You left New Arvonesse behind and trudged through the saltmarshes along Giraine's southern shores, avoiding civilization and enduring the increasing heat and insect pests. While you rested late that night, a series of quakes shook the land, and Boamund figured they must have issued from the north, further inland. Some hours later, you saw a shape crossing your path, and came closer to see that it was a horrible rotting corpse of a skinless moose or elk-like thing, but with human body parts fused onto it in horrific fashion. The Captain challenged it and it let loose a hideous braying shriek, then charged. His harpoon, set for the charge, pierced its eye and skull but did not bring it down, and the Captain hung on while the elk-thing dragged him through the marsh waters as its charge continued, passing Boamund who dealt it another blow that one of its human limbs knocked aside. Maugis tried to Palsy it with his powerful sorcery, but it hefty body withstood the magic. As it cantered onward, the beast shook its head trying to dislodge its burden, but this only rended its wound larger and soon it collapsed in a twitching heap in the mud, having ripped its own cyanotic head in two.
Ahappi retrieved his precious weapon and you gathered to inspect this bizarre creature. It clearly was an undead creation, with mecha-magical implanted bronze bits (Boamund took some off its hooves to inspect later) and rune carvings showing it had been the subject of Malkioni enchantments of an old, probably Second Age, nature. Boamund, before he used his fire-wall to burn it, used his chaos-sense magic and was certain it was not Chaotic, but tasted the familiar flavour of the 2nd age necromantic techno-wizards, the Zistorites. This all made sense, partly explaining the presence of an animal that has not lived on Giraine for centuries, at least, and you surmised that the quakes must have shook it loose or awakened it… so you tried to track it towards its source. Boamund found a trail leading out of the swamps into badlands, and you continued in this northeast direction. A worry grew that this direction led toward the ancient library that still haunted your memories, but a couple of hours later Boamund's keen eyes spotted the probable source, in a dry, quake-ravaged canyon. There, many corpses and bones of hoofed animals lay strewn in an open, rubble-covered area before a great cleft in a cliff wall. That cleft was rent in the ancient wall and roof of a ruined building, which the surrounding rock seemed to have overgrown or even flowed to cover, and largely crush– a much larger structure must have once been there, but pulverised and only now exposed to the surroundings by the quake, which must have originated nearby. The Baronet had been upset by his past actions with the Kralorelan sorcerer, and the moose-beast upset him even more, plus he worried that he was drawn to these horrors by their very unclean nature… was he going truly, deeply mad? So he held back and watched the others approach.
You came closer, finding that the animal remains included more metal bits and concatenated human/herdbeast bodies like the elk-thing, and many were charred and still smoking. A plume of smoke also drifted out from the great crack in the canyon-side. Then you heard something; a click-clacking and whining, squeaking mechanical noise, and another horrid thing showed itself, sticking its mechanical-fleshy “snout” out of the dark cleft as four spindly, fleshy-mechanical legs held it in an ideal position for ambush from the shadows. A screaming purple bolt of energy emerged from an aperture in that snout, and Boamund dove aside just in time to avoid it. The crater left by the impact left you with no doubt that this was powerful, deadly and cursed sorcery of the 2nd Age. Boamund and Ahappi charged it, while Maugis prepared and soon cast a Holdfast spell on its mechanical snout-opening. It survived some blows by the two warriors, and Boamund survived another energy blast from it, then Maugis's spell took effect and as the thing tried to let loose its violet sorcery again, it whined and shuddered and exploded! Everyone dove clear, but Ahappi's left leg armour had been sizzled away by the energy released from the explosion, and Boamund had suffered a nasty wound from shrapnel. Maugis healed what he could, and you saw through the smoke of the explosion that rubble had been dislodged from above and the entrance was mostly blocked.
Boamund cast a Glow spell on himself and climbed the rubble pile, spying inside that there were steps and a dark, pillared hall beyond: a partly preserved Second Age ruin! The floor was cluttered with bones, refuse and other debrise. He crawled down and the others began to do so too, but then you heard the click-clacks and squeaking of another thing approaching, even more stealthily, through the stony, echoing halls. There was also some other sound issuing from deeper inside but there was no time to ponder it. Boamund took cover and waited for the thing to approach. He then snuck behind it and gave it a strong whack with his spear, tripping it so it could not easily bring its snout-gun to bear on him. (You had spoken earlier of Mostali blackpowder weapons and how these Zistorite devices resembled them, so Boamund had some idea of the threat, in addition to the craters he saw one make in his absence earlier!) Ahappi hurtled over the rubble and gave it a powerful stab with his harpoon as it kicked forcefully at Boamund and him, struggling to regain its footing. That blow proved enough to disable it, and you backed away… soon enough a familiar crescendo of mecha-magical discord grew from it, and it exploded, but the two warriors facing it dove to safety. Meanwhile, the Baronet had been stumbling and fumbling his way up the rubble pile while Maugis waited; their delay saved them from the explosion. However, the concussion left Boamund and Ahappi with ringing ears, barely able to hear the increased utterances of inhuman, sickening shrieking from deeper inside the ruin.
Maugis and the Baronet waited while the two others delved deeper inside, entering a steeply slanting passage, walls decorated with faded 2nd Age frescoes depicting wicked sorcerous experiments on bodies and devices, prominently featuring bestial remains like those you'd seen. This surely was some mad necro-mecha-magician's lab, stable, or other building, and the pictures you could see by Boamund's light turned your stomachs. Then you spotted a fresh blood-trail, and followed it down the corridor until it opened into a chamber where the hideous whinnying, screaming, snorting sounds issued from. A sneezing sound accompanied a spraying mist of blood from that chamber, and you knew some terrible horror fed on fresh bodies there. Steeling yourselves, you two heroes stepped into full view of the chamber… and were greeted by something truly horrendous, with skeletal horse-head, multitudes of horse and humanoid limbs sprouting from an unspeakable fleshy body, and a gaping toothy maw in that body that had just finished crunching on one of two Giranois corpses that lay before it. That demonic horse head turned its gaze to you, and the shriek of hate, hunger and ferocity made even these seasoned warriors shudder…
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