"I see. Well, which way should we go now?"
"Raseri, do you have any magic left to Locate the dragon eggs again?" The prophet looks for a plan.
Thankful Scram's misadventure wasn't worse, Gunnar says, "Not sure which way to go next, but I am expecting we want to go up."
Assessing the stonework, Gunnar tries to garner clues from its form, especially if there is something other than the slime trail bored tunnels to be seen.
"Magic have I to spare. We need be closer than last I was when the spell was cast to find the path," She says.
"A jagged set ascended back there, steppin' it up into the hag's lair I guess. Wicked jagged! Figure they wouldn't take the eggs on that flyman's sled, was jostlin' hither and fro like a farm girl after her first taste of rum. Keepin dragon eggs secure is no yolk...I mean joke."
" Not Long" She says as she picks up Scram and looks her over.
" I will have to train your resistance to poisons with liqour. LOTS or Liqour. Though Wasp Mead with the stingers in it. Alcohol and poison in one blow. Or Cobra Whiskey. Its a whole venomous snake in a jar fermented for flavor" Ingryd chuckles setting the Halfling doen and letting her do her thing.
" So lets free the eggs first. Then fight the Hag!" Ingryd says as she picks up the bug and looks at it before tossing it aside.
"I've always had sensitive nostrils, its an ongoing issue." the thief conceded instantly. "Blessing and a curse. Aids learning complex tasks, eh...somehow they go hand and hand, memory and scent? C'mon, tell me you can't still smell the first guy you kissed. I sure remember the first copper I klepped...that metallic tang blasted with sea salt, smell of opportunity, that. And whore armpit. An even mix, really." Scram trailed off, still spinning webs pronouncing "Some Pig!" in her head.
"Yeah, heh. You show me them snakey sippers, Griz. Then it'll be my turn." the thief grinned, patting a strange, new bulging pocket on her vest. "The penny has dropped if ye catch my drift. Hm? The goose is cooked if you know what I'm sayin'. Ahoy, the secretary is spread-eagled on the floor if you sight what I'm seein'..." Scram winked.
While Luthael examines and cures Scramsax of the effects of the technicolor slugs, Raseri spends some time calculating the distance recently traveled compared with her earlier effort to locate the eggs. Although they'd gone about two hundred feet in all, the priestess is sure they still had to increase their elevation more before she could truly get a good lock on their quarry.
"Thanks, Prophet. You always know how to kill a buzz. In this case, most welcome. Like to suck a fly, if you weren;t around to remind whats what." the rogue explained.
"Let's follow Raseri's path down the side passage," says Gunnar, ""I sense vibrations in the rock from some unnatural mechanism that is likely related to the hag's operation. Is that the same direction as the stairs you saw, Scramsax?"
"Aye, Gunnar. Sounds good."
"And, Scramsax, how about you don't scout too far ahead from here on out?" The serious prophet suggests that they stay on target.
The passage leads east and soon begins to slope upward until reaching a narrow set of roughly carved stairs. Scramsax does a thorough search, but finds no hidden traps or secret passages. Gunnar notices the vibrations are stronger and from somewhere up above everyone can heard the steady grumble of heavy gears turn.
"What is that incessant noise?" Luthael asks no one in particular.
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"Who knows Prophet, probably some kind of hag machine that mass produces lollipops with armpit hairs stuck in them..." the thief shrugged.
"Something terrible," Raseri says, her voice sounding younger and more frightened. "Can you not hear the lamentations of the lost?"
" Probably candy making machines. And if it is rhe cries of rhe broken, maybe broken goblins?" Ingryd says naot hearing anything but grinding gears
Raseri shakes her head. She doubts this hag is making anything so frivolous as disgusting holiday candies and baked goods.
Turning to Ingryd, and Void Hammer "Heh. Hey Griz, how do you fix a broken goblin?"
The stairs climb up and up and up. Winding in a tight spiral. With each climbing step the vibration becomes stronger and more noticeable. But disconcerting are the bone chilling cries mentioned by Raseri. Their echoes drifting through the tunnel like so many lost and ravaged dreams. Along with the added hellspawned cries, the smell of death drifts down through the darkness. Rotted meat, fouled innards, unleashed waste all make for a toxic brew that curls stomachs and noses with each unpleasant step.
Eventually a small landing appears. A corridor branches left and right. No longer the rough hewn tunnel like those below. Ancient stonework makes up the walls here. The floor paved beneath layers of grime. The grinding machinery rumbles as the cries echo making normal conversation difficult. Strange trails of falling dirt and grit line the floor of the corridor where the vibrations have rattled it free from above. Footprints cross back and forth through the ever-falling debris. Clawed toes. Wide at the front, narrow heeled. More stairs lead up to the left while the corridor to the right disappears through an archway into a larger room.
Luthael points to the stairs leading up and whispers, "continue up?
Gunnar responds in a whisper, ”I can’t imagine the eggs would be kept on this level, and the leader is more likely at a higher level. It might be worth doing a quick scouting trip on this level so we know what is here, but only if we can be more careful than last time.”
Raseri thinks for a moment before nodding her head.
"Huh. Not sure how I can be more careful than last time. I suppose I could try not breathing this go...silly me always inhaling air." the thief smirked before nosing around down the corridor to the right.
Scramsax moves down the hall and into the next room. Here the halfling finds the air smelling of rot and garbage within what was once a practice or training ground used by new recruits to the knighthood. The floor is mostly a thick layer of sand except for a narrow path leading across the room to the exit opposite where Scramsax enters. A few ancient practice dummies still stand in quiet solitude on one side of the wide, long room. More recently the opposite side of the room, off to the halfling's right, has been used as a midden. All manner of trash and debris is piled nearly to the ceiling. Much of it likely dropped from the roughly hewn hole in the ceiling directly above the heap.
Although, the stale stink of rotting leather and soiled fabric is strong, Scramsax quickly notices that much of the pile consists of inorganic items. Broken lanterns, sword hilts, bent knives, pulverized armor bits, cracked cookpots, and pound upon pound of broken glass and clay pots, jugs, jars, and flasks.
Watching the far exit, Scramsax quickly notices the curious, a pale green light flickering dimly through the opening. The steady thrumming vibration and horrible sounds of whatever mechanism is operating beneath the hag's hideout seem to be a bit louder from that general direction.
Footprints reveal the area has been traveled recently in both directions. Similar in size and shape to those found in the previous corridor.
Scram waltzed back to the others "Yeah, I think that machine's a bit further that way. Could see some pale green light, like the life glow of the fire-belly. Lot's of traffic here, not safe to linger."
Scram glanced expressionless from one face to the other, finally resting on her own bejeweled hand, which started looking suspiciously like a muppet. "Looks like no one is going anywhere until we hear the punch-line to that broken goblin joke." the hand noted, as Scramsax' lips oddly mimic'ed the phonetics.
"Huh? Oh, is that what we're waiting for? Alright, alright...I didn't know. Fixin' a broken goblin's easy...long as your tools are in good worg-ing order." the thief explained.
The grumbling, soul crushing sound of the machinery rumbles continually through the corridor. The halfling's muppetry is met with blank stares and silence by her companions as they set out across the old training chamber. Crossing into another wide hall that was once likely a mess hall or other place of gathering. The chamber stretches a hundred feet in each direction with a high arching ceiling carved from the stone.
To the north is a wide opening leading to a narrow balcony overlooking the wide expanse of an interior well. The open air shaft stretches upward as well as down and is currently filled with the glowing pulsing pale green light of magical energy. It is a flow of power breathtaking in its scope and surely of sufficient strength to be the source of the foul, unnatural weather being experienced throughout the region.
Within the hall, the roar of the machines and their piercing soul screams are much louder. Echoing up from below as if the souls were dragged from the very pits of hell. The air smells of frozen rivers, bloated icebergs, pummeling, breath stealing blizzards, and putrid death. The area nearest the balcony crackles with magic and gives Gunnar, Luthael, and Raseri the feeling of ants crawling all about their skin.
On the side of the room opposite the balcony, a quartet of reptilian figures hover over a long table upon which a body lays. Multiple jars connected to tubes and the body fill any open space not occupied by the creatures whose clawed hands are busy delving into the chest of the one on the table. Suddenly, one of the creatures lifts a beating heart from the body and drops it into another large jar where it continues to beat in rapid convulsions, while two of the others quickly replace the separated organ with an odd ticking clockwork device.
So far the small group has not noticed the intrusion being fully focused upon their grim work.
Ingryd looks at the group and gestures with her head at the scene and wonders what they will want to do. Personally the Bearkin wanted to slam the very head of Ennui into one of the faces. Even though she knows that the person on the table was probably dead. So were her family but every villian smashed seemed to validate her burden and her mission. Only Alcohol seemed to truly wash alot of the dark away.
Whispering to his companions, Gunnar says, ”They replace biology with machinery…but for what purpose?” as he tries to understand the magical forces at work here.
Whispering a reply, "do you think I could heal them, if we put the heart back?"
"Gunnar, what is this contraption? This, we need to destroy. Maybe in the chaos, we can find the dragon eggs?" The prophet suggests their usual craziness.
Scram said nothing, simply holding up another bean and letting the legume speak for itself.
After all, there were already countless tales to behold in the library of collective history regarding Nature vs Machine...not just racy myths and farmer's fables. Tangles with the Dust Goblins of the Wasted West sometimes yielded strange hints of orichalcum or vril technology. In fact, Scram had once found a heist-mate dead in the gutter over a stolen bag of iron balls. The thief couldn't understand why until an archeologist friend explained the tiny projectiles had special ferromagnetic properties...the only way to fire a priceless Cassadegan Coil Rifle.
Somewhere the stubborn scar of a forest spirit branded itself fresh on the thief's brain flesh, with a memory even predating history's tales. The spider god of novelty, called Ariadnae in the south and Rava closer to the Crossroads, ensured that the pristine forests of old were turned into something new, useful, and innovative. The first looms stretched the hair of beasts across skeletons of wood, cut and shaped into dovetail meshings, polished levers, and cylindrical cloth-rollers. The dryads, naked in their tradition, would weep to see the patterns of industry emerge.
As for the thief herself? Well, of course she had a soft spot for machinery...her own daughter being something of a contraption. Vee was built on loving memories, however...not offal puppets or whatever the reptiles were up to. For all Scram knew the reptiles themselves were some odd construct built out of the dragon eggs' sulfurous albumen...
Scramsax was glad the priest wasn't going to let this one slide like the fart cocoa downstairs.
Tensions mount as Luthael contemplates the limits of his and his gods' healing abilities while Gunnar studies the more arcane elements of the situation. Meanwhile, Ingryd's grip on Ennui tightens while Scramsax stands ready to unleash the Beans of Chaos upon the reptilian surgeons.
The first observation you make is unsurprising. The hag's servants, for really what else could they be given where they are and what they do, are tapping into the mighty flow of magical energy to fuel whatever grim experiment they are conducting. You spot several conductive cables leading from a trio of humming apparatus that appear to feed into several of the jars, pumps, and tubes surrounding and entering the subject on the table. You theory is confirmed as one of the workers connects the jar with the heart directly to one of the central machines which bathes the organ in a green light as it continues to beat steadily.
The second thing you notice, is that several other organs accompany the newly added heart, all maintained in separate jars. Lungs, liver, stomach, even a pair of eyes slowly bob and whirl in a syrupy liquid. At one point you make eye contact with one of the floating optical organs, and you would swear you still saw some sense of intelligence or sentience trapped and horrified within the extracted eye.
You also see an empty space, presumably where whatever clockwork gear was once located before being inserted into subject.
Finally, you spot something you have never encountered before. One of the glass jars, a rather large one more the size of a small barrel, appears to house liquid adamantium. The extremely rare metal is slowly being introduced into the subject's blood stream via a series of tubes.
Magical energy pours through and around the subject. The strongest magics are devoted to keeping whatever still lives within the creature alive with the most potent power currently centered upon the brain (still intact as far as you can tell), and the heart where the surgeon's are busy connecting the new device, and where the adamantium is slowly entering the body at neck and thigh. However, a secondary magical force also works upon the subject. Dark energies you recognize as typically being used to manipulate and subjugate a person's mind.
Whatever these reptilian creatures are attempting to create, they are making sure someone will have complete control over it once the process is complete.
"Whether we can help them or not, first slay the foul practitioners we must."
Stunned at the horrific implications of this arcane technology, Gunnar gives his party the basics and says, “We must indeed stop this atrocity—immediately if not sooner!”
"Spells that can hit all of them will hurt their victim. Do we each take one?"
With consensus, Luthael grips his shield and starts walking toward the surgery. When he gets within sixty feet from one of the draconic surgeons, he sends a sacred flame at one of them.
Scram let the bean vial *click* back into the little pouch, seeing the Prophet directly summon the fires of the sun. Beans required time to grow, as the halfling understood, so the fight would probably be over before it could have any effect.
But that was alright by the thief. Looked like there were plenty of places to hide around here (as long as those floating eyes would mind their own business), and she figured a few well placed bullets could cold-clock a lizard doctor...
Raseri follows Luthael's lead and targets a third of the four lizard physicians.
Ingryd wades in Shield leading as she then will strike the closest one.
Overcoming his revulsion, Gunnar summons the Wrath of Thor on the machinery supporting this horrible operation. As the Storm Sphere settles over the complex mechanism (and also the surrounding “surgeons” in a 40 foot diameter, the Dwarven Wizard aims a bolt of lightning at the portion of the mechanism that seems most likely to respond explosively to a massive sure of electricity!
Storm Sphere
It is the Prophet of Khors that unleashes the fury of the Narg Nasty Five upon the unsuspecting chirurgeon's and their grim experiments. Holy fire erupts among the quartet soon to be followed by arrow, more fire and a blast of lightning that explodes upon the arcane apparatus and its various formula and contents. The electrical charge shatters the large jug of adamantium spraying the potent, superheated metal across the quartet to sear and instantly adhere to scaly flesh. One of the chirurgeon's is instantly blinded by the burning metal. Another claws at her back as the liquid metel quickly burns through clothing to skin and muscle beneath.
Before any can pick themselves off the floor and turn to face this new and overwhelming threat, Ingryd charges in wielding the uncaring death of Ennui. The ancient hammer shatters the jar of the beating heart on its way to shattering reptilian ribs and collapsing a lung. The hapless assistant, clawed hands now empty, snatches futilely at the air before the bearkin. It's lips silently gasping for air as he collapses backward against the operating table with a sick meaty thump.
Victory is most certainly imminent, but then all three spellslingers cry out in shock and pain as arcane and holy power alike trigger a backlash within the already charged chamber. Energy from the flowing pillar flashes and arc into the room from the balcony. Tendrils of potent chaos drawn by the quick expenditures of power.
One thread of backlashing power slaps the prophet upon the face. Instantly he cries out as his flesh tingles and bubbles. Great seeping pain producing pustules erupt upon Luthael's face. A few steps away Raseri cries out as the power strikes. Her skin begins to flake and turn scaly, her usual healthy looking flesh now colored a sickly bile like yellow.
It is the dwarf that seems to suffer the most. Whether it is because the potency of his working was so much strong or just the whim of chaos, one can never know. But the stout, sturdy dwarf suddenly weakens as his muscles wither and atrophy in an instant. Where one stood a robust healthy dwarf, now wobbles a shrunken and starved looking creature, his cheeks tight against bone, his arms little more than flesh wrapped sticks.
Nearer the mechanism where the churning powers create a momentary whirlwind of chaos and doom, one of the experimenters suddenly balloons in size. Fat, flabby muscles rip robes, bust belts, and cause the corpulent creature to fall back to the ground, struggling with wheezing weakness to try and recover his feet. A second cries out in petrified pain and agony as a pair of massive antlers burst forth from her skull, growing nearly twelve inches in as many heartbeats. Unused to such mass, her head flops to the side, dragging her down to the floor again as well.
Scram furrowed her extra-hairy-for-a-girl eyebrows into unusual contortions as the waves of strange biomutations affected friends and murderers alike. The thief had never seen a lizard sprout antlers, and was now somehow sated with the knowledge...the experience pushing out and leaving for later other curiosities.
One thing was damn sure, their career as a surgeon was over. Annual velvet moltings were NOT welcome in the operating room, dripping into open chest cavities and hip replacement procedures. Even with the laissez-faire attitudes of these northern practitioners here in the Ice Hyena palace where liquid adamantium 'flows like my flower grows', 12 tines was simply 12 too many.
No, it was best to simply drop the sucker.
Gunnar assesses the incoming magical backlash and tries to block it, but Counterspell or Arcane Ward seem to not be the right response. Instead, he tries to weather the powerful attack.
Rather than cast a new spell, Gunnar just continues to concentrate on the one he has in place. He aims the lightning bolt from the Storm Sphere at the pillar that shot out the magical energy, hoping to open a conduit between it and the diabolical surgical machinery!
Luthael puts his free hand to the pain. Pustules on his face explode as the pain crescendos. But, almost as quick as it hit, the pain subsides as excess skin flakes off revealing his smooth, elfmarked face.
Ingryd takes the opportunity and pounces to smash into the nearest lizard clock thing.
Raseri drops to her knees as the backlash wracks her body.
Scramsax plants an arrow into the antlered lizard flailing about on the floor. A few moments later Ingryd and Ennui pulverize the bloated one in a gruesome spray of bloody berry juice. Gunnar pours more magic into the smoking, sparking bank of operating and transformational equipment. Hellborn screams begin to emerge from a rift in the planar fabric where the central device hisses and wheezes a few more times before completely expiring and collapsing into a melted slag heap of arcano toxins and brittle heavy metals. A pair of demonic clawed hands grip the out edge of the rift in an attempt to reach through and tear the gap wide open. The hungry slathering sounds of hundreds of foul beasts eager to feed upon the fleshy bits of the material plane can be heard just beyond eagerly pushing the zealous explorer onward.
Meanwhile, the arcane backlash and whirling maelstrom of chaos triggered by the nearby flow of immense arcane power continues to seed its own havoc upon the no longer controlled experimental laboratory. More arcs of pure arcane power lash out. This time striking Ingryd, Scramsax, and the hapless Darrel, who really wishes he'd never left his hovel a few morning's back and could thus be living in the simple, blissful ignorance and comfort of not knowing how constantly close the world was to imminent destruction. It a bit of irony his worries and wishes soon disappear to be replaced by the fact that his entire lower body has become a single large helium filled balloon. Arms flailing wildly, the hapless foxkin begins floating upward toward the ceiling where the air currents start to push him inevitably in the direction of the pillar of magic and the highest reaches of the tower.
Ingryd finds herself literally planted into the packed dirt floor. the bearkin having become a large blooming lavender bush. Her usual honey making allies find this change a delightful switch from the bearkin's more standardized furcovered form and begin harvest pollen with great urgency. Ennui, in an experience that actually manages to surprise the cynical and jaded ancient hammer finds itself rooted just under Ingryd's woody branches as a patch of golden sword grass. Meanwhile the bearkin's rather prim shield is pleased to find herself a lovely pink and yellow primrose.
Scramsax finds herself suddenly feeling quite dizzy as the room seems to start spinning and whirling from multiple perspectives and angles. A terrible pain lances along her neck and shoulders until the halfling suddenly feels the real estate of her upper body suddenly quite crowded and overbuilt. This is because not one, not two, but three new heads have sprung forth like over fertilized weeds on a warm summer night. One is familiar to both Luthael and Gunnar. Even Raseri recognizes the halfling's former male self from previous encounters. The second is much more fae and surprised looking as her golden green eyes take in the chaos while her leafy locks swirl around with added agitation. Then there is the final third new comer. Somewhat androgynous, perhaps a bit of elf, perhaps something else. Black eyes glance about above a pointed nose and thin pursed lips. "What's the meaning of this disturbance?" Curses the shadow elf doing their utmost best to exert full control over the group.
Like a lily sprouting myriad main roots from a single bulb, the halfing achieved multiplicity. "No. There can be only one." they all protested in synchronous speech, before a last-man-standing-style headbutter's brawl erupted on the thief's nape. Scramsax and Scramsexy were at a disadvantage, having heads nearly a third the size of the dryad and scathesidhe. Luckily the dryad's freshly sprouted leaf-hair granted extra-soft plushy cushioning against the foreheads colliding. The shadow-head tried to get clever and began teleporting around the shoulders, but it was a predictable pattern and easy to avoid.
And of course size never stopped the thieves before, they'd fight dirty. Scramsax clenched hard onto the shadow head's long ear rolling it over, while Scramsexy bashed into the occipital bone and finally burst the thing like a watermelon. The alliance persisted against the dryad, this time Scramsexy blinding the fae with a quick tongue poke to the eye. Scramsax meanwhile inhaled the leaf hair into his powerful nostrils, restraining the fae. With one dexterous neck twist, Scramsax had loop-de-looped the vines around the faes neck and slowly turned her from green to blue.
What remained was a classic battle of the sexes. There was an awkward parley at first, where the two double-spoke about how, in the final analysis, it would be better to wait until the fight could be publicized, tickets printed and a trusty ol' booker's scam arranged. But Scramsexy was unwilling to budge on a 60/40 take for such a scheme, which wasn't good enough for Scramsax.
Scramsexy used her powerful eyebrows to punch Scramsax in the face after a quick 1-2 fake out. Scramsax armed himself by biting into the clavicle bone of their shared body and ripping the thing out like a little dagger. With a deft toss when she wasn't looking, the bone dagger twirled across the expanse threating to kill Scramsexy with a sneak attack.
But it was a ruse, Scramsexy was paying attention the entire time out of the corner of her eye and snatched the bone dagger from flight with her ear. It took merely an instant riposte to slice the head-sprout of Scramsax clean off.
Raising the dagger to the sky, it conducted a great flash of power as the thief was again one.
Snapping out of it, Scram put her sling down and drew Morrin's Misery. Running over to the lizard, she attempted to slay the doctor with a quick stab to its heart...
...before skipping out of sight of the unfurling hellscape...
...seemingly completely vanishing from the face of Midgard after an extra loud fart, apparently having mastered a new 3rd level bean magic spell.
Ingryd becomes herself again and chuckles." Thier is a joke in their about a Bear and a bush"
Luthael looks around after the explosion. "By Khors, what have we done?"
"Gunnar, what do we do?"