It was a similar story to the last colossus alert, in that it came "out of nowhere" and was headed right for Dirtwater. Of course the name Dirtwater implies it's nowhere special (we know better but that's the name of the place). So in a way you could say it was a closed loop of a journey for this kaiju.

Another similarity is that Tenly (a Firbolg warrior that has a hard-hitting hammer) and Whisk (who's telling you the tale) were both around to answer the call to arms. They were joined by a dagger-wielding rogue Katari named Katrina, and short bow-firing ranger named, uh, Whisk didn't catch that Ribbet's name but it sure made a big difference to the fight once it got going.

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"Can you describe this monstrosity?"

Whisk seems to stare upward at about a forty-five degree angle, and then replies, "take a a four-legged animal built like a rhinoceros and scale it up to huge, then cross it with a camel (it had a hump on its back that was like a mesa). And finally give it a bird's head and some glowing gems that seemed the source of something power-like. It seemed important, but we never saw it do anything we could identify so maybe we got lucky and stopped it before that could activate. It just seemed like a good target, and ultimately we were probably right because attacking those crystalline shapes did the trick. "

"What struck you the most about this strange beast, Whisk?"

"The size of it. You don't see stone moving all that often but something this big, made of stone, is just an avalanche in slow motion." Whisk gestures with his hand indicating a staggering tallness.

"How high would you say that was, for those of us who weren't there to witness it ourselves?" you ask.

"It was so tall that the wind I can ask for a favor to lift me up couldn't get me up onto its head in one go. So we took on its front legs and after a lot of hits --- some of the biggest damage being caused by Tenly's hammer --- the arms, or maybe we should say the front legs, they gave out. This made it kneel down. We knew that meant they were healing back up and this would be temporary, so we acted fast and tried to shut it down."

"Two stayed at ground level and kept it busy. They took care of the minions it spawned as well. But the ranger also got a couple of great arrow shots to hit the gem in the forehead. And two us got up to the head and building on that we all together destroyed the gem in its nose."

Whisk pauses to summon up a mental image of that disconcerting mental image.

"Or was it a beak? It had an avian shape to its head and neck. but the rest of it was quadrupedal. It was made of rock, with a cracked texture that if you wounded it, could repair itself. It just took a short while for lava to flow out of its veins and cool down to the form of rock."

"When we took out the gem at the front, that made it turn unconscious briefly, and we found a chance then for Katrina (who was thrown up to the torso like a shotput by Tenly) and Whisk to do a tag-team maneuver that did about 50 pts in that one tandem attack. It was two critical hits, one per player in the tag-team."

"We destroyed both crystalline structures-- they kind of reminded us of geodes, and we effectively scooped the pretty parts out of the boring bowl-shapes. "

"Did you recover anything interesting, Mr. Dunestrider?"

"This led to our finding in the wake of the battle four very cool objects that owed their presence there to this magical crystal structure."

Name Recipient

Arcane Prism Whisk

Bloodstone Tenly

Ring of Resistance Katrina ?

Hopekeeper's Amulet Cara's Ribbet?

"And that's all I can tell you. Thank you for buying a round."

A large explosion brought us all out onto the street where a group of gnomish researchers (mad scientists?) were looking a little sheepish, and a little shellshocked. It seems that one of the artifacts we brought back from the Elemental Caves was the subject of their study and experimentation. They were trying to scan it with various types of magical energy imaging techniques. And it got tired of being poked and prodded, and decided to strike back. A hole in the ground showed the path it took as it burrowed its way down into the earth, and then with a 90° turn it headed out of town.

From the direction it headed, a set of booming crashes were now audible, in a particular cadence. It was the rhythm of a mechanized colossus, one that looked like a railroad steam train crossed with an Imperial Walker. Considering the artifact which summoned this infernal engine was an earth/fire hybrid, this makes sense. Despite its appearance as a blue glowing gem, it might be better understood as the spirit of vulcanism incarnate.

This thing had 4 legs with articulating joints at ankles, knees and shoulders. It had a large tube out of which a fire elemental could be shot as the dorsal ridge of its torso, and it had a cow-catcher as its chin beard, to make its head truly intimidating.

Tenley and Necklehurst tackled the elementals, while Whisk flew up onto its back and started to attach the torso. We made no headway at first, but after enough magical damage was done, we eventually got its tightly buttoned up armor plating to relax a little and then the rapier Whisk aimed at the cracks and gaps was able to get in between them and do damage. The unstoppable Necklehurst and the indomitable Tenley, both wielding hammers but the former more defensively and the latter more in a damage-dealing rain of blows, were stupendously creative and brave in their persistent attacks of this monstrous steampunk nightmare. Eventually we damaged enough of the torso and head to stop the colussus from advancing towards Dirtwater.

We had to fight for a number of rounds after that until all the legs were severed from the torso, and finally we killed it, and took the blue gem out of the pilot's seat, capturing it to take back to the gnomes, perhaps?

A really lucky roll on loot table-- 12,12,12,10 for 4D12--- yielded an Enlightening Relic. We also got a recipe for a health potion. Homing Compasses, and Charging Arrows or something that sounded like that.

Well, this wasn't a long distance marathon, we didn't cover a lot of ground. Maybe it was more of an escape room.

Whisk and Zilch and ___ the Ranger (played by Cara Jean) decided to see what was on that second level discovered by the last crew to muck about in the Enlandin tunnels. Here's what happened.

• We stopped by and visited the Kobolds. They were happy to have a visit. Their message to Chantarelle was along the lines of "come back and let us show you the fabric we're making now, we have solved some texture issues and it's a lot better."
• We stuck our head in the room with the webs, just long enough to lure one skeleton out of there. We had it chase us down the hall, and eventually the stretch webbing snapped. Killing it wasn't hard, but when they hit they do pack a wallop.
• We went into the "elevator room". We closed the door. Now there were crates there! Our deduction was that this teleported us into a room in a different part of the complex, presumably Level 2.
• From there we traveled down a hall, found a room with a carving of a dragon in it. Behind a curtain was some kind of shadowy figure we couldn't identify, but it was hostile and we fought it until it dissipated.
• The next room had a 3' diameter sphere of cold flame in it. It was possible to touch it and not be burned, but if you played with it too much, there was magical force damage of a more invisible energy tingle variety. Not safe to ignore, but not always lethal.
• We bumbled about trying to get out of the room again, and each time we approached a door on a wall, it leapt to another location at a different cardinal point.
• Using curtains, curtain rod, trying to "hide ourselves" from the sphere when we approached the door almost worked, but we no sooner touched the doorknob than the whole door would still jump to a new location.
• Finally after a lot of bad rolls and clumsy time wasting we figured out that if you walk straight through the not quite illusory ball of fire, as you are approaching the door, it stays put and you can open it.
• We checked out the east exit of this room and it was a dead end. We ran out of time and retraced our steps to the north exit, and went back to Dirtwater.

Whisk and Tenly went to see what they could find out about the next few rooms in the Southeast area of the tunnel, near the necromancer's quarters.

• Whisk is not very finessed when it comes to lock-picking, but Tenly can kick in a door like gangbusters.
• There were two zombies in a corridor that seemed to be
• 1) an elf from a months ago lost adventuring party and
• 2) a ribbet that had recently attacked the Councillor and was fought off. Isaac the Wizard, Tenly related, found out that this ribbet's last memory of having gold in its palm was from selling a fancy dagger to one Edith the antiquities trader in Dirtwater. (More on that later)
• They decided not to be lethal about this. Tied up the two zombies and dragged them with them. Tenly's really strong -- it wasn't that much of an encumbrance and they wanted to see if they could find out more about the ribbet's motive, and maybe give closure to next of kin or something for the elf.
• They went further, exploring a couple more rooms, and came upon a chest. It was in an alcove of an otherwise empty room, but was guarded by some snakes. One of the snakes was smashed to smithereens by Tenly's hammer after Whisk used blighting strikes to reduce its vitality. The other snake retreated into the walls.
• Again, brute force was far more effective than Whisk's lock picking so the chest was pried open. In it were some bones, which before they coalesce into a skeleton, were dispatched by Whisk in a montage of many ranged magical attacks. Then we saw beneath them an Arcane Cloak.
• EPILOGUE: Back in town Whish talked to Miasmus and to Emily.
  • The two zombies were left in Miasmus' care. This was presumably to be locked up to reduce danger to others. The idea was to see if we could extract the elf's identity somehow and notify whomever that the body had been found, providing closure. Not to try to reanimate or de-zombify.
  • Whisk sought out Edith, and representing that he had "contacts' or "clients" from the Antiquities Studies program in Cleverly Named on the Spot (but hence forgotten) University, he convinced her to bring out for inspection 3 daggers. One was most likely the one that the ribbet sold her based on reports of what Isaac saw. She wanted 8 handfuls of gold for it, if his contact at the Univ. is interested in a purchase. They will connect again in a week or two to discuss at the Sharpspur Tavern.
  • Whisk didn't reveal that he knew it was sold to her by the ribbet, that it was killed, or that it's zombie remains are in the hoosegow in Dirtwater now. This may be a dead end, or not. This could depend on what Miasmus, Isaac, and the councillor decide to do.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ukec0zVDoQsNKhVfW88EALs0baGpKFNs