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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Iron Sky" data-source="post: 5390599" data-attributes="member: 60965">Session 31, Part 23The world turned upside down and inside out.  At least, that was what it felt like to Bail.  One second he and Kormak were standing on the upper level of the Spire of Direction watching the walls melt and run down into the water around them, the next, the whole world seemed to turn white, then black, then colors beyond his capability to describe or understand. He was sure he was roaring with rage, shouting with joy, and weeping, all at the same time.  Gravity reversed and he clung to the floor to avoid plummeting up into the sky and then suddenly it was over, and he found himself sprawled on the floor next to Kormak, the world slowly reorienting and returning to its natural state. Except, it seemed almost more natural than it had before.  He felt more alive, the sky seemed more blue and the clouds drifting through it more white, the touch of the silversteel on his palms more vibrant.  It had felt like an instant and an eternity that the world had been ending, but it must have been closer to the instant than the infinite. The walls of the Spire had finished running down and had cooled, while beyond, the Radianus Sink was no longer boiling. Silently, he and Kormak walked and slide down the slagged sides of the Spire until they were standing on the scorched earth of the island. “Now what?” Kormak said.  “We swim back to... where are we going next anyway?” Bail squinted at a faint plume of black smoke to the north.  “I guess we ride on that boat over there.” They stood and watched it approach until figures were visible packed in on its deck. “Of all the... is that Harold on that ship?” Kormak said. Bail growled then shook his head.  “Doesn't matter.” Kormak glanced at him with a quizzical expression but Bail ignored him.  “We'll just have to boat take us to the eastern edge of the Sink, drop us off at the southern end of the Freeholds.” “And then what?”  “And then we see what sort of world we've remade.”*** Epilogue  The Endless Sands were replaced by an endless sea, waters rushing in against the towering walls of the new Greater Felskein.  There was tension and war as the peoples of the Skylands, hither-to separated by vast stretches of sky, found themselves immediate neighbors – but there were also new alliances and friendships, instant trade networks springing up and fortunes made and lost in weeks. Harold returned to the Crystal Towers to find that the dead had turned   on each other, the liches once under Thessalock's heel withdrawing with   as many of the dead as they could to underground, dark kingdoms where   they battled each other, the peoples of the Freeholds, and the   rapidly rebuilding Crystal Towers.  Harold was soon a Magister – most of   the others having fallen to the onslaught of the Rerisen Tower.  He  was  not the same Harold that had left the Crystal Towers so many months   before, but no one could doubt his dedication to the Crystal Towers.   He became the Magister of the Navy, bringing in gnomish shipwrights   from the slowly rebuilding Steamport and constructing a navy to dominate   the vast sea that now surrounded the Crystal Towers on all sides.Bail, joined by Hundred-scales the Shining and the handful of dragons that remained of the fallen Bahamut's Overcouncil, united the squabbling peoples of the Freeholds, creating a powerful empire that formed the beating heart of Greater Felskien, a locus of trade and learning, ruled with a fair though sometimes draconian government.  Kormak and his order kept the peace, removing dissenters and rebels who would threaten Bail's rule and battling the dead of the Lich Barons that lurked beneath the Freeholds.  Two True Stones were never reclaimed – those held by Thessalock and Lady Hadral.  They found massive craters not far from the Span and just north of Gleam as Thessalock fled the Crystal Towers upon the destruction of the Ashen Tower and as Hadral fled the uprisings in Gleam.  The Grimwythe had not allowed any of the True Stones to survive beyond their reach. Suniel and Keeper were never seen or heard from again, though Bail and Kormak always wondered.    Near the end of their long years of governance and feeling their age, Bail and Kormak gave up their positions and sought out Harold.  Though half-mad and gnarled with age, Harold agreed to their plan. Together, the three of them gathered together in a steamship to sail to the far side of the world, a final adventure to find their long-lost companions. That was the world's final sight of them, sailing out into unknown waters, the ancient human at the helm, bow leaning against the gunwale, his thoughts still on the beloved Crystal Towers he left behind, the grizzled dwarf leaning against the railing and complaining about this and that while patting Dog's great-great grandson on the head, and the half-dragon, massive adamantine sword slung across his back, standing at the prow, gazing into the horizon.Here ends:The Rise of Felskein.</blockquote>

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