"Oh! We've heard your voice before, we come in peace!" Poshment declares.
________
Zimdoz looks over everything, trying to figure out how it works.
"Maybe I can figure it out? Hrmmmmm." Zimdoz puzzles over the conduit and power system.
"Can you release me, I have been here so long."
"What are your plans once you are released? I'm all for releasing the imprisoned! I like that! But I also like the current situation with my soul in this specific mortal coil..." Poshment admits. "I've got principles but not, you know?"
________
Alldur steps up to help Zimdoz. 'Do you mind if I take the lead? I think I'm starting to get a firm grasp on this tech.'
"I was summoned here from the Plane of Air, I only wish to return home, once there I will live there in peace. In return for your help I can provide you with information about the person who summoned me"
Alldur you realise that if power is restored to the circuits it can be used to neutalise toxic gas canisters in another room.
"I think that's fair, don't you?" Poshment asks the others. "LET MY PEOPLE GGGOOOOOOOO!"
Zimdoz nods at Alldur "of course. Just let me do the physical work, I wouldn't want you getting zapped."
Zimdoz, again you think if you can get power to the system you can turn off the poison gas cylinders in another room.
Alldur calls out. 'Help me arrange these batteries and let's see if we can get it powered up.' He then falls back and supervises the installation of the batteries, leaving the hauling to the more muscular members of the group. 'One at a time until we have a result!'
Though Zimdoz isn't especially strong, he is neurotic about managing all the mechanical things, and takes the lead installing the batteries.
As you install the batteries the lights in the ceiling flicker to life. In addition a message comes up on a screen advising that the toxic gas canisters have been neutralised.
The voice says
"What say you, will you release me?"
"Let's let him out! Quick with the fiddling now!" Poshment urges the others with the tech-know-how. "Would blasting it help? I could blast it!" he offers, starting to bring the rifle around.
'Let's try finesse first.' Alldur studies whatever is holding the creature.
With a bit of tinkering Alldur is able to release the creature.
"I thank you. I have been here for many years. I was summoned here to serve a man named Furkas Xoud, a powerful wizard who was interested in using magic to manipulate air and smoke. He was astonished and astounded by this room, particularly at the discovery of the slain android, it seemed apparent that the recovery of the android was Xoud's entire purpose for visiting the wreck."
It gives you the following:
5 nanite canisters
a timeworn black nanite hypogun with 7 charges
a dart gun
"Thanks! Should we take a look at this android then?" Poshment asks the others. "Maybe we can learn more!"
The android's body was teleported back to Xoud's tower, somewhere in the Smokewood region.
Zimdoz is suprised when the creature isn't aggressive, "do you need help getting back to your home? I don't think we're quite strong enough for that... but we could try." He pauses, "we don't know much about androids, except theoretically... I think this is the first time we've really seen them. Do you know anything more about Xoud's goals or why all of these androids keep showing up?"
"Now you have restored the power I should be able to return home.
I don't know much about Xoud's plans as he conjured me here. I know he said he had a tower in the Smokewood where he investigated things. He said something about there being a consciousness somewhere that was interested in androids but he did not say anything more."
"Oooooohhhh sounds like another place to get to once we are done here!" Poshment points out. "But the Technic League's got to get the boot first! Can't leave those oppressive scoundrels unchecked!"
This hallway has doors at the north and south ends. A bright orange hexagonal sigil adorns an immense metal door to the south. A porthole-like glass window is set into the door at head height.
Poshment sees the door's window at "head height" and scowls at it. Running back for a chair, he drags it over and sets it against the door. With a "hmph," he climbs onto it and peers through the glass. "Have we seen this sigil before?" he asks, his breath fogging up the glass.
________
Poshment, you have seen enough Androffan now to realise that the symbol denotes a biohazard beyond, i.e. something poisonous.
"That's not good. Whoever went in there first and put this sign up was very selfless. They're sacrifice won't be in vain," Poshment says, placing a sympathetic hand on the sign for a moment.
________
Zimdoz, as usual, searches it for traps.
"This looks dangerous, whatever it is."
Zimdoz, you think that entering the next room (A13) would have released poison gas, however as you have deactivated the gas the room is now safe.
"...well in that case," Poshment mutters as he pushes the door open and steps inside.
This room is actually a series of chambers containing what appear to be various forms of highly reactive gas. However it looks as if they have been here centuries and the containers have degraded. Fortunately by restoring the power you have caused a neutralisation effect to take place meaning the gas is no more. Both you and the town of Iadenveigh are safe.
"Hah! We saved the town, and we didn't know there was poison gas here in the first place." He cheers with Poshment.
Zimdoz then, as usual, searches the room.
"We're so amazing," Poshment admits to Zimdoz. "I say we celebrate with a night on the town first! What's the rush?!"
________
Alldur's face twists in indignation. 'I knew there was poison gas. If you read the displays they tell you everything'
Alldur, you know the following:
- Furkas Xoud was a powerful wizard who built a strange home called the Choking Tower in the depths of Smokewood in the Numerian Plains. On clear days you can see the smoke rising from his tower above Smokewood's boughs.
- Smokewood was known as Dreamwood before Xoud built his Choking Tower. Soon after the tower's construction, local tribes began telling stories of strange dreams experienced by those who slept within the woods or near its borders. No one's heard from Xoud in 7 years, and common belief is that he passed away in his tower, but an increase in the number of hill giants dwelling in the wood has prevented further investigations of the tangled interior.
- Furkas Xoud was once a member of the Technic League, but he was either exiled from the group or fled persecution; he certainly chose Smokewood as the location for his new home due to its inaccessibility and remote location. The tower itself is located near the heart of the woods.
"Sounds like the kind of person to learn from if we're going to take the Technic League down a peg!" Poshment says, smacking his little fist into the palm of the other. "What sort of preparation should we make? I don't like this smoke thing one bit!"
'A handkerchief is a good start!' Alldur jokes. 'But seriously, breathing may become an issue if the name holds true. Giants? If I remember there's not really a trick there, just hit them until they fall down.'
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Your journey through the Smokewood is unremarkable, finally you see it in front of you. The tower is 60 feet across and 220 feet high.
This towering stone structure rises high above the tops of the surrounding trees. The tower's walls are made of metal and stone and stained black with greasy soot, and its roof is a metal cone crowded by a forest of pipes and chimneys belching smoke into the sky. The tower's few windows are narrow and slatted with thick metal grills, and its only door is a metal rectangle with rounded corners, twelve feet high and nine feet wide. The door bears no knob or handle-only a two inch wide hole in the centre, the edges of which are cracked and bent as if a tremendous force wrenched something free. A large number of immense humanoid footprints mar the ground surrounding the tower.
"Looks like something tried to evict him! That's what you get when you don't pay your rent!" Posment postulates. "Think we can blow the door down, or are we off to track whatever was bad ass enough to take part of the door with it?"
While the others think, he plays hopscotch with the large footprints (he isn't very good).
'Something big... Alldur approaches the door an attempts to look through the hole blasted in it.
It looks as if the door once housed some sort of opening mechanism but that it appears to have been broken off. It may be possible to pick the lock but it will likely be more difficult.