(Plotline) To Turn The Gears

On the island of clockwork tower, there is a village riven with sickness that is slowly but surely killing the populace. Most of the sick have been taken to the nearby Clockwork Tower, but it has been a while now and the families of the sick have not been allowed to see their loved ones. The tower remains shut and silent. The tower is filled with automations, clockwork machines and guardians, creations that guard the levels of the tower.

Mysterious pulsing and grinding contraptions are alive within the tower, their purpose unkown and indiscernible to the players. Under the tower there are old cells turned in to patient rooms with the sick townsfolk, bedridden. Their bodies have been heavily mutilated, their parts replaced with clockwork contraptions, gears protruding from their torsos, tied to tubes and machines. The people are mostly unconscious or simply wailing and unresponsive. If they say anything they simply plead for help. The contraptions they are attached to and the modifications done to their bodies seem extensive and any attempt at removing the townsfolk from their attached apparatus ends their life and stops the function on the clockwork contraptions attached to them.

Midway to the tower, beyond reach in the middle of the tower there is a intrinsic, bronze or perhaps brass looking contraption that resembles a human heart attached to a plethora of hoses, beating as a heart would. The heart is behind what seems to be a machine projecting a magical barrier. During their climb towards the top, the players encounter mechanical guards that are immediately hostile towards the player.

At the top of the tower players find the Master Artificier Mefisteles. The party should have seen the apparent horrible state of the sick townsfolk. As the party confronts Mefisteles, he's wary of the party, apologetic even of the state of his patients and pleads to the party, that they have misunderstood the situation and that he's only trying to help. He explains that he is no healer and his attempts at trying to cure the disease or heal the damage made by the disease have been in vain. Instead he has taken every effort to keep the townsfolk alive using his knowledge and skill as a Master Artificier.

Mefisteles is being sincere if the party has means to ascertain the truthfulness of his words. If the party believe him and do not attack him, he will ask for the party's help, explaining that he needs powerful blood that he can use to perhaps successfully heal the sick townsfolk. The blood however needs to be infernal or celestial in nature. Mefisteles knows that the paladins of Vigil's end are hoarding secrets of celestials and that they may have clues how the party could get in contact with celestial beings. Of infernal sources of blood he does not know.

At Vigil's end, the paladin's are wary but welcoming of strangers. They often provide service to the poor and needy but do not put up with any injustice or blasphemous acts or presence. When asked about celestials the paladins seem unnerved by the question and avoid answering it, changing the subject and avoiding the question but without lying. They will however guide the players to meet the priestess of their order to better answer the party's questions.

The priestess of Vigil's End is a beautiful blonde woman with fair features and gentle voice and the paladins seem to respect and revere her immensely. If the party has detect magic, she will have a bright magical glow about her, but otherwise seems a normal human woman. She is in fact a celestial of type X. Any skills, spells or feats that would determine she is a celestial, work normally. She is seemingly confined to the inner shrine of Vigil's end, within a magical circle and of her own volition. If pressed, she explains that she is unwilling to leave because of a threat from "an evil presence" she is incapable of defending against is patiently waiting for her to leave the sanctum and possess her.

If the party comes by any means to the conclusion that the priestess is a celestial, they might try to convince her to give them her blood with a DC20 or above persuasion throw. If they explain the terrible need of the villagers and sick people kept alive by Mefisteles' contraptions, they have advantage on the throw. Consider allowing a group roll, depending on the level of the party. If successful, the priestess will understand the grave need and pain of the townsfolk and will agree to forfeit her blood and make the paladins understand her choice. She will reveal her wings and true radiance and will float up and expose her wrists that will spontaneously open and drip blood, her expression warm and smiling. She will gently hover and lay down on the ground, perishing. She cannot be healed or her death prevented by any magical or non-magical means.

After determining she is a celestial, the party might attack her, initiating combat. She has the stats of X, but seems unwilling and only fights to defend herself and will use dialog to try to persuade the party from continuing this foolishness. If successfully defeated, her body will remain behind, dripping the blood for collecting.

Third approach the party might take is question the priestess about the evil presence she is afraid of. She explains it is powerful demon that feeds on celestial energy and stalks her just beyond the veil, kept only by the magical circle which she inhibits. If the party is willing, she can part the veil and allow the party to do a partial planeshift. If the party walks through the portal, the remain in the same inner sanctum, but it's warped and shadier. The players are unable to see the priestess or any of the paladins, but otherwise they can see this dimension mirrors the physical world and the tower of Vigil's End closely, except the features are warped and the shadows seem almost living things.

In this place the party is quickly confronted by shadow demons or what ever suitable CR monster to fit the scene. They will be able to track the shadowy presence of the demon to the roof of the tower, where the demon will be waiting. At the roof the demon reveals himself and antagonises the party. The demon is unwilling to cooperate and only taunts the party.  If defeated, it spills the required blood for Mefistele's quest. After the demon is dead, a portal appears made by the priestess. She states she instantly felt the shroud that has been haunting her lift and knew the demon was slain. She thanks the party and dispels the magic circle, spreading her wings and disappearing from the inner shrine.

Paladins will become aware the priestess is dead or has left and will confront the party if they are able. If the priestess was killed, they will immediately become hostile, seeing the body. If she sacrifices herself, the paladins will rush in and will be distraught but not hostile other that ordering the party to leave and not return. If the players freed her, the paladins will ask questions and can show the demonic blood as proof of helping her, and will be conflicted about losing her councel and aid, explaining that her abilities and knowledge were a great aid in their order's mission of fighting corruption and evil and now without her they would be much more danger in ordeals to come. In every scenario, the paladins are unlikely to aid the party in the future, or are outright aggressive to the party if the priestess was killed.

Returning the blood to Mefisteles, he puts the blood in mechanical tube apparatus and injects it in to the tubes of the tower. Depending which blood was injected, celestial or demonic, one of two things happens.

The party returns celestial blood: Unexpectedly the tower stirs, the electrical lights of the tower brighten and a bright glow emanates from all the tubes delivering the diluted blood around the tower. The machines whir faster, things start to break and explode and burst on fire. The situation quickly rolls out of hand and the central machinations of the towers highest level explode throwing the party out of the side of the tower. DM should make the party do an acrobatics check. At the DMs discretion, the better numbers may avoid fall damage by various feats of acrobatics, while the person who rolled worst and is unable to otherwise save himself falls and gets impaled by a bronze tube right through the chest. Mefisteles having survived the fall through magical means, rushes to the impaled party member and instructs them to carry him to the infusion table on the first level.

The party returns demonic blood: As Mefisteles injects the blood in to the tubes of the clockwork tower machinery, the towers lights dim and whispers echo around the tower floor. Some of the blood oozes out of the seals of the machinery and dissipates in to a dark cloud around the room. Before combat is initiated, the DM rolls a dice  to determine which of the party members is attacked first by a shade form of the demon they defeated earlier. The shade initiates combat by impaling the chosen character, leaving the character instantly unconscious and bleeding out. The combat is considerably easier than the fight against the demon at Vigil's End. At combat's end,  Mefisteles having survived the combat, rushes to the impaled party member and instructs them to carry him to the infusion table on the first level.

After the fall or the fight against the shade, the impaled player is bleeding out and is unconscious. Mefisteles rushes upstairs and returns with various apparatus and the clockwork heart. He performs a several hours long operation at the end of which the impaled character regains consciousness and hp 1. The surgery counts as a short rest for the whole party.

Mefisteles explains that the players heart was badly damaged and that he had to replace it with the magic infused clockwork heart to save his life.

Afterwards the previously sick townsfolk emerge from the basement and seem in good health and thankful, regardless of the still whirring machinations embedded to their bodies. After a short while the tower grinds to halt, all the machinery stopping, the lights dimming out. Mefisteles is thankful for the party's help although frustrated at the fact his tower has halted and has suffered serious damage.

The townsfolk return to the village and upon return the families of the villagers are grateful and bestow the party with rewards.