Post by hubertbartels on Aug 26, 2018 14:56:03 GMT -5
The party descended down the spiral stairs, escorted by the pair of Robotic Apprentices. They went a long way before exiting to a tunnel system. Unlike the tower, the tunnels were made of smooth stone, featureless other the odd door and alcoves which had continual light sources behind steel screens
Wordlessly, the two robotic apprentices brought the party down the tunnels to a door marked ‘Furnace Room’. Looking inside, the party saw a large room, filled with pipes and machinery. In the center of the room, a strange machine of metal and crystal roared in a cacophonous drone. Plumes of smoke and steam rose from a vast array of tubes and pipes.
At the only other way out of the Furnace Room, a heavy metal door with four complex nanite locks and labeled ‘Laboratory 0: Mnemotechnic Recovery – Authorized Personnel Only’, the lead robot apprentice pressed a button on a speaker device. He mentioned that they had captured prisoners in the tower and requested that Master Xoud give them further orders.
There was no answer – Furkas Xoud’s ghost had been destroyed in the tower above and it would take days for him to re-manifest. The robotic apprentices gave every indication that they would wait.
The party didn’t wait. Speaking telepathically among themselves, they agreed to destroy their escorts. Astrovel opened up with a lighting bolt and the party swung into action.
In examining the furnace room further, they discovered a woman’s corpse sitting at a control desk, her lab coat showing that she had been Genisette Farvasation, lead researcher for Infernal Cloud Research. Her hand was still on a binder marked, “Maintenance Manual – Smoke Furnace”, open to the page “Shutdown Procedures”. She apparently died from injuries before she could begin shutting down the furnace.
The party decided to undertake the shutdown procedure themselves. To do so, they would need to turn off the furnace and then, shut down four more fail safes in the tunnels to keep the furnace from restarting,
The first fail safe was on the back wall of the summoning chamber. The chamber was not empty – a nasty leukodaemon was trapped inside a magical circle since Master Xoud died seven years ago. Astrovel gave the daemon a choice – to be banished back to the Abyss or stay trapped here. The daemon chose banishment. Then the party switched off the first fail safe.
The second fail safe was on a balcony in the Wind Tunnel. 3 Belkers were here, playing in the wind from the giant fan. Astrovel was able to enter the room, use magic to turn off the fail safe and retreat before the evil elementals could react.
The third fail safe was behind the altar in a shrine to Zyphus. The party had to fight two Deathtrap Oozes but they were able to defeat them, avoid their trap and switch off the fail safe.
The final fail safe was in a corridor connecting a number of prison cells. Astrovel switched off the fail safe before discovering the third cell was occupied. A swarm of worms gathered themselves off the floor and formed into the shape of a man, He called himself Nargin Haruvex and asked the party to let him out. He mentioned that he was up at the Worldwound, fighting the demons and was killed. When he woke up, he had been transformed in a swarm of worms that could take on the shape of a man. Then Furkas Xoud found him and imprisoned him for further study.
Eramus didn’t quite believe his story. After a short discussion, it was decided to leave him in the cell. As the party left the cell area, they heard Haruvex cursing and swearing at them.
Back in the Smoke Furnace Room, the party finished the shutdown procedure. The machine subsided into quiet, broken by the sounds of metal cooling. Then the party turned their attention to Laboratory Zero. Although the door would be hard to crack, Astrovel remembered that they had collected nanite cocoons throughout the tower. Applying a cocoon to each lock turned each complex lock into a grey dust.
Stepping into Laboratory Zero, the party found another robotic apprentice holding a tray of tools and instruments. On a table lay the body of an android woman, her skull opened up and her brain exposed.
At the foot of the table lay the body of Furkas Xoud, killed trying to probe further into Cassandalee’s brain. Then around a corner came a thought harvester robot. Its metallic tentacles, tipped with nanite extractors, reached for Astrovel’s head.
Erasmus quickly charmed the robotic apprentice, keeping it out of the fight. Obin and Istovar beat down the thought harvester robot. When the robot stopped moving, Astrovel studied the robotic apprentice before switching the device off.
On the robotic apprentice’s tray, the party found a vocal transcriber, recording everything that had happened and printing it out. Scrolling the paper back a bit, they found Furkas Xoud using ‘Speak with Dead’ on Cassandalee’s body and her answers.
From the transcription, they learned that Cassandalee had recorded her mind, memories and thoughts on a ‘Neurocam’ which she had left in a cave in Y-shaped valley, many days north of the wreck where she was killed. She fled Silver Mount because she become aware of Unity – the A.I. within the Silver Mount – and its plans. Although trapped within Silver Mount and ruling as a god inside, it wants more – it wants to escape and rule everything.
Leaving the tunnel system by the way of the escape tunnel, the party returned to Longdreamer’s cave for a night of rest and recovery. In the morning, the huge moth of Desna brought the party to just outside of Iadenveigh. In that rural community, in the High House, they reported their experiences to the Deadeye Council. Then they prepared for the next part of their journey.