Homecoming Kings

Expedition

The Bonner Boys travel back to Rainfall for the first time in years to recover the cold iron in the tree of Merielle.

Daryl reconnects with Cerulean. She was knocked out and appears to be in some undercroft. Daryl takes over for her, breaks free from her chains, follows light outside. They find Ivory chained up and tortured. Without a second thought Daryl and Cerulean break her free and they escape from a castle in Winter, Essonas, together.   After a bit of rest, Indigo replenishes his magic to transport via plants, but the only plant nearby is the strange wooden ring plant at the top of the monolith. With every evil dragon nearly there, the party dimension doors to the top of the monolith and opens a plant portal to Rainfall.   For Daryl, Danger, and Mirian it’s their first time returning to where their whole adventure began. Cerulean catches up to them, but Ivory crash lands. She’s covered in living pieces of snowflakes. The party kills them and Indigo heals Ivory enough to save her from death.   Indigo tells everyone else that, when he was under the Moonlit King’s influence, he moved Meriele’s tree into the Shadowfell side of Cerulean’s lair. They have to go back underground. Cerulean tells them she won’t be going with them. The party stands at the cusp of a crystalline tunnel underground and uses the amulet to plane shift to the Shadowfell.   Here the walls are slimy and boney. The party travels deeper until they arrive in the cavern. A single beam of light in the center falls upon a tree made of metal. The base of the tree resembles Meriele in a mummy pose, her hair rising up to form its branches. The whole thing is made of cold iron, a Feyward Tree. But between the party and the tree stands an armored being radiating with power, a Masked Wight with a khopesh in hand ready to strike. It’s Mirian who recognizes the masked wight’s armor. This is what happened to Alastair, the knight they met and then forgot about all the way back in Chapter 1.   The party fights Alastair. He, or rather it, strikes Mirian and in that instant his Ring of Fire Protection vanishes completely. Imdril slips around and lifts the Amulet of the Planes. The Masked Wight strikes Daryl next and his first notebook detailing this whole adventure vanishes. Imdril runs up to the tree. The rest of the party finishes off Alastair, but they’re too far away when Imdril slams the amulet into the tree, embedding it there.   “I call out to the Queen of Night and Magic!” he yells. But that wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted him to call her by her name, and Imdril doesn’t know her real name. Daryl runs in to stop him, but the Feyward Tree lashes out and attacks him. Danger rushes Imdril while Mirian fires upon him with a bow and arrow. Indigo uses blight on the tree and Imdril is forced to watch Meriele die a second death. They capture and tie Imdril up.   Mirian and Daryl realize what they’ve lost, but nobody else remembers those objects ever existing.   The party knows they need to turn the feyward tree into cold iron weapons, so Danger recommends they take it to Marlos in the Plane of Earth. If you need a blacksmith, why not the best one ever? The party plane shifts to the plane of earth, in Marlos’s forge, Black Geode. He isn’t there, but Jett is. Imdril sees a single glowing bug fly into her ear.