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Message: <blockquote data-quote="gideonpepys" data-source="post: 6231228" data-attributes="member: 79141">Session 95g - The Clockwork KingThe Nice Spiders led Unit A through the sewers, with Uru  and Matunaaga keeping pace, stealthily, alongside them, while Korrigan  and Rumdoom brought up the more heavy-footed rear.  They twisted and  turned for almost an hour without incident, whereupon the spiders came  to a halt and hissed a warning.  Up ahead, Uru found two wererats,  half submerged in filth, guarding the tunnel.  He asked the spiders if  there was a way around them.  The spiders answered that there were many  more runnels and many more wererats.  So Uru and Matunaaga stole ahead,  Uru guiding Matunaaga through the dark.  When they were close to the  wererats, Matunaaga lit up a sunrod and he and Uru dispatched the  creatures silently. Beyond these sentries, the sewers pipes spilled out into a huge bowl - a disused quarry that had been half-filled with scrap metal from the  factories of Flint. It was cheaper to make new things these days than to salvage or melt down broken machines. Among the mounds of metal, the  unit saw many wererats, gearmen, and crippled folk with mechanical  limbs.  They kept an eye out for any hostile moves and picked their way towards a river of rusty water, leaving the nervous spiders behind. An elderly wererat stepped up to them and pointed, wordlessly, at a barge in the river, poled by a mechanical man with long arms and a mournful pair of lamps for eyes.  The unit clambered aboard and were ferried along, watched by the strange tribe that had gathered here.  Following them was a sleek metallic panther with razor-like jaws.  They kept their weapons close.At length the barge came to a halt beside a plaza formed from sheets of flat metal.  Two large four-legged constructs flanked a cavity made by those who had  once quarried here.  The constructs had a sheaf of blade-like limbs mounted on each shoulder and looked as if they could shred a man in seconds.Heavy footsteps caused the throng to kneel.  From the dark cavity stomped a twisted giant that Uru recognised as a fomorian: creatures of legend thought to once have rivaled the eladrin for dominance of the Dreaming, before they were driven to its darkest recesses. At first glance this monstrosity appeared to be wearing a crown but it soon became apparent  that the metallic object was moving and ticking - a clockwork device similar to the one unit B had found controlling an  Uru had studied this contraption. It allowed the creator to control beasts and creatures of low intelligence, but the fomorian were known to be cunning.  Only then did he see the way the fomorian drooled, tongue lolling, eyes rolling in its head.  The fomorian was clearly retarded and its thoughts easily controlled by this clockwork device.The formorian clutched a dirty glass cylinder to its chest with one arm.  Matunaaga thought he could see a wet, grey lump inside it.  In the other hand it held a huge metal bar.  It mouthed words that it clearly did not intend or understand: "You have been permitted to come to this place," it rumbled. This statement hung in the air while the unit absorbed its implications. "Why have you sought an audience with the Clockwork King?" it said after a long pause. Choosing his words carefully, Korrigan told the creature that they sought the bronze golem eye of intricate manufacture that had been given to the Clockwork King by the Trash Heap. It took some moments for the fomorian to respond.  "What do you want with this eye?" Korrigan said that they wanted to return the eye to its owner.  The fomorian stomped it foot and advanced threateningly, which made even Rumdoom shrink back instinctively.  "Half truths are the same as lies!" it  bellowed, flecking them with spittle. Korrigan reconsidered his words and confessed their deeper intent: to use the  eye to guide them into the Bleak Gate, in search of a foe that threatened the Kingdom. Then he bowed to the 'king' and requested his aid as one might the favour of a true monarch.  The rest of the unit followed suit. Thus mollified, the fomorian said, "If such is your intention, to give you the eye serves my purpose. I desire to converse with one known as Tinker Oddcog, the Gearbuilder.  You will find him where you go.  I know he hides in the shadow realm, but cannot follow him.  The golem eye is his handiwork.  Bring him to me.  And bring to me the Godmind Urn which you will find in his possession." Korrigan agreed. But the Clockwork King did not trust them entirely.  It took possession of the eye-like device that Uru had taken from Krazy Krauss and modified it.  "You must activate this device when you enter the Bleak Gate.  If you do not, I will consider our bargain to be broken, and you will feel my wrath. Be warned: I have many servants and my reach is distant." With that,  the same elderly wererat approached and handed them a stained pouch.  Within was a delicate golem eye of bronze and glass.</blockquote>

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