Travellers who have been out in the wilderness to the West of Acryn have begun to report seeing what looked like a large tower on the horizon, reaching up towards the heavens. Of the scholars who have gone to investigate, none have returned.
Meanwhile, the churches of the Guardian of Acryn and the Stanchion have put out a joint call for capable adventurers to deal with a great threat faced by the city’s people. Though the fight is expected to be a tough one, they offer 90 Riel to each of those who are successful.
Emilio Redan - Vicky
A swan - Iain
Rodrigo Robertson
The party meet in the temple of the Guardian of Acryn where they are informed that the tower in the distance is the Church of the Machine which appears to be building up towards the constellation containing the afterlife. They set out to put a stop to it before it can do something bad. Anabel is given a stone which apparently may be able to help get the souls of the Church into the afterlife, since it can't by default just take that many souls at once should they need to destroy the Church.
There then follows one enormous adventure-long boss fight against the Church. Fighting their way through various scouts and guards formed of various materials including bone and sinew, the party stop to save the some people from a village along the way who are being dragged into the machine, although Emilio breaks some of their bones in the process. An entire wall of the Church lurches to life and attacks them, and after a while they eventually manage to bring it down and it opens up.
This turns out to be a trap as various whirling blades try to slice them up, but after busting through a ventilation shaft and making their way to the processing facility, stopping the freshly-produced bone-bots, they find some mages who have set up a protective field with Scribing, who share some food. They discuss what's happening, whilst some of the minions of the church bounce off the magical wards and complain about how whilst they are individuals some of their thoughts are starting to mix together weirdly and that's probably bad.
Fighting some more parts of the Church and running from some exploding armadillos for some reason, the party reach a walkway where parts of the wall continue to attack them, but they knock them down into a makeshift platform which they use to cross to an important-looking structure. After a tricky fight against some large mechs, they eventually manage to break the glowy important-looking thing here. They then find a walkway across to another structure with… another glowy thing, but this one is shielded. After a tricky fight in which some more exploding armadillos cause friendly fire damage to the shielded McGuffin, it is destroyed and a section of walkway drops down to reveal the heart of the Church below.
Before descending Anabel attempts to work out how to use the stone. In a veil vision she is able to roughly deduce that she needs to hold it aloft and remain motionless for long enough for a link to the opened, and then keep this open at the point the Church is destroyed.
The party descend to find Unit-03's original body and an enormous mech with swirling arms that is the heart of the Church. Unit-03 attempts to negotiate with them, as they have an easy way into the afterlife, and by offering a whole load of money is almost able to convince Emilio. However, it is not ultimately enough as the party are able to offer more. After a tough fight with a timely Traitor's Cloak the party defeat and kill Unit-03 and destroy the church, and the souls within are successfully sent to the afterlife and saved.
The party return to Acryn, picking up the villagers they saved along the way. They take the ones Emilio crippled to the Tender church, and after a very substantial donation from Anabel they are fully healed. Everybody gives Emilio a ****-ton of money because otherwise he would have totally betrayed them when offered shiny things.