THE BIRTH

As if a sign on a dead world, the red dragon finally hatches. It's extremely hot to the touch, and it's difficult to handle the newborn red dragon. The good new is, it's alive, the bad news is, it's shivering cold. It's about the size of a full grown medium sized dog and looks at you with beautiful yellow eyes, and you can already feel it impressing upon you as you watch it writhes in it's own puddle of organic fluids. Congratz, you're a mother.

THE WAREHOUSE

As you walk with OU812 in whatever direction he thinks the warehouse is in, he begins to shimmer. Before you can even process what you think is happening, a blinding, disorienting feeling threatens to spew the contents of your stomach out violently and you are magically teleported to a very dark and musty room. It takes a moment for your eyes to adjust, and you all make sure you're accounted for. You find yourselves at the end of a corridor with only one way to go, forward. You can see light up ahead. The walls are made of a smooth, dark grey material you've never seen before - almost like polished rock.

You walk down the corridor and enter an enormous storage area. This must be the warehouse Cora was talking about. You stop and look around. The warehouse is about a 300' x 300' storage facility containing racks made of strong, solid, shiny material. They contain crate after crate with strange markings of items as far as your eyes can see in the dim light. As you travel further into the warehouse, you pass by what appears to be dorms and living quarters. You pass by an area that appears to be a hall of memories, and catch a glance at a few things that are hard to miss:

 - Contained in a large, thin, glass cylinder is a blank featureless anatomically correct mannequin of Cora. It's wearing (or displaying) what appears to be leathers and a trench coat - beat up, torn, ripped, with blades that are very dull. 

- Pictures. There's pictures on every square inch of the walls. Most of them involve Cora with someone else in some sort of pose or catching her and whoever else is in the photo doing something. There's pictures of her with an obese dwarf named "Chubby" showing various emotions and doing various things. Under each one is a small sentimental message and identifies who it is. A truly enormous portrait of a red headed woman of about 25 poses in a picture. She is childlike yet beautiful. Written is the name "Nia Redfallow". On another wall is a series of chronological pictures of someone who was very special in her life, or so it seems. "Ashley Vendreain" is the subject of these shots, and you learn by looking at the pictures, Cora was, at one point, married to this beautiful half elven blonde. As the pictures progress down the wall, Ashley slowly ages as Cora does not, and the last few photos show them together, Ashley a very old and venerable age. Plenty of other pictures litter the walls. You see Astrid, OU812, and many other beautiful women. "Lilly" takes up plenty of wall - and some pictures of Lilly she is a vampire, others, she's a half elf - as if Cora knew two different versions of this gorgeous woman. Among many other people she knew, the walls are filled with pictures of landscapes, monuments, and obviously thousands of other places Cora has been to. Finally, on the last wall, are pictures of Cora as a young woman of about 21 or 22, standing next to and in various poses with a man named "Aerik". They are wearing the same work outfit and appear to be workmates. It is clear by looking at the pictures that this young man meant a lot to her, and she even knew his family. Aerik had a wife and two kids. This is one of the very few pictures you've seen of Cora where she shows affection to children. As you look, Cora and Aerik are shown laughing, making faces, and getting into trouble in most of the pictures. Strangely, as if interrupted, the pictures and chronology of the "story" abruptly end, as if a horrible, terrible memory closed the book on a subject.

You pass by a room that appears to be a library, books pack every square inch of the shelves in here. Hells knows what knowledge Cora squired during her lifetime. You come to a workshop area with a large desk containing items that are familiar, and very unfamiliar to you, that she's either creating or working on. Suddenly, you hear a noise, and look to your right. Standing there is an automoton wearing a butler's suit carrying a tray of materials. It sees you at the same time you see it, it stands agape and drops the tray it was holding with a loud crash, looking completely shocked and amazed.

It's Nim.

"Nim!" Ra'iik calls. "Thought you were uhh... Offline... For good!"

(Since you were not around in Dragon Heist)

"Ah!" He says in a very pleasant robotic voice. It's laced with the smallest tad of hubris and sarcasm. "Excuse my reaction. Miss Perkins did indeed say visitors would arrive at some point. And, well, it looks like you have. Who might you be, sir?"

(I was introduced to the manor though, when we visited top side?)

It HAD been a while since Ra'iik's brief visit. He figured some of the memories... Data? May have gotten lost.

"My name is Ra'iik. Paladin of Helm. Protector of the weak and seeker of vengeance for the immorally fallen. Cora pointed us in this direction before returning to.. another time, it would seem."

"Of course. The one with all the fancy titles." He admits, you can't tell if he's being serious or sarcastic. "I must have forgotten. Good to see you again." He bends down and starts picking up the machine bits he dropped in his shock. "Funny. I was expecting more of you. Uh, miss? Yes, you, the one with the newborn dragon? Yes. Please, this way." 

Nim gestures for you to follow him, Alessandra.

Despite the dragons size, Alessandra carries him with ease, the memory's of holding her newborn in her arms in such a way crashed back into her mind like a tidal wave as she willed herself to continue forth through the warehouse. She had hoped there was someplace warm for him here, having had to pull her cloak from her bag for the time being to keep him somewhat covered from the cool air. With an affirming nod, the aasimar slowly follows behind Nim.

Nim leads you to a room at the far end of the warehouse that contains a massive stone furnace, and plenty of smelting equipment, iron tools and construction pieces. There is a massive workbench with large apparatuses with chains and large metal panels. There are plenty of schematics that look a lot like a prehistoric versions of OU812 that curiously catch you eye. The schematics contain sharp black writing, and large pink lettering, as if two people had conflicts of ideas when constructing such automatons and couldn't agree.

Inside the furnace is what appears to be a bed of small rocks. The red dragon hatchling squirms and mews and begs to be placed on it.

"Your..pet." Nim begins, "Will be cared for here. I will begin the preparation to make sure he is fed, and safe - but once he begins to grow he will be YOUR responsibility. I am not a parent." he says, and walks out to rejoin the others.

As Nim and Aless move off, Ra'iik looks around the place. He decides to look for any trace of Stella, or any of her plans or works which Cora and Nim may have salvaged. Investigation: 12

The other thing he does is dump all this scrap he has accumulated over his travels on a workbench if he's able to find one. "Scrap." Is all he says, as he looks at it, blatantly.

Evrik shivers. I could do with less of this time and space travel, he thinks to himself as his stomach and his mind slowly begin to communicate properly with one another. But the sites amaze him, and the library... "If you don't mind, I may spend a little time here," he says to the others and he walks in to the room running a finger over the spines of some of the books he passes. He quickly begins to focus on finding anything that would mention other worldly dieties, Halaster, etc. He prays that Truesilver help him learn and discover knowledge of this new foe as he searches for any tomes that may help. (History: 18)

Reflexively, out of apparent unknown habit, OU812 marches over to a series of desks set up in a "U" shape.  Parts of his chest armor open up, and a mass of writhing tentacle cables stretch out and connect with adapter ports embedded in the desks.

He then stands there, motionless, for a good half hour.  Apparently Cora set this station up as some sort of interface with warforged central data processing units?

RA'IIK: Nim eventually returns to the main hall where Ra'iik is looking over his scraps.

"Oh no no no." Nim says, as if talking to a small child. "You won't need those anymore." With a wide sweep of his hand, he pushes all of the junk you've collected into a large refuse bin. "Come. Miss Perkins knew you would be under geared for the rest of your journey into Undermountain. Come. She told me to show you the armory. Follow me, please, and try not to touch anything."

Nim leads you to the Armory.

EVRIK: In the library are volumes upon volumes of tomes of various subjects. Lots of them include journals - painstakingly detailed accounts of Cora's adventures from her inception into the Academy, the guilt of her partners murder - which she blames herself for, and lengthy writings about her mother and father, along with details of her life as an adventurer on the Prime Material. Additional volumes chronicle her two thousand year deal with hell and all of the horrible things The Fourth Layer has made her do. You even find about ten volumes of her adventure in the Underdark, where, for the most part, she talks favorably about you and the details of your disappearance and how the rest of that party made it out alive. Many other volumes include her story in a place called Cresthall, where she details the story of how she met "Ashley", got married, and had shared a long romantic life together. Besides Chubby, Ashley was one of the few people who, according to her journal, were able to mentally console her and be a source of light in her life of darkness. Eventually, you get to the books that detail the information she has stolen from her hellish employer's reconnaissance, detailing the position of the star and possible ways to travel there. Most of them involve multiple wish spells, which, obviously, are extremely hard to come by. Additional volumes discuss what has been said about what other planes think about what Halaster might be, but it is all speculation. Strangely, you do not find any information on other gods, as if talk about such a subject was either not of consequence, or forbidden.

Alessandra is slightly surprised at the hatchling's mewing and clawing for the furnace, but obliges and heads straight for it, gently putting him down (or putting it as close as she possibly could) near/on the bed of rocks. She watches him wiggle about and settle up into a ball, her lips that were once thinned, now forming into a small frown as another memory hit her like a brick.

 "Ashivon for a boy." The words fell out seamlessly from her mouth, not realizing that she had been on another plane for a few moments and barely noticing that the memory brought tears to fall down her cheeks. She quietly wipes the tears from her face with the cloak that once held her hatchling, swallowing back the knot that hot formed at the back of her throat. "Very well," Would be all that she manages to croak out in response to Nim, but does not make any indication that she was going to move away from the furnace.

OU812: OU812 pushes some desks together and connects to the interface adapter ports that Cora had no idea she had, but yet the warforged found.

Your visual sensors are assaulted with thousands of pictures and videos of male and female warforged in the most extreme and sinful sexual positions you'd never even dream of, doing various sexual activities. You are about to ask yourself why in the world Cora would even have something like this stored away in some hidden database, but like a trainwreck, you just can't look away. The images burn into your brain, and the videos even have search functions, additional folders and subfolders, even some that are fully interactive.  

You stand there motionless, for about thirty minutes.

lmao

Ra'iik follows Nim silently into the other room.

Grianne is amazing by all of this. never in her years of living in the fores had she seen anything like any of this. She spends alot of time going over the portraits. Though she cant read, she makes note of the most special ones, like how the ones with the cute blonde elf show a dedicated timeline making them unique among the collection.  Then she finnaly notices the dragon hatchling and gets visibly excited.

 Its so cute!! Can i pet it ?

Grianne's sudden excitement shook Alessandra from another impending memory, the aasimar looking at her in bewilderment for a second before it passed and was replaced with a soft smile. "I... Suppose, just, ah, be careful, he isn't used to other's just yet..." She takes a step to the side to allow the elf easier access to the furnace where her wyrmling had settled.

Evrik learns little about the way to get to Halaster, other than wishing spells which he knows little about. He did on the other hand learn quite a lot about Cora and made a few mental notes on scenes he recalled that now made much more sense. And the tales of the underdark brought back memories, but at least those that he felt he abandoned did finally make it out, though it took years and many dark turns. He wished he'd been there to help, but did feel at least a little lighter hearted knowing they'd survived. 

Evrik walked back out of the library to look for the others. He also took the time to look around for jewels, especially diamonds. He'd come across a few incantations which he hoped he'd never need, but just in case, a pocketful of diamonds could come in handy should he need them. (Investigation: 9)

And he wondered... Could she have kept that weapon? He thought back to the Drow *****... The rod that he'd discovered. It had come in handy on more than one occasion and he'd grown quite fond of it. 

Evrik: There are indeed a few diamonds in the treasury. Nim lets you in to take what you need. Within reason.

Ra'iik: The armory is filled with every type of weapon imaginable. A collection of armors, weapons, utilities, supplies - everything someone might have accumulated from the multiverse in about a thousand years time. 

This is the fun part.

Cora has basically accumulated nearly anything you can imagine. She has specifically set aside what appears to be bionic arms for Ra'iik, Magic hammers and shields for Evrik, blades and heels for Alessandra. Yes, even a pair of sexy metal magic heels. Plenty of items for Grianne, and the most amazing axes for OU812, when he's done with his porno adventure. Looking for something in particular? There's every +2 weapon, or armor you can imagine. If you're looking for something in particular, go ahead and ask Nim, he'll find it for you.

Alessandra: As you put on the metal heels, they fit amazingly well, as if they were made JUST for you. They give you the following benefits as long as they're on: You can add +2 to any CHA rolls you make and they add +2 damage to any and all damage rolls you make. Lookin' good, babe.

Grianne presents her had to the baby dragon in a non threatening manor. She clearly has experiace dealing wild and untamed creatures. Dragons are an ultimate expression of nature. I've never seen one before. Grianne starts making soft lizard noises toward the baby dragon.

Grianne searches through the treasure trove of magic items for something specific. (requested in the DMs)