Episode 14 - Bad Physics

Recap
Dariun, Peterson and Zippy make their way to the top of the mountain while fighting mechanos creatures along they way. As the ventured on, they saw a bright flashe of light coming from a large tower in the middle of a valley. The team were cornered from all sides but as a barrage of magic missiles came to them, Zippy tanked the blow in his eagle form. Leslie was shot and it seemed he some mechanos material under his clothes and Dariun found out he had a new attachment to his mechanos sword. Dariun, Peterson and Zippy made their way down the slope leading towards the mechanos town and decide to take a rest. As they rested, the centre tower lit up with a bright white flash as the surrounded smaller towers circled it and the mechanos sang.

Episode Summary
The team are in the Hearth of Moonlight and Shadow protective barrier to rest up for the night. They have just seen the bright flash and look around to see the large number of mechanos creatures scurrying around in the valley. They discuss heading into a long rest for the night and Zippy voices his concerns for Leslie. Both Peterson and Dariun question Leslie's allegiance due the way he acted to get up the mountain and him interacting with the mechanos. Peterson and Dariun believe it is best to rest if they are even wanting to help Leslie considering the toll that getting up the mountain took on them. Zippy agrees but holds the others accountable if anything happens to Leslie. Peterson has a look closer to the mechanos who are pulling carts covered by tarps place to place. There appears to be a large building being constructed behind the large centre building. Dariun has a think about what he remembers from the Feywild and recalls they usually build out of sight and underground so this is not something he would know much about.

Zippy is worried about his friend and reaches out to a power beyond his comprehension. The clouds open and a beam of light spills onto Zippy. He speaks to David, god of the rabbits. Zippy asks for Leslie to have a couple dice thrown his way in hopes he'll be okay. David grants Zippy request and the heavens close. Meanwhile, Dariun and Peterson are watching Zippy speak to the sky. The team call it for the day and Peterson and Zippy head to sleep and Dariun meditates outside to keep watch.

Zippy comes to in the white dream space and sees Paige who seems to be playing with the black ball, who has grown some legs and boots. Zippy turns around and doesn't want a part of it. After Paige tells Zippy to look, he turns, walks over and kicks the ball. It flies and bounces then gets back on their feet. It angrily walks to Zippy and taps their foot. Zippy points his foot down to the ground. Paige scolds Zippy and stands between him and the black ball. Zippy rolls his eyes and pulls his ears to his face and screams into them. Paige tells Zippy he can have his hissy fit and she will go and play with the ball. The black ball walks up to Zippy, arcs their foot back and kicks him square in the crown jewels before running to Paige. Zippy falls to his knees and cries. Not because of the physical pain, but the emotional pain of lack of a proper sleep. Zippy wakes up and runs out of the tent and screams into the Ether.

Dairun has seen some pinions that have not noticed the crew on his time meditating, which is interrupted by Zippy running out of the tent. Peterson wakes up to see an orb with two long legs and large shoes. Spooked, Peterson immediately pulls his mask down and can tell whatever it is seems to be magical. He sits up and greets the ball creature as he scoots his way to outside the tent. Dariun asks who he is speaking to and Peterson calls out for help. Peterson runs out and just as Dariun goes to look, the protective barrier spell drops and the ball is no longer in the tent. Dariun is confused and Peterson shows Dariun what the ball looks like using minor illusion. Zippy goes back into the tent after he let out all of his frustration and asks what they are looking at. Peterson shows Zippy the minor illusion and his eyes go wide. He plays it off and Peterson can't get a good read on him.

The team decide to make their way to a perimeter tower using pass without a trace. As they make their way in, Dariun pulls Zippy back to have a chat for a moment. Dariun asks if he is okay considering what happened that morning. Zippy appreciates Dariun's concern and asks if they are okay after the previous night's conversation. Dariun tells Zippy that he is just a little on edge and isn't lying about anything but just has a lot on his mind. Zippy asks Dariun to make sure he is open and honest which Dariun agrees to.

As they make their way closer to the tower, they see some patrolling spurs but are able to hide. They overhear the spurs talking about finding the eladrin. They pick themselves up and continue forwards, finally making it to the flat part of the valley. They can see its much more densely populated and they see a large amount of mechanos moving around like they are in a town. The team get behind a building and look to see where the outside spire is.

Dariun tells the team they should be able to stealth through and asks if everyone is onboard. They all agree with Peterson pulling down his mask to hide his fear. They start darting between buildings, dodging the mechanos in the area. Coming down the street is a large mechanos that looks like a gorilla shaped being. It asks for a report from the spurs, stating there has been a Fey creature sighted. The spur tells the large mechanos they haven't seen anything and the larger mechanos grabs the spur and absorbs the mechanos steel into themselves. Dariun recognises the large mechanos as a helacole.

They get even closer to the perimeter tower made of mechanos steel in a square shape with sharp corners and stands very tall. They notice tracks underneath it that looks like it goes in a circle below the earth. There are no doors but they can see below the tracks is more mechanos working on various things underneath the tower. They sneak up to the tower and Zippy pulls out the magical door knob and they get into the building.

It's not a very large interior but they see a tonne of gears and a small, spiral staircase. The building goes high up and far down into the ground. As they move up the stair case, Dariun explains that the mechanos are put into tears called Gears. There are four ranks and the majority they have encountered so far are Gear One but the mechanos they just saw, called a helacole, was a Gear Two. The higher the Gear, the stronger they are.

As they continue to walk, there is a sudden clunk, and the entire tower starts to move. Dariun braces himself as the structure starts to move. Peterson and Zippy stumble and get their hand slightly caught in some of the moving gears but they manage to keep up. They feel the whole structure start to rotate fast and they are stuck to the walls from the force of the movement. Dariun looks over to see Zippy puking and Peterson almost throwing up. Peterson suggest they use the immovable rod but Dariun chooses not to do so in case it breaks in the rod. Zippy tempts physics and pulls out his magic carpet and floats up to stop himself from being stuck to the wall.

As they debate the physics, the tower comes to a screeching halt and Peterson and Dariun get thrown against the opposite wall. Peterson makes his way up the tower as Dariun is still questioning the physics of what just happened. Dariun eventually follows Peterson up on the stairs and Zippy flies on up with his carpet. They can see a flat platform coming up but they hear little shocks and gears spinning from the area above them. All three of them have a peek upstairs and he see a small mechanos bot on a track on the wall moving around working on gears. There is also a large orb in the room that the mechanos is fiddling around with.

Zippy proposes they go up and talk to the mechanos and Dariun should try to disguise his eladrin traits. Peterson pulls his mask down and he and Zippy strut their way in. The mechanos immediately notices them. It zips to them and calls an alert of intruders. Zippy repeats intruder back at the mechanos and they have a back and forth a couple times before the mechanos seems to become confused. Zippy continues to play along then asks for the mechanos to state their focus, which is to eliminate intruders and protect to orb. Zippy gets shocked by the mechanos and Peterson casts shatter on the large orb. It cracks and it looks unstable with wild lightning firing off. The mechanos goes to try to repair the orb but it shatters and Zippy and Peterson are hit with some lightning.

They dip back down the tower and the lightning continues to spark off. They can hear the charging of the centre spire charging, like they did when the flash of light went off. They hear a blast and the whole tower shakes, they grab onto the cogs to stabilise themselves. When they look up, they see some smoke. Zippy leads them up to have a look. They see the mechanos being looking critically damaged and the large orb still sparking but not as bad as before. Zippy finishes off the mechanos using thunder wave. He goes over and thinks about how he could use the mechanos creature to his benefit. Zippy asks Dariun how malleable the metal is under heat. Dariun reckons it is like any metal that will be shaped with heat. Zippy casts flaming sphere and created a ball of fire. Meanwhile Peterson has headed down the stairs to keep watch. Zippy heats the metal, casts control water and uses some of the Level slime from his bottomless bucket to shape the mechanos metal.

Zippy creates a hat with the helmet and mechanos body armour. It turns out pretty good yet may not be very convincing with the level slime on it. Dariun seems unconvinced with Zippy's getup despite his confidence. Peterson can hear metal clanging from down in the tower and can tell there are mechanos coming up the stairs. Zippy pulls out the door knob and opens up to see snow and clouds and can tell they are extremely high up in the air. He see many red lights circulating the tower, looking to see why the tower is malfunctioning. A few pinion drones see Zippy and starts alerting for the intruders.

They close the door and they make their way down the tower and see tmultiple red lights. Some of the mechanos start melding with the metal in the walls of the tower and move their way up. Zippy tells Peterson and Dariun to stay close and pretend like he has them contained as prisoners. The red lights move up the walls and 12 spurs come up the stairwell but before they can start alerting intruder, Zippy says in his best mechanos voice that they eladrin has been captured and the threat is contained. The mechanos seem confused but are not convinced. Zippy tries to question what a mechanos truly is as Dariun visibly face palms. One mechanos starts agrees with Zippy but says they will still capture all of them.

One mechanos, named Robot, comes forwards and states he is trained in negotiations. Robot asks what their demands are and Zippy asks if they can take them to their leader. Robot tells them that the mechanos' demands are to take these three as poisoners. Peterson asks if they can guarantee their safety if they come with them. Another mechanos, named Robot Two, comes forwards and tells them they are trained in lying and can promise the teams safety. Peterson uses fireball which hits all of them, destroying two of them and damaging the other spurs. The mechanos say the negation is over and they will use force at maximum power.

Dariun uses Zephyr's strike on himself, activates his buster sword with the steam gem and he notices the orb in the centre glows blue. The sword moulds and grows larger than the buster normally does. He hears a voice coming from the blade. They introduce themselves as Switch, everyone's favourite blade. The blade addresses Dariun as his master and promises to kill anyone his master commands. Dariun asks Switch to kill the mechanos in the tower and Switch accepts his request. Dariun's blade transforms into a lance with booster packs on the back. He feels a force building up from Switch as it readies to attack.

Quotations

 * Zippy "… I'm quite upset right now DM."
 * Seth "Woah, what happened?"
 * Zippy "I'm just worried about my friend DM. Reckon you could throw him a couple dice his way?"
 * Seth "You know what…"
 * David "Zippy my child…"
 * Zippy "Is that you god of the rabbits?"
 * David "Yes, its me. David."


 * Peterson "Ehhhh salutations … ball one … bally one. Hello.."


 * Seth "You can't get a good read on Zippy … nor can anyone in the world … ever"

Main Cast

 * Dariun Branch
 * Zippy Westborrough
 * Peterson

Returning Characters

 * Paige
 * Black Bunny Ball

New Characters

 * David (God of the Rabbits)
 * Robot (mechanos trained negotiator)
 * Robot Two (mechanos trained in lying)
 * Switch (Dariun's switch sword)

Locations

 * The Storm's Edge