The Forgotten Wish

Sylvera looks around, her expression souring further as she notices the missing fingers. Thieves. Desecrating the bodies of the dead. They should all pay for such a crime, if only they could be found. She crosses her arms, watching as Rick interacts with Pallen. Her expression falters as it dawns on her that she's really going to witness a man die. She can't say she really has any feeling towards Pallen. But it still bothers her that nothing can be done to stop the wasting. And in spite of him still being a peasant... well, she always makes a bigger fuss about that than she really needs to... she still doesn't like to see a life disappear. If that's even what this is. 

The thought of being stuck in stone for eternity, sleeping, frightens her more than the thought of death itself. And she's not sure this promise land Comedy spoke of is really something she wants a part of. Still, it's admirable that Pallen is willing to risk that fate to be with his wife. That's a sort of devotion she wished she had from someone in her own life. 

She closes her eyes for a moment, letting out a shallow breath. She'd come so far, found so little, and all she found so far were more questions. 

Nuria investigates the strange puddle from a bit closer, too, but is almost as clueless as Breldo. Pulling out the stick, it seems that the goop hasn't stuck to it, and the branch looks fine still.

Once he is fairly certain he is not going to find anything else in the organ room, he will continue on checking out rooms.  

Investigation: 6

"I-I don't know what that is, but I'm not sure it really matters." She shakes her head as Breldo continues to poke the stuff with a stick. "Should we go back and check on the others?"

"Yeah... for all we know this is Comedy's latrine."

Breldo will accompany Nuria back.

Pallen remains silent for a few long moments. With no other comments, beside a few words of comfort, and some help from Rick to make sure the hand grasping is as good as it can be, he speaks up again after thinking it through for that bit longer.

"Right. With everything that happened, I'm not sure what your next plans will be, but... Your reward will be waiting for you at the guild hall whenever you return to Mezzra. I doubt they'll make an issue, but... If they should, just tell them 'stars now shine upon flesh and stone', and that worry should abate."

"...You don't really have to stay. I don't expect it will take long, now. I've heard enough stories about the disease taking you quick once you are ready, to believe it."

Breldo and Nuria arrive back down after a few moments, figuring that the big goop puddle is likely not important. And all of the bedrooms have no doubt been thoroughly looted already as well.

---

Others continue investigating. Asimi too finds little that is actually worthwhile in the dining hall but presumably eventually moves on toward the back, entering what must be a kitchen area, although it looks somewhat alien. There's clearly a counter, cabinets, and much more showing it's a cooking area, but a few important amenities are missing... Most notably, one would expect an open fire somewhere to actually cook, but there's nothing of the kind. There is machinery of some kind however, like strange cabinets you can open and do... Something with? There are things to press, things to turn... Whatever it is, at least some thieves must have thought it could be worth something, because they spent a lot of work removing some of it, judging by some of the damage. Her search does eventually reveal a cabinet that seems to not have been plundered in the past, even if it contains only a few knives. Probably not even really useful for combat, but there's some intricate designs on the sides that may make them worth something.

(2 ornate knives, worth 2 gp each.)

---

Oren continues to investigate other rooms in the back of the ground floor. He's not quite sure what to even make of what is beyond there. These rooms served a purpose at some point of time, but by now look utterly alien. First he finds a storage room, but it rapidly becomes evident that many years and many looters have taken anything that could have value out of it. There are a few rusted tools and what seem to be some potential replacement parts for some of the things inside the building (heavy) if he figures either of those are worth taking.

The other room he enters is the one that's the strange one. It gives him a bit of an impression of a scribing hall, multiple tables lined up in a way that suggests people were working on them once upon a time. But unlike a scribing hall, there's not a single tome to be seen, nor shelves they would be stacked. Though it's hard to say what could once have been because each of the tables was vandalized at some point, as is evident by the ruptured pipes- From which only recently seems to have leaked some kind of black goop, covering a significant portion of the room. At the far end of the room, stands some kind of metal pillar. A globe sticking out from it glows faintly.

((Does Pallen wear a ring on his hand?))

((He's wearing gloves, hard to tell. His hands have long turned to stone however...))

Making sure he does not step into any of the black goop, Oren moves over towards the pillar and glowing globe.  From close by he peers at it and tries to figure out what it is. And if it could be worth money to someone.  

It seems like some kind of massive gem... Or is it stone? It might be a bit too dull to be a gem. In either case, it seems like it should be worth something, especially with the light glow within like this. It seems like looters have agreed however, what with the many scratch marks on the pillar surrounding the stone/gem in question. Or is it residue of their own blades rather than scratches? In either case, people have tried to remove it in the past and failed. 

(would oren touch the stone?)

Rick takes in Pallen's words and nods.

"Rick will stay with Boss Pallen."

(Yes.  He would touch the stone). He grabs it and gives it a firm shake to see just how firmly it is or isn’t in place. 

Oren, give me an intelligence saving throw. 

Asimi grimaces upon seeing the state of what's left of the... kitchen, she assumed. Clearly thinking little of whoever must have been here before, likewise, she ignores the pair of knives she finds, seeing little value in plundering a few fancy utensils.

Looking back to the strange device in front of her she ultimately decides not to engage with it further as well. Damaged, and left to rot, that it was she wasn't keen on further messing with things she didn't understand, already having dealt with the strange furnace down below. Instead she simply turns away and heads back towards where Pallen was.

Int Save:  18

Asimi returns back to the dining hall for now, where Rick at least decides he should stay for a while. Pallen does seem at least somewhat grateful, even if he closes his eyes, and relaxes. One has to wonder just how fast this could truly come for him. She does pass one more room on the way out, but there's not much to be seen in it. It's just a big circle drawn on the wall, with a sequence of strange symbols on the top. It's probably something cultural or religious? 

It's annoying that there's so much to see, but it's all so cryptic. If only there was something that gave something of clarity.

Which leads to Oren, in the central room  at the back of the ground floor, stretching his hand out toward this "gem", and being hit with all too much clarity at once.

A whole host of strange, dizzying, overwhelming sensations hit him all at once, to the point he almost collapsed backward with a massive headache, but barely manages to persist through the worst of it. Calming after a moment to realize that the sensation that just rushed through him was not as much an intentional attempt to hurt him, as it was just... An overwhelming amount to take in, whether he recalled his hand or kept it stuck firmly, he gets to feel proper what happens while touching it.

It would be hard to explain to others what exactly he experienced unless they've experienced it themselves, but the best way to call it would be to say that his own body... "Extended". And now he was just as much himself, as he was the whole building. Like the metal pipes stretching throughout the structure were but bones, how every section was like its own body part. And while it was not as much "pain" on his part, how every part of it was screaming about how it was broken. Just how a broken finger can hardly be ignored, he's filled with the innate knowledge of multiple pipes being broken, so many missing components even if he isn't quite sure what is missing, and just a sense of "tiredness". Which is like... Food? Fuel? More like fuel to a fire, yes, and the knowledge that if nothing is done, everything will likely shut down in... Less than half a hour. 

After pushing all those annoying thoughts away, he does get a clearer view of the entire structure he's in, although he probably needs to... "Feel", closer, to the individual part to know what they are and can do, exactly? Like it's his first time having hands, and he needs to flex his fingers, but he's aware of what seem to be the most important bits. There's the main tower that stands in the middle of the structure, which feels damaged, but still operational. There's the room he is in right now, completely broken except for this one thing he's interacting with right now. There is the theater room of course, and then there's an underground bit that seems to host the "heart" for keeping all this running. There's also some kind of... Really deep, thin shaft, digging underground?

.He also gives the stone a slight jiggle. It's like, REALLY stuck in there.

Stepping back involuntarily from the ‘gem’, overwhelmed by the sensory input, Oren stumbles and lands clumsily on his butt.  He just sits there for a bit, looking up at the gem/stone thing in wonder. “Magic, dang.” He says to no one but himself.  

Getting up and dusting himself off, he takes one more long stare at what he is now thinking of as the “brain” of the building and heads back over to the others. 

When Nuria and Breldo return to the dining hall (at least i think that's where we are) she sees Pallen sitting with his stone wife and immediately ducks her head. She's not sure how she should feel about his situation. She doesn't consider him a friend really, though she didn't dislike him, and knowing what she knows now the already horrid fate he'd been tied to only seems worse. ...at least he can rest with his wife.

Trying not to look at the old elf, she notices Oren's absents. She doesn't like the fact that he seems to have wandered off alone, though she also knows that he's far more prepared to handle anything that she is. She waits a few moments, not knowing what to do before turning to Breldo, "Should we check on Oren?" Her voice is almost a whisper, and it's clear that she's more trying to distract herself than that she's worried for the dwarf. Oren can protect himself right?

Nuria worries about Oren, but presumably does not have to go searching for him. The dwarf, after discovering the "brain" that controls the whole building, deciding he should join up again with the others.

(What is the group looking to do, or are they just intending to wait for the inevitable? The basement hasn't been explored yet, if any of you want to try and find more loot learn more.)

Oren gets back to the dining room with the others.  Seeing the state of Pallen, he pales a bit.  "I did not think it would happen this quickly." he states quietly.  "Anything else we can do for you?"

If Pallen does not ask for anything done, he will wait a few minutes, and then tell what he found.  "There was this room over there.  And, well, it just proved to me that none of what we seen was just a lot of tricks.  Truly magic must exist."    He continues, talking quickly.  "The room is looted and pretty smashed up....but there is a large crystal stone on a pole.   It has not been taken because it can't be moved as far as I can tell.  AND....when I touched it.  Magic."

He pauses, you are not certain is he is trying to be dramatic, or if he is searching for the right way to explain this.

"When I touched it, I was almost thrown back, but...instead it made me feel and see this entire building all at once.   Almost like I was part of the building. And the building was a body. The room I was in was the brain.  This room was working, but damaged.  It felt like large chunks of the building/body have been taken or broken.  Broken pipes?  And I felt that the basement was like the heart of the building, keeping it alive.  Or something like that.    And I saw that under the building was a thin, long maybe mine shaft....going down.   I could somehow see and FEEL the entire building at once."

He stops and waits to see how the others react to this information.