This is the Way the World Ends

==Season Twelve? Episode Two==
Preceded by: Season Twelve, Season Premiere: How We Roll
Followed by: Season Twelve, Episode Three: Small Damn Heroes
==Summary==
::Prayer to Ethan Dragonslayer: I doubt you'll hear this. I hope you're safe.
: It's a pleasant morning in Port Nyasa as the party meets on the Jade Kracken III. Ashra is taking advantage of her newly regained CEO status to lead a meeting. The party has three relevant locations to think about: Port Nyasa, where they are, Nyasa City, where Vishnu is likely to insist they go once he is released from his bubble prison, and the Ornan Jungle, where the party has been planning to head next. Ashra asks Leilah and Cicero to come up with useful missions for the party to do on the way.
: Leilah wants to examine the amulet she picked up in Voltagassy, and Ashra asks Semna Ashtad if she can decipher the carved ancient Dwarven runes on the amulet's outside. She reads one word as related to dragons. Leilah breaks out the Analyze Dweomer.
: All of the party members are who they claim to be, and have various numbers of magic items on their persons. Avi has a particularly pimp +5 speed harming rapier; the fact he never uses it makes everyone else rage a little.
: The crown the party found with Xenteroth's loot acts as a circlet of wisdom. As far as they can tell, no horrific self-mutilation is required.
: The amulet is a "Dragon Rider's Amulet"; when the wearer is in dire need, it would once summon a young adult black dragon under the wearer's control. Ashra begins to covet it to sacrifice it to Ethan.
: The bubble Vishnu is in is a Neogi's Entrapper. It is a small bubble the size of a fist. It usually transports slaves under neogi psionic enslavement, but that isn't necessary for someone to be transported within. Vishnu is visible inside, and does not move when the bubble is shaken. In the mirror, the bubble appears to have a mirrored surface. Leilah spends some time studying the bubble to understand its effects, and once the AD is done she and Ashra joke around about contact juggling the boss.
: They're heading over to the Epitome to let Vishnu out when the church bells start ringing and Inquisitors pour out of a local station. Ashra immediately DDoors onto the Epitome. Leilah tells the party that these bells are the bells of St. Cuthbert, they shouldn't usually be ringing, and they signal a time of great distress and summon the people to be armed. Ashra returns to the deck of the Epitome. Ashra and Cicero trade off using Ashra's spyglass to check out the town. Ships that were approaching are now turning away. A small cargo ship signals a large cargo ship by semaphore; Avi translates "Port is closed, return to nearest fallback port". The city walls have huge signal torches, and commoners are massing in the city. The seaworthy vessels are streaming out of the port. One giant white transit balloon is nearly loaded. Ashra hears a dockworker say "Is the same thing going on everywhere?"
: Semna asks permission to interview the populace with Aether; Ashra gives it. Semna walks up to a goblin, takes off her glasses, and shouts "Report!" He reports that the "savior ship" is almost ready. Leilah says a "savior ship" is a salted earth type plan the Nyasan cults used to use against each other pre-unification. Semna says she wanted a tactical update; he gives her little useful information and runs away.
: This is enough to convince the party that Bad Shit is going to happen, and the Epitome takes off. The JK3 tries to, and finds that all the fuel they should have had has been stolen. Aether talks to her spider and shares with the party that all the cannonballs are now scratched. It is the same mark the Hand of Vecna was scratching in its countdown.
: Ashra asks Avi to network for information. He agrees, and phones Raziel Deadeye, who tells him to get the fuck out of the air and go find shelter. Apparently the city of Port Fasco has become unreachable for the last three hours, and all the Nyasan protectorates are going under high alert. Avi decides to go to the Pinnacle society clubhouse, and lands the Epitome.
: Leilah wants to go report to the clerics, to get some information if nothing else. No one wants to go with her except for Ashra, who can't go with her, so Leilah will go alone and everyone else will follow Avimeus to the clubhouse.
: The wind is picking up. It's surprisingly strong for this time of year.
: While heading towards the clerics' command center, Leilah meets a cleric of Moradin with a pimp hammer. She asks him what's going on, and he quickly reveals that he's a stranger there himself and knows little more than she. He asks her domains; when she lists all of them she adds that she thinks she needs someone higher up, and overtakes him.
: Meanwhile, everyone else reaches the clubhouse. The not-drow is there, and he is very grateful when Avimeus opens the door. Everyone hurries inside. It's completely dark, but luckily everyone in the party has darkvision. Kruglor's connection to nature feels disturbed, which bothers him. Ashra sweeps the room for consciousnesses and finds an extra with very well-phrased thoughts. She tells him to come out, as they know he's there.
: Out comes a gnome Avi recognizes as Sir Hufflepuff Thorbanner, a minor noble from Little Yarmoth who was exiled far before the revolution for massive extortion. He was likely also a clubmember who had the same idea the party did.
: Ashra goes over to the note wall and reads the changing notes. They are all simply phrased Common headlines: MASSIVE BLAST OVER PORT FASCO. BURKINA ON HIGH ALERT. MALVONT NAVY MOBILIZED ON LOW ALERT. ORDER OF HIGH CLERICS IN NYASA CITY ORDERS ALL ALLIED CITIES INTO HIGH ALERT.
: Aether asks the not-drow's name; he gives it as Zak, but reveals his real name is Faerwellyn.
: Ashra leads the party to investigate the back rooms. The kitchen has a secret door above the stove and a door to the office. There's a pressure differential between the kitchen and the office, and Semna identifies the sound through the door of air rushing into something. Aether picks the lock, and the party finds a magical chest which is very cold and is sucking in air. Ashra rigs a harness and asks others to hold it in case it sucks her in, then Mage Hands the chest open. It reveals a fifty pound block of ice and a tiny cooling element below it. Odd to have an icebox here, but that appears to be all it is.
: The party turns their attention to the secret door. Semna crowbars it open, and when the party looks in they see a shaft leading up and down with doors at the top and bottom and another door off to the side. Aether sends her spider to investigate. The trapdoor to the roof is rattling. The spider returns, and Semna hovers into the shaft.
: Leilah gets recruited by a goblin cleric to the explosives division, and decides to go to port security instead. She finds an Inquisitor in a police box, who is glad to see her. He asks if she can move at great speed, as they've had a lot of unauthorized launchings he'd like to stop. She asks him to define great speed, and when he gives an estimate of 90 feet/round, she gives him a sound lecture on how no cleric gets that kind of speed, and none of the spells on either of their lists could plausibly give it to them.
: He says that in that case he really wants someone who can signal the ships to go north and east, because there is terrible magical weather heading towards every city. Leilah realizes Ashra's illusions could reach most of the ships, and says she has an illusionist associate who could help. She calls Avi on Ashra's speakstone and asks to talk to Ashra; Ashra agrees, but says she'll do it from where she is so she doesn't have to be faced with Inquisitors.
: The sun blacks out for a moment. Leilah asks the Inquisitor what that was; he says he has no idea, and that terrifies him. She decides it's time to go back to her earlier contract with the Prince of Malvont, and heads back towards the clubhouse.
: Semna finds the passage downwards and breaks through into a wine and cheese cellar in a natural cavern. She decides that this is an illegal entrance to the Underdark and therefore she should confiscate all of the wine and most of the cheese. She proceeds to do so. The building above is beginning to shake, and the party braces themselves. Earthquakes don't really happen in this part of the world, so the place isn't really built for them. Everyone starts sharing doorways.
: One by one, the party starts having odd feelings. It's sickening to stand on the ground, for starters, as it's beginning to pitch and roll. Kruglor's connection to nature feels very disturbed. Leilah's holy symbol feels as though its connection is weakening; the same is true of Ashra's small devotional symbol to Ethan, and Cicero's connection to Vecna. Ashra takes out the Dark Lantern; it is pulsing, and has started to detect as conscious again. Its consciousness is maddeningly plural, like the one she thinks is the Scarlet Brotherhood. She looks at it in The Dark Lantern, and it takes effort to keep her mind calm as the stars within swirl madly. Kruglor's Dimension Die has started to have the sides black out -- first the first, then the second and third. He tries to check where these sides lead, but gets pure static.
: Ashra runs to the door and opens it. The rest of the party follows her to the door after her as Leilah runs towards them. The road cracks open before them, and everyone standing on the ground has a hard time balancing. Even Ashra and Semna are having a hard time staying the proper distance above the ground, and the winds have reached a force that would blow them away if they fly more than a few feet up.
: Semna bursts out through the top trapdoor, shouts "CONDEMNED!" in Abyssal, draws a scythe, and lands in the middle of the road. Ashra starts floating out, pausing to congratulate Semna on being a fellow crazy pseudo-religious figure. She looks up and sees that one of the moons, Argelis, is eclipsing the sun, which should not happen for thousands of years yet. She explains to Leilah that it wouldn't surprise her if her brothers were trying to blot out the sun, a traditional illithid goal. She thinks it's kind of cool, actually, except for the massive incoming natural disaster.
: Then Avi smells natural gas. No one is sure if it's a strategy by the locals to blow up their own city to prevent it being taken, or a natural leak, but either way it's bad. Nails are falling out of doorways, the ground is roiling, and something is bound to spark soon. The gnome yells to Cicero that he's got an idea, and the underground spring will save them. Cicero follows the gnome inside. The party decides they'll all go there.
: Semna shouts "EXONERATED!" in Celestial, puts her scythe away, and flies into the building. The others follow, including Leilah, who has rejoined the party at this point. Only Ashra is still outside when a spark ignites the gas. She dodges the enormous fireball as best she can. Everyone inside the building dodges and braces themselves as it begins to collapse and they are struck by falling debris. The building catches on fire.
: Ashra sees that the way through will involve massive fire damage, wishes her party members luck, and DDoors into the chamber. Avi uses his umbrella to float safely down, Kruglor rappels down, and the others climb down as best they can. This cave has more structural integrity than the chamber above, but they're still on a timer: the party has about eight minutes.
: Semna jumps into the water and is swept away. She communicates telepathically to the party that she feels all right, and she's going to see where the river leads. Soon she is out of telepathic range. The party quickly decides they'll follow her, but need to make more preparations.
: Ashra suggests anyone with a waterskin empty it and hold the air-filled bottle against their mouths to give themselves extra air. She is the only one to do so, however. Cicero suggests that the party tie themselves together to avoid being separated, and Ashra gets to making harnesses and connecting everyone. Leilah demands Cicero's assistance in removing her armor; they get it off just before the cave would collapse, and everyone dives into the water.
: It's a long swim, longer than anyone's breath can hold out. Semna is waiting on the other side, sipping fine wine. Cicero has the smallest reserve, but makes it through without too much difficulty. Leilah and Avi barely make it through, and in the last six seconds both start drowning and have to be pulled out by their fellows. Ashra, who is weak but was using an air bottle, has some serious trouble rolling over a ten, and is only saved by Avi's Hero Point. Kruglor swims through like it's no big deal.
: Leilah and Avi's lungs are full of water, and no one is actually trained in medicine. Ashra works out how to empty Leilah's lungs, and Semna helps Avi.
: Ashra looks around and discovers a firepit and some buckets. It looks like this place has been used as a water source. Kruglor identifies bits of flesh in the firepit. Leilah looks at the water and says it's probably not the Haverstad, since the consistency of the water is different. Leilah and Ashra heal everyone who took damage, and the party heads towards the other end of the cave. There is a stairway headed down covered with what Leilah identifies as spiderwebs.
: Aether isn't around, so the party can't negotiate with the spiders if they show up. Ashra checks with everyone that it's OK to burn the web, then sets the first patch on fire with her wand of Burning Hands.
: Five feet above her, the spider is unamused. Ashra looks up and points at the spider. Avi wants to fireball it, and Ashra is fine with that, but Leilah points out that the entire party is in the way. Instead, Avi tries to fire his gun at it and discovers his gunpowder is wet. He fires a magic missile at it from his psicrystal. Leilah tries to identify the spider, but instead, her boots take root. Cicero casts Scorching Ray and blasts it off the ceiling, to his own surprise.
: Ashra looks down the stairway. The webs go on. After getting permission from the rest of the party, she sends a fire-subbed Lightning Bolt down. The party hears screams. The general consensus is to wait until all the screaming has stopped. Leilah uses the Shatterspike to free her boots.
: When the screams end, a little over a minute later, the party floats down the stairs. They find the burned corpses of several giant spiders and a drow. Ashra searches the drow and finds a drow dagger and a vial of wormwood poison, the same poison Zak had said went missing. There is a quick consensus to tell Aether that they were this way when the party found them.
: There is a passage leading down. Ashra takes out the Dark Lantern, which is still pulsing, and uses it as a "light" source to extend the range of her darkvision. She leads the way. Soon she sees cave paintings on the wall. They are from far pre-Pelorite times, and depict black figures summoning something with purple magic. It was probably a very simple spell, perhaps clerical or druidic. Ashra, being a history nerd, is fascinated and slowly follows along. The next picture shows many of the figures hunting aurach, what Leilah describes as a prehistoric rhino, with spears. There is then a series of equally spaced lines, 152 in total. Then more hunting. After that comes a giant figure of a spider with extremely long legs.
: The corridor opens onto an egg-shaped chamber. There are five entrances to this chamber, counting the one the party entered by. There are fairly new looking crates in the center of the room.
: Ashra decides it's best to record this place, and pulls out The Map. It's a sheet of paper. Ecphrasis doesn't detect or respond either. The speakstones have no reception. The Hand of Vecna is limp. The holy symbols have all had their connections completely severed. The Dark Lantern no longer detects as conscious, but it is still pulsing.
: Ashra searches the room, and Ashra and Cicero examine the crates. They are marked with "!!!!! CAUTION: HAZARDOUS" in Common, Celestial, Dwarven, and Elven. Ashra and Cicero open the crates and find wormwood poison. In total they have 1200 doses, which the party promptly steals.
: Now the party needs to start exploring the alternate routes. Ashra gets some chalk from Cicero and marks the way they came in as "1". They then pick another door, which she marks with "2".
: Tunnel number 2 is natural. It leads upward. There is the badly burned body of a dead seven year old human girl. The party decides to go back down now.
: The next tunnel is marked with a 3. It is a small, worked stone tunnel that the party has to crouch to use. It leads to two large stone blast doors. Leilah Shatterspikes the lock and Ashra pulls the doors open. On the other side is a warren room, with sleeping holes that have been recently used. Leilah estimates they were used three days ago. The bedding is fur, and about 80 people could use this room all told. There are four cookpits, with holes above for the smoke. One cookpit is warm, and Ashra finds evidence that paper and wood were burned; some of the paper had ink markings.
: While mirroring the room, Ashra finds an invisible chest. Cicero stands guard while Ashra and Leilah open the chest. There are masterwork metalsmith's tools and masterwork alchemist's tools inside. Ashra begins to take a metal tool and is struck by sadness; she realizes the tools were used to create a magic item, which left residue. She takes the alchemist's tools and gives them to Cicero, then closes the chest. The party returns to the egg room.
: Tunnel 4 is another natural tunnel. It leads up to a pit. Everyone who can smell notices the stench of rotting flesh. The party decides to come back to this one.
: Tunnel 5 is man-made. It goes on for a while, then opens to workspaces which have been recently emptied. A bellows remains. This seems to have been a forge or the like.
: The party returns to tunnel 4. Leilah drops a stone down the hole and listens for how long it takes to hit bottom; she estimates the pit to be about 200 feet deep. Ashra casts Light on another stone and drops it. As it falls, she sees splashes of blood on the sides of the pit. At the bottom of the pit is a pile of bodies about four feet deep. Most are drow, some are humans. All have had their throats cut, and are wearing white work clothes. They have no shoes. The ones near the bottom have been crushed nearly to paste.
: Ashra, Leilah, and Cicero levitate down to investigate. They worry that the pile will animate, but the bodies are completely mundane. There is no sign that any of the bodies were bound or struggled in any way before their death. Ashra and Cicero find the pile sickening, while Leilah is more concerned with the sound Ashra heard indicating there is some way out of the room. There seems to be far less blood than one would expect.
: Leilah says she doesn't feel comfortable offering a prayer to the dead with a disconnected holy symbol. Ashra offers "I hope you get where you wanted to go," and explains she had faith before her god and will have faith after him. Leilah considers burning the bodies, which would be sacred to some and profane to others. After a brief debate the party decides to try the passage up before messing with the bodies.
: This time the party passes the girl's body. They see another body, that of an older human man. He died of burns similar to the girl's, and he has a dull sword lying beside him. The party passes him and finds a living baby halfling, wailing wildly. Leilah suggests euthanizing her, and Cicero immediately adopts her.
: She won't stop crying, and Ashra walks over and whispers "sudo be quiet, because someone is taking care of you." It works, and the child is quiet, but everyone else immediately chastises Ashra and explains to her that Mind Control Is Not Correct Parenting. She's quite willing to stay away from the baby.
: When the party continues along the path, they see light from above them. They are beneath one of the fissures in the street. They all levitate up and find the city in ruins and ablaze. The earthquake has stopped, as has the wind, but smoke fills the streets. Everyone visible seems to be a refugee, moving alone or with their family, fleeing. The party moves carefully through the smoke to where the harbor was. All they can find is the metal rods to which ships were bound.
: Avi uses his Rod of Rulership to command a peasant to answer him. She bows down. She says that everything fell, that the earth fell; the concept of an earthquake seems beyond her. He lets her flee.
: Ashra decides to levitate above the smoke, some 200 feet. Leilah expresses her concern over Ashra showing her illithid silhouette over the city. Ashra is all right with that; she is sure that this was the Awakening, the work of her brothers Grax and Xoth, and she figures they are better known than she and her silhouette will appear to be theirs. She says that while she wanted to end the world, she would have done it quickly and painlessly with the Dark Lantern; it seems pointless and cruel to her to torture the world to death.
: She floats up above the smoke, where she can see for miles. The city is mostly covered by smoke, but it is clear that the walls have collapsed, and that only a few stone towers and the foundations of large buildings remain. There is a large fissure running northwest to southeast, and it extends for at least twenty miles, as far as Ashra can see with the spyglass.
: She looks to the sea. It is pristine, supernaturally calm, and empty. No ships are in sight.
: She looks to the sky. There are layers of dark cumulus clouds, quickly heading east. The moons are back in their normal position, hard to see in the day.
: She looks along the shores of the river, searching for any wreckage that looks familiar. She finally thinks she sees the Jade Kracken III half-sunk on the riverbank several miles upriver. She does her best to memorize its location, then descends and tells the party she thinks she can lead them there.
: The walk takes two hours. It is solemn and miserable. Finally they see the wreckage, and Solid Snake motioning them over. He stands next to the magical tent Leilah had them buy. He seems very glad to see them, but harrowed. Ashra runs over to him. She tells him that the away team all made it through. He tells her sadly that they were not so lucky. She sees Fab D and Sam setting up camp as Snake leads her into the tent. Inside lies the lifeless body of Mister Bait Snugglesworth. Apparently he tried to take off when the earthquake hit and was killed. Ashra promises her own astral diamond for the Raise Dead if it's necessary. She asks if Liquid Snake is all right, and Solid assures her he is.
: The ship's crew suggest that the party help get the ScryPad free of the ship. Leilah works out a pulley system to get it lifted safely. Ashra, Leilah, and Cicero carefully get it onto shore, and everyone carries it into the tent. Leilah fills it with pure water; everyone with a waterskin catches the overflow.
: Ashra asks everyone else to get out of the way in case she gets a pingback. She scries first on Grax, then on Xoth. Neither are on this plane.
: It is getting late. The party decides to get what rest they can.
Category: Episodes
Category: Season Twelve Episodes