The Upwelling on Mouette Island

The Nenuph station house only had one person jailed this morning, for a relatively unusual crime. Cara picked up the detainment paperwork and frowned.
"Trespassing near Mouette leading to the loss of life?" The magistrate blinked, before putting the papers back on her desk. "What happened?"
Marshal Toreo shrugged. "Someone wanted to land on Mouette, and the outrigger captain they hired was brained by a volcanic rock. Want to go ask him yourself?"
The jail under the station house was brightly lit by the early sunlight, and yet the occupant of the only locked cell was fast asleep. The marshal banged on the bars. "You're to be questioned by Caranda Valier, Magistrate of the Principality . Wake up."
The occupant started awake, before frowning at his waker. "And that pleasant dream I had, with the women of the Ill Repute, gone to dust. Thank you, marshal." He was wearing what at some point had been a noble's finery, but age and disrepair had taken its toll.
Cara folded her arms. "Answer my questions truthfully, and the Ill Repute might be somewhere you visit again, some day. Give me your name."
The prisoner scratched his beard. "Lex of House Xander, fifth son of Michel Xander. At your service, or something to that effect."
Toreo frowned. "House Xander is no longer a noble house, last I heard. Something about your old man and debt?"
"You heard correctly, but I can still claim I'm of the house." Lex gave an exaggerated yawn. "A name should be worth something, right?"
The magistrate shook her head. "Perhaps if we were in the Capital, but not out here. In any case, your crime requires an inquest. You are charged with illegal trespass near Mouette resulting in the death of the captain whose ship you chartered. Do you admit the charge?"
"So he was killed." The prisoner stared at his feet. "I never intended that to happen. I only wanted to collect some of the basalt."
"Why? It's just rock." Cara had a quizzical expression.
"Mouette is the only source of fresh rock spawned from the earth, and geologers pay significantly for samples of various types." Lex tugged at his sleeve. "As you may have noticed, House Xander is on hard times. I admit the charge, but believe me that I didn't want anyone to die."
Toreo had a grim look. "Mouette is off limits for precisely this reason, and you are the direct cause of a death. Don't expect the Magistrate to be lenient."

Manifestation

Mouette Island was a small and unremarkable sandbar in The Stagonids, home to a fishing village and a small wind-driven Power station. In 712, a number of earthquakes began to rattle the island and surrounding ocean. A researcher from the The Academy of Etoile, one Iathi Belvedere, arrived to observe the event, and her notes are the principal source of information of what became known as the Upwelling.
On the 80th day of First Season, four weeks after the earthquakes began, the local fishermen woke to observe a 'bulging' of the center of the island, a twenty foot hill that had not been there the last night. Researcher Belvedere measured the temperature near the hill and noticed that the soil had extremely elevated readings; unsure of the meaning, she attempted to evacuate the village before nightfall as a precaution. As academicians have no formal power, her efforts were disregarded, and she left the island alone at sundown on a small outrigger. From the water, she was able to observe the Upwelling from a reasonably safe distance.
At some time after sundown, a much larger earthquake was felt across the Stagonids, centered on Mouette; this earthquake was the start of the Upwelling volcanic eruption. The island rose nearly fifty feet in roughly a half hour, and the 'hill' had grown large enough to encompass the whole of the island. Not long afterwards, the hill (now known to be a 'magma chamber') exploded upwards, throwing glowing lava hundreds of feet in the air and raining burning hot tephra and fallout. The lava eruption was large enough to be seen for miles; the fishing village was completely destroyed by a hellish rain of burning earth.
The next morning saw dramatic changes to the area. What was formerly a sleepy fishing outpost was now a two hundred foot tall spire, ashen and black, streaked by lava flows and the wrecked ruins of the village surrounding its base. The spire itself was pouring clouds of ash into the sky, and multiple streams of lava were flowing into the sea, forming new basalt formations and adding more land area to the island. Only the fishermen who were late returning to the village survived; Belvedere estimated that over ninety of the local villagers were killed, if not by the earthquakes and burning fallout, then the flow of lava and ash that swept through the village.
Belvedere was able to return to the Etoile Capital City to report on events, and a large team from the Cartographer's Guild (as well as several journal writers) arrived not long afterwards to survey the new island. The Cartographers were surprised to find that a section of the island seemed untouched; most of Mouette was a blackened, smoking wasteland, but a tiny strip of land to the northwest was still a sandy beach. The Cartographers constructed an observation post on that beach in order to better observe the eruption.

Localization

Mouette Island is now a steep volcanic mountain, roughly ten times the size of the former sandbar. The island continues to grow larger and taller; the top of the spire emits a steady stream of ash and lava that cascades down the island in unpredictable flows. This has made visiting the island extremely dangerous; the Principality of Etoile has declared the island and surrounding waters off limits to visitors and tourists, who are only allowed to visit a viewing platform built on an unnamed nearby islet. The on-island observation post is restricted only to Cartographers and other academic researchers.
This has not prevented adventurers from paying short visits and reporting on them. Consistent to all observations is the heat of the island; the blackened volcanic rock that covers most of the land area is warm to the touch and the air is described as nearly unbreathable due to heat and foul odor. All plant life is extinct on the island save for the salt scrub near the observation post, and no animal life is present. Earthquakes are now an infrequent occurrence, but are always followed by an uptick in lava flows and ejection of tephra, necessitating evacuation from the local waters. The remains of the village are said to be haunting, with multiple of the victims of the initial eruption found 'encased' in ash, permanently posed in their final moments.
The volcano has continued to claim lives, and the local District Commander has recorded three incidents of tourist ships being struck by volcanic fallout and destroyed, and more than a few visitors to the island proper accidentally falling into lava flows or being caught in avalanches of ash.

Type

Natural