So the game is afoot!
As explained previous, although
The Haunted Helm is an old TSR D&D adventure, I've adapted it for 13th Age and am using the structure from the official 13th Age beginners adventure,
Blood & Lightning.
Accordingly, you receive another Incremental Advance after the fight with the white dragon.
Scanning ahead, the beginners adventure gives the party a level-up after the next encounter. That's interesting. Since you can reverse your Incremental Advances (frex, new spells) when you level up, the Incremental Advance we're talking about here is only valid for one encounter. So I don't want to linger on it.
Needless to say, I've applied an Incremental Advance to the PCs. More hit points for D, Jex, Seyja, and Weston. Zoltan gets Strong Recovery feat, and Tindarien gets Lightning Fork feat. This boosts everyone's hit points enough to clear the Staggered condition. When Zoltan uses recoveries now, with Strong Recovery he'll roll two Recovery Dice, use the highest. (I've applied this retroactively to the recovery Zoltan used after end of battle with the dragon, gaining him an extra 3 hp.)
So, what's the party's status after the Incremental Advance?
D HP: 28/28; Rec: 4/8; AC 14, PD 15, MD 11; Init +9
J HP: 20/32; Rec: 2/8; AC 14, PD 12, MD 11; Init +4*2
S HP: 25/43; Rec: 1/8; AC 15, PD 15, MD 11; Init +3*2
T HP: 24/24; Rec: 3/8; AC 11, PD 12, MD 14; Init +3
W HP: 23/44; Rec: 5/9; AC 16, PD 14, MD 11; Init +3*2
Z HP: 24/40; Rec: 6/8; AC 21, PD 13, MD 14; Init +2
Al HP: 15/27; AC 17, PD 14, MD 12; Init +3You'll need to optimise what recoveries you have left, and using them in battle will be more difficult because you've misplaced Nestaron.
Normally, to level up mid-adventure you'd have to accept a campaign setback, so this is a good example of what one of those is. It's an in-continuity dire turn of events that can't be undone, and is intended to create dramatic highs and lows in the story.
In this case, you can't save Nestaron immediately, but you might
just be able to rescue him. And how long will it take the dragon to convince Nestaron to heal it? I don't know, but I'm excited to find out, and that's what it's all about!
(It also us to focus more on the PCs, since Nestaron was being ghosted.)