"If the other clockworks are still attached to the winding station, then they will become active when the power is restored. If you have detached them from the station, they will remain inactive. Take as much time as you need. There is no need to rush," Aoinse says.
Cathyriel's mind is reeling slightly from the matter-of-fact way that this thing is recounting a tale from the oldest of legends. It doesn't occur to her to doubt the story. It sounds all too real. But the consequences of that are... what, exactly?
She nods along as Gideon and Aonise talk. "Right. That sounds like a plan."
Tobar shrugs. "I guess I can do this. It's all springs and gears, right? How hard can it be?"
Looking at the delicate materials, Tobar realizes crafting clockwork pieces is a lot more complicated than making crossbows.
Tobar shrugs. "I guess I can do this. It's all springs and gears, right? How hard can it be?"
Cathyriel winces. "Why do people always say that? It's like saying you don't expect the other side to put up much of a fight."
Tobar leans in and squints. He turns his head this way, then that. His fingers twitch. Finally he says, ”Uhh... weird. This is different.”
"Yeah...clockwork mechanisms are a whole 'nother level of complicated, and that's just repairing them! Actually making them from scratch? I don't think we've had that much downtime since we first got here, months ago." Gideon adds.
"I don't think we have any choice than to turn the generator on and let one of the clockwork servants have a go. After a rest, of course."
You camp out in the clockwork forge with the Andoren soldiers keeping watch over you. You are able to rest without incident, and after preparing for the day, you head to the power generators to turn them on again. After jury-rigging the circuitry to prevent a harmful detonation, you pull all three levers at the same time.
With a loud metallic screech, the bronze containers start opening, revealing a system of clockworks, coils, springs, and crankshafts. Arcs of electricity begin to discharge from each container, and little by little, the clockwork gears start turning, shafts start moving back and forth, and coils start buzzing with energy. Inside each of the three containers, electricity starts converging into vaguely humanoid forms that sizzle with energy and seethe with rage.
"Dammit, nothin's ever easy, is it!?" Gideon swears, firing an arrow at one of the two smaller elementals before he moves to close with the others, not wanting them to remain so completely spread out.
"Well there's no reasonable way you could have seen this coming." Terana points out reasonably.
FIRST LEVEL
(5+1/day)
Bless
Divine Favour
Divine Favour
Liberating Command
Protection from Evil (D)
Shield of Faith
SECOND LEVEL
(4+1/day)
Align Weapon (D)
Lesser Restoration
Spear of Purity
Spiritual Weapon
Spiritual Weapon
THIRD LEVEL
(4+1/day)
Communal Delay Poison
Communal Resist Energy
Searing Light (D)
Summon Monster III
Water Breathing
FOURTH LEVEL
(3+1/day)
Freedom of Movement
Holy Smite (D)
Spiritual Ally
Summon Monster IV
With not so much a curse as a weary sigh, Cathyriel casts her spell, asking for her goddess' protection on the group.
Gideon's arrow burns up as it strikes the elemental, not seeming to hurt it.
The elementals attack, their slams attracted to those wearing mettalic armor.
Seeing how ineffective his weapon was, Gideon changes his tactic, calling out to the others. "Close up! I'll speed us up!" he shouts, moving away from the elemental he is facing and casting Invisibility to give him greater freedom of movement.
Terana slams her glaive into the elemental before risking its wrath and retreating towards Tobar.
Tobar launches a single bolt, then moves in to close ranks.
The elementals lash out as you move about, each one landing a good strike. Tobar shoots the huge elemental, though his bolt doesn't seem to harm it much. Terana's slash fares better. Once everybody is gathered together, Gideon casts haste to speed the party. Cathyriel takes advantage of the increased speed to touch all of her allies, protecting them from electricity. She then channels healing energy.
The elementals attack! Cathryriel takes two hits, but the smaller creatures miss Terana and Gideon.
Terana hammers blows into the southern elemental, hoping to eliminate one threat before turning to the rest.
Bleeding considerably, Cathyriel does her best to put the foe down.
"One more trick!" Gideon says as he takes a quick step along the wall, hoping to be out of the reach of at least the smaller elemental by doing so, before casting a spell to try and bring down the speed of their enemies.
Tobar dodges the elemental's swing as he moves to a safe spot. He fires, but misses. Terana scores two hits on the southern elemental while Cathyriel slices the enormous one twice, but neither shows signs of slowing down.
At least, until Gideon casts his next spell. Then the huge elemental begins to move rather sluggishly! It swings over Cathryiel's head, missing her. Terana takes two hits from her foe, while Gideon is struck once.
Terana continues to hack at the elemental and spares a moment to close her wounds in the process.
From his temporarily safe spot, Tobar hunkers down to fire again at speed.
Finally done with the beneficial spells he can cast, Gideon takes quick step forward to stand on the opposite side of the larger elemental, attacking it with his rapier.
Cathyriel continues to attack rapidly with her longsword.
Perhaps a little too rapidly - in the need for speed, accuracy appears to have been lost. She can hear her drill-sergeant's voice in her mind, and winces at the volume of his shouting.
Cathyriel lands one solid hit on the huge elemental. Tobar shoots it twice and Gideon stabs it three times, though none of their hits seem to harm it very much. Still, every bit counts! Terana slices the smaller elemental twice, and it finally dissipates with a burst of static.
The remaining elementals attack Cathyriel and Gideon! The half-elf is staggered by the brutal blows.
With the smaller elemental slain Terana swings around and sets about making herself the biggest target!
Tobar increases his rate of fire and sinks three more bolts into (through?) the huge elemental.
Buffeted on both sides by the elementals, Gideon grits his teeth against the pain, switching his target to the smaller elemental in the hopes that Terana will have the attention of the larger one.
Still on her feet, but badly bloodied, Cathyriel sets her shield and grits her teeth as she lashes out again with her sword at this dangerous opponent.
Gideon, Terana, and Cathryiel all focus their attacks on a huge elemental, and the hulking creature shorts out with a burst of static! Tobar aims at the remaining large elemental, scoring three good hits.
The elemental attacks Gideon once more, heedless of the shifting tides of battle. It manages one good hit.
Terana races across the room to Gideon's side, his magic lending her speed.
"Don't worry Gideon - I've got this. Get out of range." She says, flashing him a grin before plying her glaive once more.
"Don't haf'ta tell me twice!" Gideon answers as he retreats, letting Terana cover him as he does.
Cathyriel moves to attack the last remaining threat.
As Gideon falls back, the rest of you attack the remaining elemental, badly wounding it. It retaliates, pounding Terana with its fists!
Terana fights on!
Cathyriel attacks as well, hoping to put the threat down as fast as possible.
Cathryiel and Terana assault the elemental with a flurry of strikes, and finally the last threat shorts out and vanishes!
The lines of silver circuitry hum and glow with energy as the generator thrums along. Panels on the ceiling flicker as they illuminate. It seems the power has been restored to the temple!
"That was far too much effort!" Terana says, leaning on her glaive briefly. "Is anyone hurt? I've got some juice left. We going to try and fix whats-her-name now?"
"I'm fine, but uh... yeah," says Tobar. "That wasn't exactly a walk in the park."
"I could do with a bit of healing, but see to Cathyriel first...she got it worse than I did." Gideon insists.
"Only if that walk was on top of an electrified path...this thing hasn't had power for millenia, why in the world would three elementals just park here for so long? They shouldn't have been trapped or anything, not once Earthfall rocked the place. Are elementals in the habit of just staying in one place for thousands of years?" Gideon thought aloud, scratching his head.
"I guess there's no point speculating...I do want to go plug that other clockwork servant back in, but I want to ask Aoinse about the other clockwork first. I know it's disconnected and shouldn't be drawing power but we ought to know what we're possibly gonna have to deal with before we go back in there."
If the others agree, Gideon will go back to the female-form construct and ask her about the third clockwork, the one with four arms and the crystal in its chest.
Seeing that everyone's hurt to some extent, Cathyriel channels the healing power of her goddess.
She sighs wearily as Gideon proposes yet more tinkering with things best left alone, but they do need to know what's going on here. She nods, warily.
"That is a clockwork mage," Aoinse replies when you return to ask her about the four-armed clockwork. "It draws upon latent arcane energies in its crystal to emulate a limited selection of spells. It sounds like it is inert, so it shouldn't attack you if you've removed it from the winding station."
"Good to know that it's probably not functional...is the crystal it uses at all useful? Could you use it to help keep your functioning active or something? And for that matter, we also have this big...I'm honestly not sure what it is, some kind of memory node or something, that we found in an observatory elsewhere on the island. Maybe you could tell us more about it, too." he says, looking over at Tobar.
"You have it with you, right? You pulled it out of the socket it was in."
Tobar produces said piece of ancient machinery wordlessly.
"The mage's crystal will lose its powers if removed from the clockwork's body," Aoinse says. When presented with the memory node, she nods. "I am familiar with this type of memory node. Indeed, I have a similar one slotted in my forehead." She points to the red gem embedded there. "Were I not already imbued with my own sentience and personality, the node would provide that to me, as well as a speech-based interface and magical database. I am, however, able to access the memories stored within the node in addition to my own personal memories. I can access the knowledge stored in that node as well."
"That would be useful Aoinse, thank you." Terana says. "I guess we need to double check that clockwork mage next, knowing our luck it'll wake up anyway!"
"Makes sense to me. Better a potential known threat than a known threat. And yes, Aoinse, any information you can give us from those memories would be very much welcome."
Cathyriel looks wary (which is, she realises, rapidly becoming her default expression) at the thought of Gideon being let loose on the clockworks again. "I don't suppose there's a practical alternative?"