Piprim said his parents want him to come over for dinner and to bring friends. So we all set off for Yeluma.
When we arrived, Piprim commented, "The forge isn’t running. I wouldn't know my mom to ever take a vacation." When we entered there was dried blood all over the floor and signs of a struggle. There were two bodies. A gnome and a halfling. Not Piprim’s parents. There were deep lacerations all over the forge.
Piprim asked someone to go upstairs. I went up on my own to sneak around. I found three corpses in pieces, a dented golden sphere, and scattered papers. I returned to gather the rest of the party to examine the bodies for identification. Piprim knew one of the bodies as an alchemist named Tilla.
He found multiple summons from Professor Grandquill, Professor of Genetics at Springreach University. The verbiage became progressively more insistent. There was a second golden sphere. There was a note written in haste pinned to the other side of the coffee table. "Piprim, don't come to Spring" It appeared to be unfinished.
Another golden balled rolled out from under the table into Piprim's leg. It unfolded into another shape. Several layers unfolded into a ball wielding many blades. A second blade ball rolled out of the kitchen. A little door in it opened and a blast of jagged metal flew out. We destroyed them and Piprim investigated the remains. He believed that his parents would never have made a murderball. It made his dreadnaught armor look like plate with how precise it was constructed.
We reported the murders to the authorities in Yeluma. It took a few hours to be cleared of suspicion. We headed back to Springreach to ask Professor Grandquill about the summons we found.
A groundskeeper directed us to a lit window. He doesn't personally know him, but hasn't heard anything bad. It took forever to get let into the building. Bik knew enough about the building to lead us to the professor's office. He was not present, so we started snooping. Piprim found a false bottom in a drawer with a file with his own name on it. There was also a child's drawing of armor. The file was a dossier of the Embercoils and observations of Piprim's armor. There was also an ovular, light blue gem—a gemheart.
[Piprim found a journal entry:
They are here. After nineteen years of dead ends and cold trails, the thieves have surfaced not a mile from my new office — running a little forge under an assumed name, playing at being humble craftspeople. As if I would not know their work. As if I would not know him. The post at the university has served its purpose admirably. A genealogist may ask any question about any bloodline and no one thinks it strange. I have traced them through parish records, guild registries, a dozen forwarded letters — and at the end of it all, there he was. Subject One. My only success. Grown. Walking. I confess the sentiment surprised me. I had expected to feel vindication. Instead I felt something closer to a father's pride, which I did not think myself still capable of. I have written to the Embercoils twelve times. Cordial. Patient. A consultation, a commission, an invitation to tea. They answer nothing. She is behind the silence — Tikka always did have a nose for danger and the spine to act on it. No matter. I have been polite long enough. If they will not bring him to me, I will bring them to me, and he will follow. He always would; the boy loves them, which is the one variable I could never engineer and never understood. That is the flaw in the others, I am increasingly certain. Not the flesh. The flesh takes. It is the mind that rejects the frame — and I begin to suspect the difference was never in my technique at all, but in the twenty years of coddling those two gave him. A settled mind. A loved one. Insufferable. If it is true, then everything I need to finish the work is not in a vat or a ledger but in the boy's own history, and I have been dissecting the wrong thing for two decades. No matter. He is coming. When he arrives I will show him the Glory, unfinished though she is, and he will understand at last what we are meant to be. And if his little friends prove troublesome — well. The classroom has teeth. I have seen to that. Let them come.]
I could not read the words, but Piprim summed it up by saying the professor called the Embecoils thieves. Piprim was a test subject and the Embercoils messed him up.
Metallic creatures fell from the ceiling. We destroyed them and found a maker's mark on the collar of each creature. It was a stylized M that could be read in both common and gnomish.
There was a socket on a table that the gemheart fit into. The stone tablet that held the fossil turned into a portal. We were in rough shape, so Sapphyre cast a prayer of healing before we stepped through.
Where we arrive it was early morning. About 100 yards from where we arrived there was a pedestal with a glowing blue gem larger than the one we put into the table. In the distance it looked like a junkyard, but it had some structure. There was an aquamarine glow. We traveled through the walkways. We found a Gnomish designed building with energy shield around it. it was surrounded by glowing item in the grounds that eroded our resources and health. There were metallic creatures patrolling the skies. Sapphyre and I snuck across the field, but Piprim got caught in the middle of the field. One of the armor suits came down and there was a gnome inside that pulled Piprim through the shield. I ran along a wall and jumped onto the other one. It shook me off and tried to stomp on me. We destroyed it and it exploded leaving us without a way to get through the shield. We watched the metal clad gnome inside the shield beat Piprim into unconsciousness and come back out. I told Sapphyre to grapple him and pushed him through the shield. She was able to destroy the shield controls and I came in to destroy the last gnome.
Took an elevator down. Very deep. We found doors that Piprim said were called storage, research lab and incubator. We went into the incubator room. Notes from the creator say that has been obsessed with trying to recreate his only success at creating a larger gnomish race. Tried with goliaths, firbolg troll, and ogre. All have unfortunate issues.
We went to the research lab and the maker announced over a loudspeaker that he was pleased to see him walk through the doors on his own. Even though we've destroyed so much he is proud that "the material" he made inspires such loyalty. The maker was furious that Piprim's mother told him that he had been cursed or sick. The maker bitched about being looked down upon, literally. He had very big little man energy. Everyone knows I don't like little people. Piprim gave him a lot of shit about it. Now we're all proud of Piprim.
Piprim's father healed him mid battle, but was thrown aside. Dead.
The maker revealed a huge mechanical project that seemed to be powered by vats of green goo. Piprim's mother interfered with the maker's attempts to kill us. We defeated all of his minions and broke the vats.
Piprim's mother said they wanted to tell him the truth, but... it was horrible so they removed the memories. Piprim begged her just to stop talking about it and just go home. Bik cast gentle repose on the father and we returned to Springreach. Piprim's mother said she may know a priest that would allow him to be brought back, but Piprim convinced her not to. His father will be remembered a hero.
