The session opens with the party triumphantly limping back to Muddy Reefs, with their newly captured ship towing the hulk of the zombie-smuggling bireme. As they pull into the harbor, they see that some buildings have been damaged. After a brief flurry of assault planning, they ask someone what happened: an earthquake happened. Several weeks prior. 

Hammer goes off to find out why his “recruits” aren't helping with the remaining cleanup. He finds his tiny mission empty (though tidy). As Hammer is illiterate and has been recruiting heavily from the pantsless hobo demographic, there are no records to look through for hints as to where they went. 

Rabbit tries to go see Brilliant Parakeet, and finds that he is also gone! He left a message though, that he had gone to help one of his best clients out of some difficulties she had gotten into. He will likely be gone until the new player shows up. 

They make arrangements to repair their new ship. They also try to have the zombie ship cleaned, but that goes poorly. Rabbit decides that stinky ships are dumb and scuttles it in the middle of a nearby reef.

After a little bit of investigation, they decide to head up to a quarry which Hammer's disciples had been using (I forget why they wanted to check there) and on the demesne on the island. They find it changed: before it was more of a mine, now it's more of a large bowl with perfectly smooth sides. Also, there's a kind of marble in it that they hadn't found before. Orchid puts up All Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight, and sees that the whole area is fluid, like the Wyld. 

That's weird, but there doesn't seem to be much to do about it. Also, they discover, there is a nicely graveled path leading in the direction of the demesne, which is new. Without any more clues here, they set off along the path. 

At about the halfway point, they are coming around a gentle bend and run into a column of animate blocks. They look very like modrons. Hammer stops them, but they are uninterested in interacting with him. When he won't let them past, they start building a new path around him. He, in turn, tries to loop their new path back around on itself. They take the opportunity to return to the original path and walk past. Mysteriously.

The circle gives up on the animate cubes and continues on toward the demesne. They pass several more columns, which also ignore them. On arriving, they see a major construction project underway. The foreman is happy to see them. His name is Bob (Har, har). He is a brother in the same order as Hammer (the Builders), and is building a monastery for him, apparently in response to some messages Hammer had sent several sessions previously. He was assigned to this task, but this is pretty much what he does. Hammer's erstwhile recruits are helping. Bob is surprised that Hammer is surprised at anything going on. Bob happily accepts their help though.

There are a number of weird things that they discover about the situation:

• Areas of creation don't normally turn back into Wyld. Especially not in the middle of creation. Though that might explain a few other oddities:
  • The animate blocks are quarrying stone by lifting it out of the ground, in pre-carved cubes
  • There are various other kinds of marble in the quarry, not previously native to the region.
  • There was an earthquake in an area not noted for earthquakes. 
• The demesne is stronger than it was. That's not impossible normally, but it takes years of effort and landscaping. 
• Bob's a bit…off too:
  • He is hooge. Not quite as large as Hammer, but nearly. 
  • He works on building the monastery 24/7 for two months. 
  • His explanation for where the animate blocks came from is “out of the ground.” As in, he brought plans with him, did some surveys, and the blocks came up out of the ground and started building. 
• The blocks are building themselves into the monastery. That's convenient, but odd.
• The monastery has the same floor plan as the other two monasteries they've seen. 
• The monastery is a manse. The manse goes up fast. Normally, a two dot manse would take four years to build. This took about 1/30 of that (Exalted years are weird and long).
• Unlike the other monasteries, which were built around trees, this one is built around a stone monolith. 

Eventually, it's finished. Bob putters around town for a bit, then gets on a ship to somewhere else. A different guy from a different order arrives to help with administrivia. 

Hammer sneaks down to the chapel one evening to pry up the dais supporting the statue of the Unconquered Sun. On the island from Episode One, there was a hearthstone room down there, but this one just has a shallow pit. Dr. Murder theorizes that the room grows as the hearthstone does, so it'll probably be there later. Time will tell how accurate this is.