Campaign 3, Episode 2: Symbol of Ezry (The Mothership Saga)

**D-Class Knights** is the second episode in campaign 3, and the second episode in The Mothership Saga.

The Blue Crew tries to capitalize on their successful mission! Calder flips out on a waiter, Callie reveals a truth about her ex, and Sol shows off his shredded frog physique.

## Plot Synopsis

A-Class and B-Class Synths quickly arrive, along with some Mothership mages, to help clean up the scene and account for the shipment that was being stolen. Duck Team is approached by a mage who identifies himself as Field Mage Zug. They explain what happened to him, and he commends them on shutting down the heist. The squad then begins to self-aggrandize their actions in their report to him, commending Callie's emotional stability and Calder's skills with fire, only to realize that Zug is not high enough in the company to get them into the S-Class program based on his say-so. He instead grants them with a statement reiterating that Mothership is not liable for their injury, but is giving them a coupon for 500 GP to the Mothership Miniship shops, so they can buy health potions.

Callie then asks Sol and Calder to buy her some time, and tries to discreetly ritual cast *Silence* and *Unseen Servant* to create an unseen servant to steal them 3 vials of the S-Class elixir. She is immediately *Counterspelled* by one of the many mages on sight, but gets no further questions when she says she was just trying to cover up a fart. The group is dismissed, demoralized.

They go to TGI Skydays, a restaurant predictably owned by Mothership, to buy some drinks and loaded tater tots. While there, Sol notes a guitar on the wall next to a signed photo of him and Albin, from their days as "The Boy Wizard and His Frog Pal" back at the Mothership Launchpad Academy. Callie checks around for a happy couple, and a couple celebrating a birthday, and then a proposal. Before they can feel too bad for themselves, they receive a call from Alexandrite, inviting them to Mothership HQ in the morning. They buy some health potions with their coupon, and go back to Callie's belfry to sleep so that none of them will oversleep the next morning.

When they arrive the next morning, they are brought in to meet Paetina Glenbottle. She announces that for their commendable work, they have been chosen for an S-Class upgrade. Members of the press are brought in to photograph them, and the crew are then hurried away to a lab to undergo the procedure. They are greeted by an older gnome named Dr. Lanfizz. The group all strips and piles into one big test tube, warned that the process will be long and painful, but they'll probably pass out eventually!

While in the tube, they are surrounded by a cloudy potion and overwhelmed with physical sensations and visions of their pasts. Callie sees the Feywild, her sister teasing her, a caged dragon and a masked figure. Calder sees his brothers being admonished by their mother for playing too rough with him, the little one. Sol remembers his time with Albin at the Launchpad Academy, and all the dreams they had for the future. But their memories change as their friends and families turn to them and tell them in mechanical voices, "Your objective is to secure the Mothership." Callie fails her Wisdom saving throw and starts thrashing at the glass, trying to break out, insensate. Sol feels a sudden hunger for violence, and his spectral gauntlets glitch into demonic claws. Calder, however, on a Natural 20, realizes that the *Symbol* spell he saw in the elixirs before was being used to brainwash them and implant a code phrase that would turn them violent. He is able to reach over and use his cold to shake Callie out of her frenzy, but they remain exhausted and unable to move or speak.

Suddenly, the lights go off, and screams echo throughout the lab, as blood splatters on their tube. A dragon elf woman with glowing red eyes and a red mask approaches the tube as if to kill them, but then turns away, sparing them. They note her resemblance to the allegedly deceased Beatrix Netherin. They all pass out after that, awaking with half health to a trashed lab and the scientists murdered. They find that files about the information flow within Mothership, the files on the S-Class Synths, and the files on a scientist on the S-Class project named Beedra Weevil are gone.

Knowing this is going to be pinned on them, they decide to flee to Callie's belfry, planning to appeal to Albin to magically deactivate the tracking abilities in their manastones. They make a daring escape onto a commuter cable car where they encounter Albin who agrees to help them. However, upon seeing the duck, he informs Callie that it's not a duck. It seems like a version of a *Find Familiar* spell, but it's certainly not a duck.

Once they arrive safely at the belfry, Albin admits that he knows that his association with Sol has probably already doomed him. He brightens a little at the idea of going back to the life of adventure that he and Sol had once fantasized about as kids. He successfully breaks the tracking abilities on their manastones, and they agree it's time to get out.

## Quotes

* "Your objective is to secure the Mothership."

## Trivia

* In this episode, the cast begins to lean in really hard on the assertion that Sol is a distractingly hot frog, with six pack abs.

## Music and Sound Effects

* "Relaxing Music" by Migfus20 at Freesound.org.
* "Club chatter, London" by mlteenie at Freesound.org.
* "Engine Room" by Zimbot at Freesound.org.
* "A Wizard's Tournament" by Emily Axford.
* "Mothership" by Emily Axford.
* "The Frog" by Emily Axford.
* "Tarragon's Terrarium" by Emily Axford.
* "Microbrews Cruise" by Emily Axford.
* "Paetina" by Emily Axford.
* "The Trade District" by Emily Axford.
* "Alexandrite" by Emily Axford.
* "Synth Night" by Emily Axford.
* "Cable Car Ride" by Emily Axford.
* "Shadowfell Sneak" by Emily Axford.
* "Montgomery Manor" by Emily Axford.
* "Haunting Visages" by Emily Axford.

## External Links

* Headgum
* Spotify
* NADDPOD Subreddit Thread