[MOC] Nexo Knights -- Jestro's Pandora Gate

[Grey Magistrate]

Knighton is in freefall.  Ava is hiding behind stone walls and stone friends; Lance is trusting to his store of illicit wealth; and Princess Macy is liquidating the royal treasury to pay for her ruinously expensive rearmament program.  As the kingdom descends into disorder, rumor reaches King Halbert and Prime Minister Jestro that the vampirates are building some kind of terrible structure somewhere hidden in the swamplands.

 

At a time of such risk and ruin, why would King Halbert appoint a known war criminal, Jestro, to be his prime minister?  Well, King Halbert ain't dumb.  He conditioned Jestro's political rehabilitation on the jester's agreement to undertake a highly risky operation to infiltrate the vampirates' spider cult and identify their plot.

 

Jestro's criminal reputation is more than enough to win entree to the vampirates' ranks and the friendship of the vampirate chief, Captain Frederic, who naively thinks that he has won over Knighton's highest-ranking official.

 

Jestro cleverly worms his way into an invitation to see the vampirates' sinister project in the swamp, but the high priestess, Pola, is very suspicious of the newcomer.

 

But at Frederic's urging, she eventually reveals the horrifying truth: the spider cult has constructed a Pandora gate, and will soon use it to unleash a terrifying and unstoppable force from the buckets beyond, a power beyond description or comprehension.

 

Nameless and volatile, this sentient pile of brick and bone seethes with the souls and spoils of countless forgotten Lego sets.  It has long slumbered in its buckets, but the premature demise of the Nexo Knights theme has awoken its baleful awareness, and even now the fearsome pile lurches and writhes with a hunger as insatiable as it is inexplicable.

 

...or anyway, that's what the priestess says, but maybe she has been reading too much H. P. Legocraft.

 

Jestro knows his time is short.  He persuades Captain Frederic to give him a tour of the Pandora gate.  For security purposes, of course, Frederic takes him under cover of darkness so that Jestro will not be able to identify the route and location.

 

Jestro anticipated this and, waiting for Frederic to turn his back, discreetly sinks a homing beacon into the swamp.

 

Then Jestro exploits his position of trust to pass new patrol schedules to the gate guards, so that there will be a brief three-hour window when there will be no one guarding the Pandora gate.

 

It's now or never!  Jestro calls in Robin's elite strike team for an assault on the Pandora gate, guided by Jestro's beacon and timed to coincide with the three hours when the guards are gone.

 

The soldiers wield giant laser saws to hack the Pandora gate to the ground.

 

Then Jestro makes the fateful decision to carry the Pandora gate back to King Halbert, rather than destroy it.

 

There is one last detail: Axl has long sought live specimens of the vampirates' spiders for a "special research project".  What could Axl be planning?

 

 

The Fall of Knighton:

#1 -- Ava's Stone Embassy

#2 -- Lance's Lava Mine

#3 -- Macy's Fortified Chapel

#4 -- Jestro's Pandora Gate

#5 -- Axl's Spider Foundry

#6 -- King Halbert's Last Stand

#7 -- Aaron's Club Absinthe

#8 -- Robin's Vampirate Ship

#9 -- Clay's Chapterhouse Vigil

 

Spellbreaker:

#1 -- Lance's Lava Train

#2 -- Ava's Summer Home

#3 -- Macy's Campaign Headquarters

#4 -- Axl's Audience Chamber

#5 -- Jestro's Final Chapter

 

Edited May 15, 2021 by Grey Magistrate
Updated the episode list

[BrickJagger]

Another great entry into this series! This is the kind of storytelling that Nexo lacked. I like how the Vampirates have finally made an appearance, can't wait to see what's next. 

[Fenghuang0296]

Vampirates? Is that official? I thought I was just Virus Vampires . . .

Atill, nice. Smaller builds this time, but the quality is definitely increasing, and I like what you're doing by mixing and matching the Vampire minifig parts. 

Where did you get that gunmetal-coloured year 1 knight armour part, anyway? I thought those ony came in silver/neon orange and the various colours from the ULTIMATEs series. 

The gate's pretty, but I'm not seeing, y'now, an opening . . . I guess it's gone now anyway so it's all moot . . . or is it? XD Can'r wait to see what's next!

[Grey Magistrate]

Thanks to you both!  Yeah, "vampirates" is my name for 'em...but now that the theme is cancelled, I feel entitled to rename them whatever I want!  Besides, seeing as Nexo is a Space-Castle mash-up, I want to see a Space-Pirates combo.

The Pandora gate is sealed for now, but I sure hope nothing happens to unseal it now that it's stored in the castle...

The gunmetal-colored armor is from the Knighton Castle set -- it was on the shelf in the armory.  It fits so perfectly on high priestess Pola that I don't know why it wasn't included in the original set.