We awoke on the 32nd of Chaos, 3486. In the morning, we sent Xaeland J'ack Rameur away to rest as the clockwork laborers stopped showing up so timely. Ripley and Milu Soma scouted about, scaling the walls with gifts of the idol until they could disable all of the alarms we could hear. The spikes preventing our escape were now disabled. Our restingway was cluttered with dead constructs and still laborers, so we continued to explore. Fortune's Vanguard discovered that there are numerous workshop-like areas, where these clockwork beings can construct specific things. We returned to our group, let our members rest, and explored around. We shared a drink of clarity after discovering a malfunction occurred near the "waterwheel-energy-storage" area, but seems to have been repaired.
The main assembly line is the only lit chamber we've found thus far, contained only a few of what Riply calls, Overseers, that seem to command these machinations. Do these only see the difference between the living and unliving?
We broke inside, taking them down before they could activate a panel of alarms. Despite this, a facility-wide alarm began to blare, and the spikes began again. Riply identified that it seems there was a "critical staff shortage", that was causing the new alarm. The western hallway reveals an airlock that was labeled "High Security Containment". We retreated to the assembly room, where already a Laborer was at work making more of the machinations. However, there was a gap noticed in their production: They just start a new project if their current project is disrupted.
We prevented them from reinforcing their numbers, but many Laborers were already rewound and back to work. In numbers, they could be deadly to our group, so we treaded carefully. With only the Laborers, it seemed their workshop's production cycle was somewhat slowed down.
We pushed to the High Security area, where we were assailed by Red-Plated Clockwork Machinations! They were just painted red. A thinner hallway, much like the entrance, with heavily reinforced doors on either side. They attacked us on sight!
A mechanical magister in the back used strange magics to put J'ack aslumber, but we prevented them from taking our comrade. An overseer in the chamber took J'ack's weapon and retreated with it. We destroyed what we could in the airlock and pushed further as the overseer and magic-user retreated through the doorway on the other side. We pressed further to retrieve J'ack's Rapier/Riply's Handicraft.
On the other side, the Overseer was cloaked in a strange magic. A blessing that mixes a being between Real and Unreal. This let them ignore what was Real before us, but not all the time. These beings do not seem capable of such strange effects. What did the Ancient Evil discover at the edge of reality? Where does the Unreal begin? This can't be the only experiment into this. Is this how the Teleportation at the Mystic Riverstones: Rosemore works?
The spikes made it more difficult to move inward. We fought through the doorway as the Overseer moved towards us. We took them down, got J'ack's weapon back, Cleis Frostclaw alarmed the area, and we tried to shut the doors behind us. However, walls built by the strange orby-machinations prevented Riply from sealing the airlock. We headed back to the main Assembly Line to rest. Apidoon shifted over the horizon, and day met us without issue
It is now the 33nd of Chaos, 3486. But, Riply stayed up to see if she could prevent an Overseer's construction just before it was activate...