A Concerning Creation

A Concerning Creation
Date	9/26/26
Storyteller	Slayzo
Tier	Master
Player Characters	Swaying Petals, Quill, Carrion
Rewards	1800 gp each, 350 xp
Result	Success
Author	Swaying Petals (Cloyster)
Downtime	20

(Associates cross a battlefield to destroy a vile prototype war machine)

Day 0:

Hello readers! It’s Swaying Petals again and this time we have a mission from the New Heavenly Council! It seems in the battlefronts across the Old Country, there is word of a giant steel behemoth that unstoppably fires bullets and crushes all those in its wake! It seemed to be manufactured by some guy with a crab claw who works for the Horseman War. It all seems really scary, and I’m the wrong person to know anything about robots or complex machines, but the enthusiastic Carrion and the less enthusiastic but dependable Quill are accompanying me in our mission to destroy this iron monstrosity! Hopefully it’ll break if we just hurl enough damage at it…

After the teleporter takes us from Onadbyr, we quickly start the 10 day journey to the battlefield where this construct was reported. Carrion was full of energy, filling the time with quick tests of skill, which really just tested Quill’s patience. I had to make sure Carrion didn’t follow any of Quill’s dares to “stay in one place for 8 hours”. Besides that, this journey is going smoothly so far!

Day 10:

We have finally made it to the battle. We had seen signs of fighting as we drew closer to our destination: ruined buildings and untended bodies. I felt distraught at the carnage, but Quill reminded me to keep moving as we had an important job to do. I made a mental note to tend to the bodies I find on the way back.

At the battle line, we see a large force encircling a large temple structure on a hill. There are a large variety of ancestries in the New Heavenly Kingdom’s forces, and it seems like War’s Forces are held up in the temple, leaving the battle at an impasse. As we enter the besieging camp, we find a table with many people sitting at it, headed by a man in heavy armor, being fanned by some assistants due to the heat. We greet him and he says that they have the war machine inside the temple. The builder of the machine claims to be an expert of “biomechanics” and refers to the machine as an "experiment". He tells us horrible stories of the machine firing non-stop barrages of bullets and cleaving people with serrated steel teeth, Eek!

I sent a scouting eye forward to try to gather information. At the top of the temple there is an open courtyard that has been ransacked. Knights in red armor stand around, many chopping bodies into pieces, the fountain still filled with the blood of the former inhabitants… Yikes! At the entrance to the temple, there stands a big guy with a claw hand and a fire sword who oversees the situation. Above the temple, standing on the dome-shaped roof, is the machine. It is a humanoid-shaped robot with a skull at its center, a chainsaw arm, and an arm cannon. It seemed to be leaking some sort of fluid, it was like liquefied flesh? Eeeeww!!! As I moved my eye to examine closer, it responded and looked around, nearly spotting my invisible eye! Double Yikes! So sneaking up to it with invisibility isn’t going to work. I couldn’t tell if it was piloted by someone or if it was just a construct. But I did notice it seemed like there were not many people left around.. Does that thing… run on people? I don’t want to think about what they do to people for that thing to run on…

We decide to take the day to rest and reprepare our spells, we’ll attempt to fly into the courtyard and fight that thing. I don’t think we can fight it and all the knights around, so I hope we can figure something out.

Day 11:

As we were preparing our assault on the fortress, we unexpectedly heard a loud bashing of shields as the forces of the temple made an announcement. Carrion casts Truespeech and tells us that they are asking for champions to enter the temple and fight the DreadKnight, which is I guess what they call that horrible thing. So we cautiously accept, walking through the gates and rows of daemons and soldiers.

As we enter the courtyard we see the giant machine waiting for us, all surrounded by those knights in red, we hear a voice calling out to us. “Good to see they brought 3 champions”. Carrion talks to the robot, but we realize the voice is coming from the temple behind the robot, where the big guy with a crab claw stands. He pulls out a big notepad to take notes and tells us that he and his men will not interfere with our participation in his ‘experiment’. I don’t like the sound of it, but it is our clearest shot of destroying this thing, so we accept. The robot springs up and approaches us.

I cast Spiritual Guardian, but the main body is really hard to hit! Its separate arms almost have minds of their own, firing poison bullets and me and Quill! Quill runs up but they are hit with the chainsaw arm that held its action! Quill tries to shout an obedient command at it, but it doesn’t seem to work on it! It seems this fiendish thing is more machine than person after all.

Quill has an easier time damaging a leg and Carrion manages to trip the machine. It stands up, crushes the fountain beneath its feet, and grabs Quill. From its attacks, we can tell the claw and gun are unholy, but the chainsaw itself is not unholy. Quill wriggles themselves free, but the machine chainsaw reaches me and nearly slashes right through me! Ouch!! I heal myself and Quill, as we try to recover from the poison and bleed this thing does to us. Carrion strikes it and tries to trip it, but it resists nearly all the damage that Carrion can do! It easily ignores my fire ray and divine wrath, so Quill is the only one that can do significant damage to it!

I cast Blessed Boundary to deal some damage to it and give Quill and I cover, but I accidentally move it out from the boundary, and the robot is content to stand in place and not move back into it! If only I kept it in place instead. Quill even had to take some damage to pass through it, so it backfired more than it helps sometimes. The horrible machine grabbed Quill and held them in place, it seemed near impossible to escape its grasp! Quill is knocked unconscious but I heal as best I can to keep them in the fight! Quill finally destroys one leg, then with Carrion’s help we destroy the chainsaw arm that has given us so much trouble. The machine desperately tries to headbutt Quill as it starts leaking a lot with each limb that is missing. Finally with nearly all of its limbs meticulously picked off by Quill, they viciously dismantle it, tearing out the skull as a trophy. It sure was tough! Without Quill, I’m not sure how long Carrion and I could have lasted against it. I’m glad to have Quill on our side!

With the machine scrapped, the claw guy stepped forward and congratulated us, asking what we thought of it. We suggested it would be better if it died faster, but Carrion straight up told him it would be better if it was faster and not so easy to trip! The guy pondered adding stabilizers to it and giving it an explosion upon its destruction. He lets Quill keep the skull, but doesn’t let Carrion take the chainsaw. He promises us more of this in the future.

I then take a moment to get a good look at him and recognize that he is a Progressus Daemon! They seek to forward progress by any means necessary, especially the worst kind of progress. He calls himself, The Advancement, the lead of the research and development for weapons for the Horseman of War! I wanted to do something against such a horrible fiend, but with most of my power expended, I left the temple with Carrion and Quill. The general of the siege was disappointed we said anything at all to The Advancement, but was thankful we removed the threat of the machine for now. Gosh, I really worry about what is to come from the future, and I hope we can halt whatever horrible thing The Advancement is up to! We have to…