[ti]quest[/ti]Exploring Sector Jarzick

At the mention of the area map, Josh clicked on the corner of his HUD containing the mini-map; it was the shortcut to pull up the wider area map. All he got was the sound of a buzzer an error message:

Error> Dungeon Map undiscovered.

"When I tried to pull up the area map, I couldn't, either," Josh reported to Altair . "Says it's undiscovered. Wonder if we have to find the map before we can look at it. Sounds closer to Zelda than Eorzea, I'll give you that much." In meatspace, the young man had passing familiarity with XIV, though he couldn't commit to such a game. XIV was one of those games that made one only play it and no other games.

The reflection of the plastic object momentarily blinded Josh. He tilted his head toward Altair 's find, roughly the size of a credit card. "Might not be a bad idea to skim those reports real quick, Sidra ," he called out to his new acquaintance. "Maybe there's a map hidden in one of them if we're lucky, or something," he shrugged before Alicia Westfield 's comment bothered him. "I... never farmed their drops until after the end of the stratum they were on. You're a maniac, you know that?"

They truly were two different types of crazy, weren't they?

With a loud crash that sent large pieces of debris flying toward the party at ludicrous speeds, the enemy that Alicia had prepared for was in front of them, obscured by a large dust cloud in the wake of the displaced stone and metal. All it took was a series of messages at the top of Josh's HUD for him to tense up and call out an alert. "Invasive Species ahead!"

Alert> Invasive Species detected within 100 units. Combat imminent.
Information> Combat mode activated.
Combat Log> Buzzwole readies Power-Up Punch.
Combat Log> Buzzwole's physical attacks improved!

Sidra may have been inclined to skim through the reports in search of a map, if it hadn’t been for the Buzzwole invading their space.

Sidra came to a grinding stop mid motion as she saw this, for lack of a better term, miniboss. And it was at that moment she realized that she definitely wasn’t at the right level for this sort of threat.

But moments later she came to her game-senses. Battle was a part of the game, and so she would have to partake in it. She summoned her FUECOCO onto the field, its huge derpy smile greeting the situation even as it realized what was happening.

“Coco INCINERATE the joints on its arms!” Sidra commanded. Though she did not know if there was critical hits or appendage-disabling mechanics in this game it would surely be worth a try.

Fuecoco was not about to question such a command, and so bellowed fire aimed at the Buzzwole’s arm-joints.


Prompt Used:
- Use Fuecoco in an advantageous way? (Attempts to disable Arm-based attacks from the Buzzwole by damaging its joints?)

Tag: Altair / Josh Devlin / Alicia Westfield

It seemed Altair was afk. For a moment Sidra considered checking up on him, but decided against it as there were more important things to do. Important things such as grabbing the keycard from Altair. Which she did after spamming attempts until the game allowed the action.

With the item in hand she turned to the other people in the group and said. “I’ve got the card. Let’s go test it.” Before she stormed off intent on pushing forward and maybe even finish this before Altair returned from his impromptu AFK’ing.

Prompt Used:
- Use Fuecoco in an advantageous way? (Attempts to disable Arm-based attacks from the Buzzwole by damaging its joints?)

Tag: Altair / Josh Devlin / Alicia Westfield

Cat problems, of course. That would explain why Altair went AFK for so long. It was one of the reasons Josh didn't have pets. They would get into his Magic collection, his rats' nest of cords connecting his extensive retro video game setup... the list went on and on. An outdoor animal, he wouldn't mind so much if he lived out in the country. Imagine being able to ride horseback whenever he wanted. Alas, he lived in the second or third largest city in Illinois - Rockford and Peoria traded places with each other seemingly every census.

"We took care of it while you were gone. Thing was about to take Giyun out," Josh gestured toward the grotesque, muscular insect. And that thing was mountable? How? Where would one even put a saddle? Besides, who would even want to? Xira was going to be loud when she evolved. Those wings had to be deafening.

Looking at their map, it seemed like their exploration had been pretty thorough. "Just two doors left, it seems," Josh noted aloud before heading through a door directly opposite of the locked one. It looked like it was once a data center. An archive, perhaps? With the digital key to the terminal, thanks to Sidra and Alicia Westfield 's fine work, Josh accessed the computer's most recent files. "Hey, come take a look at this," he loudly requested without yelling. Were the others to follow, they, too, would be able to read an ominous log:

---

19:55 11-25-XXXX

Something is wrong. A darkness persists, even after the threat is gone.

Am I being paranoid?

I hear a voice in my sleep. It calls me a killer, and calls itself the judge.

---

Josh's skin tingled upon reading it. "Just what in the Great One's name happened here?" he asked them as yet another deafening whipcrack echoed, making his hair stand on end. "That sounded like thunder, and very near thunder at that. Be ready. I think we're close to the boss."

It wouldn’t take too long before the Rufflet would lead the way over to the door that he’d spotted; squawking noisily all the way.

“Well, talk about luck…” he would trail off as he spun the partially-defaced key card between his fingers.

“If anyone needs to heal the fuck up, go do it now because who knows what’s waiting for us on the other side of the door after I tap this…” he would gesture at the place where the key card would normally be tapped on to gain access.

“Everyone ready?” he would follow up a few moments later before tapping the key card and waiting for what would happen next.

---

• Backtrack and use the keycard to open a security door.

link to roll

Josh Devlin, Alicia Westfield, Sidra