Gideon's Crucible

The antechamber presented us with 3 doors, 1 huge in the middle, immediately inoperable, and 2 smaller flanking it on either side. The first of which Darren opened, sent a swift back-draft nearly catching Reno and myself off guard, and led to a rotating lever which one or more of us would have to turn, possibly to reduce the temp to an agreeable level in the next room. The other door I opened cautiously while taking cover to one side, held 2 turrets shooting quick drying goo, pinning anything hit to the ground. They appeared to trace movement, explaining Reno's sudden self paralysis. We split our efforts here with Jeeng, Penelope, and Darren trying to pull the lever in the heated room with a make-shift bear trap rope hook while I ventured cautiously past the turrets. I managed to make it to one but was hit with acidic goo by the other. Justine's canon managed to destroy one just as I figured out how to dispel the sensors on the other, giving her safe passage to the lever mirroring the other room's. As the acid ate away me, I tried to figure out how to dissolve it as Justine tried in vain to turn the lever. Eventually I was able to pull myself free of the floor then she decided to try mayo, produced from her alchemic jars, which prevented me from re-sticking to anything but still did not dissolve the acidic glue. Eventually the others turned their lever in the oven room by using bear traps and rope and came to check on us. Penny investigated the glue further to find, as befitting the theme of this temple, the glue could be melted by extreme heat, thus I found the conviction to heat my metal self, while Penny and Justine carefully scrapped the glue off. Penny also enlarged me to help us turn the wheel. After that we all regrouped and pressed on to a large central chamber filled with more boiling liquid and covered in a mysterious metal alloy. Some precarious platforms formed a narrow bridge to the center where another larger wheel lever which remained immovable at least until we could turn more small levers in the halls flanking this central room. The room to the left presented mechanical arms which tried to pull us into burning pools, however luckily Penny's water walk prevented them from pulling us completely under. Darren was the first to cross the hall and turned the lever with Penny's aid while the rest of us disarmed the arms. We then ventured toward the right hall which held exploding frogs also housed in a boiling pool which concealed them. Reno took the brunt of the first of these explosions but managed to artfully dodge most of its damage. We also learned not long into the fight that when charged with heat from the pools, they took less cold damage which we thought might be their weakness, but their explosion attack left them normally vulnerable. Darren tried blinding them with his dark veil but they still managed to block him from turning the wheel. As we had the frogs on the ropes, they took one last swim and I took that opportunity to dash over to the wheel. They leapt out for one final explosive barrage which did burn a bit but the others pulverized them afterwards as I turned the lever. We returned to find this unlocked the middle upper door from the central chamber and proceeded to find a blinding light. a glowing projection of Gideon, master architect of this temple who, mocked us before collapsing the other bridges from the central platform forcing us to run forward to face his ultimate creation, designed and programmed according to the data this place had collected from us thus far. The automaton ambushed us with its thousand arms slap to commence the battle. Throughout the fight some of those arms fired off becoming boombots which in turn pursued and detonated toward the end of the fight. The big boss also threatened to explode in our faces but Penny's summoned dragon dealt the final blow before it could. After we felled our foe, Reno led us into Gideon's private lab where we found lots of boobytrapped loot. Justine and Jeeng managed to dodge one room's mechanism but Darren triggered a radiant canon across the way which shot a beam straight through all 3 of them. I only managed to heal Darren before we proceeded to the last chamber which Reno warned would self destruct as soon as we opened the door so we all prepared to grab what we could. Based on the other loot being in chests, I thought to animate any others found within and successfully commanded 4 to fly out before the acid could dissolve them. Penelope grabbed a shelf full of books and Jeeng stuffed a petrified elf monk into the portable hole before grabbing a necrotic gem as well. Penny thought she could salvage the other melted bookcase and so sent her dragon in once more only to have it suffer the acid damage for a puddle of goo, but thanks to Justine, it escaped barely alive. Darren took one last look before Reno shut the door on the now melted room.