Lost Lab of Kwalish

You feel the surface of the southern wall and find some loose stones.  Pulling them aside reveals a narrow passage leading south.  You follow the winding passage more than 50ft to its end, where you find a door to your left and another to your right.

4

1 or 2 left,

3 or 4 right

You find yourself at the north end of an L-shaped room 10 ft wide wirh legs 35ft in length.  Half way down the north leg a door opens to the east.  At the far end of the south leg, which leads East, a door opens to the north.

This laboratory space is filled with worktables holding tubing, glassware, and all manner of alchemical experiments. All the various experiments are connected by silver wires to a complex control panel.

Control Panel

The control panel is covered with dials, switches, and buttons—including a hazy yellow button recognizable as one of the missing components of the Infernal Machine.

<ooc: The thing Kwalish sent you for!>

Treasure

Any search of this area recovers a set of alchemist’s supplies, a set of glassblower’s tools, and a set of tinker’s tools. In addition, a successful DC 14 Intelligence (Arcana) check identifies the contents of 5 vials of liquid held in place by clamps, collecting some slowly dripping reaction products.

So, you're in the lab with all this stuff. Wanna do anything? 

Huarache will attempt to identify the vials' contents (Arcana: 22), and he is going to grab the yellow button. Is his Detect Magic still ongoing, and if so, what does he see with it?

Huarache determines that there are two vials of thessaltoxin poison, one vial of blood of the lycanthrope antidote, one vial of mummy rot antidote, and one vial of thessaltoxin antidote.

The reactions look to still be underway and if left alone will fillmore vials with whatever their products are.

(Ooc: I guess detect magic would have also told you that the potions are magic, because mechanically 5e says so.  I'm not sure I agree with this, but I'm thinking if the alchemisy subclass for artifificer and it seems like it has to right? Curious what others thinkabout this.)

... by this logic,  Huarache might also faintly detect magic through the door behind them as they entered the lab and should sense magic through the east door. 

Obviously the component of the Infernal Machine is magical.  Are you going to take it?

I mean, I suppose they would be. You don't cure lycanthropy with mundane stuff; it's magic chemistry. In any case, he will take the antidotes and one of the poison vials, replacing the vials with his own so they can refill (he has five vials for whatever reason, maybe starting equipment). If his vials look substantially different, he will transfer vials' contents to his own vials and put the originals back, marking his vials with their contents.

He will then propose continuing to find the artificer's family. And yes, he's grabbing the machine component; I said that in #2697.

Ro clarify, the setup has vials which are filled as you enter and vials just starting ro fill. Not that the loss of some vials is an issue, but you could keep them.

However, when you remove the component, the chemistey apparatus, the reactions all stop (that's why I was confirming).  Evident the control panel it was embedded in governed the experimental process.

Leann stands guard by the door as her companions check out the lab. "Ready to continue?" She asks once they have completed their investigations.

The whole debacle was to avoid detection that someone had taken the chemicals, but whatever. Huarache turns to Leann and nods.

Sorry for the confusing prose.  I'll try to be more precise in future details.

I rolled random directions last time because you seemed collectively indifferent and frankly all the doors are pretty well the same.  This time I did mention that there was a whiff of magic here and there.  If that doesn't influence you though, let's proceed.

<Incidentally, the scenario was written as a prompt ro time shift which would allow reactions to complete instantly making some extra potions.>

 1N,2E,3S,4W. 2

Moving through the first door to the East, you find a small chamber (10'x10') filled with a half-dozen floor-to-ceiling glass tanks, four of which are filled with a light-blue fluid in which the body of an elderly male human is suspended. Three of the bodies appear lifeless and inert. The fourth looks toward you and mouths silent words.

Huarache would detect necromancy magic coming from the bodies in tanks.

<Ooc: I was going to wait for someone to check the empty tanks, but here it is anyhow:>

Concealed Door

Located at the back of an empty tank, this locked door can be picked with a successful DC 18 Dexterity check using thieves’ tools, or it can be forced with a successful DC 18 Strength check.

You can talk with him if you let him out or proceed through the secret door or go back through the lab.

Leann takes up a position keeping watch over her charges as they start to poke around this glass-chamber room. She eyes the figure mouthing words at them, but then averts her eyes as someone notices the secret door. "Can someone open that?" She asks, nodding towards the door.

"Give me a moment," replies Huarache, flicking out a tension wrench. 15 for Thieves' Tools.

After a mo.ent struggling with the concealed door, Huarache manages to defeat the mechanism.  Were he not so focused on his work,, he may have heard the low groaning from the opposite side of the door.

As the door swings open, the nature of the groans as well as the purpose of the room Huarache now stands in are clear: This is a torture chamber, filled with racks, implements of pain, and other foul devices.

Two prisoners and a frantic rat lie strapped to tables, and are being worked on by a humanoid figure with the head of a snowy owl. Silver wires connect the tables to a complex control panel standing between them.

At the intrusion, the owl-man turns his head 180 degrees to look behind him, only to see a cat-man standing inside the now open iron maiden against the wall, blue light streaming in past him traces his Feline frame in silhouette.

Huarache sees the horrid experiment unfold as the rat connected to the were rat grows and changes with the sounds of crunching bones and squishing soft tissue as the pained squeals of a rat bleed into the agonized shrieks of a woman, identical to the one still connected to the were rat.

The owl-man begins to click and hoot as he thrusts an angry index finger at Huarache, the draws the short-sword he wears at his back from 8ts sheath. 

From the table, the wererat (edit: over the brief course of the experiment, the prisoner on the central rack is revealed ro be, in fact, a lycantheope)pleads for salvation, "please, ya gotta get me outta here! I'll get you anything you want.   Just name it. I mean anything, gold, jewels; whatever you need, I can find it for you, just get me off this thing!"

 You can understand the owl-man with a DC10 insight check.  speak with animals also works. 

Edit: that last bit is true, but don't take this to mean that you have to talk with him.  He's literally a monster running a torture chamber pulling a sword on you.  It is just a fact that you can talk to him despite the mizleadimg hoots and whistles.

14

Hearing the cries for help, Leann pushes through and moves to attack the owl-headed figure.

The owl man fails to recognize the Tabaxi as a naturally occurring race, as he has never seen one previously,  While he would normally slash first and ask questions later, he wonders if this cat person is a magical creation of his master. Fearing reprisal, he asks through hoots and clicks "who made you?" all the while sword drawn on Huarache.  Somehow Huarache undestands this.  The creature is of a humanoid intellect.

Ooc: I missed simultaneous post above.

Edit:

The owlman, upon seeing Leann emerge from the hole in the wall, has no further questions regarding who these people are or what they're doing here. 

Sword x Leann 10 for 8

Sword x Huarache 17 for 6

Ooc: Reminder of the current initiative system (I know I'm not consistent. You are my guinea pigs):

We all post actions, 2D6 determines initiative and things happen.  So, theoretically the monster hasn't missed you yet.  If you don't want to combat for any reason, posting "..." Let's me know we can move to another round

Huarache blocks the blow with his shield, and he attempts to respond by pantomiming making something and then shaking his head.

Leann attacks...

to hit: 14  Damage: 11

to hit: 18  Damage: 7

extra crit damage on first attack... 5 plus smite of 16

OOC: I remember having Huarache try to be nonviolent, and then I open my notifications to see "extra crit damage plus smite" with absurd numbers. In other news, I am ostensibly done with exams, so I should be faster in my replies.