Me Basing this on Context

Description

The Dragon Friends are at the end of the line. Minutes remain before they perish to the crossing between worlds, and a formidable foe stands between them and home. If they have a dastardly scheme, they had better employ it quickly.

Synopsis

The fight with the Engine Mistress begins in earnest. Logan and Freezo exchange blows and Logan regains his senses. Philge knocks the Engine Mistress into the furnace, and her flames seems to speed up the engine. Freezo retrieves and uses the scroll of the Terrasque, and a dark portal opens in the furnace. As everyone feels a sense of dread at the Terrasque’s approach, the Mistress tries desperately to shoot it but shakes and drops her crossbow. A tendril emerges from the portal and pulls the Mistress in to her doom.

Half the engine is destroyed as the Terrasque continues to emerge, with only ninety seconds left before they reach the barrier. Bobby gathers everyone up in his large werewolf arms and they huddle on the roof touching the Mistress’s brooch, her “iron sign” or “brass pass”. Half the train is sucked into the Terrasque’s portal as it emerges, and the last thing they see before a protective bubble from the iron sign surrounds them is the Terrasque in all its horror. It sees and knows Freezo as the one who summoned it here.

Vowell’s magic takes effect and the Friends find themselves in a storeroom in Waterdeep, close to their home time. It feels familiar to Philge, Bobby and Freezo, but everything about the world seems very wrong to Logan. He panics and attacks the door until Philge explains how the interiors of buildings work. Logan opens the door and they meet a young man in a dark black robe carrying a pile of similar robes. He’s surprised but offers them robes, which he says are traditional for “High Harvest Eve”. The Friends take the robes and are rushed to join the meeting, but at the last minute the man remembers to ask for the password or Davin Tyrill will be angry. Freezo suddenly remembers the password “peppercorn” from a long time ago, and they are allowed to join the meeting of the Cult of the Artificers, where new members bring news from Daggerford.

On the way out, they pass another cultist from behind who turns out to be Dilge! Bobby hugs him, but he’s confused to see them - not least because they’ve changed since he saw them seconds ago. Philge hugs him, and he reminds them their plan is to spy on the ritual. Freezo remembers what happened at that ritual, including Dilge’s death and looting his body. Philge asks where “we” are and a younger alternate timeline version of Philge arrives.

The alternate Philge is confused, though Dilge is excited to have “two sisters”. The older Philge thinks there can only be one of them, and seems ready to kill her younger alternate self. Freezo suddenly realises this may be a way to fulfil his curse to kill the Dragon Friends, and asks Philge to let him kill the younger Philge. Bobby thinks this will erase older Philge from the timeline. As they try to work it out, alternate Freezo (still an elf) and then alternate Bobby join the group.

Alternate Freezo hears someone coming towards the group, and decides to kill Freezo. A group of three cultists arrive just as alternate Freezo casts witch bolt on his older self. One of the cultists rings out a bell and battle breaks out; the younger Friends attack Freezo, but then they team up and kill the guards, breaking open a door to reveal Janos Meer. He sees that the infiltration plan is “shot to shit”, and demands to know what’s going on...

Cast

Dragon Friends

• Rugged Philge
• Elder Bobby Pancakes
• Chineezo Freezo

Guest NPCs

• Logan the Huge, a container sized tortle who easily imprints on other people (played by Tom Cardy)
• The Engine Mistress, a clockwork lady who drives the Iron Engine (a train) between hell and Faerûn, commander of the Enginists (played by Montaigne)
• Dilge, a half-orc with big city dreams, sister of Philge (played by Tom Walker)
• Philge, a half-orc barbarian (played by Alex's brother, Riordan Lee)
• Bobby Pancakes, a halfling rogue working for Janos Meer (played by Simon's father, Christopher Greiner)
• Freezo, a high elf warlock raised in a temple of Mystra (played by Michael's fiancee, Hum)

NPCs

• Davin Tyrril, the 'fake' duke of Daggerford and current cultist leader of the Artificers
• Janos Meer, the Beggar King of Waterdeep

Hams

• Hamnote

Bestiary

• the Terrasque, a magical “Godzilla”/kaiju summoned using forbidden magic

Places

• The Iron Engine train to Faerûn
• Waterdeep

Themes, tropes and running jokes

• Death By Witch Bolt - the younger Freezo attempts this on the older Freezo, but it doesn’t work.

Trivia

• Freezo found the Scroll of Terrasque Summoning during his adventures with the Beef Babes. The Friends later discovered that - at least in the final timeline - it had been created by Moira La Rune towards the end of the Netherese Empire. Doing so was quite difficult, so she tried to take a shortcut by stealing it from Freezo (twice).
• The Engine Mistress is a High Cambion of the Iron City and lived for 6,000 years.
• It’s made canon here that Logan has never been inside, despite him having been inside the crypt of Castle Ravenloft where the cold cell engine was kept, and being inside the Iron Engine in Hell up until only moments earlier.
• The Friends return to 1492 DR, five years before they left in Icewind Dale, during the events of “Shut Up, I Look Great” (1.10).

Quotes

• “There’s not many times when I am actually affronted, but you want me to thank you for playing Dungeons & Dragons in a way that you think is helping me.”
  “We’re on the same side here, Dave!”
  “Dave, just say thank you, please.”
  “Hing: thank you...”
  “Thank you Dave!”
  “...for what this is going to allow me to do.” - Dave, Hing and Ben after Hing suggests Dave thank him for summoning the Terrasque and “getting the game back on track”
• “GAZE INTO YOUR FUTURE. One day, YOU’LL BE CHINESE.” - Freezo to younger Freezo
• “My Mum decided to come tonight for some reason, and everything you said is making her regret every decision that led up to that, possibly including having me.” And then later: “So my Mum didn’t come to see me, she came to see her husband.” - Simon before and after his Dad is revealed as a guest player