The Colony - Glowy Lights

The party does some fiddling about with the pedestal before heading back upstairs to make sure they clear the area behind them. There's been a fair bit of debate about what it's going to take to fulfill their contract with Lady Vine. Some characters believe they should not include the newly discovered area in "the mine".  Of course, they haven't really eliminated the threat they were supposed to eliminate, so...

Start Date: August 22nd, afternoon
Start Status: Deep scan
Start Location: Silverstream Mine

Adventuring: Rennard, Jinx, Brigg, Smoke, Zenobe
At the Tulip: Castor, Hagan, Xon, Aaron

The Turn


While Smoke keeps watch at the stairs, the rest of the party conducts a thorough search of the pedestal chamber, scanning walls, ceilings, floors, pillars, and alcoves for secret doors or panels, markings, or runes. They find nothing and are fairly certain this room is a dead end. The only thing left to check out is the platform and pedestal, which Zenobe and Jinx inspect. Like the rest of the room, they're bare of any markings. As the others regroup and start toward the stairs, Zenobe positions himself with his back to the others and then places his left hand on the sphere. When he does, he feels a faint vibration and snatches his hand away. The sphere begins to glow, and tiny golden sparks of light flow out of the object in all directions like slow-moving liquid. "RUN!" shouts Zenobe as he follows his own advice, looking over his shoulder as he heads for the stairs.

The others react swiftly and reach the steps ahead of the cleric. Everyone is outside the room when the glowing specks stabilize into a swirling column of light that covers the entire pedestal platform. It spins for a moment and then vanishes with a soft *woompfh*.

"What did you do?" asks Jinx. "Did you find something?"

"N-no," stutters Zenobe, pale and shaken. "Well, yes, I guess. I put my hand on the sphere. I didn't think it would do anything." He takes a peek at the room from his position on the stairs. "Nothing's changed, at least nothing I can see. We should take another look, carefully." He heads back to the room with Jinx following, somewhat reluctantly. The others keep watch from the stairs. A quick scan of the room shows no obvious changes, so Jinx and Zenobe rejoin the others and head back to the circle room, leaving the mysteries of the pedestal for another day.

In the circle room, Brigg takes a close look at the corpse without entering the circle. It's hard to say whether it is human or not, due to its twisted position. If it is, it's a very tall human, and the remains seem very old and dried out, possibly predating the human settlement here. As for the circle itself, the shifting shapes change quickly, but after watching for several minutes, Brigg concludes there is a repeating pattern there.

The party puts their heads together and decides their best course of action is to backtrack and do a room-by-room sweep of the lower level, followed by an ascent and search of the area beyond the goo patches.

"My turn to do something dumb," says Smoke as the party prepares to move. "Wait outside a minute." She pulls a copper coin from a pouch and, standing near the door, tosses it into the circle. The coin bounces twice and comes to rest against the corpse's leg. Nothing else happens. "Ah well, it was worth a try." Smoke rejoins the others.

The group spends close to two hours going through the lower level room by room. Their patience and caution are rewarded when they discover another rocktopus hiding in the large chamber east of the ladder up to the first level. They dispatch it quickly, but the many-tentacled beast manages to inflict several minor wounds on party members [wounds below].

Satisfied that the lower level is clear of known threats (but a bit uneasy about the lack of not-zombies), the party ascends the ladder and is about to make their way to the goo area when they hear the hulking golem-thing approaching. Brigg urges caution and takes a position near the room's entrance, while the others make ready to fight or descend to the lower level.

The construct trudges past the entry and stops in the southern portion of the room/corridor just outside. It begins to pound on the wall with one arm, while it uses the other to scoop rubble into a previously unseen compartment in its body. Neither action is particularly effective. From his vantage point, Brigg waves the others forward. "I think it's some kind of mining golem, but it's not accomplishing much. See how the ends of the arms end in stumps with twisted metal hanging off them? Those were probably tools. I don't think we should attack this thing. Who knows how it would react, or how much damage we could inflict. It looks like it's made of metal."

"Let's watch for a while. Maybe see if it does anything else," says Smoke. "But not too long. It's getting late. Maybe we should find a safe place to camp before too much longer."

OOC:

I think that's a good place to stop. The rocktopus battle was only two rounds, so I didn't go into the gory details.

Wounds inflicted by the rocktopus:

Zenobe: 4
Rennard: 8
Brigg: 2
Jinx: 4
Smoke: 0 (for once)

End Date: August 22nd, late afternoon
End Status:
End Location: Silverstream Mine