Jessa stays quiet, studying the githyanki. She tries to determine if she might be asleep, sitting quietly, or something else. (Insight, I think: 16) 

The older woman sits quietly for a moment then looks up as you enter the room. "You are not fiends," she says calmly and slowly gets to her feet. "I thought I heard noises below. Are the fiends done away with then?" She gives you all a hopeful look.

"The fiends were defeated. And correct, I am not a fiend," Jessa says. "Who are you? And how did you get here?"

"I am Jessa Gumovi. And I'm... not entirely sure how I got here," she adds. 

"Indeed," Marduk nods when Jessa says the fiends were defeated. "There was a gnome back there," he gestures the way they came. "A friend of yours perhaps?" He shrugs,  and asks absently, "I don't suppose you know who the owner of this tower is." At this point it doesn't really matter if they find out who owns the tower, it would just be nice to know. 

The woman cocked her head for a moment. "Gnome? No, I don't think there are any gnomes here, just fiends. Or were, anyway I suppose. Either way they were not my friend, no. But no one really owns this tower, which is more properly called a ledcaru, but it is my home, created by my ancestors many generations before. If that means ownership to you." She speaks in an easy voice, light but old. "I am indebted to you for your help cleansing the tower. I'm afraid I am but a scholar and not given to the martial ways."

"If you live here, then do you know how the fiends got here?" Jessa asks. 

"Look... who cares how the fiends got here... Do you know if there are any animatronics in here? mechanical beings? robots? anything in this tower that moves but doesn't have a hearbeat?" Sizzle snaps, obviously frustrated that they may have climbed the tower for no good reason.

"They got here how anyone else would get here. As you probably noticed, the lower floors are quite open, and they were too much for me to handle myself. Thankfully they only seemed to want to keep me up here." The woman responds calmly and then looks at Sizzle. "Animatronics? Ah, mechanical beings. Yes, it was quite curious, a modron was here not long ago, called itself R04M. They were using a mimir to follow the path of the last Great Modron March, intending to learn the truths of the multiverse. He left his mimir here saying it had told him where to go, after they had visited all the gate-towns. That was the last I saw him."

"Well, excellent!" Jessa says. She then looks at the others. "Was this the modron you were looking for? Perhaps we can use the mimir thing to find out where to go?"

Esta had remained quiet through most of the exchange, her eyes flicking between the older woman and the others as they spoke. But at the mention of R04M and the mimir, her posture straightened slightly.

“That’s the one,” she said, stepping forward. “R04M. That’s who we’re after.”

She glanced toward the others, then back to the scholar. “You said the mimir told him where to go? Is it still here?”

Her tone was calm, but there was a sharpness beneath it—an urgency. They’d climbed this tower, fought through fiends, and lost companions. If the trail hadn’t gone cold, she wasn’t about to let it slip away.

“If it’s still intact,” she added, “we need to see it. Whatever it told him might be the only clue we’ve got.”

Zaythir spreads her hands some as if unsure. "He left it downstairs last I saw. It was a multicolored skull of metal and glass. While I can't imagine the fiends having that much of an interest in it, unless they knew what it was perhaps."

Jessa looks over at Sizzle. "You took that crystal skull thing, right? Sounds like that's the mimir. Think you can make it... do whatever it does?" 

Sizzle's eyes go wide and he looks to Jessa with a grin. "So that thing I fixed is called a mimir... hu...." the goblin responds as he pulls the skull from his bag. Holding it in his hand he looks for any kind of switch to turn it on. "Maybe this thing will tell us what it told R04M.." He then turns the skull over in his hand as he attempts to get it to turn on. 

"Hey... skull thing... where did that Moldron go?!" He shouts impatiently as he tries to get the mimir to come to life.

Sizzle would understand by now how to get it working, and when it turns on, it floats up about a foot away from Sizzle and hums mechanically a bit. "Hey sport! What's shakin'! Hey! Who messed my circuitry! What? Aaaaah! I'm a skull with no brains! Wait... Let me see..." The mimir whirs for a moment then buzzes. "Hey chap, I'd love to help but it seems some of my data banks have been deleted."

Zaythir speaks up, "Mimirs are usually repositories of knowledge about the Outlands and Sigil. If it knows something of value, I suspect it will need its missing information filled in. Your little modron was taking this around to the various Gate Towns, so I would start there. Perhaps once its data is restored it will be able to better guide you to your missing automaton."

"Hey that sounds like a great plan, whaddya say sport? Let's take a spin around the Outlands! Maybe if we visit enough of them we'll get a free shirt! Ha!" The mimir laughs dryly.

"I'm all for traveling to the Gate Towns," Jessa says. "Can we just make our way to Fortitude first? Then I can just be headed on home." 

"Can you lead the way?" Sizzle asks the skull as he rubs his forehead exhausted.... "I don't know anything about the outlands or gate towns.."

Zaythir interrupts with a small wave of her hand. "Fortunately for you then, this tower can take us around the Outlands. Let me show you." She then descends to the level below, to the round table the fiendish bugs were at a while ago now. When she arrives, she utters a word and the body begins to animate, before an illusory version of the Outlands is projected on it. "This is the Castellan. They can direct the ledcaru anywhere you wish to go here in the Outlands. The ledcaru only has one speed when it walks. The Castellan can understand your common tongue, and as long as we remain on favorable terms, it will take you where you wish to go."

"There it is right there!" Jessa says, pointing at the location of Fortitude on the map. "My town has a gate portal to Fortitude. We get there I just head home."  She looks over at Zaythir, "So I just tell the... what did you call it? Iedcaru? I just tell it where I want to go and the whole building goes?" 

She looks at the animated body. "Take us to Fortitude she says firmly." 

Esta watches the mimir float and chatter with a raised brow, arms crossed loosely. “Well, it’s not subtle,” she mutters, but there’s a flicker of amusement in her voice.

As Zaythir reveals the Castellan and the tower’s ability to travel, Esta steps closer to the illusion of the Outlands, studying it with quiet intensity.

“So we’ve got a talking skull and a walking tower,” she says dryly. “Not the strangest thing I’ve seen this week.”

She glances toward Fortitude on the map, then back to the others. “Let’s hope it walks faster than it fights. I’d rather not spend another night in a place crawling with fiends.”

She shifts her gear, already preparing for whatever comes next. “If Fortitude gets us closer to R04M, then that’s where we go.”