A Maze of Worlds

One spring it was Allonia Miral herself who would hire the Goats for a venture. Her partner Rick Manderson had gone north to the Wetlands to help patrol a shipment of supplies to a military outpost, but there had been no words from him or the outpost itself for days. Following unsettling rumours from the nearby elven settlement, she brought the Goats along to investigate what had happened.

After arriving at the settlement, the elves would tell of a local Highborne who had been evicted after several dangerous magical experiments involving an artifact found in the Twilight Highlands. The Goats moved on to the outpost itself only to find most of it, along with the skeleton crew manning it, missing entirely. On a large scorched plain was instead a pulsing blue anomaly of unknown magical origin.

Further investigation of the anomaly proved it to be a kind of massive, arcane portal. Intent on finding out what had happened to the outpost and their missing objective, the Goats went through to see what was beyond.

## The 1st World

After stepping through the portal, the Goats found themselves in a deep jungle. As they wandered through, the first and only signs of life they came upon was a group of murloc-like beings, acting strangely. A pair of them would approach one of the Goats themselves, Jessiette Duval, speaking to her as if they were her parents. Their words were personal and reproachful, and the uneasy situation soon escalated and the creatures growing hostile. The Goats saw it best to flee, coming upon another smaller portal alike the one they had already gone through.

As they went through once more, they found themselves in entirely different yet still very unfamiliar surroundings.

## The 2nd World

This place was desolate and bleak, a rocky landscape with scattered ruins long devoid of life. The Goats spent a night in these new surroundings with no viable food or water in sight. They found shelter in an odd collection of mismatched ruins.

The next day Maria Hampton mentioned having a feeling that they should all head north, and the group set out once more. After walking for a while, something was found - one part of the ruins had what looked like human shapes halfway fused into the walls and ground. Upon further inspection and Daveth's attempt at cleansing them with the Light, it was proved that these were indeed human corpses of some of the soldiers that were stationed in Westfall.

Maria insisted they should continue north and find "an item". Their travel was then further interrupted by strange deformed creatures who all seemed to be aiming for Maria - and as they reach a ruined barn, they found two humans talking inside, both also intent on killing Maria. Soon the Goats were forced to flee from a swarm of creatures until they reached a broken church, finding an egg inside.

The moment Maria touched the egg a light engulfed them all, and they were transported once more.

## The 3rd World

A quiet forest that finally appeared to have plenty of food and drink for them all, the trees bearing fruits and a clear stream running nearby.

After a night of rest and refilling of supplies the Goats headed out to investigate the strange forest. Another member had a strange feeling of where to go, this time Ishmael Tomasi, who led them along a road that took them to an area of scattered, elven ruins. Looking over this place they eventually came across two people: the mage-in-training Siva and a robed, middle-aged man.

Siva happily proclaimed that the man was her new teacher in magic. Angered, and without warning, Cildar raised his staff and blast the two with green lightning, nearly killing Siva. The man was unharmed. Eisteynn attempted to get some information out of him about the area, and the man proposed a trade: if they left Cildar with him, he would tell them about the place and how to leave. This was promptly denied and a battle ensued as the Goats attacked.

After a fight that left the remains of Siva scattered as an exploded mess, the man is defeated. His form flickers, and in his place is a dying night elf mage. The Goats quickly healed him enough for him to survive and picked him up, fleeing the scene as the odd arcane creatures from the day before showed up again, attacking in droves and aiming for Tomasi especially. They found the item calling for him here, a sword, and touched it - and were once more transported to a new location.

## The 4th World

This time the Goats found themselves in a large Keep surrounded by dark woods, manned by a great number of Alliance soldiers.

The residents seemed untroubled by their presence, allowing them to stay for a full day without incident. In general the population of the Fort seemed unable to answer any questions about the location or situation at all, simply being incredulous at such questions and answering with answers like "It's the Fort, of course" and "We are here."

The following night the night elf woke, and they proceeded to interrogate him, learning that he did indeed cause this anomaly that they were all trapped in. It was not something that been created on purpose, and he was just as trapped as them. Eventually he promised to help them try find a way out.

Meanwhile, Daveth and Gavin Vossler had gone outside where they found another survivor from the real world - one of the soldiers from Westfall, who was just as confused as the rest as to where they were. He had only met one other survivor who had quickly been killed by the dangers around them, and otherwise had no idea where everyone else had gone.

Warning bells of the keep rang out, and the soldiers called to arms. A mass of the odd, deformed creatures were attacking the keep from the woods, some of them larger than ever seen before. At first the Goats went to meet the enemy at the gate, but soon realised that the tide of monsters were too great for them to deal with. The gates were closed and the siege began, the walls soon overrun and the arcane monstrosities rushing inside to battle the soldiers. The Goats headed into the inner keep where the portcullis was closed, hoping to keep the monsters at bay long enough for the elf to find the exit point.

The elf and Cildar soon found the most likely spot of the exit. Cildar and Maria Hampton headed to the upper floor of the building while the rest of the Goats and the Westfall soldier fought the unending flood of monsters. In this room they found the shape of a huge Faceless One that had been haunting the group for days, and they immediately began to fight it. The monster shrieks in an odd and angry girlish voice, demanding they leave it alone. The ensuing battle was tough, and even though Cildar and Maria gave it their all, they were almost slain before the monster finally fell.

In its wake lies a new item - an odd homemade trinket. As Maria touched it, the light reappeared, and the Goats were transported again at the last second as the Keep had fallen to the wave of creatures.

When the Goats re-appeared, they find themselves back in the Wetlands where they started.

## Conclusion

The Goats managed to escape the tangle of manufactured worlds, mostly intact, and perhaps by sheer luck alone.

Their objective had been nowhere in sight, and the portal closed behind them. The Highborne elf and a lone soldier was brought back with them, and the elf was asked to keep investigating the odd phenomena to discover a way to possibly enter it once more.

Allonia occasionally still sets off on her own to look into rumours and leads of similar happenings in the world, hoping to find another such entrance and recover her partner. So far, however, none of them have borne fruit. Perhaps the anomaly has entirely disappeared forever.