Professor Sieglinda Sachenmacher, of the Department of Artificing, performs an experimental demonstration wherein she provides alchemical vitality to a wooden homonculus and summons a surprisingly willing spirit from the Dreamlands to animate it. After a short period of learning to operate the body it's found itself trapped in, a momentary distraction gives the homonculus a chance to escape and explore the strange world it has found itself summoned to.

Its curiosity distracts it and it is easily recaptured by the PCs, who bind it, take it back to Sebastian's manor, and chain it up. It seems curious about Sebastian in particular for some reason, and Sebastian provides it with some interesting puzzles to play with while they contact the professor to come get her valuable construct.

When the professor arrives to reclaim her experiment, they find it is “dead” - the alchemical vitality has run out, releasing the spirit back to the Dreamlands whence it came.

An unusual series of small fires in town happens to catch the interest of the PCs. The fires are small and relatively easily appeased without substantial property damage, but are happening much more frequently than normal for a town as fire-safety-conscious as Salamander.

Investigation turns up evidence that the creatures after which the town was named have been attracted or driven into populated areas even though they normally avoid leaving their nice, warm volcano habitat. The fires seem to be caused by salamanders combusting due to stress, shock, or just plain cantankerousness.

Due to possession of unnatural rationality (for a typical fantasy TTRPG) by the PCs, professionals are consulted and scholarly works are consulted before rushing off into potential danger. Salamander behavior and ecology are delved into and professionals are hired to survey around the backside of the volcano to look for evidence of recent activity that might have disturbed a the local salamanders.

The survey turns up some recent digging that, after an again-unusually-rational consultation with the mining guild, appears to be unauthorized.

Also, Sebastian has put some special effort into completing his flying-magic-carpet project. An arcane pigeon-coop is constructed from which to harvest “flight” from large number of pigeons, who now spend a lot of time flapping frantically without managing to leave the floor.

Aside from the apparent wildcat mine the survey does not seem to have turned up anything obviously dangerous, so the PCs go to investigate in person. They find obvious evidence of recent activity - abandoned camping gear and mining equipment - but no sign whatsoever of anyone still there…as if the miners had simply vanished.

Investigation of the scene with a high-quality thaumometer reveals a very faint trace of sorcerous influence particularly around the rubble blocking the lava-tube the miners were delving into. The fact that this influence seems to be necromantic in nature causes some deserved consternation and, being the abnormally rational PCs that they are, they head for the top local religious authority (at the temple of Foosh, the major Celestial god of Fire in its aspect as the provider of warmth and light and purification and useful transformations - and of course the patron god of the town and university) to consult. Speaking with the high priest Samuel Chandler about the matter, he is alarmed and a bit excited (as things like this haven't happened in generations) and agrees to send the matter out for discussion at the capital.

As a result, a few days later armed religious representatives show up summoning Sebastian and Gunther to the church. They find there that an array of candles on tall stands has been spread throughout the room. A bit of ritual ensues, whereupon all of the candles next to the PCs spontaneously light up (along with the candles next to Francois, who has been standing politely by the door waiting to be needed). High priest Samuel apologizes to the PCs for what must happen next, and the armed guards both reach into bags they are carrying and withdraw daggers.

…which are then turned over and handed politely to the PCs, followed by some nice fire-resistant cloaks, a bag of food, and the offer to provide shoes. They are also given consecrated documents declaring their Adventurer status. This turns out to be an impromptu ritual making the PCs formally “Adventurers”, allowing them to deal with potentially Infernal threats legally…but potentially also compulsorily, as happens to be the case here. They are tasked with investigating what's going on at the seemingly necromantically-tainted site.

Sebastian and Gunther load up camping supplies with Francois, and with a sound like thousands of pigeons frantically flapping, they are carried around the town (to some mild applause from the townsfolk, who are used to magical weirdness but appreciate a successful demonstration as much as anyone) and up to the empty dig site, which they find has been visited by church authorities and marked off-limits to non-Adventurers.

[…continued - more to be filled in here …]

The undead head of Ootomayv the apostate goblin is residing in Sebastian's workshop. As always, around dawn and dusk, his maniacally laughing and ranting voice becomes audible and he can see and hear what is happening where his mummified head is. Here is a summary of most of the results of the PCs investigation into Ootomayv and his origins:

• An indeterminate (but probably very long ago) time past, Ootomayv had either led an expedition towards the surface-world or gone off on one by himself. He was crushed by a cave-in just short of the surface. He's quite bitter about that and seems to think it was intentional but it's not clear if this is true or just his paranoid assumption.
• He seems to have refused to accept being dead, which apparently led to some sort of argument in the afterlife resulting in his apostacy from the Infernal and his curse to be disallowed death. This seems to be some sort of more horrifying thing by Infernal cultural standards than it might seem to surface-worlders.
• He was apparently after “secrets” of the surface world, but if he was after any particular secrets at the time, he no longer remembers them. He is, nonetheless, still fixated on discovering “secrets”.
• Although he has not “changed sides” to become aligned with the Celestial, he is clearly no longer Infernal.
• He seems similar to someone with dementia in that he seems to have problems retaining new memories as a result of being not-alive. Unlike actual dementia, though, he seems to be fully aware of his condition. His obsessive repetition of certain things (like his name) appears to be a conscious effort to maintain memories that he feels are more important while sacrificing ones he deemed less important. That he remembers Sebastian's “name” (or at least, the name Sebastian told Ootomayv - “George”) and that he is now freed from the rubble and has reached the surface has some import, since it implies he has consciously chosen to hang onto those memories at the cost of potentially losing some others. Without some sort of “life” he cannot add memories and experiences.
• In addition to the poorly-specified quest for “secrets”, he seems to be driven by spite against the Infernal for impeding him.
• He does admittedly seem quite insane, though strangely less than one might expect for someone who would seem to have been effectively in “solitary confinement” for potentially a millenium or more.
• He does seem to be a sorcerer, his ability to perceive the waking world from his spirit-world prison through his head would seem to be a result of his sorcerous talents. At times when Infernal or Celestial attention is on him (Night, Day, inside consecrated or otherwise (un)holy places) he can't overcome this, but during dawn and dusk he can get through if there is no special opposition.
• He appears to be able to perceive what's happening in the near Dreamlands where his spirit is trapped at all times. He reports, for example, that there is a curious spirit that seems to be hanging around Sebastian there (which annoys Ootomayv, as it is distracting.) He also (…make a roll here and I'll decide how much to reveal).
• There are bits and pieces of information about Infernal culture that may still be accessible through dim memories, with the right questioning, though probably not too much.
• The PCs are now what passes for “experts” on the Infernal, just because nobody else seems to know much of anything at all about them. (If there is anyone else around with more information about the Infernal world, they're keeping it to themselves.)
• One presumes the topic of whether or not Ootomayv wants to be allowed to die has come up in the sporadic crepuscular conversations - he very defiantly does not want to die, though there is certainly an element of spite driving that. If the hypothetical prospect of living again comes up it is met with maniacal enthusiasm, but neither Ootomayv nor, probably, anyone else has any idea how such an unusual thing could be accomplished at the moment.

At this stage, discussion of where the story goes from here will take place. Ootomayv could simply become a simple prop, a somewhat minimalist NPC and/or macguffin for future events, or continue to be a focus. There are also possibilities which could result in Ootomayv becoming a more developed and active NPC.

Ootomayv has lasted for centuries in his current state, so waiting around while the PCs go off and do something else is no real burden for him.