Dungeons and Dragons ("DnD"): Hoard of the Dragon Queen: Episode 3.4 Adventure #15

Date of Session: August 14, 2019 (10pm to 12:30am)

Number of Players: 3

1. Legendary Hero Menos (Dragon-born Paladin)

2. Kai-tick, Kin-slayer and “Servant” (Aarakocra Rogue)

3. XerX, the “X” Archer and “Master” (NOBLE Half-Elf Ranger)

My D&D group officially reached session #20. It feels like we’ve been playing for more than twenty sessions, but I’ve been counting since the Phandalin days! The group have been through a lot: character deaths, new members, old members leaving, and even a character betrayed them (MVP!). We hit a lot of the normal D&D tropes, and it’s been a glorious ride. “Normal” in the sense that nonsense is considered silly!! It’s not supposed to make sense. Anyways, I wanted to point out that this session is a milestone that’s put me in a level-up mood: the hyperbolic time chamber is fast-approaching.

Let’s get into what happened during session #20:

Picking up right where we left off on session #19, The Enforcers are reunited and Kai-tick is covered in blood. XerX, Menos, and Kai-tick all catch up with each other on what went down last session (recapping) to remember how they got to this point. This is where the story gets interesting. Kai-tick, and then everyone else, begin to hear a mysterious voice talking to them. Oooh. The voice is offended that nobody remembers him, and Kai-tick goes, “Carp Carp”.

The spirit of Carp, the boy from their Phandalin days, has returned. He was sent by HaThor, Bubby’s God, to help Kai-tick discover his true name. Kai-tick doesn’t have understanding, believing his name is Kai-tick, the Kin-slayer. However, Carp Carp discloses how not true that is. Kai-tick ignores Carp for the rest of the session and HaThor’s test to achieve the next step: Noble Phantasm, the finisher of a Servant.

Kai-tick and his interest in power continues. Menos and XerX believed it is best to return to Greenest, not knowing how far away they are from the place. Kai-tick agrees but wants to do his own thing without them. I forgot what Kai-tick wanted to do by himself, but the trio separated. They like to split up a lot, which is effective teamwork and realistic, but its hard to manage sometimes (typical DM struggles).

Menos and XerX are walking through town when someone delivers a letter to XerX from Zora. XerX reads the letter that has one sentence: Good luck, from Zora. That’s all it says, giving XerX no clues on what it could mean. He rolls to investigate further. Rolling a nice 16, XerX discovers a hidden message in the letter when exposed under the sun—a hand-made drawing of Zora beating XerX up in comedic fashion. This action puzzles XerX and Menos, who know their favorite NPC would never do anything like this. It smelled fishy.

They visit the Greenest Castle, their unofficial home / base of operations, to see if anyone else knew anything about Zora. Turns out, everyone in Greenest knew about Zora and his malicious act against Cass the Red, the cousin of dwarf Gundren. Menos and XerX cannot believe what went down: Zora allegedly beat the crap out of Cass the Red using his sword and then the wheelchair. Nurse Joy tries to restore Cass the Red’s injuries, but Zora’s anti-magic slashes are slowing down the magic process. Menos agrees to use Cure Wounds to speed things along. This act gives Cass the Red the ability to breath on his own and speak his side of the story.

Zora beat up Cass the Red. They bumped into each other walking through the Castle early in the morning and a one-sided brawl started right above the training grounds. While writing that sentence, I realized this happened above the Enforcers. That’s f’d.

Zora wielded his anti-magic sword and then finished the battle using Cass the Red’s wheelchair. Menos and XerX cannot believe Zora would do this to another NPC. The letter comes back into play. Cass the Red was a messenger and has a letter to deliver. However, the letter was not for XerX but for Ned, another member of the Black Bulls. Menos wonders if they met this NPC, but everyone confirms this wasn’t the case. He suffered from serious mental disorders after the Greenest invasion (episode - 1) that prevented the official meeting. Menos and XerX found this very interesting because Ned’s presence was always in the background but never brought to the forefront yet.

Ned, an Aarakocra like Kai-tick and Lord Eggza, comes into Cass the Red’s bedroom with a strong headache. XerX and Menos have a lot of questions, but Ned’s headaches do not enjoy the interrogation. Ned reads his letter out loud, a well-written goodbye letter that reveals Zora’s intention: to join Mas O and Vin after his traumatic encounter against Lord Eggza. XerX is offended about this… because it was his idea first to turn evil and join Mas O. Menos agreed, awkwardly, and wonders what the hell is going on.

Menos and XerX plan to take this news to Kai-tick, who ended up meeting with Captain Leon nearby Tiffany’s Black Bulls item shop. Kai-tick meets Greg’s brother, Dan, who has the same personality as Greg… identical twin brother cliche is in the works. Kai-tick had visited to retrieve his upgraded weapons, something I forgot was a thing, and talked to Captain Leon about the hyperbolic time chamber’s progress.

Captain Leon confirms Lina is working on the hyperbolic time chamber alone, and it will be finished by the afternoon. XerX and Kai-tick look to the sun a lot now for their natural clock. It’s a funny thing that I entertain because there’s no other realistic method to time reading. By the way, XerX and Menos meet up with the two assassins and recap the Zora situation to them. Kai-tick becomes worried about Zora and asks Captain Leon what the next move is. This is where it gets interesting.

Captain Leon officially assigns them a C-ranked mission to bring Zora back to Greenest, alive. Everyone agrees especially since there is a loot reward to completing the mission. XerX uses his power level skill to check a six-mile radius realizing that while Zora had a huge head start on them, he didn’t have a direction. It’s one thing to declare you’re evil, but it’s another to know where to go. XerX sighs and discovers Zora is where the apple tree used to be, about four miles outside the village.

Menos wants to summon Axel but remembers Kurt was the man taking care of his horse since episode one and… decides to desummon Axel and to conjure him again using Find Stead Spell. However, XerX and Kai-tick are impatient, so Menos stops the spell but gets his upgraded armor from Tiffany inside the shop. Kai-tick takes this opportunity to steal from Dan’s brother, Greg.

Kai-tick questions Tiffany on where Greg used to live, and Tiffany tells the honest truth: the room above the item shop. Dan, his brother, lives there now, but all of Greg’s things are laying around. Kai-tick and Menos decide to visit Greg’s apartment to find notes on The Legend of Shinzo. This information was written inside a journal, and it’s the last copy. They are afforded the key by Tiffany, taking the fun of breaking-in from Kai-tick. Menos preferred not to break into someone’s home.

Kai-tick checked around the apartment using an investigation check, but he couldn’t find anything useful in the kitchen. Menos rolled as well and hit the solid 17, granting him the insight to check the living room’s coffee table, where it was buried under a bunch of other papers. Menos told Kai-tick that he found it and pocketed Greg’s journal inside the bag of holding, where he remembered the Three Blue Eyes Dragon Eggs. The Paladin smirked and factored them into his hyperbolic time chamber plan. He was going inside first with Lina, his current squire.

Anyways, Menos and Kai-tick thank Tiffany for letting them inside, but he was pissed off at them… for not closing the door behind them. Menos and Kai-tick looked at each other awkwardly, remembering that nobody closed the door. They continue to leave and meet up with XerX outside. There, XerX and Menos (texting IRL) decide to talk about a half-elf bowl movements. Kai-tick is done with them, but after the process is explained, the trio’s mission begins: Bring Zora back home!

The Enforcers, on the route to Zora, encounter strange obstacles. First, they run into three Goblins, one of them being Noblin, and the other two dead, claiming Zora attacked them out of pure rage. Kai-tick tosses Noblin aside and continues onward not wanting to waste time with dead-weights. Noblin feels offended but can’t do anything about it. Menos and XerX follow after the Servant because they basically feel the same way.

Next, they run into a pack of wolves. They are angry and blood-lust after the Enforcers. XerX is able to feel out their emotions using animal-handling, but before he can figure out a peaceful solution, Kai-tick swoops in and slices all the wolves’ hind legs thus they cannot chase after them. Menos and XerX also approved of this plan, mostly to reserve strength in case they have to fight Zora.

The Enforcers spot Zora chilling by a tree and eating an apple, acting like his usual self. This throws everyone off because Zora doesn’t look or seem like the good-turned-evil anime character. Kai-tick suggests using his Spider-Staff, the one he acquired from an evil Phandalin Wizard, to trap Zora against the tree stump. The sneaky plan succeeds. Zora is trapped against the tree like Naruto and cries out random nonsense unable to break free or use his grimoire.

Kai-tick, Menos, and XerX talk to Zora, wanting to convince him to come back and fulfill his dream of being Captain. Zora refuses because he saw where that dream would lead: Lord Eggza, and he does not want any part in serving him. Zora wishes to join the other side to stop Lord Eggza and to reclaim the Captain-Commander role through pure force instead. XerX pleads with his friend not to give up on his dream and that he believed in his friend’s dream… that XerX took it for himself.

This was an amazing character moment: XerX explains that he was inspired to become Captain because of Zora… and that Zora was always the better man to work the role. He admitted defeat to Zora and encourages him to become Captain-Commander the right way in order to defeat Lord Eggza without resorting to the lord’s methods. The Talk-No-Jutsu was a success and Zora cries out like a rewritten anime character. Menos and Kai-tick were moved too by XerX’s anime speech. This player was getting good at speeches.

Then, Vin appears and tries to get Zora to change his mind. Kai-tick, furious, wonders what the hell happened to Water Deep, the foreshadow I set-up but kind of ruined in making reappearances. Who cares? Vin (MVP) has the ability to phase through all the Enforcers’ attacks and travel vast-distances using teleportation. Sounds familiar? Give this first-time Dungeon Master a break, need to start somewhere.

Zora, inspired by XerX’s heartfelt words, breaks free of the spider-webs and chooses to fight and protect his best friend. Menos was amazed that the powers of friendship, the advice he gave XerX, actually worked. The anti-magic sword managed to slice through Vin’s phasing ability, something that Kai-tick tried to take advantage of but only Zora’s attack works. Vin is heavily damaged (AGAIN) and disappears, but not before warning XerX about his plans for him and Kenji. Remember, Vin the Genie was the person who merged their souls to begin with.

Kai-tick, Menos, and XerX are happy to have Zora back on the side of good—until they learn the entire mission was staged to test their teamwork. Cass the Red, the letters to Ned and XerX, Noblin and Goblins, and the wolves were all a part of the great mission, which didn’t make much sense, but Zora isn’t the smartest character. Menos was angry that he wasted a spell slot on someone who wasn’t really hurt. Everyone walks back to Greenest awkwardly but happy that Zora is still their favorite NPC… Kai-tick is relieved that he didn’t go through with stabbing Zora through the chest.

The Enforcers + Zora arrive back in Greenest, greeted by everyone involved in the staged mission. Around this time, after some talking with Captain Leon, they discover that Ned was never supposed to receive a well-written letter from Zora, their most important clue. This worries the Enforcers because they don’t know or trust Ned. The inconsistency could mean something was about to go down.

An explosion blows a hole through the castle’s wall. Zora crashes down to the ground, unconscious. Ned, Aarakocra Buffed to the Max, drops down too and sets his sights on the Enforcers. His feathers were golden and his muscles raged for violence. He prefers XerX first and Nat 20’s him into a wall using a lariat technique. XerX is trapped. Menos was amazed that only the wall survived the random building’s collapse.

Menos activates his Air Blade and tries to blow him off, but a Nat 1 equals Ned’s cool moment of eating the air. Ned is anger and frightens the Enforcers briefly with his Ki Presence Overload. Menos declares the Aarakocra the worst race ever. XerX agrees to that, barely able to speak because of Ned’s grapple. Ned discloses to XerX the stupid reason that he’s doing this: to be Zora’s only best friend.

Menos cannot believe the dumb reason and tries the power of Air. Kai-tick slashes Ned using his Leaf Blade and new upgraded weapons, hurting him. Ned loves the pain that gets inflicted on his body and Nat 20 Lariat Kai-tick with XerX behind him into the wall, breaking it completely. XerX uses his magic, a new thunder technique, to blow Ned off them, and then Menos air-slashes push him further away from them, granting Kai-tick the space to end the fight. He pierces Ned in the stomach using the Leaf Blade, beating the Aarakocra into submission.

Ned debuffs and falls unconscious, which reveals Captain Leon’s most guarded secret. He was a HaThor follower as well and bore the tattoo of the Right Dragon Claw, the opposite of Bubby’s. Ned Broccoli, his full name, reverted to a Servant card and stored inside Leon’s dragon mark to preserve what’s left of Ned’s sanity. The Enforcers have more questions to ask, but the session must end on this anime-like cliffhanger: The Hyperbolic Time Chamber is ready to go!

That’s it for this session. The milestone leveling system will go into effect soon, so the experience won’t be wasted. Guaranteed level-ups are coming the players’ way to give them a chance to win the Ginyu Games. Will they succeed and save themselves from a TPK? Find out next time on the next episode of D&D!