Adventure #08 - Full of Hot Air

General Summary

Adventure #8 - Full of Hot Air 3/22/24
Players: Peter: Alaster Jordin: Dwayne Gamblemine
Synopsis: On a blustery day, Dwayne and Alaster exit their new homes to make for the Elderflower, and find Pappy, Helga, and a handful of goblins in the open area outside of the tavern. The goblins are playing a rough game of "Duck-Duck-Goose!" in the grass, while Pappy and Helga watch on, laughing together at their chaos. Dwayne and Alaster join them to watch, and after pleasantries, Pappy expresses his desire to keep this central open space as a park for citizens to enjoy, a place for traveling merchants passing through to set-up shop, and a central place to hold special events. Watching the goblins, Pappy bets Dwayne that he couldn't last 5 minutes playing "Duck-Duck-Goose!" with them, and Dwayne eagerly accepts. The game quickly becomes a game of survival, particularly for the goblin Boom Boom, who chose to tag Dwayne as "Goose", and became a target for Dwayne's brutal tripping and heavy-handed pummeling for the rest of the game. When five minutes was over, Boom Boom lays facedown and motionless on the ground, unconscious by Dwayne's final blow. All the goblins cheer, lift Boom Boom over their heads, chant his name in celebration, and parade his limp body around the clearing.
As the goblins head inside to fetch a healing potion for Boom Boom, the barmaid Hazel runs out of the tavern, claiming she can hear the sound of someone shouting off in the distance from inside. After a moment of hearing only the wind in the trees, the sound of a high pitched shout of panic increases gradually, as if it was heading in their direction. Suddenly, an out-of-control hot air balloon passes high above the Elderflower, and is buffeted by the powerful winds. As it passes over the clearing, someone shouts for help from the basket, and Alaster immediately springs to action. He quickly draws his crossbow and attempts to shoot down to balloon, and instead hits the bottom of the basket, frightening the frantic passenger. However, Alaster doesn't give up; he notches another bolt in his crossbow and fires again, but this time directly nailing the passenger in the shoulder as they peep over the edge of the basket. Cries of confusion and fear fill the air as the balloon continues to careen over the fields and sprinkling blood here and there, and is pushed towards the mountains. Pappy, wildly excited at the prospect of an adventure, rallies Dwayne and Alaster to join him in helping save whatever poor soul is caught in the hot air balloon. Dwayne and Alaster agree, and Pappy whistles for his Bulette named Letti, harnesses her to a wagon, coaxes the party aboard, and snaps the reigns to give chase.
Using his keen sense of direction and tracking, Pappy guides Letti over the fields and through the forest to the base of the mountain, where the party sees the top of the balloon billowing limply high above on a cliff ledge. Leaving the Letti and the wagon behind, the party scales the rocky wall with a rope lassoed around an old stump from the cliff edge. Upon reaching the edge, the rest of the balloon comes into view, along with the mouth of a cave and two kobolds chattering to each other as they inspect the crash landed balloon. Alaster crouches low and stealthily climbs a large rock to get a better view of the scene, and notices a blood trail leading from the balloon basket to the cave. One of the kobolds catches Alaster's scent on the wind, whirls around to face its stalker, and hurls its readied spear directly into Alaster's chest, sending him flying off the top of the rock and hitting the ground hard. Pappy hops on the cliff edge, readies his adamantine banjo like a war hammer, and advances towards the second kobold while Dwayne sneaks around the lower ledge of the cliff. Alaster's attacker leaps majestically atop the same rock that Alaster was blasted off of, while the second kobold runs to meet Pappy in combat. While skewered with a spear and laying bloody on the ground, Alaster whips out his crossbow and fires a lethal shot into the neck of his attacker, and the kobold falls dead before it even hits the ground. Pappy winds up his banjo and golf swings his attacking kobold so hard that he sends him flying off the edge of the cliff, where readied Dwayne pummels the head off the flying kobold, it's body continuing to rag doll down the cliff and its head going in the opposite direction and hitting a large rock with a sickening thud. The party reconvenes to heal, loots the bodies (or gathers the gear that was bludgeoned off of them), and then inspects the balloon. Although there is no sign of the passenger, there is a crude sleeping bag, a jug of water, and a sack full of incredibly hard tack muffins. Alaster pockets a handful of them, and the party follows the bloody trail leading into the cave.
After eyes adjust and light sources created, a skinny cavern pass twists and turns ahead. Not far into the passage, a pressure plate is triggered underfoot, and arrows fire out of the wall and harm party members. Alaster inspects the trap to ensure it won't be triggered again, and the party continues forward. Soon after, a pitfall trap is triggered, but thankfully the party was alert and reflexive, and stop themselves just before stepping into the void. However, a large pit now stands in their way, and so Pappy and Dwayne throw Alaster over to the other side, and quite successfully too. On the other side, Alaster, using his trap know-how, figures out how to reset the trap and lock the trap doors so that the party can walk safely over the pit. Rounding a corner and sensing another trap is imminent, Alaster throws a hard tack muffin down the rocky hall and triggers a swinging axe trap at a safe distance. As they approach a new corner, sounds of clinking hammers and kobold chatter can be heard, and the party peers around the corner in unison. A large room is revealed, and two kobolds busy themselves at work benches, one of the working on a large metal box with a cylinder rising out of the top. Alaster crouches low and moves quietly to get a better vantage point, but triggers another trap in the process; a large net falls from the ceiling and entangles him, while a glass bottle affixed to the net breaks upon impact with the ground, and immediately alerts the kobolds. Dwayne rushes to help untangle Alaster, but somehow Alaster tries to help in the worst way, and instead entangles Dwayne along with him. Pappy pulls out a knife and cuts the ropes, freeing both companions, and the party rises for combat.
Dwayne smashes kobold heads left and right, while Pappy gets into a bit of a stalemate with a frisky kobold. Alaster gets skewered in the back with a spear, and struggles to get himself unskewered, even resorting to throwing hard tack muffins in an attempt to rid of his foe. One by one, kobolds fall at the hands of the party, except for one, who senses his mortality, blows loudly on a signal horn on his belt, and flees deeper into the the cave. Pappy and Dwayne give chase, and find the wounded hot air balloon passenger bloodied, bound, and gagged in the next room. Dwayne sluggishly continues to give chase while Pappy stops to untie and heal the passenger, and Alaster decides to inspect the adjacent rooms and loot the bodies of all the fallen kobolds they just defeated. The passenger frantically warns that Dwayne shouldn't chase after the kobold in the direction it is going, because there are countless kobolds deeper into the warrens, and that they should get out of the cave as fast as they can. He also begs that they retrieve the ignition mechanism for filling the balloon with hot air, so they can get away by air. While Alaster continues to loot bodies, Dwayne arrives at a downward sloping path that runs deep into the ground, and sounds of battle drums and kobold war chants can be heard growing in the distance. Dwayne sets a bear trap, and then slowly runs away as fast as his dwarf legs can carry him. Pappy and the passenger find the ignition mechanism on a kobold work bench, and together carry the box out of the cave with haste. Alaster meets Dwayne as he runs from the growing sound of drums and chants, and both turn tail and run out of the cave. By the time they leave the cave, Pappy and the passenger have already ignited and filled the balloon, and hurriedly help Alaster and Dwayne aboard. As the balloon lifts into the air, kobolds flood out of the mouth of the cave, and begin hurling spears and hard tack muffins. To buy themselves more time to lift off, Pappy throws a bottle of alchemist's fire over the kobolds and Alaster explodes the bottle with a crossbow shot, making alchemist's fire rain down on the faces of all the kobolds. They attempt to do the same with a bottle of grease, Alaster misses, and the bottle breaks on the ground anyway, making the temporarily blinded kobolds slip over each other. With that, the party floats away to safety.
As they drift into the air, the party meets the passenger for the first time, a pallid, slender gnome named Cecil. When asked about his situation, Cecil tells about his escape from the Zamborini Brother's Circus. Promises of fame and wealth quickly turned into being held captive, forced to do humiliating tricks, and then locked in a cage between shows with little food to eat. After mustering enough courage, Cecil broke out, gathered his meager things, snuck into the Zamborini Brother's hot air balloon, cut the anchor rope, and floated away, and had been drifting aimlessly and alone for days. The party welcomes Cecil to live in Aberystwyth, and Alaster even offers to have him stay under his own roof until Cecil has a home of his own. Teary-eyed and filled with joy, Cecil accepts, and steers the party back to Aberystwyth. On the way, Cecil also asked who shot him when he was desperately waving for help, and Alaster convinces him that a guy named Shump did it. Cecil grits his teeth at the name, and warns that this "Shump" will rue the day he ever crossed paths with him.

Report Date

22 Mar 2024