c02s04e20 -- Shaking Up the Campaign Day 202 The team planeshifts away from New Cyre Netherspace as the cavern begins to collapse -- the floor bucking up, threatening to crush the carefully polished ritual area and hollowed space-- -- at bartertown, the city is reeling from a masive scale earthquake that has completely collapsed the salt plains by over 1000 feet in the center of the collapse. Minutes later additional shockwaves further scuttle precarious buildings barely stable from the massive ground shaking. News comes in from CragWood that a 200 mile per hour hurricane was en route within the next few hours. No time to recover the fallen, no juice left in the cleric to stop it... those that survived hunker down and brace for a nightmare gale ripping salt, sand, grit and shattered city wrechage through bartertown with massive rain soaking everything -- potentially for days. Even the Temple is expose to the wind after the eathquake shattered the foundation, splaying the fortress open to the elements. Ships over the Ivory planins report they're going to get caught in the storm and elect to land to hunker down. The south Darguun fleet reports similar heavy weather conditions that require landing on Darguun to prevent being torn apart over Open Ether. Riding out the storm; It's many hours before a long rest can begin. day 203 by the time the team and first responders can finish a long rest, the storm's winds have subsided to a mangeable 40 miles per hour. Reports are conming in from the South Fleet that they've got hobgoblins harrassing their position though the winds haven't subsided yet... The skull ship hasn't replied back at all. Taking a 3 claw monster and manta ship out into the desert-- its not much desert anymore. The entire basin has collapsed across hundreds of miles, and the hurricane has dumped millions of gallons into the now thousand feet deep depression-- the skullship is found sunk to its nose in thick mud... but there's no reply on the comm. inside.. everyone is dead. multiple puncture wounds on everyone. same story for every person. the bridge was killed at their stations. many instances of iron door peeled back as somethingcut it's way up through the ship until everyone is dead. Following the path of chaos, the team eventually finds still water in the lower 8 decks of the ship.... The boarding team cannot pull the ship free of the mud. using the 3 claw grapple and tethers from the stingray ship to aid in the ship's lift, the whole bottom of the skulll is clung to by black tar clinging to the bottom of the ship like melted cheese.. dhraksis takes a seahorse to radiant damage the strings off the ship-- which causes the black tar to snap up into the bottom of the skull ship like rubber bands. A bit of liquid pours out but the majority remains inside. turns out the tar is keeping water around it to provide insulation against the exterior environment. THX usee a 9th level banish to cleanse the ship and bring it home. Oddest bit about all this is where did the ooze come from, and why did the basi collapse? Raige Friendly-- local sage-- shrieks that he has the answers. the basin was already under critical stress from two years of precipitation, soaking the brittle under plate the basin was sitting on. Once the earthquake triggered, that was all the basin needed to finally crumble and drop. 1500 feet at the deepest point. The water mixing with all the deposited dirt silt sand etc making a quicksand sort of effect. Raige Friendly goes on to explain that the black tar is either the remnant bundle of tar that ate a mekillot and headed off into the desert alone.. or that the earthquake fissure is so deep that the underdark has been pierced, and the tar is now seeping up into the basin, concealed by the mud and water... but he suspects the real reason is the Kazarak villains putting it there themselves to lay a trap for the heroes of Fury. Lo' that those who do not protect themselves from their foulest foes leave themselves exposed to... those. Raige wound down and was awarded the title of Chief Consultant for the city. Mostly because Frank likes to hear him talk. South fleet still stuck on darguun for some reason. The team has Fire Todd teleport to the 3 Clawed Monster -- where the team did find the ships still grounded, the winds high, and a squad of hobgoblin skirmishers attempting to board the Monster. A few rounds of killing sends the indigenous warriors howling for the woods. Scooping up the ships; the team pulls their fleet back to Bartertown and begin a 17 day campaign to help restore Bartertown to operating condtion. Sending out relays; Aundair, Zilargo, and Breland are all dealing with their own disaster relief for the eastern lands of their nations hving been hit my the same hurrican-like weather... it's going to be 20+ days before any of them can led aid to the now-collapsed Salt Plains. Thrane is hit the worst; the earthquakes, according to all accounts, coincide with a new sky island rising from the Ether Depths between Thrane and Darguun-- A continent-sized chunk of hellstone, sulphur and all, pushing up between the two continents, causing an effective land bridge connecting the two land masses for the first time since the Gatekeepers destroyed the core of the world to send the Demons back to Hell. Raige Friendly agrees-- thiswould cause massive earthquakes and crazy storms as the millions of tons punch up from the depths of the ether into the island's plane... the trajectory of the storms all correleate to the point between the continents just northwest of New Cyre. Day 220 Bartertown infrastyructure can now handle the rest of repairs itself without needing the team to micromanage the task. Time to restore resources. No word from Honest Harry. The guesstimated size and location of the HellStone Land Mass would put the pearl farem at grave risk... Harry being away from his sendingstone is a bad omen, so tht team heads along the edge of hellStone in sdearch of the pearl farm and maybe even honest harry. Just north of Crag Mountain the team encounters a Thrane gunship engaging in combat with a Church of the Silver Flame mounted on the roofs of three houses that are propelling the church through the northwood of the crag region. The church lurches along like a 3 legged dog with a cluster of wartek gun turrets protruding from the peaked roof of the now- mobile church. The Thrane gunship goes down in the woods while the two ships focus fire on the large structure gone rogue. Frank jumps ship to shred the turrets on the roof, leaving Princess in charge of flying the ship, which promptly wrecks near the thrane gunship. Focusing fire on the houss acting as legs; the team eventually hews the legs out from under the church while Frank burns its interior to prevent it from further troubling the community. The surviving Thrane marines inform the heroes that all the towns and cities that were destroyed by the rising hellStone rose from the rubble right amidst the rescue efforts to find what citizens may have survived ut trapped in rubble.. now the rubble was sifting, gathering together into some form of automaton, and began attacking anything that moved. Some were brandinshing wartek augments where none used to be.. the enfd result are thousands of mlarge to massive structures animating and attacking everything around them. Thrane military has been figthing them for the past 2 weeks as they wander across Thrane seemingly haphazzardly. Unfortunately, one of the two major Thrane navy shipyards was located in Aruldusk.. which has been decimated. Thrane was already missing 1/2 of its fleet since Cyre was pulled into hell.. now 1/3 of their remaining fleet has been destroyed. Thrane is on the back foot; karrnath was shielded from the hurricanes by Kurn.... nearly at full strength; Karrnath moves in to occupy Kurn uncontested while both Thrane and Aundair turn their attention inward to rescue and heal their own. With the whole region wrecked, it will be difficult to count on other nations to police a mobilizing navy of Draegoth or to count on Thrane to support an offensive strike into Hell... it will take years for Thrane to fully recover... assuming the hellStone isn't the foreshadowing of some massive threat to Thrane beyond the initial chaos of its arrival. The team needs more recon. <end of Session> <end of Season> Day 220 late fall The team is now level 18.