My Green Heaven is the sixteenth episode of Fantasy High: Sophomore Year.
Recap[]
"Guys, last we left off, oh boy, did a bunch of fun stuff happen. So, these are our intrepid heroes, the Bad Kids, teen adventurers from the Aguefort Adventuring Academy, the world of Spyre’s premiere high school, heroes who are on their spring break trying to retrieve the Crown of the Nightmare King. Their adventures have brought them all the way to the second level of Hell! The Iron City of Dis, where they’ve gone to rescue Riz Gukgak's father, Pok Gukgak as part of… was there a joke I missed? I gotta do this spiel, I never catch the jokes."
"So, our intrepid heroes flew on a pirate fleet through the skies of hell to rescue Pok Gukgak. Riz discovered that maybe his father was not a good father after all, but, at the last possible moment, he discovered his dad was actually not who he appeared to be double again, and was in fact an undercover agent, who had a tractor beam shoot down from Heaven, grabbed his son and shot out of the plane of hell, leaving our rest of our intrepid heroes now in a sky fight, a dogfight, in the middle of the sky on a pirate ship made of the slain carcass of their former vice principal. Guys, you can't make this stuff up-- you can, we did."
"And so we come back now to our intrepid heroes or at least five of the six of them in the skies over the Iron City of Dis. Guys, the Goldenrod, the flagship of the rebel armada under Captain Bill Seacaster twists around, fiery rockets shoot up from the Iron City of Dis. We are in the skies of hell, grey sickening rain clouds thud down on you with a cold, soul-despairing rain as you see hordes of devils fly in the Iron City to all of Bill's many ships. You guys have just survived a huge lair action where everyone was almost flung off the ship. Arriving back on the deck, Fig and Bill Seacaster arrive. You are holding a scroll that you Sleight of Hand-ed from Vraz the Mean’s-- Baby stole some scraps and things that were not as good as what Fig stole."
Synopsis[]
Knowing that Riz is no longer in their plane anymore either through death or departure, the other members of the party head to recover his body. Fabian rams the ship into the building Riz was in, causing injury to many and killing Gilear. They travel to the interrogation room where they find Riz's Briefcase of Holding. They detect a Celestial spell; Ayda thinks he was either extracted or banished from the residual magic. Gorgug gets no cell reception in hell. Kristen goes next door to the CCTV room and after icing an imp sees the recording of Riz being extracted. They rush back to the ship with the briefcase.
Bill Seacaster can't get them to the celestial sphere, but could get them to the astral plane. Fig notices that the scroll she stole from Vraz was the spell to return to the shrine at the edge of the briar wall. Under a zone of truth, Kalvaxus says that Arianwen was not working for him, but Aelwyn was. He says that he wasn't working for the Nightmare King, but he did accept a coin. The coin meant he had to give away parts of his horde which he didn't like, but did mean that he got more money back and he got very good at investments. The Shadow Cat put Alwyn in contact with him. He says that having part of his horde makes people susceptible to the Nightmare King, but he wasn't being manipulated by them.
Riz is being beamed up to heaven with his dad. His dad reports him as a potential CI. In a flash they are standing on a grassy hill with a lone gravestone on top of it. He takes him to his agency nearby, which looks like someone put a bunch of office furniture and equipment under a massive tree. He has a plaque from when Riz avenged his death. Riz doesn't know why Kalina appeared to be tempting him into rescuing Pok. In the "interrogation room" (a pair of chairs in the nearby field) Riz asks Pok if Kalina was corporeal.
Pok thought she worked for The Third Ring, Fallinel's spy agency, and they worked on joint missions for both governments. Kalina couldn't be scried on and had ways of getting information and was sometimes unable to pick stuff up. Kalina doesn't have a godlike intelligence but let slip that she remembered something from far before she should ever have been. He thinks Kalina managed to manipulate someone in the government to revoke his citizenship so that Goldenhoard could kill him. Sklonda was given a promotion to put both of them near Arthur Aguefort. He says that he didn't know Sandra Lynn. The person taking the photo was confused. He thinks some of Kalina's illusory magic got weakened when the photo was taken. He was able to see Kalina before meeting Sklonda and was faithful to Sklonda after he met her. When doing a job with the Third Ring he did find some old healing potions and saw Kalina shortly after that. He has some encouraging words for his son.
Pok went undercover because even though the demons are overrun with the the ability to see Kalina, but the devils were very good at keeping her out and the heavens wanted to know how. He initially landed in the bottomless pit but things were running very badly until Gorthalax was finally freed and sent him where he night be useful to the devils. He doesn't know how he was able to be seen by Kalina in hell as he no longer has his old body, so should not have the disease. Gorthalax was probably infected with the ability to see her through his relationship with Sklonda. He asks his coworkers for a form to bring Riz on part-time.
On the goldenrod they look through the thing s stolen from the Bottomless Pit and find an early birthday present for Fig from Gorthalax. Fig opens it. It's an electric guitar with demonic addons. Bill decides to give Gilear a heart to heart about what make his widow happy. Bill and Fabian embrace painfully and he says he'll cut Fig in on the sales of the stuff he stole from the Bottomless Pit 50-50. They pass back through a doorway from hell to the outside of the briar wall. Ayda was going to go back to Compass Point, but stays when Fig asks her to. Ayda gives Adaine the project she was secretly working on: a spell called Adaine's Furious Fists. Adaine tries it out on a wall to impressive results.
Fig talks to Gilear and they agree that it would be better if he stayed to look after the van while they sent into the incredibly dangerous forest without him. Adaine takes a sample of his bloody shirt so that she can scry on him.
Pok takes Riz to meet Commander Fitz, he says they'd like to hire him to help with the nightmare king as that the rules about using celestials in the mortal plane make things very complicated. His pay will go into an account of pure faith and good wishes for when he returns. Fitz sends them to Isosceles a whirring fractal entity that outfits him with gear. They give him an Arcadian watch that can pick locks and shoot lasers, a Seraphim vest which lets him glide rather than fall and a Gregori Tie that can record audio and video 20 minutes an be triggered by wither detect good and evil or detect magic. They open the portal, but before he goes through he asks Riz to tell him all the trivial things that he doesn't mention at the gravestone, with the time on the other side of the portal fixed to the moment it was open they are able to talk for a long time. He walk through to his friends and catches them up.
Gorgug gives away his share of the hoard as a way of dispersing the funds without spreading the curse. Fig also gives hers to charity. They livestream a crab party to try to get enough followers and coverage so that they can later spread video of Kalina as far as possible, which they hope will be taxing. It gains some news coverage as Gorgug and Fig are very well known through their band. Adaine brings her familiar back as Bogowlrial Frogowlrial, an owl who will hopefully be harder to kill. They rest and prepare to go through to the Nightmare Forest. They leave the Hangman behind as they don't think the motorcycle will be able to move in the thick forest. They split up to gather components for Kristen's banishment tincture. Fabian and Gorgug go into the canopy looking for one of the components.
Riz, Kristen and Tracker are travelling together, the crystal that was animating the Hangvan shows a spooky cottage and then goes dark. They realise they can't hear Sandra Lynn and when Ayda offer sot go after her she suddenly sees herself standing in a house, then vanishes. Riz Kriten and Tracker all see Kalina reflected in a puddle at the same time, she asks how it feels to be in a forest where dreams are real and Tracker starts turning into a wolf due to a full moon that she's hallucinating. Kristen and Riz start getting real scratches from their hallucinations.
Gorgug finds a star moth chrysalis. Fig attempts to summon Ayda, but her feather has lost its shine. Adaine finds the ingredients she needs. Kristen casts greater restoration on Riz, completely curing him of his ability to see Kalina. Kristen is being scratched from the inside at an increased rate.