Goblin Quest - Gakkman

The Iroran monastery loomed silent, its ancient stone walls echoing with the weight of forgotten prayers and faded discipline. The Bayside Stranglers pressed deeper into its heart, drawn forward by the search for answers, and the threat of the dragon’s remaining lieutenants.   Gakk, ever the shadow in the rafters, ascended alone to the monastery’s third floor. There, he discovered a grand library cloaked in dust and silence. Towering shelves framed a vaulted ceiling painted with Iroran monks lost in eternal meditation. He moved with care, every step deliberate. A crack in the wall caught his eye, but it was only crumbled stone, nothing more. The room held its secrets close.   Satisfied for the moment, Gakk returned to the others. Together they navigated corridors lined with stone sentinels frozen mid-movement, faces worn smooth by time. A hidden seam revealed itself to their searching hands: a secret chamber. Inside, iron latticework stretched across the floor like a cage meant for arcane thought, etched with ancient runes. Xmoek leaned in, invoking his cursed gift to detect the magic. The runes burned with conjuration.   With a beat of newfound wings, Gakk soared across the rune-trapped chamber, into a room choked with haze. A figure, once a priest, lay lifeless on the stone floor. The smoke stirred. It rose. It became, shaping into a monstrous bird formed of ash and fury.   Battle erupted.   Gooch charged, primal and unrelenting, his jaws finding purchase even as the creature flickered between flesh and vapor. Xmoek hurled fire at the shifting mass. Gakk answered with explosions that were precise, chaotic, and unrelenting. The creature screeched as smoke gave way to light, then to silence. Only ash remained.   Among the remains, they found the trappings of a summoner - scrolls preserved in a pouch untouched by time. But when Gooch sought to interrogate the corpse, the head dropped away like a marionette’s string had snapped. The dead offered no more counsel. However, Gooch had heard enough.   They climbed.   The spiral stairs creaked beneath their feet, leading them into the bell tower above. There stood Pentosh - an alchemist wrapped in calm, her gaze sweeping the monastery’s grounds with unnerving serenity. She did not hear the arrow until it struck. Gakk’s ambush was clean, followed swiftly by Gooch’s thunderous charge and the snap of bone. In desperation, Pentosh drank a potion and vanished into mist, trying to escape through a fissure in the stone. But Gakk was ready. His final bomb detonated as her form passed through the wall. When the mist faded, she was gone. Trapped in the stone. Dead. A Cloak of the Bat lay among her things. Xmoek draped it over his shoulders.   Their path led next to a sky-lit garden, now wild and overgrown. Thana, a naga draped in serpentine grace, lay beneath the open air, eyes turned skyward. Peaceful. Until it wasn’t. Gakk acted fast, hurling a bomb that burst in a flash of light, blinding her.   Thana screamed.   Xmoek raised his Rod of Wonder - and chaos answered. Grass erupted from the stone floor, swallowing their feet. Then a lance of lightning shot forward, crashing into Thana with devastating force. She hissed, lashing out with cruel magic, draining Gooch’s strength with a withering curse. But the tide had turned. Their onslaught overwhelmed her. His strength had waned, but Gooch’s rage ended the fight.   As her body cooled, they found a necklace of adaptation among her belongings. Xmoek claimed it. In the chambers beyond, they discovered a bedroom of quiet opulence, now abandoned. A small reward: a buffering cap, hidden within the bedframe, claimed by Gooch. Once more, Gooch sought to speak with the fallen. Xmoek used his magic instead. But Thana’s spirit recoiled, her essence refusing his call with silent disdain. There would be no answers here.   Gooch settled beside the slain naga, feasting in grim satisfaction. The others took stock of their hard-fought victories. Two lieutenants down. But the dragon’s shadow still loomed—vast, silent, waiting.   And the monastery continued to hold its secrets close.