Myarra laughs and takes to the air, flying casually along side the cleric.  "Corrupting you is ever so much fun.  Now, let's see how the others are getting along."

The answer to her question is, of course, waiting for them when they arrive.

Setting down near the others, she marvels at the iron crab.  Even without knowing exactly what it is, she has to admit that it's pretty impressive.  Still, she can't resist one last remark.

"And I see Twiggy is already marking it as ... oops, my mistake, he's just trying to break in.

Hey, Nolan.  The Mariasha is an absolute marvel.  So, I was thinking.  How about we go kill an undead dragon, rescue a bunch of slaves, and take about 20,000 gold worth of silver from the mine to pay for repairs?

If we replace the timbers, does the magic just take over, or do we need to find someone to actually put new magic on the new wood?"

Kali watches as tbe elemental retrieves the object, placing it in front of them. "Very effective." he commented to Nolan with approval.

When the object was revieled, she was a mixture of curious and dubious of it. The shape of a crab was ingenious,  but the thought of being trapped in such a thing caused her to pale. She looked at Twiggy, then Myarra fawning over it and smiled a weak smile.

"The two of you in that thing can only mean trouble." she muttered

"Sweetie, my other middle name is trouble.  Of course, I have a lot of middle names."

Twiggy jumps down and runs to his bag grabbing a crowbar and goes back to the crab to try and pry open anything that looks like a door " Just think how many orcs I can pinch in half with this, itwill be awsome. Byron can hide behind me from now on. Twiggy goes at finding a door with a passion.

Aliana chuckled at her winged friend
"Perhaps I've been secretly corrupting you, this whole time?"

On the shore,  she approached the metal crab thing, clearly fascinated
"This is very pretty!  It would make a lovely 'away ship' for the main vessel "


OOC:03:49, Today: Sister Aliana Farwalker rolled 20 using 1d20+5.  Engineering .
03:49, Today: Sister Aliana Farwalker rolled 26 using 1d20+10.  Arcana


She tried to help the halfling examine the best way inside

"Twiggy, dear.  This is an ancient magical device.  Do try not to break it ten minutes after we've found it.

I know it's hard to wait, but let the smart people take a look at it.  There will be a button to press, a knob to twist, a password to speak, an interpretive dance to perform, or something like that.

Once they've done the hard part, then you and I get to play with it."

Byron chuckles at Twiggy's hiding behind him comment.

Ling, if you think I'm going to hide behind that thing, you got another think coming.

OOC: Hmmm, another song idea.

Twiggy stops for a moment and looks at Byron, back at the machine, then at Byron "You are right not hiding behind it, your butt would stick out the edges." Twiggy gives him a smile as he takes Myrra's advice (ignoring the "smarter people" comment) and starts pressing everything, tracing symbols and starts with key words to make it start

"Abra cadabra, crustation comtraption, crab cakes, mincer pincer, boil me not, Byron's big butt, just add butter, shell be open, wicked crab legs

Twiggy tried to pry anything that might move, but he's not strong enough. This contraption is well made. The lights on the "eye sockets" are quite bright, even in the day. The thing is made of Masterwork Iron and weighs hundreds of pounds. It looks like whoever made this contraption, got the idea from a very large barrel and added things like the legs, claws and pincers. He might have lived near the sea as this thing looks like a crab or a lobster.

Sister Aliana examined the device, almost looking like an animal husbandry worker examining a sick cow.   Then she stood up and smiled with realization.
"I remember reading about this!!!  It was one of the magical artifacts made by a wizard named Kwalish!  You ride inside it, I think.  It probably has a magic word, or perhaps a hidden lever catch somewhere."

OOC: It's around 3pm-ish

Well, I'd feel much safer if we just had the golems carry that thing and we transport back home. We can look the thing over in front of the tower.

Nolan directed the elemental to wash the contraption off, since it was still a bit muddy, then he dismissed the elemental and put the bowl back in his pack.

As for the ship, I'll have to see if there is any research on the subject to see how to fix the thing because I honestly don't know how to fix it. I can probably figure it out, but it's just that I never thought about building a flying ship before. I'd rather just Teleport. Either way, it's going to cost a bit of coin to fix the thing.

Byron smiles at Nolan.

It would be more fun to watch Twiggy carry it back to to the tower.

"Sounds like a good partnership.  You figure out how to fix it, I'll steal whatever money we need to buy the supplies.  We just need to find a good highway that rich merchants use.  I'll teach you all the ropes.  It really isn't all that difficult.

Unless, you're all going to be boring and insist we go kill an undead dragon instead?

Because, it would be a lot easier to get there if, you know, we had a flying ship."

She may not be serious (maybe), but she is rather excited about today's discoveries.

"My understanding is that undead dragons have hordes just like normal dragons," Amara said to Myarra.

Twiggy frowns at not being to get in the machine and wipes the mud off of himself. "I can help aquire all of the items. We can always go back and steal from the evil mayor and his kids."

Byron speaks in a serious tone.

Twiggy, we are not going to steal from them.

Byron then continues speaking in a lighter tone that is still serious.

However, we should find a way to return the wealth they stole from the townspeople, for a proper fee.  That way everyone comes out ahead except for the crooks.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:14, Sun 28 Feb 2021.

The party gathers around the waystone as the Golem lifts the metal crab. Nolan says the magical words and you are transported back to the hub. If the party is looking for money, the bodies of these humanoids might have something? Their weapons could be sold for scrap? It might be just a handful of gold coins, but you have to figure that's more than a farmer makes in a year....

That's only going to cause trouble as well, Byron. Thieves don't like being stolen from and will fight to keep their wealth.

Then Nolan turns to Myarra,

We are not robbing merchants on the road. You do realize that ship isn't the only one around, right? I've seen them before. We're better off going to the mines and fighting this undead dragon. We'll get rid of a major threat, plus hurt the cult while lining our pockets with coin. That's how you fix that ship. Am I boring? You better believe I am.

Nolan snatches a coin pouch from one of the dead bodies.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:40, Sun 28 Feb 2021.

But if we are talking about the Centauris then they won't be around to be able to complain after we are done with them.

Byron helps Nolan collect the valuables while making a pile for scrap metal that can be recycled to help the village itself.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:53, Sun 28 Feb 2021.

Centauri. That name sounds familiar. You say he has a nice home in Triel? That's a farming community. I wonder why he chose that place to build a home? Farmers don't make much money. BUT, they do make food that a Cult could use.

We know that his son Nelson is helping the Cult, if not an actual member.  I'd bet that Nelson is a member, and his family are at a minimum providing covert support for the Cult.

Byron continues to help Nolan go through bodies for valuables and scrap that the village can use.

Myarra pitches in and helps going through the dead, separating valuables and piling the bodies up in a large heap.

"All this time together, my dear wizard, and you still have trouble telling when I'm joking.  Highway robbery is my past.  I've turned over a new leaf.  It's only the straight and narrow for me know.

Besides, highway robber doesn't pay worth a damn.  Only the desperate sink that low.

And Centauri doesn't just have a home in Triel, he owns the town and controls it and everything around it.  He's currently working on stealing the farms from the farmers on flimsy pretenses.

His men attacked us in the forest, pretending to be simple bandits.  That was a mistake on their part, as you can imagine.

I have no doubt that he's linked at the hip with the cult.

Proving it?  That's a bit tougher.  We tried warning Lord Dhelt, but he's not interested in anything that doesn't directly affect the areas he's sworn to protect.  We got a very polite 'thank you now go away'."

And did anyone find out where this mine is actually located? If I remember correctly what Lennox said, he followed that Orc until it started going into the Trielta Hills. And if Centauri is the Lord of Triel, then he has jurisdiction over the hills. But, the Dragon Cult is a known criminal organization and if we can prove they are in that mine, then us "citizens" can arrest them if they are arrestable.

"We only know the general area.  Unfortunately we had picked up some local experts in order to work on the tower to release Vernon.  Not to mention we had Lorrik's sisters traveling with us.

And once they were known to be with us, we feared Centauri would take revenge on them for our extremely annoying behavior.  We made sure to stay within the letter of the law, but we did cause him all kinds of bother.

So we felt it was more important to get the innocents to safety before bothering with the mine.

Not to mention I, er, we thought it would be better if we had you and your powers with us when we took on a whole criminal organization."