Session 42: Spacial Collapse

General Summary

Lord Ssedalkin Wroth, master of the Hidden Scales Yuan-ti, drew his two daggers as the killbarrian rebel charged toward him with his flaming sword. At the same time, a green mist began to spring from him and surround him, spiralling around the noble Yuan-ti and he sent some of this mist over to Conn, but it merely irritated his skin. As Jeanne got into position, Conn turned, believing that he was running into battle on his lonesome, to the high priestess Thervania who seemed to prepare herself to cast a spell. The half-elf charged her instead. In a vengeful rage, Conn pushed himself further and swung his sword with such blinding speed that it caught the priestess entirely off guard. In a panic, she threw up her hands and put out the flames of Conn's sword, which did nothing to stop the powerful cuts of his sword and he swiftly departed her head from its shoulders. The party then saw a green mist leave the body and join the swirl around the Lord.   Invigorated by the sight of this the party sprung into action, quickly dropping their invisibility to join the fray, much to Conn's joy. Jeanne shot a well-placed arrow into the high warrior who was just about to charge at Conn, but now turned to Jeanne. The Yuan-ti Malison channelled some of his lord's green mist into his blade and cut Jeanne across the shoulder as she attempted to parry it. That's when Um and Nakor sprung in. Um's spells although they didn't hit distracted the Yuan-ti, allowing Nakor to quickly cast two powerful Fireballs in the middle of the hall. Engulfing Lord Ssedalkin and his high warrior. The lord was barely touched, being protected by his magical mist. The high warrior on the hand, had his entire back burnt away. His skin and armour had all but evaporated, revealing the muscles and nerves underneath. With a swift stab through the jugular vein, Jeanne ended his misery. A green mist then left the warrior too and joined the diminished swirl.    Having watched his closest lieutenants fall in quick succession, the Lord looked at his many foes and made a decision. To finish the ritual, with himself as the final sacrifice. He lifted his dagger and slit his own throat and fell back on top of the altar. As he hit the stone, an explosion of green mists threw the party backwards. It also killed all prisoners chained to the walls. When the party looked at what had thrown them back they saw a rift space. In fact, the entire room was filled with tears in reality itself. From this central rift, a massive ten-headed Yuan-ti monstrosity entered. After it entered a familiar humanoid figure with slicked hair and a colourful coat with multicultural embroideries. Goricktheon.    He slowly clapped as he expressed his sincerest astonishment to see them. He introduced them to the "snake-god" that the Hidden Scales had tried to summon in order to undo the curse on their race, and it turned out to be Gorick's brother. They exchanged insults for a bit before Gorick offered them a truce should they simply allow them to leave. The party refused and the devil walked up to one of the rifts floating about in the room. He put his hand into it and the rift opened wide to spit out Aledein Al Ashbehein, the party's companion from Harasan. After realizing the situation he had been trusted into, the eccentric man took on his true form. That of an Eftreeti, a fire genie.    This was when all the puzzle pieces fell into place. Jeanne, who had mistrusted the man from the start, realized that he was a leader of the Firelights, which had been working with the Blue Scales to find poor and lost people for them to kidnap. The Blue Scales then sold these people to the Hidden Scales who had been misled by Gorick into summoning his banished brother for him. Now they had to stop the devils before they could wreak havoc on the world.    A fight commenced. Aledein began to barrage the party with fire, as Conn charged the Eftreeti to prevent him from flying out of reach. Jeanne dodged into some debris to find cover and shot a bolt toward Gorick, which did little to his skeletal body. Gorick flew over to another of the rifts, stuck his hand into it and brought into the hall the Behir from Ashdrabad, the leader of the Blue Scales. Jeanne and Nakor realized that they had to try and use these rifts themselves, as they were severely outmanned here. Nakor who had taken on his angelic visage after Gorick took on his true form, flew down to a rift. He stuck his hand into it. The prince felt his fingers expand into the cosmos, as if they were searching for something. But there was something missing. A name. Nakor thought for a moment about his relative, The Avatar of War and ruler of Kang. But fearing the backlash this would bring should they survive, he instead thought of a person he had called for everyday since they left Nova Aera. He yelled:

Good morning Vurvayssun!

The rift expanded and from it stepped a massive bronze dragon. Their old friend, the dragon Vurvayssun. He looked back and for the first time wished Nakor a good morning back. He then looked upon the battle around him and roared a mighty roar. Upon realizing that they could in fact use these rifts to aid themselves, the party hurried to use them before Gorick could. Um, who didn't know that many people and was mostly hesitant to summon those he knew, instead tried to slow down the flow of time around their foes. Sadly this only worked on the Behir and Aledein. This didn't stop the Behir from unleashing a breath of lightning towards Jeanne, who luckily managed to dodge it. The lightning then hit Vurvayssun who ate it up like soup before breathing an even bigger bolt of lightning at Aledein and Gorick's brother.    Conn, who had managed to reach a rift stuck his hand in and just like Nakor, it beckoned for a name. He thought back on his brethren, but was then drawn to a memory of the stories he had heard onboard the Swift Mermaid. Stories of a woman who saved half the party from Abaddon. He spoke: Danae. A cupcake rolled out of the rift and turned into an armoured woman. She told him that it had taken them long enough, before taking fighting position.    Jeanne, seeking aid against the slowed Behir, stuck her hand into a rift as well and spoke the name of the most famed warrior she could think of. The golden dragon knight of Nova Aera, Thomas Torkenmad. The warrior in golden armour stepped out into the battle, a tower shield in one hand and a golden bastard sword in the other. He took position and ushered his hopes of getting compensated for this sudden abduction.    Gorick who had flown over to yet another rift also summoned an ally, one of Timmy's old friends, the half-elf Delog Distantfall. He than continued on towards yet another rift, but didn't have time to reach into it before Nakor appeared next to it and stuck his own hand in first. The rift opened up and out stepped Sir Horzin Thornleaf, the hellknight. He saw the bone devil before him and drew his weapon in an instant. With only one rift remaining, Um decided to stick his own hand into it and whispered the name of the one person he thought could help them. Gehemnon, the arcanaloth, scribe, record-keeper, and diplomat for the Horseman of Death Charon. And also Um fiendish patron. He expressed his deepest joy in finally meeting the changeling in person, before he turned towards the battle ahead of them. He lifted his finger and with a beam, like the one that had felled the blue dragon Nolvenak north of Harasan, he took the life of the Efreeti Aledein who turned to a pile of ash on the floor.   With the aid of all their allies, the balance of power had changed. Sir Horzin was keeping Gorick on his toes. Vurvayssun was holding the devil's brother at bay. Conn and Thomas were fending of the Behir. Danae began the process of banishing the devil's brother back to the Nine Hells. Um, Gehemnon and Nakor stayed back to provide magical support. Jeanne charged through the ranks to take out the half-elf before he could cause any trouble. She didn't have the time to do much though as Nakor blasted him with orbs of frost, which made two small fairy wings sprout from his shoulders, before Um finished him with a blast of Gehemnons might.    Upon seeing the shift in the battle, Gorick told his brother to drop the act. The giant ten headed snake monster began to shift and turned into a massive scaled being with two giant leathery wings, two strong muscled arms, standing on spiked legs. Horzin fell back at the sight of this shift, which he likened to a Pit Fiend, the highest rank of devils. He told the rest to flee as he charged back in. An order the party ignored. The Pit Fiend managed to quickly overwhelm Vurvayssun and leave him beaten on the ground. Danae tried to banish the being, but even with Gehemnons and Ums support, it failed. She then rewound herself in time to begin a second attempt.    Meanwhile, Conn and Thomas managed to not only keep the Behir cornered, but even managed to slay it, with Thomas cleaving the snakes head as it tried to squeeze the life out of Conn. They then turned around to see the Pit Fiend marching towards them with the broken dragon behind him. Both raised their shields. Just before Danae began her second attempt, Nakor managed to forcefully polymorph Gorick into the shape of a little human girl. Without his brothers aid, the Pit fiend buckled under the force of Danae, Um, Gehemnon, and Nakor. It was pulled back into the depths of hell from which it came, leaving the party alone with the transformed Gorick.    With all enemies dealt with they revived the bronze dragon who took on his dwarven form, just as Sir Horzin turned to the last fiend left in the room. But Gehemnon merely waived his hand, creating a portal underneath the hellknight who fell into it and vanished. The arcanaloth told them that he sent the gnome into the jungle a few miles away to avoid the confrontation. He then asked the group if it was okay if he took Goricktheon with him to Abaddon to stand trail in front of Charon for his incessant trespassing. The party agreed, Jeanne more than the rest, hoping that they would destroy the fiend in a fair and due process.    After the two fiends had left, with Um getting urged to fetch some books from the temple for the fiend before the end of the month, Danae laid into Um for abandoning his calling from Kronos, which led to her being taken from her family earlier this year. A discussion about free will and the call of duty broke out where Um realized how his search for happiness had cost this woman her life and family. At that moment a figure appeared beside Nakor who was spying for further trouble. It was the night hag Granny Gertrude Grinkledinkle, here to recollect her lost possession. Danae. The rest got out of her way, but not Um. Instead he offered his own soul in return for Danae's. So that she may live as he had done. He said farewell to his companions and thanked them for the time they had shared. As Nakor gave him a last orange, he was turned into a orange sprinkled gray cupcake. The night hag then vanished with her prize.   The party began to leave the temple hoping that the fighting would have subsided in the rest of the fort as well. They made their way through the temple and passed Yuan-ti corpses, as well as a few Blue Scale corpses. When they reached the courtyard, they saw a pile of dead Yuan-ti and on top was a banner bearing the flag of Killbarrow. A gift from the ancestral spirits. After walking down to the docks, they saw the ship of the Blue Scales sailing away, with the Swift Mermaid approaching the docks dragging something massive. Vurvayssun and Thomas decided to leave, with the dragon offering to take the knight back to Nova Aera. Before they left Jeanne gave the hero a letter that would allow him to retrieve a hefty reward from the frankonian consulate.    Jeanne, Conn, Nakor, and Danae took the boat out to the Mermaid and noticed that they had been busy fighting a massive sea serpent. A battle from which they had triumphed and even managed to save two smaller ships that the beast had swallowed whole. Dormaruk offered Jeanne to take one of these and a smaller crew to her meeting one week south of their position. She agreed and decided to bring Conn, Nakor, Danae, Merturrok, Garthur, and Joric. Three days later they set sail from the fortress island.    One week later, at midnight in the middle of the sea, the boat was approached by five ships bearing no flag or sigil. The captain boarded them and spoke with Jeanne in a language that no one else understood, and didn't attempt to understand on the behest of Jeanne. After a few hours of talking and exchanging documents and especially the book that Jeanne had taken from the Illithid's harbour so long ago, they five ships left and the crew turned back north. After yet another week they returned to the island, where the Blue Scales had too returned and began to make into a home, since they no longer could operate in Ashdrabad following their masters untimely disappearance.    Dormaruk welcomed them back and was eager to leave again, for the more prosperous trade routes of the north. With the threat of Gorick gone and with the matters of book delivery done, they all had new and separate goals ahead. The party sailed together one last time upon the Swift Mermaid, before they all stepped off in the southern Yelanids and walked their separate paths.