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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JollyDoc" data-source="post: 6639558" data-attributes="member: 9546">The Forbidden City6 Erastus, 4715 After a long traverse of the hex-tunnel, passing occasional dripping crevices and black sludge pools teeming with tiny white worms, but seeing naught else save for nearly transparent spiders and black-shelled arthropods with red, glowing eyes, the companions saw a catwalk rising above them, and beyond it a ramp leading up. A metal jamb held the remnant of a shattered glass wall, much like the one they passed at the tunnel's other end. Beyond this, the ramp continued another couple of hundred feet before emerging into a large chamber crafted of stone, tile and metal, with large windows, mostly broken. Strangely curved mosaics and carvings, looking almost half-melted, decorated the walls while vaguely disturbing statuary in an inhuman style stood at the foot of each pillar between the great windows. There were no obvious doors visible, though the empty steel window frames offered ample egress into the unearthly cityscape beyond. "What that?" Boris asked, pointing towards something high on one wall. "Look like metal spider."Haroldo looked up to where the goblin was pointing, and his eyes went wide. Clinging to to the wall above one of the windows was a tiny steel creature with one oversized eye, a spherical body, and several spider-like legs of grinding metal. An identical one sat motionless on the opposite wall."Clockwork spies," the blood-rager said. "My father used similar constructs to infiltrate the businesses of his rivals. They have small gems inside them that can record sounds...like conversations.""There's something etched into their carapaces," Piotr said, squinting to make out the detail. "A sigil maybe?""It Tian," Boris remarked. "Ameiko teach Boris when Boris make her yummy dinner. Boris think it mean...fancy white bird or something.""White peacock?" Piotr asked."Maybe," the goblin shrugged. "Boris go check out.""Wait!" Piotr said, holding up one hand. "The other one might spot you and run. Let me cover you."Boris nodded. "Fire-wizard pretty smart," he said, tapping on bony finger against his forehead. Piotr drew a wand from his belt and flicked it as he spoke a command word. The air in front of the nearest clockwork spy shimmered for a moment, and then an image appeared. It looked to be an exact copy of the wall to which the automaton clung."Now!" the sorcerer commanded. "When you step through the illusion, the other construct won't see you!"Boris nodded again, enthusiastically. He darted through the mirage and then clambered stealthily up the wall. The clockwork spy remained motionless, apparently unaware of his presence. He could see the gem stone set inside the thing's eye socket, and he reached carefully forward and deftly plucked it out, grinning. At that moment, the thing sprang into motion with a high-pitched, mechanical screech. It thrashed its sharp legs at Boris, who dodged nimbly away. Then the goblin heard a whirring, clanking noise immediately below him. He looked down and saw that one of the statues at the base of a nearby pillar had animated. Cogs and gears were visible in the gaps of the metallic creature's armor. It wielded a pole-arm as it snapped to attention and peered up at Boris. Boris shrieked and leaped from the wall, tumbling to the floor and through the illusory wall. He darted across the chamber and then climbed the far wall, where he grabbed the second clockwork spy before it could try to escape. To his horror, another statue, again just below him on the floor, came to life and glared up at him with baleful, red eyes.Lucian shook his head when he saw what was transpiring. He pivoted towards the first clockwork spy, which was still thrashing about on the wall, and put an arrow through its carapace. It fell to the floor, convulsing for a moment, before exploding in a small burst of flame. Then his eyes widened when he saw the first statue charging across the floor towards him. As it drew near, it whipped its pole-arm around in a wide arc, and slashed across both of the oracle's arms. He cried out in agony as he momentarily lost feeling in his hands. "Get behind me!" Mazael shouted as he tried put himself between Lucian and the machine. It slashed at him as he moved, opening a deep gouge in his thigh. "I've got it!" Piotr cried as he tossed off a volley of magic missiles, only to see them deflect harmlessly off of the thing's metallic hide. "No!" Lucian snarled, blood running down his arms. "I've got it!"He loosed three arrows over Mazael's shoulder, from point-blank range. All three struck true, one of them piercing through some sort of rubber tube in the automaton's neck, sending viscous fluid spraying through the air. The thing shuddered, went rigid, and then  fell immobile to the ground. "Good work, for an archer," Mazael said grudgingly. "Look out!" Lucian shouted, pointing behind the war-priest.Mazael whirled and saw the second clockwork soldier closing in on him. He braced himself for another blow, but instead it reached out one metal clawed-hand, and wrenched Suishen from his grasp.Across the chamber, Boris managed to pin the mechanical spider against the wall, and then pried the gemstone out of its eye socket. "Boris have it!" he shouted triumphantly, holding aloft the gem.When he glanced around, however, he saw that his companions were otherwise occupied.Seeing that his magic missiles had no effect, Piotr tried another tactic. He quickly cast another spell, and released an ear piercing shriek that sent the automaton stumbling back a step or two, but then it lumbered forward again. As it came, Mongo jammed his halberd between its legs and sent it tumbling to the floor. As it tripped, he rammed the blade of the pole-arm into its inner workings. It screeched inhumanly, then struggled back upright. Haroldo leaped forward and hacked at it as it rose, but it caught his blade and turned it with Suishen, then quickly reversed the parry and slashed at the blood-rager with the Amatatsu relic, setting his clothes aflame. As he batted at the fire, Lucian put an arrow into the construct's hip socket, slowing its momentum. Still smoldering, Haroldo gripped his sword tightly and hacked down with all his might, driving the blade through most of the soldier's gears. Finally, it ground to a halt. A moment later, chagrined, Mazael snatched Suishen out of its hand.'I may need to rethink my choice of wielder,' the sword said, its voice dripping with disdain.____________________________________________________Perhaps because the wind was buffered by the strange monoliths stretching in all directions, the polar chill was less intense than beyond the bunker where the companions entered the ruins, though frost still rimed every surface. The atrium opened onto a plaza, with narrow avenues extending in all directions between massive angular towers of metal, stone and glass, much weathered and scarred by time and the elements. Here and there, large, twisted green plants twined up the sides of ancient buildings, and occasionally a whisper of movement was seen through the haze of bluish radiance shrouding the sky above. The heroes had no idea where to start their search for Miriya or the White Peacock crown in the strange cityscape, but they new she had come this way at some time in the past. They spread out within the plaza and began looking for any trace of her passing, and after an hour or so of searching, it was Mazael that discovered the first evidence: a scuffed boot print made by someone with a small foot...perhaps a woman.  They followed the tracks through the winding streets, but they were few and far between, requiring a lot of time hunting amidst the ruins. Along the way, the companions ran afoul of small packs of force morlocks, which were efficiently dealt with before continuing their search. Occasionally, they spotted another clockwork spy high on a building wall, but Lucian was able to destroy them with well-placed arrows before they could escape. Once, they even stumbled into a huge moonflower, though the specimen was smaller than the one they'd encountered in the Storm Tower, and easily dealt with by one or two fireballs courtesy of Piotr.Finally, the faint traces they had been following converged on a building with wide, low steps leading up to shattered glass doors flanked by massive stone pillars. A similar doorway provided egress farther down the building's facade, but the nearer doorway, in the shadow of a collapsed sky-bridge overhead, revealed a curious lump of vaguely human-looking metallic sculpture atop the remnants of a pedestal. Across a rubble and ice-choked boulevard the fallen bridge once spanned, lay a companion building, blockier in shape and with what appeared to be a long-empty fountain. As the heroes examined the buildings, a ragged crone dressed in furs and robes suddenly stepped out of the shadows of a narrow alley. A weathered bow was in her hands, an arrow knocked but not drawn. Though frail with age, a hard light was in her eyes. With a suspicious glare, she addressed them in heavily accented Common."Who are you, strangers? What do you want? Cannot an old woman who has caused more misery than anyone should, be left alone to die in peace...if I even can die here? That thrice-damned light has stretched my years too long already, I think. Either way, there is nothing for you here. Go, and be glad you did.""Is your name Miriya?" Lucian asked."That name no longer has any meaning for me!" the old woman snapped. "If you came here following tales of treasure, there is none, only desolation and loneliness. Maybe you heard I had something of great worth. You heard wrong. I had nothing. I am nothing. You should go while you still can. If you stay too long, the light will take hold of you. Have you seen those poor wretches that live below? That will be your fate as it surely will be mine. Maybe it will be sweeter to forget anyway.""We are traveling with the last surviving scion of House Amatatsu," Lucian explained. "We are returning her to Minkai to take her rightful place on the Jade Throne. The oni of the Five Storms oppose us, and we heard that the White Peacock Crown might aid in our struggle against them."The woman sighed, and bowed her head."It seems that we may have enemies in common," she replied.  "Yes, Miriya, that was my name, and yes I stole the Crown. Thought it would make me famous, and so it did, or infamous at least. Fate is not without a sense of humor, it seems, though I've never found it funny. I was cast out and I ran, here and there, trying to hide it, to let the world be rid of its curse, if cursed it truly was. I don't know. All I knew was fear, and I kept running all the way to the ends of the earth. Those merchants, Xam and Odashu, they helped me get here, but once I got here, I was out of ideas.""I sought for years for the perfect hiding place, knowing that someday the oni would catch me. I couldn't let them find it. I kept following the strange little metal spiders, and finally found a great machine that seemed to build them and repair them and their kin. I sneaked inside the machine...I was trained in stealth, after all...and hid the crown inside, but something went wrong. The machine turned on, and it sprayed something strange on me. As I stumbled away, dizzy, it stabbed at me with some kind of long arm. I got away, but not long after I started seeing a strange new creature in the ruins. It looked like me, or me as I was in my youth, but half flesh and half metal. Somehow it had drawn my thoughts out, and made weapons like I once used long ago. It was as if my body and mind had been turned inside out and poured into a mold. What came out was that THING! It watches me sometimes. I know it does, and it has stopped me from getting back into the machine to retrieve the Crown, but it does not kill me. I don't know why. I've seen it kill many others, but that mercy is forever denied me.""I can show you where the great machine is. Perhaps I can even draw out my doppelganger. Perhaps our combined strength can succeed where I alone could not. Then we can destroy the machine and retrieve the Crown so that we may use it to overthrow the oni that plague my homeland."</blockquote>

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