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[Radio Controlled]

((Gonna take a moment to post that staff testing since there's some neato lore in there, and at least syv seemed interested.

That said, since you guys apparently also get lore and mechanics explained on the irc from time to time, could I ask you also put that in here when you can? For example, those bits about how the people view Telcal and such that syv mentioned, since I'm sure other people would like to know about it as well!))

Spoiler: This spoiler is grossly incandescent. (click to show/hide)

[Cut out some of the questions and testing we did and jumping straight to the juicy bits]

[23:23] Mr.Bones: As soon as you snap the last piece into place there's a flash of light and the gem begins to glow with an inner fire, like an Emerald torch.  There's a faint thrumming sound, like electricity in the air.

And then you hear a crackling noise, like glass breaking.  Its coming from the south  and as you look towards it the sky begins to darken, as though the sun were setting. The only light that remains is to the south, the distant volcano which houses Alkahest lit in a corona of flame.  You see the source of the cracking. Footsteps seem to be coming from thin air, moving across the sand towards you. When the unseen foot lands, the sand heats to white hot and melts to glass before shattering and leaving a foot shaped super heated crater.  The the heat from the foot steps is blowing the sand out  in all directions and swirling it up in a violent updraft, motes and globs of molten glass like windblown snow.  You can feel the heat on your face like a furnace mouth, blowing your hair back and stinging your eyes, even from 100 feet away.  As the steps grow closer, something else appears. A faint thing at first, but grows rapidly brighter. It resembles a nervous system or circulatory system made of flickering light. It doesn't hold constant form, it flares and flickers, pulsing out and in like the licking flames of a campfire.

The globules of molten glass begin to collect around the head of that figure, coming together, growing hotter and finally boiling as they take shape.  The form of a jagged crown.

[...]

[23:44] Radio Controlled: Eeeh, let's just let him come to us and say something if he wants to. Try not to act scared or defensive, but still confident.
[23:44] pancaek: I'll just act like a bird
[23:46] pancaek: A calm, confident bird
[00:01] Mr.Bones: The manifestation continues walking forward, but stops just before the heat of its presence would become unbearable. You are starting to have a hard time looking at it, its becoming brighter by the second.  For a long moment it just seems to stand there, slowly melting down into the sand.

Its voice comes with an echo, as though from a great distance but undiminished in force. It is not loud, but it shakes the earth none the less.

"Long sundered, the gift of Alizarin is now reformed.  Like her father, she was kind and gave her fragment of dominion to her faithful.  Most loved of the Sun, do you still keep the old covenant?"

[00:02] Radio Controlled: >become Sunbro? [y/n]
[00:03] pancaek: Eh, I'm up for it
[00:03] pancaek: Y
[00:04] Radio Controlled: PW, could I maybe get a knowledge roll to see if Darwin has an idea of what he's talking about?
[...]
[00:09] Mr.Bones: Well, judging by his words, Alizarin gave this thing to her worshippers. This thing seems to be asking if you are worshippers of hers.
[00:13] Radio Controlled: Who or what is Alizarin again?
[00:15] Mr.Bones: Check your map
[00:17] Radio Controlled: Well yes, it's a feature on the map, but I'm assuming that was named after someone?
[00:21] Radio Controlled: There is Alizarin the town in the bottom left of the map (where the first piece was, iirc) and the plains of Alizarin.
[00:34] Mr.Bones: You would know its the name of a nature goddess, though details are vague
[00:34] Radio Controlled: For the record, being a sunbro sounds nice enough, but I'd like to doublecheck we're not accidentally joining a Covenant of Eating Babies.
[00:36] Mr.Bones: you wanna ask him that or what?
[00:43] Radio Controlled: Well, not that, more something like "We strive to know of the old ways, but knowledge of such has long been forgotten. What does the old covenant say?"
[00:44] Radio Controlled: Oh, and by the way, did that knowledge roll of before tell me anything of who this guy is? Is it Telcal or an emissary of him of sorts?
[01:03] Mr.Bones: Your best guess is a manifestation of Telcal. Basically, this is the equivalent to him glancing over and noticing you.

The manifestation  turns and points a flickering hand towards the west.  "Make pilgrimage to her domain. She has long been silent but her scepter shall awaken her yet.  From her shall covenant be established. "

It turns back to you
"I heed her wishes, as they were in the days of old, and leave the fragment of dominion with you.  Win her indulgence, as those before you have. "
He turns and begins to walk away. As he does, his voice reaches you once more.

"All which grows bows before the scepter.  But I bow to none. Mark this well: All which grows may also burn."

With a sound like dynamite the manifestation vanishes, the sand and burning glass tumbling to the ground in its passing.

[Devastator]

(Umm, not sure that thing's telling the truth.  Would a nature sceptre burn?)

(Most of the questions we've gotten answered are related to specific power use questions and what not.  There was some lore stuff related to the Daughters of Telcal, but I don't have that, I'm afraid.  Most of it is in the turns.)

[Radio Controlled]

((I think that was less "I will burn your staff" and more "that sunbro sceptre may be pretty dope, but try to raise it against me and I will fuck your shit up so bad fam".))

[Devastator]

(I meant that it seems dubious that a nature sceptre would have HOT BURNINATION powers.)

[piecewise]

Continue my Route

Spoiler: Nina (click to show/hide)

Name: Nina Morellis
Appearance: A young, red-haired woman, green eyes, somewhat unkempt. She's had Adam for as long as she could remember, and has a bit of a reputation as a harmless nut. The town guard are okay with Nina though, occasionally getting her help keeping a mage secured by having her drain their mana so they can't cast. Since they don't have a proper magehunter available, having a local civilian channeler they can bring in as needed is a big help. And Nina tries to be on her best behavior with them to keep their relations good. Nina herself works as a healer, living out in the poor part of town, and has an erratic schedule based on the needs of those who want her help. so she has a lot of free time, but also gets woken up in the middle of the night a lot. add in Adam's occasional antics and she doesn't get to have a stable sleep schedule.

Magic Path: Channeler, Invoker.

Materials: Sound, Accelerate
Mana: 3

Strength: D4
Speed: D6
Endurance: D10
Knowledge: D8
Will: D10
Senses: D6

Inventory: 25 gold, a few sacks of food, 2 silver, aqua vitae, Backpack, padded cloak (D4 protection, Light armor), doctor's bag, walking stave, Lantern, Medicine backpack, The healer's handbook, Surgeon's Kit, Excorcist's kit, Doctor's Cloak.

Inhabited by a spirit which takes the form of a floating disembodied limb that constantly melts and reforms into other body parts. She calls it "Adam."

Cabal: None at this time.

Lets see here...next is...Wismuth if memory serves.  Its a small town in the hills. Originally it was site of quite a alchemical and thaumic manufacturing plant and research station of sorts. Golems, magicoal, thaumic machinery, Magical batteries, all manner of magical items and technology got their start there. These days though, its pretty barren. The remnants of the factories and research stations are still there, built into the mountains, but the only inhabitants are descendants of the former workers who haven't left even after the end of the age of magic. Like Fearce is the capital of mechanical knowledge, Wismuth is the capital of old Thaumic knowledge. Though its now mostly an intellectual curiosity and occasionally the place to get ancient machines repaired.  The citizens that remain mostly exist as guides or sellers of supplies for those going past the mountains and into the forests or plains beyond.  Its most striking feature is the great pillars of metallic rainbow crystals that sprout up among the stone and crawl on the cliffsides like ivy.

You ask about issues there and they say that some of the populace have been hearing strange sounds. Ringing in the night.

"This place is a hunting ground. Not sure if its after the clients normally, or if its just feeding on the human wreckage that this place creates. Either way there's an apex predator here and it doesn't like me intruding."
"Neat! Think it's sapient? Can you give me any more details? Size, shape, smell, sounds it made, any of that kind of thing? I wonder if it has any weaknesses? Might be out of my league if it worries you so much, though. Still, I AM an ascetic, eh? Good job on escaping and diverting attention, by the way."

She tells you that the impression she got was of a giant liquid shadow in the vague shape of a feline. Like some sort of smoke puma or the like. Of course that might not be its true form. It likely has a human form like herself, as well as being able to shift into other forms to better strike at prey.

Enchant Arachne's poison with [toxin] top increase it's efficacy against magical monsters for a while. I forget how mana usage works: do I have to declare something here? Also enhance her forelegs with Force to make them stronger so if she gets attacked she can repel the creature. Then, have her spin her webs around our hunting ground (somewhere near the compound, but not immediately within it where the creature is - close enough that we can lure him out but not so close that we are gonna be attacked while making the trap. Enchant her webs with Black Flux to act as a power snare for magic, leaving the strands that the spider would crawl on untouched. Then go out and look like lunch to the hunter.

Spoiler: Felix Testimony (click to show/hide)

The Ascetic Ghost Shepherd

A thin, wiry guy. Hazel eyes. Black hair. Long fingers.

current status: fine
Stats
6 str 
6 spd 
10+1 End 
8 Know
10+1 Will 
4 sense

Mana: 80
Materials: Porcelain, Black Flux, Force, Toxin, Weapon, Break

Inventory:
Inhabited by a Spirit - a little shepherdess girl. Likes dolls. Adventurous.
Scarab ghost

Catamaran sailboat
Ghost Charm
Doctor's Kit

Lantern, 2x Rope, Backpack, 15 ft collapsible ladder
1 pet carrier
1 pet harness with leash
1 prybar

1 rolling horse toy
golden idol of some kind of crocodile god
1 kitten

shiny orb from the ruins on the lake (light blue glow. 3 mana invested. Additional mana (?) invested from magicoal)
haunted obsidian and wood knife (with cold, light metal box) Cursed, can't release until I kill a sapient. Can control spilled blood as if I had the Blood material
40 gold

[10+1 v6] [4+1 v6] The first spell is successful, the second fails. -12 mana.

You leave her to spin webs and head out to find the predator. You walk to the rough location where you think it should be, the pool area, but its gotten busier here. The fires are mostly out and people are coming back in to look around and go back to their rooms. Hmm.

((Did some discord staff testing, tl;dr we Sunbros now.))

Convert 200 gold into 40 mana.

Start traveling towards Kaolin. Try to leg it until we get to the areas where it is dangerous to walk due to environmental hazards and/or reported monster activity, then teleport to Kaolin itself (guessing we can walk up to Calamine?)

For the sunbro scepter, when we pass through a town have a local artisan make us a staff assembly/cover that encloses the scepter so we can tote it around without it being seen by everyone, with a little bit left exposed so we can still touch it and use it while in the assembly (make sure not to show it around either). How much gold?

Also, while traveling try out the scepter a bit on some local wildlife or insects. Try to determine what stat it rolls (if any), what the range is, How many at once, whether it can just influence actions or also physiology, and more like that (I can come up with a list of specific tests if you want).

Oh, and finally, small question: if I cut open our black biometal bird in search of words, is that likely to yield a word such as 'bird', or is that a bit too cheap of a way to find words?

Spoiler: Darwin Zeppeli (click to show/hide)

Name: Darwin Zeppeli
Appearance: An old medicine man.

Magic path: alchemist gut-reader
Strength: d4
Speed: d6->d8 + 1
Endurance: d6->d8 + 2
Knowledge: d10
Will: d8 + 2
Senses: d10 + 1

Mana: 15
2 bottles with 10 thaum each (20 total)
Ongoing effects: None


Magical materials

Vacuum!
Reanimate
Sharpen
Viscera
Diamond
Rope
Deathly Light (Radiation)

Inventory

1 sedated bugman

dissection knife: d4
Springy metal knive: d6
Springy metal sword: d6
Springy metal halberd: d8
Curved blade: d6
Icepick: d4
gun: d8 [50 rounds left]
10 smokebombs
thaumic bomb (currently empty)
6 x d8 rifle
6 x d8 sword

Ecalir's old armor: d8 (in use)
shield (+1 to protective rolls from armor)
Sealer Suit: d4 (vs magic)

Alchemist’s Gear
398 gold 
7 silver
15 kg black biometal

A glass slab with a topographical map of the kingdom carved into it
a bottle of glowing blue sea water, inside protective box with lock
a glass orb with barely visible lotus inside of it, inside staff assembly.
magic coin
Small book
magic compass + map
Gimbal that points towards diamonds (range around 100 meter)
Sunbro scepter

book on normal plants and animals
book on magical plants and animals/creatures
handbook on making weapons&armor, including a list of known types
a detailed account of the Artifacter war
map of the old world
good quality book&pen
good history book
series of good maps of area around Alkahest and the volcano

Paradox snail (inside jar) and things to keep them happy and fed, linked to Ecalir
Extra pair of paradox snails
Doctor's bag
set of ingredients (plants, chemicals and the like) for making poisons or antidotes (21 uses left)
High quality backpack
donkey named Yvonne for carrying
Zomboraptor head
Lantern
several hundred feet of rope
climbing crampons
a grappling hook
iron stakes
net made of rope
several vials with imp fat
20 vials
2x Collapsible rod
10 oil flasks
300 feet of really big, thick, strong rope
100 feet of metal chain
box of metal spikes
pair of binoculars
4 boxes of rags
Medium armor: d6 (not in use)
2 sets of digging tools (for Darwin + Ecalir)
Extra digging tools (for hired workers)
tarps, paint, and other stuff we can use to camouflage things with
2 doses of fast-working anesthetic for knocking out humans
2 weeks of ration

Off to Kaolin we go. Serve as Darwin's trusty steeds for the part we do on foot.

I'd like to go through Darwin's books along the way there. Just looking for everything I can find about Alizarin, Telcal, covenants and other gods. I'm a barbarian who hasn't been paying attention in class and suddenly needs a crash course in wizard history 101.

Spoiler:  Écalir Speedwagon (click to show/hide)

Name: Écalir Speedwagon

Appearance: barbarian, think Arnie from Conan the Barbarian (currently murderbird)
Magic path: Hunting flesh-scroll
Strength: d10+2
Speed: d10+1
Endurance: d8+1
Knowledge: d4
Will: d6+2
Senses: d6+1

Mana: 60
Ongoing effects:None


Magical materials

left Arm: wood
Right arm: Insect 
Stomach: Strong acid
Chest: White Phosphorous 
Left buttcheek: Electricity
Right buttcheek: Lightning
left leg: multiply

Inventory

Mare's Leg: Lever Action, d8, 5/5 magazine, 45 spare bullets.
Quality weapon (Spear): d8
Longsword with glowing runes
Springy metal warpick: d8
Springy metal knive: d6
Springy metal sword: d6
9 smokebombs

Thaumic flamethrower (5/50 thaum tank, d10 str requirement, armored fuel tank) + extra canisters with compressed gas

Poncho
Sombrero
Fitted armor: d8
Sealer Suit: d4 vs magic
Shield (+1 to protective rolls from armor)

Backpack
100 feet of rope
Bandages
Tattoo Kit
199g worth of gems
doctor's bag
Gladiator Badge
Jade tablets (48-number of words)
binoculars

[2]
Eclair holds a book up to his beak for a few minutes and then remembers he can't read. Darwin is gonna have to read this to him.

Converted
We'll assume it costs you...15 to get up to Kaolin. Its quite chilly up here, hope you have warm clothing.

You get yourself a big box made for the scepter. Its kind of like the case for musical instrument, but with a small hole in the bottom to let the point of the staff touch things while the box is closed. 2 gold.

Basically, it works like this: It only works on Plants. No bugs or animals. Fungi work though, in great disregard for taxonomy. For many minor things you need no roll. So if you wanted a tree to bow itself over to form a bridge, you just have to ask it. For more major things, especially things that could harm the plants, a will roll may be needed. Telling a tree to tear itself out of the ground and tumble down a hill onto your enemies for instance. And things which require gross modifications of form or size will require mana. You can tell a shrub to transform into a horse, but it can't really do so without mana. Once it is transformed though, riding it will just be asking.

There's nothing in a biometal creature you make. Least nothing really. They don't have organs or have any sort of internal patterning like a normal creature. If you cut them open there's basically just movement tissue. So no, can't steal words from their guts.


Now, Kaolin is a big temple city, lots of pilgrims, small temples to minor gods, large temples to major ones, and the main temple to the sun right at the tip top. You can ask whoever you want about monsters, but how they'll respond might vary.





And now for the big turn crew

((Did some discord staff testing, tl;dr we Sunbros now.))

((This concept interests me, even if it's irrelevant to me in-game!  Please, tell me more!))

Was that "Contain" a sculptor word?  I really thought I'd only be able to find Invoker words here, but I'm totally happy if that's for me.

Invest seventy mana into leveling end to +4.  Inspect any strange effects this causes.  (Already included in sheet)

Anyway, copy whatever the storage mechanism for mana is in the furnace, and set up a test drainer in the magicoal room.  Ekrov has a day to spend on this, so he'll confirm that it works, then set up a more permanent drainer if he does.  Use some of the massive supplies of gold wiring that have been collected.  Watch the thing for awhile, to make sure it's working, or to figure out what needs to be changed if this action isn't sufficient to set up a passive mana generator that'll function on its own for the next month or so at least.

Aside from that, I want to enchant that pair of iron rods that allow teleportation between them when fed mana.  They should be capable of transporting one person with a heavy load (up to a second person piggybacking), and I want them to work like the thaumic items--shove mana in, you get the effect, no rolls or anything.  If it wuld make it simpler, have one of the rods be permanently fixed in position, inside the central room that contains the King's Bunker (but not inside the bunker, obviously).

One last question.  Are any of the gravid keystones perfectly round?  Maybe the king's key?  My sculpture needs something perfectly round, and it'd be the ultimate flex to use the ultra rare king's key for that.

...Aaaaand also melt some magicoal chunks.

Spoiler: O.o (click to show/hide)

Name: Ekrov Trenian Vyachilad
Description: A noble's son, Ekrov is a boy on the cusp of adulthood, and barely looks it.  His hands are soft, his appearance somewhat unkempt, but his body has toughened from his time on the road.  He's no longer scrawny, though he's still somewhat short--though it's hard to tell whether that's due to age or genetics.  His eyes are calm and constantly look around in absentminded wonderment; he seems continually fascinated, but almost amused as well, as if there's a hidden joke in everything he sees.  He wears a clearly high-quality outfit, but to his credit it looks unusually practical for a noble, subdued brown in color and light aside from thin pieces of light leather in strategic locations, clearly intended more as protection than a fashion statement.  He carries a small backpack, and wears a light cloak that's had an absurd number of little pockets clumsily sewn into it.  He has a very large third eye in the center of his forehead.  It is rotated ninety degrees from his other eyes, and has a glittering gold iris set into an entirely black sclera.  It cannot turn to look at things without him moving his entire head, and is rock solid.
Magic Path: Alchemist Sculptor
Mana: 77 (259 thaum carried)
Magic Words: "Animate", "Cloud", "Banish", "Iron", "Human", "Clockwork" "Contain"?

Stats:
Strength: d6
Speed: d6+2
Endurance: d10+4
Knowledge: d12+5
Will: d6+2
Senses: d12+1

Ongoing Effects:  None.

Current Sculpture Materials:
1. Something of perfect roundness
2. Ash from the ruins of a city
3. Skin containing an old scar
4. A book
5. Honey
6. Something that came from beyond the skies

Inventory:
Backpack
Lightly armored traveling outfit (enchanted to d6, from d4)
--Wooden shield (+1 to armor rolls, most of the time)
Steel stilleto (d4 melee)
Merc Longsword (d6 Melee)
Ornamental spring pistol (d6 ranged) [6/6] (30 spare shots)
Alchemist gear
12 gold, 8 silver (Saeko owes him 400 gold...  For someone with d12 sense, Ekrov can be pretty gullible.)
Orb key thing, looted from long dead pilot corpse.
35 (!) Clockwork mainsprings capable of powering full robots
Enough robot pieces to reassemble a full combat robot.  (This may be being cannibalized for the power armor)
Ash from the ruins of Gravid. (sculpture mat)
Text-metal linked to another piece of text-metal, carried by Saeko.
Several small sculptures from Gravid. Idols, basically. Some ceramic jugs and gold jewelry as well.

A wearable robot exoskeleton, with all the mechanics moved to the exterior.
--Enchanted so that it can be worn, and the mechanical parts will follow the movements of the wearer.
FERROUS MEMENTO, THE MEMORY SKULL!
--Enchanted to only open when the correct passphrase is spoken to it.  Only Ekrov knows the passphrase.
--Enchanted so that Ekrov is always aware of its location and status.

Two broken clockwork robots, shoved in crates.  Details here,  here, and here.  And a question about rewriting their minds here.
A pair of strength-increasing clockwork gauntlets, which were clearly meant to be used by the robots, "seemingly for bending metal".
A strange blunt clockwork circular saw that is extremely effective at cutting through metal.
A  straight bladed clockwork sword, with a slot in the bottom for a power cell.  It is a lightning saber; when properly empowered, it will produce high heat and electrical discharge that will greatly enhance both its cutting power and the damage it causes.  It needs a power cell of the right size; which is basically a charged battery.
A large bag of bomblets, taken from an unexploded clockwork bomb.

Paints, a dish, sands, glitter, water, general scrying supplies.
Pencil + Paper.
Expensive medical supplies.

Sketches of:
Gyrotourbillon's workings
Benedict the Griffon
Detailed but incomplete schematics of clockwork robot people.
Clockwork machinegun schematics.
Simple clockwork tools schematics.
Schematic for a simple remotely-operated alchemist-gear manipulator thing.
Maps to the three caches of clockwork loot buried somewhere between Alkahest and Lake Candentis.
The design and construction for a full combat robot, of the kind found in Gravid.
The structure and enchantment framework of a flying thaumic warmachine, found within Gravid.  Incomplete, due to Ekrov's lack of understanding about how the machine knows what to do.
The structure and functioning of a thaumic rifle, found within Gravid.
Even more sketches on how complex thaumic devices work, in particular dealing with the spirits that animate them and give them some degree of life and sentience.
The full schematics of one of the "Clockwork dragons" that attacked the party at Gravid.
The design and function of thaumic keystones.
The design and function of Gravid's giant thaumic furnace.


TO-DO LIST:
MEMORY TINKER!!!

Clockwork stuff:
Fix a robot
Try to reverse engineer and understand those power pellet crucibles.
Fix the broken machine guns
Look into cloning machine gun ammo?  Probably not something we'll care about ever, but I wanna DAKKA...
Find out where all these clockwork things are coming from.  Apparently they might actually come from Candentis?

Test banish teleportation.

Make thaumic tools run on thaum, rather than mana or magicoal.

Cache A: The buried death pellet furnaces, both the unopened ones and the empty opened one.
Cache B: All the unexploded bombs from the wreck, including one that's been opened and had some of the bomblets taken out.
Cache C: The rest of the loot from the wreck, buried inside crates.  Contains:

"A large number of tools (These are what you could call mundane tools like wrenches, screw drivers, plyers, and the like. There are a lot of them in different sizes and shapes but none are hugely rare or valuable on their own. Though they are admittedly well made.)"
"A pnumatic self heating rivet gun and the air compressor for it"
"A sort of 'Jaws of Life' style combination spreader and cutter. Basically a massive pnumatic pair of plyers/snips."
"3 more working machine guns, and a half dozen that are broken in some way"  ((These deal "d12 [damage], if memory serves, though they often roll multiples."))
"About 10 or so big boxes of ammo (there are a lot of loose belts around so the amount isn't exact)"
"A welding system"

If you're a sculptor, then any words you find written down cannot be used. You can still understand them though. Sculptors gain words only through sculptures.

Ok. You don't glow like Saeko. Instead you sort of have veins of magic running through your skin. Ever seen tron? Or Zone of the enders? Or Fable will lines? Like that. Big glowing lines running through your flesh.

There is no storage in the furnace itself. The mana is piped up to a main line and then off into the ruins elsewhere.  In any case, the draining method of the furnace is very simple: Mana flows through this gold wire, so they created a mesh of it to catch the mana and guide it off wherever it needed to go. You can test this very simply using a single wire, sticking it in the coal room and then taking the end outside. Mana will flow through the wire and out on your end. The issue is that in order to efficiently drain the pile  you'd need to basically encase it in a faraday cage of wire. The tighter the mesh, the more effective the draining.

Alright. The fixed position would help. The easiest would be two in fixed positions, but if you can't manage that then one moving and one fixed is second best. To actually "entangle" them would be pretty cheap. D8 or maybe d10 depending on exact words. The cost for teleportation would vary on distance.

No. They actually vary slightly among both the kinds and individual stones. They seem almost organic, like river stones, all somewhat similar but not identical. The King's key is a sort of squat teardrop shape, slightly elongated with a blunt "Point".

I think I'm gonna start reducing the amount you can eat dependent on how big the actions you make are. 38 mana, 1 coal.

Consume more coal. Level up Strength if mana goes above 100 at any time.

Keep looking for words inside of golems.

Test out the Force attack buffs. Find a rock outside and clap my hands together, casting a d6 Lightning Strength attack on it.

Spoiler: Zavi (click to show/hide)

Name: Zavirius En-Drani Haver, Painter
Appearance: A girl of unknown but apparently foreign descent. She claims to be the last surviving member of a long-dead ancient race, kept preserved in some kind of magical stasis, but this is likely untrue. Though her skin is a strange shade not normally seen on the continent, and her hair is bleached white with a slight green reflective tint. She is not very tall but stout like a dwarf and startlingly strong. She's wearing a red gambeson, gray pants, metal bracers, shin guards and a sallet helm. Her right bracer is cracked and splintered.
Mana: 31
Method: Flesh-Inscribed Channel
Materials: Lightweight, Explosion, Toxic, Lightning, Sunlight, Grand Lodestone, Slow, Human
Strength: d10+1
Speed: d8+2
Endurance: d6+2
Knowledge: d8+1
Will: d8+5
Senses: d6+3

Ongoing effects: Permanently immune to nerve gas, D6 Force boosted energy attacks on both fists

Inventory:
160 Gold
31 Magicoal
Backpack
Tattoo kit
Paints and brushes
Medium Armor (d6)
Kite Shield (d6)
Long Sword (d6)
Catch Pole
3 Small Bombs
Manacles
1-mana/shot explosion powered rifle.
Cloak permanently enchanted to limit channeling to 10 mana/hour

Silver axe-helm.

Salt the Condor-Winged Baboon
Strength: d8
Speed: d8
Endurance: d6
Knowledge: d4
Will: d4
Senses: d6

Small bag

In Alcahest:

Wooden Arm-Guards (d4 armor)
Hemp sack
Kukri (d6 weapon)
Square-tip machete

5 coal, 189.

No luck this time.

Force, as I understood it, basically increases the kinetic energy of any attack you make. As per your spell...I have no real idea what you're doing here. Clapping your hands together and then casting lightning strength on a rock? Are you strengthening the lightning and striking the rock? Strengthening the rock with lightning (whatever that means) or strengthening your hands with lightining?

You confuse me.

Time to move furniture today, in preparation for trying to package up the core tomorrow.

Use three temporary buff spells to help with this process (10ish hour duration, length of a working day.)  A d8 strengthen (strength) spell on self to help pick up and shove around heavy objects, a d8 Strengthen Speed spell on self to help move more quickly and get more work done, and a d6 Strengthen Grow Expand spell on self to increase size, which should also help remove and carry stuff out.

Then move out much of the stuff in the core room.  Aim for the following:

Stuff on the top of the room, should the gravity normalize inside this chamber, to keep it from falling on or damaging stuff below it.
The contents of the library.
The contents of the laboratory and workshop.
Particularly valuable or fragile-looking pieces.
Cloth hangings, clothing or other lightweight valuables, to ensure they remain intact.

Up to ten temporary Strengthen Reverse-expand spells will be used to help shrink the stuff that's being carried out as loot.  The duration for these is ~12 days, so they'll re-enlarge once back at the capital.  Aim for max value, as best as Saeko can judge, but pick out at least one statue to keep.

Crew is to haul the loot items up to the surface.  If Saeko has plenty of time, have her help with that.

In the evening, go for a pleasure flight.

Spoiler: Saeko Hirahara (click to show/hide)

Young Japanese woman with a long black braid and a white and red fitted robe with long gloves.  Clothing made of metallic thread.  Elf ears.  Violet eyes that glow brightly.  Glowing like a chemical glowstick with a purplish-pinkish light.

Invoking Empath

Str  d6 +1
Speed  d8 +1
Endurance  d10+4
Knowledge  d8+2
Will  d10+3
Senses  d8 +2

Materials: d12 Ape, d12 Grow, d12 Strengthen, d12 Expand, d10 Permanent, d8 Bird, d6 Force, d4 Ice
Location: Ruins of Gravid
Status: Fine.  Improved hearing.  Some empathic sense.  Magically lightened to some degree.
Temporary Effects: d8 Grow Strengthen for hearing, day 20/30.  Huge feathery bird wings, last 2 days.

Familiar.  "Benedict"  Cougar/red-tailed hawk, adequate flyer, garage-sized with 120ish foot wingspan.
Natural weapons d10, d10+d6 with swooooop.  5/4+1 enchantments. d6 Strengthen Grow, d8 Strengthen Grow, d10 Strengthen Grow, d8 Strengthen Bird Speed, d12 Strengthen Grow over 1 week.  Eats 3 gold/day worth of food.  Properly harnessed and well kitted out for riding and baggage.

Str D20
Spd D6
End D12
Kno D4
Will D8
Sen D6

Expedition Status:
Saeko, Ekrov, Zavi.
3 guards, 2 in personal service.
3 assistants and workers.
Excavation tools and equipment.
10 days worth of supplies.
two working machine guns.
Key orbs: Soldier, Technician, Aristocrat, King
Accessable locations: All of lower level of city ruins, save for king door.  Likely access to still-unexplored upper levels.

explored: Through soldier-locked door. leads to..
lower-level maintenance and utility areas.
Armoury
Crop rooms
Hangars
King door

Loot:
8x suits of silk clothing.
8x suits of cotton clothing.
26x Thaumic sabres.
56x magic rifles
19x suits of magic armour
Broken magic armour bits.
Thaumic tools
3x Thaumic wire-laying tools
3x large gold wire spools
Crystal with d12 Cloth.
1x Miniature Fighter-Sparrow Core.

3x deactivated golems
6x gold swirly orbs (explosives)
16x telescoping silver rods (portable force fields)
4x big mana rifles
1x rifle with flower petal rod

Art Pieces:
statuary of harp-playing waifish girl.
very fine quality evocative bust.

16 barrels of magicoal. 3d20+10 pieces each, each containing 3d20 mana.
first barrel has 17 chunks.

Items:
Ghost Charm
Alchemist's Gear
Two machine guns! with lots of ammo.
82 mana
60 thaum
151 gold
d8+1 armour: The outfit, and a shield.  Weighs as if it were d4.
magic texting device.
parachute popsicle-stick.
Sealer-suit gloves
Shield.
Adamant Weave Backpack.  Contents are magically lightened via Lightweight spell.
Waterskin
Adamant Weave Cloth.  Sufficient for an outfit or two backpacks.
5kg steel rod
Compass
Goggles
Doctor's Bag
Sealer suit material.
Surgical tools
Magic Spyglass
~200 gold value of gold and silver ingots and precious gems.

Jade tablets with d8 View, d10 Steel, and d10 Speed.
disassembled force-field rod with [Force D4] [Wall d12] and Permanent d10 (inserted into brain.)

Alchemy Supplies

Stashed:
Cable-wrapped steel lockbox with radioactive pellet inside.
Box of painting-golem

Businesses:
Large decrepit building in Galena.
Share in presumptive new Galena mine.

Notes: Improving physical stats with strengthen, d4->d6 is d6, d6->d8 is d12, d8->d10 is d20 or more.

[7+3,2+3,5+3 v 3, 5, 2] so -10 mana.

We'll assume you get all that out, save for a few things from the lab that are literally attached to the ground.

5,6,6,6,  3,  1,  4, 4,10, 4
5,8,6,12,13,13,11,10,5,  4

[-49 mana.]

Ok, consider it stored.

Flying in the evening is possible, though it gets harder the later it gets because the nice thermals of the day start to die off and you have to flap instead of soar more.

[Devastator]

I'm assuming 'Lightning Strength' means a Lightning spell, but Strength-based because it's a short-ranged attack.

[Radio Controlled]

Buy a set of warmer clothing if you think it's necessary. Also a chocobo sweater vest and such for our birbman.

Know to +1. Then, I'd like to go through our books, looking for everything I can find about Alizarin, Telcal, covenants and other gods. Tell what I learn to Ecalir in the form of bedtime stories. I gave an example in the discord for the general template.

Then start asking around about that monster, preferably to people who stand to give some sort of useful information and not just superstitious claptrap, such as people who venture into the mountains or who have encountered it and lived to tell the tale, should such people exist. Perhaps even see if there are any corpses that were retrieved for us to investigate.

Finally, for that staff, what is the range on it? How many can it influence at once? And if we were to make a 'shrub-horse' as in your example, what would the end result look like?

Spoiler: Darwin Zeppeli (click to show/hide)

Name: Darwin Zeppeli
Appearance: An old medicine man.

Magic path: alchemist gut-reader
Strength: d4
Speed: d6->d8 + 1
Endurance: d6->d8 + 2
Knowledge: d10 + 1
Will: d8 + 2
Senses: d10 + 1

Mana: 30
2 bottles with 10 thaum each (20 total)
Ongoing effects: None


Magical materials

Vacuum!
Reanimate
Sharpen
Viscera
Diamond
Rope
Deathly Light (Radiation)

Inventory

1 sedated bugman

dissection knife: d4
Springy metal knive: d6
Springy metal sword: d6
Springy metal halberd: d8
Curved blade: d6
Icepick: d4
gun: d8 [50 rounds left]
10 smokebombs
thaumic bomb (currently empty)
6 x d8 rifle
6 x d8 sword

Ecalir's old armor: d8 (in use)
shield (+1 to protective rolls from armor)
Sealer Suit: d4 (vs magic)

Alchemist’s Gear
196 gold 
7 silver
15 kg black biometal

A glass slab with a topographical map of the kingdom carved into it
a bottle of glowing blue sea water, inside protective box with lock
a glass orb with barely visible lotus inside of it, inside staff assembly.
magic coin
Small book
magic compass + map
Gimbal that points towards diamonds (range around 100 meter)
Sunbro scepter

book on normal plants and animals
book on magical plants and animals/creatures
handbook on making weapons&armor, including a list of known types
a detailed account of the Artifacter war
map of the old world
good quality book&pen
good history book
series of good maps of area around Alkahest and the volcano

Paradox snail (inside jar) and things to keep them happy and fed, linked to Ecalir
Extra pair of paradox snails
Doctor's bag
set of ingredients (plants, chemicals and the like) for making poisons or antidotes (21 uses left)
High quality backpack
donkey named Yvonne for carrying
Zomboraptor head
Lantern
several hundred feet of rope
climbing crampons
a grappling hook
iron stakes
net made of rope
several vials with imp fat
20 vials
2x Collapsible rod
10 oil flasks
300 feet of really big, thick, strong rope
100 feet of metal chain
box of metal spikes
pair of binoculars
4 boxes of rags
Medium armor: d6 (not in use)
2 sets of digging tools (for Darwin + Ecalir)
Extra digging tools (for hired workers)
tarps, paint, and other stuff we can use to camouflage things with
2 doses of fast-working anesthetic for knocking out humans
2 weeks of ration

[Egan_BW]

Cast a permanent d8 Human Lightweight enchantment and a permanent d8 Human Toxin enchantment to resist all toxins on Saeko. Retry failures.

More coal. If I go above 100, level Str, then End.

Look for Words buried in the golden conduits.

If Saeko removes the Core from the bunker, wear my mana-flow limiting cloak.

Spoiler: Zavi (click to show/hide)

Name: Zavirius En-Drani Haver, Painter
Appearance: A girl of unknown but apparently foreign descent. She claims to be the last surviving member of a long-dead ancient race, kept preserved in some kind of magical stasis, but this is likely untrue. Though her skin is a strange shade not normally seen on the continent, and her hair is bleached white with a slight green reflective tint. She is not very tall but stout like a dwarf and startlingly strong. She's wearing a red gambeson, gray pants, metal bracers, shin guards and a sallet helm. Her right bracer is cracked and splintered.
Mana: 70
Method: Flesh-Inscribed Channel
Materials: Lightweight, Explosion, Toxic, Lightning, Sunlight, Grand Lodestone, Slow, Human
Strength: d10+4
Speed: d8+2
Endurance: d6+2
Knowledge: d8+1
Will: d8+5
Senses: d6+3

Ongoing effects: Permanently immune to nerve gas, D6 Force boosted energy attacks on both fists

Inventory:
160 Gold
26 Magicoal
Backpack
Tattoo kit
Paints and brushes
Medium Armor (d6)
Kite Shield (d6)
Long Sword (d6)
Catch Pole
3 Small Bombs
Manacles
1-mana/shot explosion powered rifle.
Cloak permanently enchanted to limit channeling to 10 mana/hour

Silver axe-helm.

Salt the Condor-Winged Baboon
Strength: d8
Speed: d8
Endurance: d6
Knowledge: d4
Will: d4
Senses: d6

Small bag

In Alcahest:

Wooden Arm-Guards (d4 armor)
Hemp sack
Kukri (d6 weapon)
Square-tip machete

[Devastator]

Cast a spell to strengthen Zavi's endurance to d8.  Use a similar Grow Strengthen Permanent over a day effect to hopefully make it cost less than a d12.  Retry failures.

Today I'm going to remove the core.  Remove some gold cable from a destroyed wall and use the Cloth spell to make it into some gold cloth.  Then cut out and make a bag of the sealer suit material, and sew the gold cloth to one side.  Turn it so that's the inside of the bag.

Get help from Ekrov if I'm too clumsy to manage it.

Once the bag is ready, go to the core room, fly up, and snag the core inside the bag.  See if that allows me to remove it.  If it works, put the bag with the core inside my backpack for safekeeping.

If it all goes well, finish the day by disassembling one of the control suits, looking for the control words, and if not, recovering the precious metals it's made out of.

Crew is to continue excavating the top of the palace.

Spoiler: Saeko Hirahara (click to show/hide)

Young Japanese woman with a long black braid and a white and red fitted robe with long gloves.  Clothing made of metallic thread.  Elf ears.  Violet eyes that glow brightly.  Glowing like a chemical glowstick with a purplish-pinkish light.

Invoking Empath

Str  d6 +1
Speed  d8 +1
Endurance  d10+4
Knowledge  d8+2
Will  d10+3
Senses  d8 +2

Materials: d12 Ape, d12 Grow, d12 Strengthen, d12 Expand, d10 Permanent, d8 Bird, d6 Force, d4 Ice
Location: Ruins of Gravid
Status: Fine.  Improved hearing.  Some empathic sense.  Magically lightened to some degree.
Temporary Effects: d8 Grow Strengthen for hearing, day 21/30.  Huge feathery bird wings, last for today.

Familiar.  "Benedict"  Cougar/red-tailed hawk, adequate flyer, garage-sized with 120ish foot wingspan.
Natural weapons d10, d10+d6 with swooooop.  5/4+1 enchantments. d6 Strengthen Grow, d8 Strengthen Grow, d10 Strengthen Grow, d8 Strengthen Bird Speed, d12 Strengthen Grow over 1 week.  Eats 3 gold/day worth of food.  Properly harnessed and well kitted out for riding and baggage.

Str D20
Spd D6
End D12
Kno D4
Will D8
Sen D6

Expedition Status:
Saeko, Ekrov, Zavi.
3 guards, 2 in personal service.
3 assistants and workers.
Excavation tools and equipment.
9 days worth of supplies.
two working machine guns.
Key orbs: Soldier, Technician, Aristocrat, King
Accessable locations: All of lower level of city ruins, save for king door.  Likely access to still-unexplored upper levels.

explored: Through soldier-locked door. leads to..
lower-level maintenance and utility areas.
Armoury
Crop rooms
Hangars
King door

Loot:
8x suits of silk clothing.
8x suits of cotton clothing.
King's wardrobe
26x Thaumic sabres.
56x magic rifles
19x suits of magic armour
Broken magic armour bits.
Thaumic tools
3x Thaumic wire-laying tools
3x large gold wire spools
Crystal with d12 Cloth.
1x Miniature Fighter-Sparrow Core.
Advanced thaumic personal laboratory+workshop.

3x deactivated golems
6x gold swirly orbs (explosives)
16x telescoping silver rods (portable force fields)
4x big mana rifles
1x rifle with flower petal rod

Art Pieces:
statuary of harp-playing waifish girl.
very fine quality evocative bust.
10x miniature furniture pieces from core room.

16 barrels of magicoal. 3d20+10 pieces each, each containing 3d20 mana.
first barrel has 16 chunks.

Items:
Ghost Charm
Alchemist's Gear
Two machine guns! with lots of ammo.
23 mana
60 thaum
151 gold
d8+1 armour: The outfit, and a shield.  Weighs as if it were d4.
magic texting device.
parachute popsicle-stick.
Sealer-suit gloves
Shield.
Adamant Weave Backpack.  Contents are magically lightened via Lightweight spell.
Waterskin
Adamant Weave Cloth.  Sufficient for an outfit or two backpacks.
5kg steel rod
Compass
Goggles
Doctor's Bag
Sealer suit material.
Surgical tools
Magic Spyglass
~200 gold value of gold and silver ingots and precious gems.

Jade tablets with d8 View, d10 Steel, and d10 Speed.
disassembled force-field rod with [Force D4] [Wall d12] and Permanent d10 (inserted into brain.)

Alchemy Supplies

Stashed:
Cable-wrapped steel lockbox with radioactive pellet inside.
Box of painting-golem

Businesses:
Large decrepit building in Galena.
Share in presumptive new Galena mine.

Notes: Improving physical stats with strengthen, d4->d6 is d6, d6->d8 is d12, d8->d10 is d20 or more.

[syvarris]

Okay, I can't use the contain word since I'm a sculptor, so... can Saeko use it?  I had been meaning to find words for her anyway.  If she can use it, it needs a die size, I think.

Set up the mana drainer inside the magicoal pile room.  It does not need to encase the pile, and I don't want to take any risks setting up a giant drainer--I just want a decently large net that'll steadily siphon off mana to storage, even if it's massively inefficient.  As for the nature of the storage... well, I can't recall you describing thaumic mana batteries before, but seeing as how practically everything in this place uses the same mana wires, I figure Ekrov has seen some kind of mana storage by now.  Set something up.

Next, the teleport rods.  Go find an out-of-the-way room that is locked behind an aristocrat door, which does not contain anything important.  Set up the teleport rod inside that room, it'll be an iron rod as tall as a person, set into a base that keeps it rigidly supported and fixed in position.  Use magic to summon it up if necessary, I don't care.  Using "Iron", "Banish", and "Human", Enchant it to be able to teleport a person to or from a specific other rod of iron which is only a foot long, when a passphrase is spoken and magic is pumped into it or the handheld rod.  Teleports only teleport the person spending the mana, along with whatever they're holding aside from the rod itself (so you can teleport back to where it is).  We'll probably set up a more permanent arrangement later, so for now a simple person transporter is good enough.

...And don't tell Zavi about this.  Saeko can know, of course, and will get told the passphrase, but Zavi and the crew don't need to know anything.

Spend 80 mana buffing Senses to +3 from +1 (already accounted for)

Finally... remember the super high-quality painting Zavi drew of Saeko?  Animate the image of Saeko into a fully existant, real person, with a duration of six days (the length of time we have left in Gravid, and which may be extended if it's not a terrible idea).  Words are Human, and Animate.  Once the clone is summoned, talk to her and interview her; I want to know what her mind and powers are like.  Is her mind based off of Zavi's impression of Saeko, as she was the artist?  Or Ekrov's, since he's the animator?  See if Saeko will help, and have her ask about things only Saeko would know--does the clone of her have her memories, despite her not being involved in its creation at all?  Does the clone Saeko have any magic, or mana?  Does she have the physical and mental acuity of Saeko, or only the capability Ekrov's magic could grant her?  Is there anything else interesting that Ekrov notices?

And melt magicoal.  Hey, even if it's only 1 chunk, it's something.

Spoiler: O.o (click to show/hide)

Name: Ekrov Trenian Vyachilad
Description: A noble's son, Ekrov is a boy on the cusp of adulthood, and barely looks it.  His hands are soft, his appearance somewhat unkempt, but his body has toughened from his time on the road.  He's no longer scrawny, though he's still somewhat short--though it's hard to tell whether that's due to age or genetics.  His eyes are calm and constantly look around in absentminded wonderment; he seems continually fascinated, but almost amused as well, as if there's a hidden joke in everything he sees.  He wears a clearly high-quality outfit, but to his credit it looks unusually practical for a noble, subdued brown in color and light aside from thin pieces of light leather in strategic locations, clearly intended more as protection than a fashion statement.  He carries a small backpack, and wears a light cloak that's had an absurd number of little pockets clumsily sewn into it.  He has a very large third eye in the center of his forehead.  It is rotated ninety degrees from his other eyes, and has a glittering gold iris set into an entirely black sclera.  It cannot turn to look at things without him moving his entire head, and is rock solid.  -  Additionally, he has visible veins of glowing magic patterned over his skin, slowly pulsing and flowing.
Magic Path: Alchemist Sculptor
Mana: 94 (200 thaum carried)
Magic Words: "Animate", "Cloud", "Banish", "Iron", "Human", "Clockwork"

Stats:
Strength: d6
Speed: d6+2
Endurance: d10+4
Knowledge: d12+5
Will: d6+2
Senses: d12+3

Ongoing Effects:  None.

Current Sculpture Materials:
1. Something of perfect roundness
2. Ash from the ruins of a city
3. Skin containing an old scar
4. A book
5. Honey
6. Something that came from beyond the skies

Inventory:
Backpack
Lightly armored traveling outfit (enchanted to d6, from d4)
--Wooden shield (+1 to armor rolls, most of the time)
Steel stilleto (d4 melee)
Merc Longsword (d6 Melee)
Ornamental spring pistol (d6 ranged) [6/6] (30 spare shots)
Alchemist gear
12 gold, 8 silver (Saeko owes him 400 gold...  For someone with d12 sense, Ekrov can be pretty gullible.)
Orb key thing, looted from long dead pilot corpse.
35 (!) Clockwork mainsprings capable of powering full robots
Enough robot pieces to reassemble a full combat robot.  (This may be being cannibalized for the power armor)
Ash from the ruins of Gravid. (sculpture mat)
Text-metal linked to another piece of text-metal, carried by Saeko.
Several small sculptures from Gravid. Idols, basically. Some ceramic jugs and gold jewelry as well.

A wearable robot exoskeleton, with all the mechanics moved to the exterior.
--Enchanted so that it can be worn, and the mechanical parts will follow the movements of the wearer.
FERROUS MEMENTO, THE MEMORY SKULL!
--Enchanted to only open when the correct passphrase is spoken to it.  Only Ekrov knows the passphrase.
--Enchanted so that Ekrov is always aware of its location and status.

Two broken clockwork robots, shoved in crates.  Details here,  here, and here.  And a question about rewriting their minds here.
A pair of strength-increasing clockwork gauntlets, which were clearly meant to be used by the robots, "seemingly for bending metal".
A strange blunt clockwork circular saw that is extremely effective at cutting through metal.
A  straight bladed clockwork sword, with a slot in the bottom for a power cell.  It is a lightning saber; when properly empowered, it will produce high heat and electrical discharge that will greatly enhance both its cutting power and the damage it causes.  It needs a power cell of the right size; which is basically a charged battery.
A large bag of bomblets, taken from an unexploded clockwork bomb.

Paints, a dish, sands, glitter, water, general scrying supplies.
Pencil + Paper.
Expensive medical supplies.

Sketches of:
Gyrotourbillon's workings
Benedict the Griffon
Detailed but incomplete schematics of clockwork robot people.
Clockwork machinegun schematics.
Simple clockwork tools schematics.
Schematic for a simple remotely-operated alchemist-gear manipulator thing.
Maps to the three caches of clockwork loot buried somewhere between Alkahest and Lake Candentis.
The design and construction for a full combat robot, of the kind found in Gravid.
The structure and enchantment framework of a flying thaumic warmachine, found within Gravid.  Incomplete, due to Ekrov's lack of understanding about how the machine knows what to do.
The structure and functioning of a thaumic rifle, found within Gravid.
Even more sketches on how complex thaumic devices work, in particular dealing with the spirits that animate them and give them some degree of life and sentience.
The full schematics of one of the "Clockwork dragons" that attacked the party at Gravid.
The design and function of thaumic keystones.
The design and function of Gravid's giant thaumic furnace.


TO-DO LIST:
MEMORY TINKER!!!

Clockwork stuff:
Fix a robot
Try to reverse engineer and understand those power pellet crucibles.
Fix the broken machine guns
Look into cloning machine gun ammo?  Probably not something we'll care about ever, but I wanna DAKKA...
Find out where all these clockwork things are coming from.  Apparently they might actually come from Candentis?

Test banish teleportation.

Make thaumic tools run on thaum, rather than mana or magicoal.

Cache A: The buried death pellet furnaces, both the unopened ones and the empty opened one.
Cache B: All the unexploded bombs from the wreck, including one that's been opened and had some of the bomblets taken out.
Cache C: The rest of the loot from the wreck, buried inside crates.  Contains:

"A large number of tools (These are what you could call mundane tools like wrenches, screw drivers, plyers, and the like. There are a lot of them in different sizes and shapes but none are hugely rare or valuable on their own. Though they are admittedly well made.)"
"A pnumatic self heating rivet gun and the air compressor for it"
"A sort of 'Jaws of Life' style combination spreader and cutter. Basically a massive pnumatic pair of plyers/snips."
"3 more working machine guns, and a half dozen that are broken in some way"  ((These deal "d12 [damage], if memory serves, though they often roll multiples."))
"About 10 or so big boxes of ammo (there are a lot of loose belts around so the amount isn't exact)"
"A welding system"

[Egan_BW]

Glob. PW, for information on painting, review below post:
oh, and "attractive" isn't a synonym for "sexualized" here, you stupid skeleton

I told PW that the painting is actually potentially important. He asked me to describe what it actually looks like. I did so. He told me to keep note of it myself, because he would not remember.

Spoiler: taking note (click to show/hide)

[11:17 AM] ER: It's an image of Saeko, looking... powerful, and uh, attractive.
[11:19 AM] ER: She doesn't necessarily resemble saeko where doing so would contradict those characteristics. It's a sort of heightened reality, I would call it.
[11:20 AM] ER: She's obviously GLOWING, just like the real thing. Maybe some kind of magical aura.
[11:20 AM] ER: given that 7+1 vs 1 roll, it's masterfully made.
[11:22 AM] ER: Assume she's dressed the way saeko normally is, except maybe "reimagined", or simply misremembered. Zavi painted this while Sae wasn't around, remember.

[Pancaek]

Take in the sights as I'm following Darwin. What is the vegetation like around here, what plants/trees do I see? Also just keep an eye and ear out for danger and/or interesting things

Spoiler:  Écalir Speedwagon (click to show/hide)

Name: Écalir Speedwagon

Appearance: Terrorbird
Magic path: Hunting flesh-scroll
Strength: d10+2
Speed: d10+1
Endurance: d8+1
Knowledge: d4
Will: d6+2
Senses: d6+1

Mana: 60
Ongoing effects:None


Magical materials

left Arm: wood
Right arm: Insect 
Stomach: Strong acid
Chest: White Phosphorous 
Left buttcheek: Electricity
Right buttcheek: Lightning
left leg: multiply

Inventory

Mare's Leg: Lever Action, d8, 5/5 magazine, 45 spare bullets.
Quality weapon (Spear): d8
Longsword with glowing runes
Springy metal warpick: d8
Springy metal knive: d6
Springy metal sword: d6
9 smokebombs

Thaumic flamethrower (5/50 thaum tank, d10 str requirement, armored fuel tank) + extra canisters with compressed gas

Poncho
Sombrero
Fitted armor: d8
Sealer Suit: d4 vs magic
Shield (+1 to protective rolls from armor)

Backpack
100 feet of rope
Bandages
Tattoo Kit
199g worth of gems
doctor's bag
Gladiator Badge
Jade tablets (48-number of words)
binoculars

[piecewise]

hurt wrist typing with left hand only posts will be short

Buy a set of warmer clothing if you think it's necessary. Also a chocobo sweater vest and such for our birbman.

Know to +1. Then, I'd like to go through our books, looking for everything I can find about Alizarin, Telcal, covenants and other gods. Tell what I learn to Ecalir in the form of bedtime stories. I gave an example in the discord for the general template.

Then start asking around about that monster, preferably to people who stand to give some sort of useful information and not just superstitious claptrap, such as people who venture into the mountains or who have encountered it and lived to tell the tale, should such people exist. Perhaps even see if there are any corpses that were retrieved for us to investigate.

Finally, for that staff, what is the range on it? How many can it influence at once? And if we were to make a 'shrub-horse' as in your example, what would the end result look like?

Spoiler: Darwin Zeppeli (click to show/hide)

Name: Darwin Zeppeli
Appearance: An old medicine man.

Magic path: alchemist gut-reader
Strength: d4
Speed: d6->d8 + 1
Endurance: d6->d8 + 2
Knowledge: d10 + 1
Will: d8 + 2
Senses: d10 + 1

Mana: 30
2 bottles with 10 thaum each (20 total)
Ongoing effects: None


Magical materials

Vacuum!
Reanimate
Sharpen
Viscera
Diamond
Rope
Deathly Light (Radiation)

Inventory

1 sedated bugman

dissection knife: d4
Springy metal knive: d6
Springy metal sword: d6
Springy metal halberd: d8
Curved blade: d6
Icepick: d4
gun: d8 [50 rounds left]
10 smokebombs
thaumic bomb (currently empty)
6 x d8 rifle
6 x d8 sword

Ecalir's old armor: d8 (in use)
shield (+1 to protective rolls from armor)
Sealer Suit: d4 (vs magic)

Alchemist’s Gear
196 gold 
7 silver
15 kg black biometal

A glass slab with a topographical map of the kingdom carved into it
a bottle of glowing blue sea water, inside protective box with lock
a glass orb with barely visible lotus inside of it, inside staff assembly.
magic coin
Small book
magic compass + map
Gimbal that points towards diamonds (range around 100 meter)
Sunbro scepter

book on normal plants and animals
book on magical plants and animals/creatures
handbook on making weapons&armor, including a list of known types
a detailed account of the Artifacter war
map of the old world
good quality book&pen
good history book
series of good maps of area around Alkahest and the volcano

Paradox snail (inside jar) and things to keep them happy and fed, linked to Ecalir
Extra pair of paradox snails
Doctor's bag
set of ingredients (plants, chemicals and the like) for making poisons or antidotes (21 uses left)
High quality backpack
donkey named Yvonne for carrying
Zomboraptor head
Lantern
several hundred feet of rope
climbing crampons
a grappling hook
iron stakes
net made of rope
several vials with imp fat
20 vials
2x Collapsible rod
10 oil flasks
300 feet of really big, thick, strong rope
100 feet of metal chain
box of metal spikes
pair of binoculars
4 boxes of rags
Medium armor: d6 (not in use)
2 sets of digging tools (for Darwin + Ecalir)
Extra digging tools (for hired workers)
tarps, paint, and other stuff we can use to camouflage things with
2 doses of fast-working anesthetic for knocking out humans
2 weeks of ration

Take in the sights as I'm following Darwin. What is the vegetation like around here, what plants/trees do I see? Also just keep an eye and ear out for danger and/or interesting things

Spoiler:  Écalir Speedwagon (click to show/hide)

Name: Écalir Speedwagon

Appearance: Terrorbird
Magic path: Hunting flesh-scroll
Strength: d10+2
Speed: d10+1
Endurance: d8+1
Knowledge: d4
Will: d6+2
Senses: d6+1

Mana: 60
Ongoing effects:None


Magical materials

left Arm: wood
Right arm: Insect 
Stomach: Strong acid
Chest: White Phosphorous 
Left buttcheek: Electricity
Right buttcheek: Lightning
left leg: multiply

Inventory

Mare's Leg: Lever Action, d8, 5/5 magazine, 45 spare bullets.
Quality weapon (Spear): d8
Longsword with glowing runes
Springy metal warpick: d8
Springy metal knive: d6
Springy metal sword: d6
9 smokebombs

Thaumic flamethrower (5/50 thaum tank, d10 str requirement, armored fuel tank) + extra canisters with compressed gas

Poncho
Sombrero
Fitted armor: d8
Sealer Suit: d4 vs magic
Shield (+1 to protective rolls from armor)

Backpack
100 feet of rope
Bandages
Tattoo Kit
199g worth of gems
doctor's bag
Gladiator Badge
Jade tablets (48-number of words)
binoculars

4 gold

ok. if you want more prose, wait till later. if ok short

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Sun created Earth, Sky, Fire, Water. First generation, primal gods.
Earth is Earth, Fire is Fire. No separation, human forms are avatars.
Earth and Sky had may children, fire and water as well. All things on earth are these children, lesser gods and spirits, power reduced and domain shrinking each generation.
Alizarin, the place, is the goddess. This is why it remains even now. Gods are the source of mana.
Humans are created directly by the Sun, made of the stuff of the primal gods, but without the ability to create mana. The Sun gave humans total freedom, not bound to any demands or duties, at the cost of being reliant upon the mana of the gods.
The gods called Humans the "Most Loved of the Sun".

Comes at night, likes the ruins to the south, and cramped mountain passes. Ambushes loners or small groups.

Range is hard to say. roughly mile.  Seems to have no limit,

Cast a permanent d8 Human Lightweight enchantment and a permanent d8 Human Toxin enchantment to resist all toxins on Saeko. Retry failures.

More coal. If I go above 100, level Str, then End.

Look for Words buried in the golden conduits.

If Saeko removes the Core from the bunker, wear my mana-flow limiting cloak.

Spoiler: Zavi (click to show/hide)

Name: Zavirius En-Drani Haver, Painter
Appearance: A girl of unknown but apparently foreign descent. She claims to be the last surviving member of a long-dead ancient race, kept preserved in some kind of magical stasis, but this is likely untrue. Though her skin is a strange shade not normally seen on the continent, and her hair is bleached white with a slight green reflective tint. She is not very tall but stout like a dwarf and startlingly strong. She's wearing a red gambeson, gray pants, metal bracers, shin guards and a sallet helm. Her right bracer is cracked and splintered.
Mana: 70
Method: Flesh-Inscribed Channel
Materials: Lightweight, Explosion, Toxic, Lightning, Sunlight, Grand Lodestone, Slow, Human
Strength: d10+4
Speed: d8+2
Endurance: d6+2
Knowledge: d8+1
Will: d8+5
Senses: d6+3

Ongoing effects: Permanently immune to nerve gas, D6 Force boosted energy attacks on both fists

Inventory:
160 Gold
26 Magicoal
Backpack
Tattoo kit
Paints and brushes
Medium Armor (d6)
Kite Shield (d6)
Long Sword (d6)
Catch Pole
3 Small Bombs
Manacles
1-mana/shot explosion powered rifle.
Cloak permanently enchanted to limit channeling to 10 mana/hour

Silver axe-helm.

Salt the Condor-Winged Baboon
Strength: d8
Speed: d8
Endurance: d6
Knowledge: d4
Will: d4
Senses: d6

Small bag

In Alcahest:

Wooden Arm-Guards (d4 armor)
Hemp sack
Kukri (d6 weapon)
Square-tip machete

[1v1][5v3] -4 mana. You lose like 10% weight, and gain resistance, not immunity. But good. Dice higher

196

No dice

ok

Cast a spell to strengthen Zavi's endurance to d8.  Use a similar Grow Strengthen Permanent over a day effect to hopefully make it cost less than a d12.  Retry failures.

Today I'm going to remove the core.  Remove some gold cable from a destroyed wall and use the Cloth spell to make it into some gold cloth.  Then cut out and make a bag of the sealer suit material, and sew the gold cloth to one side.  Turn it so that's the inside of the bag.

Get help from Ekrov if I'm too clumsy to manage it.

Once the bag is ready, go to the core room, fly up, and snag the core inside the bag.  See if that allows me to remove it.  If it works, put the bag with the core inside my backpack for safekeeping.

If it all goes well, finish the day by disassembling one of the control suits, looking for the control words, and if not, recovering the precious metals it's made out of.

Crew is to continue excavating the top of the palace.

Spoiler: Saeko Hirahara (click to show/hide)

Young Japanese woman with a long black braid and a white and red fitted robe with long gloves.  Clothing made of metallic thread.  Elf ears.  Violet eyes that glow brightly.  Glowing like a chemical glowstick with a purplish-pinkish light.

Invoking Empath

Str  d6 +1
Speed  d8 +1
Endurance  d10+4
Knowledge  d8+2
Will  d10+3
Senses  d8 +2

Materials: d12 Ape, d12 Grow, d12 Strengthen, d12 Expand, d10 Permanent, d8 Bird, d6 Force, d4 Ice
Location: Ruins of Gravid
Status: Fine.  Improved hearing.  Some empathic sense.  Magically lightened to some degree.
Temporary Effects: d8 Grow Strengthen for hearing, day 21/30.  Huge feathery bird wings, last for today.

Familiar.  "Benedict"  Cougar/red-tailed hawk, adequate flyer, garage-sized with 120ish foot wingspan.
Natural weapons d10, d10+d6 with swooooop.  5/4+1 enchantments. d6 Strengthen Grow, d8 Strengthen Grow, d10 Strengthen Grow, d8 Strengthen Bird Speed, d12 Strengthen Grow over 1 week.  Eats 3 gold/day worth of food.  Properly harnessed and well kitted out for riding and baggage.

Str D20
Spd D6
End D12
Kno D4
Will D8
Sen D6

Expedition Status:
Saeko, Ekrov, Zavi.
3 guards, 2 in personal service.
3 assistants and workers.
Excavation tools and equipment.
9 days worth of supplies.
two working machine guns.
Key orbs: Soldier, Technician, Aristocrat, King
Accessable locations: All of lower level of city ruins, save for king door.  Likely access to still-unexplored upper levels.

explored: Through soldier-locked door. leads to..
lower-level maintenance and utility areas.
Armoury
Crop rooms
Hangars
King door

Loot:
8x suits of silk clothing.
8x suits of cotton clothing.
King's wardrobe
26x Thaumic sabres.
56x magic rifles
19x suits of magic armour
Broken magic armour bits.
Thaumic tools
3x Thaumic wire-laying tools
3x large gold wire spools
Crystal with d12 Cloth.
1x Miniature Fighter-Sparrow Core.
Advanced thaumic personal laboratory+workshop.

3x deactivated golems
6x gold swirly orbs (explosives)
16x telescoping silver rods (portable force fields)
4x big mana rifles
1x rifle with flower petal rod

Art Pieces:
statuary of harp-playing waifish girl.
very fine quality evocative bust.
10x miniature furniture pieces from core room.

16 barrels of magicoal. 3d20+10 pieces each, each containing 3d20 mana.
first barrel has 16 chunks.

Items:
Ghost Charm
Alchemist's Gear
Two machine guns! with lots of ammo.
23 mana
60 thaum
151 gold
d8+1 armour: The outfit, and a shield.  Weighs as if it were d4.
magic texting device.
parachute popsicle-stick.
Sealer-suit gloves
Shield.
Adamant Weave Backpack.  Contents are magically lightened via Lightweight spell.
Waterskin
Adamant Weave Cloth.  Sufficient for an outfit or two backpacks.
5kg steel rod
Compass
Goggles
Doctor's Bag
Sealer suit material.
Surgical tools
Magic Spyglass
~200 gold value of gold and silver ingots and precious gems.

Jade tablets with d8 View, d10 Steel, and d10 Speed.
disassembled force-field rod with [Force D4] [Wall d12] and Permanent d10 (inserted into brain.)

Alchemy Supplies

Stashed:
Cable-wrapped steel lockbox with radioactive pellet inside.
Box of painting-golem

Businesses:
Large decrepit building in Galena.
Share in presumptive new Galena mine.

Notes: Improving physical stats with strengthen, d4->d6 is d6, d6->d8 is d12, d8->d10 is d20 or more.

[1+4v7][7+4v10] 17 mana. ok.

Core bagging goes fine. But core won't move from hovering position. Needs something else. A "Release mechanism".

Half way done.

Okay, I can't use the contain word since I'm a sculptor, so... can Saeko use it?  I had been meaning to find words for her anyway.  If she can use it, it needs a die size, I think.

Set up the mana drainer inside the magicoal pile room.  It does not need to encase the pile, and I don't want to take any risks setting up a giant drainer--I just want a decently large net that'll steadily siphon off mana to storage, even if it's massively inefficient.  As for the nature of the storage... well, I can't recall you describing thaumic mana batteries before, but seeing as how practically everything in this place uses the same mana wires, I figure Ekrov has seen some kind of mana storage by now.  Set something up.

Next, the teleport rods.  Go find an out-of-the-way room that is locked behind an aristocrat door, which does not contain anything important.  Set up the teleport rod inside that room, it'll be an iron rod as tall as a person, set into a base that keeps it rigidly supported and fixed in position.  Use magic to summon it up if necessary, I don't care.  Using "Iron", "Banish", and "Human", Enchant it to be able to teleport a person to or from a specific other rod of iron which is only a foot long, when a passphrase is spoken and magic is pumped into it or the handheld rod.  Teleports only teleport the person spending the mana, along with whatever they're holding aside from the rod itself (so you can teleport back to where it is).  We'll probably set up a more permanent arrangement later, so for now a simple person transporter is good enough.

...And don't tell Zavi about this.  Saeko can know, of course, and will get told the passphrase, but Zavi and the crew don't need to know anything.

Spend 80 mana buffing Senses to +3 from +1 (already accounted for)

Finally... remember the super high-quality painting Zavi drew of Saeko?  Animate the image of Saeko into a fully existant, real person, with a duration of six days (the length of time we have left in Gravid, and which may be extended if it's not a terrible idea).  Words are Human, and Animate.  Once the clone is summoned, talk to her and interview her; I want to know what her mind and powers are like.  Is her mind based off of Zavi's impression of Saeko, as she was the artist?  Or Ekrov's, since he's the animator?  See if Saeko will help, and have her ask about things only Saeko would know--does the clone of her have her memories, despite her not being involved in its creation at all?  Does the clone Saeko have any magic, or mana?  Does she have the physical and mental acuity of Saeko, or only the capability Ekrov's magic could grant her?  Is there anything else interesting that Ekrov notices?

And melt magicoal.  Hey, even if it's only 1 chunk, it's something.

Spoiler: O.o (click to show/hide)

Name: Ekrov Trenian Vyachilad
Description: A noble's son, Ekrov is a boy on the cusp of adulthood, and barely looks it.  His hands are soft, his appearance somewhat unkempt, but his body has toughened from his time on the road.  He's no longer scrawny, though he's still somewhat short--though it's hard to tell whether that's due to age or genetics.  His eyes are calm and constantly look around in absentminded wonderment; he seems continually fascinated, but almost amused as well, as if there's a hidden joke in everything he sees.  He wears a clearly high-quality outfit, but to his credit it looks unusually practical for a noble, subdued brown in color and light aside from thin pieces of light leather in strategic locations, clearly intended more as protection than a fashion statement.  He carries a small backpack, and wears a light cloak that's had an absurd number of little pockets clumsily sewn into it.  He has a very large third eye in the center of his forehead.  It is rotated ninety degrees from his other eyes, and has a glittering gold iris set into an entirely black sclera.  It cannot turn to look at things without him moving his entire head, and is rock solid.  -  Additionally, he has visible veins of glowing magic patterned over his skin, slowly pulsing and flowing.
Magic Path: Alchemist Sculptor
Mana: 94 (200 thaum carried)
Magic Words: "Animate", "Cloud", "Banish", "Iron", "Human", "Clockwork"

Stats:
Strength: d6
Speed: d6+2
Endurance: d10+4
Knowledge: d12+5
Will: d6+2
Senses: d12+3

Ongoing Effects:  None.

Current Sculpture Materials:
1. Something of perfect roundness
2. Ash from the ruins of a city
3. Skin containing an old scar
4. A book
5. Honey
6. Something that came from beyond the skies

Inventory:
Backpack
Lightly armored traveling outfit (enchanted to d6, from d4)
--Wooden shield (+1 to armor rolls, most of the time)
Steel stilleto (d4 melee)
Merc Longsword (d6 Melee)
Ornamental spring pistol (d6 ranged) [6/6] (30 spare shots)
Alchemist gear
12 gold, 8 silver (Saeko owes him 400 gold...  For someone with d12 sense, Ekrov can be pretty gullible.)
Orb key thing, looted from long dead pilot corpse.
35 (!) Clockwork mainsprings capable of powering full robots
Enough robot pieces to reassemble a full combat robot.  (This may be being cannibalized for the power armor)
Ash from the ruins of Gravid. (sculpture mat)
Text-metal linked to another piece of text-metal, carried by Saeko.
Several small sculptures from Gravid. Idols, basically. Some ceramic jugs and gold jewelry as well.

A wearable robot exoskeleton, with all the mechanics moved to the exterior.
--Enchanted so that it can be worn, and the mechanical parts will follow the movements of the wearer.
FERROUS MEMENTO, THE MEMORY SKULL!
--Enchanted to only open when the correct passphrase is spoken to it.  Only Ekrov knows the passphrase.
--Enchanted so that Ekrov is always aware of its location and status.

Two broken clockwork robots, shoved in crates.  Details here,  here, and here.  And a question about rewriting their minds here.
A pair of strength-increasing clockwork gauntlets, which were clearly meant to be used by the robots, "seemingly for bending metal".
A strange blunt clockwork circular saw that is extremely effective at cutting through metal.
A  straight bladed clockwork sword, with a slot in the bottom for a power cell.  It is a lightning saber; when properly empowered, it will produce high heat and electrical discharge that will greatly enhance both its cutting power and the damage it causes.  It needs a power cell of the right size; which is basically a charged battery.
A large bag of bomblets, taken from an unexploded clockwork bomb.

Paints, a dish, sands, glitter, water, general scrying supplies.
Pencil + Paper.
Expensive medical supplies.

Sketches of:
Gyrotourbillon's workings
Benedict the Griffon
Detailed but incomplete schematics of clockwork robot people.
Clockwork machinegun schematics.
Simple clockwork tools schematics.
Schematic for a simple remotely-operated alchemist-gear manipulator thing.
Maps to the three caches of clockwork loot buried somewhere between Alkahest and Lake Candentis.
The design and construction for a full combat robot, of the kind found in Gravid.
The structure and enchantment framework of a flying thaumic warmachine, found within Gravid.  Incomplete, due to Ekrov's lack of understanding about how the machine knows what to do.
The structure and functioning of a thaumic rifle, found within Gravid.
Even more sketches on how complex thaumic devices work, in particular dealing with the spirits that animate them and give them some degree of life and sentience.
The full schematics of one of the "Clockwork dragons" that attacked the party at Gravid.
The design and function of thaumic keystones.
The design and function of Gravid's giant thaumic furnace.


TO-DO LIST:
MEMORY TINKER!!!

Clockwork stuff:
Fix a robot
Try to reverse engineer and understand those power pellet crucibles.
Fix the broken machine guns
Look into cloning machine gun ammo?  Probably not something we'll care about ever, but I wanna DAKKA...
Find out where all these clockwork things are coming from.  Apparently they might actually come from Candentis?

Test banish teleportation.

Make thaumic tools run on thaum, rather than mana or magicoal.

Cache A: The buried death pellet furnaces, both the unopened ones and the empty opened one.
Cache B: All the unexploded bombs from the wreck, including one that's been opened and had some of the bomblets taken out.
Cache C: The rest of the loot from the wreck, buried inside crates.  Contains:

"A large number of tools (These are what you could call mundane tools like wrenches, screw drivers, plyers, and the like. There are a lot of them in different sizes and shapes but none are hugely rare or valuable on their own. Though they are admittedly well made.)"
"A pnumatic self heating rivet gun and the air compressor for it"
"A sort of 'Jaws of Life' style combination spreader and cutter. Basically a massive pnumatic pair of plyers/snips."
"3 more working machine guns, and a half dozen that are broken in some way"  ((These deal "d12 [damage], if memory serves, though they often roll multiples."))
"About 10 or so big boxes of ammo (there are a lot of loose belts around so the amount isn't exact)"
"A welding system"

d12.  She can. Tell her. She rolls to understand.

Magicoal IS mana battery. Other forms exist. Unstable, but can be used.  Wire set up, draining slowly.

With failures, 43 mana cost. Permanent teleportation between the rods.

ok

-14 mana. Acts like Saeko as amnesiac. Remembers things since painted, nothing before. Knows langauge, has personality similar to Saeko. Attempt to do magic results in partial deanimation. 10 mana applied to fix.


1 coal, 29 mana.

[Egan_BW]

Eat coal, leveling Endurance, then Speed.
Go with Ek to examine the Cube Room.

Talk to Painting:
Does she want to pick a name for herself?
Where does she see herself as being?
Is she distressed at all by her current state?
Would she prefer to be outside the painting? (I assume she's still inside there?)

Spoiler: Zavi (click to show/hide)

Name: Zavirius En-Drani Haver, Painter
Appearance: A girl of unknown but apparently foreign descent. She claims to be the last surviving member of a long-dead ancient race, kept preserved in some kind of magical stasis, but this is likely untrue. Though her skin is a strange shade not normally seen on the continent, and her hair is bleached white with a slight green reflective tint. She is not very tall but stout like a dwarf and startlingly strong. She's wearing a red gambeson, gray pants, metal bracers, shin guards and a sallet helm. Her right bracer is cracked and splintered.
Mana: 52
Method: Flesh-Inscribed Channel
Materials: Lightweight, Explosion, Toxic, Lightning, Sunlight, Grand Lodestone, Slow, Human
Strength: d10+5
Speed: d8+2
Endurance: d8+4
Knowledge: d8+1
Will: d8+5
Senses: d6+3

Ongoing effects: Permanently immune to nerve gas, D6 Force boosted energy attacks on both fists

Inventory:
160 Gold
21 Magicoal
Backpack
Tattoo kit
Paints and brushes
Medium Armor (d6)
Kite Shield (d6)
Long Sword (d6)
Catch Pole
3 Small Bombs
Manacles
1-mana/shot explosion powered rifle.
Cloak permanently enchanted to limit channeling to 10 mana/hour

Silver axe-helm.

Salt the Condor-Winged Baboon
Strength: d8
Speed: d8
Endurance: d6
Knowledge: d4
Will: d4
Senses: d6

Small bag

In Alcahest:

Wooden Arm-Guards (d4 armor)
Hemp sack
Kukri (d6 weapon)
Square-tip machete

[Devastator]

Go find that release mechanism.  With the stuff removed from the core room, there shouldn't be too much left to go through, but check there.  Then check the control room outside the core room for that, including the pile of non-furnature stuff that was removed.  If it fails, bring in Ekrov to help look, both outside and, while holding hands, inside the core room.  If it still isn't found, try wearing the control suit and seeing if that has a release control on it, assuming the wings and ears can fit inside one.  If they can't, the wings expire in a few hours so try then.

Also, ask Ekrov about getting more mana.

Spoiler: Saeko Hirahara (click to show/hide)

Young Japanese woman with a long black braid and a white and red fitted robe with long gloves.  Clothing made of metallic thread.  Elf ears.  Violet eyes that glow brightly.  Glowing like a chemical glowstick with a purplish-pinkish light.

Invoking Empath

Str  d6 +1
Speed  d8 +1
Endurance  d10+4
Knowledge  d8+2
Will  d10+3
Senses  d8 +2

Materials: d12 Ape, d12 Grow, d12 Strengthen, d12 Expand, d10 Permanent, d8 Bird, d6 Force, d4 Ice
Location: Ruins of Gravid
Status: Fine.  Improved hearing.  Some empathic sense.  Magically lightened to about three-quarters weight.
Temporary Effects: d8 Grow Strengthen for hearing, day 21/30.  Huge feathery bird wings.

Familiar.  "Benedict"  Cougar/red-tailed hawk, adequate flyer, garage-sized with 120ish foot wingspan.
Natural weapons d10, d10+d6 with swooooop.  5/4+1 enchantments. d6 Strengthen Grow, d8 Strengthen Grow, d10 Strengthen Grow, d8 Strengthen Bird Speed, d12 Strengthen Grow over 1 week.  Eats 3 gold/day worth of food.  Properly harnessed and well kitted out for riding and baggage.

Str D20
Spd D6
End D12
Kno D4
Will D8
Sen D6

Expedition Status:
Saeko, Ekrov, Zavi.
3 guards, 2 in personal service.
3 assistants and workers.
Excavation tools and equipment.
9 days worth of supplies.
two working machine guns.
Key orbs: Soldier, Technician, Aristocrat, King
Accessable locations: All of lower level of city ruins, save for king door.  Likely access to still-unexplored upper levels.

explored: Through soldier-locked door. leads to..
lower-level maintenance and utility areas.
Armoury
Crop rooms
Hangars
King door

Loot:
8x suits of silk clothing.
8x suits of cotton clothing.
King's wardrobe
26x Thaumic sabres.
56x magic rifles
19x suits of magic armour
Broken magic armour bits.
Thaumic tools
3x Thaumic wire-laying tools
3x large gold wire spools
Crystal with d12 Cloth.
1x Miniature Fighter-Sparrow Core.
Advanced thaumic personal laboratory+workshop.

3x deactivated golems
6x gold swirly orbs (explosives)
16x telescoping silver rods (portable force fields)
4x big mana rifles
1x rifle with flower petal rod

Art Pieces:
statuary of harp-playing waifish girl.
very fine quality evocative bust.
10x miniature furniture pieces from core room.

16 barrels of magicoal. 3d20+10 pieces each, each containing 3d20 mana.
first barrel has 16 chunks.

Items:
Ghost Charm
Alchemist's Gear
Two machine guns! with lots of ammo.
6 mana
60 thaum
151 gold
d8+1 armour: The outfit, and a shield.  Weighs as if it were d4.
magic texting device.
parachute popsicle-stick.
Sealer-suit gloves
Shield.
Adamant Weave Backpack.  Contents are magically lightened via Lightweight spell.
Waterskin
Adamant Weave Cloth.  Sufficient for an outfit or two backpacks.
5kg steel rod
Compass
Goggles
Doctor's Bag
Gold-lined Sealer Suit Bag.
Surgical tools
Magic Spyglass
~200 gold value of gold and silver ingots and precious gems.

Jade tablets with d8 View, d10 Steel, and d10 Speed.
disassembled force-field rod with [Force D4] [Wall d12] and Permanent d10 (inserted into brain.)

Alchemy Supplies

Stashed:
Cable-wrapped steel lockbox with radioactive pellet inside.
Box of painting-golem

Businesses:
Large decrepit building in Galena.
Share in presumptive new Galena mine.

Notes: Improving physical stats with strengthen, d4->d6 is d6, d6->d8 is d12, d8->d10 is d20 or more.