"Thank you both." she says to Darius and Jones.
"All these worthless subordinates are exhausting my reserves, we should try to locate whatever is actually behind this and spare the chaff, for now."
-Posted with Wayfinder
Seeing that the subject has changed from the drama all these hot-blooded youngsters so enjoy, Sledge rejoins the conversation.
"Yeah. We may want to try and get some rest."
"Hm. As long as you recognize the dangers of your power and only use it against the undead, I don't see any issue."
"I would be alright with resting, but we should find a way to tell Croon what we're doing. Otherwise, he might assume we're dead and leave."
Sledge will take first watch.
Jones writes a brief note for Doctor Croon:
We will be resting here for the night. Please send the submersible back down in about 10 hours.
He then goes out to the submersible and rings the bell twice. Once the chamber is full of air, he leaves the note on one of the seats under a few stones, and then rings the bell three times.
Jones takes second watch, using that time to run the Water Breathing potion through his alembic and add it to his formula book.
The night, surprisingly, passes without attack, though your sleep is restless, often disturbed by strange sounds in the distance, a weird grinding *BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR* noise going throughout the night.
Jones wearily rubs his eyes as he prepares and drinks his extracts.
"That ceaseless, infernal grinding noise seemed rather mechanical to me. I would guess that it's either an excavation device, or some sort of war machine."
During his watch, Jones calmly approaches Amanorn, drooling in the corner of the room, and picks up his spellbook.
"You won't mind if I borrow this, right?" he asks quietly.
He then copies Detect Thoughts and Tongues into his formula book.
Vänne opens the day with a False Life spell. "Morning, compatriots."
Z unfurls her wings of fire as she stretches out her back.
"Maybe, but what would anyone be drilling for?" Z says to Jones.
Cracking her neck and coating herself in a sheath of flames, she adds "Doesn't much matter anyways, Skumtown is soon to be population zero."
Jones shrugs. "Perhaps they're expanding the space of this structure. I'm just speculating, honestly."
He also drinks a Water Breathing extract and gives everyone equal duration.
Sledge will take point.
He leads the group on, into a room starkly contrasted with the others, flat and clearly worked stone as opposed to the more natural aesthetic.
Lining each walls are jars on pedestals, filled with bluish fluid...and disembodied brains. Each jar has a small grille on the front, and pipes heading off into the ceiling.
Sledge turns to the arch-nerd. "Do we need to worry about this?"
"Let's find out."
Jones starts fiddling with them.
Jones' high skill manages to cut through the alien obfuscation of purpose.
He fiddles with knobs and dials for a while, until, through static, a voice is heard.
Kill...me...
Jones freezes in place and looks at the disembodied brains, his face paler than usual.
"Ah...Can you understand me?" he speaks slowly, toward wherever the voice came from.
"That's radical."
Jo...nes? Is that...you? comes the synthesized voice.
"Okay, that's pretty creepy."
Jones turns even more pale.
"W-who is this?" he stammers.
Mayor...Greedle. Remember?
Jones actually takes a step back from the machinery.
"It can't be...What happened?!"
They took...my body...
"I-I..."
Could we have stopped this? What if we had gone a little further yesterday? Was THIS the source of that grinding sound?
He takes a few deep breaths, trying to calm himself.
"I'm so sorry, Mayor."
Kill...us...Kill...them...
Don't let them...take us...away. Pleaaaase...
Sledge shrugs.
"Alright. Any last words, anyone?"
Darius seemed disgusted and angry his current Human form's face twisted in fury. " Who did this to you. What did they look like? How could this have happened when we killed the cell inside that church and didnt stop after that..... My goddess, the child. That family.... They might not be well. " His face going to surprise and then anger quickly after.
Bugs...? Plants...? Not from...this world...They sawed...me open...took my brain...said they'd take us...'Home'...for interrogation...
"Those things we fought earlier. We killed 'em. You've been avenged."
All...of them?
"We have killed them Greedle, have solace in that... If there are more they will die. Zin.. make it quick. "
Darius moves away in regret.
Sledge will spare Zin the spells and give the brains-in-jars peace.
"Sledge, I do not believe these people would like to pass with a fist placed into them."
"Show some decorum for last rites."
-Posted with Wayfinder
Thank...you... Greedle sighs as Sledge's fist connects with his jar. In short measure, all the brains are dead.
There's a look of sheer horror on V's face.
"Thank goodness you all found me. I don't think I would enjoy being a disembodied organ." His face hardens, and he narrows his eyes. "Come - let us end the existence of the horrors that would commit such atrocities. I don't see the creator of such an act seeking repentance, voluntarily or otherwise."
Jones looks away while Sledge puts the brains out of their misery. He stays quiet for a long time after Greedle's voice dies out.
"If these monsters were able to kidnap Greedle, they clearly have no trouble entering and exiting the town without detection, and taking whomever they please for their vile experiments."
He rubs his eyelids. "And now, by informing Croon of our intention to rest, giving him leave to return to his home for the night...I may have condemned him to that same fate."
We will continue on.
Once Jones snaps out of his nervous breakdown, he drinks an Invisibility extract and scouts the next room.
The next room is vast grotto, aglow with dim light in a dozen different shades. All manner of strange and unearthly lichens, fungi, and less identifiable plants grow upon a compost of foul smelling black soil in a riotous tangle.
Two Mi-Go and another Dimensional Shambler stand around a machine, a pile of corpses at their feet, most with the top of their heads removed and hollowed out.
Jones arrives just in time to see them pick up a corpse and heave it into the wide end of the machine. A grinding noise (exactly like the one you heard last night) starts up, and a red mist flies out of the narrower end, spraying the fungi with blood and gore.
"I'll take the shambler."
Sledge charges it.