"Uh.." Realizing Amidor is being serious, he replies, "to fly?"

Ben:

"If we wish to disable the orrery, we will need to damage the main shaft with heavy blows or perhaps someone can arcanely disable it," says Ben, "assuming we still wish to do that.  Perhaps a heavy and solid prop would do."

"As far as travelling back to the swamp, given a few minutes I believe I could summon a celestial mount for myself," says Ben, "assuming we find our way out of this mountain."

"" Would dropping a powerful magic item into the orrery blow it up?"

The tiny Brigganock architect, Golmo, peeks out of Ben's pocket, his white hair and clothing askew from all the commotion, and clears his throat.

"Um. From what I saw, that device seems to be powered by electricity transmitted through its central element: the 80-foot-tall lightning rod that forms its vertical axis. But it is not one rod – it appears to be eight ten-foot-long lightning rods attached end to end. So if we were to destroy one of these rods, it may cause the rods above it to fall, you see, making the lowest rod the most obvious target here, I believe. But the rods are not small, and they look substantially built - they weigh, I'd estimate, 100 pounds each and are as tough as a suit of armor by the looks of them. It might require a real pounding to knock it out. But that's what I recommend, anyway."

"Also, I'd like to return to my friends in the mine, if you could help me do so. I'd prefer not to visit this swamp you speak of, nor the fabled Palace, frankly."

Ben:

"Very well," says Ben, I will search the prop rooms to see what heavy objects I may be able to use to damage the lowest rod.  He departs to do so...

Investigation:  3

"A celestial mount? Like as in gods and stuff? Wow," Titaani gawks at Ben's comment. Beside her, Tiny thumps his foot against the ground, jealous. "That's incredible!" 

Titaani, upon hearing the orrery's weakness, waves Matilda over. "Hey sis, do you wanna test how strong that thing is?"

The little gnome then scurries off back to the orrery and curiously throws two eldritch blasts at the bottom of the structure to test its toughness. 

Blast 1: To hit: 19 Damage: 11

Blast 2: To hit: 10 Damage: 4

Matilda looks at her stabby-stabs and concludes all she can really do to it is bash it with the pommel of a magical dagger......she's unsure how effective this will be.

Ben exits the library into the now-deserted amphitheater. The ornithopter sits at its center, where Amidor must have left it. Climbing the stairs to the prop room to the north, he finds everything where he left it earlier - the gilded throne where he found the key, the small wooden cradle with the baby goblin doll in it, and the 3-foot-high plaster pedestal (and the small, leering gargoyle perched upon it), among other props in this crowded storeroom.

Meanwhile, Titaani and Matilda head back upstairs.

Titaani sends a twin beam of crackling energy at the massive copper pole. The first beam deflects off it, but the second melts through part of its copper veneer, searing the hollow, wooden core within. The 80-foot-tall lightning rod begins to warp slightly – the entire tower begins to sag perceptibly to the north. But the long metal arms continue to revolve, sweeping the massive metal spheres and sickles back and forth, clicking loudly and rhythmically, as smoky wisps continue to rise from it. The device hums and crackles with bolts of powerful lightning.

Matilda begins to approach the massive device, but then thinks twice about it, as the hairs on her body stand on end with the electricity in the air, and as a huge metal crescent sweeps past her. Approaching the tower too closely would likely result in her sudden transformation into something resembling the charred, ashen lump nearby that was once Skylla, she fears.

" Uh.....Sis. If you do manage to break that your going to need to be elsewhere very quickly...", Matilda began to leave the room.

Creeeeak. Titaani and Matilda see the crackling tower slump a little more, as you hear an internal strut snap. One more hit like that, and the whole thing may come down in a big way. Matilda nervously backs toward the circular stairwell. The Orrery continues to rotate, whir, and crackle with lightning.

Meanwhile, Ben (and Golmo) continue to sort through the props and costumes in the northern prop storage room. The room is choked with stuff - there seems to be no order to the place.

Horatio and Pud remain in the Library with Amidor, Pollenella, and Elkhorn, together with the nervous goblin librarians and the elder darklings, who look like they're packing their things to leave.

Pud hears all of the commotion around the orrery and goes to invesitgate. He walks in as Titaani blasts the mechanism and he watches as it creaks and shows signs of failure. He hobbles up to Matilda and says "Whaaaaaat the heck is happening? That things about to blow! You better get outta here."

He then runs over to Titaani. "Hey, Titaani! I hope you know what you're doing. If that thing blows, you better get outta here quick. That cool staff has some sorta teleporting power but I don't think you can use it yet. 

Give me a minute to get outta here before you blast it again."

Pud starts running for cover. He whistles and Rizzo darts and dives for cover into his artificer apron.

Matilda retreats completely, " Blast it from over here!"

Titaani is distracted for a moment as she watches the contraption creak and groan in fascination. Hearing Pud and Matilda speak pulls her back to reality. 

"Oh, right!" She laughs sheepishly. "Of course the thing will fall on me! That wasn't very smart, was it?"

Shaking her head at herself, she rushes back to as far away from the orrery as she can be without being out of range of her spell (120ft) or losing sight of the contraption. She then sends another two eldritch blasts at the orrery, and if Matilda is nearby her, she will grab her hand, intending to cast dimension door if things go south. 

Blast 1: 15 Damage: 4

Blast 2: 18 Damage: 7

As Pud arrives, Titaani retreats toward the stairwell to join him and Matilda.

Titaani sends another twin beam of crackling energy at the base of the massive pole. Again, one of the beams bounces off, while the other melts another gaping hole in the copper veneer.

Creeeak... The pole distorts further. More struts snap. The massive revolving spheres and sickles begin scraping the ground on the north side as the off-kilter mechanism begins to twist further out-of-shape. Its destruction seems imminent. But it continues to function, for the moment.

Ben:

Finding whatever solid and potentially throwable prop he can in the bewildering mess, Ben stars heading back up to the orrery—or what remains of it, if the noises he is hearing from that direction are any indication.

Pud takes a peek to see how the orrery is doing. 

“Dang! That thing's tough! I wanna give it a try no blast it, but I dunno where Ben ran off to.”

Pud yells to Matilda “You know where Ben went?”

(OOC: Pud will wait for Ben before blasting the thing.)

Ben comes back through the Library and up the stairs, carrying the 3-foot-high plaster pedestal, the most throwable-looking heavy item he could find there.

The massive, whirling, highly-electrified machine is wobbling dangerously as it spins, off-kilter.

"Here he is!" Titaani replies to Pud, pointing to Ben as he comes up the stairs. "It's almost completely destroyed, Ben. Did you want to throw that thing at it, or would you like to let Pud have the final shot?"

Ben:

Somewhat nonplussed that everyone seems to have figured it out without any input from him, Ben regains his composure quickly and bows to Pud, saying, “Indeed—Let us retreat to a safe-ish distance and yield the honors to Pud.”

"Alright guys! Everyone clear?"

Pud trying to appear confident and sure in his magic, but he's sweating bullets. He mutters to himself "Don't mess up now, dummy. Here we go."

The nervous little artificer points his magical mutitool at the orrery. He nervousely stutters through the incantation for [Tooltip Not Found] and launches a wild arcing flaming bolt at the arcane device.

Attack: ranged spell attack 12 to hit for 16 fire damage