Giant Mechanical Men Hit Hard

General Summary

We finally exit the panic room after a few false starts and hiding from some mechanical patrols. We thought we were so smart retreating and hiding. We attempted to sneak down the hall, but for some reason ever since I put on my new cloak I seem to have more trouble sneaking. I don’t know if it’s me or the Cap’n yelling “On guard foul beast!” that alerted the patrol, but we ended up in a desperate fight for our lives with the things. The metal guard spits black liquid on Cap’n and then starts clanking. I continue beating the metal dog, and as I deliver one final blow it explodes, hitting the metal guard next to him, and it blows up, and it causes a chain reaction of all the patrol blowing up. Unfortunately, giant metal men and dogs blowing up is rather… noisy, so another patrol came around the corner trying to investigate the noise and we immediately are back in combat again. It’s amazing how tiring combat is, and how many resources you use in a brief period of time. I shift into a rhinoceros and charge them. Instead, I hit the wall, but thankfully Cap’n is able to hit them with spirit guardians that look like chittering pixies. The man throws fire from his hands, and it’s enough to damage to knock me from a rhino, that was a spectacularly effective use of my ability I have to say. I did soak up damage though. “I need a weapon I can smash these things with that doesn’t require strength,” shouts Devan. “I can’t do a bloody thing to them.” “That’s it, time to end this,” and I thrust my hands forward and as I do the earth below the metal creatures thrusts up and drops back down. But it didn’t behave as it was supposed to. Instead of the earth just dropping back down into messy rubble and floor, it completely disappeared along with the automatons we were fighting. I peek into the giant maw and see them down below in a crumpled heap. “That was unexpected,” I mutter. The final mechanical blows up, I think it had just lost hope because all its friends were down below dead. “Uh guys we have a problem,” Devan pointed at the giant hole in the floor, “How are we going to get to the other side? This black stuff they spit out is slippery, so we can’t get a running start.” “I can shift into a spider, and one of you has those climbing gloves, maybe I could take those back after the first person uses them?” After a little more debate we settle on that plan of action. “So what does this all mean?” Milli asks looking at the different desks with strange symbols and all sorts of odd levers on them. “We’ve got Roan de Carville’s book, and it had how to turn off the device,” Cap’n says holding the book out. He and Devan put their heads together and figure out which picture goes with which console, but there are parts missing. After a bit of finagling and pulling out different parts from what we’d grabbed in the spare parts room we figure out how to shut down the machine. And we are all trapped in darkness. Instantly I cast my fire spell, Cap’n casts light, and the others all gather around. “This be a pretty mess we found oursel’es in,” Cap’n says, “what we be doin’ now?” “I guess we head up and out,” I answer. So we carefully head back through the rooms. The big metal boxes now have blue sparks flying off of them like small lightning bolts. The big metal door has us stumped until Rory says it needs power, so Cap’n and Lili give up their power crystals to charge the door and get out of that giant room. After stumbling around a few more minutes we get back to the staircase. “Rory, we’re leaving here, and we are probably not coming back, are you sure you want to come out with us?” Milli asks. “I want to see the sky, and all that Roan talked about,” so we let him follow us up the stairs, and Cap’n casts his lightning storm and we are out of that horrible underground place. We get back to the campsite and sleep in the tents. The next morning we take stock of our situation and look through what remains of the camp for anything we might want. We find: • papers are hidden in a box and a letter saying “bearer in the service to Duke of Brandenburg” • from the underground area we have the Armor of the Elders of Coramani make- copper disks with large disks, if you hit the disk in the middle you gain temporary health- Lili got it • Staff weapon- helps your wisdom, that I gained • we also decide to take their tents and sleeping bags as ours have disappeared somewhere else Now to find Tinhold and Allen Riddle .

Report Date

21 Dec 2021