As a Recap page, all spoilers below are unmarked. You have been warned.
We join the Order of the Stick, a band of adventurers fighting through a dungeon. Their members include Roy Greenhilt (dark-skinned and sarcastic human fighter), Haley Starshine (greedy human rogue), Elan (ditzy human bard), Vaarsuvius (arrogant elf wizard), Durkon Thundershield (stalwart dwarf cleric), and Belkar Bitterleaf (evil halfling ranger).
After briefly splitting the group and fighting off some enemies, Vaarsuvius finds a magic belt of Gender Changing. Roy discards the belt, but Elan goes back to retrieve it. Eventually, they reveal that they are in the Dungeon of Dorukan, here to thwart the schemes of the lich Xykon. During a rest break, Roy receives a vision from his dead father, who gives him the warning "when the goat turns red strikes true". Proceeding through the dungeon, they fight more of Xykon's minions, including a named chimera (who is killed by Belkar). Roy thinks this is what his father meant, but his father later sends another vision telling him otherwise. Meanwhile, Xykon is disgusted by his minions, but refuses to use his trump card, the Monster in the Darkness (MITD).
Eventually, they find a treasure room, but Haley has already claimed almost all of it, and tricks Roy into thinking there was none. Proceeding onward, they pass through a secret door and encounter a mind flayer, who is dragged off by a pair of lawyers for being a copyright violation. After more fighting, they encounter another adventuring party, the Linear Guild. They claim to be after a Talisman of Dorukan, and the two groups team up to achieve both their goals. The leader of the Linear Guild, Nale, then reveals that he is Elan's brother. Xykon uses a crystal ball to watch all of this.
The group splits apart to find three elemental sigils that protect the talisman. However, the Linear Guild secretly slays or defeats some sylphs that were guarding the sigils. The sigils are all activated, causing a door to appear leading to the talisman room, which is a central platform surrounded by a pit filled with old D&D monsters that the talisman controls. Here, the Linear Guild betrays the Order, revealing they were working with Xykon. They attempt to escape with the talisman, leaving the Order to get killed by the monsters. However, Roy figures out what his father meant, and has Haley destroy the talisman with a well placed arrow. After that, the Linear Guild and the Order battle. The Order wins (with some help from the lawyers).
The Order then frees one of the defeated sylphs, Celia, who reveals that she worked for the wizard Dorukan, who built the dungeon. Celia then takes the captured Linear Guild members away, while letting the Order use the employee stairs to get to Xykon. However, the Order forgets the injured Durkon, who is found by the Linear Guild's cleric Hilgya. She heals Durkon, and the two set off to find the Order. Meanwhile, Elan decides he will be the team cleric, calling on the god Banjo. Durkon falls for and sleeps with Hilgya, but breaks up with her after she reveals her own infidelity to her husband. Durkon then rejoins the Order.
The Order then finds a pair of friendly teenage goblins, who promise to take them to Xykon. Meanwhile, Xykon reveals his plan to have the Order unseal a magical gate of some kind. One of the goblins then kidnaps Haley, while the Order moves to confront Xykon and his army of goblins and zombies. Xykon then bluffs the Order into touching the gate. Elan tries to do it, only for Haley to arrive in time to stop him. Roy confronts Xykon, only for Xykon to destroy Roy's family sword. Roy becomes so enraged that he picks up Xykon and throws him into the gate, destroying him.
However, Xykon, being a lich, survives, as his chief minion Redcloak had his phylactery. Redcloak escapes with Xykon and the MITD, as the Order collects the treasures left behind. Elan accidentally sets off a self-destruct rune, forcing the Order to flee the dungeon as well. The dungeon and the gate inside are both destroyed, but the Order makes it out intact. The arc ends with cutaway panels indicating that the Linear Guild has escaped prison, and someone is after whomever destroyed the gate.
Tropes
- Bland-Name Product: In the intro to the book, where they can't say the real name of the game for trademark reasons.Player 1: Let's play Demons & Delves.Player 2: No, let's play Dwarves & Donjons.Player 3: I prefer Drakes & Daggers.
- Cargo Cult: When Durkon goes missing, Elan tries to become a cleric with his hand puppet Banjo the Clown as a god.
- Dramatic Irony: When Elan points out the Order's accomplishments (defeating Xykon, capturing Nale, destroying the gate), the audience sees panels (Xykon shown to be alive, Nale escaping prison, and the destruction of the gate resulting in someone hunting down the Order) which shows that their accomplishments were All for Nothing.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: When Xykon's body is destroyed, he instructs Redcloak and the Monster In The Darkness to flee, as they can continue their Plan elsewhere.
- Naked People Are Funny: Elan's Insane Troll Logic leads him to conclude that if more armor makes you less stealthy, less clothes makes you more stealthy...and no clothes makes you invisible!
- Outrun the Fireball: Invoked by Elan, for the sake of drama.
- Self-Destruct Mechanism: For some mysterious reason, Dorukan had one in his dungeon. Elan ends up activating it and destroying the gate.
- Unreliable Narrator: Hilgya paints her arranged marriage like a torture, but the flashback panels shows her husband doing everything he could to make her happy.
- Unwitting Pawn: Nale tricks the Order into unlocking the wards protecting Dorukan's Amulet, coincidentally showing Xykon how to unlock Dorukan's Gate. Xykon almost tricks the Order into doing the same.
