The cogs are turning

The water is streaming in, rising steadily. There are four cogs in the centre of the room, and the gang recognises them from the maintenance room upstairs. Miss Moss knows how it all works. There are two corrupted mer-men on either side and a giant shadow moving underneath.

Thoradin walks over and turns one of the giant wheels and the grate below opens, and water starts to drain out. The water level is adjusted a little by the change to their relief.

One of the mer-creatures jumps into the water, swimming expertly. It takes off it’s back a harpoon and speaks in a strange, unrecognisable language. The creature uses the harpoon, taking aim and shooting at Thoradin. It misses, and the harpoon flies past Thoradin, though the mer-man pulls it back with the rope and dives below the water. 

The second mer-man follows suit, pulling out the harpoon and lining up Thoradin, missing again, the harpoon flying past the tiny dwarf with a whistling noise, bouncing with a small tap off the brick wall.

Leshanna moves over and opens another wheel, while Miss Moss does the same on a third. From under the water, the ominous shape circles. A psychic force starts to make its way into Gunther’s mind, filling his soul with a soothing voice. “These people are not your friends,” it coos. Gunther is no longer under his own control.

The dark shadow is closer to the surface and the gang can see it is surrounded by a green, oozing jelly-like substance.  As it dives away again, it leaves a trail.

Londer opens the final wheel. The grates are now all open and the water is draining a little faster than it is coming in, though still not enough to make any meaningful difference. While the water is not rising, it is only incrementally moving down. The water is now the same level as the platform.

Gunther turns to Lia and as he jumps towards her, he is thinking “I’m sorry!” but is unable to say it or control himself.  Gunther tries to push Lia into the water, taking a running jump and diving at her. Lia slams herself against the wall and Gunther flies into the water. He dives under the water for a moment and can see the enormous monster under the cat-walk and hears the soothing voice in his head, reassuring him that he is right to attack these foes.

Lia casts a hunter’s mark, pulls out her crossbow and aims it at one of the mer-men. It’s an impressive hit.

This time Thoradin decides to use thermaturgy. Closing his eyes and projecting his mind to the great source of water, with a surge, Thoradin turns the large wheel without touching it.  Amazingly, the water begins to drop. One of the mermen goes over and turns it back again.

The merman pulls out the harpoon and sends it flying at Leshanna, piercing through her shoulder and pulling her 20feet off the platform into the water. As she falls in, she can also see the giant creature with its many eyes. Leshanna attempts to cast sleep on the merman grappling her, to no effect.

Miss Moss takes out her longbow and aims at the merman, missing the first shot, then the second. She moves away, annoyed, and she must admit, a little scared.

Leshanna feels another consciousness start to creep into her mind, and its words start to affect her. She hears promises about her grandmother. She stares down the green figure and shakes the thoughts free. It’s a trick.

Londer jumps into the water with the goal to swing at the creature with his great axe, but he sees that the creature is surrounded by goop, so hurls his javelin instead. It lands, as does his second javelin. He makes a small, triumphant fist. From the sides of the monster’s head and gills, bubbles disrupt the thick green ooze, as red eyes stare at Londer with an indefinable look.  The creature is hurt, the javelins sticking out of it at strange angles.

Gunther, now behaving like an enemy, shakes himself off and turns to line up Lia with his crossbow. He hits, his soul is crying but eyes cold, the dead eyes of a killer cat. Lia gets stung by the small arrow glancing off her flesh. Lia contemplates Gunther, thinking to disarm him, though she understands what’s happening and doesn’t want to wound him. Regardless, she still glares at him, as she considers casting him into an extra-dimensional space. The main issue is that he needs to climb in willingly… she’ll save that for if the team needs a hiding space.

Instead she shoots at the merman near the large wheel, hurting him really badly.  The merman turns, holding his head to see where it came from. He shakes his head and has a completely different expression on his face. Life returns to his eyes. Leshanna is unsure of what is happening and watches with curiosity. Lia moves away from Gunther.

Thoradin considers trying to command the merman but he realises that they do not share the same language. Instead, he sends a guiding bolt at the merman holding Leshanna. He hits, underwater, and thinks he sees writhing behind the mass of bubbles.

The mermen make strange noises in a language none of them have ever heard before  The second merman dives under the water and now, to the surprise of the gang, shoots at the creature under the catwalk with rage in its eyes. An underwater torpedo flies past, but misses the creature.  The now angry merman rushes up a bit further and takes a bite of the creature. He’s really mad, this merman. The creature shrugs it off. 

The merman holding Leshanna turns to brutally attack the creature with his harpoon. The merman begins to pull at the rope to get his harpoon back, but doesn’t quite manage to make it break away from under the walkway. The harpoon sticks and a tussle ensues.

Leshanna, now free, gets back up on the walkway, immediately putting Gunther to sleep. Miss Moss jumps into the water to attack the creature, but isn’t that successful, so climbs, dripping, back out.

The creature begins to move, and the ooze swishes past Londer without touching him, but Londer swings his Great Khan and hits the oozy creature.

Again, Leshanna hears the sweet coos of her grandmother calling to her. Gunther is still asleep, happier than he was before.

Lia tries to attack the large creature, but misses, and miffed, moves into a small storage room.  There are some chairs, crates and a table.  There is a lot of junk around, the sort of stuff that might have treasure in it, so she gets to hunting around.

Thoradin again uses thaumaturgy to close the large wheel, reaching out with his mind like a Jedi master.  He spins the iron wheel and it slams shut. The water begins to sink.

Leshanna casts Comprehend Languages to understand what is happening with the merpeople – why have they started attacking this creature?  She’s a bit lonely and injured so she moves closer to the rest of the group, even though it was probably wiser to stay close to the valves.

Miss Moss has another shot with her longbow, successfully hitting twice and the great creature looks a lot more like a pincushion with all the arrows, harpoons and javelin action. The creature is almost invisible in amongst all the green ooze, just red eyes darting around.

The water begins to rise up on either side of the walkway, creating a huge pillar of water. As it rises, it starts crashing down on top of the group standing on the walkway. Thoradin is sturdy but Miss Moss, and Gunther get picked up and scooped into the green ooze. Gunther and Miss Moss start to feel their skin change and realise that they can breathe under the water.  They have gills.  With his enormous tentacle, the creature whacks Miss Moss. She becomes diseased.

Londer checks if everyone is ok. Miss Moss is not – she’s been grabbed by the creature and is now looking rather sickly. Londer takes out the Great Khan, but is unfortunately also affected by the ooze. He’s in gills-town too now.  He swings twice, hitting both times and cutting the beast up.  Its teeth gnash angrily. 

The water is slowly draining, the platform is higher up, but Miss Moss and Londer are in trouble.

Gunther wakes up, turns to Londer and takes a point-blank crossbow shot at him. This is not how you make friends. Londer calls out “I forgive you!” as the arrow flies into him.

Lia is curious about the junk piles and has a rummage, finding a whole bunch of coins, some jewels, a magical hat of disguise and a lost pendant.  It’s familiar from the description given to them – it is an R, and must belong to Arton from the Rosalio family. There is some neatly folded noble attire and 10 golden goose coins. There are a lot of riches there but nothing helpful for the battle. She stuffs everything in her pockets and peers through the doorway to see what’s going on.

The gang and the merman continue to attack the creature. Goop is streaming out of it, and the merman are muttering. Leshanna understands them now, they are saying “Revenge! Captor! How dare you control us!”

Miss Moss is still able to breathe underwater, and while she’s feeling all right, something has happened to her.  Looking down at herself she recalls seeing this sort of thing before – she thinks she must have the same thing as the noble. Her skin looks similar to Arton when they found him, all poisoned and toxic.  She pulls out her greatsword and has a bit of a slash at the creature, and finally, the creature lets out strained, guttural noises. He then turns away from the gang in retreat, almost gracefully, leaving the sludge behind. The creature quickly moves under them and through one of the drains, disappearing.

Londer lays down his weapons ceremoniously and makes peaceful noises at the merman, earning himself some inspiration, but the problems are not over. Gunther approaches Miss Moss and shoots the crossbow right at her. It hits her in the torso. She lets out a horrible noise.

Lia takes action, jumping into the water and to tie Gunther up with the rope, but he throws her off. Thoradin leaps over the edge and runs over to Gunther and punches him in the face as hard as he can.

The two merman called out “Get him!” and swim off after the creature, hopefully to finish it off. The threat of the water disappears down the drain.

Gunther eventually snaps out of his trance after being punched a few times. Unfortunately, Londer, Miss Moss and Gunther realise that they cannot breathe out of the water. They move over to the wheel with running water and stand under it while they start to plan what to do. 

Miss Moss takes the Tressym out of the bag of holding and gives it back to Leshanna, then fills the bag up with water so they can all poke their heads in to breathe. It’s not glamourous, but it’ll keep them alive.

Thoradin removes the gills from Miss Moss, but he’s unable to remove the disease. It’s a very serious illness and needs someone more powerful to intervene. Miss Moss is going to get a hit of acid every ten minutes unless she douses herself with water before the ten minutes is up. Miss Moss is now a completely translucent albino, which is quite a sight. The rest of the gang can’t help but stare.