Maul chases the medusa into the next room, followed closely by Carric. Between the two of them they kill the creature, then drag it back into the previous room, where Roondar makes an educated guess that the blood of the medusa might act as a salve to reverse the petrification of Owynka. He severs an artery of the creature and sprays the blood on Owynka, who comes back to life not quite realizing what had happened to her.
Maul, just one hard slap away from death, requests that the party take a short rest. During this downtime Roondar pokes around in the medusa's lair and discovers a few more numenera [added to Discord]. He also wonders whether the blood of the medusa could restore to life one of the petrified soldiers on the surface. Maul questions what benefit this might provide, and assumes that any information the soldier might have would be extremely outdated. Roondar seems to be interested primarily in the academic sense.
Moving on, the party finds an oblong room littered with detritus of all kinds: smashed pottery, old furniture, broken mirrors, torn-apart books, scrolls, chunks of the ceiling and walls, and dust and dirt covering everything. On the far wall hangs a reflective black rectangle the size of a large painting. In the middle of the room is a hexagonal dais about four feet tall, topped with a similarly reflective black surface and a blue metallic cylinder in the center.
On the north side of the room, part of the wall has collapsed to reveal a stone staircase beyond, and standing within the collapsed area is a large orb-shaped construct made of metal and glass, balanced on four spider-like legs. It stands motionless, but rotates itself to track the movement of Roondar's eldritch cannon when it enters the room. As more of the party members enter the room, the construct rotates continuously to track all of their movements, but still it does not move.
When Carric tests the construct's reaction by attempting to slip past it into the collapsed area toward the stairs, the construct activates. After taking several hard hits from Maul and Owynka, it uses two large armlike protrusions to batter Carric, who then disappears from view.
Meanwhile, Roondar has taken cover behind the dais in the center of the room and allows his curiousity to get the better of him: he twists the cylinder on top of the dais, which causes a loud clicking noise followed by a low, rising hum to emit from the depths of the dais. It would appear that Roondar has somehow "activated" . . . something.
To be continued....
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