As half the party, Philomena Snapdragon, Volk Lesnoy and Sooty explored the hidden room in the facility, and the other half, composed of Dareth Lion'el, Mikhail and Zora, waited in front of the metal doorway, the half that explored found two treasure chests; one containing gems and old money, the other a couple of magic items (a bone-tipped spear and a rapier with a rat motif) and potions. They also discovered a skeletal corpse, crushed by a large boulder, and were attacked by a bunch of animated books, which were promptly dispatched. One of those books then fell to the ground, opened on a pair of pages, showing it was the Diary of one Gallio Aquillius, who murdered his colleagues due to them wanting to abandon the facility, which he with his glory hound tendencies couldn't accept. They also found his keycard; the last keycard to the metal door.
As the party reconvened, they opened the door with the three keycards, and were beset by two Clockwork Hunters; a construct type that was the last one to be made in The Great Liwilai Empire. This fight, which resulted in the explosion of these constructs but also the unveiling of their blackboxes, was quickly won, and the party, together with Libbie, left the facility and met back up with professor Horvyn Quickstamp. They exchanged some of the information gathered in the facility, and Horvyn not only awarded the party with the initial 150 Gold in Platinum Bills, but also 700 additional gold in Platinum Bills for the party fund. Libbie also decided to stay with Horvyn, after he offered them a place. The party then had a good, exciting night at the Howling Hammer Inn and Tavern in Oranmeadow, before going their way to Valleladi, where Martin Courbet with his carriage was waiting for the party, in order to bring them back to Argentis; as his services were requested by Horvyn.
On their way, they came across a person standing in the middle of the road... turns out it was an ambush, that Volk was able to sniff out quite easily. During the fight, Mikhail was hit with Shadow Ena because of a Shadow-based Ena Technique; and after panicking for a hot second, looked in confusion as it did... nothing to him, and didn't even hurt as much as expected. As the party dispatched the ambushers (killed all of them except the initial person and two people who fled), with Mikhail using an offensive ability for the first time, they found out that it was all led by a man and his brother, due to disgruntlement over being terminated from the Liwilai Adventurer's Guild; and the group just intended to scare the party, potentially into leaving the adventurer's guild, instead of truly hurting them.
Mikhail meanwhile had a talk with the party, where he revealed that he has been told by his parents that Shadow-Ena would corrupt him and turn him bad; just like it did with his Eladrin mother, who got turned into a Tirrdaka. Volk corrected this, due to knowledge given to him by his sponsor during his time with him; Shadow-Ena CAN corrupt, and turn people into Tirrdaka, but it can't affect anyone's personality, and Tirrdaka are still the same people as before; and even so, something like that would require a LOT of Shadow-Ena, like with a high-level technique or with an accident with Ena-Technology. This left Mikhail pondering quite a bit.
Dareth then turned away from Sooty and Mikhail, accidentally revealing an emblem on the back of his cape magic; a griffon with bloody talons, and a banner saying "'til the last drop of blood". He quickly turned his cape's effects off, but Sooty seemingly recognized the emblem.
And with that, the party continued their way to Valleladi.
SESSION END