Session 24

### Session 24 - Dog Balloon, Lightning Rings and Koo’rah

Ejholan unfreezes as the group walk out the doors, to Trip and Xia in a frenzy, trying to get him free. They were just about to slather butter over him as he unfreezes, coughing up black goo. Trip collects some of it in a jar. We walked for a while, away from Besh, before settling down for the evening. Trip takes a watch alone, and sees a speck in the sky, flying above her head. As the creature is directly over her, she decides to say ‘Ilmater’ 30 times in a row, trying to see if the lightning will strike the creature.

As she does this, lava begins to bubble and froth, rocks start to shudder and fall, and the figure above swoops in and out of the lightning with ease. Everyone in the dome takes 34 damage and whilst still damaged from the previous fight, Eva, Xia and Melchior fall unconscious. After healing the fallen members, the group notices that Trip has a swirling ring of lightning around her, and has essentially become a walking beacon. We get up and start making our way once again. As we walk, Trip notices under hands sprouting out of the ground and crawling towards members of the group, but they are disintegrated in Trip’s lightning ring. After walking for so long, Xia, Coda, Eva and Melchior are all exhausted from climbing the rough terrain.

Up ahead, we see the light of a barren wasteland and geysers blowing boiling hot steam into the air. After trialling many plans, the best plan is to turn Rae into a dog air balloon in the sky, to be the group's guide. Xia looks through Rae’s eyes to see the best path ahead, so Eva takes her arm and leads her blindly through. Ejholan gets blasted by a geyser but most make it through unscathed. As she’s travelling through, Trip sees a winged man land behind her. He calls her part of his hoard and asks her for a trade. He wants out with us too, and in return, he would fix Trip’s wings. Trip has heard the tale of the Blue Winged Kobald, who was supposedly the first to fly after stealing the wings of a blue dragon, creating a whole new race called the Erd. He tells Trip his name is Koo’rah, before disappearing.

After reaching what looks like a temple, with multiple beacons atop, Trip lights them with her lightning circle, opening the floor so the group falls down inside the pyramid. She casts feather fall so we all gently float down. We head towards an obelisk, and hear a voice in our minds, which offers us four riddles or a fight.

Xia and Telmund opt for the riddles. Trip and Eva want to fight. Maggie gets the deciding vote. Xia convinces Maggie to take the peaceful route. Once we make our choice, the voice from the obelisk speaks to us once more.

‘Your choice has now been written, in the stars of Banehold skies. But the rules of my four riddles, you will soon realise. Or the one that answers each new test will lose that which they speak. Be sure to think it through, before my punishments are unleashed.’

Trip answers the first, losing her footsteps. Eva answers the second, losing her reflection. Maggie answers the third, losing an eye. Trip again answers the final one, losing a memory. A final riddle is posed to us, with the promise of a reward. Xia answers this one, and is rewarded with a small pink rhomboid gem, the Ioun Stone of Fortitude, increasing her Constitution. Before she loses a memory, Trip tells us that ‘Moral’ is important to her. After answering all riddles, we are rewarded with the Cubic Plate, a way to get us out of Banehold.

We wait for a while, shouting for Hoar, and then realise that he’s probably just going to wait for us on the other side of the terrible geysers, so we dog balloon ourselves back over to the other side. Eva and Trip manage to help control the blasts of geyser away from us, and as we emerge from the geyser field, we see standing atop the first mountain ahead of us, sword over one shoulder, is Hoar. We climb the mountain up to him, Maggie strapped into her holster on Xia’s back. Eva is, once again, exhausted from the journey. Telmund and Hoar have a heated conversation, which culminates in Xia and Maggie diffusing the situation and convincing everyone to take a rest. Xia once again invites Hoar to stay in the dome, which he once again denies. The group checks in on Telmund as Hoar wanders off to glare into the horizon. Trip makes Telmund a drink, as he divulges that he isn’t doing good. He tells the group just how much he dislikes Hoar, and how much he hates that his wife and brother are stuck here. He laments about dragging the group into this situation, and how he feels guilty. The group reassures him. Xia gives him a long hug. Trip HATES Rae after the day she’s had, just walking alongside her.

At the end of Eva and Trip’s watch, Hoar steps over to them, sitting down and facing them in the dome, staring in at them. He tells Trip that she met an old friend. Not of his, of hers. She says she knows of him, but doesn’t know him. (Talking of Koo’rah). Trip is honest with Hoar, and he tells her that Koo’rah would wreak destruction on her home. Someone had stopped him before, butting him here, so Trip is convinced someone would do it again. Hoar says it’s his moral duty to make sure Koo’rah doesn’t leave. Hoar reveals that he intends to come with us. He says that if we prevented him from leaving, it would be his moral duty to seek vengeance on us. He tells us that only 10 can travel with us using the Cubic Plate. Eva calls him out, saying he knew from the start. He agrees, and goes to take watch again.

Maggie and Xia take a watch, also talking to Hoar, and Xia promises he can come back home with us. Watching from the mountains, the three see the bald mages atop two large red beasts. They cross through the geysers. Xia asks who they are, and Hoar tells her that they are the ‘guards of his enemies’. She asks if they’re heading to the temple to find the plate, and if they’d be mad that she currently has it in her pocket. He tells her they absolutely will be, and will most likely try to kill us. The three of them wake the group up for the new day.

### Quotes:

‘Hi, I'm Stone-in-my-eyes Xia!’ - Eva

‘Well.. Dog balloon?’ - Xia

‘Papa-eye’ - Maggie

‘It was just a wee…!’ - Maggie

‘We’ll find the wife, find the brother, save the town and Mister Krabs’ - Xia

‘Did you see the dog balloon?’ - Trip

‘Did you see my eye disappear?’ - Maggie

‘Imagination…’ - Hoar

‘If there is one thing I hate, it is people that thrive off of misery.’ - Telmund

‘Okay, night, broad!’ - Trip, at Eva

‘Are you fucking joking? Why would a god lie?’ - Eva

‘She gets her fronts and backs mixed up’ - Maggie, about Xia.

### Point of Inspiration:

I think (canny remember) that the point of inspiration goes to Trip