Sunny

Sunny the hamster (left) and his Gundam (right)

Sunny's cover story was that he was a warforged hailing from a distant empire home to both warforged like himself and others. His mission is to find his brother, Haz, and bring him home to be tried for the crime of murder. Failing that, it is his responsibility to put an end to Haz and ensure his brother hurts no one else. Sunny has stated that he is a member of his nation's military, though it is unclear whether his pursuit of Haz is a military mission or a task he took up personally. He often laments how technologically inferior and uneducated everyone else is "out in the sticks", by which he means anywhere that's not his home empire.
While Sunny did hail from a militaristic empire, the truth of the matter is that he was not a warforged. Rather, he was a miniature giant space hamster piloting a humanoid-sized magitek suit called a Gundam. After his Gundam unit, Stealth Unit Nine, was critically damaged in battle by a waterkledde & self-destructed, Sunny was forced to emergency eject and evacuate using his bit drone. He made his way back towards the surface until he was close enough to request an emergency teleport from the Miniature Giant Space Hamster Empire, where he could receive medical care for his lost leg and faerzress radiation poisoning.
Table of Contents

Pre-Campaign

Sunny (derived from S.U.N., Stealth Unit Nu) is a warforged that, like most warforged on Nexus, was created accidentally by a wizard. He was one of the rare constructs that achieved sentience during his "birth", becoming something in-between a partner and son to his creator. His situation was not unique either; two other constructs, Ban and Haz, also achieved sentience around the same time. The trio "grew up" together and quickly came to view each other as brothers under their creator's tutelage.
But the means by which a construct may achieve sentience is not fully understood and imperfect. Unbeknownst to any of them, something went wrong during Haz's creation. One day, with little to no warning, he simply snapped. Haz murdered his father and ran off into the night, Sunny and Ban not discovering their maker's body until the next morning. The evidence was plenty and there was only one logical conclusion for what had happened. Though they knew not why Haz had done what he had done, the two remaining brothers resolved to track him down and bring him to justice.
It was this journey that brought Sunny to Haven City. He and Ban knew that Haz was somewhere in the general area. While Ban went to check out another city nearby, Sunny heard a rumor that a warforged fitting Haz's description had been spotted somewhere in Haven City. It wasn't long before he learned about the upcoming Underdark expedition that was the talk of the town. Something about this expedition sounded important to Sunny, though he couldn't peg down exactly what. He went to the Tower Library to read up on the Underdark and it was here he learned about the properties of faerzress. This magic-dampening substance that permeated the Underdark sounded perfect for someone looking to hide. Someone like Haz. Sunny became convinced that Haz must have fled down there somewhere while becoming equally determined to join this expedition and find his brother.

Welcome to Haven City Arc

Week Five

Introducing Sunny

Sunny managed to locate Ernest Thaig, one of the dwarven brothers running the expedition he wished to join around the time the adventurers Ernest had already recruited were battling ghosts. Sunny explained his wish to come on the expedition and demonstrated his ability to both create and repair equipment with little more than a few raw materials. Impressed and seeing how useful this could be on the expedition, Ernest extended him the same partnership offer he'd made to the other adventurers and took him to meet the others at the GnoName Tavern.
The pair arrived to find Elycia Mirais, Jake F. Statefarm, and Leh'ct waiting for them. Ernest inquired about the whereabouts of the other two adventurers, "K" the Bugbear and Vinnie Vice, only to learn that Vinnie had been killed. The dwarf seemed sad to learn this, ordering a bottle of good alcohol so that those that remained could toast their fallen comrade.
Attempting to lighten the mood, Sunny introduced himself to his future companions and explained some of his skills to them. His speech was a little odd as he spoke, marred with the occasional inconsistency and mention of "the empire". Despite his quirks (and due to their mourning), the group accepted him with little question. He got along with Jake a bit better than the other two and the pair spent the next few nights at the GnoName Tavern trying to find out who was better at darts.

Flight from Haven City

As they were getting ready for another round of darts, Sunny and Jake heard a commotion outside. People were gathering and pointing towards a glow in the distance, which they recognized as the sign of a fire lighting up the night. They decided to investigate and arrived at a burning orphanarium just as Leh’ct and the bucket brigade finished putting out the fire. Leh’ct told them about everything that had happened to him that night; how he'd been brought before Marchioness Eve and that she had carried out her threat to burn the orphanarium when he refused to meet her demands. Alarmed, the rest of the group realized needed to get somewhere the Crows weren't likely to find them and they needed to do it fast. They decided to head for the Thaig brothers warehouse, thinking their usual haunts were all likely being monitored.
Sunny flew up and tied a rope on a chimney so the rest of the party could get on the rooftops to avoid patrols of Crow thugs searching the streets. Unfortunately, they forgot to pull up the rope and it was noticed by a patrol that quickly spotted the party and blew a whistle. Leh’ct used his drow magic to conceal the party in an orb of magical darkness, only for his magic to be quickly undone by Marchioness Eve when she arrived on the scene with Verto.
The party fled while taking potshots at the two Crow leaders, Sunny using his custom-made firearm and bit drone to shoot bolts of lightning at the approaching criminals. He also made sure to secure a rope for his companions to cross, but wasn't willing to stick around and risk his life on behalf of people he'd only known for days. Sunny was the first among the adventurers to retreat, and subsequently the only one not injured by Eve and Verto before the group continued fleeing.
With everyone (save Sunny) now moderately to severely injured, the party had to rely on stealth to make it the rest of the way to the warehouse. Leh’ct and Jake saved the party from certain death when they spotted the figures of Olympius and Madame Odius moving across the rooftops. They were able to go around them when they stopped to talk to street patrols.
A block from the warehouse, Leh’ct's sharp ears stopped the party from walking right into an ambush as he was about to go up onto another roof. The Crows in this area had made sure the streets were lit and hid waiting on the dark rooftops, knowing the party had a habit of hiding high in the shadows. Sunny was able to use his bit drone as a distraction that lured Calindor and Rin Shi away, letting the party slip by them and make it to the warehouse without further casualties.
Unsure the warehouse was safe, Leh’ct peeked his head inside and a thrown dagger stabbed into the door just above his head as Itassis nearly took him for a Crow. The group came inside quickly and Leh’ct told the story of his encounter with Marchioness Eve. While Bertrand, Ernest, and Villamax stared at him open mouthed, Itassis just said, "Wow." Then she took a flask out from under her cloak and took a rather long drink from it.
While Leh’ct tried to stave off a full emotional breakdown, the rest of the group started to make plans. While Bertrand wasn't happy about the heat the party had brought on himself and the others, they'd already made a deal with him and he felt obligated to honor their contract. Villamax chimed in stating he could get them out of the city but that they'd have to leave the pack mules and take only what they can carry. Everyone grabbed what they could and stood together as Villamax cast a teleport spell that took them to the meet-up point where they could wait for Ernest's contact who would lead them to the Underdark.

Journey Into the Underdark Arc

Entering the Underdark

Villamax Introduces Himself

Sunny was awoken from his shutdown mode by Villamax, who wanted to speak with him. The wizard informed Sunny of his arrangement with the other adventurers to have first claim on any historical documents or other pertinent artifacts found during the expedition. Sunny likewise told Villamax about his search for his brother and the pair agreed to each keep their eyes and ears open for the information the other person was seeking.
Sunny said various strange things throughout the conversation, talking about an empire and how his people were the best engineers anywhere. He also claimed to be a member of his people's police, something between special forces and a detective. Some of these things struck Villamax as quite odd, though the wizard seemed uncertain whether Sunny was terrible at keeping secrets or just had a few crossed wires.

Down Into the Dark

After Ernest's contact arrived and provided the dwarf with a map, the group headed for the cave marked on it. Sunny lit a torch to see as he entered the cave, sending his bit drone ahead of the group and readying himself to shoot anything that attacked it. The cave turned to a tunnel that sloped down gradually before opening into a chamber with a pit. Walkways lined the interior edges of the pit, slowly spiraling down. As the adventurers were moving ahead, Ernest called them back for a moment.
The group was concerned the Crows may be following them and Villamax suggested using a controlled demolition to collapse the entrance behind them. He seemed confident that he could do this in a way that would make the rockslide appear natural, and that he could unseal the entrance should they need to leave the Underdark via this route later. While they did that, Sunny and his partners would scout ahead for any potential dangers.
Sunny and his bit drone flew down the hole ahead of the others, pausing when they spotted something off to the side. They found an old fountain partway down, water fouled by an ancient corpse half-submerged in. This was the only sign of passage as they reached the bottom of the chasm, with no other indication that any people, animals, or other creatures had been here, at least not recently. Moving forward into branching tunnels, this changed when they heard the sound of charging footsteps and a group of grimlocks came running around the corner. Despite the party's attempts to hide, they spotted Sunny, Elycia and Leh'ct. After a quick exchange amongst themselves in Undercommon, the grimlocks attacked.

First Battle in the Underdark

Most of the adventurers proved to move swifter than their adversaries with Elycia, Jake, and Leh’ct felling nearly half the grimlocks before the primitive humanoids could attack. Two of the survivors moved to attack Sunny, though their primitive bone clubs were no match for his state-of-the-art armor. As the adventurers struck down all the grimlocks save one, what looked like an armadillo the size of a large horse rounded the corner. This prompted the one surviving grimlock to flee, which gave Elycia an opportunity to finish him off.
The armadillo-creature moved into the cave, gobbling up the grimlock corpses one-by-one (though avoiding the ones under the effect of a faerie fire spell Leh’ct had cast). Despite most of its focus being on the corpses, the adventurers did notice it eyeing Elycia when she moved. Sunny decided that this creature qualified as a threat they should clear out, shooting it with lightning from his firearm and prompting his fellow adventurers to attack as well. As they peppered it with ranged attacks, the creature focused on the one who'd dealt it the most serious injury, Jake, and curled up in a ball before rolling towards him.
While Jake was dodging the armadillo-creature, Sunny and hit bit drone continued to fire at it but it proved too fast for them to accurately hit in its rolled up form, at least at first. As the others fought it, Sunny studied the creature to gauge its movements and defensive capabilities as another round of shots bounced harmlessly off its hard carapace. When it eventually rolled into a ball again, Sunny saw his chance. His analysis of its movements allowed him to fire a shot just as it started to uncurl, aiming right between the opening in its armor and delivering a killing blow to the beast. As it died and its corpse started to dissolve, a little goblin who'd run up from somewhere held up an object and chains shot forward to bind the cadaver, which stopped dissolving.

Gobo Introduces Himself

The funny little goblin, standing near where the armadillo-creature fell, congratulated the party for killing an OoPA and commented he'd never seen one that looked like this before. They inquired who he was and the goblin introduced himself as Gobo the Traveling Merchant and the flumph with him as his partner Knick-Knack. According to Gobo, they traveled around to bring wares and services to the good peoples of the Underdark. And to the bad peoples, they brought bloody vengeance to anyone foolish enough to try and mess with them.
Gobo next explained that the creature they'd just killed was called an OoPA (Out of Place Animal). They were strange, otherworldly creatures that had been wandering the Underdark as of late. Normally, they disappear completely shortly after being killed. But Gobo had invented a special knife using "ancient goblin secrets" that could bind their bodies to this plane and allow pieces to be cut off to make magic items, at least temporarily. Offering a demonstration, Gobo handed the knife to Jake and used the pieces he removed to make several magical trinkets the adventurers could use to enhance their armor and weapons.
This was not the only service Gobo offered either; he claimed he could make full-fledged magic items from creatures native to the Underdark as well. Gobo also sold general adventuring gear, including unique magical mushrooms he claimed to grow himself that the adventurers wouldn't find anywhere else, and would buy things the party had but didn't want. While they were browsing his goods, Knick-Knack started to whisper something to Gobo and the goblin proudly declared he had an idea. Seeing as he was more of a merchant than a monster hunter, he'd give them his magic knife and could make more magic trinkets whenever they bumped into each other. For a small, perfectly reasonable fee, of course.
He also provided the party with a Bag of Colding, giving it to Sunny, to keep any monster parts unspoiled until they ran into him next. The party purchased several of his Elemental Shrooms (namely Toxic Shrooms with poison resistance properties) as Gobo warned them that they'd have to cross through Silken Paths and all the giant spiders that lived there to get deeper into the Underdark. He also explained that they'd start earning special Gobo Medals as they spent enough coin with him and that collecting all seven would win them a special Gobo Prize. With that, Gobo took his leave with Knick-Knack while the party returned to Ernest and the others to report what they'd found.

The Silken Paths

Collecting Samples and Peaceful Passage

While they were filling the rear group in and recovering from their wounds, K finally popped back out of the Ethereal Realm after having been missing for several days. With the gang back together, they decided to keep pressing forward in case the Crows were behind them. They headed in the direction of the Silken Paths that Gobo had mentioned, as that was seemingly their only way forward. They stopped to take a break after several hours of travel and the others noticed Sunny seemed to be keeping an eye on Itassis the whole time, though none of them were sure why. As they continued, the area around them started to glow dimly with the light of faerzress and Sunny made sure to get a mineral sample that he put in a small lead box.
When the group saw a bright light from up ahead, K volunteered to check it out alone since he was the stealthiest party member who didn't rely on magic. Aware of the potential effects of faerzress, the group didn't want to risk Leh'ct or Jake casting a pass without trace spell like usual. K returned shortly to report he'd found an entryway onto the Silken Paths, but that there were spiders similar to Silinrul and an ettercap there. They decided to proceed forward together to see what happened with Sunny preparing his gun to shoot some spiders.
They let Leh'ct take the lead, knowing that ettercaps often work for drow, and listened to his half of the conversation while the two talked (Leh'ct seemed oblivious that no one else could understand the ettercap). Leh'ct told the rest of them they could cross peacefully if they pretended to be his prisoners, which is what the ettercap believed to be the case. This didn't sit well with some of the party members, namely Sunny and Villamax who wanted to just kill the spiders, but Leh'ct managed to convince them to stick to the non-violent option and conserve their resources for the challenges ahead.

Rescuing a Fishy Friend

The adventurers split up from the rear party again, taking the lead forward while the others made sure nothing snuck up behind them. Some of the webs covering the area were fresh and sticky while others were ancient and crumbling. Large rocks, broken pieces of the walls and ceiling, were suspended in the webs in spots. And there were cocoons, the remains of animals and humanoids who had not made it across the Silken Paths alive. Except for one, which still moved and had muffled cries for help coming from it.
K quickly moved over and cut the cocoon opening, freeing a kuo-toa trapped inside who thanked K for the rescue before spotting Leh'ct and trying to jump off the edge of the webs. As the kuo-toa (who surprisingly spoke Common rather than Undercommon) was declaring that a quick death was preferable to life in the drow mines of Vlyn'darastyl, K grabbed the guy to stop his suicide and convinced him that they were peaceful travelers. The desperate kuo-toa seemed to believe this and introduced himself as Mmottukuu, or Mott for short. He thanked K for the rescue by giving him a Potion of Watchful Rest. K thanked him back and prepared to leave when Mott clung to K's leg and begged to come with them so he could get back home.
K claimed they were going to the mines of Vlyn'darastyl, which Mott feared, but he still wanted to come with them partway to get back to his village on the Black Loch. K admitted the Black Loch was where they were actually headed and Mott adamantly stated he could show them the way. He did get a little too excited at the prospect though, and his bouncing around in joy moved the webs enough to attract several giant spiders. The adventurers killed most of them (Leh'ct running the others off with magic), but Sunny noticed an explosion behind them during the fight and flew in that direction to investigate.

Checking the Rear & Scan Results

Heading back towards the rear party, Sunny arrived to find Villamax throwing fireballs at two dozen darkmantles while Itassis ran circles around the others, slicing with her scimitar to keep a dozen giant spiders at bay. Ernest had his trusty crossbow and was finishing off the monsters who managed to survive the initial strikes against them while Bertrand cowered at the center of the formation. Sunny provided additional fire support that allowed the group to finish off the attacking monsters in short order.
Wishing to nip a potential problem in the bud, Sunny informed them that he intended to return to where they entered the Silken Paths and kill the ettercap and spiders there. He viewed the ettercap potentially informing Lolth-loyal drow of Leh'ct's existence was too much of a threat to ignore. Ernest seemed unsure about the morality of such an action, but Villamax convinced him it was ultimately for the best. And that as far as Leh'ct was concerned, the rest of them saw and knew nothing of Sunny's covert activities. Sunny flew off and was able to use dynamite with his bit drone that killed the ettercap and its flock in a rockslide without any issues.
He stopped back by the rear party briefly, where Bertrand asked him to send Jake back to them so they could have a word. As he flew back towards the advance party, Sunny's scanners went off with an alert. His systems had detected a behir at maximum scanner range and informed him one of the creature's horn could provide the power source necessary to complete a prototype weapon. The systems also informed him that attacking a behir head-on in his current state would be suicidal and suggested acquiring countermeasures before engaging such a creature. Sunny began to ponder this as he returned to his comrades while they were resting up. He also sent his bit drone off to investigate the source of the signal and try to get more accurate data.

Exiting the Silken Paths

Mott informed the group they were close to an exit, which was just a little ways north. As it came into sight, Elycia stepped onto a large "rock" that stood up and revealed itself to be a spider-like monstrosity that roared at the party. This prompted other spiders to come out of hiding from under nearby rocks (these ones being actual rocks) and the battle commenced. Sunny retreated towards the solid ground away from the webs, firing lightning shots at the spiders as he went. Elycia joined him soon after and the pair provided the others with joint fire support, Sunny shooting powerful concussive rounds while Elycia used her shatter spell to magically create an identical effect.
As the last spider fell and the battle ended, chains shot forward from Gobo's Dimensional Ripper (which Leh'ct was carrying) and bound the monstrous spider. It would seem the creature was an OoPA and Sunny started repairing himself as Leh'ct cut several parts off it before the dagger's magic was spent and the corpse faded back to the otherworldly realm from whence it came. The group rested long enough for the rear party to catch up to them before heading out together, detouring towards the temple Mott had been looking for.

The Oozing Temple

Cave-In

While the rear party stayed behind to look out for any spiders that may be following the expedition, the advance party went ahead with Mott. Just as he spotted the entrance to the lost temple, a small earthquake shook the area and blocked the ways forward and ahead. Mott suggested the group go into the temple and grab the idol while he investigated the rockslide to see if they could dig their way out safely. Sunny went ahead first, moving so silently that the "floor" (really a grey ooze) in the area didn't realize he was there until he stepped directly onto it. At which point, it surged up and started using its slimy tentacles to grab him.

Icky Ooze & Non-Icky Ooze

The ooze proved to be highly acidic, melting part of Sunny's shield as well as Elycia's rapier when she jumped into help him. Part of its body was also cut away by Elycia's strike, splashing onto her and giving her a minor acid burn. She retreated and Leh'ct used a thorn whip spell to pull it away from Sunny, allowing Sunny to shoot it from a safe distance as the party defeated it. He soon heard Leh'ct stumble into another ooze when he went off to explore by himself, though this one was defeated before Sunny had a chance to assist. Before the group moved on, Sunny used his mending skills to repair his shield and Elycia's rapier from the acid damage their equipment had suffered.
Entering the temple proper, the group spotted yet another ooze (though this one was green rather than grey) as they heard a humming inside their head. Sunny was ready to start blasting as K prepared to shoot it, just waiting on K's shot as the go signal. His help proved to be unnecessary as the ooze said that arrow really hurt and started yelling telekinetically that those stories about the ooze-eating monsters were true as it ran away at full speed (which was about as fast as Sunny's normal speed).
The group caught up to the talking ooze rather quickly and it waved a white flag in surrender, begging not to be eaten by Sunny and the other "horrible ooze-eating monsters". They explained that they were not ooze eating monsters and asked the talking ooze what his story was. He introduced himself as Biggs and told them a drow mage had used magic to make him intelligent. The drow wanted Biggs to retrieve an idol (the one the party came looking for) to lure kuo-toa somewhere as blood sacrifices. Biggs thought that didn't sound very nice and ate the drow & his bodyguard in self-defense when they tried to force him to comply via violence.
Biggs stated he had no issue with the party taking the idol since they seemed nice, but warned them other oozes further in may attack them. As they continued forward, K narrowly avoided falling into a pit trap only for a black pudding ooze to rise out of it and attack the party. The single enemy soon became three when Sunny's electrical blaster caused it to multiply instead of just hurting it. Despite its increased numbers, the group managed to kill two of the puddings and subdue the third (which Sunny and Leh'ct contained and collected after K knocked it out). Sunny thought a monster like this that resisted electricity could prove useful against the behir he intended to hunt.

Treasure of the Temple

At the heart of the temple, the group found a fountain with a pedestal in its center. On top of the pedestal sat the idol they had come for. Sunny hung back while other members of the party collected the idol and other treasure nearby, concerned that more oozes his electrical weapons worked poorly against might be lurking nearby.
As they went to leave, they saw Biggs trying to conceal himself (poorly) as he peeked around the corner at them. The shy sentient ooze asked if it could come with them and while Sunny wasn't crazy about the idea, he didn't openly object to it. They returned to the entrance to find Mott had barely made any progress in the short time they'd been gone. After calming him down as he began to freak out about the "killer ooze" with them, they excavated their way out and returned to the campsite with the rear party.
Itassis seemed outright displeased with Biggs presence and questioned how sure the party was that he wouldn't eat one of them in their sleep. Villamax had some concerns as well and remedied the situation by magically changing Biggs acidic qualities into soapy ones, transforming the ooze into a Cleaning Cube. With another adventure behind them, the group decided to rest up a bit before continuing towards Mott's home village of Glogdolp.

Heading Towards Glogdolp

And We're Off

As the group got ready to head towards Glogdolp, Sunny spent much of his time experimenting with the black pudding he'd captured until he managed to convert it into a Black Pudding Power Bomb to use against the behir he planned to hunt. Mott told them that it would take about ten days to get to his village from where they were (which Elycia was openly skeptical about, given Mott's sense of direction). Five days into that journey, he told the expedition to hold up because the area ahead was particularly dangerous. It was full of small side tunnels & caves that would make good ambush points if something up ahead was waiting for people like them to walk by. Mott suggested the stealthy advance party make sure it was clear before the rest of them caught up, which they agreed to.
Heading into the area Mott indicated, Sunny and the others moved silently with the help of a pass without trace spell from Leh'ct. Sunny hung in the rear with Jake while Leh'ct and Elycia took point, the advance pair pausing when a pair of hook horrors ran out of one side tunnel and down another. As the party discussed what to make of that, they heard more footsteps approaching and hid themselves.
A group of four gnolls came down the same tunnel the hook horrors had emerged from. They started sniffing around, tracking the hook horrors until they figured out what tunnel the monstrosities had run down. Jake was the only one who could understand them as they spoke in Undercommon (though Leh'ct caught a few snippets as Jake had been teaching him the language). He informed the others that they intended to hunker down and wait for the hook horrors to emerge, drawing his bow as they were blocking the path forward and seemingly hostile.

Hunting the Hunters

Jake struck hard and fast with his bow, downing two of the gnolls instantly. He finished a third by firing an arrow right between Elycia's rabbit ears while Leh'ct took down the last, keeping it alive with the spider venom on his daggers paralyzing rather than killing it. They took the prisoner away from where the hook horrors were located and continued to explore the area with Sunny taking interest in a large brass statue he couldn't identify. It was clearly ancient and he released Biggs to clean it up when something else caught the party's attention. When another group of gnolls emerged, this one led by a huntmaster, Sunny and Elycia came in from behind while Jake waited in the direction they were heading with Leh'ct.
Unfortunately, the huntmaster's hearing proved to be exceptional and he heard Sunny's metal foot tap against a rock ever so slightly before the party could spring their ambush. The gnolls turned their attention on Sunny and Elycia while the huntmaster offered a prayer to Yeenoghu to summon a pack of hyenas that could distract Leh'ct and Jake.
Sunny began to retreat backwards, firing his energy pistol while distancing himself to take advantage of his expertise in ranged combat. The huntmaster pursued him while its subordinates focused on Elycia, hitting him with an arrow and forcing Sunny to go around a corner for cover. When he came back around the corner to shoot again, the gnolls were waiting and opened up on him with their longbows. This tactic having been compromised, Sunny elected to use a seeking concussive rocket that hit the bunched up gnolls with an effect similar to a shatter spell. It was around this time that mushrooms sprouted up throughout the area (courtesy of a plant growth spell cast by Leh'ct). While this hampered the movement of the gnolls, Sunny was able to fly above them and maneuver freely.
After the huntmaster was killed and the rest of the gnolls started to retreat, Sunny used his superior speed to chase down their injured and ensure none of them would escape. His free movement gave him near total control of the enemy's movements, allowing him to corral them where he wanted and make them easier to finish off. When the last one was down, Sunny regrouped with his allies to conduct repairs on himself while waiting for the gnoll they'd captured from the first group they'd fought to wake up.

Interrogation & Search

The party bandaged their wounds (or welded, in Sunny's case) just as their prisoner from the first fight started to rouse. Jake translated the gnoll's Undercommon words for the rest of the group. It thought that Leh'ct (as a drow) was in charge and that the other party members served him. The prisoner also lamented being captured rather than dying honorably in battle. Jake promised it an honorable death by combat against Sunny if it answered his questions, to which it agreed. The gnoll told them there were more with it that would have fled back to their tribe, which was hundreds strong and would rip them apart were they foolish enough to come across it.
After determining they wouldn't get any more useful information out of it, Jake removed the gnoll's bindings to give him the honorable death he desired. As it began to lunge at Sunny, he drew his sidearm and shot the gnoll dead before it had even finished its first step forward. The group began to search the rest of the area to make sure there was no more danger, Sunny heading back to the statue he'd seen earlier. Biggs (who'd hidden during the fight) had cleaned it spotless and Sunny started to search it hoping to find a hidden compartment. Though the statue did not have any, when he emerged from the backside of it he spotted its hands holding a pair of boots that weren't there before. Figuring they were a thank you from whoever/whatever the statue depicted, he took the boots and kept exploring.
The next thing that took his interest was a freshwater spring fed by a waterfall in an adjacent cave. Wanting to see what was down there, Sunny jumped in and spotted a tunnel lead out of its bottom. He was about 50 feet into the tunnel when a strong current seized him and started to carry him away. Sunny drew his rarely-used sword and stabbed it into the side of the tunnel, just barely managing to use that leverage to pull himself out of the current and back to the surface. Seeing that he wasn't equipped for this, he sought out Leh'ct and got the young druid to make a magical fish familiar to check it out. The fish made it down the tunnel and out to a much larger expanse of water before something, presumably a bigger fish, ate it.
With no other options to explore that safely right now, the duo decided to let it be and catch back up with the others. The immediate area seemed secure, so the advance party elected to retrieve the others and move through before more gnolls arrived, or before the hook horrors took an interest in them.

The "Great" Village of Glogdolp

The Scout Returns

While resuming their trip towards Glogdolp, Sunny's bit drone returned from the recon mission he'd sent it on. It had spotted and hid from a band of duergar and the gnolls the party had fought before making it to the Black Loch. Once there, it had been careful to fly high enough to avoid hostiles on the water but low enough to avoid ones on the ceiling while making its way towards the powerful electrical source Sunny's scanners had detected. In between itself and its destination, the bit drone came across a ruined fortress that seemed to be occupied by blue-scaled kobolds. It passed over them and traced the signal to a cave with more kobolds standing guard near the entrance before deciding it was too risky to go further and head back to Sunny.
Sunny knew that kobolds were descended from dragons and that behirs were originally bred by giants to hunt infant dragons, so something didn't line up here. He needed more information from some experts. First, he approached Mott, figuring a local might know more about what his drone had seen. This turned out to be something of a dead end as Mott proved (again) to be a somewhat unreliable source of information, despite his best attempts to be helpful. Figuring someone smart was a better option, he went to Villamax next (after waiting until Itassis wasn't hanging around).
The first question Sunny asked was about dragons, which Villamax admitted he wasn't an expert in but knew the basics that all wizards "worth their spellbook" were aware of. Sunny explained his equipment had located a creature he believed to be a behir, but that the kobolds didn't fit in with the data he had. Villamax was distracted by Sunny's technology (mistaking it for illusion magic) but Sunny quickly got him back on track. After a quick lesson on how a kobold's ancestry can affect their scale color, Villamax stated that these were likely not kobolds but rather kobold vipers. He explained they were a sub-species of kobolds who have forsaken their draconic heritage and thrown in their lot with a behir, typically to get revenge on a dragon that wronged them.
Sunny grumbled that a legion of kobold vipers seemingly defending the behir made his plans much more difficult. Before he could wander off to contemplate, Villamax warned him that so many kobold vipers gathering in one place likely meant there was a dragon nearby they planned on killing. Sunny's database indicated that while many kinds of dragons could be found in the Underdark, none were friendly. Villamax advised against picking this fight, though Sunny remained adamant and the wizard did admit a dragon's horde might have rare tomes he'd be interested in. He also suggested Sunny inform the rest of the expedition of his plans sooner than later so they could assist with the planning, though said he'd leave that up to Sunny's discretion.

Getting Ready for Departure

Sunny elected to continue his study of faerzress while other members of the expedition continued towards Glogdolp with Mott. They returned talking about how a fight had broken out between the faithful Mott belonged to (led by Archpriest "Strel" Strelmotarplgbliid) and the radicals (led by Archpriest Strel's son Nogah). They had managed to capture Nogah and slay the "god" he was leading people to worship, which turned out to be a frog-like OoPA. As a reward, Archpriest Strel was providing them with a boat and crew to ferry them around the Black Loch as needed.
Sunny sought out Archpriest Strel to speak with him privately, being chiefly concerned with whether or not the kuo-toa had seen or heard anything about his brother, Haz. The Archpriest told Sunny that he was the first metal man to ever come to Glogdolp, much to Sunny's disappointment. Sunny also asked if he knew anything about the behir or kobold vipers across the Black Loch; Archpriest Strel said no kobolds had come by the village to trade in his memory and stated that he thought going after a behir was likely a bad idea. The Archpriest noticed Sunny's recurring disappointment and offered to try and ask Gibbidubbus about Sunny's brother, though the deity did not respond to Strel's question.

First Day at the Deep Spire

Pirates on the Loch

Once the Grinning Widow was ready for departure, the group boarded and began their 7-day journey towards the Deep Spire. On the second day, they encountered rough waters that damaged the ship slightly, though they were able to make repairs with spare zurkhwood timber. The third day proved even more treacherous when another ship came out of the darkness and rammed theirs. Though it appeared empty at a glance, Jake spotted several shimmers in the darkness as a invisible duergar pirates began to board the Grinning Widow.
Sunny deployed his bit drone, which he was very happy was back, and began peppering the pirates with weapons fire. This earned him the ire of the pirates, one of which targeted him with a ballista that struck Sunny directly. It was a final, fatal mistake on the pirate's part as the angered Sunny focused the entirety of his weapons fire on that individual, reducing him to a smoking corpse before returning to a more widespread firing pattern to support his comrades. Once the pirates were dead, Sunny (accompanied by a hidden Leh’ct) went below deck on the pirate ship to investigate what was down there. He quickly found the ship's rowers, armed with nothing but oars but looking ready for a fight.
When Leh’ct's broken Undercommon too shaky to hold a conversation with the pirates, who also did not understand any of the languages Sunny spoke, Sunny called for Jake to translate and brokered a deal with the rowers. The adventurers would take the pirate ship's cargo and the pirates would be set free. The rowers agreed to this rather quickly, and the adventurers learned why when all they found in the cargo hold was 500 lbs. of unprocessed iron ore. Still, it was something, and the group returned to the Grinning Widow to patch it up before continuing their journey.

Told You That Bat Was Evil

The fourth day saw the Grinning Widow damaged once again, this time by rocks jutting out of the Black Loch's waters. While assessing the damage, Sunny spotted something moving on the edge of his vision. He shined a light upwards and saw a bat fluttering around. Sunny moved this lantern around to keep the bat in the light, which seemed to annoy it. The bat flew right towards him and went around him to hide in his shadow as Jake and Leh’ct watched. When he kept bothering it, it flew up to the ballista near Leh’ct and hung itself upside down from one of the ballista's ropes.
Leh’ct cast a speak with animals spell to try and communicate with the little bat, but that didn't seem to have any effect on it. His plan A having failed, he moved onto plan B by offering it a goodberry. The bat took the berry and greedily started munching on it. Leh’ct thought it was rather cute despite his companions insisting something was up with that bat. Once it was done eating, the bat flapped up and landed on his shoulder. He noticed he could feel its sharp claws digging into his shoulder, despite his armor. And that the claw appeared suddenly bigger. And that another claw was on his other shoulder. He realized, too late, that this bat was not friendly, as it transformed into a creature that looked like a hellish version of a griffon that flew straight up with Leh’ct in its talons.
Sunny was quick to draw his weapon and opened fire after Leh’ct used his magic to transform into a cloud of gas and escape the beasts claws. While Sunny's weapon proved effective, the creature laughed at Jake's paltry attempts to do it real harm with a non-magical weapon. It swooped down and let out a horrific shriek that seemed to dig into the adventurer's brains and damage their very minds. Elycia came up from below decks just as the creature landed, striking it hard enough to knock it to the deck prone. The adventurers noted that the creature fought with virtually no self-preservation instinct and believed it may be another OoPA, or at least some form of otherworldly creature.
As its injuries grew greater, the monster attempted to flee only for Elycia to hop into the air and slam it onto the deck of the ship yet again. This blow was enough to finish the creature off, though the lack of a reaction from Gobo's Dimensional Ripper indicated this monster was not an OoPA. It was at this point that Villamax came onto the deck to see what all the ruckus was. As the wizard got close enough to see the monster's body, his face grew concerned and he asked who had killed it. Elycia said that technically the deck of the ship had dealt the killing blow, though she was the one to attribute to the kill if they were talking about a person.
Villamax informed her that this creature was called a waterkledde and that it was a type of demon. If a waterkledde is killed outside a body of water, seven more will spawn nearby and come after the person who killed their "parent". He stressed that to prevent this from happening again, any additional waterkleddes that appear must be killed in a body of water like a pond or lake. Simply throwing a bucket of water on one and then stabbing it wouldn't do the trick. With no way to immediately see to that problem, the group got to repairing the Grinning Widow once again. Thankfully, they were able to arrive at the Deep Spire a few days later without further incident.

Arrival At the Deep Spire

The Grinning Widow pulled into a port carved into the bottom of the Deep Spire, the rest of which stretched higher than the eye could see above. They were met by an Undercommon-speaking orog dock worker, with Jake acting as translator for the rest of the group. For reasons unknown to gods and men, Jake felt the need to lie when asked what the expedition's business in the Deep Spire was and claimed they were returning to the local drow (with Leh’ct) from a covert mission. When the dock worker called him out on this obvious falsehood, Jake told the truth and the worker begrudgingly permitted them to come off their ship. Though he did warn them that if they caused any trouble, they'd better hope his people caught them and not the Sword Dancers.
Before the dock worker could wander off, Sunny (still using Jake as a translator) produced an image of Haz and asked if the worker had seen him. The dock worker confirmed that he had indeed seen Sunny's brother. Sunny flew right up into his personal space demanding to know where, prompting the dock worker to tell him to back off and that he didn't know where. He didn't follow the guy around the Deep Spire, just saw him arrive at the docks and head up somewhere. Sunny had his first solid lead to Haz's whereabouts and was determined to follow it by any means necessary.
As they were heading for the stairs, something caught Jake's eye and he directed the group to look up. Many pieces of parchment were falling from above, having been thrown from one of the upper levels. Sunny had his drone retrieve one and, unable to read the Undercommon writing himself, handed it to Jake. It was a flier advertising Gobo's Traveling Shop, which was located on the Deep Spire's 4th tier for a limited time only. The group decided to head in that direction while seeing what else this place had to offer on the way there.
The 2nd tier greeted them with the sound of clanging metal coming from just up ahead. They moved forward to see a forge and two people hard at work inside, a duergar woman and mountain dwarf man. The man, speaking Common, introduced himself as Kardik Silverhoard and the woman as his wife, Berea Silverhoard. They were the main blacksmiths here at the Deep Spire, using heat from a volcanic vent to forge tools, weapons, and whatever else their neighbors & travelers wished to purchase. At Sunny's asking, Kardik stated he had seen Haz. Kardik said the warforged hadn't been interested in tools and such but rather in raw materials, particularly metal ore. The group thanked Kardik for this information and said they'd be sure to return to the Silverhoard's forge should they need his services.

Leh’ct Meets His People

As the group followed the walkway spiraling up the Deep Spire, they came across a bridge that overlooked a grotto. As they crossed it, two drow women, Sword Dancer warriors, exited the staircase that led down to the grotto. They seemed in a chipper mood, until they spotted Leh’ct. The pair rushed over and one of them grabbed his arm, angrily asking the young druid something in Elvish.
While Sunny couldn't follow the conversation due to not speaking the language, it was obvious to anyone that it sounded heated. The drow women eventually walked away without incident and Leh'ct and Elycia explained to Sunny and Jake that Leh'ct had been summoned before the local drow matron mother and was expected at noon tomorrow. And that the Grinning Widow would not be permitted to leave port prior to that meeting.

Reunion with Gobo

The group moved through the 3rd tier quickly, eager to get to Gobo's and find a familiar face before there was any more potential trouble. They did spot a mushroom farm on this floor as well as a shrine to Moradin, Dwarven God of Smithing. This struck the party as rather odd since most of the denizens on this floor appeared to be duergar, which normally abhor surface dwarf gods like Moradin, but decided to leave that issue be for now.
They arrived at the space Gobo had rented to find a pair of guards chewing him out, referring to his fliers as littering despite Gobo's insistence that it was advertising, not littering. Nonetheless, the guards ordered him to pick up the fliers within a day or he'd be thrown out of the Deep Spire. Gobo was quite polite about agreeing with their decision...until their backs were turned, at which point he stuck his tongue out at them before greeting Sunny and co. The little goblin was more than happy to offer the adventurers his services in exchange for coin, selling them his magical mushrooms and transforming several of the monster parts they'd been collecting into magic items and trinkets. Sunny spent enough money to earn several Gobo Medals and grew frustrated upon pulling three of the same token (as opposed to Jake, who was ecstatic that he pulled four different kinds).

Sunny Compromised

The adventurers decided to each explore the Deep Spire independently prior to Leh'ct's meeting with the matron mother, so that they could each pursue their own interests. While Sunny was wandering around, his systems suddenly alerted him that his body was being compromised by an infiltrator. He located said infiltrator, which resembling a mechanical earwig, by a hole in his right ankle. Sunny removed an antenna it was using to transmit data it was copying from his systems and fortunately managed to disable to explosive device the tiny drone had been equipped with.
Examining the earwig drone, as well as his own systems to see what it had been up to, Sunny determined that the done had used a laser pulse signal to transmit a long-range signal through the Underdark's faerzress interference. Though laser pulses were limited to line of sight, this one seemed to have been bounced off a series of drones to increase the transmission distance. Sunny began working to sort through the data and backtrace it while his automated systems started working to analyze the earwig drone. His efforts proved successful a short time later and he was able to locate the destination of the signal. Unfortunately, he was also able to discover what data had been copied and transmitted from his systems. Most of it had been data regarding his tech specs, but the first thing copied and sent was his current location. Sunny had a lead on where Haz might be, but Haz knew where he was too.
At the same time, his automated systems were able to remove Haz's dangerous modifications to the earwig drone and allow Sunny to acquire a Clockwork Earwig. While assessing the damage, he also discovered a previously unknown function that would allow him to repair himself rapidly in a pinch.

First Solid Lead

Gotta Go Fast

While Leh'ct had his meeting with House Vaerixas, Sunny was working as quickly as he could to build a rudimentary motor boat. He needed to get to where he'd traced Haz's signal fast, and the Grinning Widow was far too slow to get there in anything Sunny considered a reasonable amount of time. While Sunny was working (and lamenting how he was stuck jury rigging this thing instead of working with proper parts & tools like he had back home), Mott came by and asked what he was doing. Sunny proceeded to give Mott a detailed explanation on boat motor construction, which Mott took to just mean "magic".
While Mott was there, Sunny asked him if he could go look for a map of the Black Loch. Mott said he'd try the dockmaster and wandered off. Several hours later, Mott returned with a map, some money, and a pair of boots he'd "won off some guy". The map was written in Undercommon, though Mott was able to translate it for Sunny (who took notes in Common). The information on it appeared corroborated from multiple sources according to its color coded key. Along with outlining the large rock formations Sunny was concerned about, it also noted several key points of interest. Sunny made mental notes about several of these points so that he could look into them later.
As a reward for his help, Sunny promised to make Mott a tricorn hat later and nominate him to be captain of the Grinning Widow once the Thaig Expedition left the Black Loch and was no longer sailing on the vessel (which Sunny had to explain, as Mott was initially concerned he'd have to fight Jake for dominance as captain and didn't think he could take him). Sunny also promised him some sort of weapon, which Mott was equally excited about. He then sent the fishman off to find Leh'ct and Elycia, having gotten an idea that would require their assistance.

Landmarks of the Black Loch

Thinking back on that dwarf who spoke Common he'd met earlier, Sunny returned to the Silverhoard's forge hoping to get help from someone local. Kardik informed him that several of the ruins around the area were originally built by his people in ancient times, before they were ousted from the Underdark and left to live on or near the surface. He admittingly knew less about the non-dwarven structures, but had still heard a few things in his time living at the Deep Spire and was willing to give Sunny a hand.
There were three main places Sunny was interested in: Charwell Fortress, Ollin's Borehole, and Clogwyn Prison. Kardik explained the history of the fortress as well as the event that earned the place its current name. The duergar who once planned to attack the Deep Spire had used it as a staging point, but when they abandoned the attack and turned for Brazenthrone, the undermanned fortress was conquered by a dragon. This very same dragon, Yolheimsu'um, was the one who now lived in Brazenthrone and whose presence allowed the duergar to forge powerful weapons and armor in dragonfire.
Sunny told Kardik his suspicions about a group of kobold vipers and a behir seemingly being interested in killing Yolheimsu'um. Kardik scoffed at the idea, saying that it would be suicide given how no one had ever successfully attack Brazenthrone. This led to him also mentioning a group of stone giants lived there and contributed to the city's defenses as well. How Deepking Oghren Orzammar III got a dragon and stone giants to play nice with each other, he didn't know, but the Deepking had a long-standing reputation as a political genius. Sunny speculated that it might make more sense if the guy was secretly a mind flayer, which prompted Kardik to mention Gyan'dis as the only illithid settlement in the area. He also recommended Sunny stay far, far away from there.
Moving onto the topic of Ollin's Borehole, Kardik stated it was an abandoned deep gnome gem mine. The place had been raided by the duergar of Brazenthrone and the deep gnomes never returned, considering the place unsafe with its location now known to others. The stories said the duergar, much to their frustration, had never found the last of the gems the deep gnomes had hidden away there despite days or weeks of searching. Kardik mentioned that he believed another local, Tarson Markabreech, used to work there, but that he'd never talked to him about it. He described Tarson as an inventor and a skittish fellow who mostly keeps to himself.
Lastly, the pair discussed Clogwyn Prison. This was another structure originally built by Kardik's ancestors; a prison on the Black Loch where the worst of the worst criminals were kept. Folks too dangerous to risk keeping in the ancient dwarven city should they ever get loose. But the prison, like other dwarven holdings, was abandoned in ancient times. In the centuries since, it had been flooded by the Loch's gradually rising water level. Kardik speculated that by now it was likely that the whole place was probably underwater.

Sharing Information

Sunny returned to the Grinning Widow to keep working on his boat motor, but sent Mott to find Leh'ct & Elycia and bring them to the ship to talk. After they arrived, Sunny recalled Leh’ct previously talking about Lord Varl possibly wanting to attack Brazenthrone and called the idea insane, telling the pair about the fire-breathing dragon and tribe of stone giants somehow living together there on top of the duergar army.
Sunny speculated the city's ruler, Deepking Oghren Orzammar III, might actually be a mind flayer that's controlling the dragon and giants seeing as they'd normally be trying to kill each other. Elycia doubted this, believing that the Deepking's reputation as a political genius was explanation enough. Leh’ct was equally disbelieving, saying that even if dragons and giants normally don't get along, neither do drow and other humanoids yet he was friends with Elycia. Dropping that point, Sunny also wondered whether it was coincidence that Lord Varl and the kobold vipers he'd scouted were both gearing up for war at the same time.
Leh’ct wasn't sure that the dragon in Brazenthrone was kobold vipers' target, but Sunny hadn't been able to find any evidence of a 2nd dragon in the area. Sunny was concerned of an alliance between them and the Tideborne Tribe, but also wondered if the Tideborne Tribe could perhaps be convinced to attack the kobold vipers instead (which, by extension, would help him kill the behir he was after).
Sunny also asked Leh’ct and Elycia to remind him to inform Ernest and Bertrand that the fortress the kobold vipers were squatting in was originally dwarven made in case that interested them. He also advised them to prepare themselves for underwater combat and asked them to tell Jake the same.

This Place Wasn't Charted!

After a few days of near non-stop work, Sunny's fan boat was ready. He ushered his companions on board as soon as they were ready and turned the fan on (which also turned a lot of heads in their direction in the Deep Spire's harbor). Not wanting to give too much away about his boat, he took it out of the harbor slowly and got out of seeing distance from the Deep Spire. He then advised his companions to hang on tight and opened it up at full speed, which was fast enough to still knock Leh'ct on his bum even with the warning.
The boat moved without too much trouble thanks to the major rock formations being marked on the map Mott had procured. But the map did not show all. A stalagmite sticking out of the water suddenly came up on them and Sunny was able to maneuver the boat around it, though his companions quickly realized that hitting that thing would've been very bad. Their true problem came when an uncharted island suddenly appeared out of the darkness ahead. Sunny tried to jump it only to find the island was much too large, knocking everyone but himself out of the boat as it crashed onto the beach. While Sunny got to fixing the boat up, a swarm of little winged lizards approached Jake.
Jake cautiously drew his bow and backed away, this being the Underdark and all, but the little lizards didn't seem to understand the threat and kept pace with him. Leh'ct was able to identify these creatures as Esteron, a type of salamander with bat-like wings. They are known to aggressively defend their territory and can take down prey much larger than themselves through sheer numbers. As he was explaining this, many more swarms appeared at the edges of the beach and started inching their way towards the adventurers. Jake decided that was enough for him and fired an arrow that skewered an esteron, which angered the rest of them into charging forward.
The esterons surged forward, surrounding Leh'ct and Elycia while Sunny took to the air and Jake stayed hidden invisibly. As the battle raged on, Leh'ct managed to distract many of the lizards by throwing food from his Satchel of Beast Chow away from himself. Others fled due to the injuries the adventurers had given them, though one particular lizard behaved different. It separated from its swarm and ran for Elycia, transforming into its true waterkledde form as it did. Sunny switched his main target to the newly revealed demon and shot it several times before Jake was able to put it down.
The esterons quickly swarmed over the remains of the demon and began eating it while Sunny finished patching up the boat enough to get it floating. While the lizards were still eating (sans one Leh'ct coaxed into coming with him as a pet), the party got back on the boat and away from the island. They took a few moments to patch themselves up before continuing onwards towards their destination and whatever awaited them at the end of the signal Sunny was tracing.

Clogwyn Prison

Arrival at the Flooded Ruin

The boat soon arrived at Clogwyn Prison. Only the ancient prison's roof was above the water level and half of it had crumbled away. The remaining half did seem capable of supporting the adventurers and they pulled themselves onto it just as a creature that looked like a two-foot snake with arms pulled itself out of the prison's waters. The creature was panicked and didn't even notice them at first, talking to itself about how it "had to get away from those metal monsters" in Sylvan. Jake translated for the rest of the group as the snake-fey said it was getting the heck away from here and recommended the adventurers did too.
While it was difficult to make sense of what the snake-fey was saying, it seemed like some sort of metal monster had come to the prison and started killing everyone. The snake-fey said that it was cutting apart his boss right now and that he was getting out of here while it was distracted. The description the snake-fey gave of the metal monster didn't sound like Haz, but Sunny acknowledged his brother could have built something that looked like that. Not waiting for his companions, Sunny jumped through the hole in the roof to save whoever was about to die due to his brother's actions. This landed him right in front of a large, humanoid-shaped creature that was made from the bones and teeth of shark jaws attached together.

Sharkjaw Constructs & Protodrones

It attacked immediately, though Sunny was able to take it down rather quickly with assistance from Elycia and Jake. Sunny bolted for the stairs that lead down to the next floor, only to find them blocked by a construct. It's main body was an orb with a glass window on front that contained some sort of crystal. Its three legs were spindly like a spiders and it had a pair of arms that could interchange tools and weapons. Unsure of its capabilities, Sunny retreated. The protodrone followed him and used a ranged weapon that fired blasts of thunder energy, striking Sunny hard enough to momentarily knock several of his systems offline. It then retreated back down the stairs.
His friends came to aid him and prepared to attack the drone when it reemerged, only it never did. Elycia ran in to engage it directly and managed to knock it down the stairs, which its ball-shaped torso rolled all the way down to the next floor. Sunny pursued, only to find a second protodrone and another sharkjaw construct on this floor as well. The protodrones seemed primarily focused on him as his friends followed him downstairs, striking him with grasping claws and their ranged weapons. When the first protodrone was finally downed, the adventurers got another surprise when it self-destructed into slag in an explosion of raw magical energy.
Though the adventurers eventually proved victorious against these enemies, both Sunny and Leh'ct were severely injured. The party was forced to retreat back to the roof, to dry land where they could cast their spells that required verbal incantations and drink potions. They quickly used what resources they had available to heal themselves, Sunny determined to dive back into the prison as quickly as he could to stop whatever Haz had set into motion there.

Basement Battle

After making all the preparations they could (Sunny giving a Medal of Delicious Pie to each of his companions in the process), they charged back inside. Sunny came down to the ground floor and was immediately attacked by another sharkjaw skeleton as well as another protodrone, though he managed to throw them both away from himself with his repulsion shield. The drone, like the ones before, seemed primarily focused on him while Elycia kept the sharkjaw skeleton busy. This drone quickly revealed it was equipped with a weapon unseen on the previous ones, some sort of repulsion weapon of its own that threw Sunny across the room and through a crumbling wall. It did the same against one of the two giant octopi Leh'ct had summoned to reinforce the party. All the while, Sunny peppered the drone with fire from his primary weapon. Ironically, the drone's decision to throw Sunny across the room later kept him from taking additional damage when it self-destructed like the other drones.
Once it was down (and the sharkjaw skeleton crushed by one of the giant octopi), Sunny scouted the immediate area but saw no other enemies lying in wait. But he did find a staircase leading down into the prison's basement. Here, he stealthily approached another drone that looked different from the others. It was essentially a robotic scorpion and stood before a table with a sea hag chained to it. Two more sea hags lay on either side of the table, dead from being cut open. Sunny attacked the drone, which spoke and took his actions as an indicator he had been comprised against the Empire. And that he had to be terminated to prevent his capture/defection and protect Imperial secrets.
As his comrades began rushing into the room, two support drones (which looked similar to Sunny's own drone) buried in the sand floor rose from their hiding places and began peppering them with blaster fire. The scorpion drone lashed out at Sunny with one of its claws, which he blocked with his shield, as its tail struck out towards Elycia. As the tail approached her, the "stinger" at the end opened up into a claw that seized her. Two more support drones then revealed themselves, these two resembling beetles, and clung to Sunny and Jake respectively. The insect drones began sapping Sunny's systems of power and Jake of his magical energy. Despite this, the constructs were gradually being worn down by the adventurers.
When the scorpion drone began to look critically damaged, Sunny asked Jake to try and capture rather than destroy it. Unfortunately, its self-destruct program was too sophisticated for that. The adventurers and support drones were all damaged by the blast as the still-living sea hag chained to the table was killed. Sunny himself was put into critical condition after the blast slammed him against a wall while the battle continued around him. One of Leh'ct's giant octopi was able to grab Sunny and evacuate him to the surface, where the young druid was able to administer healing magic Sunny used to recharge his systems for emergency repairs.

Exploration and Setback

Elycia emerged from the water not long after (Jake having also been carried to safety by Leh'ct's other octopi after sustaining critical injuries) and reported most of the drones were gone. With the area seemingly secured, the adventurers returned to the basement to see what they could find. Sunny was particularly interested in finding any clues indicating what those drones had been up to here. Examining the hag corpses, he discovered that two of the three had been dissected for study and examination. Setting this grisly detail aside for the time being, he continued to another room with Jake and found a sewer grate with a hole cut in it. Widening the hole enough for himself and Jake to get through, he discovered it led outside the building and was likely used by one of the surviving support drones to escape.
After reconvening with the others, the party returned to the surface together when Jake and Elycia heard something strange nearby. It sounded like wind, which should be impossible in the Underdark. Sunny shone a lantern light (with enhanced range courtesy of Leh'ct's magic) in the direction of the noise and saw another drone that resembled a bird of prey. He attempted to approach it, but it flew back to keep its distance from him. When Leh'ct started to cast a spell, the drone deployed its weaponry. When Sunny then grabbed his shield, it began painting him with a targeting laser. The target then switched to the group's boat, which the bird drone shot with a powerful sonic blast. Though Jake did manage to get a shot through the bird drone's shield, it flew away at faster speeds than Sunny could keep up. With no way to pursue it at this time, Sunny returned to his friends to focus on fixing the boat.

Ollin's Borehole

R&R and Prep Work

The adventurers (who were reunited with K when the bugbear reappeared from the Ethereal Plane) decided to return to the Deep Spire to rest up and make a few preparations before heading for Ollin's Borehole. During this time, Sunny worked to repair his boat back to 100% and set his systems to analyze the drones they'd fought based on combat data and what little remained of their self-destructed wreckage.
With how hard he'd been hit while fighting Haz's drones, Sunny elected to armor himself for heavily and opt for direct combat rather than ranged stealth. He also used his systems to create a new energy shielding program based on the spell Elycia has cast on him before fighting the lead drone. While the effects were not exactly the same as Elycia's spell, they were close enough to satisfy Sunny. Once that was done, he was able to reconfigure his systems to create energy constructs as weapons (having had to take apart his gun for machinery needed to facilitate his new armor) by combining his existing leftover equipment with the preliminary results of his ongoing faerzress research. His comrades finished their own preparations around the same time and the group headed out for Ollin's Borehole.

Arrival & Negotiations

After pulling Sunny’s boat up on a beach, the adventurers snuck down a tunnel (courtesy of Jake's pass without trace spell) with Sunny in the lead. He heard something up ahead and went up ahead to investigate alone. Here he saw several elementals called myrmex, all of which appeared injured. Knowing these creatures were generally friendly, Sunny approached to speak with them. The elder myrmex greeted him but advised Sunny leave, stating this area was dangerous. Sunny asked why and the elder myrmex explained it had come here to establish a colony but was followed by xorn, which wanted to eat the gems that myrmex used to create their young.
Sunny returned to the others and filled them in on the situation to them before brining them forward to see the injured myrmex for themselves. The elder myrmex advised the adventurers against going into the mine, stating the xorn would attack the adventurers if they felt it was necessary and that other elementals which were outright hostile were also within. Seeing that this didn't deter them, the elder myrmex inquired if they were adventurers and offered to hire them upon learning they were. It offered to reward them if they could clear the xorn out so that it and its children could use the mine as a new nest. The elder myrmex stated it was normally opposed to using violence in such a manner, but would make an exception since this was the Material Plane and the xorn would merely return to the Elemental Plane of Earth if "killed" here.
Sunny (who had been translating the elder myrmex's Terran speech for the others) relayed this information and the group chose to accept. The elder myrmex then showed them where the entrance to the mine was, concealed behind an illusionary wall befitting of the deep gnomes who'd once lived here.

Workshop Area

The entrance to Ollin's Borehole was blocked by a wall of bars, though Sunny used his stonemason's tools to loosen them. The top of each bar was connected to a chain that went up into the rock. Sunny’s bit drone and Leh'ct were able to slip through the loose bars and find the winch connected to them, raising the bars and letting the others pass. They entered the mine proper, a massive hole going further down than they could see. A staircase spiraled downward with doorways pocketing the walls, some closed and others with the remains of broken-down doors on the ground nearby.
The adventurers began to explore these rooms, finding them long since abandoned. A sound alerted them to potential danger but turned out to be nothing but a harmless rock salamander, an earth elemental resembling a lizard that came to the material plane to eat insects and small rodents. Despite Sunny’s insistence on killing it, the rest of the adventurers said to leave it alone as it was no threat. They moved on entered a large room that once served as a storage & working area, broken furniture and pebbles littering the floor. As Sunny and Elycia stepped on the pebbles, they suddenly drew together into a serpentine form and attacked the adventurers.
Fortunately, their reflexes were quicker than the hostile elemental's and they were able to put it down before it could injure anyone. Leh'ct identified this creature as a talus flow, a weakened earth elemental that sustained itself on the Material Plane by feeding on the blood of living creatures in lieu of the natural energy of its home plane. They continued to explore the working area, finding old tools (Sunny collecting some jeweler's tools in the process) and gem dust that indicated gems were once stored on the shelves here. Oddly, each room had at least one section of wall that seemed to have been damaged by some sort of bludgeoning weapon at one time. There didn't seem to be anything else unusual about these spots, so the adventurers elected to ignore them for now.
Moving further down the stairs, Sunny entered another room that contained a scavenging xorn. He tried to intimidate it into leaving the mine, but it began to drool and eyed the tasty living metal that made up his body. Elycia and K ran in to assist Sunny as the xorn rushed towards him, slashing him with its claws and taking a chunk out of his shoulder with its massive maw. Though the adventurers injured the xorn, it fled through a solid wall before they could finish it. As Jake moved further down and into an adjacent room in case it reappeared there, another talus flow sensed his blood and attacked.
Most of the adventurers used hit and run tactics, forcing the talus flow to chase them outside. As Sunny took to the air to keep his distance from enemies, the xorn (or rather, it's arms) reappeared from the wall behind Jake and pushed him off the stairs and further down below, where yet another talus flow attacked him. K took the opportunity to finish off the xorn as Jake fled back towards the others, using his wraith magic items to pass through the talus flow and teleporting back up the stairs. The talus flow then went for the nearest target, K, and Elycia rushed to intercede as he dodged its blows. She used her advanced swordplay to mimic the xorn's tactics and push the talus flow off the stairs, sending it crashing down below where Jake quickly finished it with a pair of arrows.
Exploring the last of their immediate area, Sunny decided to put his bit drone on stealth mode and send it in to investigate an unexplored room. The drone managed to creep up on another xorn that was searching the room, though it quickly fled by dropping down through the floor when the adventurers ambushed it. Not before taking the time to turn its fangs and claws against Sunny though.

Living Quarters

With the danger seemingly over for now, the adventurers continued downwards towards where Jake had fallen before with Sunny in the lead. Nearby, in a fountain, Sunny spotted a quartet of mud mephits that were singing in their native Terran. Badly. And elected to ignore them before going through a doorway that led into a hallway with four more doors lining it. As he pondered which room to look into first, he heard a noise coming from one of them. Sunny kicked the door open and peppered the room with shots from his firearm, only to find it empty.
As he started to look around, Elycia heard a noise from a different room and threw open a door to find another xorn running across it. She ran in and drew her weapon, Sunny hot on her heels with his thunder gauntlets armed, and the pair managed to wound the xorn (which slashed Sunny with its claws in return) before it fled through a solid wall. Like the previous xorn, this one did not return to harass the adventurers. They soon explored all the rooms connected to the hallway, seeing that they were bedrooms that had been roughly searched long ago. The searchers were not the most thorough though, as Sunny was able to locate several agates in a chest (armed with a booby trap he helped K disable) while Leh'ct found a hidden compartment in a wardrobe containing several pieces of quartz. Oddly, none of these rooms possessed beds despite clearly being sleeping quarters.
As the adventurers moved on, Sunny kept his distance from the mud mephits (knowing they are mischief makers) but they flipped him off. When he flipped them off in return, one of them flew up and tried to spit a mud loogie on his bit drone. That was enough for Sunny to decide it was time for violence, drawing his weapon and prompting K to take out one of the mud mephits instantly. This also prompted the mud mephit who'd spit the loogie to whistle for reinforcements as eight more mud mephits came flying out of nearby tunnels, along with another talus flow that made a beeline for Jake when he backed up and got too close to it.
The new mephits were quick to spit their loogies, binding Sunny, his drone, Leh'ct, and Elycia in mud. This knocked Sunny and his drone out of the air, causing them to fall further down the borehole (the drone being destroyed on impact). Sunny fired a concussive rocket (taking out several mud mephits already injured by Leh'ct) before freeing himself from the mud. However, more mud mephits were knocked out of the air by Elycia's hypnotic pattern spell and one splattered onto Sunny, once again restraining him in mud. By the time he managed to free himself for the second time, his allies had put down the remaining mud mephits and the talus flow.

Bottom of the Borehole

The group explored a few remaining rooms once the fighting was over, discovering a hot spring near the sleeping quarters in the process. They decided to relax in the nice hot water while patching themselves up, taking an hour of well-earned R&R before continuing deeper. The path spiraling down the hole soon came to an end, but metal rungs embedded into the wall led down deeper. Sunny went down first, flying down on his thrusters while his comrades used the ladder. He found a pile of mattresses at the bottom of the mine, each having been slit open. When he stepped onto one and heard a crunch, he realized the mattresses had been thrown down the hole after the slaughtered miners.
As his friends finished coming down the ladder, Sunny began retrieving the remains and lining them up to properly lay them to rest. His friends began to assist this endeavor as they came down one by one and saw what he was doing. But they were interrupted when the two injured xorn from before came through the walls, accompanied by a much larger elder xorn who stated, in Common, they were the ones who'd been picking on his cousins. Sunny tried to ignore the elder xorn, focused on his task of properly burying the long dead deep gnomes, and it responded by crushing one of the skeletons under its large foot. Drawing the line at desecration of a cadaver, Sunny and his companions drew their weapons and prepared to battle the three xorn.
The elder xorn could smell the gold that the party carried, targeting Elycia and telling its two smaller cousins to go after K since the two of them held the most gold. The xorn proved to be tough, literally, as the adventurers fought back, their weapons bouncing off the elementals rocky hides more often than not. When the elder xorn began to become injured, it opened a bag it held and devoured an emerald to being healing its wounds. To stop it from doing this again, Leh'ct used his thorn whip spell to grab the bag from its claw and the enraged elder xorn chased after him. Sunny directed the rest of his companions to focus on the elder xorn, determined to take it down before it caught Leh'ct and started to eat the loot heal itself again.
As the elder xorn was about to catch up with Leh'ct, the young druid threw the bag of gems to Sunny. And missed, hitting Elycia on the head instead. Despite this, Sunny was quick to grab the gems and decided to keep them away from the elder xorn by putting them into his mouth to get them into his storage compartment. Unfortunately, he was unaware that one of the jewels was a spell gem and accidentally activated it, the magic within filling the empty space in and around Sunny with dirt (including his mouth). Though he was stuck, he was still able to move his limbs enough to retaliate against the elder xorn as it charged him, determined to tear Sunny open to get its snacks back.
Despite its incredible defenses, slowly but surely the adventurers were able to chip away at the rocky elemental. It was Elycia who dealt the final blow, striking her blade through the creature's eye and prompting the one common xorn still standing to flee. Unlike the lesser xorn, the elder xorn's body did not fade into normal stone when its spirit departed back to the Elemental Plane of Earth. Leh'ct was able to sense some form of magic coming from the corpse and figured out the magic was focused on its hide, which proved leathery underneath its rocky exterior. Sunny assisted Jake with skinning the creature, the adventurers knowing that this hide would surely be a useful crafting material. They also checked the bag of gems they recovered, finding three emeralds, a yellow diamond, a high-value piece of agate, and a Spell Gem (Quartz) recently emptied of its evocation magic.

Rewards for a Job Well Done

While the injured Elycia patched herself up and Jake stood guard, Sunny and Leh'ct took Sunny's trusty shovels and gave the long abandoned remains of the deep gnome miners a proper burial. Once that was done, they searched the immediate area and Sunny located a large collection of gems worth various values where the xorn had been digging. Finding nothing else of interest, the group returned to the mine's surface to speak with the myrmex.
The elder myrmex welcomed them back as Sunny once again translated its Terran speech for the rest of the adventurers. It also expressed its condolences upon noticing K (whose curse had sent him to the Ethereal Plane again) was missing, believing him to have died. At the elder myrmex's prompting, the group explained what had happened and that the xorn were now gone from the mine. They also described the talus flows with Leh'ct showing several samples he'd collected. While the myrmex had no use for them, the elder showed Sunny and Leh'ct how the pebbles could be used to magically create a Wall of Earth.
The elder also inquired if they'd found any gems down there. Sunny initially only handed over the least valuable gems, though the elder's open wondering if that would give the colony enough numbers to establish a defense against the xorn]xorn that were sure to return convinced him to (somewhat reluctantly) hand over some of the more valuable ones as well. The elder myrmex was quite pleased with this and stated it would now give the group the reward it had promised them. Using both its physical strength and magic, it dug up a flail snail shell that had been buried nearby. It also informed the adventurers that they were now friends to the myrmex and would always be welcome among them. With the job done and their rewards secured, the party hopped back into Sunny's boat to make their way back to the Deep Spire.

Events on the Loch

An Unusual Alliance

On the way back, the adventurers boat passed over the deepest part of the Black Loch, the Smoldering Abyss. The water around them began to bubble and gave off heat, prompting Sunny to kick his electrically powered boat into high speed. Despite these efforts, the boat was carried high into the air when the underwater geyser beneath them erupted. Fortunately, Sunny was able to get them back down safely. As he was making sure nothing was damaged, Leh'ct and Jake both commented they had seen a light glowing on the surface of the Loch in the distance. This roused Sunny's curiosity and he moved the boat in the direction his companions pointed.
As they approached, they saw the glow stretching hundreds of feet across the Loch. At its center were two ships. The first was near-identical to the Grinning Widow, the same as other ships local to the area, and crewed by kobold vipers. The second was made of white wood and featured sails marked with the symbol of the elven military from a surface nation, which everyone save Sunny recognized. The two crews appeared to be talking to each other, though it wasn't long before they noticed Sunny's boat (which had gradually moved into the lit area) while the party debated whether to approach.
Things went south when Leh'ct decided to summon a raven familiar to tell the elves they came in peace. The elves mistook this as a sign of hostility, believing he was using a raven familiar in reference to The Raven Queen (the Goddess of Death). When he tried to shout that that was not what he meant, the elves noticed him and nocked their arrows on the basis of him being a drow. Sunny decided this situation wasn't going to be solved peacefully; seeing as they were all still somewhat beat up from their previous adventure, he was quick to turn his boat around and speed off towards the Deep Spire faster than either of the larger ships could pursue. Still, he wondered what the kobold vipers he'd been pondering about could've been discussing with the elves, and what his meant for his planned behir hunt.

Events at the Deep Spire

Arriving back in the Deep Spire's harbor, the party's first order of business was to store the flail snail shell they'd acquired in the Grinning Widow's cargo hold. There they ran into Villamax, who welcomed them back before they started explaining their adventure. Villamax took this opportunity to ask Sunny if he could borrow Biggs for a bit, mentioning the kuo-toa crew had been sleeping on the ship but weren't very tidy and it needed a good cleaning. He also said he intended to summon a cat familiar due to Itassis noticing rodent droppings on the ship's railing. When the party mentioned things seemed to be heating up around here (due to the elven warship) and they might want to make tracks immediately, Villamax stated that might be difficult as Mott had been arrested.
Villamax didn't know the full details, but evidentially Mott had been arrested alongside Gobo, and Ernest had gone to pay Mott's bail. He also mentioned the guards had already been tense before the arrest because a duergar spy from Brazenthrone had been caught and was undergoing interrogation. This piqued Sunny and Jake's interest, the pair of them deciding to see if they could learn more while the rest of the party dealt with other business.
Sunny went to the main guardhouse (Jake accompanying him to act as translator) and attempted to warn the Tideborne guards about the elven and kobold viper ships they'd seen. However, the orogs were unconcerned as they had no history of hostility with either of those factions, though they did thank Sunny for the tip despite their initial rudeness. With that being something of a bust, the two adventurers went to rendezvous with the others and learned the Crows had a bounty hunter after them when Leh'ct burst in and started rambling about an encounter with "Black Hand" Kelly.

New Problems

Sunny suggested they use a buddy system so long as Kelly was at large, though Leh'ct mentioned the bounty hunter had been arrested by a Sword Dancer on account of his suspicious behavior. Despite this, the young druid told the others they should go to the Sword Dancers and warn them in full about how dangerous Kelly is. As they were doing this, Leh'ct mentioned the arresting Sword Dancer had taken Kelly somewhere on the third floor of the Deep Spire. This confused the Sword Dancers, as they had no facilities in that area. Going there to investigate, Sunny picked the lock only for the adventurers and guards to find an empty apartment that had been thoroughly cleaned. It seemed Kelly had tricked Leh'ct and already made his escape.
With nothing else to do about that for the time being, Sunny led the rest of the group to Gobo's Traveling Shop to sell off some of the treasure they'd collected and purchase a few new things. Though Sunny himself didn't purchase any new items, he handled the bookkeeping involved with selling the many goods the adventurers had acquired. As the adventurers were getting ready to leave, they suddenly heard a commotion outside. Sunny stuck his head out the door and saw a great many people rushing down towards the harbor. Curious, Sunny dodged the crowd by jumping over the side of the Spire and flying down to investigate (getting yelled at by a guard in the process).
As his friends caught up, the harbormaster (who'd be speaking with a ship's captain) stated a fishing ship had been found drifting with the crew dead at their stations and towed in near the harbor. Based on where it was found, they believed it had gotten too close to the mind flayer colony of Gyan'dis. This was unnerving to hear, both for the adventurers and citizens of the Deep Spire, given how dangerous mind flayers are. The harbormaster announced a full investigation would take place, during which time the harbor would be closed to traffic and anyone who got near the towed ship would be thoroughly examined by House Vaerixas' priestesses for signs of enchantment magic, or worse.
As the conversation between the harbormaster and concerned citizens continued, Villamax appeared and approached the party. He'd heard the commotion and they filled him in on what the harbormaster had just explained. While Sunny and his fellow adventurers (sans Leh'ct) had no interest sticking their noses into some as dangerous as mind flayers, Villamax stated he intended to investigate. When the adventurers expressed concern, he claimed his magic could create an earthquake to destroy the whole place if necessary. If he was coming with them, they were on board for exploring such a hazardous place.

Villamax's Objective

As this discussion was happening, Leh'ct inquired about Villamax's secret mission and whether he'd been able to find any leads in House Vaerixas' library. The wizard informed the young druid that he indeed had, prompting Leh'ct to further ask exactly what his mission was. It was then Villamax decided he knew these adventurers well enough to tell them now, but he did not wish to discuss it in public and moved their discussion to the Grinning Widow's cargo hold before continuing.
He started by asking them if they'd ever heard the name Tenebrous, which only Sunny had. It was the name taken by Orcus, Demon Lord of the Undead, during the brief period he attained godhood and used a power known as the Last Word to kill several deities. Chief among them was Primus, the Supreme Modron and the deity Villamax himself seemed to worship. While there was a new Primus now, due to the promotion system modrons operate on, Villamax was still quite angry and offended by Orcus' audacity and had decided to kill the demon lord. As part of his plan, he was currently seeking a way to permanently destroy the Wand of Orcus and deprive the demon lord of his greatest weapon. While the party's reactions to his story varied greatly, it seemed to strike a chord with Jake who related to (and potentially sympathized with) Villamax's motive of revenge.
Back to the topic of the mind flayer colony, Villamax noticed Sunny and co. hadn't 100% recovered from their last adventure and recommended they rest up to full strength. Not that they could leave now anyway, with the harbor being closed for the time being. Villamax also advised the adventurers to take this time and improve upon their skills if they could, suggesting they think about their recent experiences and focus on either honing their strengths or shoring up their weaknesses. Sunny decided it would be a good opportunity to go over his weapons options and settled on making some explosives.

Illithid Colony of Gyan'dis

Prepping for Departure

For his prep work, Sunny's initial idea was to create gunpowder. However, he found that the local raw materials were too impure to make a level of explosive that he considered respectable. Thinking outside the box, his thoughts were drawn back to the sonic weapons used by the drones Haz created and he wondered if he could make something on a similar principle. This idea proved fruitful and he was soon able to draw up a blueprint for the Thunderburst Mine, and get things set up to produce them at a steady (albeit somewhat slow) rate. He also took the time to incorporate more weapons holders into his limbs to store and carry these new explosives safely.
Thinking on the capabilites of mind flayers, he also decided to stop by the local apothecary to see if they had potions for resisting the effects of necrotic and psychic attacks. The shop only had the psychic version immediately available, though they were both more expensive and less effective than the mushrooms Gobo sold to counteract other types of attacks. Disappointed, Sunny decided to abandon this idea when Jake walked in to do a little shopping of his own.
After confirming they had vials of acid and alchemist's fire, Jake also asked if they had any sort of paralytic agent. The shopkeeper informed him those substances were illegal at the Deep Spire due to their usage by the Lolth-worshipping drow in keeping victims alive long enough to drag them onto sacrificial altars and send their souls to the Demonweb Pits. When Sunny questioned why not use a useful tool just because some others chose to misuse it, the shopkeeper escalated the discussion into an argument and was unhappy that someone would advocate using a tool commonly associated with such evil actions. Jake awkwardly watched this exchange while Sunny tried to argue the point that a tool shouldn't be invalidated just because some people choose to use it for expressly evil acts, but to no avail until the shopkeeper got angry enough to kick him out.

Not What We Expected

Two weeks later, Sunny was making a final check prepping his boat (now that the harbor was back open) as his friends arrived. While his regular companions made sure to hunker themselves down as much as they could on account of Sunny's piloting skills, he seemed to take a bit of pleasure in surprising Villamax with the boat's sudden bursts of speed (once when leaving the harbor and again when out on the open water).
Their journey towards Gyan'dis was unremarkable as they sped across the Black Loch, and soon the adventurers came close enough to see the tunnels that lead towards their destination. Concerned about someone finding and stealing or damaging the boat, Sunny anchored it out in the water while Villamax cast the fly spell to get the adventurers to the tunnel. They immediately noticed the area was suffused with faerzress, unsurprised as they knew it didn't affect the psionics mind flayers used the way it could hamper magic. Not sure what to expect, the group opted for stealth as they advanced forward (Jake preemptively using a pass without trace spell on the party to assist that effort). They came into a cave in the middle of the tunnel littered with humanoid size boulders. When a suspicious Leh’ct poked one of them with a 10-foot pole, the "boulders" dropped their camouflage and revealed themselves to be some of Haz's drones.
These drones spoke audibly, primarily targeting Sunny, who they claimed had betrayed his home empire, as well as Elycia for her destruction of the Hunter-Killer at Clogwyn Prison. Furthermore, they had small, flying support units that could disrupt and repurpose magical energy. These units stifled both Sunny and Leh’ct's attempts at spellcasting, though Elycia was able to use a shatter spell to soften up their enemies while Villamax followed up to destroy half their number with a spell of chain lightning. The rest of the drones fell shortly after, both thanks to another lightning spell from Villamax and the sudden reappearance of K as the bugbear popped back into the Material Plane.

Second Battle & Interrogation

Though these drones were destroyed, Sunny was now hellbent on destroying them and anything associated with them here. Nonetheless, the adventurers knew they had to move forward cautiously with how dangerous these things were. Or, at least, some of them knew that. Sunny peeked around the corner into the next chamber and saw another drone standing there watching the cave entrance. As the group prepared to go in, K decided to rush it and quickly found himself surrounded by more drones as well as a duergar that seemed to be working with them.
The second group of drones was just as tough as the first; though fewer in number, they were accompanied by a more dangerous new combat model on top of having the duergar crossbowman assisting them. But the adventurers had learned from their previous encounter and targeted the support drones first to eliminate the threat of their magic disruption. Sunny charged right into the frontlines to take on these drones, doing damage but finding himself repeatedly caught in explosions as each drone self-destructed upon taking an irreparable amount of damage. The drones were soon destroyed thanks to the combined efforts of the adventurers, which prompted the duergar accompanying them to surrender.
The adventurers had very mixed opinions on exactly what to do with their prisoner. Villamax filled them in a bit on duergar culture, stating that they would adhere to any agreement made but to the exact letter of that agreement. Sunny, filled with anger towards his brother, was the most forceful during the conversation that followed and threatened the man on pain of death. He grew further enraged when some of his companions wished to negotiate on more equal footing, stating they had the advantage in these negotiations and should use that. Despite his wishes, the prisoner refused to start talking until Leh'ct stated they would not harm him so long as he didn't harm them and answered their questions. The duergar, who identified himself as Mr. Doubtfire, agreed to these terms and started talking.
Doubtfire was a hired hand from Cinderfolk Foundry and part of a group of duergar (the rest of whom were further inside) investigating a psionic disturbance they'd sensed at Gyan'dis. He and the drones had been left as a rear guard to make sure nothing snuck up on the rest of the group, which he identified as including seven other individuals. Sunny grilled Mr. Doubtfire about his people's involvement with the drones. While he didn't know much, he was able to tell them the drones had been assisting them for months in exchange for large quantities of iron. Seeing as more conflict against these drones was likely, Villamax asked Sunny if he knew of any weaknesses the party could exploit.

Argument Among Adventurers

Brushing off Villamax, Sunny continued to grill Doubtfire and learned how many duergar and drones were up ahead (last Doubtfire had seen them, as they might've run into trouble that reduced their numbers). While that was happening, Leh'ct stepped out of the room for a minute and K took opportunity of his absence to stab and kill Doubtfire. Leh'ct returned and was immediately distraught to see the prisoner dead, Sunny claiming he'd taken his own life as they started questioning the man about his family. While that happened, K lifted the Cube of Ghost Trapping off him and passed it to Sunny's drone to ensure Leh'ct didn't use some of its charges revivifying the prisoner. True to form, Leh'ct attempted to do just that and started to panic when he couldn't find the cube. Sunny suggested he might've dropped it in the boat and offered to have his drone look for it, at which point Leh'ct caught onto the ruse and called out Sunny and K on their deception.
Sunny admitted the truth and stated he hadn't wanted Leh'ct wasting resources that could potentially save one of them later. Leh'ct had reservations about continuing the mission due to the apparent lack of trust and was very emotional in expressing this. It soon became a full blown argument between him and Sunny. Leh'ct stated their conversation had closed the window on casting a revivify spell and was very angry about being considered a "stupid little kid", comparing it to himself stealing Sunny's tools if Sunny did something he didn't like. Sunny stood by his decision, stating everyone sans Leh'ct seemed to agree with his point of view due to either aiding it or looking the other way. This still didn't sit well with Leh'ct, who viewed the killing of Doubtfire as needless and accused Sunny of being no better than Haz.
K stepped in at this point, telling Leh'ct the Cube of Ghost Trapping is a valuable resource that shouldn't be squandered in a place as dangerous as the Underdark as he admitted to taking it. He also wasn't crazy about the fact Leh'ct had both made a promise to the prisoner and tried to use the cube without properly weighing the pros & cons or consulting the rest of the party before making those decisions. He went back to how dangerous the Underdark was and stated some killing would be necessary if they were to survive down here, insinuating Leh'ct needed to act like an adult if he wanted to be treated like one.
Leh'ct showed surprise that it was K who'd taken the cube and stated he did not believe Doubtfire had taken his own life as K claimed. K picked the cube from his pocket beforehand, so clearly he'd known Leh'ct would attempt to use it and had therefore pre-planned the killing. Leh'ct seemed to hit his emotional breaking point then, accusing Sunny and K of recklessly killing everything they came across with nary a second thought. He was particularly upset about being lied to and compared their behavior to that of the Crows and Lolth-worshiping drow. He argued that killing everyone means no one will ever surrender and that they had enough lifelong enemies as is. Leh'ct also questioned if this has happened before, now openly suspecting enemies previously "spared" may have been killed behind his back.
Even Villamax, who had spent the conversation very much looking like he did not know how to deal with this, tried to step in and calm Leh'ct down at this point, to no avail. Sunny, meanwhile, decided to take a firmer approach. He outright told Leh'ct trying to use the Cube of Ghost Trapping to save an enemy was a mistake, comparing taking it from Leh'ct to keeping sharp knives away from small children. Sunny reiterated that this was a hostile enemy, as he had been with the drones that attacked them. He stated Leh'ct clearly was a child if he was trying to befriend people who'd moments ago attempted to kill him and that good & bad must sometimes be set aside for the sake of necessity. Lastly, he angrily warned Leh'ct that if the young druid ever compared him to Haz ("that genocidal 'thing'") again, Sunny would not let it go a second time. And he was only giving Leh'ct a pass this first time due to Leh'ct's ignorance on the matter. With no accord to be found between them, Leh'ct stormed off the way the party had come from by himself.

Strange Sighting

Jake, having awkwardly watched this exchange and knowing how dangerous things could be down here, went off to search for Leh'ct. A few minutes later, Sunny and the others heard Jake calling for them and went to investigate with Elycia (K's curse having popped him into the Ethereal Realm again while Villamax watched their rear). There he saw a strange figure, shaped like a man with red/purple skin pulled too tight that bones could be seen through. It wore a tight-fitting coat and its head/skull was missing above the bridge of the nose, smoke pouring out of the top of its head. The strange figure stood there and stared at the adventurers, not moving in the slightest as they attempted to communicate. Jake recalled he'd been under a tongues spell the last time he'd spoken to this strange figure and went to have Villamax cast it on him once again. When he returned, the strange figure still did nothing other than stand & stare despite his questions.
Despite this apparent lack of action, Sunny suddenly found his thoughts drifting back to his argument with Leh'ct. His anger returned, stronger than before, as the fresh memory of Leh'ct comparing him to Haz flashed through his mind. With it came a murderous rage, a feeling that Leh'ct should be eliminated before he could do something even more rash than the actions he'd already taken. And in that moment, Sunny realized these thoughts were not his own. Or not entirely his own at least; something was attempting to manipulate him. He asked the strange figure if this was its doing, but still it only stood and stared. Sunny stepped forward and placed a landmine between the strange figure and his group, telling his comrades to back away and cautioning the strange figure not to move forward or it would be injured. It continued to simply stand as stare as they went back and told Villamax what they'd seen. The wizard was unable to identify this creature, stating it might be something unique to the area or some sort of one-of-a-kind being.

Battles at Gyan'dis

The party figured Leh'ct must be hiding somewhere nearby, doubting he would've gone past the strange figure standing in the only tunnel leading back to the Black Loch. With him seemingly safe(ish) for now, they decided to press on after taking a little time to mend their wounds a bit. As they moved forward, they left the natural tunnels behind them as they became man made (or, more likely, illithid made) hallways. The hallway eventually narrowed, forcing them to move single file with Sunny second from the from behind Jake. The hall ended in a door, which Sunny found unlocked as he checked it for traps. Opening it, he found an antechamber that contained three cadavers, one mind flayer and two troglodytes. They showed no apparent sign of death, as if they'd simply dropped dead where they stood, and their pockets had been rifled through.
With nothing but mysteries here, Sunny opened the door to the next room which was a massive chamber stretching well over in a hundred feet in every direction. He spotted another drone and went back inside, warning his friends of it and telling them to prepare themselves. Elycia stepped out to confront it and quickly found herself in an ambush as four more drones sprang from hiding to attack. Sunny rushed out to reinforce her, engaging in melee combat with the closest drone. When Villamax heavily damaged three of them, Sunny took the opportunity to finish them off with a series of micro missiles before they could close in on the adventurers. As the battle continued, the ground began to shake and Villamax urged the adventurers to flee from the antechamber. They got out just in time as a neothelid emerged from the floor, taking out the last drone as they retreated.
Villamax told them to run for a hole they'd seen a duergar retreat down when the drones had first opened fire, outright stating that he'd handle this as this monster would kill them if it caught them. Trusting the wizard to handle himself, they did just that but it wasn't long before another set of drones ambushed them, this group led by one of the more advanced drones they'd seen in the in the tunnels. Sunny focused on this lead drone as it opened fire on him, leaving the lesser ones to his companions. This one was intelligent enough to retreat as it fired again, Sunny blocking this shot with his shield as he closed in. But the drone's sharp forelegs proved just as deadly as its projectile weapon and Sunny was soon forced to retreat after receiving heavy damage. As the last of the weaker drones was dealt with, the lead drone initiated its self-destruct sequence. Sunny and Elycia were able to get behind cover and protect themselves, though Leh'ct (who'd rejoined the others when the neothelid appeared) and Jake were both burned by the explosion.

Exploration & Awakened

With the area seemingly secured for now, Sunny and the others began to search the colony. His first order of business was examining the cadaver of the elder brain, floating in a brine pool nearby. Using his flight, Sunny was able to push it to the side of the pool with a 10-foot pole so that Leh'ct could harvest its neural core. Once that was done, he got to exploring properly. Many of the rooms were empty of anything save more mind flayer and troglodyte corpses, all of which seemed to have been looted already. Sunny decided to partially dissect one of the dead mind flayers by removing its brain, only to open its skull and find the brain to look like it had exploded. He examined several additional bodies and found them all in the same condition, which seemed to be what killed them though Sunny was still unsure about why.
Exploring further, he found a large device that he recognized as an incepting tank. These devices were used by the ancient mind flayers to enhance the psionic abilities of their mind-controlled minions, which ultimately backfired as it gave rise to the Gith that later destroyed their empire. Wishing to experiment with the tank, Sunny fiddled with the settings before convincing K to hop inside. The initial results disappointed Sunny when they gave K a seizure rather than psionic powers. Luckily, he was able to tinker with the device before it killed K, giving the bugbear the ability to partially protect himself with a Psychic Shield. This did seem to damage the machine beyond repair, forcing Sunny to move on. As he kept exploring, he opened a door and suddenly found himself face to face with a trio of confused duergar. Sunny immediately set a landmine between himself and the duergar, who backed away.
While the adventurers stood and debated how to proceed (Sunny yelling down the hall for the duergar to surrender), the duergar circled around and came up behind the party via another passage. They seemed willing to talk, informing the party they were there to make sure the mind flayers were all dead. When Sunny asked about Haz's whereabouts, the duergar told him to try the Brazenthrone market. Things took a turn south when the duergar mentioned collecting their man upstairs, seeming to suddenly know he'd been killed. Two of the duergar followed Leh'ct's gaze to K as this was mentioned, and the duergar attacked with silver fire in their eyes as one revealed they spoke Common and understood the information the party thought was hidden behind a language barrier.
Though Jake and K were quick to slay a duergar armed with a spellbook, the remaining two proved extremely formidable. Sunny soon lost control of himself as his body was overtaken by one of them, at the same time as K, Leh'ct, and Elycia. Trapped in his own mind, Sunny could only watch as his body marched forward and struck the already injured K. And still, he could but watch when a split second later Leh'ct was forced to drive a dagger into K's heart. Sunny soon shook off the effect controlling him, chasing after the two remaining duergar. His efforts to take them down proved short lived, as the one who appeared to be the leader grabbed his companion and the corpse of their slain comrade, teleporting away in a column of silver fire as he promised Sunny that the adventurers "hadn't seen the last of the Awakened".

The End of Gyan'dis

With the duergar having fled (and K brought back to life thanks to a revivify spell Leh'ct cast using the Cube of Ghost Trapping), the danger was past for now. After giving K a bit of additional medical treatment, Sunny continued exploring. In a lower chamber, he discovered a second, smaller incepting tank as well as three empty alcoves that looked like they recently held additional units. Examining this second machine, Sunny could tell it had been sabotaged at some point. Despite this, he thought that perhaps he could fix it using parts from the first machine he'd stumbled across earlier.
After doing just this, Sunny put himself in the pod & instructed K to activate it. Rather than the psionic powers he (once again) hoped for, Sunny received a vision. In it, he was the dead elder brain from the brine pool. The elder brain had made the decision to using the incepting tanks, thinking it could do better than its ancestors, only for the (unknown to the elder brain) sabotage to create psionics that could not be controlled. Panicking that it had just created another humanoid akin to the Gith, the elder brain focused the full might of its power and released a psychic shockwave that killed itself and every other living thing in Gyan'dis.
Sunny stumbled out of the pod and told K (as well as Jake, who'd joined K while Sunny was in there) what he'd seen. He openly chastised the dead elder brain for its foolishness, doing only a little more exploring before finding Villamax had come back and was standing around with Elycia. Villamax informed Sunny he'd seen one of Haz's small flying drones burst out of a mushroom patch and flee towards the Black Loch while he fought the neothelid but was unable to stop it. Sunny had K help him carry the jury-rigged incepting tank out of the colony as Villamax used his magic to destroy the place with an earthquake. Their business here concluded, the adventurers headed back towards the Deep Spire.

Charwell Fortress

Making the Most of Materials

Sunny left the boat to look for Gobo, finding the little goblin outside the shop space he'd rented grilling meat and mushroom shish kebabs on a little BBQ. Seeking the little goblin's favor, Sunny gave Gobo a pack of cookies he'd made before asking to talk privately in the shop. Gobo left Knick-Knack in charge of the grill (the flumph putting on a chef's hat to get ready) and they headed inside where Sunny showed him the elder brain pieces. Gobo took the time to take out a waterskin and do a spit take a good 30 seconds after Sunny showed him this just to showcase how shocked he was. While Sunny had some ideas of his own for the materials, he wanted to see what Gobo could do too.
Gobo asked Sunny to wait a minute and wrote down a list of things he could make on parchment, as well as what each item would cost. While many of the items were impressive, the ones that mainly interested Sunny were far outside his price range. At this point, Sunny started to wonder if he could use these materials to make a variant of the behir horn-powered weapon he'd been designing, seeing as these bits of brain were organically designed to work off electricity. But Sunny knew that this would take time and decided to set that project to the side for now. In the meantime, he went looking for K in hopes for using him to further experiment with the incepting tank they'd recovered. Unfortunately, K was well into his fifth round with the crew of the Grinning Widow at a tavern, so Sunny had to leave that idea be for the time being too.
The next morning, Sunny decided to look for the expedition's rear party to see what they'd been up to lately. He spotted Itassis first and ignored her. Then he found Ernest, who informed him the expedition would be leaving and heading for Brazenthrone on their way to Vlyn'darastyl within a week or two. Seeing his window to hunt that behir rapidly closing, Sunny went to round up his companions so they could head for Charwell Fortress. But before leaving for the hunt, they decided to pay a visit to Lord Varl and warn him about the duergar they'd run into at the Ruins of Gyan'dis, knowing these enhanced duergar could cause issues with his plans for war.
They were allowed in to see him with no fuss and brought to Varl's chambers. The adventurers told the orog leader what they had encountered at the Ruins of Gyan'dis and how much more powerful the psionics of these duergar were than normal. Varl questioned when and where this happened as the adventurers thought that perhaps this new information would caution him away from his warplans. The information had the opposite effect, Varl declaring he must accelerate his plans to attack Brazenthrone before they had time to use the incepting tanks to strengthen their entire army. In gratitude, Varl gave each adventurer bar of gold before dismissing them.
Seeing that they still wouldn't be able to sway Varl's opinion, the group decided to get back to focusing on the behir hunt. While most of the adventurers were on board with this, Leh'ct stated that he'd be staying behind. He believed the rest of the group was planning to kill their way through the kobold vipers to get to the behir and stated he wouldn't be part of invading people's home ready to kill them when they'd done nothing wrong.
As the group was making preparations to leave, Jake found a note in his pocket while checking his equipment. It had a crude drawing of the nearby region of the Loch with an X on it. A line written in Undercommon read, "Where we found the elf." Jake and Elycia were surprised someone had been able to slip him this note without him or any of his companions noticing, though Sunny estimated even an untrained person could pull it off 25% of the time if they got lucky. The X was only a little out of the way between the Deep Spire and Charwell Fortress, so the adventurers elected to investigate it on the way there.

Sunken Elven Ship

Though the elven warship had sunk, its location was marked by flotsam and jetsam floating on the still waters of the Loch. Though this seemed to be the right spot, the boat had sunk too deep for them to see it from the surface. It suddenly dawned on the adventurers that without Leh'ct present, they did not have access to water breathing magic. As the only one who didn't require oxygen naturally, Sunny went down to investigate alone. He tied a rope around his waist, handed it to Elycia, and instructed her to pull him up if he tugged on the rope three times.
The ship had clearly seen battle, as well as taken some damage on its way down. Wildlife was already starting to make itself at home as plants and animals swam in and around the vessel. Sunny searched the captain's quarters first, only to find they'd already been ransacked. Oddly, he found no corpses as he searched and speculated the wildlife had already made meals of them. Entering the cargo hold next, he found most of the cargo thrown into a big pile in the center of the room. Finding this odd, he started to dig through it. There was a hole in the bottom of the ship, seemingly the reason it had sunk, and the cargo had all been sucked towards it. From what Sunny could tell, the hole had been forcibly ripped into the ship from the outside. He also found strange residue near it which seemed to match the purple faerzress samples he'd collected back at the Ruins of Gyan'dis.
While digging through the wrecked cargo, he did manage to find a single elven corpse. It was headless, as expected from the events the survivor Fen had described, and clutched a very fancy looking spear. Sunny put the spear on his back and was about to keep exploring when he suddenly felt something off. It was almost like he was being watched, or that something nearby had sensed his presence. Suddenly feeling very alone and vulnerable in these isolated dark waters, Sunny tugged on his rope three times rather than chancing a run-in with whatever ate those dead elves.
Jake and Elycia quickly hauled him back to the surface where Sunny explained what he'd found down there. Elycia recognized the spear he'd found as a Peregrine Spear from her time in the elven military. Then something suddenly hit the side of the boat and Sunny hopped in. Whatever it was hit again, more violently this time. Jake looked over the side but only saw a fleeting shadow the size of a horse. A claw broke through the bottom of the boat, springing a leak, and Sunny took off at full speed after quickly mending the hole.

Battle on the Dock

With the elven warship behind them, the adventurers continued on towards Charwell Fortress. The island it sat on was surrounded by glowing buoys, preventing any attempt at sneaking past the watchful eyes of the kobold vipers on the ramparts. Sunny brought the boat in slowly to hide its true speed and headed for a dock. Two guards on the ramparts spoke to the adventurers in Undercommon, asking who they were and what they wanted (Jake translating for the others).
The adventurers tried to pass themselves off as traders, but the guards didn't buy it due to the small size of Sunny’s boat. They then stated their boat had been damaged and they were looking for a place to fix it. The guards said they could fix the boat here but told them not to step foot off the dock. While Sunny and Elycia were focused on the conversation, Jake noticed the claw of a waterkledde reaching out of the water to grab Elycia's ankle. She yanked her foot away as Sunny and Jake attacked the demon, only for a second waterkledde to emerge from the water, grab her, and drag her under with a splash.
While Jake focused on the initial waterkledde, Sunny dived into the water to help Elycia with the second. It wasn't long before Elycia was able to get away from the other one, her and Sunny injuring it enough that it fled north (along with the other, which was injured by Jake). But before they were out of range, Jake managed to place a magical mark on one of the monsters that would allow him to track it. The kobold vipers asked if the adventurers were ok, but then told them to leave if they were going to bring monsters with them. Jake's tracking magic would only last for an hour, so the adventurers elected to chase the waterkleddes and finish them while they had the chance.

Tracking the Quarry

The chase led the adventurers to the edge of the Black Loch, coming up on a cliffside path with a tunnel leading off in one direction and a cave in another. Watching the water carefully, the adventurers opened fire on a waterkledde as it burst from the Loch, killing it while it was still half in the water & preventing it from creating more spawn. As its body decayed into demonic sludge, they noticed a rustling in the bushes nearby.
A cloaked, masked man emerged and introduced himself as a demon hunter named Corbin. He said he'd been tracking the waterkleddes, but came off as very odd. This man spoke unusually, saying things that made sense but were described oddly. As they were talking, the second injured waterkledde burst from the water and flew into the nearby cave at full speed. Not about to let it get away, the adventurers pursued with this Corbin character in the lead.
The tunnel soon led to an open cave, the injured waterkledde lurking inside. As Sunny ran in to engage, pockets of air shimmered around him and an invisibility spell dropped as the bounty hunters "Black Hand" Kelly & Vex and their Crow associate Eldingar Toreros revealed themselves. The waterkledde had been bait and the adventurers had bitten. The bounty hunters attacked.

Bounty Hunter Ambush

"Black Hand" Kelly struck first, firing a powerful blast of necrotic energy that heavily injured Sunny, Jake, and Corbin (Elycia only spared because she'd gone into the wall with her Xorn-Sole Boots). He was further injured by an explosive tipped arrow fired by Vex. As Corbin surrounded the bounty hunters with an area of magical darkness, Sunny laid down a Thunderburst Mine as he retreated down the tunnel. Unaware of the mine's presence or function, the waterkledde charged forward and attacked, setting off the mine in the process.
The triggered mine injured the waterkledde to the point of near-death and it charged through the collapsing tunnel entrance. It pecked and clawed at Sunny, critically damaging his systems. One of its claws managed to breach Sunny’s power core and triggered his self-destruct mechanism, the resulting explosion destroyed Sunny & the waterkledde while injuring Corbin to the point of incapacitation as well as the already incapacitated Jake. It also destroyed all the magic items Sunny was carrying, including Biggs.

Farewell to a Friend

However, while this was the end of Sunny's construct it was not the end of Sunny himself. What none of this companions knew was that Sunny was not, nor even had been, a warforged. The "warforged" they traveled with was merely a construct called a Gundam, piloted by Sunny the hamster from within. He managed to eject from his Gundam before the explosion could kill him, though he did lose a leg in the blast. His body was also infected with faerzress radiation poisoning after the samples he was carrying were destroyed by the blast and had their energy violently released.
Luckily for him, the bounty hunters were too occupied fighting the monsters released by his magic items to notice a little hamster. He quickly cobbled together a makeshift drone with equal parts ingenuity and duct tape, using it to head back to the Deep Spire. Injured as he was and with his Gundam destroyed, he had no choice but to return home and collect his pension. But before that, he wanted to say goodbye to the adventurer he considered his best friend/test subject, K.
K was still recovering from the surgery Sunny had performed on him and intially wondered whether the hamster in the drone was a painkiller-induced hallucination. Then the drone spoke with Sunny's voice and he explained everything to K, including how the party's latest adventure had not gone well. Sunny did not know whether any of the others had survived and now had to leave and return to his home, the Miniature Giant Space Hamster Empire, to receive medical treatment.
But before he left, he asked that K help stop the Light Gundam, a rogue intelligent Gundam that had abducted Sunny's brother Haz. He told K that his other brother, Ban, should be along soon to help the party and continue pursuit of the Light Gundam. With their goodbyes said, K telling Sunny to come back and visit after healing up, the hamster took his leave and headed for home.

Related Plots

• Campaign 05: Uncovering the Underdark

Circumstances of "Death"
Gundam unit damaged beyond repair by a waterkledde and self-destructed
Magic Items
Bag of Colding
Black Pudding Power Bomb
Cleaning Cube
Clockwork Earwig
Cube of Ghost Trapping
Funeral Marchers
Goggles of Night
Mercenary's Pauldron
Paralysis Sac Trinket (Armadillo OoPA)
Periscope Rod
Religion
Myzi, the Mouse King
Unique Equipment
Incepting Tank
Thunderburst Mine (1/day manufacture; storage space for 6 in limbs)
Unique Feats
Explosive Failsafe
Mechanical Expert
Unique Spells
Brightlance
Wall of Earth