Murphy's return to Transia this time was extremely urgent.
The fighting was still underway at Blood Banner Heights. Who knew whether some clever little player would deliberately rack up enough points to summon him, the main quest NPC, just to stir things up?
To avoid looking bad, he had deliberately set his support point requirement very high. But accidents could always happen, so Murphy felt he shouldn't waste too much time.
After meeting with Mirian, Murphy had planned to look for Triss, but the Blood Countess was still talking with the two goatmen he'd brought back. They were probably discussing some of the Blood Countess's "wild youth" stories. Murphy prudently chose not to disturb his girlfriend in case Triss got embarrassed and angry, and instead headed back down to the lowest level of the corridor.
In the passage outside the collapsed Hall of Holy Blood, he spotted a strange-looking piece of engineering equipment in operation. Molly, the steam automaton he'd seen last time, stood beside it on guard, looking bored.
As Murphy approached, he got a clearer look at the crushed raw goldflame ore being fed along a conveyor belt into a mechanical box at the back of the excavator-like machine. It was quite unlike any excavator he'd seen before.
More precisely, the biggest difference was that it had six "spider legs." When necessary, the thing could move under its own power.
"I remember Old Flywheel only brought you two and his toolbox to my territory. So did he hammer this thing together with a wrench over the past few days? Is this the power of a steam engineering master? Impressive."
Murphy clasped his hands behind his back. Rather than getting handsy with the strange contraption, he maintained his usual "illiterate vampire" pose and asked Molly a question. The bored