Heavy is the Head - Campaign thread

Spiderlock surveys the room, imagining how excited Tesfaye might be seeing the constructs.

He then skitters across the ceiling until he is above the nest with the egg in it, and he then descends on a line of webbing, using 7 legs to hold himself dangling above it, and one to gesticulate to the others to catch their attention and point to the egg itself.

The egg is large and blue. Feathers and leftover food indicate that this egg was being incubated by one or more of the harpies you have killed and/or scared off. The cbuic construct has floated onto the same floor as you, but it makes no notice and does not stop, instead continuing to the top floor.

Saoirse follows everyone inside, glad to see the combat seems to be over by now. She first responds to Sha, thanking him and nodding:

- I wasn't sure that was going to work, as it was the first time I used it against a flying creature. I'm glad it helped us but ... - she shivered a little, remembering the sound the harpy made when meeting its end.

Seeing Hemlock gesticulate as a humanoid would but in the shape of a giant spider made her forget that thought and brought a smile to her face. She inspected the egg the spider pointed to and said:

- I wonder if that harpies are so protective of their eggs that would come back for them despite any danger? Or will this one simply abandon it? I guess we should be careful in case that one  decides to come back.

Seeing that the cube seems to ignore them and continue upstairs, the genasi takes a quick look at the workbench with the tools and notes on it. She looks specially at the notes, going through the the pages a for a moment just in case she notices anything written that could be interesting. 

Lam almost just walks straight to the staircase, worried about what the cube will do, but stops when his spider friend starts gesturing towards something he hadn’t noticed before. By the time he focuses on the cube again, it is already heading straight past everyone. Lam still seems to keep his distance from his spider friend more than he normally would, but goes to approach the egg, still holding a javelin tightly. After hearing what Saoirse says, he asks: “Are there more harpies?” He stares down at the nest, leaving his other question unspoken: Will this egg be ok?

If everyone goes upstairs, he follows them.

Saoirse and Lam know that harpies tend to be cowardly; only attacking when they have an obvious advantage (like luring victims to fall off of high things), and fleeing when they can no longer see a path to success. That said, you don't recall your instructors saying much of anything about harpy mating and child-rearing. Apparently not very many zoologists or arcanologists are foolish enough to enter a harpy nest and lucky enough to survive it. If you had to guess, the harpy will only return if it can gather more of its kind to overwhelm you, or after you leave.

Saoirse finds that the work-bench is surprisingly free of dust, and on it there are detailed diagrams of ideas for combining old materials from the ARTS wizards' supplies with a bit of clever artificer tinkering, so that otherwise simple constructs like monodrones can be redesigned with more resistance and health, and include some innate spells and magic potential. Under a drawing of a tile with the divination symbol there is a brief note in barely-legible handwriting: "unmanned identification of mind-altering artefact?" It's immediately clear that the person who made these diagrams is the same person who built these constructs, and that they came to the tower long after the ARTS wizards had left it. One of the tools catches your eye - it's a pair of spectacles with some magnification to them - for examining magical objects. It might be worth something - if your party didn't already have this ability well-covered.

- Not that we have seen - Saoirse replies to Lam - but the one that went away may as well come back. Perhaps after we leave the tower, or after it finds more allies to attack. In any case I think we should probably leave the egg as it is for now, I don't think it isn't in any inmediate danger - she tilts her head towards her towering friend, watching him stare the egg  - Does the egg worry you, Lam? 

The genasi looks at the notes with interest, and when she sees the spectacles curiosity takes the better of her and she tries them on, looking at the workbench with them on - because she can't really see much farther - and exclaims:

- Tesfaye would love these!

She takes them off after this short use, and gathers the notes and the googles and puts them carefully in her backpack:

- You know what? I'm not sure if there's an alive artificer up there. But if there isn't, these are going straight to Tesfaye, who I'm sure will put them to good use. And if there is ... well ... I'll just hand them back.

Lam shifts when Saoirse mentions the possibility of another harpy coming back, and his reaction seems to be mixed- just the mention of one coming back tenses his body up as if he’d attack on command again, but his eyes show more of a relief at the idea. In response to Saoirse’s question, he takes a long pause and then asks one of his own: “Will egg be… alone?“

He follows Saoirse over to the desk, obeying her suggestion to leave the egg be for now. He stares for a moment at the items without really trying to read the notes, and concludes that he doesn’t especially understand any of it. When Saoirse exclaims that Tesfaye would love these, he nods enthusiastically, his whole body a bit lighter than it was just a moment ago. When she gathers up the items, he nods and agrees with her plan. He wonders what they would all do if the artificer really isn’t here- that is why they came, right? They would just have to gather as much info as possible anyway? But then what would have happened to the artificer? He continues to follow Saoirse, doing his best not to get distracted by his train of thought, and to remain alert to spot if anything unexpected changes around them.

- It may happen, yes. We could come back later to check on it, but ... Lam, if you're thinking of taking care of the egg be careful: you've seen how harpies behave. You could be facing something that will do more than just bite your hand when it grows up. Don't take me wrong: if you decide to do something about the egg, I won't argue, but do be careful, okay? - she says, as she places a hand on her friend's arm, and sighs - Shall we go upstairs with the rest for the moment? Deal with whatever is there first and then check on the egg before we leave this place? 

Spiderlock can only listen to the conversation between Lam and Saoirse, and not contribute, but he tries to nod along with what Saoirse is saying. He has no idea how this looks to the others though.

When they ascend to the next floor, he goes with, skittering along the wall and keeping an eye out for danger.

Lam listens to Saoirse and takes her words seriously- he looks around at the bones scattered on the floor which serve to illustrate her point. These creatures have certainly not been friendly, but would it be fair to leave this egg if they had killed anyone who was going to take care of it before? Would anyone come back for it? Lam knows he isn’t equipped to take care of something like this, though, and he’d never forgive himself if if he tried to help the egg and only brought harm to his friends. He nods absently once as he listens to Saoirse, but looks her in the eyes when she places an hand on his arm and nods, ready to leave the egg and follow her upstairs. They can see how the egg is doing when they return- for now they have to see how things are doing with the artificer. 

As Lam follows upstairs, making more of a conscious effort not to seem scared of his skittering spider friend, he adjusts his grip on his javelin and looks around for danger.

You climb the stairs one more time, and find yourselves facing a large ornate door, marked with 8 raised symbols. As you arrive, you see the cube-shaped construct rotate another one of its sides to face the door, and then in a puff of misty smoke, it vanishes. The sound of it reappearing can be faintly heard on the other side of the door, and then some muffled conversation - a voice speaking excitedly and quickly, although you can not make out the words. The door is imposing, thick metal, and there is no obvious keyhole, latch, or handle. Just the 8 raised symbols, and a place to push.

The lizardfolk stares in deep thought at the door, pushes against it, and then steps back and casts his eyes on all of you, hoping for a solution.

An interpretation of the door can be found in owlbear: https://www.owlbear.rodeo/room/5nRs1L_uFdxM/HeavyistheHeadPBP

- I wonder if we need to cast a spell for each type of symbol to be able to open this door? - Saoirse says as she produces a flame in her hand and looks at the Conjuration yellow symbol to check for any reaction. 

There is no visible reaction.

Lam stares at the door. His first instinct is to want to push as hard as he can on it, but his friends are probably right- there is a trick to it. He gets up close to the door if his friends will let him through, and begins to think aloud. “Cube sides are…” rather than saying the words, he points to the symbols for evocation and divination magic. He stares at the symbols some more- the only thing he really knows about this is that all the symbols have to do with magic. A day ago, he would have considered himself useless in this regard, but he remembers what he had tuned into just yesterday. He closes his eyes and attempts to focus on opening himself up to that sense again.

The door is sealed with Abjuration magic - some sort of variation on an arcane lock - but each of the symbols does not seem to be loaded with any particular magic in itself. As you look closely, you can see that the symbols could be pushed inwards. They are buttons.

Spiderlock moves across the ceiling, looking at the symbols on the door from above Lam's head. He wonders whether the cube had activated the door, or had used some internal magic to bypass it entirely.

Arcana: 20+1=21

The cube seems to have teleported beyond the door by internal magic. You've seen more experienced druids and rangers do the same thing before, a misty step that lets people teleport at short range with ease. That is usually line-of-sight though, so either the cube can "see" through the door, or it's an altered version of the spell.

- Oh, so these are buttons? - Saoirse says after Lam examines the door with his newly magic knowledge - Do you guys think they should be pushed in an specific order? Perhaps only a few of them need to be pushed, and not all of them? - she inspects the buttons more closely, trying to check if all of them present the same signs of use, or if any of them seem to have been pushed more often than others. She'll even put the spectacles she found downstairs in case its magnification capacities can offer any help.

The buttons are all covered in a fine layer of dust - nobody has pressed any of them in a long time.

Spiderlock skitters down the door until he is just above the arcane symbols, and he stares at them for a moment, before raising his front two legs in a shrug. He then points to the abjuration symbol, and shrugs again before skittering around the door onto the wall.

He starts to regret sending the wizard away.