing this one before." He muses, as he messes with his damascus sword and a whetstone while waiting for the group to gather.

Goldenblade is acting strangely as well, and seems to have skipped meals and baths, spending time at the forge instead of eating and bathing, and sleeping, as much as she can. She's got the Stinky debuff, but she's come out to this duty. It's not abundandtly clear why, as she doesn't offer any comment when she joins the party. It's one of those things.

"So, uh, what are we doing today, again? Ridding the pirate ships of rats by siccing spiders on them?", Uta asks, hand on her mouth as he looks around. "I am not sure I- Oh, look. That seems like an entrace to some underground structure." Suddenly excited, she asks, "Is it sewers? Are there slimes?" as she instinctively clenches her fists in anticipation. "Wait, no, that's the sound of machinery- oh, will there be Chim-Chims? I hope there's Chim-Chims. I like the Chim-Chims." She tilts her chin up, again, and hand on her lips, her gaze is lost in teh distance once again. "I should go visit the Chim-Chims. Haven't said hi in a while. They'll be worried."

    The gang is all here. Nice! "Yeah yeah," is Arashi's response to Kau, though with a smirk, before saluting the others that arrive. Even GB and their fey mood smell. "Never been here, so I have no idea what is going to happen! What I -do- know is there's a little tunnel over here that may make things easier, so.... lets get going then." A long look is given Uta. "Maybe..." then she turns to wander into the passage.

Oh cool a ventilation shaft. Kaydon isn't a small dude, so he has to squeeze his way inside, "Come out to the coast. We'll get together, have a few laughs. Now I know what a TV dinner feels like." He mutters to himself as he crawls through.

Eventually he does make it to the other side and to the room proper. He takes a moment or two to brush himself off, before he looks at the machinery, "Hmm.." He's never seen this particular style of one before, but in theory they should all function the same. He just has to find the right valve to turn. He gets it right on the first try, however, and several of the vents slam shut as their protective grates drop down, "That should keep folks from getting cooked."

Goldenblade follows along after Arashi, then pauses to take stock of the situation. She goes on again, zipping quickly from A to B between blasts of steam and other events that would be bad if she'd been caught in them. Distracted by mechanisms or not, she knows a lot about industrial safety, and this seems like a final exam to her. Avoid this, step aside from that, keep hands and feet clear at all times. This becomes easier as Kaydon shuts off several sources of steam. Finally, she makes it to the end of the twisty gauntlet.

An equine ear flicks at the sounds eminating from the tunnel around them as they pass through. "Does anyone else feel like they've stepped inside a giant clock towe--" She stops and jerks back a step just in time to avoid a plume of scalding vapor erupting from one of the vents. "--Correct that. This isn't clockwork, it's steampunk."

The Nightmare narrows her gaze a bit, staring down the passage, while listening to the puffs and toots from the expulsions of exhaust. It doesn't take long for the ears of a now even more well trained musican to pick out a rhythm to the bursts. "Welp, time to delve the depths of this pipe dream." There's a vage distortion near Kauchemar as she draws from darkness, and with that she's... gone.

Or more accurately, she's gone from plain view. Her presence can be sensed, but it's almost impossible to -see- her other than the occasional flicker at the corners of perseption as she used the shadows cast by the clunking machinery to circumnavigate the steam blasting vents and stride past the opposite end of the hallway like it was just a stroll in the park for her.

"I really hope there's Chim-Chims," Uta repeats, as she wiggles her way into the shaft. While not downright tiny, she still is slightly shorter than average, so she doesn't have too much trouble fitting in.

As she descends, she wipes sweat off her forehead with her gloved forearm, while climbing down the narrow passage. Gusts of steam burst into existence for her to barely manage to dodge at the last minute.

"That's it folks, I know what to do!", she exclaims. "I'll ventilate this place with my ridiculous Air skills combined with the the rotational power of my staff. Observe!"

As if on cue, a jet of steam blows her way from round a curve. Uta narrows her eyes, and extends her arm. While she vocalizes a crystalline melody bound to evoke elemental currents from her magic item, her fingers engage in a mesmerizing dance capable to turn Uta's staff into a dizzying vortex generator. It would be an impressive feat, were it not-

"MY STAFF!", Uta suddenly exclaims, and slaps her face with her other hand. "I -knew- I had forgotten something..."

If the other members of the party ever wondered what Steamed Spriggan smells like, well, now they know.

    "This isn't much easier for me, Kaydon," Arashi's quick to point out as she follows after the group. Huh. Steam blasts and narrow passages. Seems about right to a nice start into some ruin raiding. "Yeah watch your - .. selves.." Seriously? "HOw did..." nevermind. This is the same person that rode a boat without knowing it was a boat. Until it moved. Like a boat. After a sigh, the mare gets to moving along herself, in Kau's wake. Until Kau isn't there. Blink. "... Huh.." Still, need to get past the vents, which she pulls off with relative ease. "Kau? I think we need to have another talk." As in, what did you just do, cause I want to do it too.

    The group gets clear of the passage, finding themselves in the ruins proper. Look, Uta, a Chim! ... well, there was one, it scampered off and left a guardian .. of sorts, in its wake. "... Why does this feel familiar?"

As the guardian deploys in front of them, Kaydon ignores the chim. Not his concern. He takes a knee, and takes a moment to look at the guardian robots, "Hmm.." He scratches under his muzzle with a hand, and then spots what he's looking for, "Everybody hold back a second." He pulls his smaller one handed sledgehammer out of his inventory, and then rushes at the mechanical monsters, swinging several measured strikes in order to hit weak points in the armor. The idea being that it should cause the armor panels to pop off, and allow the rest of the team to strike the vulnerabilities underneith.

Kauchemar just smirks at Arashi's inquiry, even as she does a dorky finger-gun gesture at the other mare. "You know where to find me when it comes to appropriating antilight shenanigans." It's not inaccurate, her Guild's HQ is right there in Alne after all. After which she turns forward again... and comes almost face to occular rife with the droid transforming from the sphere. "Oh, son of a bi--"

Cue the thing knocking the nightmare halfway across the chamber before she even gets a chance to react physically to it. *metal clunk* "I'm okay! I landed on my bruised pride!"

"A CHIM!", Uta exclaims, in response to Arashi. "Where? I- Oh, there it is!" she points, and rushes after the creature.

Just in time to pass right in front of the red metallic automaton shortly after it shifts into battle configuration.

"Excuse me," she says, and nary a moment later the automaton's sword SLAMS into the ground with a radial crack exploding all over the floor.

Uta, however, just jumps over the sword, ignores to the automaton, even after a loud "OW!" as the opponent leaves a glowing gash on her with a swing of its sword, and- continues on. Just... continues on, oblivious to the fate of the rest of the party.

Goldenblade blinks as the guardian robot appears. Her swords flick out, but at Kaydon's interjection, she pauses. Once he's done, she rushes in, deflecting the intial stikes against her, then stepping wide around it. From the side, she can thrust ner blade into fragile mechancal bits, which hampers its ability use it's shield. That will make it much easier to manage.

    At first, Arashi leaves it to Kaydon, knowing the smith has his skills to help him with the sphere-changer. The strike does, in fact, knock some armor off, leaving it to everyone else to get some damage in. Kau.. doesn't get that chance. Uta is chasing a chim, but at least Goldenblade's attack gets some damage done. Arashi proves, for a moment, she has at least one part of what Kau just did in her skill list, vanishing, only to strike at the sphere from above to finish it off. "HQ, Alne. .. Yeah.." if she can yank herself away from those puzzle shards she left 'back home'.

    "I'll pay a visit, then," Arashi states as the group moves past the defeated sphere, likely in Uta's direction. With Uta so far ahead... the tell-tale sound of a pressure-plate is heard and then the flame wall errupts ahead of everyone... and maybe singes Uta's brow. ... The chim was on the other side of that wall. ".. Nice.."

Damn. Doesn't look like there's any way to shut this one off. At least not that Kaydon can discern with his eyes. He supposes they'll have to do it the old fashioned way then.

Kaydon swipes his hand a couple of times to pull up his inventory, and switches to a large kite shield, "Everybody get behind me!" He calls out to the party, before leaning into the flames and advancing.

"Oh, something went click-"

WOOOSH.

If anyone in the party wondered what Roasted Steamed Spriggan smells like, now they know.

Uta flicks her menu open, navigates through it, and materializes a few jars of salves and bottles of potions. "Hold on, as soon as I take care of my burns, I'll be ready to throttle the fuel in this tank using water powers!"

It takes her some time to apply medication to herself, and by the time she's done, the party is almost completely done.

"Well, better late than never! Observe, as I, Uta Furore, single-handedly extinguish the Flames of Tartarus which torment you!"

She extends one hand towards the pipe coming out of the tank, and furrows her brow, as if she was force-choking the duct (which, technically, uh, she kinda is?), while looking at the conflagrations menacing the rest of her party members, and as she finally manages to stop the flow-

The flame illuminating the area next to her goes off, leaving her in the dark.

And that is all she achieves.

Kauchemar has gotten herself back on her hooves and with the rest of the group just as the flames erupt to life. This time just shrugging a little. "After the steam and machinery, this is hardly a surprise. Oh well. Hope the rest of you can take the heat."

As for herself Kauchemar stomps a hoof on the floor, plumes of frigid mist shooting out as she does, which rise up and congeal in front of her to solidify into a bulky vaguely humanoid form of snow and frost. "You." She raises a finger and points. "Stand over there and do a wall impersonation." The ice elemental does as told, trudging into the fire and blocking off several of the jets to make a clearing for Kauchemar and whoever else follows her to walk through. Being a summoner does have it's perks.

"o/~ So far away we wait for the day
For the light source so wasted and gone
We feel the pain of a lifetime lost in a thousand days
Through the fire and flames we carry on

Goldenblade is definitely disoriented. Even after the little robot is disabled, she's takingg it apart to see how it works. The mechanisms fascinate her. It's something she'd like to keep track of, so she'll attempt to stuff the wreck into her inventory. This does not work. She follows the others, though, but when the flames shoot out, she pauses. "Whut?"

But she's got /some/ tank chops in her class layout, as much as she doesn't focus on that, using her swords to parry the flames somehow. This is not well-explained how this can happen. She does so anyhow. And it seems that she is sufficiently tanky to bring this maneuver off.

    Seems Kaydon just pushes on through, Uta gets put into the dark and Kau? .. Kau makes the musical reference YOU expected. Yes you. I see you over there. Don't deny it. Seeing someone -parry- a flame wall is.. well. Impressive. ".. I.. ...wut?" game mechanics, for sure. Somehow. Shrug. With Arashi's secret skill of a rather high afinity with water, it isn't difficult for her to make a quick little cantrip to soak herself before dashing through the wall, similar to Kaydon. Watershield? Eh. No. Shield isn't in her list. She's only mildly damp, now.

    Now, within the library of these mechanical creatures, the group has a vast wealth of knowledge to explore, but Terraformers stand between them and that knowledge. "Welp. Lets see if we can figure out a way past these blasted things.." For some reason, just smashing them into a wall seems to be out of the question.

Goldenblade's blades /do/ interact oddly with flames at times, partly in response to her own fiery nature. So blocking flames with steel may not turn out to be so special. The fact she can do it in her disoriented state is probably the more impressive feat. Her first sword-swing strikes, and does almost no damage, so that doesn't seem like a good plan. A direct jet of fire doesn't do much, either. It's quite agile, or at least itt can avoid her flame jets. Plan C: she pulls a small container from her belt, spraying pure oxygen gas towards the little things, and it's sucked in by its air intakes. Fire, used judiciously, -then- ignites around and /inside/ the pests, which is quite effective.

Uta spends some time analyzing the broken machinery. "Fascinating. I came across something similar, once. I wonder if-"

She turns to the rest of the party. "Hey, anyone here has the Appraisal skill? I'd like these machines appraised. I wonder if-"

And that is when the not-top-shape Terraformers make their entrance. Uta gasps at them in shock at first. She then stays frozen in shock. And finally, as they whirr-clack, whirr-clack, whirr-clack, she begins to tap her foot and mark the rhytm with a repeated flicking of her finger.

She begins to vocalize a note, a simple "ah!" whose pitch matches the whirring, and after a few attempts, her smile widens, and her eyes settle in a look of determination. "Oh, I know what to do!"

A deep inhale, and she keeps vocalizing an 'ah', long, interminable. She doesn't breathe in anymore, she keeps going. Long, longer, longer. Louder, louder, and higher, and higher.

The whirring of one of the terraformers resonates with her voice, and as the note becomes higher and louder, the mechanical pitch follows, the behaviour of the machine becomes more and more erratic, and soon-

By the time the Terraformer is thrashing about, Uta's note becomes so loud it's barely bearable. In what it might seem an act of mercy, the note stops abruptly, and as the ears seem to have relief-

It turns out Uta just took a moment to perform a quick, yet deep inhale. Immediately after, she lets out a note so powerful the sonic blast causes visible ripples in the air, and as it SMASHes against the erractic Terraformer, it blasts it with such violence to topple it, belly up, unoving.

Kauchemar eyes the occupants of the next chamber and their erratic and spastic sputtering about like broken and discarded machines. "Oh, for me? Two musical cues in one adventure? You shouldn't of." She can't be serious. She couldn't possibly...

"o/~ I can't take this kind of pressure... I must confess one more dusty road... Would be just a road too long... Worthless... o/~"

Yes, yes she is serious. And seriously grim, with the deep ominous tone she drops her voice into for doing so, too.

"o/~ I just can't, I just can't, I just can't seem to get started... Don't have the heart to live in the fast lane... All that has passed and gone...
Worthless... Worthless... Worthless.... o/~"

Though maybe even more bizarre is that it -works-. Something in the song and the way Kauchemar sings it carries the oppressive foreboarding of a funeral dirge in a way that resonates with the malfunctioning constructs, causing them to accept the end of their fates and collapsing inactivation.

Kaydon's definitely not an expert at this kind of thing. Research and finding out how to solve specific problems or proper frequencies, that's not really his speciality. He's better at hitting stuff with a hammer until it works (or doesn't work depending on the case), but he can't do that here.

Still he'll try to help however he can, but this one certainly seems to be falling to the rest of the party.

    Seems the Terraformers aren't very fond of fire, so having it sent into them by way of ignited oxygen? Yep, that does a number on them. Though, Uta finding just the right note is equally troubling for the machines. It caught their attention long enough to end up being a target for the blast to follow. Then Kau's song to the machines, that was a song to machines elsewhere? They just go along with it. "... Honestly Kau, I'm glad you're on our side.." Arashi feels the same as Kaydon. She tries to shove the remaining Terraformer back with a bit of a blast of air from a sword swing, but it doesn't help much. Thankfully they were all damaged enough that they're able to press on without interference.

    Past the library, the group finds a tunnel. A big tunnel. One that is especially LOUD to boot. There's a reason. A giant drilling machine is just ahead, churning away at the stone. Problem is, a swarm of machines rush out to prevent the stopping of their operation. "Time to stop their little journey to the center of the earth, looks like."

"Everyone should be glad I'm on their side. I would be terrible company otherwise."

Looks like these versions of the Terraformer constructs are actually operational though, with their big excavator device. "You know, despite being the Bard, I'm going to skip the overcompensation jokes or suggestive shapes on this one, for the sake of Arashi's not showing me why I should be glad I didn't fight her in the finales." Instead the Nightmare forms a large orb of darkness and hurtles it down into the chamber. Though the sheer size of it is more than one Nightmare Sphere can entirely engulf.

"I'll get the pilot." Kaydon says, as he eyes the guy on top of the machine. This should be interesting.

He rushes forward and slides under the drill, grabbing a hold of the side of the machine and hauling himself up it.

He has to dodge a few attacks from the pilot, before he dive tackles the guy off the top of the drill, slamming the hidden blade between his ribs and knocking him off the top of it.

He'd figured taking out the pilot would be enough, but it seems the machine has a least some mind of its own. Never the less, he lands strike after strike on it in order to disable it. Who knew it had a self destruct function though!

"Damn. Shame it blew up, we could use one of those.."

Goldenblade finishes the fight against the glitched things, then follows the party further in, past the library, down a tunnel, to a room with a drilling machine. "I could use that," she says. And then there's a fight to stop her from taking the machine for her own purposes. At least that's why /she's/ fighting. Blades out, she runs one across the other, honing each to a gleaming edge. That sharpness buff makes her hits sink deeper into the minions, blades biting into their hulls and frames, each hard blow knocking them back a bit also. She twirls gracefully, avoiding their counterattacks in a way that implies she has eyes in the back of her head, and thrusts deep into the metal hulls, the holes bleeding oil and flame.

"I'm very glad Kau is on my side, but I'm particularly glad I'm on my own side. Just imagine, if I were to be against myself, that would be terrible, not to mention extremely confusing. No, no, good thing I have a solid ally in myself, so with both of our forces combined we can team up and finally get the upper hand on the elusive Girl from the Menu," Uta nods to herself.

It's a blur. Uta darts towards the machines, a rhythmic tap-tap-tap marking her rushed step, and as she's close, she leaps-

Her kick impacts with the full force of her momentum, knocking over one of the drivers. She leaps off in mid air, spins mid-flight, and with her back arched, she impact with both feet to dislodge a different creature. A third, a fourth and a fifth rush over, but they're quickly dispatched by a round of punch, dodge, roundhouse kick, and punch again.

Stance lowered, she catches her breath, one punch kept in front of her face in a guard position as the other is held on her side.

Just as her opponents scramble to stand up again, she narrows her eyes to identify the best moment, and then-

"Rockslide!", she exclaims, followed by a "YAH!" as she PUNCHES the ground as hard as she can.

There is an explosion of stone and dust, and the crater she forms sends cracks all around, which swallow the creatures which were trying to get to her. Not to be seen any time soon.

Still hunched over in that 'punching the ground' position, she finally looks up. "...so, uh, where were the rats?", she asks. "I don't think the Hunter's guild will pay us if I don't bring back proof of having taken care of the rats..."

    "... I won't argue that, but at least your training is effective," which the werefang is about to rediscover rather soon. Arashi's attention turns back to the drilling machine, the sphere smashing into it, Kaydon taking out the pilot, Goldenblade's assault on the machine over all, Uta's rockslide taking care of the majority, there's one thing left to do. "Alright, everyone out," Arashi orders before giving the tunnel one -hell- of a stomp. The resulting, additiona, rockslide ensures the drill machine is buried and probably won't be getting repaired or used again any time soon.

        VICTORY FANFARE. LOOT! EXP! GOLD!

    After checking the menus to see what she got, Arashi blinks over at Uta. "This.. isn't a rat cellar, Uta. It's a different - .. Did you mean to go to - .. " No. stop. Stop. Of course she did. Facepalm. "You really need to ask the party what they're doing before they start or you're going to end up in another server.. ... Again."

Goldenblade looks around for the big bot. "Where'd it go? I could use it as a front-end loader, it would have been great." She looks around but her attention is drawn to a pile of suspiciously front-end-loader-shaped rocks. "Well hrm," she mumbles, then looks around. What's going on now?"

"I don't know," Kauchemar muses. "Maybe we should be concerned with what they're trying to dig to? But I suppose that's a concern for another time, we're not going to find much else down here."