Session 47 - Mechanical Menace

General Summary

45th Amberspell - Contd.

Upon seeing the mechanical hound rising to it's feet and beginning to howl, Ell let out a scream of alarm and over the party link, he shouted, "Metal dogs, big angry metal dogs coming this way." Running past Denye and Ranunkel the young man threw his back against the stone wall and held out both hands, ready to fling Eldritch Blasts at the first metal creature to come into sight. A moment later, the mech bound around the corner as did a second construct.
Ell released both Blasts and they slammed into the creature, but it was not detered. Opening its mouth wide, the rubber tube of a tongue shot out and tried to wrap itself around his legs. The warlock yelped as he was grabbed, but slipped out of it's grip without being knocked prone. The second hound leapt at Denye and would have gotten the Corva wizard, but throwing her claws up quickly a wall of golden wind and force Shielded her from the attack.
Janora was further back in the room and at the mention of hounds pushed their way forward, but with everyone clustered in the narrow halls it was hard to get a good look. Unsure if the Cerberus Cudgle could form a bond with a mechanical dog, the witch began to cast Moonbeam and waited to release it when one of the creatures came into sight. Denye looked at two dogs and pointed past them casting Storm Sphere. As the magical winds began to rage, the constructs struggled to retain their footing and a moment later a bolt of lighting shot out of the center of the storm and hit the hound that had tried to attack the wizard. As it did so, the wizard vanished from sight. Over the link Denye shouted, "Jilken, I can't hold them forever."
Dropping a shield of invisibility, a large clockwork mantis appeared behind Vellikar and took to swipes at the firbolg druid with its scythe-like forearms. The first strike was short, but the creature's second attack sliced into his left thigh. At the same time Ranunkel rushed forward and WildShaped into his elemental form, pushing Denye back as he did so. Rocknunkel brought two huge fists down onto the head of one of the hounds. 
Jilken, shaking her head as the large elemental blocked off the hounds, spun around the corner and fired the heavy crossbow. The bolt jammed in the mechanism and with a grunt of annoyance, she dropped it in favor of the Rainbow Reaper. The second bolt struck home and there were sparks from the mechanical insect. Grumbling, she grabbed the heavy crossbow once more before clearing and recocking the bow. 
Vellikar after being slashed at and having a arrow shot past his head, ducked around the corner. As he did so he cast Aura of Vitality and green motes of light sparkled in the air before surrounding Jilken in a rush of healing. Tear of Midnight Sorrow ran towards where he heard Ell scream, pulling out his alchemical lantern as he did so. The goblin warrior stopped short when confronted with the moving mountain of stone and simply held the lantern out in case one of the hounds broke free.
Ell, having had a moment to recover, and feeling a bit braver with Ranunkel's large form blocking the constructs, crouched down and fired off two Eldritch Blasts at one of the hounds. With clockwork like tenacity, the two hounds leapt at Ranunkel, trying to bite him. The dwarven elemental pulled his arm out of the way to dodge one bite, but the second hounds got it's teeth around a leg and pulled free a large chunk of stone.
Janora backed further up in along the southern corridor and peaking around the corner spotted a third hound struggling to get across the swirling storms of Denye's spell. Pointing a finger in that direction, the witch uttered a string of words in a guttural tongue and a Vitriolic Sphere of acid joined the pummeling winds of the storm. As they did so, Janora's form shifted into the form of a potted plant. 
Denye called out a warning to the party to cover their ears, but no one could hear her while invisible. Pointing at the large clockwork mantis, Denye cast Shatter and popped back into sight. The spell was highly effective on the construct and it shook itself violently as it's gears ground against one another. In response the mantis turned invisible and backed away. At the same time, another mantis popped into view next to Jilken, Tear, and Denye. With a shout, Tear threw a glob of alchemical fire on the creature. It didn't seem to notice and lashed out at Jilken twice. As Jilken responded with a bolt of lightning, the mantis turned it's head and got a solid bite along one of Tear's ears almost ripping it free.
Ranunkel continued his assault and slammed fists into both of the dogs. One of the dogs collapsed and lay twitching while the other shook it's head and growled at Ranunkel. Vellikar took a deep breath and WildShaped into a dogmole before recognizing the invisible mantis's footsteps with his new tremor sense. Frightened of this large creature, Tear darted between Ranunkel and Ell to cower behind his friends.
Ell fired two more Eldritch Blasts between Ranunkel's legs. The first one hit, but the second missed as the hound leapt for Ranunkel and took a solid bite out his bicep. The other mechanical dog escaped the sphere and began sniffing around plant Janora as a forth dog rounded the corner. A second later there was a pop of sound and Janora returned to their natural form. Turning to look at the new hounds, Janora lifted their hands and palms out cast Burning Hands as the metal frames of both dogs began to glow red in the heat. 
Denye scrabbled at her pack and pulled out the force pistol, aiming at the large construct looming over her, but when she pressed the device, nothing happened. Grumbling she began to look it over and with a distracted flick of a claw, sent a bolt of lighting out of the storm sphere. The sparking electricity shot just past Janora's nose and hit the new construct.  
Sensing Jilken as the larger threat, the mantis took two swipes at the Aiel fighter. She managed to duck both and responded by jamming the lightning spear into the construct twice as Ranunkel finished off the second hound. The power core of the that hound ended up being heavily damaged and exploded sending fire into the elemental's face. Vellikar continued to chase the invisible mantis and brought his claws down in a vicious swipe that forced the mech back into visibility. He attempted to go for a bite as well, but the construct skittered out fo the way. At the same time, Tear pushed up past Ell and sent another glob of Alchemical Fire at the nearer mantis. Unfortunately it didn't have quite enough force and landed on the ground between Jilken and Denye before going up in a quick blaze.
Ell sent two more Eldritch Blasts at the mantis. The first struck it in the head, but the second went wide, striking the nearby ceiling. Meanwhile the two mechanical dogs tried to attack Janora. Both threw out their tongues, trying to pull the witch from their feet, but Janora dodged one of the attacks and resisted the pull of the other. Frustrated and upset about having to hurt dogs, the witch cast Shillelagh causing their cudgel to grow even larger before they slammed it into the side of one of the constructs.
Denye took a moment to center herself before holding out the force pistol once more. This time it did fire, but sadly it went wide and stuck the ceiling above the creature. Muttering to herself, Denye sent another bolt of lightning to slam into one of the mechanical hounds. The mantises screamed in unison before one attacked Vellikar as the other went for Jilken. Both party members dodged one of the blows, but also took heavy slashes from the blade-like forearms, with Jilken sending another bolt of lightning into the construct that hit her.
Turning from the wreckage of the hounds, Ranunkel spotted the mantis behind him. With a deep rumble of anger he charged forward, pushing his friends out of the way and brought two solid fists down, slamming the mantis to the ground, where it stopped moving. With that threat eliminated, Jilken turned to the other mantis and fired two shots. The second shattered the crystal of an eye and slammed into the skull as the construct froze in place and stopped moving. 
The two constructs hounding Jilken attempted to trip the witch once more. The first one managed to wrap it's tongue around an arm trigger an explosion of ice that dropped the hound, which then exploded. The other hound tried as well, but was distracted by the fire. Denye scooted past Ranunkel and forced her way into her own storm to get around the corner to fire another shot at the final hound. It hit the creature and threw it up against the wall before it landed on it's feet. She tried to follow it up with another lightening strike, but her aim was off and she almost hit Janora, but the witch dodged out of the way at the last moment.
Ranunkel looked around, but not seeing any threats, slammed both fists into one of the side walls, revealing a small dark space beyond. Jilken looked at Ranunkel oddly before leaping over the dead mantis and rushing down toward Janora. Two crossbow shots later and the hound dropped to the ground unmoving. Looking around Jilken called, "What the hell are these things?"
As the dust settled, and no more of the creatures appeared, Denye began pulling the hounds apart, sketching designs and trying to understand how they functioned. She was able to recover one of the power cells from a mantis, but as the magic has begun to fade it was difficult to identify the spells that gave them purpose. Jilken came over and started looking them over in case there were gems or other valuables. Unfortunately there wasn't much left but scrap metal and Jilken gave up thinking about how hard it would be to bring all of that back up to the surface.
While they were occupied with that, Ell came over to the hole that Ranunkel had knocked into the wall and examined the cavity beyond. It was dark and dusty, but didn't seem to contain much of interest. Giving up, Ell suggested that the party continued to explore the maze. Ranunkel took a moment to try to sense any more of the constructs moving around, but could not sense any further movement. 
The party spent another hour or so exploring the maze, and while there were no more constructs, Denye did find a large adamantine vault door with two large key holes and a large spinning wheel. Over the link, she called, "I think I found where those keys fit." The others made their way down and Janora pulled out the key they found and compared it to Denye's. They looked like a matched set and seemed to be an appropriate size for the presented keyholes.  
Janora took a moment to send their barghast spirit out to look for traps. The door was too thick to get a feel for anything beyond it. The spirit did report some sort of magical trap within the locks themselves, but the keys hummed with a similar power and the witch surmised that the trap was for anyone picking the lock. Thus assured, Denye and Janora inserted the keys and with a short countdown turned the keys in unison. There was a loud click inside the door. 
Janora pushed on the door but it did not budge. After a moment's thought, they grabbed the wheel and gave it several spins before pulling on it. The door swung ponderously open, revealing a vault chamber beyond.  Directly across from the door sat a large throne built of bone and leather holding two small ragdolls. The chair was  flanked on one side with a suit of red plate mail and on the other side a table holding several curiosities. Two tall stone braziers stood in the corners nearest the door alight with dancing green flames and a large purple crystal was embedded in the wall over the throne.    Before anyone had a chance to move Janora warned, "If anyone touches those dolls I will personally skin you." 
Denye turned to look at Ell and the young man had the grace to look sheepish and shoved his hands into his pockets. "Ell," she began, "touch nothing until we've had a chance to catalog and examine everything."
"But there are chests!" protested Ell.
Denye clicked her beak, "And once we're sure they are safe, you can open them, but give us a chance to make sure things are safe first."
"I dunno," teased Jilken, "that gem is just sitting there waiting to be taken."
Janora gave Jilken a glare, but asked, "Anybody else tired?" When the others agreed, they suggested, "This looks fairly secure, I could cast Tiny Hut and we can take our time looking at these things."
While the others were checking that the door could be opened from the inside and getting everyone in the chamber, Denye sat down and ritually cast Detect Magic. As the spell took hold, the entire room lit up with magic. Black mist drifted out of the purple crystal and wrapped itself around Denye and as the others watched the Corva's feet and legs began to turn to porcelain. Janora quickly cast Counterspell, but it didn't seem to have an effect. Denye thinking quickly cast Dispel Magic...that did break the magic.
In a panic, Jilken fired off two crossbow bolts at the crystal. It shattered the crystal and the black mist roiled out, filling the chamber and wrapping itself around the entire party. Denye quickly cast Dispel Magic on herself again with a sigh, Janora did the same and they started uncursing the other party members. In the end, they were able to save everyone except for Ranunkel.
Ell and Tear backed out into the hall, scared now of what the room contained. All three spell casters were out of spell slots that could restore the dwarf, but with a sigh Denye suggested, "If I can take an hour I should be able to gather enough arcane energy to get back enough energy to cure him, but then I HAVE to sleep."
Janora nodded, "That's probably safer than what I was planning." With that Denye dropped down to the floor and propping her back against the wall began to mediate. Shortly before she finished, the porcelain statue of Ranunkel melted away and the dwarf was back, blinking owlishly.
When she came out her trance, Denye looked surprised but shrugged, "We didn't know it was going to do that...but now can we just sleep?"
Janora nodded, "Absolutely, but I think I may be with Ell now, let's find a hallway or dead-end where we can set up the Hut." At that point, Ell and Tear wandered back and reported that they had found what appeared to be a hidden door, but agreed that it would wait until tomorrow. Finding someplace where the wall curled around, the witch ritually cast Tiny Hut and the party took a long rest.

1st Harvest

The next morning as the magical dome vanished, the party began to contemplate next steps. Ell looked much better and asked excitedly, "Now can I open those chests?"
"Nooo," said Janora exasperated, "we still need to make sure it's safe.  In fact, maybe just Denye and I should go back into that vault while the rest of you go look at the hidden door."
Denye sighed, "I don't know. I'm pretty sure that if we deny Ell the joy of picking those locks, he'll only get us into some worse trouble." 
Janora glared at the young man, but didn't protest when Denye handed one of the chests over. Ell excitedly pulled out his lockpicks and had the chest open in moments, finding 20 platinum bars. The second chest was not more of a challenge and contained 20 gold bars. 
While he was occupied, Janora cautiously cast Detect Magic and the entire room lit up with magic. Because of the overall glare it required focus to look at the various objects. Both of the braziers glowed with evocation magic and the suit of armor shone with abjuration magic. Strangely, neither the dolls or the throne seemed to have any sort of magical aura. Examining the table, a small vial of silvered mist glowed with transmutation magic. Janora picked it up and while it looks familiar, they weren't quite sure what it did and slipped it into a pocket.
The twisted black metal candlestick wasn't magical, but Janroa handed it to Ell saying, "You could probably sell this. It's gods-awful, but someone with more money than sense would probably like it."
Denye has been examining the braziers and determined that they were enchanted with a Continual Flame. Satisfied she moved on the armor as Janora stepped up as well. On close examination, it wasn't truly red metal, but rather a set of enameled plate, complete with a subtle flame pattern. 
"Can any of us even wear this," asked Janora, "or even carry it out of here? I assume we'd like to at least recover this...it ought to worth something."
"I can't wear it," said Vellikar, "but I can carry it if we need to." 
That seemed like the best idea and Janora quickly stripped the stand and handed it over to Jilken who bundled up the armor and helped Vellikar strap it to his pack. Vellikar also took the large white fur, wrapping it around himself. Denye and Janora took a few more minutes to examine the ragdolls, but in the end chose to leave them behind.
Ell led the team up to the alcove where he had spotted the hidden door. Pointing it out he suggested, "Ranunkel, I think this might be your specialty." The stout dwarf came up and spent some time examining the wall. It took almost ten minutes, but in the end he found the catch and the door swung open, revealing a long passage beyond with a spiral staircase at the far end.
"That weird," Ranunkel said, "Somebody put a hallway and a weird set of stairs behind this wall."
Ell poked his head in before asking, "Denye, do you think Helenwye could scout a bit for us?" 
In response, the small tree lizard leapt off the wizard's shoulder and flew down to the far end. Denye, looking through her eyes reported, "The stairs go both up and down. I don't want to send her to a different floor without us."
"That's fair," Ell agreed, "let's check what's down before we go up." That seemed like a good plan and spending some time exploring found two more secret doors that opened up onto the first and second floor. Satisfied that there were no secret rooms, but a little annoyed that they had missed the doors in the halls, the party headed up to the fourth floor. The stairs opened to a short passage that turned a corner revealing a large open room with a small alcove on the far side blocked by a pair of sliding doors.
Ell stepped into the room to look around and caught the flicker of color as he broke some sort of thin beam of light. Before he had a chance to say anything a cloud of necrotic energy exploded, catching the entire party. As they all gasped and looked around in surprise, the barghast spirit reported that the entire room was crisscrossed with beams of light and Ell had broken one. When he did, all of the others blinked out, but the magic remained and would likely return after a short interval.
Janora warned the others of this and everyone rushed across, crowding themselves into the alcove. The door remained firmly closed, but Denye easily spotted a small control crystal screen complete with keycard slot. The wizard slid the card in and the screen lit up requesting a six letter passphrase. Denye quickly realized it was the name they had seen painted on the wall. Typing it in quickly, the screen flashed green and the doors slid open revealing another elevator chamber.
The party filed in and looked around carefully, but it looked much like the other chambers they had seen, but with a solid ceiling. The team didn't spend a lot of time in this chamber, spotting an open passage in the southern wall. Denye approached cautiously, wary of more lasers as dim light flickered along the walls. The walls were covered in a swirling mural of colors and here the floor was covered with a dark blue carpet as well as a variety of strange piles. They appeared to be sorted, a pile of iron pieces here, a pile of bones there, chairs, both broken and whole stacked up in the corner.  
As the party entered and made their way deeper into the room, it opened into another large room. The murals on the walls and the strange piles continued, but there were also several half-finished constructs as well as two large metal towers that dominated the room. Several bookshelves and cabinets stood against the northern wall and a third along the eastern. This eastern set of shelves were semi-translucent and immediately attracted the attention of the party.
Denye also noticed that there was another large circular hole in the ceiling and pointed it out. Ell was confused as to how there wasn't water pouring in. As an experiment, Denye picked up a piece of strap metal and tossed it up into the hole. It disappeared into the clearly magical darkness before falling to back into the room and clattering onto the floor.
She was distracted when Ranunkel called, "I found a bell, is this what you guys are looking for?" As the others rushed over to examine it, it was clear that this was indeed the Binder. The mahogany handle crawled with the marks of the Writ and a phrase of Celestial carved into the handle. Ell came over and translated it as, "Redanar restrains." Janora recognized it as the Shiner Redanar, daughter of Kal'enel.
As the group spoke and pondered how it might be trapped, they were startled as a large metallic orb with a large eye in a lense at the front, descended from the ceiling, screaming "Thieves, thieves from beyond the world! Who had dared to try to steal the Binder from Davrox the Triumvirate?”

Report Date

22 Apr 2022