Flender has returned from an expedition with a team of adventurers where he suffered minor injuries. Lieutenant Noah has debriefed him and the report raised serious concerns so I've had a follow up meeting with Flender and a few of his companions.
Based on the information provided I believe the scenario is something like...
- Johan's crew stumbled upon the ruins during normal operations and reported it back to Haven (prompting Larissa's posting for an expedition).
- An area of the ruins collapsed revealing an underground structure.
- My guess is that one of Johan's people caused the collapse so then when the golems came out from the structure they were able to follow the person back to the camp.
- The golems killed Johan's crew and took them back to the structure to turn them into zombie hybrids.
- Flender and his team arrive and engage the hybrid zombies - and one of the golems but it escaped?
- That strange halfling apparently showed up, helped them fight the hybrid zombies then left again?
Down in the structure itself Flender and team encountered more hybrid zombies and golems - the golems apparently spoke ancient Namorian and Shelley was able to communicate with them; more details would have been good but he did get some useful information given the circumstances...
- There is something called "The Signal" but it is unclear what this is. Is it some magic bullshit? An organisation? Some sort of code of honour or rules maybe?
- The underground structure is called the "Third Node" which implies there were at least two more.
- The golems are led by "Primis of Tertius" - First of Third? Does that mean there are, or at least were more of them?
- The golems were built to fight a war - presumably thousands of years ago. What will they do if/when they realise the war is over? Would they stop or are the preparations for the war keeping them busy and preventing them from just wiping out everything else?
- There's "lots" of them in the structure but most of them are dormant and won't wake up without a power source. Hopefully this won't become an issue but would have been useful to have an approximate count.
- Twig noted that they were trying to dig their way out? Presumably they were getting in and out via the collapse but their main entrance was buried, is Is that how they were originally taken out of action?
None of the golems were defeated so it's unclear how physically resilient they are, however, given that they are made from metal and were built for war I think it's best to treat them as if they were an armoured threat; drills and equipment assignment will be updated to factor that in.
Finkle's student seems to think that the hybrid zombies are being used primarily as labourers to repair the structure but they also fought when the team first encountered them so we have to consider them combatants as well.
He also called the golems something along the lines of clockwork automations but they're magical constructs and I don't really understand the difference. I don't think I can deal with any more magical minutia at the moment but I'll get Noah to speak to Shelley and Finkle and see if the difference means anything from a tactical point of view.
One of the hybrid zombies was brought back to Haven, it is dead or sleeping; Shelley has given it a name and kept it locked in a cupboard. Will send over a few soldiers to relocate "Isak" to a cell for security. I'm not keen on keeping it around but perhaps studying it will tell us something useful - we'll keep it under lock and key but give Shelley controlled access.
Note... Eep, that's what the halfling was called. Need to find out what's going on with her. Apparently she yelled a bunch at Gunnar, ordered him about and threatened to curse him? How much of that do I actually need to worry about and how much of it is Gunnar being dramatic?