The victory over the dungeon’s Iron Golem was a hollow one. While the titan lay in ruin, the party stood over the remains of Forb, their goblin guide, who had been tragically crushed into a pulp during the chaos and the golem contained almost no treasure inside it. The heroes returned to the goblin village, only to be met with the jarring sight of a traditional funeral: forb being tossed unceremoniously into the compost pile.
The party joined the Goblin Matriarch in a ritual to commune with the spirit Moa. The vision was harrowing. Crystal and Tuna saw the once-great city of Omu teeming with life, but as they approached Moa the giant snake, zombies began to pour from her mouth. The ritual was severed in a panic; the Matriarch feared that a terrible fate had befallen their deity. Shaken but determined, Žvirblis with Kornelijus spent the following day brewing potent poisons before setting their sights firmly on the south.
Their trek through the jungle led them to a hovering earth mote, suspended twenty feet in the air. With a powerful toss, Kornelijus anchored a rope to the floating isle with his javelin, allowing Ezra and Tuna to scale the heights. At the summit, they discovered a heavy metal trapdoor. As it creaked open, a violent magnetic force surged, dragging Ezra inside and stripping her of every scrap of metal on her person. In the center of the chamber sat a small, humming metal sphere. When the pair forced it open thousands of coins erupted like shrapnel, piercing their skin and clothes as they pinned themselves to the outer walls. When the field collapsed, the party claimed their prizes from the debris: a pair of winged shoes, a beholder statuette, and a fortune in recovered gold.
As night fell the heroes made camp. During the final watch, Ezra caught sight of a dark, hunched silhouette standing motionless at the edge of the firelight. She attempted to slip through the shadows to confront it, but the snap of a fallen branch betrayed her. The figure turned, locking eyes with her. In that instant, a wave of dread washed over Ezra, so absolute that her heart nearly stopped, and she collapsed into unconsciousness. The party sprang into action, striking down the monstrosity before it could claim another soul. Kornelijus identified the horror as a Bodak—an undead born when a soul is literally frightened to death.
The following morning, Žvirblis discovered a series of recordings stored within the bee-coder. The party listened to the voice of Hozram, the goblin architect, who spoke of being hired to design traps for the temples of Omu. His early logs were filled with professional pride, but the later entries turned hectic. Hozram had arrived in Omu only to find the city ransacked; the Nine Gods were dead, and a new, nameless master was constructing a tomb in their place. His final, whispered recording described a grim procession of workers hauling materials deep underground. With the architect’s warnings ringing in their ears and the stench of the Bodak still fresh, the party realized that they were no longer just hunting a curse—they were walking into a graveyard of gods.