Goblin Quest - UnBEARable Consequences

The Bayside Stranglers—Xmoek, Gooch, and Gakk—crept deeper into the heart of Hunclay's mansion. They found a secret passage in a clockwork lab, leading down a hall lined with nightmare creatures conjured from dark planes of evil. Among them squatted an abomination from Hell: a monstrous fly with a human head that spoke gently inside their minds, pleading—please, it crooned, set me free...   In that same summoning room, Xmoek read Hunclay’s journal, each page like a window into insanity. Hunclay had been obsessed with the Dark Tapestry, seeking out entities beyond reality. His notes told of summoning something unspeakable—a thing from the Dominion of the Black—in a hidden cave north of town. It had gone wrong, violently wrong, forcing him to kill the creature. A "safe cave," he had called it, though there seemed to be nothing safe about that dark hole.   Nearby, imprisoned beyond a blinding wall of pure white light, waited Maphae—a being from the Plane of Shadow. Weak, resentful, she whispered to the goblins of Hunclay’s cruelty, how he had summoned and then imprisoned her out of pettiness. She said the only way to release her was by extinguishing that terrible wall with a handful of enchanted dust—dust hidden away in the very cave Hunclay’s notes spoke of.   The goblins fled upstairs into a library, where towering bookshelves stretched toward shadows above. Gooch, haunted by memories of screaming locks and evil words, panicked, stumbling headlong into another screaming lock. The shrill noise tore into his skull like razors. Gakk struggled to disable the trap, while Xmoek approached a locked iron cabinet holding Hunclay’s darkest tomes. He disarmed its arcane wards, triumphant until a poisoned needle jabbed deep into his green flesh, flooding him with agony before dropping him into twitching darkness.   Desperate, Gakk and Gooch scrambled into Hunclay’s lavish room, discovering their nightmare was just beginning. A thick bearskin rug reared up, snarling, bristling, becoming a towering grizzly bear, claws flashing, eyes lit by rage. Blood flew, and pain exploded; the goblins ran. Gooch snatched up the limp body of Xmoek and bolted, Gakk racing in another direction, desperate to lure the bear into a trap on the lower floor. But the bear was cunning—it dodged, snapped, chased Gooch relentlessly up a chimney, jaws inches from his ankles, before vanishing back into nothingness upon the roof.   Broken, bleeding, and terrified, the Bayside Stranglers fled the mansion and limped back to their inn, carrying their unconscious friend. Morning brought little salvation. Xmoek stirred weakly, body covered in grey splotches and too feeble to move. But they were all alive... for the moment.