A Boom in the Night
A chilled, misty night hangs over the industrious mountainside city of Hupperdook, the scent of recent rain on the air as you walk the muddied path. The nightly festivities have already begun, with the elevated section of the city known as the Idleworks Shelf alight with colorful lanterns and streamers. The distant sounds of music and firecrackers echo from hundreds of feet up the stairs of the mountain. You arrive at the quiet, dark fields of the Assembly Yard, passing massive forges and partially constructed war machines. All the city’s industry has seemingly been abandoned for the night, while the workers of Hupperdook unwind in the celebrations of the upper city
The peace of the evening is shattered by the deafening crack of a massive explosion that rocks the southeast part of the city. At the base of the mountain, shards of rock spray the street a hundred yards from where you stand. Heavy smoke billows from a cavernous hole in the mountain wall. As you shake the ringing from your ears, six cloaked figures appear in the street, running from the source of the explosion—and charging straight toward you!
Thus begins the adventures of a ragtag group of adventures flung together by circumstance.
All but two of the (exploding!) kobolds were killed. They were questioned but they provided no useful information. The female goliath, later identified as Sken Zabriss, escaped.
After the battlem Watchmaster Bram Gulchswattle (a male gnome)) approached the party. Bram wants to know who the characters are and what they saw.
Bram might recognize the characters as adventurers by their actions in trying to stop the escaping criminals. He offers a bounty of 500 gp to anyone who will hunt down and bring Sken back, as well as investigate who was responsible for breaking her out.
Bram offers 100 gp up front. He presents the characters with a copper-and-gold badge that indicates they are working under his authority.
Gearhole Prison
It’s easy to see the metallic sheen of many tall steel plates affixed to the mountainside—the outer walls of Gearhole Prison. Moonlight and still-smoldering fires frame the billowing smoke that pours from a gaping cavity in the rock and metal, marking the violent escape route taken by the goliath and her accomplices.
A ten-foot-wide hole edged with twisted steel and jagged rock opens up above a pile of rubble. Beyond the hole is a badly damaged stone prison cell, little more than soot-stained walls and an overturned bed charred on one side. A thin skylight above the hole matches others alongside it in the steel wall, and was apparently the cell’s window. A mangled chamber pot is embedded in the right wall, where a elf in a long leather coat is pulling it from the stone. She pockets three charred pieces of paper from the brass pot before turning and acknowledging your presence.
The elf is Yinra Emberwind. After accepting a bribe, she shows the characters a charred note
Lay of the Land Herbalist
Navigating the winding streets of the Ironlot, you find a wedge-shaped hutch of smoke-stained thatch and warped wood. A faded sign bearing the name “Lay of the Land” dangles above the door. Entering the shaded interior, you are greeted by all manner of smells, from pungent fungi, to dried weeds, to burning incense. A woman turns toward you where she eats at a corner table, her smiling mouth half-filled with food, her voluminous black hair framing her face.
The lady’s name is Zendasa. She offers everybody a muffin and almost treats the characters as children.
The characters describe the stained, muddy feet of the kobolds who helped break Sken Zabriss out of prison, she tells them that red clay shouldn’t be found in Hupperdook. The most likely place for it to have come from is farther up the mountain, near the long-dormant volcanic caps of the Silberquel Ridge.
