Creepy Spheroids and Mutant Manticores

Our 5e game continued last night with the part exploring the strange ruin with the dish on top. The first thing they discovered was a cell, and inside was someone they knew: the former Mayor Gladhand. They had last seen Gladhand in Rivertown after helping him acquire (well, steal it from the Raccoon Crime Family's vault) money to hire mercenaries to take back the town from Mayor Drumpf. Gladhand tells them he had come to Sang where the Clockwork Princess had agreed to help him, and he had been running errands for her, checking up on wayward "Looms." Looms, he says, are duplicates of Mirabiilis Lum the genius who built her, who is now in advanced state of senility. One of the wayward Looms is in league with the Shadow.

Gladhand was captured by one of the Junk City's gangs for some reason. They threw him in this cell, but then stopped coming a few days ago. The group sends Gladhand off to an end to meet up with him later. This proves to be a mistake.

Shortly before freeing Gladhand, they had encountered a folksy talking but very creepy spheroid being. He had asked to touch them with a sucker-ended tentacle. They had obviously declined. He disappeared. 

The group had explored much farther before they here Gladhand scream. They return to find unconscious but otherwise apparently unharmed. They assume it was the ball face, but the thing is nowhere to be seen.

They pick up Gladhand and carry him back to an inn. Looking to save time, they use a back alley. That's a mistake too, when a weird manticore flies down to attack. The creature is toxic and makes a few of the party sick before they are able to kill him.