After their grueling trials in the harsh desert world of Athas, the Feinting GOATs received word to return to the Clockwork Citadel with the aid of the Scrolls of Recall. The massive mechanical fortress had moved itself to hover near Rel'Amatha, a desert city in Nithia where civil unrest was tearing the streets apart. Marahaba Asante wasted no time with pleasantries—he had urgent news that couldn't wait.
Soren Vale, the dangerous ex-con who carried the cursed Sigil of Lies, had surfaced in the Grazanite town of Rivière Dorado. Intelligence reports suggested he was putting the finishing touches on some kind of covert operation involving an artifact called the "Firefly Locket." Even worse, Vale had enlisted help from a Mupalanese technical expert, and together they were trying to tap into the raw, foundational energies of the diabolic realms—a prospect that made even seasoned adventurers like the GOATs uneasy. Their mission was crystal clear: find Vale, stop whatever he was doing with that locket, and bring both him and his specialist back alive if possible.
Since their jammer ship was still en route from Athas, the party hitched a ride aboard The Quacken's Gamble, a Shibaten dirigible captained by Ahiru Swiftwing, whose steady hands at the helm ensured a smooth journey to Rivière Dorado. Upon landing, they found the entire town swept up in the Festival de la Lune d'Argent—the Festival of the Silver Moon—held in honor of Cock and Krenshar Day. The locals were celebrating the ancient tale of how legendary heroes had once used a rampaging cockatrice to petrify a pack of terrorizing krenshar, saving the town from certain doom.
While the others took in the festivities, Elyn quietly slipped away. She'd spotted a circus flyer when they'd entered town, and she knew that her half-sister Lorandor Offheart was performing with the troupe. When Elyn found her, Lorandor was beside herself with worry. Their father Victor, who ran the circus as its ringmaster, had been kidnapped. Even worse, someone had also stolen the Firefly Locket—the very same artifact the party was hunting—which the circus had been using as a prop for their lead illusionist, Maestro Valerius.
Lorandor showed Elyn a ransom note demanding 25,000 gold coins within four days for both Victor's and the locket's safe return. The note was marked with a distinctive flower sigil that would prove significant later. To make matters worse, the circus was in a bind—they'd promised their audience live Krenshars for their act, but without the locket, Maestro Valerius couldn't create convincing enough illusions to fool anyone.
When Elyn brought this news back to the party, Akemi took one look at the flower on the ransom note and her face darkened—she recognized it as the mark of a specific Yakuza faction. Despite having their own mission to complete, the Feinting GOATs decided they couldn't leave the circus in such desperate straits.
Elyn had a stroke of inspiration. She remembered the ring she'd acquired during their encounter with a medusa back in Session 5—it could animate petrified creatures. The town square featured a stone statue of a Krenshar, a monument to the very legend the festival celebrated. For the second "Krenshar," she decided to use the animated skeleton of a Tembo they'd killed back on Athas.
But the missing locket created another problem—the circus's trapeze act relied heavily on illusions. Without missing a beat, the party members volunteered to fill in. Adrian donned a sequined white cowboy outfit and put on a sharpshooting display that had the crowd gasping as he shot hats clean off the heads of clowns. Korloth demonstrated his incredible strength by lifting not just the circus's strongman, but the strongman plus all his weights at the same time. Akemi provided stirring musical accompaniment that had the audience swaying to the rhythm. Cut-Cut delivered a breathtaking tightrope performance, weaving martial arts and acrobatics together in ways that left spectators speechless.
The show was an overwhelming success, and the circus earned more than they'd hoped for. After returning the animated Krenshar statue to its rightful place in the town square, the Feinting GOATs used Elyn's knowledge of Rivière Dorado's seedier elements to track down the local thieves' guild.
Their leader, a burly orc named Aruko, proved willing to talk for the right price. He confirmed that a Yakuza group had indeed rolled into town about ten days earlier, setting up shop in the abandoned Clockwork Catacombs. These underground passages had been built fifty years ago by a Boggle-led crime syndicate but had been empty for decades. Aruko mentioned that eerie ticking sounds had started echoing up from the depths recently—sure signs that someone was making use of the old mechanical traps down there. After securing his cooperation, Aruko led them to a hidden entrance to the dangerous labyrinth.
The moment they descended into the Clockwork Catacombs, the Feinting GOATs were hit by the stale, musty air of long disuse, now mixed with the sharp scent of fresh oil and rusting metal. The underground maze lived up to its fearsome reputation immediately, presenting them with a bewildering network of twisting corridors and interconnected chambers. The architecture told the story of the place—rough-hewn stone catacomb walls gave way to sections dominated by intricate clockwork mechanisms, many now decaying from decades of neglect.
Exposed gears jutted from walls, rusted levers hung at odd angles, and ominous pressure plates were embedded in the floors—all hints that the original Boggle builders had been fond of automated defenses. As they navigated the treacherous passages, Korloth discovered firsthand that tampering with the more arcane features of the catacombs triggered dangerous magical backlash, including crackling chain lightning and freezing icy blasts that left him nursing painful wounds. This threat became even more real when the party stumbled into a mechanically complex chamber and found themselves face-to-face with a terrifying four-armed clockwork soldier. Each of its limbs ended in a different weapon: a buzzing saw, a spinning drill, a flame thrower, and a heavy hammer. After a brutal fight, they managed to destroy the guardian and continued deeper into the Yakuza's hidden domain.
Their careful advance through the echoing mechanical maze eventually brought them to a heavy, locked door. They could hear voices on the other side, and they knew their target was close. The Feinting GOATs prepared for battle and burst through the doorway into what was clearly the Yakuza's main operations center.
They immediately engaged four enemies: Soren Vale, who was disguised as the familiar Jacob Wabash; Kagejima, the Mupalanese Spirit Folk Wizard specialist they'd been briefed about; Itsuki, a deadly Kitsune who moved like a shadow; and Kenzo, a stoic Human Fighter whose stance spoke of military training.
The first round of combat was intense, and as it ended, their enemies shouted for reinforcements in the next room. Then something horrifying happened—Soren Vale's human disguise melted away as he transformed into a Nightgaunt, revealing his true monstrous nature. In the next round, four more Kuro Sakura operatives burst from the adjoining room: Rin, a Human Ninja whose arrows dripped with poison; Ao, a Spirit Folk Psion whose mental attacks were already probing their minds; Goro, an Oni-Spawn Tiefling Monk whose fists could shatter stone; and Takeshi, a Shugenja whose divine magic kept his allies fighting.
The battle that followed was one of the most challenging the party had ever faced. Kagejima filled the area with writhing black tentacles and choking clouds of stinking gas, making it nearly impossible for the party to maneuver effectively. Takeshi used his astral form to heal his leader from a safe distance, repeatedly undoing the damage the party managed to inflict. Itsuki, the kitsune, was the first of the Kuro Sakura to fall, before he even landed a single blow.
In the midst of this chaos, something even more disturbing happened. Soren Vale reached out telepathically to Elyn, and what he revealed shook her to her core—he wasn't just Soren Vale, the murderer spy with the Sigil of Lies. He was Victor Offheart, her biological father. This revelation hit Elyn like a physical blow, and she began desperately looking for some way to save him from her companions' assault without revealing her own true nature. But before she could act, Soren/Victor fell under the party's combined attacks.
As the tide of battle turned against the Yakuza, Ao, the enemy psion—perhaps enraged that his mental attacks kept failing against the party's defenses, or maybe just making a desperate grab for power—unleashed a devastating sonic attack that filled the entire room. The blast caused massive cellular injury to several party members, but it also had collateral damage: it instantly killed Kagejima and the already fallen Soren/Victor. Echo, Elyndra's ghoul servant, retaliated by blinding Ao with debilitating magic.
With only Ao and Rin still standing, the psion made a final, desperate choice—he drove his own blade into his heart and abdomen rather than face capture. Rin, the archer, found herself grappled by the party, but she had one last trick. She bit down on a poisoned tooth hidden in her mouth, choosing death over surrender.
In the aftermath of the brutal battle, Elyn was visibly shaken. She carefully retrieved Soren/Victor's corpse and placed it in her bag of holding, tears streaming down her face. Then, in a moment of raw honesty, she confessed the truth to her companions—Victor had been her father, and she herself had been an Immicker all along, something many of the party had already suspected but never spoken aloud.
As they searched the workshop, the party discovered various magical items and a chest filled with a substantial amount of gold, including two gold bars each worth 1,000 gold pieces. They also found something unexpected—a hidden room containing a teleportation circle, which explained how the Yakuza had been moving in and out of the catacombs without being detected. When they activated it, the magical circle transported them to a random alleyway somewhere in Rivière Dorado, where the session came to an end.
Note: The following writings are from the character's perspective and are often private to the character. They are not considered "in-game" knowledge to the other characters, and any in-character reference to this information would be considered meta-gaming.
The Heart of Home by Syd McVay
The saying "home is where the heart is" has taken on new meaning for me after our latest adventure. The pantheon sent us on a mission to Grazan—my homeland—with instructions to travel to Rivière Dorado in search of the Firefly Locket, an artifact cloaked in mystery and woven into conspiracies beyond the priests' understanding.
We couldn't use our hammer ship for travel, but the church arranged passage with the Shibaten people. While en route, I realized my sleight of hand skills had grown rusty from lack of practice. I remedied that quickly, securing a modest pouch of spoils. The Shibaten, though generous, were clearly not as well off as I'd hoped.
Upon arrival, I learned that my father's circus was in town, meaning Lorandor, my sister, was here too! I was eager to see Victor and Lorandor—especially Victor, whom I had never been able to catch up with. It was long past time for a serious conversation.
Bored and restless, I slipped away from the party, weaving skillfully through the bustling streets. I caught glimpses of Cut Cut, clearly trying to track me down, but I changed forms under cover of a shop's awning. Once outside, I sought out the circus' hired hands and soon found Lorandor—distraught, anxious, and visibly unsettled.
As any big sister would, I rushed to her side. "What's wrong? How can I help?"
In a frenzied state, she handed me a ransom note. Victor—our father—had been kidnapped by the Yakuza. They demanded an exorbitant sum, one far beyond our means. We had four days to pay, or Victor would suffer the consequences.
And then there was the Silver Moon Festival, an extravagant celebration honoring the Krenshars. The grand finale required the Firefly Locket to conjure lifelike illusions of the mystical creatures—a locket conveniently tied to the pantheon's mission. Saving Victor, helping Lorandor, and fulfilling the pantheon's contract—three monumental challenges intertwined into a single, delicate thread.
Through careful planning and the power of my ring of animation, we executed the Krenshar illusion flawlessly, mesmerizing the crowd with breathtaking performances. Cut Cut displayed expert acrobatics, Korloth dominated the strongman competition, Akemi orchestrated the musicians with effortless grace, and Adrian, ever the sharpshooter, struck five apples off five clowns with pinpoint precision. The roar of applause filled the air, masking the subtle lifting I conducted amongst the spectators. It wasn't just me—the circus had its own distractions in play.
With one crisis averted, we turned our focus to Victor and the locket. To move forward, we needed help from the Thieves' Guild—specifically a guide to the Clockworks Catacombs. Lorandor and I ran into Aruko, who offered critical insight. Unfortunately, I was behind on my dues. To expedite matters, I paid him 30 gold, ensuring we secured a guide and maintained good favor with the guild. He agreed to take us at dawn.
That night, I caught up with Lorandor. We spoke of our mother—she and Victor had separated. Lorandor hardly saw our father anymore. I asked if she'd encountered Soren Vale, but she always seemed one step behind him. Given her growing strength, I found that... odd.
For one night, I allowed myself to revel in familiarity. To be among people like me.
Early the next morning, we set off for the Clockworks Catacombs, quickly realizing they were engineered outside all logic or reason. Dead ends, magical barriers, elemental hazards—cold, fire, grease. Our instincts were key to avoiding traps and uncovering hidden artifacts. When we stumbled upon a clockwork soldier, resistant to Echo's attacks, we worked with precision and—through a masterful strategy—dismantled the mechanical foe.
As we continued to weave through the never-ending clockworks maze, we stumbled upon a room lined with three sigils, side by side. Without hesitation, Philip, Elyn, and Korloth stepped onto them simultaneously.
The world shifted.
Suddenly, the rest of our party was gone. Before us stood only a wall. From the other side, we heard voices—the Yakuza. The reservoir team had filed in, unaware of our presence. We exchanged wary glances, readying our attacks in silence. We were close now. Victor was within reach.
The others arrived and prepared for battle. I summoned undead creatures, their presence lingering like death itself. Philip readied healing potions, while Echo adjusted his stance, slowing his attacks to match Korloth's hammer strikes. We hadn't secured the element of surprise, but at least neither had they.
The battle erupted—and immediately tilted against us. Through the chaos, my gaze locked onto Soren Vale, a mage, the leader. Flanking him was a hulking warrior with a massive shield, surrounded by Yakuza fighters. I clenched my jaw. Why was Soren always there? This would be the end of him.
Lightning crackled from my fingertips, arcing toward several enemies—a burst of energy, a shock to their system. Echo responded swiftly, casting Slow, recognizing that many had been magically enhanced with Haste.
Philip remained tucked safely within my pocket, poised for emergency healing. When attacks landed, they struck with devastating force, weakening even the shielded brute. Despite this, the fight dragged on with no clear advantage. A second wave emerged.
A tactician, a fighter, an archer, and a priest.
We focused our attacks on the tactician—a relentless, calculated enemy. Fortunately, our strategy held; he never landed a single strike. But he still proved a thorn in my side—literally.
He unleashed twisting black tentacles, snaring our frontline warriors. A sickening gas filled the air, burning my lungs, turning my stomach. I reeled—paralyzed for a moment—then forced myself forward, crawling out of the noxious cloud. The tentacles gave way, but as I caught my breath, Soren turned his focus to me.
Telepathic whispers invaded my mind.
I had known he was a mage—I wasn't surprised. But his words split me apart.
The stranger—the tactician—the one who had been tormenting us... was my father. Victor.
He had orchestrated his own ransom note, staging his own kidnapping. He had deceived us.
And now, he wanted me to join his side.
My thoughts scattered. Why? What could have possibly led him to this? Why hadn't he simply come to me? The answers didn't matter—not now. He was losing, and he needed me.
Should I have betrayed my team? For years, I had envisioned this moment. I had wanted him dead. He didn't deserve mercy. Yet I hesitated. Part of me wanted to save him.
But I knew there was nothing I could do. The battle had reached its peak, and my team would finish what had begun. I faltered. Lessened my attacks. Retreated. Had I acted sooner, could I have saved him? I'll never know.
The final blow struck deep.
I watched as Victor crumpled, lifeless on the battlefield. My heart plummeted—an unfamiliar pain crushing my chest. Why was I feeling this?
By the time the fight ended, I was barely holding myself together. Shattered.
I broke down. I told them everything. Who I was, what I had been hiding. They had just killed my father. My biological father.
And now, I had to decide what came next.
Through the haze of exhaustion and grief, I lifted one final prize—a black and gold chest lined with velvet. Inside, we found over 2,000 gold—enough for resurrection. I was owed a conversation.
And more than that, I owed Lorandor her father. I gathered Victor's remains, placing them into a bag of holding, casting a preservation spell.
Sleep tugged at me—my body wrecked, my mind unraveling. The weight of finding my father, only to watch him die, was unbearable.
For now, I let the darkness take me.
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Letter to Master Kagemitsu at Tengai-no-mori Monastery by Caylen Redden
Dear Master,
After completing our mission on Athas, the other GOATs were kind enough to remain there with me while I produced another batch of riik-dasl and crafted my chatkcha. I am now ready to return to the Ha’Chakik tribe to complete the coming-of-age ritual, but other business has taken precedence. We were directed by the Pantheon to return at once using scrolls of recall they had provided and arrived at the Citadel to find that it had moved to Nithia. However, the task they had for us was far to the west in the city of Rivière Dorado, in Grazan. This was a pleasant surprise, because Grazan is Elyndra’s home country, and we had been hoping for an opportunity to look in on her sick father.
Rivière Dorado was in the midst of their annual Festival de la Lune d'Argent celebration, and the streets were packed with revelers. We briefly lost Elyndra in the crowd, and when we reconvened, she led us to Le Cirque des Rêves Dorés and introduced us to her sister, Lorandor. Lorandor informed us that the circus had just been robbed of an artifact called the Firefly Locket which was integral to their planned show for Cock and Krenshar Day. (Interestingly, this Firefly Locket also happened to be one item we were sent to investigate.) Worse, when the circus ringmaster, Elyndra and Lorandor’s father, Victor, had attempted to stop the thieves, they had decided to take him captive and hold him for ransom. Akemi identified the seal on the ransom note as belonging to a group of Yakuza, which also matched our mission briefing from the Pantheon. It seems clear now that the Yakuza and perhaps other Mupalanese agents are at work on some widespread nefarious plot. Have you noticed anything unusual or heard any rumors around home?
Although my instinct was to hunt down the Yakuza immediately, the others decided that the first order of business was to salvage the circus’s Cock and Krenshar Day performance. While Akemi supplied music, I demonstrated some basic exercises on the high wire, Adrian showed off his marksmanship abilities, and Korloth performed feats of strength, all of which suitably impressed the spectators. The finale, however, was largely Elyndra’s doing, animating a petrified krenshar from the town center to perform alongside her undead tembo, disguised to look like a krenshar as well. While her control over the undead is still unsettling, it did make for a crowd-pleasing show. With the reputation of the circus intact, and having raised enough for the ransom, should they have no other option but to pay, we spent the night there. Space was limited, so while Elyndra was able to share her sister’s tent, the rest of the GOATs were forced to bunk with the clowns. Lenti and I discovered a mutual mistrust of the creatures and kept watch through the night to ensure the safety of the rest of the party.
The following morning, we turned to the local thieves’ guild to seek information about the Yakuza, and Elyndra’s contact there directed us to a Boggle construction below the city known as the Clockwork Catacombs. Members of the thieves’ guild avoided the area because it was filled with traps and dangerous machinery, but they believed the Yakuza must have taken up residence there because the machinery had recently begun running again after a long silence. Again, this seemed to match with our mission briefing, something to do with a mechanism using the Firefly Locket to channel to channel “foundational energetic signatures.” The Feinting GOATs, in the interest of their mission, are bold enough to venture where others will not, so into the catacombs we went. There, we found a frustrating maze of cogs and gears, technological traps, locked doors, and dead ends. By design, there was very little logic to the place, but we eventually figured out a system to make our way through safely. After a brief battle with a mechanical guardian, we reached the end of the maze and stepped through a portal to a separate area. Through a closed door, we could hear voices speaking Mupalanese. Knowing they must belong to our targets, we prepared ourselves for a fight and burst inside. I immediately recognized the face of Jacob Wabash, the dead man whose form had been appropriated by his murderer, Soren Vale. Determined not to let the wily immicker escape again, I focused on keeping him cornered, even when he shifted into some kind of demonic creature and later attempted to shield himself with illusory duplicates. The Yakuza – seven of them – and Vale put up a good fight, but once we took out their healer, we were able to pick them off one by one. Our own healer, Bao Bao, is made of sterner stuff. She easily fended off several psionic assaults, despite being mired in a writhing mass of magical tentacles, and consistently directed healing energy to prevent any of us from going down. I was at first hesitant to bring my new Chak-ka’kos companion – I have yet to choose a suitable name for him – into the combat, because I did not want to risk him being harmed, but he proved quite capable as well, effortlessly carrying two of our companions to safer areas and aiding in the combat with formidable sting and bite attacks.
Unfortunately, our skill in combat might be a bit too effective. The Pantheon sent us to gather information as well as to stop the immediate threats, but we were unable to take any of the Yakuza alive. One chose to end things with seppuku, and while I was able to grapple the last one standing, I was not able to stop her from breaking a cyanide capsule in her mouth. Most unfortunate was the death of Soren Vale. I had certainly intended to take him down, since he would be easier to secure when unconscious, but none of us could have anticipated the sonic attack from the Yakuza psion which finished him off. In the aftermath, we suddenly realized that there was no sign of the Yakuza’s captive, Victor, and as Elyndra gathered the fallen immicker’s corpse into her bag of holding, she shared the awful revelation she had just received: Soren Vale was her biological father, and Victor was just another disguise.
This led to a very difficult conversation. Elyndra has always been secretive, but I was surprised to learn that her mistrust of others extended even to her own party. The Feinting GOATs have traveled a great deal and encountered many diverse peoples and cultures, and I think we have proven ourselves to be quite accepting and open-minded. I can certainly understand feeling like an outsider, when not everyone is welcoming and not every impression is positive, but I have learned to trust my companions. Then again, I grew up in the confines of the monastery, and I had you to teach me about tolerance. Growing up in a city, Elyndra may have learned much harsher lessons with less patient teachers. Also, although she knew others of her own kind, they don’t seem to have provided much support. It seems she was estranged from her biological family and raised by a different father elsewhere. Perhaps that is the father who is sick, or perhaps the illness was another fabrication of Soren Vale. At any rate, I believe the Feinting GOATs trust Elyndra and will not fault her for her parentage. In some ways, I am reminded of my own upbringing. Although for a time I was in the care of Lord Shimizu, I would not describe him as a father figure, and he had very little influence on me. Then I was sent to the monastery where you made a far greater and more positive impact. Likely Elyndra’s other father, the one who raised her, had a much greater hand in her upbringing than her biological one.
I believe we will attempt to have Soren Vale resurrected, not just for Elyndra’s sake, but also so he can be questioned by the Pantheon and face justice for his crimes. Before we do, however, I have a theory I would like to test, if the other GOATs agree. We have been trying to understand the “lost heirs” and the mysterious sigils they carry. The term “heirs” implies that they are the descendants of someone and the inheritors of something. If what they inherit are their sigils, then they must be descendants of the sigils’ previous carriers. We know that the sigil of violence was previously carried by a Riik-kek Thri-kreen named Kha’Tikra. I don’t know if I am a direct descendant of Kha’Tikra or merely the last of our bloodline, but either way, that would make me his heir, and I have indeed inherited his sigil. I wonder, then, if Elyndra is truly the daughter of Soren Vale, if his sigil might be transferred to her. While I don’t know if this would benefit Elyndra in any way (indeed, it may even be detrimental) I have a suspicion that it would be generally beneficial to remove these sigils and whatever power or meaning may be associated with them from the possession of people like Soren Vale.
As always, I will update you when I know more. If you have any additional information or insights, do please write. I know I may be difficult to reach, since we travel so frequently, but if you send a letter to the Citadel, care of Marahaba Asante, I’m sure he will deliver it to me.
Yours,
Cut-Cut