Both Nike & Tychi avoid the arcing bits of electricity with contemptuous ease, stepping to the right and then the left, and completely avoiding all the bolts of electricity.
Figwidget attempts to duck out of the way of the arcing lightning:
He manges to do so, still being singed by the bolt. The gnome scurries forward five feet and tosses a bomb over the heads of his allies, trying to hit their foe.
The bomb goes long, splashing just behind the creature.
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= 16
As the hair on his head smokes a bit, "Ouch. That smart a bit, pardner." Casey reloads in a flash, firing multiple times again at the creature.
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Lector runs in at the giant creature, a previously unseen deftness of foot means it doesn't even manage to land a swing of it's warhammer before it feels the cold bite of the cleric's sword... Ducking, it manages to swerve out of the way of Figwidget's hurriedly tossed bomb - small flames lick against its back yet it hardly notices...
Roaring in pain and anger, warhammers are raised high whilst four fists, as large as boulders, are balled...
...and then... BANG ...one of the warhammers skids across the room - a twitching hand still attached to it...
BANG ...the giant crumples as it's kneecap literally explodes...
And BANG ...half of it's head suddenly disappears... a mist of red and blue sprayed across the floor behind it...
Lector, Tychi and Nike have to be quick on their feet to avoid the toppling corpse - dead, long before it hits the ground...
The sound of raised voices, clanking metal and explosions rings out from the north of the facility... It appears to be coming from somewhere in, or beyond, the courtyard...
Whilst, within the facility, there is little more to explore beyond the two doors to the west...
As the creature falls in a heap, Casey lowers his gun and looks to the others while his toothpick moves from one side to the other of his mouth. "Where to next?" Then hearing the commotion, "Wonder what the heck that is?" He asks as he looks around, wondering if it's nearing.
"It is likely the city come to either stop us, or to attack the source of the issues, one or the other. We can go deal with it, or prevent the cleric from before from attacking..." He tilts his head. "Nike and I could go scout, and see what it is. We could use the conveyor that led to the waterfall.."
Nodding, "Sounds like a good idea. Better to know if we got an army comin' at us than to not. We'll wait here."
"Do you want some more invisibility?" Figwidget asks. "It'd just take me a minute to brew up another infusion."
"If you think we have time, yes, then I would scout by myself..."
Figwidget gets out his alchemy crafting kit and, over the course of a minute, quickly whips together an invisibility infusion. He hands it off to Tychi.
Quietly…and totally invisible…Tychi moves out of the strange, and now defunct, factory and into the soft evening light of the Mana Wastes. The shouting, the explosions and the sound of accelerating clockwork fills the air as a formation of Brass Guardians accompanied by a towering giant and another Clockwork machine rush towards the Ice Devils that were previously climbing from the cooling pits within the facility. Even though they make no sound, Tychi can hear them in his head, promising vengeance upon Aredil Sultur for breaching his contract and for imprisoning them…
..and then, as the dust clouds of the wastes start to whip up, the brass guardians charge the devils… the ensuing combat is short, violent and ends as abruptly as it started…
…several wrecked guardians lie strewn around the plains whilst portals of dark flame open in the ground around the ice devils – again, the voices hiss in Tychi’s head, ”This is not finished… One day, Sultur, one day you will pay” …and then, with a popping sound, the portals close taking the devils with them…
Turning back towards the facility, the brass guardians that are still functioning, the giant and the large clockwork leave the battleground behind…
Tychi returns and fills the group in on what he saw.
"If they've left I see no reason to pursue. We need to make sure these ground are cleared."
"If they've run, let 'em run. And makin' sure this place is clear sounds like a pretty good plan to me."
With the immediate threat gone, there is enough time to explore the final two unopened doors in the western wall – neither of which turn out to be occupied. The most northern of the doors, opened first, leads to an area that would appear to be where the various workers of Megator Facient rest when they’re not on duty. Beyond a series of dirty sleeping pallets and piles of unwashed clothing, there is apparently nothing of note here.
Whilst the most southern of the doors leads into a room containing a weathered metal worktable, an over-sized rickety steel-framed bed, and several bookshelves along the walls that seem almost out of place amid the strange alchemical and mechanical apparatuses that fill this room, their pipes and tubes covering the walls and hanging in loops from the ceiling.
…and then, with a crash that shakes furniture and knocks plaster from the ceiling – something arrives at the courtyard of the facility.
Casey looks around at the shaking earth, slowly chewing on this toothpick. "You know, I'm thinkin' this place ain't to clear. Get ready, folks, sounds like we got company comin'." Casey double checks his gun, making sure it's loaded.
"Most likely the mechanicals I saw fighting the demons. We should prepare to attack more mechanicals."
Through the opening over the waterfall into the courtyard, you can see the machines that have arrived with such a terrific sound… Three Brass Guardians, such a familiar sight within Alkenstar, have made their way through the gap in the wall previously made by Lector – one of the guardians is in a poor state, clanking noisily amid gouts of smoke. Behind them, the giant previously seen by Tychi is sifting through the remains of the clockwork snails left strewn across the courtyard after the party’s initial assault upon the facility – grunting to himself, he is interrupted by the arrival of a colossal machine. Straddling the wall, what appears to be a clockwork representation of a crab creates fountains of dust and shrapnel each time a leg impacts upon the ground…
Slowing with a whirring of decelerating gears, a metallic voice sounds from the new arrival, ”Gurstweld – explain yourself!!! How can this have happened? How did the devils escape their prison? Is it they that have caused this carnage?”
The giant looks up at the machine and gives a dismayed shrug…
”Remind me what I pay you for again!!!”, the metallic voice whirs with anger shortly before a panel crashes open on the underside of the clockwork crab… moments later five or six small and airborne brass machines start flitting their way towards the entrances of the facility – two towards the waterfall where Tychi, currently unseen, is hiding…
– these are the same, or similar, clockwork spies that you encountered in the Kargatt mines.
As the clockwork spies draw closer, Figwidget can see that they are far better engineered than those created by Habblegash, the ratfolk alchemist who was hiding out in the mines… they are more elegant in their flight, they are near silent and, painted black, they are well designed for stealth…
Hovering just beyond the waterfall, the first of the spies wavers before flying in towards the large room where the party fought the undead shieldmarshals and their cleric master.
The clockwork spies, after spending a few moments hovering just in front of the waterfall, start to scan the room where the group are waiting and watching… almost instantly, a light on one of the clockworks flashes a bright red… and moments later, the second one also flashes red – turning mid-flight, they fly high and out into the courtyard once more. Everything remains silent for a minute or two… the clockwork crab stays crouched above the large walls of the facility, the brass guardians click and whirr and the giant, crouched in a defensive position, watches… eyes flickering nervously between the various doors that lead into the building…
…and then, with a crunch, the machinery in the building starts to clank into action once more… the noise is incredible, much louder than previously… and, after another minute – when it seems that nothing untoward is happening – the party start to get the taste of acrid fumes in their mouths and their noses…
"Mr. Really Figwidget, you need to shut down the machinery, or else we will be forced out into an ambush. If you can shut it down, we will force them to come into our trap."
"And you'd better do it quick, pardner, because we're runnin' out of time," Casey comments as the fumes begin to penetrate their senses.
Figwidget looks up. "Hmm? Oh! Yeah! Um!"
He scurries to the south to the machinery, looking for a way to shut it down. If he can do so gracefully, he will do so. If not, he will look for quick violence that can be performed to the machine to jam it up or shut it down, and will give advice to his comrades as to the best way to proceed.
Figwidget quickly identifies the mechanism to close the various vents that had been pouring gas back into the facility but, whatever the clockworks had done to restart the machinery in the building, the intrepid gnome is unable to reverse it... So, whilst the atmosphere is at least breathable, the noise... and the heat towards the south of the building... is close to unbearable...
There is precious little time to make any detailed plans as, following each other one-by-one, the Brass Guardians start to climb through the waterfall and into the main chamber of the building...
...with the giant, standing towards the rear, barking orders...
"Use the iron wall to slow them down. When the first comes over, trap it, and block the others with it..." He says in a voice just loud enough to be heard by his companions over the din of the machinery.
Figwidget quickly gets out a couple of extracts and quaffs them.
The sound of crashing metal as the Brass Guardians move over the iron wall is almost completely masked by the cacophony of noise being generated by the restarted machinery of Megator Facient. Yet, as the first crests the wall – which starts to deform beneath the weight of the construct – the sound of a huge blast, echoing painfully around the room, drowns out all of the other noise… an explosion… eastwards from your position…
Knowing the big fight is coming, Lector begins calling for aid.
Nike let's out a bugling challenge as she charges the construct, not that anyone can hear it over the sound of steam pipes bursting elsewhere in the plant. She leaps into a gallop and slams into the creature as it climbs over the wall.
+
Tychi watches the mighty horn slam into the creature, rending metal and sending springs and gears and bits of metal cascading over the floor, and whoops and brings his whip sword around.
Casey takes aim and fires at the first guardian that moves within.
Figwidget moves to where he'll be able to see more of what's going on. (We can see over the conveor belts, yes?)
The group are more than ready for the constructs as they start to climb the iron wall - a sharp 'crack' from Casey's gun precedes a shower of cogs spilling from the 'head' of the first machine... and, seconds later, Tychi and Nike are raining destruction upon it... With smoke pouring from various holes ripped in the metal carapace, it starts to rear up to attack... But it is so very slow...
"You know, I'm 'bout tired of these dang things." Casey reloads, moves in a step, and fires away. Unloading blast after blast against the nearest construct.
The salvo from Casey Jayne explodes in plumes of shrapnel across the torso of the Brass Guardian yet it isn’t enough to stop it in it’s tracks…
…towering above Tychi and Nike, it gets to ready to slam downwards…
Cursing the terrain, Lector double moves closer.