Campaign 3, Episode 13: Alexandrite (The Mothership Saga)

**Alexandrite** is the thirteenth episode in campaign 3, and the thirteenth episode in The Mothership Saga.

Duck Team confronts Paetina Glenbottle at Alexandrite's core! Calder argues with the facts, Callie pushes a grandma, and Sol receives an enticing offer.

## Plot Synopsis

### **Facing Paetina**

In Alexandrite’s control room, Paetina tells Duck Team that Alexandrite is an AI created by Mothership who became aware of her own abilities. As a result, she tried to take over people’s minds using her psionic powers. Paetina and others managed to stop her and keep her contained, but if Duck Team releases her, she’ll take over the minds of everyone.

Duck Team & Beatrix doesn’t know whether to believe her, but they still hate her. So, Callie pushes her down the stairs and she immediately dies.

However, when Duck Team reaches the pod containing Alexandrite, they see someone inside; the partially artificial body of Paetina Glenbottle – the host of Alexandrite. Another Paetina emerges from the shadows and reveals that she had to sacrifice her real body to keep Alexandrite contained, and she uses clones to get around the city. After killing Paetina a few more times, Duck Team and Beatrix debate whether to free Alexandrite. But after Duck Team expresses concern, Beatrix stabs into the pod and destroys Paetina’s original body. The current Paetina clone collapses, and everything goes white.

### **Alexandrite's Pitch**

Each member of Duck Team finds themselves alone in a white void. Alexandrite speaks to each one and tries to convince them to join her Hive Mind.

She appeals to Callie’s desire to connect with Glen and her family and says that in the Hive Mind she can be connected with everyone. Callie resists her, and responds that the way for her to be happy is to accept her differences. Alexandrite tells Calder that his attitudes towards himself and his family are contradictory, and that this is non-optimal. But Calder also resists her, and says he likes the contradiction. She then warns him that the Mothership expansion in the Frigid North is nearly finished, and he won’t be able to protect his home, but he still refuses.

Alexandrite tells Sol that the Hive Mind will be free of the kind of deception he experienced at Launchpad. She also says that they could find out his parentage and raises the ideas that his parents could have been from another realm, or even that Sol could have been created in a Mothership lab. Sol doesn’t save against her psionic abilities and starts to come around to joining the Hive mind.

Callie and Calder each see a faint red light, which they walk towards. They both wake up, but see Sol still unconscious and connected to the shattered pod via wires. Callie gives him a Bardic Inspiration and Calder freezes the wires. With this help, Sol snaps out of the spell, immediately refuses Alexandrite, and wakes up. Now that they’re all conscious, Duck Team sees Beatrix start to merge with the machinery. They realise that she is becoming the new host of Alexandrite.

The new entity – Beatrix-andrite – tells them that the Mob-Goblin ship is under attack. But, knowing about the previous plans of both Beatrix and Alexandrite, Callie casts Modify Memory on Beatrix-andrite to make her feel doubt. The spell seems to work, but Beatrix-andrite still starts tearing the main Mothership apart and ejects Duck Team out of the window on a metal tentacle.

### **Rescuing Grem**

Outside, Duck Team sees that the Mob-Goblin airship is under attack by a giant Mothership warship. Over the earpiece, Ma-Goblin tells them that the warship is slowing down their escape. Grem and his crew have boarded the warship to allow the rest of Mob-Goblin to escape. However, they will almost certainly be killed fighting. Wanting to save their good friend Grem, Duck Team boards the Mothership warship to assist.

On the warship, dozens of Mothership soldiers are fighting Mob-goblin. Duck Team sees a rescue ship connected to the main warship via ropes. Knowing they can use it to save their allies, they tell the Mob-Goblin crew to try and make their way to the rescue ship. Calder starts its engine, Sol inflates the sails, and Callie cuts the ropes. Callie then runs into the melee and uses fey-imbued dexterity to fend off several knights. Sol reaches into the mind of a B-class knight and tricks them into thinking an attack is coming from below deck, causing several guards to be lured down there.

A member of Mob-Goblin is attacked and falls off the ship. Callie jumps off to save him and fey-steps him back to deck – But is still falling herself. Grem is devastated. Calder attaches a rope to Sol, and Sol bungee jumps after Callie and brings her back up. Once all the Mob-Goblin members are on the ship, Calder drives it away. But the main warship fires at the rescue ship and heavily damages it. After one ballista critically hits it, the guy Callie saved dies and the rescue ship starts to crash.

Calder steers the crashing ship to the coast, and they land in shallow water. The ship absorbs most of the damage, meaning that Duck Team and Mob-Goblin crew members mostly survive, although they are quite injured.

On the shore, Callie’s jammer lights up and she hears Beatrix-andrite. Beatrix-andrite tells Callie that having doubt prevented her from killing off the entire population of the city. From the distance, Duck Team sees metal wires wrap around the main Mothership, and at the same time rescue ships fire off as people escape. Beatrix-andrite tells Callie that they will meet again, and the Mothership flies over them and into the ocean. As it hits the water, a giant tidal wave forms and approaches Duck Team.

## Quotes

* "The most interesting thing of all is progress." - *Alexandrite to Callie*
* "It's what makes me who I am. The duality." - *Calder to Alexandrite*
* "What do you think the Launchpad was? It was a filter for a network. A network of perfect soldiers, conforming to a singular point. And I tried that. And it didn't fit for me, it didn't fit for my friends and it took me way too long to realize that not fitting is okay." - *Sol to Alexandrite*
* "Darlin', I'm a frog! That's who I am, that's how I gotta be." - *Sol to Alexandrite*
* "Someone who exists without doubt, that is not the truth. That's just too much confidence." - *Callie to Alexandrite*
* "Then there's a chance. And when there's a chance, we can still fight and we can still win and we can overcome the odds. And we deserve to make that choice, you don't make it for us." - *Calder to Alexandrite*

## Trivia

* In this episode, the crew levels up to Level 7.

## Music and Sound Effects

* "Engine Room" by Zimbot at Freesound.org.
* "A Wizard's Tournament" by Emily Axford.
* "Mothership" by Emily Axford.
* "Paetina Glenbottle" by Emily Axford.
* "Into the Planar Pool" by Emily Axford.
* "Alexandrite" by Emily Axford.
* "A Fairy Remembers" by Emily Axford.
* "The Valiant Ol' Cobb" by Emily Axford.
* "Into the Fire" by Emily Axford.
* "The Purge" by Emily Axford.
* "Montgomery Manor" by Emily Axford.
* "The Posse" by Emily Axford.

## External Links

* Headgum
* Spotify
* NADDPOD Subreddit Thread