With Akemi having departed on a personal mission of vengeance against the Yakuza, the remaining members of the Feinting GOATs were formally summoned by Marahaba Asante to the Clockwork Citadel, now near Port Nyanzaru in Nyambi. In a brief, public meeting, Asante delivered the Hierophant's official decree: the "Extraplanar Investigation Initiative" was terminated due to a lack of credible evidence, ending the party's contract. During this exchange, Asante handed them a formal decommission letter, hinting that it could be "read a few different ways". The party correctly deciphered the document's hidden sixth-word cipher, which spelled out a clandestine message: "My office is compromised. Meet me at the 'Ebony Coast Traders' warehouse in the merchant's quarter at sundown. Come prepared to verify the truth".
After a professional but sterile decommission ceremony where they were denied an audience with the "unwell" Hierophant, the party met Asante at the warehouse. Following the coded instructions, the party met Asante at the quiet Ebony Coast Traders warehouse. His usual calm demeanor was replaced with a grim urgency as he confessed his fears that the Hierophant was corrupt and steering the Citadel toward a nefarious purpose. To prove his sincerity, he willingly submitted to the party's truth-detecting magic, after which he offered to work for them, remaining within the Pantheon as a valuable source of intelligence. He then provided a flood of crucial updates: Hutaakan forces were unearthing and resurrecting mummies across Nithia and Milea; Thorne was being deposed as the leader of the DTC and replaced by an executive council, though he was retaining his profits, with the Austral Alliance now handling reparations; and most critically, the Hierophant’s "illness" was a code phrase for when his malevolent alter-ego takes control and retreats to a secret location known as the "Black Citadel". To help the party establish an independent base, he presented them with a mission the Hierophant had deliberately buried: a plea for help from the kobolds of Nettle Peak.
Traveling to Krydodan, the party found the kobold mines afflicted by a horrific, mutating plague that caused oozing tentacles to sprout from its victims. Their ancient leader, Neesh, explained the plague originated from a strange portal the kobolds had accidentally unearthed. He confirmed through divination that the cure was the "flesh of the yellow dragon" from the Garden of Zinn on the moon Dinos, offering the party co-ownership of the mines and the legendary Dwarven forge within if they could retrieve it.
The party journeyed to Dinos aboard their spelljammer, the Goat Float, where they were met by an aaleear (faerie gnome) named Pitayo, who suggested that they prove their worthiness by drawing from a Deck of Many Things. The results were dramatic: Elyn drew The Sun, gaining a wondrous item and experience; Bao Bao drew The Vizier, granting her the answer to a future dilemma; Adrian drew The Jester, opting for two more draws which yielded Gem (granting a fortune in jewels) and the disastrous Talons (destroying all his magic items); Lenti drew The Throne, gaining a small castle; and Elyn's opossum Phillip drew The Fates, gaining the ability to avoid one situation. Pitayo then magically created a green line that would lead the party to the garden.
Their path eventually led them to a mischievous Dinosian pixie who, with an outstretched hand, politely asked for Bao Bao's name—a classic fey trick to steal one's identity, which the wary party did not fall for. Spurned, the pixie summoned its kin, and the tranquil grove erupted into chaos as the fey began harassing the party with a barrage of annoying spells designed to confuse and embarrass rather than harm. The situation escalated when the pixies began perfectly mimicking the sound of Korloth’s new mechanical hammer. This mimicry, had an unforeseen consequence: it attracted a trio of gremlins, which immediately descended upon the party's mechanical treasures. In moments, Adrian’s wings, Korloth’s hammer, and the enchanted music box loaned to Phillip were all disabled by the gremlins' sabotage. Thinking quickly, Phillip invoked the power of The Fates card, instantly undoing the damage to the precious music box and preserving its vital magical boons for the party. After the GOATs began to retaliate with lethal force, the surviving pixies quickly retreated via dimension door, leaving the party to repair their remaining gear.
Pressing onward, the adventurers discovered a treasure chest resting in a riverbed near a beautiful waterfall, protected by an exceptionally difficult magical and mechanical lock. With the party protecting her, Elyn masterfully disabled the device, after Korloth disabled its potent magical wards with a well-placed dispel magic spell, before deftly picking the lock. Instead of treasure, the chest released eight crystalline test tubes that hovered in the air, each containing shifting, colored light. The party was faced with a complex puzzle requiring them to pour the light between the tubes, sorting the colors into a specific, harmonious rainbow sequence. Upon successfully completing the puzzle, the waterfall behind the chest ceased its flow and parted like a curtain, revealing the dark, silent entrance to a cave.
Relying on their various forms of darkvision, the party navigated the cave until they came upon a second challenge: a mystical altar where they had to combine the essence of magical mushrooms in a cauldron to replicate specific chromatic harmonies. Solving this puzzle opened another passage, leading them into a final chamber where five types of gemstones were embedded in the walls. Here, their reliance on darkvision became a liability. While those with low-light vision (only Bao Bao) could discern faint messages on the walls—"Take only one of each" and the names of the gems.
Assuming the gems—a ruby, sapphire, amethyst, topaz, and emerald—possessed their common colors, the party arranged them on a rainbow-marked wall in the standard ROYGBV order. The incorrect solution triggered a magical trap, unleashing a brilliant flash that blinded everyone except Korloth. In the disorienting aftermath, Elyn recalled that gemstones can naturally occur in rare, non-standard colors. Adrian used his Aasimar halo to cast a soft, true light on the gems, revealing their actual, unexpected hues: the amethyst was red, the sapphire was orange, the topaz was green, the emerald was blue, and the ruby was purple. With their true colors revealed, the party arranged the gems in the correct rainbow sequence, and the final door swung open to reveal the moonlit garden of the sidhe.
Upon solving the final puzzle, the party entered a beautiful, moonlit garden populated by the elf-like sidhe. The fey greeted them warmly, magically removing the blindness that had afflicted them, and offered restorative fruit and wine. Wary of accepting gifts from the fey, the party wisely declined the refreshments and awaited the arrival of the sidhe ruler. King Zinn appeared shortly thereafter, a handsome and friendly monarch who immediately confirmed he knew they sought the "yellow dragonfruit" and was willing to bargain for it.
The party offered their basket of exotic Nyambian fruits, gathered from the magical orchard, as their opening bid. As King Zinn examined the offering, Adrian's keen perception caught a subtle but significant tell that the others missed: the king's eyes widened with an excitement that went far beyond simple curiosity. Adrian shared this observation, and the party confronted the king, demanding to know the true value of their offer. Intrigued by their shrewdness, King Zinn proposed a "secret for a secret." Taking a significant leap of faith, the party revealed their own monumental secret: the corruption of the Hierophant.
True to his word, King Zinn shared his secret in return. He revealed that the Nyambian fruits were of immense value to his people because they contained the seeds to grow a new teleportation orchard, similar to the one the party had used to travel to Mupalan. He confessed that the fey of Dinos were in exile, and this orchard represented a potential path off the moon—a path that would take five years to cultivate.
With all truths on the table, a final, multi-faceted bargain was struck. In exchange for the Nyambian fruits, King Zinn would provide not only a full basket of the curative yellow dragonfruit, but also a second basket filled with magical pomegranates, powerful enough to heal grievous wounds and even restore life to the dead, albeit with the minor side effect of staining the recipient's skin bright red. More than a simple trade, the deal became a formal pact. King Zinn gave his solemn vow that the fey would not use their newfound path to bring harm to the people of Alluria. This treaty was then sealed in the most sacred fey manner: a formal exchange of True Names between King Zinn and Korloth, forging a powerful and binding bond of trust between them.
Upon returning to Nettle Peak, the party cured the kobolds, only to be told one final detail: the Dwarven forge was occupied by a group of Fire Giant bullies led by King Borr, who the kobolds had sealed inside. The ensuing battle was one of their deadliest yet. The party strategically targeted the enemy clerics, but not before King Borr decapitated and killed Korloth. Phillip quickly administered one of the magical pomegranates, and Korloth was resurrected, his new head bright red and hairless. After the party finally defeated the giants, Korloth, unwilling to part with his ceremonial tattoos, underwent a radical procedure. He decapitated himself with King Borr's sword, and Bao Bao performed psionic surgery to successfully reattach his original head, reviving him a second time. Adrian took the discarded red head and transformed it into a permanent Sentry Skull. The session concluded as Lenti, guided by the myconet, discovered that her castle from the Throne card was a massive, abandoned, fungi-filled Dwarven citadel hidden behind the newly claimed forge, giving the Feinting GOATs their hard-won base of operations.
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.
Letter to Master Kagemitsu at Tengai-no-mori Monastery by Caylen Redden
Dear Master,
The Feinting GOATs have officially parted ways with the Pantheon. There was no dramatic circumstance or ceremony, just a simple letter of dismissal delivered by Marahaba Asante when we returned to check in at the Citadel. Except, the letter was not so simple, because a coded message within called for a clandestine meeting at another place and time. There, Asante revealed his own suspicions about the Hierophant’s corruption and the true purpose of the Pantheon. Although we will no longer have official assignments from the Citadel, Asante has agreed to remain in his position for as long as it is safe to do so in order to supply the GOATs with information which may help unravel this mystery. He immediately provided a variety of updates about incidents and items we may wish to look into, but the most pressing concern was a call for help from the kobolds of Nettle Peak, who were suffering from a terrible plague. We quickly traveled to Nettle Peak and met with the kobolds’ leader, Neesh, who explained that the illness was supernatural and that he had discovered the only cure was “flesh of the yellow dragon” from the Garden of Zinn on Dinos.
We were fairly certain we could handle a dragon, if indeed we would be dealing with a creature, but we were not sure we would be welcomed on Dinos after our last visit and our encounter with Baba Izza. While the hag did not trouble us, we did encounter a variety of capricious fae creatures. The first, a gnomish creature, invited us to draw from a deck of cards which could bestow either wonderful gifts or terrible curses. Lenti drew “the throne,” which granted her ownership of a castle somewhere then unknown. Elyn received a wonderous item, and her possum, Phillip received a magical boon, as did Bao Bao, but Adrian’s card caused all of his magical items to be destroyed. Enough of the GOATs tempted fate to satisfy the gnome, and he rewarded us by showing us the way to the garden, by means of a magical glowing line. We were waylaid once again by a group of pixies, who, failing to trick the party, began to hurl irritating spells at us and attracted a group of gremlins which began dismantling various devices, like Akemi’s enchanted music box. However, the pixies were no match for the GOATs in combat and soon retreated, and Phillip used his gift from the magic card to undo the damage to the party’s devices.
The path then led to a series of puzzles, tests of our worthiness to enter the Garden of Zinn. First, a magically protected treasure chest hidden behind a waterfall revealed a series of vials that glowed with different colors had to be sorted and combined to create a perfect rainbow sequence. When the sequence was completed, the waterfall parted, revealing the entrance of a cave. Inside, there were gemstones embedded in the walls, and a message, “Take only one of each.” We did as instructed and collected an amethyst, an emerald, a ruby, a sapphire, and a topaz. As we moved on, we found a rainbow-marked wall with clear slots for stones, and we reasoned that they needed to be inserted in a rainbow sequence. However, our reliance on darkvision proved problematic, because we did not realize until after triggering a trap that the stones we had collected were atypical colors. Adrian drew on his Aasimar heritage to cast light, and Korloth arranged the stones in the correct order. Having reached the end of the path and completed the puzzles, we were granted entrance to the Garden of Zinn and an audience with the fae king himself. After some careful bargaining, we secured the kobolds’ cure – not a creature at all, but magical yellow dragonfruit – as well as some magical healing pomegranates.
The dragonfruit, as promised, quickly restored the afflicted kobolds, and the pomegranates soon proved useful as well. After assisting the kobolds, we hoped to make use of the dwarven forge below Nettle Peak, but Neesh revealed one further complication: a group of fire giants had recently taken up residence there. Although our previous encounters with giants were amiable, thanks to Korloth, these fire giants sought only violence and forced us into a harrowing battle. Korloth, as always, received the brunt of the damage. The healers tended to him as quickly as they could, but even they were not prepared for a mightly blow of the fire giant king’s sword, which cleaved Korloth’s head from his shoulders. Elyn, thinking quickly, sent Phillip running to Korloth with one of the magical pomegranates which revived him… but caused him to grow a new, bright red head. I think most, after such a traumatic experience, would simply accept their new appearance and be grateful to be alive, but Korloth had other ideas. He explained the importance of the ceremonial tattoos on his original head and devised a plan with Bao Bao to reattach it. Once everything was in place, Korloth decapitated himself, and Bao Bao quickly performed psionic surgery, reattaching Korloth’s original head and reviving him once again. Loarkon declared it the “most metal thing he had ever seen” and Adrian took the discarded red head as a macabre trophy, enchanting it as a Sentry Skull. Sometimes, my clutch mates concern me.
With the kobolds cured and access to the dwarven forge secured, there was still one discovery awaiting us below Nettle Peak. Lenti’s connection the mycelial network led her deeper into the tunnels, where she discovered a massive, fungus-filled abandoned Dwarven stronghold – her new castle from the throne card. After a bit of maintenance, I think it will serve the GOATs well as a base of operations. That, however, may have to wait, since there are several other matters ahead of us, and no doubt we will be off on our next adventure soon.
Best,
Cut-Cut