The wizard twists thunder and flesh to overcome their foes whilst wondering if Eva is thinking of more interesting ways to make use of these 'arcane powers'. Probably not.
Eva switches to pummel at the birds as hard as she can.
HP 81/93
AC 23
Fort +13, Ref +13, Will +11 (bravery)
Hero points: 3
Ammo: 47 rounds
Effects:
Royken dashes forward again, slamming one of the chickens fighting Eva , once then, again, trying to shove it away the second time.
Bleach fries two of the cockatrices, taking out the most wounded one. The zombie brute and Eva take out another foe, while Royken dashes in and delivers two powerful blows, shoving his opponent away. Lora misses with her attack, though.
The two remaining cockatrices attack Royken and Eva! The dwarf takes a hit.
HP 76/93
AC 23
Fort +13, Ref +13, Will +11 (bravery)
Hero points: 3
Ammo: 47 rounds
Effects:
Royken glares at the rock hen and then slams it again and again with his gun.
Eva unleashes a barrage of punches!
Between Royken's and Eva's powerful blows, the remaining cockatrices quickly fall!
"Probably not worth eating, but maybe Elias will want them," Royken says, kicking the mud hens out of the way. Once he's healed, he'll cock his head.
"Let's look around. Maybe there's another way in."
Lora reloads her pistol than slides it into the holster at her hip. "You don't want to try the front door first? These screeching chickens and our rather Thorough trouncing of them was loud enough if there are people in there, they know we are here."
"That is probably true, Lora, but it is never a bad thing to know our options."
"What she said," Royken agrees, jabbing a thumb at Eva.
Aside from the front doors, you notice windows cut into the walls on either side of the entrance. Through the windows, you see empty rooms lit by glowing hexagonal quartz crystals set like lamps in sconces on the walls.
Royken shrugs. "Doors it is," he says, not seeing much point to using the windows to get into the same place.
Once everyone's ready, he pulls them open, then shifts his grip back to his gun.
You head through the front doors. This hexagonal chamber evokes the shape of a crystal, with perfectly flat walls rising twenty feet high, angling inward toward the chamber’s center and meeting at a central point forty feet above the floor. The walls are inset with flat crystal faces in decorative patterns that mimic a humanoid form composed of gears and wheels. Two sets of corridors head further into the complex on either side of the bronze doorway, each partially obscured by tattered scraps of rotten curtains. To the east is an angular dais with three stone steps carved from translucent stone. Atop the dais sits a simple chair, its upholstery frayed but its frame adorned with quartz crystals.
Standing in the center of this hall is a brass-colored construct crafted in the likeness of a regal sphinx. When you enter the room, the gears inside the clockwork spring to life, and it issues a grinding roar!
Lora pulls her pistol, aims, but hesitates. "The wings alone..." the bard seems to be at a loss for words, watching the feathers fold in and out as the majestic creature moves.
But it is likely to kill them all. Very messy which would ruin its astetics anyway, so...
She fires.
"Hey, where is our riddle?" She asks, trying to delay the fight.
The clockwork sphinx turns to Eva when she calls to it. Instead of answering, though, it rushes forward and pounces on the half-elf! It scores one hit, tearing at her with its metal claws.
"Ok, no riddle!" She says as she overdrives her arm before punching twice!
HP 93/93
AC 23
Fort +13, Ref +13, Will +11 (bravery)
Hero points: 3
Ammo: 48 rounds
Effects: Inspired
"This isn't f**&ing funny!" Royken growls and sets to attacking the creature. "What is this thing?"
Uncertain about whether heating up the sphinx is a good idea, Bleach goes along with his first thought and casts the spell.
"I believe it is a clockwork." Lora answers Roykin, though she is quite sure he already surmised that, and was thinking about something more specific.
She uses that response as the words needed for her inspirational magic, and adds in a soothing spell to close up Eva's wounds.
Eva overdrives her arm and delivers a powerful punch to the clockwork sphinx. Royken scores a critical hit, knocking it away before blasting it with his shotgun! The creature seems resilient to physical damage, but the attacks still do damage to its metallic frame. Bleach superheats its metallic parts, though it resists some of the burning magic.
The clockwork changes its target, pouncing on Royken and ripping at the dwarf with its sharp claws!
Eva punches the sphinx again, shocked about how deadly it could be. Remembering how every clockwork so far was weak to electricity, she also unleashes an explosion of electricity.
Bleach conjures forth a flaming skull and instructs it to spit fire at the clockwork. The skull tries.
HP 18/93
AC 23
Fort +13, Ref +13, Will +11 (bravery)
Hero points: 2
Ammo: 47 rounds
Effects: Inspired
Royken groans as the clockwork nearly cleans his clock in a single pounce. He tries to slam the thing a couple more times before falling back, hoping Lora has some more healing available.
As blood streaks the floors, Lora concentrates as much as she can to put it back in her friend, but doesn't accomplish the task nearly as much as she hoped. "I'm working on it" she says to mostly herself.
The summoned flaming skull fails to hit the sphinx. Royken delivers a solid blow as he moves back out of the temple. Eva punches the clockwork, then unleashes a burst of electricity. While it avoids the worst of it, the lightning wreaks havoc on the sphinx's delicate gears, as the creature is weak to electricity!
The clockwork shifts its focus back to Eva, though, making her pay for badly damaging it. Its claws rip and tear, and the half-elf falls!
HP 44/93
AC 23
Fort +13, Ref +13, Will +11 (bravery)
Hero points: 1
Ammo: 46 rounds
Effects: Inspired
"Damn!" Royken curses. "We need to take this thing down, fast!"
He considers pulling out a bottled lightning, but doesn't want to catch Eva in the splash, so fires his gun again, reloads and fires a second time.
"" the red-headed bard screams in anxiety-ridden pain and worry as Eva gets torn apart by the clockword claws.
Her magic takes hold of those parts, those lovely parts that are equally soft and strong, that have held and touched and loved on the bearer of that screamed NO so deliciously.
That scream takes hold of them and refuses to let them separate any further, not a single inch more.
Something in that screamed pain is inspiration. Don't know which part but there is enough magic in it to help all those around.
Eva's eyes open mere seconds after she falls, not completely aware of how close to death she was but still feeling pain all over her body... the amount of blood on the sphinx's claws, however, are a pretty powerful image.
Crawling back, Eva extends her hands and throws a jolt of electricity at the sphinx, hoping that she was dumb enough to ravage the flaming skull next...
Bleach calls upon what power he can to blast and overwhelm their clockwork foe.
Royken's blasts fail to hurt the clockwork sphinx. It avoids the worst of Bleach's burning magic, but Eva's electric arc catches it full force! The clockwork collapses and starts to emit a steady ticking sound...
Eva frowns as the ticking sound begins but then her eyes go wide as she turns away from it. "Run... RUN! It is going to explode!" She says, getting on her feet and running for the door.
"F&+~ me!" Royken swears, getting as far away from the thing as he can, hopefully without having to leave the cathedral.
You rush away from the clockwork moments before it explodes, sending shrapnel every which way!
With the threat finally neutralized, you can look around the room more. The hundreds of shiny minerals set into the walls of this chamber are a mix of semiprecious gemstones and worthless quartz crystals. It would take days to remove them in their entirety.
A search of the room reveals one of the quartz lanterns near the dais can be rotated in its sconce. Doing so causes the wall to shift aside, revealing a hidden room. This dusty square chamber contains a stone chest and a large, leather‑bound book on a makeshift wooden desk.
The book appears to be an endless grimoire full of notes and heinous plans to destabilize the Temple of Brigh in Alkenstar. Reading the entire volume would take several days.
In the stone chest are assorted gems and valuable objects stolen from the Temple of Brigh. Altogether, the mundane treasures are worth 450 gp. In addition to these valuables, the chest contains two magic items: a clear quartz octagon aeon stone and a winder’s ring.
Eva winches at the loud blast. "Right, if there was anyone inside not knowing we are here... now they do. Which means are can take our time and properly deal with our wounds." She says, trying to keep her wounds from bleeding too much.
Between her work, Eva points out about the stones. "Some of these stones are quite valuable, but it would take what? Around one hour to remove all of them from the walls..."
While Eva takes care of herself, Lora makes sure Roykin is no longer leaking bits of himself all over the floor. She chooses a lengthy legend about guttural pixies trying to eat the world only to be defeated by a band of busty bakers.
Lora looks at the stones Eva points out and sighs since tedious work is not her preferred way to spend an hour in a vastly interesting hidden temple, but she doesn't complain, other than repeated long draw-out sighs.
As she feels Lora understood Eva wanted to remove the stones now, she shakes her head. "If we get to do what we came to do here, we can think about riches later."
"We've got nothing more important things to do well we're getting magicked up," Royken says, looking at the gems. "Who knows if we'll get back here by the time we're done with all of this."
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"Isn't it the only way out that we know about?" She asks as she works in her arm and sees Royken poking at the stones.
As she notices Royken and Bleach looking at the stones as if they were bare breasts for the grab, she shakes her head. "You greedy f#%+ers..." She adds, with amusement in her voice.
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Bleach is more accustomed to removing parts from the dead than gems from a wall, but he faithfully gives it his best and aids Royken in his drive to liberate the precious stones from their captivity. "I regret to say that regret is what I'd feel if I didn't use this opportunity to at least get some valuable gems into my pocket. After what we've been through, we earned it."
As soon as Roykin's skin is all patched up (a feat not helped by his eager wall-picking), Lora helps out with the gem removal. Giving Eva a shrug "I could use the money for a new dress or two and some lacey bits to go Under those dresses." she shoots the inventor smile that promises a viewing at a later time.
You spend an hour healing up and gathering the valuable gemstones. Soon enough, you are ready to continue your exploration of the temple!
Royken looks around and grunts. "Let's go," he says, marching off due west.
Lora follows the leader.
Bleach falls in behind Royken, but does offer the dwarf an alternative to them simply barging into one room after another. "If need be, I can always ask Hadi to scout ahead. I don't like putting him at risk, but if need be, I can magically recall him to my side ... like once a day. Doing that fries part of my brain, and it leaves me feeling awful in a way I can't quite describe if I try to do it again."
In case they do end up sending Hadi to check out specific hallways and or rooms, he readies a pair of Drakeheart mutagens.
The southern hall passes by the empty observation room looking out into the desert. The hall ends in an alcove. The floor, ceiling, and walls in this alcove are all cracked and pocked with pin‑sized holes. A desiccated corpse lies slumped in the southwestern corner of the chamber. Upon examination, the bones of the corpse are clearly humanoid, though they’re decades old.
Bardic Lore - Succcess! Through stories from other travelers she has heard, Lora is able to identify the pin-sized holes around the room as the tunnels of sportlebores, tiny bugs that can imitate dried fruit, nuts, and other common rations. Once consumed, the sportlebore reproduces into a hungry swarm that is regurgitated by the now ailing eater, ravenously attacking any creatures it thinks it can consume.
When Lora sees the holes, and memories surface of a old codger weaving tales about how his buddy would eat anything he found lying about, until one day he ate handful of nuts, that grew inside him...
The bard rushes forward, placing a hand on Roykin's shoulder. "We might want to avoid this room." she explains about sportlebores using all sorts of descriptive rather vividly gross terms to explain why they are horrible.
"Yekes.... yeah, certainly not how I want to go." She says, already stepping back. "Considering this place seems to be somewhat symmetrical, I think we should check the north tunnel before looking at the diagonal corridors."
Royken grunts. "Damn. We need to find more food!" But he nods, turning around and retracing his steps.
He scratches his head as he looks at the next tunnel, then turns to Bleach. "If it's going to hurt, we might as well go ourselves. We're going to have to go down there eventually anyway."