1.3 Facing the Clockwork Empress

This recap covers the exploration of the Mechanical Dam, the Clockwork Empress boss battle, and the first meeting with CLAMS.  

The Mechanical Dam

The Descended trio of Badice, Haliah, and Lyca returned to SKRUNGUS at around the same time as the Cradle trio of Biggles, Vrinill, and Umeiri. Both parties introduced themselves to one another, and neither party revealed their unusual origins. However, with their combined knowledge and manpower, they agreed to storm the Clockwork Empress' lair, the Mechanical Dam. The six of them (Loralynn has now been NPC-ified for the rest of the campaign as Bread formally resigns) leave the next day.   As it resided right in between Ao Shen's and Jing Shen's territories, the dam took on characteristics of both inventors' constructs, as clearly evidenced by the diversity of robots moving in and out of the dam. Since our player characters knew of a secret entrance and its password, they were easily able to avoid the giant guard bots that patrolled the structure. This entrance led to a large underground courtyard that had various metal sculptures in place of plants. There, the six dealt with a courteous bot called the 'Docent' and rolled a ball on a Rube Goldberg machine made of art. The next floor down was the central power station, and the party promptly wreaked havoc on the robots there whilst doing some casual sabotage of the dam's power.   A large factory comprised the penultimate floor prior to facing the Clockwork Empress. Our adventurers met a trapped child who told them that the only way to rescue them is to play through a timed 'escape room' type of scenario. With Cradlers on side and Descended on the other, they each helped two robot 'children' escape from their cages using a combination of all their skills and spells. Once freed, the two ghostly robotic 'children' formally introduced themselves as a creation of either Ao Shen or Jing Shen and vowed to aid the party in stopping the Clockwork Empress from causing more mayhem with her constructs.   It was now time to descend to the Dam's final floor, the Throne of Brass.  

Major Victory

Badice, Haliah, Lyca, Biggles, Vrinill, and Umeiri took the final elevator down while the children of Ao and Jing Shen worked on providing an opening for attack from the outside. Eventually, the elevator shaft opened up to reveal a massive bunker with dozens of inactive robot soldiers standing in neat rows underneath an expansive grated brass platform. Across the room from the party was the looming presence of the Clockwork Empress.   She was fully a construct wearing the geometric face and extravagant fashion of the legendary Empress Liang from the tale of the Inventor Lovers. Liang was known for being ambitious, power-hungry, and quite the controversial figure in human history. In contrast, the figure standing before the party was all of the above amped up to eleven as she screamed every one of her words in her stilted robotic voice. No sooner had her rather one-sided (and nonsensically dramatic) speech ended did the children give the signal to attack, which was literally just them flying into the room and yelling, "ATTACK!"   Empress Liang's corrupted mechanical doppelganger was quite the formidable (and loud) foe using a variety of spells and minion summons to split the party in inconvenient ways. However, with the power of teamwork and JRPG-esque role assignment and subsequent strategizing, SKRUNGUS achieved their first major victory against a 'regional boss.'   Once defeated, the Empress' form dissipated into thin air, leaving only a large magical gear. The two freed children also disappeared into the either and left behind a magical chisel (Ao's child) and a magical wrench (Jing's child). In addition to Ao's crystal and Jing's core, the five objects all emitted that same potent magical force that seemed to pulsate with life. There was no way for anyone in the party to accurately discern what these artifacts were, but the feeling of them was universally perceived.   As the six protagonists ascended back to the surface, the constant whirring and whistling had faded from being a near constant nuisance to just soft background noise. Upon reaching the outside, they hear the sounds of fighting and more notably, of other people. Rushing to investigate, the party meet their very first rival guild - CLAMS.   After finishing up their battle against one of the large security bots, the five members of Courageous and Lovely Adventurers Making Strides or C.L.A.M.S. made their introductions. Huang seemed to be the leader of the group and was a awkward human fighter with confidence issues. Phalani was considerably more calm and level-headed and quite peppy in contrast to their being a druid of death. Then there was the laid-back gnome Shariah and his pet badger Bin-bin. CLAMS' fourth party member wore a long cloak and a green-eyed mask and simply referred to themself as Cloak Guy. Finally, there was the team's robot companion APPRENTICE, who had apparently been rescued from the Town of Innovation (where the players could have gone if they followed the goblins' treasure map).   The meeting was amicable enough and the two guilds decided to return to Fengqi together, triumphant.    Well, it was more of a triumph for SKRUNGUS, but still.