Session 160: The Endings of a Tale

General Summary

With Tharizdun banished, the void domain begins to collapse into itself. The party rush to escape the collapsing plane and the Obsidian Fortress, and are saved at the last moment by Kalcyra who refused their order to leave with the skyship.   The Unbroken and Allied forces of Tal’dorei are victorious, as the party helps to tend to the wounded and finish off the leaderless dregs of the Oblivion’s army. That evening whilst most of the party celebrate, Raphael travels to the Raven Queen’s domain to handover the soul of Karkematth. A soul that the usually unmoving Matron, was more than eager to finally collect.   The trapped souls of the twins, Tommas, the first Winter Knight, and the sorcerer Matthias leave their respective Prisons of Frostweaver and the Mind Shielding ring, to reunite and pass onto their Matron’s realm as well.   As this tale of the Unbroken comes to an end, we learn of the legends of their lives:   Raphael over several decades hunts down cultists connected to Karkematth and Tharizdun, and builds a new Paladin Order to defend the Unbroken Shackle. Over those decades his connection to Mab and his life as the Winter Knight, fade with his new purpose. He goes back to where he was ‘born’ in the Frostweald, and with Mab’s blessing he buries Frostweaver and his old armour, with a note to whoever becomes his successor as Winter Knight. He leads the Order to the last of his days, where his ‘niece’, Auroa, a daughter of one of his clone siblings that started the order with him, carries on the mortal Oath. When he passes, the Raven Queen herself comes to collect him, Mab and those close to him await him as he leaves the mortal realm.   Sabali travels back to Stilben, where he first landed on Tal’Dorei as a slave child. Not long after his arrival, he receives a letter from his mother, Mist, shortly before she died. With the loss of a chance to meet his mother, Sabali found a purpose to make sure no other child would go through what he had experienced. he uses his adventuring riches to support local charities and close down criminal activity. The Myriad operative, Edon, who escaped the party in Westruun, is finally brought to justice by Sabali’s efforts. As Sabali had learned to come to peace with the darkness that his shadow self Sabalo represented, he soon learned to project other reflections of his true and lighter self. Sabali uses these teachings to restart the Shade Temple as the Temple of Reflection. A charitable monastic order, far removed from its dark past. Sabali trains a tiefling orphan, Rae, as his apprentice and eventual successor in leading the Temple and protecting his Shackle’s tether. He passes peacefully in his sleep, with his adventuring friends and temple family beside him.   Simeon is true to the words he spoke to the AndroSphinx guardian of the Ioun Shackle, he is always there to catch the Unbroken when they fall. He travels Exandria on the Storms Call, helping those in need, in particular smuggling those escaping religious persecution in the Dwendalian Empire. He would uphold his vow to never set foot in the Empire until his fellow worshippers would be free. In time, the playful flirting between the Aasimar and the tiefling Skyship Captain Kalcyra grows into a true romance. With the blood magic of his Shackle, Simeon’s prolific family and his line of descendants acted as a living mortal tether. He retires to the coast, and when he passes the Moonweaver herself smiles and embraces the soul of her Champion, forever at peace in her domain.   Ceri takes time after the battle to collect as many stories and names of those that had fallen. She resigns her commissions both from Vasselheim as Knight of the Platinum Sanctuary, and in the faewild as Knight of the Summer Court. She stays in the summer lands of the fae for sometime to compose a song from the Melody she started with the creation her Shackle, and the stories of the fallen. Creating a ballad of ‘the Unsung’ as a mortal tether for her Shackle, Ceri fulfils her original pilgrimage and travel all across the lands to tell their stories and play this melody. After her travels, Ceri set out for a humble life with a loving wife, Meria, and had two daughters, Anna and Constance. Her travels had inadvertently inspired a new college of bards who would take the song and other stories on their own pilgrimages. Every time the song was sung, the Shackle would strengthen across the generations as it became a ‘tale as old as time’.   Enessa travelled across the continents to find her brother and other siblings that had still survived her family’s cultish murders. She eventually returned to restore the family Saeness Den in the Underdark, and rid it of its connection Lolth. After years of restoring her Den and having her own family, a daughter, Marta. The vow she took in the Raven Queen’s realm to kill Lolth could no longer be ignored, when Marta was old enough to lead Den Saeness, Enessa left on a final ‘Wild Hunt’ of her own through the Underdark. She became the ‘Scourge of the Spider Queen’, and was never seen from again.   Wind’s mischief and love of coin never ceases, as she becomes a proprietor in trading of fine arts, jewels and arcane antiquities of ‘legitimate’ origin, to the most discerning of patrons. Her clients (not marks) are told they hold rare, genuine, and valuable wares from across the far lands. Of course, she "must leave on the morrow", and the decision to buy "must be made in haste as other buyers have expressed keen interest" in her wares. Of course, should a client be unsatisfied with a purchase she has a "no return policy". Which means Wind does not plan to return! When she finds herself bored, she does sometimes think to write to her friends. And ask about their adventures, because the inns (and even high society) will gossip of their endeavours.   Orlando has a difficult few years of trying to overcome the creative peak he reached with his master piece, the Shackle. He travelled with Simeon to reflect on his faith in Moradin, and through his support in Simeon’s efforts of aid, he realised that a legacy doesn’t have to be physical like the Shackle, but it could be social. He returned to Kraghammer, using his connections to improve the rights for the non-Dwarven population. Legacy becomes even more important for him when he’s reunited with a love thought lost, Jolene Parton. As the years become decades, and eventually centuries, Orlando continues to support the future generations of crafters as Master of the World Anvil. He entrusts his tools and its secret, as the mortal tether to his Shackle, to his autognome B.U.B.B.A, until another worthy apprentice emerges. Having paid his respects at every Unbroken members’ funeral, with none of them left to attend his own, the lone gnome reaches for the World Anvil one last time, and accepts a power he long ago rejected. Becoming an Avatar of Creation, as the ’work is never done’.   Zeni deeply feels the consequences of her sacrificing her connection the storm in Shackling the Oblivion. She spends over a year at Inys Lloeren trying to regain some form of connection, but it remains lost. Eventually she leaves, and regains a sense of self by visiting Arthur and completing her wizard studies. She returns back to the coast in Wildemount, finding her tiefling family. Despite no longer having her storm powers, Zeni was still a Stormborn and held herself to her pledge to protect Inys Lloeren. She began a search for other stormborns, and one that could take on the mantle of wielder the Sceptre of Wodensdottor. A dwarf, Jujan Odinsbrand, succeeded her as protector with Kord’s blessing. Now free of that responsibility, Zeni pursued a life long dream to have her own ship, which she used to chase storms to still feel close to them. And put her culinary skills to good work with opening her own eatery, the Kraken’s Katch, onboard for when at port. When Eva came of age as ward of Whitestone, she left to join Zeni as her first mate and apprenticed under her as a wizard. When Zeni came to retire, she handed her spellbook and her metal horn, as a mortal tether, to Eva to protect.   Arthur retreats into himself for a while, but Simeon and the rest continue to help him with the triggers of his survivors’ guilt. He takes up Rathbourne’s Professorship at Soltryce Academy, helping Zeni and many other students. Conscious of the predetermined destiny of his paradoxes to create the Temporal Imprisonment spell and go back in time to hand his younger self it, Arthur gets to work. He installs Barty, the Knowledge Spirit’s skull onto an automaton that spends several years calculating and creating the Temporal spell. Arthur researches the faewild in order to develop a spell that could manipulate the passage of time to send him back. During these years of self-fulfilling preparation, Arthur does find love with an abjuration wizard, Lady Rosalind Fairfax and is able to continue the Krone lineage with 3 children, Cyrus, Artimus, Sophia. To repay Simeon’s support over the years, Arthur magically delivers a devastating denunciation of the Dwendalian Empire’s religious oppression. He relocates with his family to Tal’Dorei, becoming a member of the elite Arcana Pansophical. With the spells research and calculations complete, Arthur sets in the motion the very events that contributed to Tharizdun’s imprisonment. He bequeaths his magical pocket watch to his son, to protect the mortal tether. Arthur’s experiments in chronomancy did allow him to enjoy a longer life, dying peacefully at the ripe age of 131.    And like the shackles of oblivion, the bonds of comradery and friendship that tie these adventurers together will forever remain...unbroken.