Episode 20: Rising With the Wood Report

General Summary

Info Dump From the Afterlife

The Jragathon Board on the Blackjack's bridge starts going crazy. It's old Baron Nikolaus with information. The ghost of Nikolaus manifests before them and begins to speak.

He tells the tale of the creation of the Changeling Skyship Blackjack. It contains the souls of Nia's ancestors, the Silver Song tribe of changelings. The Cult of Malfador forged it from chaos with minds of order. Their end goal is to bring their god into Erathia by empowering a warlock and embodying an avatar.

The creation of Malfador's new avatar in Xeno bound the Kingdom of Nathal-nalir, the Kingdom of Amredhel and the Holy Duchy of Amaston in an unknown way to support the Hell Week Accords.

Unclear of how to win the vote against the Hell Week Accords, Spark suggested they invalidate the Accords before they can be adopted. The accords are binding until the gods return, so, the crew could just return another god. More specifically, resurrecting a goddess who never left and hangs in the sky, Thaya. Nikolaus approves.

Vomit Comet Back to the Zone

Spark attaches the Wood of Telperion to the Blackjack. This somehow allows the chain devil hunting for El to track her down. He teleports in with reinforcements. Nia pretends to be Xenalfador and orders them to depart. They demand a token and Spark gives them his Xeno eyebrow piercing.

They track down the sensor signalling the devils and Spark disables it. The sensor sounds out one last burst, revealing their location to General the Baron Aginnad who came a hunting for Lance's nuts.

Spark quickly did the Arcanothayatelemetry calculation and activated the Wood of Telperion to rocket the Blackjack up into the Aetheric Sea above Krosia's atmosphere in an eight hour parabolic flight back to the Zone.

Info Dump From the Living

As they come out of orbit over the Pit, Chagroth's Tower tractor beamed them to Gold Arrow Station. They are informed by the elves of Menelost Telperion that they should get permission before using the Wood again or the elves will come take it from them. Spark surveys the damage from the trip and realizes that the Blackjack's current form can't survive more trips like that. They need to get a ship template designed to handle it.

While at the Station, they visit with Lola Carly. They ask her advice on their plan to resurrect Thaya. She says they would need a representative from every part of the Shattered Moon Coalition. Each of those representatives would also need a Thaya-related artifact or relic.

Once they have the representatives and the relics, they need to get to Thaya's tomb on the moon, Sarch na Thaya. The crew has most of that covered minus the nosferatu. El realizes she will have to accept her place in elf society for this to work. She must take her place as the Exalted of Dreams. Lance will also have to accept real responsibility in the Church of Sun & Moon.

They realize that the connection Thaya has with the Coalition is similar to the one that Thaya has with the organizations represented in his Avatar.

Penultimate Preparations for Lunapalooza

The crew then leaves after a call from Karzon Ironfoot the owner of Grig's Grotto. He is the owner of one of the main venues for Lunapalooza. He says he's ready, but lacks Psychic Beer. He should have a shipment of four barrels coming in, but is worried about it arriving on time.

The crew knows the psychic beer is rumored to be out of stock and agreed to contact Detective Lim to see if it has become involved in any criminal activity perhaps having a lead on some previously purloined barrels.

Finally THC the Puff comes to get in touch with them. Xeno had written a column about questioning the Hell Accords. And then he became Malfador. They can use this as leverage against Malfador.

They can get one more message into the Aleph Zero Revelations ink through THC. They decide on:

"There's more moons coming and more gods coming too."

"There's a rumor that certain forces are seeking to rebind the Shattered Moon Coalition and resurrect Thaya!"

"I gotta have those nuts."

— General the Baron Aginnad of the Legions of Hell