Small Damn Heroes

==Season Twelve Episode Three==
Preceded by: Season Twelve, Episode Two: This is the Way the World Ends
Followed by: Season Twelve, Episode Four: Random Battles
==Summary==
: It is early morning, June 11, 1444. None of the party slept well, and no one has regained any spells. Leilah prays first to Anahita Benin, then to Anahita Nubia, and gets no response. The party gathers together for a grim meeting. 
: Ashra explains that she was wrong to blame her brothers. While there's little she'd put past them, this isn't really in line with their methods; if they are even still alive, they are now trapped on Mechanus with their army, and that does little for them. The one who is likely to try to destroy all extraplanar contact, however, is Barron Ganth. Ashra tells the story of how Ganth told her about Xenteroth in exchange for her amulet, and how he claimed to have been the one to sponsor Xenteroth's killers. She then shares with the party a letter she somehow managed to get. In it, Grax warns of Ganth's forces, a force which sounds a great deal like the Scarlet Brotherhood. They are mad enough that they probably would destroy worlds. 
: Whether that's true or not, the party has more immediate concerns. They'd been planning to go to the Ornan Jungle, and they might still need to, to check on Benin Falls and see if Anahita's source has been physically destroyed. But the Jade Kracken III can't be made seaworthy, so the party needs to salvage what they can before they set off. 
: Ashra, Aether, and Cicero head inside. Leilah stays outside, in quiet and constant prayer. 
: Aether opens a door to the main compartment and finds that the altar to Ethan Dragonslayer appears to have burned away. The surrounding areas are not affected, but none of the altar's accouterments are salvageable. Cicero finds that the holy water the party bought is now vinegar. He takes what he can from the party's living quarters. Ashra grabs the heal beacon and gives it to Cicero, then goes looking for the mech. 
: She finds it half-submerged in water. She asks Aether to help make sure she'll be able to get out of it again if she isn't successful in taking off in it to get it free. Aether and Ashra pry open the top of the mech, and Ashra climbs in. She remembers how Ethan started it: "Fuck this!" The mech sputters and slowly powers on. At "WHAT!", however, all it can do is whir pathetically; there is no longer enough power in its power crystal for the mech to move or fly. 
: ... But it does have a speakstone, and it's ringing. Ashra answers, cracking the helmet and calling everyone over telepathically so they can come hear. The man on the other end is a guard in a Malvont bubble prison who has been trying every possible number. He'd failed at getting any response from Kingspire, but he had spoken to a halfling north of Baldur before successfully calling Vishnu. The rest of the bubble prison has lost integrity and filled with water; this man does not have a great deal of air left, and he's entirely alone. Aether offers him a few words of comfort, all the party has to give. 
: Ashra lets Avimeus take over the speakstone, and he starts going through his entire royal phonebook. The king's personal speakstone gives no response. He calls the information minister, the finance minister, the king's chauffeur, every possible number he can think of. Finally he gets a response from the Admiral of the First Fleet. 
: The man says that Port Wyatt has been completely destroyed, collapsing into the Underdark. The sea poured over it, and now the remains of the city are underwater. He is leading a band of survivors in a joint command force. The force is him, two lieutenants, four sergeants, and 36 enlisted men. They're heading north-northeast for the mountains. He's heard that Port Townsend is as poorly off. The Malvont fleet is gone, and the speakstones have been silent. 
: Avi keeps calling until he reaches one of his father's personal men. He tells him that there was massive damage to Malvont; the island nation was swamped by waves, and effectively destroyed in minutes. The man tells him with great regret that his father's emergency procedures were carried out the moment the Awakening hit. Just like in the Battle of Malvont, they'd hurried him to a tower and plane shifted him immediately to the Avimeus stronghold in the Outlands. 
: The only problem being that the Outlands no longer exist. The king was, as far as they can tell, killed instantly. Avi is now the king of a kingdom that no longer exists. He receives the news a bit flippantly, and lets Ashra use the phone again. 
: Ashra tries all the party members whose numbers she knows; no response. Also no response from Tyro. She calls Sanskris Vishnu and gets a looter in her house; as he stars speculating that the object ringing in his hands is worth something, she discovers that sudo works over the phone by commanding him to tell her all he knows about what has transpired. 
: The lower half of Barrensburg is completely flooded, having been hit by an earthquake. Revolutionary Square is completely destroyed. The richer neighborhoods have been completely overrun by people like him, and there is civil war in the streets. Rumor has it that Queen Rebecc-is of Goneril is dead. (If Ashra is right, that and the exploding altar would make Ganth approximately the worst dad ever.) Ashra lets the man go. 
: Having exhausted her phonebook, Ashra carefully extracts the power crystal from the mech. It can power one speakstone at a time, allowing it to function; the problem with Ashra and Avi's phones isn't that they're cut off from the network, but that their power was drained. While taking apart the mech, Ashra finds a piece of paper written in a very familiar cypher. 
: While the rest of the party is packing up salvaged equipment, Ashra hurriedly decodes the letter. It is written in her personal cypher, which she has not shared with anyone. The contents are a letter from AE, another version of herself. She reads it aloud to the party while Leilah reads the transcription over her shoulder. When she reaches the reference to "protector of the Prophetess," Leilah flings her arms around Ashra and hugs her. 
: The letter begs Ashra to turn back time and prevent the Awakening. It also gives her an address in Malagassy, formatted as a return address. She knows she would never write an address unless she wanted herself to go to it, so she asks the party to go there with her and save the world. 
: The party has a bracelet of Mount, which summons elephants. They decide to use it and set off. They gather all the water they can into their few waterskins and set off on their journey. 
: Some days down the road, the party sees a thorp beset by bandits. While the party is generally apathetic, Ashra decides they should save the town as a team-building exercise. Leilah says she's not up to fighting without her buff spells, lends her sword to Cicero, and takes up the direction of the elephant, which Snake is steering for everyone. 
: Ashra jumps off the elephant and freezes a couple of bandits with a mindblast. Aether flings a web over several more, trapping them helplessly against the edge of a tavern. Cicero starts hacking at them with his sword. Avimeus saunters over, takes out his super-fancy ceremonial sword, and discovers that it can hit people. It can hit people really well. (+5 speed harming rapier well, for the record.) 
: Nyx the spider sees her first taste of combat, but sinks a blow and runs away, as Aether is worried for her safety. Aether quickly avenges the blow to her beloved spider by shanking the offending bandit. Ashra eats one of the mindblasted bandits. She learns that he was a cultist of Kord from Nyasa City who became desperately addicted to Saracin. He was fleeing Nyasa City, which was hit particularly hard and is half underwater and half rubble, a war zone between brigands. 
: The remaining bandits are grabbing human shields. Leilah tramples a few of them with the elephant, then accidentally has Silence cast on her. Cicero enters one of the buildings and scares the two bandits within into putting down the women they had seized and apologizing profusely to them. Ashra tries to scare the bandits outside into doing the same; one is killed and the other drops his human shield and flees. 
: The party has won. Nyx makes some of the captured bandits into food for herself while the thorp's ancient leader comes to talk to the party. He has no idea what Ashra is, and speaks to Cicero as the party leader because he's been grandstanding more than Ashra has. The thorp has little to offer by way of reward, but they are horse breeders who can spare five white stallions, and they have an altar that the party can pray at. 
: The altar is to Corellon Larethian. It is in an ancient stone building, the only stone building in town. The door is marked with Corellon's symbol. There are fruit and grain offerings on the altar, and another crescent moon, but also a gear. 
: Aether interviews a spider about the conditions in the altar. It isn't intelligent enough to have much to say, but it was very frightened by the Awakening. 
: Ashra finds that the gear is cold to the touch, and Kruglor tells her he can't see it at all. She manages to turn it, which spawns another gear, then another and another until there are four or five gears visible hovering above the altar. They can turn, even though that should require them to intersect solid stone. 
: Ashra looks at the altar in the mirror. It stuns her. She tries again. It stuns her for longer. By the time she's stunned herself for ten minutes by trying, Leilah has ragequit and is teaching the elephant to do wheelies. (Leggies?) 
: Then she finally manages to resist the stunning and read the Celestial: "Nerul made a deal with Corellon."
: She speaks to the altar, and the words change. She asks if it knows her; it says no, but she knows it. She asks if it still exists: yes. She asks if it is still connected: no. Aether asks it what the meaning of life is. It answers "to complete one's purpose." She asks if it has completed its purpose, and it answers yes. She asks if it has a further purpose, and it says no. 
: Ashra asks where there are other connections; it says everywhere. She asks when the world will end, and each gear gains a number, making the sequence 1 8 4 6. Ashra asks if it knows Xenteroth, and the gears warp indescribably and fade away. 
: There is a thin connection from this altar to the Happy Hunting Grounds. Only Ashra is willing to chance restoring her spells from that plane; it is somehow able to restore her arcane spells. 
: By now, Leilah has fully investigated the elephant's four-wheel drive. She's ready to move on. 
: Aether and Cicero announce they have something to tell the party. They've decided to keep the halfling baby and raise her themselves. They will name her Hemera, meaning day, and raise her as a symbol of hope even after the end of the world. 
: Ashra tells the two about how she lost Zaphodel, and still bears the scars from that loss even though Zaph was no more than a mindless thrall. She tells them a war zone is no place for a child, and that her duty is to the adult members of the party. She says that she will not go out of her way to protect the baby, but nor is it her place to tell them they cannot keep it. If they can be responsible for it, and accept the risk of having it killed, she will not forbid them from raising it. She warns them they'll need to decide whether the child should go back in time with them and risk duplication. 
: They accept all these risks, and have already worked out several plans to protect Hemera. The party loads the horses with their gear, lets the people on elephant shift up onto the elephant, and sets off down the road. 
Category:Episodes Category:Season Twelve Episodes