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Ruckus yelps as the golem hits him and Hal growls in the back of his throat. Seeing Alektara take down the Golem calms him some. He rushes to his hound's side and pulls out his wand. "You did good boy. Here, let me help you. Flitwick."
After healing his friend Hal commands, "Alright boy, see if you can't find the arrow that bounced off that thing's thick skin."
Ruckus comes back head down and whining. "It's Ok boy, you'll find it next time."
Hal looks over at the golem again, "I still really hope that thing wasn't his mother. Alright, now we're off to see the wizard! Probably to wring his scrawny neck!"
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Several portraits of a stern-looking woman glare into the room. One painting portrays the whole family, including a young boy and three younger sisters. The faces of the sisters look like the doll's faces you just smashed. Also the woman's face has analogies to the golem's face.
Piled near an open chest are several journals. The memoirs provide a clear insight into Black's psychotic origins. The journals blame young Chrysalis for his sisters’ deaths, and further accuse him of creating abominations in their likenesses to torment his bereaved mother.
A false bottom in one of the chests hides a handful of potions.
You note that the last two books in the memoir, while still written from the mother’s viewpoint, exhibit different handwriting.
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Alektara and Shayla does not find any traps so Alektara begins to pick the lock. Suddenly you hear a shrill voice of a woman repeating vulgarities until the lock is finally picked.
The eyes on the door are two pearls.
Tangles of tubes, cords, and wires fill this bizarre room. Black, acrid smoke churns from dial-covered devices that buzz and bellow, and a thick green liquid bubbles within tall glass cylinders that feed a central device resembling a giant metallic coffin. The floor is densely carpeted with shattered porcelain faces and limbs, with glimpses of more organic gore amid the rubble.
The mass of shattered doll parts on the laboratory’s floor creates difficult terrain, making movement through the laboratory treacherous. In the room stand six glass cylinders filled with green fluid, each containing a captured person in a sort of suspended animation. Tubes leading off from them feed a central metallic birthing chamber, and two more tubes leading off from that connect to two giant syringe-like apparatuses mounted on the 15-foot-high ceiling, hanging down a full 5 feet each.
At the far end of the laboratory, an old woman maniacally pours elixirs into the syringes. Trapped within the metallic coffin is an unstable, multi-headed golem forged of porcelain and flesh.
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You move into the room, silently, but somehow the woman heard you approaching. "Welcome to my doll house!" she says. "I'm sorry you didn't find the doll you were looking for. Maybe I can create a personal doll for your families." she says and turns around. "With your faces!" she continues with an evil grin on her face.
Alektara hears that the voice is a shifted man's voice, imitating an elder woman. He wears an old woman's frock, a tattered grey wig, and grotesque makeup.
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"Woah." Hal squints harder at the 'woman' in the distance. "Huh. Didn't see that coming." Hal raises his voice once more, "Who's in the tubes? If I find that you have captured people in some sick experiment YOU'LL be the next one in a tube!" Hal strides forward slowly, eyes scanning to avoid traps or pitfalls.
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"My dolls! And it's not an experiment, I know what I'm doing and you'll find out soon enough who I'm feeding." the old woman answers and several bolts hit the metal coffin. Suddenly you hear bumping inside the coffin like something big attempts to break free.
Shayla + Suri
Halcyon
Alektara
Wizzy
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Black
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After Wizzy casts several activated his inspirement Halcyon shoots four arrows at the wizard. All four arrows hit the Black and the man drops to the ground.
Flagbearer: +2 Morale hit/dam/charm saves
Banner: +2 Resist vs mind affecting
Triple Time: +10' increase to movement
Haste: +30' movement, +1 to Hit, +1 Dodge AC, +1 Reflex, +1 attack on a full attack action.
Shayla + Suri
Halcyon
Alektara
Wizzy
-----
Black defeated
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Shayla orders Suri to attack one of the tubes and Suri breaks it. An unconscious Pathfinder slumps to the ground in a strange suspended animation. Unfortunately the liquid in the tube splashes Suri.
The thing inside the coffin continues to bash into the side, making large dent, and letting out horrific screams that are only partially muffled by the thick metal. A bolt gets loose and flies through the air toward Shayla's head, narrowly missing her.
Shayla + Suri
Halcyon
Alektara delay
Wizzy
-----
Black defeated
The Thing
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Shayla takes a swing at the tube adjacent to her, hopefully fully cutting the westernmost cylinder off from the metal coffin.
She then takes a 5-foot step east and takes another swing, this time at the third tube from the left, which is connected to the easternmost cylinder.
"Suri, the next one!" Shayla commands, pointing out the fourth tube from the left, which is connected to the cylinder in the middle.
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While Shayla and Suri continue to break tubes to rescue the catpured people Alektara prepares to attack whatever rises from the metal coffin.
Finally the coffin breaks and multi-headed golem forged of porcelain and flesh rises from the metal case. Outside its metallic womb, the horror’s immature lungs cannot function, and the creature dies in ugly, agonized death throes after a few seconds of loud and desperate wheezing.
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"Well, it was because Halycon ended Black so fast that I could even attempt to do this," Shayla says, meanwhile trying to dodge the sprays of acid coming from the tubes she and Suri destroyed.
Shayla then takes a moment to look for a safer way to rescue the people from the cylinders, because she and Suri have taken quite some acid burns already. "There has to be a way to get them out and not burn ourselves in the process..."
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Among Black's scripts, formulas and recipies you find a dossier. It reveals ties between the mad artificer and the Aspis Consortium. These documents reveal details of the sabotage Black was instructed to perform on the Heidmarchs' angelic guardians, records of months of payments for the use of the Doll House as a smuggling front and the acquisition of information from the Golemworks, and finally a mysterious reference to the approval of an unnamed "Qadiran friend." All of the documents are signed by gold agent "Maiveer Sloan of Bronze House," the Aspis Consortium's head of operations here in Magnimar.
A pouch of newly minted Qadiran coins sits next to the dossier of Black's dealings with the Aspis Consortium, his payment for services rendered. It contains 150 pp.
You also locate several crates filled with exotic materials for making dolls behind the dais at the east end of the room. The materials include bolts of Vudrani silk, timbers of Mwangi mahogany, and fine clay for the making of Tian porcelain.
Black's abomination bears a tattoo on its left arm - a Glyph of the Open Road.
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With their enemies vanquished, you can rescue the missing Pathfinders and bring the evidence damning the Aspis Consortium to Heidmarch Manor.
Sheila presents the evidence linking the Pathfinder’s murders, the attack on her property, and the relic smuggling ring to the Magnimarian government in an effort to bring punishment down on the rival organization, but Lord-Mayor Haldmeer Grobaras and his ineffectual bureaucracy are unconvinced of the Aspis Consortium’s role in the murders.
Although the evidence is substantial that they were at least involved in spying on the Golemworks, smuggling, and ordering the sabotage of angelic guardians, those in power are hardly motivated to get involved in a crime that seems to have already been solved, though the Pathfinders are paid lip service and promised that the Aspis Consortium will be watched carefully going forward.
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"Stupid humans and their stupid bureaucracy," Shayla mutters when she hears of the news, but she decides to not be bothered too much by it.
"It was a pleasure to work with you!" she says to her allies, initially avoiding to look at Halycon. Shayla then hesitantly also looks at him and gives him a nod, figuring he's quite a decent person compared to most of his kind.
He's not too bad... and I like his dog.
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Hal also looks round at all of his companions, "Aye, a pleasure indeed. Should any of you require assistance on your ventures please let me know, I will not hesitate to join you."
Hal wanders off with Ruckus by his side once more, Two elven battle goddesses and a wonderfully helpful gnome. Hal gives one final look over his shoulder, I should probably figure out why women with pointed ears are so attractive... Ruckus just pants by his side, ready for their next venture.