The story so far... (Kingdom Squad)

[SMARTAgentKC]

Adventure 01 - The Missing Claus

The day started out mostly normal for our heroes in the kingdom squad at the royal academy with only a few minor incidents that were the result of accidents in a chef's guild or pranks in a certain princess dormitory. However nothing would prepare the heroes or anyone else in the academy for the loud arrival of a flying sleigh being pulled midair by a reindeer and the panicking young elf that was driving it. What was he panicked about no one was sure until a summons by Merlin called upon our heroes to have a meeting.

At the meeting, the reason the elf was panicking was revealed. His boss, Santa Claus, the patron of crafting and children, had disappeared seemingly thanks to dark magic overnight and he had decided to fast travel to the academy to alert Merlin and get his aid to find the patron before word got out and things got out of hand as the patron was a massive figurehead of all things good and right. In a fortunate twist, Santa had procured one of his captor's electronic devices and sent a message out informing all who saw the message that he was being held by the infamous villain Oogie Boogie and his trio of brats who in the message revealed they were at Grimhilde castle in the land of darkness. Merlin giving the heroes access to supplies and a few special items sent the group to the land of darkness just before the dark castle.

The group with only some minor difficulty managed to get into the castle and to the dungeon where Santa Claus was being held. One foreseen ambush by the brat trio and fight later the patron was freed from the brats only for Oogie Boogie to make an entrance and attempt to keep the group locked up with him but Santa wasn't having any of it and had the dungeon unlocked and opened only for the group to encounter a second villain Scar and his gang of hyena who had been roused by the intrusion of the heroes. Scar heavily insisted on escorting the patron and his heroes to the owner of the castle Queen Grimhidle to talk. Santa and the heroes seeing no other safe way out decided to take the offer and went to the main hall. 

At the main hall, Queen Grimhidle was both willing to let Santa Claus go per the demands of the council of light but upset at the idea that heroes could break into her castle without her permission and demanded they be punished. However Santa would debate with her and then ask why he was kidnapped with the only reason he knew so far was because he was traded for Oogie's best pair of dice. Grimhidle denied any knowledge of his kidnapping but it was revealed by Oogie that the trade had gone through because the queen and the witch Maleficent had come up with a plan to 'undo the fates by ending told' by gathering the powers of the villains and changing the past and that Santa was the gift made in return for Oogie's contribution to the plan. Oogie also revealed that the plan had been foiled because of the Sea Witch Ursula one uping the other two and stealing the artifact they planned to use and now dangles it in front of them saying it would only be used if they made a deal. 

Santa realizing that the only way that was possible was through an artifact called the Sundial of Chronos, begged the queen to tell him that she did not go for the sundial only for the queen to proclaim she never laid eyes on it but then quietly admitted that Ursula had taken it and that the sea witch was rather proud of herself for doing so. Santa being filled with dread attempted to depart with the heroes only for Oogie to morph into a dark knight form known as the Heavy Dice Hitter and demand one last 'dance' before the night was up. A battle ensued as the heroes and Oogie clashed with both sides putting their all into their fight. Oogie managing to hold off the group best melee, range and divine boosted hits with laughter and glee and countering with his own powerful attacks from fancy armaments, swarms of poison filled bugs, his control over luck and fate. The battle would be interrupted however as one of the heroes triggered a beacon that was set for an emergency extraction only to be used in a grave circumstance, fortunately the extraction was successful and the group found themselves being teleported back to the academy much to the dismay of Oogie Boogie.

Now returning to the academy with the knowledge, the group is about to find out just how dire the situation is.

[SMARTAgentKC]

Adventure 1 epilogue - Sundial circumstances

When the group returned to the royal academy and reported to Merlin about the whole mission and the idea that someone had broke into the academy to steal the Sundial of Chronos, Merlin was beside himself claiming that no one could get access to the vault without his knowledge and permission however it seemed that breakdowns in communication and tech savvy pupils responding to critical messages from the overseer of the vault, Megara, without notifying their teacher that a message had come in resulted in an envoy from Atlantica taking the Sundial from the academy and supposedly taking it to the underwater kingdom per the orders of Triton however the scroll that the envoy supposedly had and placed on Merlin's desk according to Megara disappeared. To make things even more confusing Megara reported that a titaness (aka one of the bigger gods of Greece) Themis had come to the academy the next day on urgent secret business in order to acquire her brother's sundial but blew off in a burst of smoke when it was revealed that the sundial had already been taken. Merlin was close to blowing himself to Bermuda but stated he would make a few calls and contact others saying that they were under some dire (or Sundial) circumstances. The heroes were thanked by Merlin and Santa for their work and stated they would call if any more hero work needed to be done. 

That call came in within the next week as Merlin had a job for them... seems a phantom is stealing gemstones from some dwarves and it's gotten bad enough that they need help to stop him.