S06E11: The Gang Goes Gem-Hunting Underground

== Previously on MCVFD ==
Last time we successfully completed both the main quest and all our side quests in the distant past of the Tomb of Horrors.
We retrieved 3 gem components of the Infernal Machine, and then we rescued all the prisoners who had asked for help along our journey. The surviving worshippers (including Liberace Jones) and enslaved human stonemasons (including a retroactively named Perry Mason) were transported to a permanent Teleportation Circle at Neverwinter, where they were assisted by an ancestor of Kentucky Bourbon.
Motivated to recover the other half of the stonemason's book, Nissa asks Gearbox to take us to the Temple of Moloch, where he immediately detects the presence of additional components of the Infernal Machine. Since we know less about this dungeon than the previous one, we did some preliminary intelligence gathering in the neighboring village of Soggy Bottom.
At the Toad's Stool, we learn that the town and Temple previously had a cordial relationship - priests would go down to spend money at the inn, be generally pleasant, etc. Recently, that has all stopped, and word on the street is that the current high priest, Thessalar, has purged all his competitors and taken over. We know of Thessalar in our time as the creator of the Owl Bear, a beast we've previously fought. The locals say that weird things have been happening and to look out... and also that there are cute owl bears at the gift shop.
We now stand before the opening of the Temple: a staircase descending into the earth, up on top of a hill in a middle of a fen.
== Session ==
Averlyth: ~Nissaaaaaaa~ Do you want to tell us about this building we’re about to walk into?Nissa: DO I?!Nissa ecstatically shares the backstory of the temple with the big demon face statue thing and giant ruby eyes thing. Nissa: You’ve heard of Thessalar because you know of Thessalhydras right? Yeah? We killed some of those ??? I’ve killed some of those :DNissa refreshes our memory about Thessalar and Owl Bears so the group (sans Kanye, who is currently looking at house) can decide a course of action. We're contemplating between totally sneaking in or introducing ourselves as the Tomb Raters because the name is awesome.Nissa: I mean I don’t want to assume I always get the clipboard just because I’m the gnome, that’s kinda racist.Nissa holds the clipboard.
=== Entering the Temple ===
After a brief paralysis from the leading question, the group decides to enter in approximate order of ability to absorb damage.
Um cautiously leads the group underground as the party's stealth expert. With his expertise, he notices an arrowslit concealed in a gap in the stairwell stones, and manages to stop the group before we all walk in front of it. It’s not a typical trap, but it seems pretty clearly designed to allow someone to survey the stairs.
Averlyth and Nissa stand back as Um uses his trusty Slippers of Spider Climbing to maneuver above the opening. The group learns that Sorith has “angry dwarf wall walking” abilities so he could also follow suit if needed.Um: I’m lucky so I can’t crit fail, but I’m amused that my crit fail still has the numeric value of 14.Um drops down just enough to take a quick peek through the top of the slit. Sitting quietly inside the room, he spots at least 3 lizardfolk, one of whom is actively watching the arrowslit. He looks bored and not super well on guard, but he's at least looking through the window. The guys behind are quietly playing cards.
Um turns to the group and goes shhhh.
Um and Sorith are able to bypass the guards no problem. Nissa shares with the group that she does not have a quiet setting. Averlyth isn't super excited about casting Dimension Door just to get down some stairs.
Emboldened by recent successes with deception, Averlyth casts Pass without Trace to buff the group's stealth for the next hour, and Nissa crafts a fancy diorama to create the Minor Illusion of an empty hallway while the two of them try to tiptoe across in plain sight.
We successfully navigate down the stairs because half of us passed the check (thank god Kanye wasn’t here?). Nissa almost makes a noise when she gets spooked by Um on the other side - he's perched on the wall instead of his usual spot because of all the thick webs obscuring the ceiling.
We find ourselves standing in a damp entry chamber strewn with bones and rubble. There are corridors leading to the east, south and west. The western corridor ends in a heavy oak door with bronze fittings.Um: Maybe we can save the door for Kanye to kick down later?Nissa: Awwww you DO careSorith: I’m perfectly capable of kicking down doors if need be..Nissa asks if Gearbox can pinpoint the direction of the magical components. He responds that he can't, but he can tell that there are seven of them. She gives him a pat on the head.
Averlyth notes that maybe we shouldn’t go down the eastern hallway, as the room with the lizardfolk guards was to the east of the stairs.
The group suddenly questions how on earth the lizardfolk got in that room to begin with when Um didn't see any doors in his quick peek.
Having decided not to go east or west, the group is left with the southern corridor. Um has a middling degree of confidence that this hallway is not trapped. Averlyth and Um also don’t see any lizardfolk.
At the end of the corridor, we find a ceremonial chamber containing a 9ft tall wooden platform. Upon the platform are four bodies wrapped in funeral shrouds; we don’t smell them, which tells us they haven’t been dead super long.
The only decoration in this room is the 7 small knobs protruding from the south wall, about level with the wooden platform. Nissa looks to see if there's 7 of anything else in the room, but nothing lines up.
Um detects that 3 of them seem more worn than the others. Averlyth walks over to observe the stone buttons, but has an observation for the nearby bodies instead - while not familiar with the exact rites, it’s obvious the bodies have been washed, blessed and prepared according to a specific set of religious ceremonies.
=== Kanye's Entrance ===
-- Kanye has suddenly arrived IRL so now the group taking a bio/catch up break --
Kanye apparently got too drunk at the Toad's Stool last night, lost the power armor and is now going commando, hungover, and alone into the Temple.
The “lost” power armor is actually in Woodhouse's care, as he took it to clean the vomit out of the suit. Kanye is now totally unarmored because although he was able to take the suit off this time, he couldn’t fight the compulsion to not put on another suit of armor.
Kanye has no idea how long the group went ahead without him. He runs out of the village to catch up, and sees a bunch of standing stones and a set of stairs descending down into the darkness.
Kanye does his best Um impression, sneaks down a few steps, then turns left and makes direct eye contact with a lizardfolk guard.
The guard sighs and picks up a crossbow.
Kanye immediately uses Command Zed from his Drakeguard Bracer, rewinding the past 6 seconds so he's once again unseen near the top of the stairs.
With his newfound wisdom, Kanye drops down and tries to belly crawl past the arrowslit. His woolley berserker claws betray him, sparking up as they scrape across the ground. He can hear the sound of guards rousing themselves on the other wall.
Kanye stands up and jogs into the main chamber. He observes 3 things:
# He is able to see the tracks left by his crew - they clearly went down the hallway to the south
# He hears a voice from the guard room saying “yeah this one dude came down the stairs but there’s nobody else, let’s let Thaco take care of it”
# There is movement on the ceiling above him
Kanye narrowly rolls out of the way as an enormous, mutated spider with the beak of a giant owl tackles the ground just behind him.
Thaco swipes with its legs and misses, but then pierces Kanye with its beak. Kanye ripostes with his glaive after the first miss, then introduces himself to the spider as he whacks it harder, twice. He’s wiping off his hangover sweat in between.
This weird spider owl is bloodied, unhappy and now trying to run away. Kanye faintly hears one of the lizardfolk go “No, Thaco!” as it scurries back up onto the ceiling.
Kanye shouts upwards, asking if the spider has time for a brief survey.
=== Ceremonial Plights ===
Meanwhile, the rest of us have heard the unmistakable sound of Kanye Cantaliber introducing himself to an enemy.
The group spends our turn running back down the hallway; when we arrive, Kanye is shouting at the ceiling, we see no sign of the enemy, and he’s asking the spiderwebs to take a survey.Kanye: Someone stole my armor!As soon as Sorith points out we should be wary of lizardfolk, we hear footsteps coming down the hallway.Kanye: Does anyone have a cure for hangover?Nissa slaps him across the face.
Averlyth gets excited with all her recent earth-bending and starts using Stone Shape to create a wall across the eastern corridor - but she's only able to create a 5 feet tall barrier with a single spell cast. Sorith uses a charge from our recently looted Wand of Web to cover the whole area behind the half wall with non-Thaco-related webbing, which should slow the guards down significantly.
The set-up buys the group some time to plan our exit.
Um grants Kanye permission to open the door in the western corridor. Kanye attempts to ask Woodhouse for his number 4 door-opening hammer, realizes Woodhouse is back in the village, and then grudgingly inspects the door himself.
There's clearly air coming through the doorway, and the faint moaning of a strong wind behind it. Suddenly the group is a little nervous, as we've previously opened magical doors to elemental dimensions before (in the Neverwinter Mage's Hideout) and the doors were difficult to close afterwards.
Um asks for it to be opened in a reversible way.Kanye: But how will I maintain the element of surprise?Kanye relents, turning the unlocked knob like a normal commoner.
He is immediately hit with a massive gust of wind.
With his athleticism, he is able to pull the door closed instead of being knocked down. The wind appears to die down as he does so, and he's able to get a quick glimpse of the other side.
Behind the door is a natural cavern.
The back half is filled with a subterranean lake, which is fed by a stream that flows from one side of the cavern and out the other side. There are also a lot of barrels, casks and buckets piled up. This is probably where all the people from the temple get their fresh water from.
During all this, Averlyth has opted to cast Stone Shape again for the top half of the wall. The eastern corridor is now totally sealed off - any lizardfolk that manage to climb through the webs will find themselves staring at a dead end, with some stone etchings of Bane's gauntlet flipping the bird.
Kanye goes rummaging through the bodies on the ground - Thaco's presumed victims - for valuables. He's not able to find any good loot, armor or treasure, and he kicks a lizardfolk skull that comes skittering over to Averlyth's feet. It’s jingling?
Averlyth asks Um for help since this feels like a rogue thing. She flips it upside down; 19 silver pieces and a small ruby worth 20 gold falls out onto the floor. Averlyth takes the specimen for a side project inspired by Moghadam's jeweled skull, maybe a killer belt buckle? Kanye coincidentally offers to trade some of his fake gems from the magical podium for the money on the ground, and she happily accepts some of the redder ones.
After considering our new options, the group decides to try the puzzle in the ceremonial chamber, as our fearless Kanye is now here to help press things.
The whole gang stands very far from the wooden platform as Kanye climbs onto it and proceeds to push one of the knobs we blatantly said did not look worn.
Nothing happens. He tries to twist it and nothing happens, it’s inert.
He takes out a hammer and chisel to break one off. It appears to be a decorative stone element.
Kanye refocuses on one of the knobs we asked him to touch. He's able to twist it but it doesn’t seem like it’s doing anything. 
Kanye pulls out his waterskin and pours water on the knob - the water just drips down as you'd expect, without revealing any hidden cracks.
He finally pushes it. He’s pretty sure he can feel some sort of mechanical click from within the wall. When he lets go, the button remains depressed.
Kanye pushes another one that looks worn and gets exactly the same reaction. Um is now standing on the ceiling outside the room, and the ground is considering battle positions as Kanye gets ready to press the last button (the group remembers the last time we randomly touched things in a room that happened to contain dead bodies).Kanye: I’m going to know my enemy on this knob.DM: Again, that’s not how that works.Kanye presses the last worn button with the blunt end of the glaive.
We hear an ominous grinding sound and a secret door opens up, revealing a regular corridor on the other side.Kanye: Kanye opened not one but two doors!
Um checks for traps again before we enter the exposed passage. This hallway takes us into a large open area. It’s empty, there’s no stuff piled up, there’s nobody there, and we're suddenly aware of something that's been bothering us since our arrival - every room that we've seen so far doesn't seem to match what this facility was originally used for. The layout and architecture clearly indicates a previous use for religion purposes, but none of the things laying around now look particularly religious.
It's as if this underground Temple had a shift in functionality.
We take in our new surroundings. The large hallway we're now in leads to the left and right, to the extent of our vision, and an opening directly across from us seems to lead into a room.
We can hear voices, and the unmistakable sound of crafting coming from this room.
Um moves down the right hallway, reasonably confident there are no traps, and looks around the corner.
Averlyth places a Clairvoyance sensor near the ceiling ahead of us, and sees 5 busy human sculptors in a large workshop for the crafting and repair of statuary. They’re all moving around really quickly, like they’re behind schedule. No one’s paying any attention to anything outside the workshop.
The space looks as if it were designed for a greater capacity, and is currently being underutilized with only the 5 present.
Averlyth spots the other half of the book and tells Nissa we found it.
The group considers whether we should leave the stonemasons alone or talk to them, if we should try to ask for or steal the book. We're thinking about telling them Perry sent us. Averlyth learns the historical reference behind Perry Mason's name.
Just kidding, Kanye shows up banging the walls loudly, yelling that they’re behind schedule, he just got attacked by a giant spider, there’s ichor all over him, who’s in charge? He’s in charge!
One of the guys steps forward, “I’m sorry sir, we’ve fallen really behind, as you know the bulk of our team left for the promise of higher wages at the Tomb of Horrors”
Kanye completely ignores this information to interrogate this man about magical artifacts.
The poor workers are SO flustered, they have no idea what’s going on and yet Kanye keeps shouting. The group empathizes.
Kanye asks them if they know where Thessalar, so we can talk to their boss??? They respond that Thesselar should be in his private lab, gesturing vaguely to the east. Kanye rewards the compliance by making it rain with the 5 silver coins we just got from the skull, attempting to give the workers and early bonus.
Eventually, Kanye brings up Perry's name, and their eyes light up. The main guy talking to us asks how Perry's doing, saying he totally thought the Tomb of Horrors gig was a trap. Kanye does not confirm this information, and instead vaguely says Perry is doing great.
Kanye suddenly spots the counter where the book is, and makes a beeline for it. The stone mason gets in his way, trying again to clarify we work for Thessalar, or the Tomb of Horrors, or the union or what. Kanye just nods.
The man interprets that as us admitting we work for the Tomb of Horrors, and then brings up that "one of our guys" - thieves sent by Moghadam in the ongoing feud - is currently being imprisoned elsewhere in the Temple.
Kanye cleverly asks him for a map that the DM was not prepared to reveal so early. 
Looking at the updated map, we're told there's a Thessalhydra patrol somewhere, and there’s a clockwork heart that Thessalar can see out of - not unlike the floating jeweled skull we ran into previously - and there’s a private lab that Thessalar is probably in. There are also various torture and prison chambers, as well as an owl and bear lab.
Apparently somewhere down the Hall of Statues is a two-headed giant called the demo-gorgon.
Kanye calls for a team huddle, handing over his half of the book. Averlyth casts Mending and passes the restores book to Nissa, who immediately pulls herself into Kanye’s harness to read.
The group suddenly learns that the incredibly powerful Manual of Stone Golems is basically less than useless for our current situation, as an expensive, multi-day cast and one-time use spell. Nissa, who attempted to the decipher the tome while unable to cast it, takes psychic damage and slumps over, shocking everyone.
Averlyth casts a quick party healing spell for Nissa and Kanye, who was still injured from Thaco. Kanye tries to thank Bane bro and does the fist thing because he knows Averlyth likes that.
The group is reassessing our goals again. There's an awful lot of spots where magical artifacts could be either hidden or actively in use, and there's no reason the 7 of the gems we know of need to be in the same location.
We ultimately decide to walk around the eastern corner into the labeled Main Temple, with the logic that "last time the magic thingies were in a religious temple".
The north end of this vaulted chamber is entirely filled by the Temple’s famed statue of Moloch.
The impressive figure rises 25 ft high, nearly touching the ceiling. The hands hold a massive burning brazier. The fire reflects brightly within the facets of the statue’s massive ruby eyes.
The group is suddenly wondering just how big the gemstones of the Infernal Machine are allowed to be...