Episode 01 | Early Release
At the bottom of the Soldaan Ocean is a prison, Shorebend Correctional Facility. For two inmates, Zymera Castelle and Thorne, it was a day for celebration, the day they were to be released. It was all thanks to the efforts of two civil advocates, Preston Dumpston IV, and Hogan Greyskull.
Just as the inmates and their advocates were preparing to enter the portal that would teleport them from the undersea prison to the surface of Vantam, tremors rocked the facility. Sparks flew, rocks fell, and chaos reigned. As the heroes came to, they realized that the portal to the surface had been destroyed. Worse, they were trapped in the portal chamber. The portal's disrupted energy was discharging deadly lightning across the rubble choked space, and the heroes had to find a way to shut it down before they were shocked to death. Thorne was able to brute force the door and get into the portal control room to shut it down with the help of Silas Mackey, an SCO with a shattered leg.
Once the portal was shut down, the heroes were safe from being zapped, but not safe from the small flying demon that managed to fight its way into the material plane. The heroes destroyed the planar invader, but they needed to move on and get help for the wounded SCO. They began to backtrack through the prison corridors, surveying the damaged facility and navigating collapsed corridors. They were forced to cut through the SCO barracks, and as they passed through the locker rooms, they stopped to scavenge supplies despite Mackey's unease.
Beyond the barracks, the heroes came to the visitation room, only to find that it was quickly flooding. Emergency lockdown protocols would not allow them to proceed any further, but if they didn't find some way to move on, they would surely be doomed. The ceiling was made of magically reinforced glass and it was beginning to crack.
Advice came in the form of a projected illusion from the deputy warden, Helena Morrow. She let the heroes know that if they could access the maintenance corridors below visitation, they could seal the ceiling.
The heroes set about finding the access hatch for the maintenance corridor and crawled down into the flooded sub-level. It was here the heroes learned that Preston was afraid of the dark. As they sloshed through the waist-high water, they realized that if they wanted to activate the seal, they'd have to repair the damaged Mythricite cores that powered the facility. The repairs could be easily accomplished using "mending nooks" in the maintenance corridors, but the reefclaw lurking in the shadows presented a deadly challenge.
The heroes defeated the reefclaw, but it was a tough fight that nearly claimed Preston's life. The heroes healed up as best they could and proceeded through a collapsed corridor with just enough room to swim beneath the rubble to get to the damaged core to repair it. Thorne made it through without incident, but as Zymera attempted to follow, she was caught on a piece of rubble. As she struggled to free herself, darkness closed in.
Comments