#btw there wasnt originally any way to snap the elves out of their trance

[nemossubmarine]

Knights of the Night Sky #21

Welcome one and all, to the last installment of KoNS. It took us exactly 9 months to get here, let’s see how things end for our heroes.

The session was 6 hours long, so I’ll probably not detail some stuff so intently, namely the battle with Yadira, which took a few hours.

EDIT: Read more deleted.

We pick up from the parallel plane where Reane had brought our heroes, as they are preparing to enter the Divine Realm.

Jeff wants to mention before our heroes go, the fact that Alexis was a high priest of Ishran, and perhaps they are not there as unwillingly as they might think.

Kendrick says that if this is Alexis’ choice they must respect it.

They pop into the Divine Realm, a place made mostly of clouds. All around them they see elves moving around, completely silent and glowing gold.

They spot Tassarion, the monk leader and go see what’s up with him. He seems completely unresponsive to any stimuli, until Dophina has the bright idea to tie a scarf around his glowing eyes.

After a while, this brings Tassarion to his senses. He is confused about where he is and why, but soon finds his balance from old monk techniques.

Our heroes don’t have enough scarves for every single elf in here, so it might be better to go straight to the source of the problem: Ishran.

But first, they’re going to check on Elpidios, Kendrick’s brother, who was held captive in one of the rooms, and who by all appearances seemed not to be completely blank like the elves.

Our heroes find the room he’s kept in, and Kasbir gets to show off his lockpicking skills, and how marvelously he does so.

Inside, however, Elpidios is nowhere to be found, but there’s a broken open window. It seems Elpidios has decided to make a break for it.

Luckily for our heroes, Dophina can pick up his tracks, and our heroes soon find him among the elves.

Elpidios is a bit confused as to why our heroes are here, but otherwise he is in good spirits.

He notes that Alexis, who brought him here, seemed to be in great distress, saying that it wasn’t supposed to be like this.

It was Alexis who had locked Elpidios up, and Elpidios was looking for them, to have a talk.

Oh yeah, and Elpidios learns that Alexis is one of his biological parents, which, I suppose, is as good a place and time as any.

Our heroes join Elpidios in his search for Alexis, and they do find them, but before they can reach them, Alexis comes under an attack from a mysterious woman in black, Yadira.

Before Yadira can murder-kill Alexis, Fate pops out of Lutharin’s sweater, stops time and basically says to our heroes “go get em tiger” and disappears. He does that.

A fight is on! Lutharin uses the momentarily distraction to pop a sunbeam at unsuspecting Yadira, and in turn he loses his ability to walk. So he has to crawl and walk on his hands for the rest of the fight.

Yadira uses a jar on her side to summon some folk to her aid; four souls captured by her.

Our heroes have help too! Big Daddy, Jeff’s familiar, who assists those of our heroes who can’t see well in the sunlight anymore (so everyone but Jeff) and Dophina summons some animal friends. First two lions who die pretty quick, and then a rhino who has some trouble hitting things, but is trying its best you guys.

Jeff gets few fireballs in! Finally! Even if Lutharin was in the way of one of them!

Yadira has some nasty tricks up her sleeve. Most of her hard-hitting spells seem to be about forcing people’s blood out of their orifices or boiling it, or something just as nasty.

She manages to down Lutharin, Kendrick and Kasbir (twice).

However our heroes get the best of her and her helpers. Kendrick delivers the final blow, but unfortunately he hadn’t broken the bottle with her soul piece yet, so she doesn’t die.

Big Daddy takes the bottle from Kendrick and drops it off to Kasbir, who breaks it.

Dophina manages to down her again, but something is not right.

Our heroes poke her a bit, and she gets back up again, laughing about how the Raven Queen isn’t home.

Well, since she isn’t stopping her attacks, Kendrick cuts off her heads with her own sickle. She still isn’t dying.

In a moment of desperation Jeff starts playing the music box Adam gave him, and Yadira’s head explodes.

The time starts moving again. Elpidios is a bit distraught about his brother having brain bits all over his armor.

Alexis comes to talk to our heroes, saying that they don’t know why the other elves aren’t free as Alexis is, that this wasn’t what they wanted at all.

Our heroes request a meeting with Ishran. Alexis says that they’ll go ask, and maybe those who have brain gunk all over them should clean up a bit?

While Kendrick, Kasbir and Lutharin clean up, Dophina and Jeff talk to Elpidios about his artificing business; namely using one disguise self spell on two gnomes to make one human or such.

Dophina and Jeff also notice Anil among the elves, pull his shirt over his head to free him. He is of course confused, but promises to keep the shirt where it is, even if it looks kinda dumb.

Alexis returns and tells that our heroes can go meet Ishran. Which they do.

Ishran is a being of light, completely different from all the other gods they have met. He is also bit of an ass.

Jeff wastes no time telling him what a fuckface he is, much to the horror of others.

The others try a more reasonable approach, noting that the elves have no free will, they have not chosen to be with Ishran.

Ishran seems to find it difficult to find the problem in this scenario as he believes the elves to be his.

Finally our heroes, especially Kendrick and Kasbir seem to get through to him.

He asks Kendrick whether Alexis will leave him too, to which Kendrick doesn’t know the answer.

Ishran promises to send the people home. And take the other gods back in.

As he goes out of the chamber Jeff tries to steal some stuff as compensation for Adam and Lloth, but the others catch him and stop him.

Our heroes go outside, and all the elves are gone. Only Alexis and Elpidios remain. Alexis is talking to Elpidios and then they go to talk to Kendrick, saying they’ll stay behind to try to make Ishran understand but they’ll come visit Kendrick and Elpidios.

After that our heroes are sent back to Knight’s HQ, where they party it up!! Now we’ll gently slide into epilogue stuff.

Kendrick, of course, has the acute problem that is Lir. Lir honestly had expected Kendrick to dump him back to Underdark as soon as things are over, but Kendrick is comfortable with that.

In the end, Kendrick, Skylar, Mairin and Lir talk it out and Lir is relocated into the dwarven kingdom to do community service. Which we decided is nothing but building orphanages.

Our heroes go visit Lloth and all except Lutharin, who chooses not to, get their things back.

The Knights are disbanded. Our heroes turn the headquarters into a town called Bereskie for the bugbears and also the people Jeff kinda accidentally resurrected.

Jeff stays good on his word to Adam and offers him a chance to travel with him, which Adam agrees to.

They visit Jeff’s home. Goldbottom is becoming a household name thanks to Queen Margaretha, so Jeff won’t have to worry about his family’s business, especially now that Mairin has returned home to help.

It is still quite an unorthodox choice of lifestyle for a halfling, but Jeff’s parents are understanding.

After that they head to Wintervale (visiting Chester and Mike Sagreatsoup on their way), where they start a long journey of finding out what happened to Adam’s family after he was gone.

While they travel Adam plays music and Jeff cooks and tells stories to make a living. There’s some ups and downs on the road of course, but for the most part it’s good life.

They find out that Adam’s wife remarried, which he is perfectly happy to hear. His first child, Lilith became a firedancer and married a guitarist. The child Adam never got to meet, Valerie married a shopkeep. All three seemed to have lived happy lives.

Dophina, once she remembers she has it, offers her Diviner’s stone to Adam and Jeff. They find the place where Lilith performed her first performance, where she almost burned the house down, and so there’s still marks on the roof, and so Adam gets to see his children all grown up.

A lot of crying was had.

Even after Adam has gotten closure, he and Jeff continue to travel together. One night Adam says that he has a new piece of music he would like Jeff to hear. It’s a song he made specifically to Jeff as a thank you, since he wouldn’t have been able to find his family without him.

Jeff, in turn, had been working on a new recipe he would name after Adam, named Adam’s apple.

Inspired by this, they talk a bit about their future, namely Adam is curious about whether Jeff would like to stop traveling some day.

They decide to keep on traveling, and if they ever feel like settling down, it seems that they’ll be getting a house together.

Oh and every now and then the two of them go meet Lloth and have tea and complain about Ishran.

Kasbir decides to leave the pirating lifestyle. He becomes an adventurer, with the help of Mairin who gives him bounties and such to work with.

All the money he earns he gives away to good causes, having no need for it himself.

Kasbir gathers quite a reputation for himself, seeing as his impossible luck continues. He himself isn’t very keen of his fame, but Jeff, who Kasbir meets occasionally since they’re both on the road, makes sure to tell all the tales about Kasbir’s deeds.

All in all life’s treating Kasbir just fine, he has plenty of friends all around the world, and plenty of places yet to see.

Dophina’s first mission is to get the fruit she promised to her mentor. She manages that just in time.

Dophina adopts the stray wulpertinger the knight’s apprentices found in Fall Creek and having a wulpertinger family to care for forces herself to settle down in the Eternal Woods among the elves she grew up with.

She still goes out and does some giant-killing every now and then. She even gets an elven apprentice.

She’s knee-deep in wulpertingers, so she offers them everywhere; Jeff and Adam get two, Kendrick gets one or several, Prince Floyd gets one, everyone gets one.

She continues to write to Prince Floyd and visit Anil and Gordan, even attending their small wedding few years down the line.

She visits Fate and receives knitting instructions from him. The first sweater she sends to Prince Floyd is quite awful, but he wears it anyway causing a short-lived fashion craze.

As her skills become better she kinda starts making winter wear that can affect the future. Luckily she mostly uses this power for pranks.

Barbatos, the devil, also decides to uphold a friendship with Dophina. She’s a bit suspicious, but who else does she have who could reach the cookie jar on top of the cupboard?

Lutharin returns to the monastery. A lot of things have changed, and yet so many stay the same.

Both Tassarion and Natalain return to the monastery, and it has a sudden influx of confused and frightened sun elves as well as few drows.

Lutharin especially proves vital to be bridging the gap between the drow and the other elves, as he is slowly becoming one of them.

Lutharin goes and visits the drow and especially Lloth who gives him help in his transition.

Lutharin believes that for the sun elves to be free of the sun, it is his duty to reject it completely.

He also visits Fate and has many philosophical conversations with him.

Oh and he introduces pancakes to the monastery, leading a pilgrimage to Summer’s Pass to sample those sweet sweet flapjacks.

It takes several hundreds of years for Lutharin to completely transform into a being that can’t stand the sun at all. He’ll have time to get used to it.

Kendrick goes away for a year and helps in building Bereskie.

After that he returns home, picking up his duties as a paladin. He now has his own squad to lead and he takes Jass as his apprentice as he had promised.

Few years down the line a certain event causes Kendrick to evaluate his life, and realize that he may have been a bit too stuck-up. That event is his brother Elpidios eloping with one Belinda Plumpfoot.

Kendrick relaxes a bit after that. He gets his own house, he gets a wulpertinger and some years down the line he adopts a kid as well.

He even manages to start talking to Prince Floyd as he is working much more closely with the royal family and he needs his seeing skills to know where to send letters to Kasbir and Jeff who are both on the move.

Five year have passed since that day. And the invitations come. Prince Floyd is getting married to a noble dwarven woman, also a sorcerer.

First one to know is of course Dophina, she is Prince Floyd’s good friend and confidant after all. She learns months before-hand that Floyd is getting married, so the invitation is not a surprise. What is a surprise is the fact that Floyd is asking her to be his best man.

Kendrick and his squad is appointed as honor guards to the wedding of the prince. Kendrick is sad, but he doesn’t know why.

Prince Floyd reaches out to Jeff, asking if he would provide the cooking for the wedding. This would be a chance for Jeff to gain the title of grandmaster of chefs’ guild, so he of course agrees.

Kasbir and Lutharin gets invitations too. Prince Floyd reminds Lutharin that his younger sister was quite fond of him, so perhaps a gift is in order? Lutharin makes her a wooden necklace, which delights her to no end.

Our heroes get to meet Prince Floyd’s future wife, who seems nice, though something moves underneath her skin. Dophina is sure that she and Floyd will make good friends if not lovers, so she isn’t worried.

There’s a lot of stress all around before the wedding. Dophina doesn’t know what to wear, so Floyd takes her shopping. Jeff is shouting at kitchen staff like Gordon Ramsay. Kendrick is surrounded by panicked paladins and panicked Kasbir (who also doesn’t know what to wear) like the patient duck mom that he is.

But the wedding takes place, and it’s all really nice. Dophina holds a speech, telling about how she and Floyd met, and how Floyd is the nicest (and only!) prince she ever knew.

The dinner is a success, and Jeff will be awarded the title of grandmaster.

There’s dancing after the dinner. Dophina gets a dance from Prince Floyd, as does Kendrick. (Un)surprisingly the dance between a gnome and a full-grown human man is less awkward than the one between two men.

Adam and Jeff also dance and they share a kiss at the end of it.

After the wedding, the six of them (heroes + Adam) meet at Kendrick’s place/Elpidios’ shop and share stories until the break of dawn.

THE END.