Goats & Relics of the GOATS

We had found a flyer, telling us to come to the Elemental Portal Shrine. There we met Talgra , who informed us of the nearby dungeon offering rewards. She also introduced us to Nishishida Keisake , who showed off his new relic.

The Entrance to the dungeon was a glowing portal shining with a rainbow of colors, inlaid into the ground, about a 30 minutes walk from the Portal. We dropped down into the portal , and met a large group of Tartaurs - large goat headed creatures dripping with Tar. They were playing games and eating Graham crackers.

Additionally, we were told this was the realm of one of Baphomet's chosen disciples

The first floor of the dungeon we arrived was a battlefield. As we entered, we came upon two groups of warring Haflings. The White army of Halflings were aligned with Celestials, while the Black army of Halflings were aligned with Fiends.

Due to caution and a split in opinion in the party - we did not join the battle, but instead waited it out.

We watched as the White army decimated the Black, and began to loot and burn the black army.

This was enough even for Sauda to decide to not help the Celestials - we gave the White army a chance to explain themselves, but their arguments were rather unconvincing.

We left to go see the Black Army - there we met a Carrie Witchbriar , a priestess of the Black army, serving fiends. She made a simple request of us - defend a location from getting attacked. We obliged, and successfully fought off an small army of Celestials. In trade, she would ask her fiendish master Baphomet about this dungeon.

As a reward, she gaves us magic fabric inlined with Runes, each one representing fiendish and celestial concepts.

Additionally as agreed to, she would begin a communion with Baphomet to inquire about this dungeon. But as she opened the communion, it became clear it was actually the portal to the next floor

We learned that within this floor , all elves had been taken by Death - turned into "monsters that eat the flesh of the living"

This floor seems to take place centuries in the past , as Sauda explained to us the history of a religious crusade similar to this.

We entered An extremely cold wasteland, with a bright light in the distance.With no other goal in sight, we immediately headed towards the light in the distance.

A few of us did not have any preparations for this icy hellscape - a mistake that won't be repeated hopefully.Sauda suffered the worst - he was stuck in a damning loop of freezing to death and then healing back as he did. Archiebald fared the best - said it wasn't as cold as home. We ended up having to create fur coats from a pack of hunting Polar Bears. It was likely we would have died if not for this - the cold kept getting worse and worse as we traveled.

Our other strike of luck was a pack of wild horses, clearly adapted for this environment.

But still the cold raged on, and the terrain only got more difficult as we approached. We were only a day out at this point.

Finally we ended up reaching out destination - a bright ice crystal, under an aurora. The ice crystal had a small, humanoid shape inside.

Archie, with his familiarity with Ice, deduced it was an elemental of some sort stick in the ice. However, the area near the crystal was deathly cold. He preservered however - and broke the ice.

A White Kobold popped out - Valdi Augustus Archie said his name was. He revealed this was a dragon grave of some sort - and requested that we all put our hands with his. Through this - he learned Archie was ... something. Archie was the one translating for us and stopped here, refusing to tell us what was going on.

He said he needed to stay behind to talk with Valdri, to talk about something. At his request, we went on, without him, and we did not see Archie again.

A portal opened to a Dark Forest - and we entered.

As soon as we enter this dark forest, thoughts of fear and anxiety filled our mind. We ignored them - we needed to wait for Archiebald . Despite being barely able to see, we created a shelter to wait near the portal.

We sleep - but during the night we get a visitor. An cackling Tiefling Woman, riding a tentacle monstrosity.

She informed us she was some sort of contractor - filling in to manage this floor of the dungeon. She also informed us that this Dungeon was designed by the Tartaur Woman who talked to us at the entrance.

Finally, she told us that to get the next floor, we needed to get 3 stones.

The first stone was given as a result of solving a riddle - with the answer 'fear'.

The other two stones had breadcrumb trails - both of which were thoroughly hard to traverse in the dark. The forest additionally seemingly had some magical effect, where our fears kept intensifying as we struggled.

Manifestations of our fears plagued us as we traversed - physical creatures all too dangerous. Dead allies , pasts better forgotten, reason draining undead were all things that attacked us.

The next stone was within a haunt. We dispatched it quickly.

For the final stone, we met a Tiefling Woman, who claimed to be the granddaughter of the other woman we met earlier.

However, it was actually the old woman in disguise, and she summoned a deadly mix of manifested fears and dreamweavers. We survived, and the last stone became ours.

The stones merged, and formed a light pointing towards a hut in the forest.

Within the Hut, we met the Night Hag again. She gave us stew made out of good dreams she harvested from us. She also said their was a prize - Tiger Claws with the emotional power of dedication in them.

Finally, she introduces herself as Agnes Lambridis, posing and all.

The portal to the next floor opened just a moment later - the city of brass, Medina Mudii'a

The next floor took place (or at least seemed to take place) in the City of Brass.

One of our first sights was a Tartaur wearing a cute desert outfit, belly dancing and holding a sign advertising Relics. Obviously, we went inside, and met a Tailor.

She told us she would make us relic clothing, but first she needed her stone repaired. The stones were quite expensive, so it was a fair barter for a new stone in trade for new relics.

So then we headed off to the Mason

He said he could make the stones for an expensive price. We didn't have the money for that, so we asked if we could do him a favor - he agreed, wanting us to healed to the herbalist and get some fertilizer for a special plant.

The herbalists place was maze like - and somewhat violet too. Thankfully, we found her, petting her flaming otter.

Unfortunately, to make the fertilizer, she needed a special spice - about 500 grams of it. So we headed off to the Spice Merchant.

The Spice Merchant laughed at us when we asked for 500 grams - said Bandits had been raiding far too often to get 500 grams. With that info, we decided to steal from the Bandits - though he did offer us a chance for a heist at the palace before we agreed.

Upon arriving at the Caravan we had three choices. We chose the most dangerous one, a caravan ran by an extremely attractive Ifrit woman, Fateena

She pushed her group hard and fast , and seemed like she almost intentionally had little defenses for the Caravan.

We thankfully spotted the Bandits before they spotted us - allowing us to land the opening strike. I don't remember much of the fight beyond that - a brutal, flaming blow to the head made things quite hazy. It was very tough by all accounts, and a few bandits got away.

I nearly chased them too, but my party stopped me.

We had to rest after the battle - Fateena was not amused by this, but we still helped guard her Caravan, arriving at our location to get our payment.

There, some cat like creatures ended up paying us not in coin, but in 2 kilograms of the spice we needed. It seems that was a habit of these merchants, considering some of the complaints overheard.

We were quite happy however - and worked backwards through the chain of workers until we got back to the tailor.

There she made us beautiful relics.

Ninivit got an animated scarf - depictions of family all around. Sauda got an animated owl on their apron. Cati  got Winter clothing. I got my cloak animated - depictions of a forest swaying in the wind.

A portal opens up at the only exit of the shop - preventing us from selling the extra 1.5kg. As we enter through the portal - the belly dancing Tartaur looks at us and says "It will be some time before I see you"!

As we exited the portal, the belly dancing Tartaur we saw earlier greeted us, introducing themselves as the Timetaur

A strange battle quickly ensued - 16 instances of the Timetaur appeared, swarming us at once. However, when we took down one , a few others would also die. Cati , on the second one down, caused all of them to disappear and die!

The Timetaur reappeared, explaining this was due to Time Travel. He said he was trying to become a Lieutenant like Billy the Wiz and Minoterrible. He also said he had no idea what happened to Archiebald.

However, then more Timetaurs appeared. A lot more. We ran, as they suggested, getting chased across all the previous floors.

We ran far faster than the Timetaurs, thankfully, before arriving at a strange clockwork room.

Within the room there were various chwap replicas of content from the old world, such as Iomedae's sword or clockwork from the Jitska Imperium. All the books in this place were fake too - mostly adventure novels, many containing elements of time travel.

The Timetaur arrived about an hour later, saying these were souvenirs he stole from across Time. He was not well however - tired from the chase and running into Draco 's snares, he began throwing up.

He explained that this was the second to last floor, and dropped a glowing pocket watch, which I gladly took.

A final portal opened up, and we went through

The newest floor was perhaps the strangest of all - it was a small corridor cluttered with crates. The floor was very hard to see in , seemingly covered in Magical Darkness. Perhaps this was the floor Nishishida Keisake warned us about?

As we exited the corridor , rythmic music began to play, and we were seemingly in an arena. Billy the Wiz made a big announcement for us entering, then quickly began a fight against us, using his pet Dinosaur, Frank, to attack. Frank did not have a good time, and Billy quickly gave up.

Finally, we were done with our adventure, and made way for the exit.

As we exited the portal - we found ourselves back at the Entrance. Nishishida Keisake was waiting for us - and Talgra was there too. She had apparently spent the last few days talking with the Aspect of the Dungeon, - the glowing blue man we saw earlier at the entrance. Everyone seemed safe and sound. We also learned that Archiebald was okay, thankfully.
We recalled, relics in hand, glad with a job well done.