The dust of the journey still clung to their cloaks as the Feinting GOATs passed through the massive gates of Nimmur. It was a city frozen in the amber of the Bronze Age, a sprawling metropolis where humans walked side-by-side with creatures long thought extinct; chief among them the Tlincalli, proud scorpion-centaurs whose chitinous legs clicked rhythmically on the sun-baked cobblestones. At the heart of this ancient civilization sat a throne of polished limestone, occupied by the legendary king, Gilgamesh. A giant with skin like weathered stone and a presence that commanded the very air around him, he ruled with a code of justice as absolute as it was brutal: an eye for an eye. This fact caused Elyndra no small amount of anxiety, considering her satchel was currently heavy with potions freshly pilfered from a local apothecary.
The party approached the throne to petition the King for aid against the Titan Khumbaba, a beast of living earth and magma. Gilgamesh listened, his face a mask of ancient sorrow, before shaking his massive head. "I cannot," he rumbled, his voice like grinding tectonic plates. "Khumbaba is a nightmare I cannot face alone. Not without Enkidu." The name hung in the air, heavy with grief. His best friend, his brother-in-arms, was dead, and without him, the King was but half a warrior.
Seeing an opportunity to turn tragedy into strategy, the party proposed the unthinkable: they would go to the Underworld and retrieve Enkidu. A spark of hope ignited in Gilgamesh’s stone eyes. Though banned from the realm of the dead himself for past transgressions, he revealed a secret back door; the Tomb of the Forgotten Soldiers. He also bequeathed to them a favor owed to him by Nergal, the ruler of the Underworld. Enik, the party’s Sleestak guide, was horrified. He dragged the group back to the city’s Pylon, delivering a frantic lecture on the metaphysical dangers of Mysterra’s "Outer Planes" before flatly refusing to join what he deemed a suicide mission. "I will wait here," he hissed, "to catalogue your demise."
Undeterred, the GOATs descended into the Tomb. The air grew cold and stagnant as they navigated the sepulcher. They ignored the wailing of a spirit begging for its bones to be moved and bypassed a glowing crystal skull that practically hummed with cursed energy, heeding Gilgamesh’s warnings about the "rules" of the dead. Deeper still, they faced the Three Puzzle Doors of the Nergal Priesthood, ancient barriers designed to filter out the foolish. Working in concert, they solved the riddles of life and death, unlocking the path to the true depths. They descended past a dizzying underground pond; which Korloth wisely decided not to mess with, and followed a cascade of molten rock down a lava waterfall into the heart of the abyss.
There, in a cavern lit by the glow of magma, they found a throne of obsidian. But Nergal was gone. In his place sat a smug, colossal figure flanked by a snarling, three-headed hound. "Nergal is ancient history," the giant scoffed, introducing himself as Hades. "Anubis took his place, and when the dog-headed fool vanished, I took the chair." Unlike his predecessors, Hades was a tyrant of absolute containment. "No deals," he sneered. "No one leaves my domain. You are here forever."
The party explored the twisting, non-Euclidean geography of Hades' domain, eventually encountering a harried dwarf claiming to be an assistant to Hephaestus. The smith revealed a crucial secret: Hades controlled the very layout of the Underworld. There was no map, no escape route; only the will of the ruler. To leave, they would have to break the ruler. They returned to the throne room, weapons drawn.
The battle was a clash of mythic proportions. Hades wielded the power of a major god, summoning waves of necrotic fire. But the GOATs were relentless. They layered buff upon buff, weaving a tapestry of magical protection and enhancement, while simultaneously stripping away the god's defenses. The turning point came when Adrian leveled his God-Killer Gun. The shot rang out like a thunderclap, shattering the divine wards. Hades looked down at his chest in genuine astonishment as his form began to dissolve. With a final roar of disbelief, he and Cerberus faded into nothingness, leaving the obsidian throne empty.
In the silence that followed, Elyndra saw her chance. Driven by impulse and ambition, she sprinted to the throne and sat. But the mantle of a god is heavy, and mortality is fragile. The cosmic weight crushed her instantly, disintegrating her body into dust before reconstituting her as a glowing, translucent spirit. Hephaestus emerged from the shadows, nervously wringing his hands at the knowledge of his slain uncle. "Only a God of the Underworld can free the souls here," he stammered. "Whoever sits on that throne and *survives* makes the rules." Desperate to avoid his uncle's fate, he offered a bribe: Immortal Barding for the party’s pets and mounts, armor forged in the fires of the dead that would render them nigh-indestructible.
With Elyndra compromised, Loarkin stepped forward. He looked at the throne, then at his friends. "This," he declared with a grin, "is the most metal thing I could possibly do." The party poured every remaining spell and prayer into him, fortifying his body and soul. He sat. The magic flared, the ground shook, but Loarkin held. He survived the ascension. He was now the God of the Underworld.
His first act as a deity was to summon the spirit of Enkidu. The wild-man appeared, sorrowful and weary, wishing only to remain in the peace of death. But looking upon Korloth, he saw a kindred spirit: a warrior of wild, untamed power on the precipice of becoming "civilized." "I will not return," Enkidu said softly, "but I will lend you my strength." He poured his essence into Korloth, a gift of primal fury to aid in the fight ahead.
After a tearful farewell and a heavy metal celebration complete with commemorative tattoos, Loarkin used his new power to transport the party back to Nimmur. Elyndra was restored to life, though she returned forever altered, her spirit marked by her brief brush with absolute oblivion. True to his word, Gilgamesh opened a portal to the active volcano caldera where Khumbaba dwelt. Empowered by Enkidu’s essence and the confidence of those who have killed a god, the Feinting GOATs fought with the fury of a storm. The Titan Khumbaba roared and raged, but he fell before them. His essence was sucked into the Anubis Box, sealing another victory and concluding a chapter that had once again taken them to hell and back.