==== Summary 161: Lab Retrievers (2016-12-12) ====
[[Giraine]] [[summaries-2016|Summaries]]
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Hi,

As you passed through one of the double doors into the lab, there was a timeless moment where you all stood frozen and millennia seemed to pass; but once this ended you returned to action and had not visibly aged. 

There was no time to contemplate this as a giant sea troll-thing with crab pincers for arms and four leathery-skinned human legs stomped toward you, facing Ahappi and Boamund who stepped through first. It was almost invulnerable to most damage, being little but dessicated flesh stitched and magically fused together, but Shaven stepped in with his sword which clove through the flesh more easily. After several rounds of bashing away, and Boamund taking some wounds while defending against its mightly blows, Shaven clove its head in and it dropped-- falling toward you! Fraud nimbly leapt into the room while Ahappi dove down under it, as its body slammed into the door, staying propped up against the door and wall.

Meanwhile, there had been activity in the cell nearest the door. Through the bars, which the Zzaburi later deduced to be made of raw iron and thus suppressing the casting of magics around here, you saw a thing in a suit of bronze armour rise out of a black vat of viscuous liquid. It was just like the vampire-thing that had killed Sir Menekeyil some years ago, except that it was unarmed and weak, moving slowly and grasping for you through the bars, while keeping its distance from them. Was this the final saint, or something else?

You tried communicating with the thing, and it seemed aware of this, even being convinced to lie down and submit to being executed. Maugis joined you from the foyer, and the Zzaburi learned from "Oh" how to open the barred doorways by tracing a Mastery rune in the air. The door swung open and Shaven stepped forward to deliver the death blow, with his blessed sword shaking in his hand with eagerness-- but the oily thing was treacherous! It reached out and swept his legs out from under him, then crawled forward, trying to grab him, burbling with malevolent hunger from the black emptiness within its helmet.

Ahappi had enough of this and impaled its left arm with his spear. It grabbed the spear and ripped it out, but ripped its own arm apart in the process. Shaven stood up and, with the others' help, dealt a series of blows to its head that split the helmet open and splatted the oily substance in there all over you, finally defeating the horror. Sir Menekeyil's blade briefly bathed the cell in the graceful light of Makan, showing that he had again been avenged against these menaces, whatever they were. There was no clear sign that this thing was a saintly remnant- its armour was ornate but without heraldry or other signs of its provenance. It was a striking twin, though, of the thing you'd been haunted by and finally destroyed under the island's volcano.

The other cells held (in order 2-7) a sparkling pile of dust; a statue(?) of a very lifelike aldryami (elf; tree/bush-thing) made of copper; one of the terrible four-blade-limbed things that had almost killed Miguel, Curly and Jim (but it stood immobile, its surroundings and form warped by some force); a shield (obscured in grime that coated the area around it) propped against the far wall of the cell; an empty cell with a broken, warped door (obviously where the trollish-flesh-construct had escaped from); and a final cell that was empty except for some bones.

You wanted to investigate the cell with the shield (could this be Karkovoch's?) and whispered about it while the Zzaburi were out of the room, but on their return Cataldo insisted that you focus together on looting the room of any possibly useful sorcerous implements, as part of your mission. You did this, and found quite a few things after 10 minutes. Cataldo found an iron circlet but dropped it in disgust; Ahappi strutted up and, with a glazed look, put it on- his spirit was dragged into the hazy Spirit Plane where the ghost of a screaming Jrustelan Zzaburi assaulted him in spectral combat. He endured its assault and sent it howling away, returning him to his body just as the rest of you figured out what had happened to him.

The Zzaburi also investigated a crimson energy field at the far end of the curved hallway, which blocked off one doorway on the left side and also cut off the hallway completely at the end; but a final bronze door remained on the right side. Maugis used his sorcerous sight to inspect it and was impressed, seeing that it was a Tap Water enchantment linked to a Summon Air one, thus keeping the oceans out while using that energy (destroying any water contacting it and converting that into mana!) to preserve the air inside the base of the tower. He also realized that its energy was deadly to life forms, which was somewhat apparent from the angry sparks it sent off as it constantly performed its centuries-long duty.

Checking the door that was not blocked by this field, and convincing Cataldo to open it, you found that a small room lay beyond, cut off at its far end by a continuation of the energy field. Scratches and gnawing marks had defaced most surfaces and Fraud saw that some of them, including one on the inside of the door, were crude depictions of the Gloomshark: a great shark, missing one fin, with tentacles surrounding its massive maw. The trolls had been here, and a ~2m diameter tunnel in the room's floor, flooded below ground level (but not leaking inside; despite there being no energy field there), was their clear entryway. You saw nothing more in here and soon departed.

Finally, your attentions turned back to the cells. As Maugis stepped to open it, with the other Zzaburi distracted, a blast of force emanated from the shield, ripping off the gate which smashed against the laboratory counters at the far side of the hall. You dodged this dangerous assault and Boamund dashed in, withstanding a second blast that injured him (Miguel contined to prove his worth with regular Heal spells), and soon grabbing the shield. He struggled bravely with it as it kept blasting him with invisible brutality, smashing him against the floor or itself, and Ahappi had to join in to help tackle it and Boamund. Cataldo, returning, sent a series of Wrack With Oceans' Pressure spells that crumpled it into a heap of metal before it might have pulverized Boamund. Catching your breath after that intense, surreal battle with the vicious shield, you saw that the grime had been scoured off during the struggle and the big bronze shield was decorated with a grimacing demonic face. Surely this was not Karkovoch's shield?

You had many questions left. The laboratory here was clearly a site of vile former experiments with mechanical things and fleshy beings, but were they imprisoned or stored, or both? What lay beyond the enchanted field- was it worth exploring? Should the cells be investigated more, or the rest of the lab hall searched more thoroughly? Cataldo argued that it was time to see what the chambers of the "lower masters", at the other end of the foyer, might hold. Some of you, though, felt that recuperation was in order- the struggles here had depleted you of spiritual power. Not to mention disturbing some of you with the blatant cruelty of Godlearner studies that had been enacted on this spot, and the huge source of Chaos power that fueled it all, still lurking below-- and explaining why Uzelu had long been here, forming their own corrupt facade of a city. Maybe you'd gone far enough for now and might even return to the surface world? Would the Uzelu even let you leave at this point, now that you'd been inside their domain for about 30 minutes?

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