Quick facts
Campaign: The Wonders of Arlia (Campaign 1) · Where: North City, the Cackler Barrel, the Collector’s Mansion, the Coliseum, the harbor · Previous: C1 Chapter 09 · Next: C1 Chapter 11
With the Collector dead, the Cacklers came home to North City as celebrities. They freed hundreds of captive kenku from the Collector’s Mansion, then woke up to dragons on the rooftops and a Rose Ribbon Army occupation. By nightfall they had killed a dragon, raised the start of an army, and nearly lost Barqs.
Hometown heroes
Crowds of screaming young fans mobbed Greene and Oolong outside the Cackler Barrel until Jebidiah asked everyone not to “crowd the famous friends.” Inside, the Cacklers agreed their first priority was the captive kenku held in a “big room, lots of cells” in the Collector’s collection. They had been brought there from an island off the coast of the Republic of Choco Island.
There was a stupider crisis too. Terra Misu Umber’s last Collector assignment had been to find Max’s shapeshifting technology and look into “issues with the alcohol sales,” and the city was running dry. “Where’s the fucking alcohol? Where’s the wine?” Jebidiah warned that an angry home base would sink them. The party asked Bulma Briefs and Master Toshi to meet at the Barrel to discuss the war and bringing back Goku. Terra, now free, saw a “big power gap that needs to be filled” in North City.
The kenku cells
Oolong disguised himself as the Collector again, but the mansion’s security knew its master had been “deceased for 7 days.” Two Cybermen and a Dalek attacked. Elyon banished the Dalek mid-”exterminate,” Terra ripped a leg off a Cyberman to use as a bat, and Oolong blasted the last one to dust.
The Star Orb room was empty. Instead of treasure they found a wall of Culinary Buttons: tea, bacon, fruit, buttered roll, cheese, sauce, and rum. They “ain’t going hungry.”
Behind another door was a long hallway of identical cells holding hundreds of starving kenku. “Food, food. Hungry, hungry. Please, please, please.” Oolong, still wearing the Collector’s form, touched the bars and they vanished. Terra told him to give the freed kenku a speech. “No, why would I say anything,” Oolong said, and ran down the hall freeing every one of them with a touch.
Dragons over the city
The next morning, five dragons of different ages were perched on the city’s buildings, an adult white dragon on the mansion itself. An ancient red dragon announced that North City was now under Rose Ribbon occupation. It offered the crowd “gifts of alcohol, pasta, and chocolate” and warned that the city must join The Calyx or be destroyed.
Elyon’s teleport to Master Toshi’s house misfired and dropped her in Ginger Town. The Cacklers planned to stay in touch with Bulma, control the message to the citizens, and get Captain Barqs his “own little navy going.” Wanting an apology gift for Sophie, Oolong found a Ring of Shooting Stars at Omar’s shop of curiosities. “Hold my ferret?” When the owner refused, Oolong threw the ferret at him and polymorphed it into a giant rhino, and got a “wonderful deal” in the wreckage.
Elyon finally reached North City near the Coliseum just as an adult black dragon, Canidoth, landed on the walls. A voice rang out over the city: the Collector had “forsaken you,” and the city now belonged to the Rose Ribbon Army.
Greene takes a head
A man was eviscerated in the first moments and the dragon sprayed the party with acid. Then Greene beheaded the dragon. The reporter Jimmy Firecracker declared that the Cacklers appeared to have saved North City.
Greene spoke to the crowd: “The Rose Ribbon will burn. Stand strong and join us.” Jimmy called it “very poignant, very straight to the point.”
The city had no army, so they called on “any man or woman or child? No. Well, older teenager willing to fight the Rose Ribbon Army” to gather at the reclaimed Coliseum, while admitting the plan was to “make an army out of y’all and then peace out after.”
Battle in the harbor
Greene got Bulma’s promise of a backup teleportation capsule. Then enemy ships attacked the docks. “We got to go, guys,” Terra said. “They’re in the harbor. They’re burning all the ships.” First Mate Barqs grabbed Oolong and teleported straight onto the Rootbeer Float. Greene followed.
As Greene took hits, his hair turned orange, his eyes greenish yellow, and he fell. The party healed Barqs once (“Oh, thank you. You’re like the son I never had”), but an invisible mage countered the next spell, and Barqs died on the deck, slain by a traitor. Greene, unconscious, had turned into a large tiger, and the unsteered Rootbeer Float was rising straight into the sky. Sophie begged Juliette to revive Barqs, and she did.
Soldiers then burst through the lower deck door. The party captured and healed one, who told them the plan for North City was to siege it, attack, and starve it over time. His job was to “keep you here as long as possible.” Below deck, Oolong and Greene found six to ten red barrels with a lit fuse. Greene jumped overboard yelling, “Giant bombs under the ship. Run.” Sophie banished herself, Oolong, and Terra just before the ship blew apart. Juliette was caught in the blast and barely lived.
In the burning water, Greene denied being a tiger. “I was a fucking tiger?” “Yeah, you were a fucking tiger. I’ve never seen anything like it.” The city now hailed the Cacklers as the new navy, heroes whose enemies blew up their own ships. Jebidiah started selling T-shirts and tea bag holders showing Juliette flailing in the water. The assault on the Rose Ribbon forces was “tomorrow, eh?”
Previous: Chapter 9: Rootbeard and the Silent Vaults · Next: Chapter 11: The Sealing of King Piccolo