Session 17: Bael's Gate- the 15th of Azuthair

We are on a flying saucer airship thing that is 7 layers large. There are automatons around us that look like flappers and they are dancing. Roaring 20's swing music is playing. . The artillery shells are fired at timed intervals, but staggered. There is a Marionette sticking out of the ground on a track that moves her from place to place.
 
Everytime the music crescendos, that's when the artillery shells fire. It's all in time with the music. The marionette has a butcher knife in her hand which would absolutely decapitate someone if they were standing close.
 
There isn't really a safe place to stand, because these things can switch tracks at any point.
 
There are a set of french doors. Inside, it looks like an explosion happened. It was once a stage. WE can see some of underneath the tracks, and there aint shit down there. How in the world does this thing work?
 
There is a bar tender, and a gambling table with automatons that aren't moving, but they are watching us.
 
Ashe uses her shield to block part of the track. Elias figures out that there are giant metal aparatai that are controlling the automatons.
 
He also sees a strange flash in a hole in the floor and for a moment it looks like our old friend's Bael. While we are examining this, the automatons' start to frown and point little hand canons at us. It's a hatch and we climb down.
 
There are 4 pods down there. WE see our long lost Bael in one of them, and the other 3 pods have robots.
 
His legs seem to have been blown off and replaced with mechanical legs. Same with his left arm and one of his eyes.
 
He doesn't remember much accept a while ago, he was chased by a caravan, he was attacked. He has flashes of a ball with arms. A single eye, and really nice lips. We realize he is describing a Modrin from Mechanis. A modrin has made him this way. We realized that today is the 15th of Azuthaire.
 
In the other pods are robot women things. Different from what we saw upstairs. It doesn't look very human like. One is pink and one is blue and one is green.
 
Bael learns that he can create a fire sword with his hand at wheel.
 
WE find a console connected to the pods and it has a giant crystal ball on it. It has a door behind it.
 
We find an automaton that looks like was used for all of the new parts on Bael. He's also made of a hybrid type of metal with iron and mithril mixed together, and maybe this is why it isn't rusting and what makes it a bit more flexible.
 
We find a wind up mechanism for this guys and wind him up. He comes to life. His name is Upson.
 
He tells us we are in the clockwork palace. We learn the guy who owns this place is from Mechanis, a plan of clockwork wheels and mechanisms. He was different from other automatons. A long time ago, somebody asked him a question that caused him to be able to think freely and not be bound by his masters. So he left and built the clockwork palace as a way to entertain others. He's some kind of great inventor. He invented the Turbo Encapulator. I guess that's what is powering/running this place.
 
The round guy with the lips's name is Jason.
 
He thinks there must be some kind of malfunction if things are turning hostile here.
 
We hoist him into a wheel barrow to try an make Upson a little more portable so he can help us figure out what is going on with this place. It's too difficult so he fashions himself into the wheelbarrow so that he has a wheel for legs so he can move around.
 
He tells us that the lady robots in the other pods don't actually seem like robots. They seem more like empty armor.
 
Ashe tries to finagle the control panel and causes the pink one to explode killing what was a lady inside. The tubes on the blue one falls off. Ashe breaks open the door which everyone else had failed to do and the one in blue is alive, but disoriented. She speaks an old dialect of elvish.
 
We determine that she was friends with the one in pink. She is sad that she is dead. They are warriors that were deployed and then captured. They were deployed 31,296 in the year of Sho. This does not make sense to us. She is from a place called Sho in the year of Sho. Sho is a place on the other continent. It's a legendary city that is believed to have sank to the bottom of the ocean. They were an advanced civilization that kind of disappeared.
 
She tries to break out the green one by summoning a sword from her hand, but she realizes it doesn't work. It's the sword that Bael is now using.
 
We break out the girl in green. She's also sad about her friend in pink.
 
I guess there was a man in a white coat with guns that captured them. He was human. Their swords are missing from their arms. She says something about No sunlight or energy or heat or something.
 
They pull their helmet off and begin taking off their pieces of armor.
 
We look around for anything salvageable but find nothing but old worn warriors armor. We go into the door behind the console and we are in a corridor that leads to all levels and gives access to how everything functions.
 
We climb to the very top and get to a hatch and inside is broken console shit and wires and shit that don't belong and it's just a mess of shit. This must be what is causing everything the malfunction in this place. Possibly done intentionally. There are buttons with lights and they are labeled, but it's in that old elvish language.
 
I guess the girl robot things didn't climb up with us, so we can't ask them. Elias climbed back down and grabbed the one in green so she can maybe help translate some of it.
 
They help us interpret some of the buttons. Elias finds an intercom and calls Jason to central control. So now we wait.
 
After about 5 minutes, someone responds through the intercom asking what we are doing here.
 
whomever the voice is checks on Bael and makes sure he likes his new parts.
 
We get him to stop destroying shit and the whole place goes into power saving mode. We learn he is some kind of scientist. and he spouts some bullshit.
 
Elias then asks what he wants. He wants power, control....and he seems to be doing a good job.
 
We learn that he is going after Root Wallow because a while ago, like a really long time ago, this guy was in a war, and his king wanted this guy to raise a structure he found under the worth. They brought it up, and it was at first a carnival or a thing of delight. They changed it to meet their purposes, which is why it is now murderous. He served King Gobez. He was a king of Great Spear probably over 1000 years ago.
 
the reason this thing is so destructive is because it was all automated and there isn't really a way to turn it off.
 
They've been stuck on this machine deep under the earth. They've been on the surface for on a couple of weeks. He just wants to party now? He is going to transfer his consciousness into Bael...or so he thinks
 
Franz convinces him that we have destroyed the pods and invites this guy to the bar to hang out and party. We realize that he is lieing so hard right now.
 
We learn his current situation is one of struggle. Then we hear a guy name Bob on the line. I guess this guy is living in Bob? Or they are occupying the same space cranially? who fucking knows.
 
HE talks about a crash and he going deep into the earth. Jason was the one who found him. Jason is the man in the white coat. He took over and modified everything and broke everything.
 
Bob tried to throw himself into the turbo encapsulator to destroy himself trying to stop Jason, but he wasn't strong enough. We learn the pods were stolen by Jason from Mindflayers and he modified them for his own purposes.
 
Bob needs see the controls to stop all of this? WE need to put the ship in maintenance mode to turn it off? so I guess we wait for him? He shows up. Bob can't fit in the hatch so Joe and Ashe turn into small rodents to get out of the way. They are on Elias's shoulders.
 
I guess we start hearing things breaking below. The ladder is getting ripped off the wall. Bob converts back to Jason.
 
Jason tries to trick Elias into grabbing a dangerous wire, but it doesn't work. HE then tries to connect physically with Bael so that he can transfer his consciousness into his body. It's a trick and ashe tries to stop it by leaping onto Baels hand and biting him. However, it stops nothing from happening, and I dno't actually know what the outcome was.
 
Anyway, I guess we get him to power everything down actually stoping on the violence, because that's not what had actually happened when it was in power saving mode.
 
Now we are just floating here.
 
WE use a rope to climb down to the level underneath us. Everything starts to tilt a bit, because the power is off, so it's getting off balance.
 
It's going to crash now. But Jason can manually manuever it. I don't know why he is cooperating with us. Elias ties up Jason, but his wings are free so he can fly.
 
Anyway, Ashe transforms back into a rat, hops onto Elias's broom with Joe as well. The robot girls gather some cubes to charge themselves back up. This allows them to fly. One of them grab Bael and fly out with him.
 
WE all fly out. Jason fixes some kind of piston thing to keep the palace from tilting. We are going to have him steer this thing away from the city, and this is where we end.