As the party disembarks the airship to pick up Merely, they are confronted with a massive, 100-flower bouquet held by Edwin, a gift for after their performance. He notes that the group is prepared for combat and offers his assistance. Dorean reluctantly agrees to let him come along, but realizing that this is a personal mission for her, Edwin backs off, though offers himself as an emergency contact if needed. The group continues on to meet Merely. Vera offers her a stick of gum Ward had given her, which Merely begins to chew without taking off the paper. She observes that it is chewy, then leads the group on to the entrance of the lab area, hidden behind an illusory pile of trash. After deciding that they will not likely be able to stealth through the area, they simply walk through.

The entry leads into a sort of lobby of sorts. The doors are labeled "gremlin storage," "macro lab," and "lockers and dressing rooms." They decide to search the locker room first to see if there are any keys or anything to ease their access into the rest of the lab. Instead of keys, they find one of Hayward's assistants hiding in a locker. The lab was evacuated due to a breach of containment of some sort, though Barlow did not read the memos to know exactly what. He offers to lead the group to where Hayward might be, apparently believing the party to be there to deal with the problem. The door to the macro lab appears to have been disabled, so he has to lead them through gremlin storage as an alternate path. As they enter, Dr Hayward comes over the intercom, welcoming Dorean and Merely back to the lab. Barlow realizes who Dorean and Merely are and decide that that is none of his business and leads them into gremlin storage. Small fury creatures have escaped and attack them, but are dispatched easily enough.

They continue on to a room labeled as the micro lab, dealing with pathogens and such according to Barlow. As they continue, Hayward comes on the PA again, questioning why Dorean had returned. He says that she'll get to meet further experiments, ones which Merely states are not siblings. Upon finally reaching the micro lab they encounter three more gremlins, all of which have been horribly mutated by the contents of the lab. After a harder fight, they take out the creatures and take a brief rest back in the break room. As they reach the macro labs, they find blood- and other fluid-stained exam tables and the corpses of sceintists who have been evicerated. A humanoid with bat-like wings, bound with straps, stands on the side of the room. It turns to look at them, revealing a bug-like creature on its head. Barlow identifies it as a Mind Slaver, a creature they use to control more volatile and dangerous experiments. Ward sends Henrietta to the entity in an attempt to cast a spell to remedy the situation, but the creatures catches and pops her.

Introduced

• Dr. Dallin Barlow
• Dr. James Oratio Hayward

Returning

• Edwin - the Red Prince
• Merely

Mentioned

• Hobbes
• Vinter