| β | Returng to Darkenon, the party receives some bad news, not only has the sun gone out completely leaving the smoon as the only source of light on the plane, but Castletown, the very capitol of the Smearth had been destroyed by an attack by the devils. Not only that, but Thomas had stopped by to visit Valera, who told the party that she no longer supported their decision to let him live. He had told her that before he had left Earth he had destroyed the only weapon that was capable of repelling the Devils attack on their plane, a Titan, secretly made by Thomas because of his knowledge of what was to come. When the time came to deploy it, however, the governments of his world refused to accept his offer to help, instead branding him a criminal. Not long after, when the war was almost lost, they sought Thomas out to beg him to use his weapon, but he refused. Instead he blew the Titan up as he and the rest of his people evacuated Earth, but the last person to come through, Valera's sister, was killed when the Titan exploded, destroying the gate and sealing off Earth forever. With this new information,the party made a break for the court of Erathis, the controller of the game, to find a way to make the devils fight somewhere other than Smearth. What they found was Asmodeus, and a fake Erathis. After defeating the fake, and Asmodeus fleeing, the real Erathis showed up, and showed to the party that the only place the Titan could be released is Smearth. She did agree to grant the Smearthlings one month to prepare for the coming battle, more than enough time to evacuate everyone from the conflict zone, Casletown, or as it was now known, Dust Von Rubble. Returning to Darkenon once more, the party informed Knight Captain Samuels of their deadline. Learning that there were several issues on Smearth that needed taking care of, including the disappearances of General Plot D. Vice and Wilhelmina the lich and some strange activities in the skies above Dust Von Rubble, they party decided to let Bel take care of ferrying the refugees to the Smoon on their new spelljammer, the Inferno. The Baby decided to use this time to go look for his family on the Shire, and temporarily parted ways with the group, as they set out for the dark wasteland of Dust Von Rubble. Once there, they crossed paths with an injured old man who insisted that he had been attacked by "giant aliens" from the Astral Sea. The party quickly realized that they were dealing with Giraffes, deadly creatures native to the Astral Sea who were likely looking at their plane as a new feeding ground. They confronted the giant aberrations as they sifted the ruins of Castletown in search of prey, and easily defeated them. Searching the Giraffes belongings, they realized that they were merely a scouting party, and if they had reported back, the area would likely be swarming with them, definitely disrupting the coming battle. They also discovered a few rock samples that seemed to suggest that the ruins in which they stood were recently created with an arcane ritual. After a short investigation and casting a few rituals themselves, they discovered that the real Castletown structures were hidden away in the place of darkness, formerly inhabited by Darkenon. Traveling there, they discovered the Dire Fiend, who had escaped from Hell with the help of Thomas, who had convinced him to save the people of Castletown from an impending Devil attack in the same way that he saved Darkenon so many years ago. After making sure that the cities inhabitants, including Princess Apricot, were unharmed, the party agreed to keep the secret, though they were disapointed with the Baby for letting Thomas live in the first place. The Dire Feind also assured them that after the battle had concludedd, he would be heading back to Hell to pay the rest of his penance, after all, the celestial were dead and he had his revenge. | + | Returng to Darkenon, the party receives some bad news, not only has the sun gone out completely leaving the smoon as the only source of light on the plane, but Castletown, the very capitol of the Smearth had been destroyed by an attack by the devils. They then made a break for the court of Erathis, the controler of the game, to find a way to make the devils fight somewhere other than Smearth. |
