Ep 1216: We find out more about this town, sort of

Alrighty, so we last left this bunch of adventurers they were hanging out, having dinner, and having our "fortunes told" by our warlock companion (her name is Mary). We then camped for the night and got a good rest in.

So the next morning we discussed for a few minutes what our plan of attack is. Basically we were deciding between do we go to the fairly close by square building that has a mechanical means of getting to the item of great value, or do we go to the much further building that holds the item. After a bit of back and forth, Magnus brought up the valid point of we should conserve magic since there are enemies about, so we should go for the mechanical transportation.

Scoping out the situation we felt confident enough we could use the broken towers/tops of buildings to get over to the square building and proceeded out "overland". We were mostly successful, though Magnus had to swap from acrobatics to athletics ... basically imagine the rest of the party is nimbly leaping from roof to pillar while Magnus does a jump and plant the landing. But we all made it to the roof top doors of the square building.

The sneakier portion of our party went ahead while Magnus and Elle hung back. Elle's not particularly loud, but this combo has proven to work well in the past. Mary and Gearbox (Elle's mechanical companion) stayed back as well.

Tsedek, Leoven, and Itanis snuck forward to find a balcony overlooking a large room with a steam punk style engine and a large metal coffin. And a bunch of those mechanical tendrils that were trying to knock us off of buildings back when we first arrived. Itanis and Tsedek come to the conclusion that the engine is controlling the mechanical tendrils, so Tsedek decides to sneak down to the main floor to investigate further. Leoven takes up a guard position in case this thing decides to attack.

Tsedek, however, is very very good at sneaking. And investigating. And lock picking. He is a rogue after all. So he sneaks down to the main floor without triggering the mechanical tendrils, gets to the coffin, and uses his lock picking to get it open.

Turns out there were the remains of a long dead ... something ... in there, it had decomposed to a gelatinous goo and bone fragments. But it was also sorta still alive, random voices started talking to us in our heads but it wasn't cohesive. It was definitely many voices though. Magnus was all like Elle, why are there voices in my head.

Tsedek kept investigating and figured out this helm and wire contraption is what connected the coffin being to the steam punk engine that then controlled the mechanical tendrils. So while the coffin being was using many voices to talk to us, he snipped the wire. And the tendrils powered down.

The rest of the party came forward at this point to assist. Elle successfully made an investigation check to point out the coffin bore symbols associated with the undead Medusa's cult. And then she promptly went over to a corner and vomited from the stench. She did offer to start a viking funeral pyre for that mess though.

Itanis also was investigating and pointed out that this coffin was suitable to house a vampire, so Magnus did his detect and discovered evil and undead present. So he sets out to do something he rarely does: he pulled out his holy symbol and components and did his ritual of Funeral Rite for this long dead undead mess. It screamed and pleaded the entire time, but at the end of the hour it has passed on to "whatever it deserved" as he put it.

The mechanical "submarine" we've been looking for looks like a giant vat turned into a ... crab? but is here in the square building as we had hoped. And Tsedek seems to be under the impression he can drive it. Elle sure hope so, she doesn't trust this mechanical nonsense.

Itanis then noticed Mary was paying close attention to the coffin, so he asked her what was up. She had previously mentioned her missing travel partner was currently locked in a coffin similar to this one, which raised Itanis' hackles since he'd already determined this coffin was suitable to contain a vampire.

We had previously determined Mary wasn't evil or fiendish, via Magnus' detect, but hadn't dug any further on that. So Itanis did a detect magic on her ... to find both her and her familiar under a shroud of Transmutation magic. Itanis then did message to the rest of the party to let us know something's up with Mary, and to not react as he couldn't quite figure out what was going on. Elle then came up with this being possibly a Polymorph spell.

And that's where we ended the session. Mary doesn't know that we're now concerned about being around her. We've found an alleged way of travelling to the item of great value so we can get out of this ooze town. And the party still doesn't know Elle's now Lawful! LOL