Our party began by joining Oranthus on his ship. The spherical tarnished metal ship was obscured by clouds again after they boarded. Oranthus introduced the group to Elgeten and Corith, who also were mask wearing cloud giants. The giants explained the vast research they were trying to achieve here on the planet Kaatarith. The issue the giants were running into were the recent constant meddling of space pirates that were disturbing many of their research subjects. The group asked the giants if they ever copied or cloned people without their consent, which caused the giants to pause. They did not have a good answer, but said in dire circumstances where there was no other alternative they had copied people before.
The group was a little weirded out with that but also asked how the giants had immediately known the group was clones when they met. The giants recognized one of their own’s works, and asked in return who the party worked for or at least where their allegiance laid, since they had brought Argentheart tracking devices into their ship, being the boar spines and scanning device as well as who knew what else. The group of course responded they were working on leaving Argentheart if possible and the giants came up with an offer, the group could get rid of the space pirates above the planet and in return the giants could rid the group of their tracking devices. The plasmoid warlock also asked the group if they should have these giants clone the party and send the clones back to the guild to negate suspicion of their turncoat plans.
The scans also showed some major anomalies with the Autognome Druid, most often metals and druidic magics do not get along and the souls attachment felt very thin to this body. The group explained that their metal friend had been cloned over two hundred times and the giants were panicked by this revelation. The druid also revealed the small fire spirit that was keeping the green heart inside the druid’s chest safe and watered. The giants also revealed that the other team capturing monsters in the race against the party had been captured by the same space pirates the group needed to take care of. Clyde the giff was willing to go with the party (who did not trust him not to inform on the group’s change of allegiance).
After much deliberation the group eventually summoned the interim recovery team, informed them of the rescue mission. A short rest and a spaceship ride got the party within sight of the damaged whale shaped vessel that had their allies trapped within. The area around the ship was devoid of activity, it seemed whatever space battle was happening had drawn to a close. They could see there was extensive damage to the hull, which made sense with the giant crystal impaling the ship. The group found the main hanger and landed their ship inside, finding every alarm was going off. The artificer sent her battle companion robot out to determine if the air on the ship was breathable, which was luckily. They next looked at the information panels in a nearby control room and found the ship was due to hand off numbered goods to an “Fate Organization” which seemed ominous. They also discovered there had been a magical pulse that undid most of the magic in and around the ship when the crystal impaled it, shorting out many of the containment fields of “goods” on the ship. There were also multiple areas of the ship that were severely damaged and possibly not passable currently, so they might have some difficulty navigating the areas ahead.
The group split up between their allies and the main group, sending their allies on a longer route around the crystal just in case they needed to ditch them. after walking down a few corridors the group found a dead soldier in once Black Griffin armor, but now adorned with a pair of blue eyes on his shoulder pads. The soldier had his breathing mask and throat slit and was laying over a floor grate. The Warlock sent his flock of familiars around to scout for the group, finding there was something absolutely moving around in the vents, which destroyed one of the goo owls he had made. Another found a group of soldiers patrolling, one of which got picked off by an ooze cube monster as well as the owl getting trapped as well. The group covered the grate on the air vent and moved the body back on top to hold it down, not wanting to deal with whatever was in there. the last Goo owl familiar found there were a few other pathways as well as sections of the ship that had guards in black armor guarding and one path with a confused minotaur wandering about. It identified the barracks, the helm, asset containment with secondary hanger access, as well as an unmarked room.
Mystery afoot, the group made their way to the unmarked door, passing some yeti destroying a mess hall and trying to make the room colder with ice breath and breaking the freezer. At the unmarked door the group made an arcana check and bypassed the locking mechanism on the keypad. Within was a bit of a nightmare mad scientist lab.
“There are animals partially dissected, formaldehyde fumes fill the air. There are multiple creatures sewn together almost seamlessly and might just be missing a spark. There is a cabinet on the wall that has a wooden auto gnome body, there is a jar of gray goo, and a glass tube containing an astral elf body suspended in fluids. There is also a bug man pinned to a wall like bug taxidermy and a halfling suspended in fluids in a separate tube. There are other bodies of humanoid beings around the room as well, these feel the most important.”
When the bodies are interacted with there was a flash of light and a vision. The three of them along with a bug man and a halfling approaching a ship floating lifeless in space. Another flash as the group in space suits examine the body of a large sized creature with a hole blasted through its chest. Beams of light from outside the ship illuminate the group and the body as something grabs the entire ship. Another flash and the group are manacled before a huge horned giant, heavily tattooed in swirls of blue on her corpse white skin. Her voice like bird song, captivating and sweet as she stomps the bug man with you flat with her boot. Icy blue eyes fill your memories. They might be clones but they lived this somehow as well.
As the group grappled with the vision which gave them more questions than answers, they heard the door shut and lock behind them as well as a villainous slow clap. He appeared as a tall thin man, sickly pale, holding a long incredibly thing long blade. He greeted the group, “Well, well, I did not expect to get to work on the lot of you again.” With that combat was had. The group was thrown off, this man knew them and had killed them before. He taunted them the entire fight, and when he was hit by one of the Druids attacks his form dropped revealing him to be an oni, or ogre mage. The group also had one of the Lapidaries with them, which was shooting rays of magic at this foe and after being struck viciously called out for help from its crystal family. Nothing seemed to happen at first and the battle raged on, each party member scoring big blows on their foe until a large gem pierced the door, causing Luthier, the villain, to second guess his confident stance, and dimension door to safety. The group had a moment to breathe and we ended the session there.
As a special bonus for finding past selves each party member gained a level in a class they did not have already have any levels in. I let them choose and was interested to see what they would each take. Our Artificer had already dipped one level into blood hunter
