The Colony - Secure Searching

After a night's rest, the party heads back into the mine to finish exploring the first level before heading downstairs to revisit the pedestal room. Back in town, Mendel takes his leave and Castor (a.k.a. Candle) returns to rejoin the company. Chance, a newcomer to the colony, also continues her efforts to join the group, but so far the others have pretty much ignored her.

This will be the last turn for a bit, due to the holidays.

Start Date: August 22nd, late afternoon
Start Status: Watching the Robots
Start Location: Silverstream Mine

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


The Turn

The group decides to keep watching the golem thing for a while before they vacate the mine for the day. While they wait, Zenobe casts a cure on Rennard [7 healed) The golem continues to dig for another 15 minutes, then stops, repositions itself, and starts walking northeast along the large corridor that leads past the ladder room. Everyone retreats into the room except Brigg, who stays near the entrance. "I want to see if it reacts to me."

When the thing gets close, it stops for a moment and the pair of blue lights on its head (eyes perhaps?) rotate to face Brigg. It stands there for a moment, and Brigg hears indistinct scratchy sounds coming from the thing's head. Then its head turns to face forward, it takes a sidestep away from Brigg, and continues on its way, disappearing around the north bend. "Come on!" hisses Brigg, who follows. The others come along with various degrees of reluctance. The golem traverses a winding course that leads it through the large central room, out through the southeast passage, past the trap pit (which it easily avoids), and into the large chamber beyond. There it resumes its somewhat futile digging. The group watches for a few more minutes, then heads back to the entrance and out into a day grown cloudy and windy.

Everyone heads to the abandoned farmhouse to rest and recover from the day's exertions. Zenobe uses his last two healing spells on Jinx and himself [6 and 3 respectively]. The night passes uneventfully, but not quietly. A tremendous thunderstorm rolls through in the early AM hours. The next morning the thunder and lightning abate, but the rain continues, and the party is soaked through by the time they reach the mine entrance.

Once inside, the group heads for the corridor where they first encountered the red goo on the floors. In the distance, they hear faint sounds of digging that indicate the golem is still at work. Weapons ready, Jinx and Smoke advance on the icky-looking stuff, ready for anything. The goo looks gooey, and they make it past easily. Jinx takes a closer look. "I think it's just some kind of fungus. It's not reacting in any way. Come on!"

The area beyond is a looping passage with several dead-end corridors leading off of it. The south passage leads to the mushroom and pool cave. There are no signs that this area has been used recently. The few scattered tools in the dead end corridors are dusty and rusty.

In the pool cave, Zenobe volunteers to check out the area. He covers his mouth with a damp handkerchief and ties a rope around his waist. "Just in case those giant mushrooms give off any spores." He checks out the room thoroughly and finds nothing remarkable, other than a few tiny footprints around the pool. Rats, perhaps. When Brigg follows him, he agrees with this assessment.

Next, the party heads back downstairs and, moving cautiously, head for the magic circle room. They encounter nothing along the way. Once there, Brigg ties a rope around his waist, takes a deep breath, and steps into the circle. As he does, he feels a faint tingling, so he steps back out. Nothing happens. "Weird," he mutters. "There's definitely some sort of magic here, but it doesn't seem to be affecting me." He goes back in and stoops by the body. Close up, it is definitely not human and is tall enough to be one of the creatures the party encountered in the woods. But those creatures seemed partially insubstantial, and this was definitely a living, breathing creature made of flesh and bone. Brigg takes note of a few features, pointed ears, thin facial features, and overly long legs, before he gently rolls the body aside to see what might be beneath it. Nothing there.

The creature's clothing feels like it is made of cotton, and there is a faded pattern of stripes woven into the fabric. There is also an irregular reddish stain on the front of the tunic, mid-chest, and similar stains run up and around the collar. Brigg moves the cloth aside to check for wounds, but there is nothing evident beneath the stain.

"I don't think there's anything else to learn here," says Brigg after he conveys his findings to the others. "Downstairs?" The others agree, and the group heads to the pedestal room. Smoke takes a moment to recover her coin from the circle (and experiences the same tingling as Brigg).

Downstairs, the pedestal room appears unchanged. "Now what?" asks Rennard.

OOC

Meanwhile, back in town...

Medel takes his leave from the White Tulip and Castor moves into his room. Chance continues to show up at the bars and restaurants the group frequents.

A group of shipwrecked survivors reached the city late on the 22nd. Apparently, their vessel ran aground well south of the colony, and many people, including the ship's captain and first officer, were killed when the group was attacked by a pack of huge flightless birds.

End Date: August 23rd, morning
End Status: Pacing at the Pedestal
End Location: Silverstream Mine, level 2