THE SPIRE OF LONG SHADOWS
The air was thick with heat, moisture and the cacophonous din of the jungle. Chirping birds, cries of hunting predators and the incessant whir of insects combined to create an exotic song. The plants of the jungle pressed in, a wall of color and vegetation interrupted only by a twenty-foot gap in the undergrowth that looked out over an immense, bowl-shaped valley.
Within the valley sat a ruined city. The buildings were, in most cases, little more than crumbling foundations overgrown with vines. In places, small copses of exotic trees had reclaimed the ruins, while elsewhere, some buildings still stood. The city’s streets were visible only as faint lines where the undergrowth hadn’t grown as thick. Yet, as incredible as the spectacle of this forgotten city was, it was dwarfed by what dominated its center.
There, a giant ring of black rock circled the heart of the city, runes graven upon its surface. Within this ring rose an ancient stone ziggurat. Two openings into chambers within beckoned on opposite sides of its base. Atop the ziggurat rose an unbelievable sight…a towering spire of stone shaped almost like a stylized tree or cactus. Arms projected from the sides of the stone spire in mocking defiance of gravity, either a feat of divine engineering or the product of powerful magic. The apex of the spire was missing. Whatever rested at this forgotten peak was long gone.
The League had arrived in the midst of the ruined city, some hundred yards from the great, obsidian wall that surrounded the ziggurat. Slowly, they began to pick their way thru the rubble and undergrowth. The ruins seemed to be suffused with a strange taint that hovered just beyond the edges of reality. Like an oily stain spreading over a pool, a vision wavered in the air. Within the tainted energy was a man seated on a great throne made of green stone. He wore ornate plate armor, and a black circlet rested on his brow. Both the circlet and the armor were adorned with silver symbols. The vision expanded, widening its scope to reveal that the throne was located at the apex of the large ziggurat in the shadow of the spire. The spire itself gleamed with flashes of white light, and at its peak was balanced a fifteen-foot tall black stone monolith shaped like a trapezoid. Around the ziggurat spread a thriving city, its streets paved in white stone, its buildings painted and whole. Thousands of figures were gathered in the large open plaza that surrounded the ziggurat, all facing the figure seated at its center. Their cries were a rhythmic chant, surging like waves on the monolith’s shore. As these cries rose in volume, threatening to shake the jungle apart, the vision faded and was replaced once more by the ruins of Kuluth-Mar.
“Did you see the symbols that he wore?” Giovanni whispered quietly.
“Yes,” Drasek answered. “They were archaic in design, but they were Cyric’s nonetheless.”
“So Kyuss was a death worshiper even before he became a god himself,” Hawk stated. “I guess we came to the right place after all.”
As they neared the black wall, they could see that it had been formed from a single, giant block of obsidian. It was featureless except for eldritch symbols that covered the upper rim, each of which glowed as if lit from within by molten rock.
“It’s draconic,” Hawk said as he studied the writing. “The language of magic. It repeats, ‘Kyuss forever bound,’ over and over…like a warning.”
The wall was at least thirty feet high, with no apparent opening in its smooth surface. As the rest of the group pondered how they might pass it, Faust, once more in his dragonet form, flitted up to the top.
“It’s just a barren courtyard beyond,” he called down. “I’d say it’s about two-hundred feet from the wall to the ziggurat. I’m going to fly around the perimeter and see if I can find another way in. I’ll meet you back here in a few minutes.”
Hawk shouted after him, but the psion seemed not to hear. “That one will be the death of us yet,” the civilar muttered.
“Yeah, well, I’m not waitin’ around for’im,” Grim groused, and as his team mates watched dumbfounded, the dwarf got down on all fours and began burrowing into the ground. In a matter of seconds, there was nothing but churned earth where he’d been standing.
The same ceremony that had transformed his skin into rock had also given the mineral warrior the ability to tunnel through natural earth like a badger. Grim found that the obsidian wall extended ten feet below the ground. As he dug his way under the five-foot wide barrier, he suddenly found the soil around him literally crawling with thousands of green worms! Redoubling his efforts, he surged to the surface on the far side of the wall, slapping the foul vermin from his clothes and skin. He looked down and saw them still in the freshly turned dirt, though they appeared to be moving top slowly to pose him any real threat.
“It’s all clear!” he called over the wall to his friends. “But mind your step!”
One-by-one, Giovanni ferried his colleagues through the wall trans-dimensionally, but each time he did so, he felt a growing sense of unease, almost as if his life hung in the balance each time he crossed the barrier. Finally, they all stood within the plaza surrounding the ziggurat…all except Faust.
“Let’s move out,” Hawk said after ten minutes had passed. “He can take care of himself…he’s done it before.”
Cautiously, the team began heading for the eastern entrance to the ziggurat.
Nezzarin watched from his place of concealment as the group of mortals dared to approach the place of the Ascension. For two-thousand years he had kept his vigil, awaiting the return of his lord. For those two millennia no dweller of the outside world had set foot upon this holy ground. None had entered the Spire of Long Shadows. And none would enter on this day. Silently, he called out to his hounds.
Grim was the first to enter the gloom of the ziggurat. At the bottom of a short flight of stairs was a chamber, the walls of which were carved to depict an army of undead soldiers engaged in the ruin and destruction of a city of helpless men, women and children. Buildings burned, blood washed the streets, and dark thunderclouds boiled in the skies above. Over them all, directing the army, was an enormous figure dressed in a tattered dark gray robe. His visage was only remotely humanoid, a seething mass of worms in the mocking shape of a face, with vast, cavernous sockets for eyes.
“Grim wait!” Hawk cried out in warning as alarm bells went off inside his head. The presence of great evil suddenly washed over him like a wave. As Grim turned questioningly, a figure stepped out of the gloom of the chamber. It wore dark armor that hid much of its form from view, but its skeletal visage and horrid stench revealed that it could be nothing but some kind of undead. Small green worms, their mouths filled with row upon row of jagged teeth, writhed along its armor, crawling under the plates and panes. Its most gruesome feature was its eyes, which had been replaced by the ravenous mouths of two bloated worms. Behind this horror appeared two large, bloated beetles moving with unnatural speed, their mandibles clicking and clicking and clicking in a maddening rhythm. Their rotted and pitted shells evoked thoughts of ancient decay and unfathomable corruption, and tiny green worms, each a wriggling abomination of terror in its own right, squirmed through these holes in their exoskeletons.
Grim whirled to face the threat, but Nezzarin moved with mind-numbing speed. Raising a bastard sword, which he gripped one-handed, the ancient knight slashed at the dwarf, ripping into his rocky hide as if it were parchment. As the blade struck, dark energy flowed through it, scorching the mineral warrior’s very soul. As Grim recoiled, Nezzarin thrust his face forward, and horribly, one of the worms in his eye socket struck out like a serpent, fastening its fangs into the dwarf’s cheek. For an instant, Grim’s head swam with nauseating dizziness. He jerked free from the worm, but his thoughts were clouded and muddled. He couldn’t quite organize them enough to counter-attack.
At the same time, one of the rotting beetles surged up the stairs towards Hawk, snapping at his thigh with its razor-sharp mandibles. Hawk felt the chitonous weapons bite into his flesh, but simultaneously, there was a bright flash from his armor. While in Waterdeep, he had had one of the master-smiths there imbue the plate mail with the ability to ward off negative energy. Now, as his breast-plate flared to life, he knew that the monster’s bite was even deadlier than it appeared.
Grim finally gathered his wits enough to heft his axe. Still feeling sluggish, he chopped at the undead knight, sinking the blade into Nezzarin's corrupt flesh. As he did so, Grim willed a surge of magical fire through the axe-head, but to his dismay, the flames sloughed harmlessly from Nezzarin like water.
As the second beetle closed in on Grim, the combined, mindless clicking of the two undead creatures’ mandibles began to gnaw into the psyche of Hawk, Shay, Grubber and Storm. All three clutched at their skulls, trying in vain to rid their minds of the terrible sound.
Drasek knew instinctively what it was that he and his team faced. In his reading of the Apostolic Scrolls, he had come across a reference to four warriors who had been the personal bodyguards of the mortal priest Kyuss. Upon his ascension to god-hood, his unholy power had transformed this quartet into powerful, undead creatures, sworn to forever maintain their vigil until Kyuss’ return. This then was one of the four. Acting on impulse, the inquisitor began chanting a prayer, filling his mind with a litany of this particular knight’s past transgressions, and the list was impressive. As he began uttering the charges, calling on Kelemvor to punish this sinner for his life of evil, Nezzarin recoiled, hissing, his skin blistering as the Deific Vengeance of Kelemvor washed over him.
Still at the top of the stairs, Havok could clearly see the battle raging below, and he could also see that the undead knight and beetles were just as he wanted them, grouped together in a tight knot. Eldritch power arced from his hand, striking Nezzarin first, then leaping to the nearest beetle, and then to the next, in a chain of emerald devastation. As the chain faded, the warlock dipped deep into his magical reserves, and unleashed a lighting-fast eldritch spear, stabbing it deep into the Kyuss knight’s chest.
Nezzarin felt pain, a sensation he had not experienced in millennia. It was something novel, and therefore not entirely unpleasant. His discipline allowed him to focus past the feeling, however, and continue his assault. Darting past Grim’s hovering tower shield, the knight drove his sword straight into the dwarf’s gut, then slashed across, practically eviscerating the mineral warrior in the process. At the same time, one of his eye-worms struck again, feeding off of the dwarf’s mental energy, and healing some of Nezzarin’s own wounds in the process. The second beetle attacked as well, its mandibles scouring Grim’s shoulder, negative energy pouring into the wound, further weakening the dwarf. Its companion continued to strike at Hawk, the civilar unable to effectively defend himself or counter the attack due to the maddening chittering of the beetles.
Staggering from blood loss, Grim nevertheless managed to strike at Nezzarin again, this time smiting the knight with pure earth-power, another gift bestowed upon him by his transformation. This final blow sapped what was left of the dwarf’s strength. He sagged to one knee, fully prepared to meet Hela Brightaxe. It was not her hand that reached out to him, but rather that of Drasek. Calling once more upon Kelemvor, the inquisitor sent healing energy into the mineral warrior’s body, closing his most critical injuries.
Havok tried to back away from the mind-numbing clicking of the beetles, while still keeping the combatants in sight. Seeing the state of Hawk, Grubber, Shay and Storm, he knew that he had to take down the necrotic insects, and quickly. He unleashed a second chain, this time starting with the nearest beetle, then arcing to the second, and finally to Nezzarin. Again, he followed this with a quickened spear of eldritch power, and with this last blast, the Kyuss knight went down.
Finally, Hawk managed to shake off the effects of the beetles mandibles. Fending off the nearest insect’s attack, he thrust his sword through one of the holes in its carapace, loosing a surge of electricity as he did so. As he withdrew his blade, the giant bug collapsed.
As the last of Grim’s wounds began to close, the sole remaining assailant lunged again, piercing the newly formed skin on the dwarf’s abdomen, ripping at tearing at the soft entrails beneath. Grubber, also now free of the beetles’ mind effects, quickly stepped forward, and summoned his most powerful Healing spell, instantly closing every one of Grim’s wounds, as well as restoring the damage done to the dwarf’s mind by Nezzarin’s eye-worms.
One last time, Havok released his eldritch spear, striking the beetle at the same time an orb of lightning hurled by Storm did. Its mandibles closing for good, the beetle flipped onto its back, its legs contracting like a fist.
Beyond the antechamber, the group found themselves in a huge room. The once-grand chamber suffered from long neglect. The dark green stone floor lay broken in its center, giving way to a gaping pit. Writhing tendrils of sickening green vapor slithered up from the pit, only to break apart and fade before seeping much further into the room. Great pillars lined the outside walls of the vast hall, but those near the center of the room lay broken…blasted outward by whatever force caused the hole in the center of the chamber. Immense, stone double-doors stood in the center of each wall.
No sooner had the entered the vast chamber than Hawk and Drasek looked at each other. Both paladins could sense the overwhelming evil, on a scale like nothing they’d ever felt, emanating from the pit. Grim cautiously approached the edge.
“Careful,” Hawk warned. Grim nodded and tentatively peered over the side. The hole fell away into darkness, its perimeter pock-marked by large, round holes.
“Leave it for now,” Hawk said. “Let’s secure this area first, and then check these doors.”
A short time later, confident that the room was unoccupied, they team approached the northernmost set of doors. As per their routine, Grim turned the handle on one of the two doors, and shoved it open. The green walls of the room beyond seemed to writhe and glow with an unhealthy light. Scattered around the chamber were instruments of torture…rusted and pitted iron hooks, ancient blades, and other tools of horrid intent. Three beings stood around the perimeter of the room, looking expectantly at Grim. For a moment, the dwarf could only stare, open-mouthed. Two of the figures were as large as giants, fully nine-feet tall, yet they were gloriously beautiful. Male in form, they had golden hair and eyes to match. Large, feathery white wings, edged with gold, sprouted from their muscular shoulders. The third figure was of normal size, but no less impressive. He appeared to be an elf of noble bearing, wearing exquisitely crafted breastplate, and carrying an ornate greatsword.
Kelvos smiled at the dwarf’s obvious confusion. Three celestials were surely the last thing he and his band expected to find in this stronghold of darkness. So much the better, Kelvos thought. The ghaele eladrin and his sword archon brethren had indeed come to this place long ago, intent on stopping the vile necromancer Kyuss from achieving divinity. It was folly on their part, and utterly in vain. They were fools to have believed they could ever hope to defeat one as powerful as he. In the end, Kyuss had shown them the error of their ways, and now they too patiently awaited the return of their lord. The years had been long, even for immortals, and there was little opportunity for sport. Until now…
When Kelvos spoke, his voice was musical and hypnotic, but there was a cold cruelty to his words. “You have desecrated the temple of the Worm God, and for that you cannot be suffered to live!”
Sensing what was coming, Grim slammed the door shut, then gripped the handles tightly. “Fan out!” he called over his shoulder to his teammates, and then the doors were ripped from his grasp. Looming over him was one of the Angels of the Worm. In the blink of an eye, the celestial’s arms both transformed into wickedly barbed blades.
Havok had heeded Grim’s warning, and ducked behind one of the pillars in the outer chamber. Now, as the sword archon stood in the doorway, the warlock unleashed one of his most powerful blasts, striking the angel, and then letting it arc to the eladrin, whom he could just make out from his vantage point. The bolt bounced harmlessly off the archon’s bronze skin, but the eladrin grimaced in obvious pain.
Directly behind Grim, Drasek leaped into action. Though confused as to why three celestials would be serving as guardians in such an unholy place, his senses nevertheless told him that they were unredeemably evil. Calling upon Kelemvor to guide him, and forgive His fallen children, he loosed a cone-shaped Diamond Spray upon all three, but when the glittering shards cleared, there was not a scratch on any of them. Simultaneously, Storm hurled a sizzling orb of electrical energy at the archon in the doorway. The sphere struck unerringly, but the current merely played over the surface of the angel’s chest, leaving behind no trace of injury.
Kelvos could tell that he and his brethren faced a seasoned, and well-coordinated band. Though the outcome of the battle was assured, he intended to give himself every advantage possible. Calling on the power of his own god, he rendered himself invisible, and moved to a better tactical position.
“Grim, move!” Hawk cried, charging past the dwarf, sword poised to strike. As he came, however, the sword archon struck, stabbing one of his arm blades into the civilar’s knee. Though he stumbled, the paladin did not falter. He immediately struck back, his holy blade gouging deep into the celestial’s flesh. With blinding speed, he called upon Helm to guide his hand, and struck again. The angel recoiled, and as he did so, a second orb from Storm, this one made of acid, struck him full in the chest. The archon screamed as the caustic fluid burned away his skin, eating into the sinew beneath. With a final howl of pain, he succumbed.
“Holy power is their bane!” Drasek called out to his comrades, and as he did so, he chanted another prayer, this one meant to bless the blades of each of his teammates.
That would be quite enough of that, Kelvos thought to himself as he stepped over Gabriel’s ruined body. Standing unseen (save by Havok) in the door, he clenched one immaculately manicured hand and spoke a single word, so vile that it caused his lips to sting a bit, though he had been wholly corrupted for over two-thousand years. Its utterance had immediate and dramatic effects on the entire League. Each of them felt the strength drain from their muscles, with Havok so weakened that he almost collapsed under his own body weight. Storm became rooted to the spot, unable to even blink her eyes. The rest of the team were so stunned by the blasphemous energy that they could do nothing but stare in dazed confusion.
“Excellent,” Kelvos smiled. “Now, for my next trick…”
A fan of vibrant, prismatic colors fanned out from the invisible eladrin’s fingers, engulfing the League, each of them struck by at least one band of the color spectrum. Grubber’s skin blistered as acid coalesced from thin air around him. A shock of pure electricity jolted Drasek. Grim was immolated in fire. Hawk retched as a cloud of noxious green vapor further sapped his flagging fortitude. Havok felt his flesh momentarily harden to the consistency of stone, before it snapped back. Shay saw the room around him waver, replaced by a roaring inferno, pools of magma, and the screams of the damned, but just as suddenly he was back in the temple of Kyuss. A purple beam struck Storm, but the drow’s innate resistance to magic allowed it pass harmlessly through her.
As the prismatic spray vanished and their dazed state abated, the team struggled to regain their wits and resume their offensive. Grubber lumbered quickly to Hawk’s side and once more cast his most powerful Healing spell upon the civilar. Instantly, all of the paladin’s wounds closed, and he felt his strength and vigor restored. Hawk still could not see the eladrin, so he instead closed the distance to the remaining archon. Again as he came, the angel’s impressive reach allowed him to make a token slash at the civilar before he reached striking distance. At that point, Hawk opened the archon’s right pectoral with his sword, calling on Kelemvor’s wrath once more to smite his foe. The archon reeled, and Hawk struck again, backing the giant celestial into a corner. At this point, the archon raised his sword-arm to strike, and Hawk ducked behind his shield, bracing for the blow. Incredibly, the fallen angel missed the civilar by a large margin, striking the wall next to him instead. It was only at this point that Hawk realized the horrible truth about the writhing green light within the walls of the smaller chamber. They were made of glass, and when the archon’s sword shattered the barrier, a swarm of the horrid green worms were released from their terrarium, tumbling down upon the paladin.
Havok still had a clear view of Kelvos, and though the warlock was still pathetically weakened, he could still summon his birth-right, releasing another maximally empowered eldritch chain at the eladrin, and then having it arc to the archon. To Havok’s complete dismay, neither of the celestials even seemed to notice the withering blast.
From previous experience with swarms of vermin, Shay knew it would be useless to attempt to target the slithering worms with his bow, so instead he turned the now-blessed weapon on the archon. His first shot struck the angel in the shoulder, and the archon quickly tore it free. The second shot, however, was more precise, piercing the celestial’s left eye. He howled in agony, clawing at his exploded orb before collapsing to the ground.
Grim was struggling to move his four-hundred plus pound frame even a single step, weakened as he was by the eladrin’s blasphemous attack. Drasek hurried to the dwarf’s side, uttering a simple restorative spell which removed Grim’s fatigue. Kelvos watched as the inquisitor and the goliath continued to undo the damage he had wrought, and he decided the pair must be neutralized. Concentrating on a point in space between the two, he caused a bubble of silence to envelope them, preventing them from uttering the words to their potent prayers.
Grubber recognized the silence spell for what it was immediately, and knowing its limitations, he began moving towards the perimeter of the room until he reached a point where he could once more hear his own heavy footfalls. The eladrin still eluded his perception, but Hawk was obviously in trouble. The civilar was struggling in vain to sweep the writhing worm-swarm from around and on him, but it was a hopeless effort. The goliath focused on the swarm itself, and with Grumbar’s blessing, unleashed another spray of holy diamond shards into the mass. He was relieved to see a large number of the vermin shrivel and die, but more than enough remained. Once more, he loosed the holy spray, and then he saw that Drasek had managed to leave the sphere of silence as well, and had conjured his own Diamond Spray. One final blast from the goliath consumed the last of the worms, freeing Hawk.
All of the distractions were serving Kelvos’ purposes well. The eladrin used the opportunity to heal some of his own wounds, watching the pathetic mortals stumble around like rats in a maze.
Storm still stood paralyzed within the zone of silence. Havok decided to attempt to undo both ills simultaneously. Summoning a dispelling field, he dropped it over the area in which the drow stood. Instantly, sound returned to the zone, but Storm’s state was unchanged. Following the warlock’s lead, Drasek cast a dispelling field upon Storm herself, knowing he risked undoing many of her protective spells, but knowing that, more importantly, they wouldn’t help her if she remained a sitting duck.
With tremendous relief, Storm felt mobility return to her limbs. Realizing that their remaining foe was free to strike at them with impunity as long as he remained unseen, the sorceress cast a spell, touching her eyes as she did so. When she opened them again, she could clearly see the eladrin still standing in the small chamber.
“He’s there!” she cried. “In the far left corner! Don’t let him escape!”
Grim did not hesitate. Moving quickly through the doors and into the room, he headed for the corner Storm had indicated, but Kelvos would not be so easily trapped. He stepped nimbly into the air, walking upon it as if it were solid ground, moving over the dwarf’s head, through the doors, and into the temple beyond, until he stood, unseen, right next to Grubber, the source of the hated Celestial light that had been searing his skin ever since the goliath had appeared. Reaching out gingerly, almost lovingly, he caressed Grubber’s left cheek…releasing his devastating Harm spell as he did so, hoping to draw all but the barest essence of life from the priest. To his astonishment, the goliath was unfazed. Knowing full well the possible nature of the undead they would in all probability be facing in Kyuss’ temple, Grubber had prepared himself with a Deathward, a spell that protected him from all life-draining effects. He now thanked Grumbar that he’d had the foresight to do so. Recoiling from the unseen touch, Grubber quickly uttered the prayer he’d been waiting for the right moment to use. In a flash, the area all around the priest was purged of all invisibility effects, showing everyone clearly exactly where Kelvos was.
Hawk charged, roaring in indignation at the abomination that the eladrin had become. The civilar railed against the fallen celestial as he struck again and again, but Kelvos only smiled at him as he deftly side-stepped each blow easily.
“Drasek, now!” Havok cried. “Dispel his defenses!” The inquisitor and the warlock then both dropped dispelling nets over the eladrin, hoping to strip him of his magical protections. Kelvos felt some of his more minor magics falter, but he was unconcerned. They could be easily replaced. What concerned him more was the charging mineral warrior bearing down on him. As he braced himself for the impact, he failed to see Shay knock another arrow, and as a result he also failed to avoid it. The black-fletched missile pierced his thigh, and he hissed in irritation. The distraction was just enough for Grim to make his move. Sweeping his axe in a looping arc, the dwarf swept the eladrin’s feet off the floor, and Kelvos landed hard on his back. With cat-like reflexes, the celestial vaulted back to his feet, Grim slashing at him as he rose. Dodging around the dwarf, Kelvos walked out over the gaping pit in the midst of the chamber, hovering there, daring any to follow. Once in place, he casually gestured towards Drasek, Havok and Storm, causing a wall of impenetrable force to spring up in front of them, separating them from their teammates.
Havok did not grasp the nature of the spell Kelvos had created, and the warlock thought to catch the eladrin flat-footed now that he was in plain sight. Hurling a blast of noxious energy in Kelvos’ direction, he was shocked to see it stopped in mid-flight.
“He’s erected a barrier of some sort!” Havok shouted.
“A force wall,” Storm agreed. “But if he has made it wide enough to bisect the entire chamber, I’m guessing it does not reach the ceiling. We can go over it.” The sorceress then placed a fly spell upon herself while Drasek did the same for Havok.
“Get me over there Grubber,” Grim snarled, glaring at the eladrin that sneered back at him, well beyond his reach.
“As you wish,” Grubber said, placing his hands upon the dwarf’s shoulders and murmuring a spell to imbue the mineral warrior with the feathery wings of a celestial. Grim launched himself into the air and over the pit, closing rapidly with Kelvos, but at the last instant, Kelvos smiled…and created a dispelling field around the dwarf.
For a moment, Grim did not know what had happened. Then he felt as heavy as lead and realized that his wings had vanished. He dropped like a proverbial stone, the walls of the pit flashing past him as he fell, and fell, and fell. Five-hundred feet the mineral warrior plummeted, crashing to a stone floor what seemed like an eternity later. The wind was driven from his lungs and he was sure that he had felt bones snap. It was only the supernatural hardness of his flesh that had kept him from dieing instantly. As he struggled to look around him, he wasn’t sure that the latter option wasn’t preferable. He lay in the middle of a small room, the floor of which was literally crawling with green worms. Then he heard it…the tell-tale clicking of mandibles…
The air was thick with heat, moisture and the cacophonous din of the jungle. Chirping birds, cries of hunting predators and the incessant whir of insects combined to create an exotic song. The plants of the jungle pressed in, a wall of color and vegetation interrupted only by a twenty-foot gap in the undergrowth that looked out over an immense, bowl-shaped valley.
Within the valley sat a ruined city. The buildings were, in most cases, little more than crumbling foundations overgrown with vines. In places, small copses of exotic trees had reclaimed the ruins, while elsewhere, some buildings still stood. The city’s streets were visible only as faint lines where the undergrowth hadn’t grown as thick. Yet, as incredible as the spectacle of this forgotten city was, it was dwarfed by what dominated its center.
There, a giant ring of black rock circled the heart of the city, runes graven upon its surface. Within this ring rose an ancient stone ziggurat. Two openings into chambers within beckoned on opposite sides of its base. Atop the ziggurat rose an unbelievable sight…a towering spire of stone shaped almost like a stylized tree or cactus. Arms projected from the sides of the stone spire in mocking defiance of gravity, either a feat of divine engineering or the product of powerful magic. The apex of the spire was missing. Whatever rested at this forgotten peak was long gone.
The League had arrived in the midst of the ruined city, some hundred yards from the great, obsidian wall that surrounded the ziggurat. Slowly, they began to pick their way thru the rubble and undergrowth. The ruins seemed to be suffused with a strange taint that hovered just beyond the edges of reality. Like an oily stain spreading over a pool, a vision wavered in the air. Within the tainted energy was a man seated on a great throne made of green stone. He wore ornate plate armor, and a black circlet rested on his brow. Both the circlet and the armor were adorned with silver symbols. The vision expanded, widening its scope to reveal that the throne was located at the apex of the large ziggurat in the shadow of the spire. The spire itself gleamed with flashes of white light, and at its peak was balanced a fifteen-foot tall black stone monolith shaped like a trapezoid. Around the ziggurat spread a thriving city, its streets paved in white stone, its buildings painted and whole. Thousands of figures were gathered in the large open plaza that surrounded the ziggurat, all facing the figure seated at its center. Their cries were a rhythmic chant, surging like waves on the monolith’s shore. As these cries rose in volume, threatening to shake the jungle apart, the vision faded and was replaced once more by the ruins of Kuluth-Mar.
“Did you see the symbols that he wore?” Giovanni whispered quietly.
“Yes,” Drasek answered. “They were archaic in design, but they were Cyric’s nonetheless.”
“So Kyuss was a death worshiper even before he became a god himself,” Hawk stated. “I guess we came to the right place after all.”
As they neared the black wall, they could see that it had been formed from a single, giant block of obsidian. It was featureless except for eldritch symbols that covered the upper rim, each of which glowed as if lit from within by molten rock.
“It’s draconic,” Hawk said as he studied the writing. “The language of magic. It repeats, ‘Kyuss forever bound,’ over and over…like a warning.”
The wall was at least thirty feet high, with no apparent opening in its smooth surface. As the rest of the group pondered how they might pass it, Faust, once more in his dragonet form, flitted up to the top.
“It’s just a barren courtyard beyond,” he called down. “I’d say it’s about two-hundred feet from the wall to the ziggurat. I’m going to fly around the perimeter and see if I can find another way in. I’ll meet you back here in a few minutes.”
Hawk shouted after him, but the psion seemed not to hear. “That one will be the death of us yet,” the civilar muttered.
“Yeah, well, I’m not waitin’ around for’im,” Grim groused, and as his team mates watched dumbfounded, the dwarf got down on all fours and began burrowing into the ground. In a matter of seconds, there was nothing but churned earth where he’d been standing.
The same ceremony that had transformed his skin into rock had also given the mineral warrior the ability to tunnel through natural earth like a badger. Grim found that the obsidian wall extended ten feet below the ground. As he dug his way under the five-foot wide barrier, he suddenly found the soil around him literally crawling with thousands of green worms! Redoubling his efforts, he surged to the surface on the far side of the wall, slapping the foul vermin from his clothes and skin. He looked down and saw them still in the freshly turned dirt, though they appeared to be moving top slowly to pose him any real threat.
“It’s all clear!” he called over the wall to his friends. “But mind your step!”
One-by-one, Giovanni ferried his colleagues through the wall trans-dimensionally, but each time he did so, he felt a growing sense of unease, almost as if his life hung in the balance each time he crossed the barrier. Finally, they all stood within the plaza surrounding the ziggurat…all except Faust.
“Let’s move out,” Hawk said after ten minutes had passed. “He can take care of himself…he’s done it before.”
Cautiously, the team began heading for the eastern entrance to the ziggurat.
Nezzarin watched from his place of concealment as the group of mortals dared to approach the place of the Ascension. For two-thousand years he had kept his vigil, awaiting the return of his lord. For those two millennia no dweller of the outside world had set foot upon this holy ground. None had entered the Spire of Long Shadows. And none would enter on this day. Silently, he called out to his hounds.
Grim was the first to enter the gloom of the ziggurat. At the bottom of a short flight of stairs was a chamber, the walls of which were carved to depict an army of undead soldiers engaged in the ruin and destruction of a city of helpless men, women and children. Buildings burned, blood washed the streets, and dark thunderclouds boiled in the skies above. Over them all, directing the army, was an enormous figure dressed in a tattered dark gray robe. His visage was only remotely humanoid, a seething mass of worms in the mocking shape of a face, with vast, cavernous sockets for eyes.
“Grim wait!” Hawk cried out in warning as alarm bells went off inside his head. The presence of great evil suddenly washed over him like a wave. As Grim turned questioningly, a figure stepped out of the gloom of the chamber. It wore dark armor that hid much of its form from view, but its skeletal visage and horrid stench revealed that it could be nothing but some kind of undead. Small green worms, their mouths filled with row upon row of jagged teeth, writhed along its armor, crawling under the plates and panes. Its most gruesome feature was its eyes, which had been replaced by the ravenous mouths of two bloated worms. Behind this horror appeared two large, bloated beetles moving with unnatural speed, their mandibles clicking and clicking and clicking in a maddening rhythm. Their rotted and pitted shells evoked thoughts of ancient decay and unfathomable corruption, and tiny green worms, each a wriggling abomination of terror in its own right, squirmed through these holes in their exoskeletons.
Grim whirled to face the threat, but Nezzarin moved with mind-numbing speed. Raising a bastard sword, which he gripped one-handed, the ancient knight slashed at the dwarf, ripping into his rocky hide as if it were parchment. As the blade struck, dark energy flowed through it, scorching the mineral warrior’s very soul. As Grim recoiled, Nezzarin thrust his face forward, and horribly, one of the worms in his eye socket struck out like a serpent, fastening its fangs into the dwarf’s cheek. For an instant, Grim’s head swam with nauseating dizziness. He jerked free from the worm, but his thoughts were clouded and muddled. He couldn’t quite organize them enough to counter-attack.
At the same time, one of the rotting beetles surged up the stairs towards Hawk, snapping at his thigh with its razor-sharp mandibles. Hawk felt the chitonous weapons bite into his flesh, but simultaneously, there was a bright flash from his armor. While in Waterdeep, he had had one of the master-smiths there imbue the plate mail with the ability to ward off negative energy. Now, as his breast-plate flared to life, he knew that the monster’s bite was even deadlier than it appeared.
Grim finally gathered his wits enough to heft his axe. Still feeling sluggish, he chopped at the undead knight, sinking the blade into Nezzarin's corrupt flesh. As he did so, Grim willed a surge of magical fire through the axe-head, but to his dismay, the flames sloughed harmlessly from Nezzarin like water.
As the second beetle closed in on Grim, the combined, mindless clicking of the two undead creatures’ mandibles began to gnaw into the psyche of Hawk, Shay, Grubber and Storm. All three clutched at their skulls, trying in vain to rid their minds of the terrible sound.
Drasek knew instinctively what it was that he and his team faced. In his reading of the Apostolic Scrolls, he had come across a reference to four warriors who had been the personal bodyguards of the mortal priest Kyuss. Upon his ascension to god-hood, his unholy power had transformed this quartet into powerful, undead creatures, sworn to forever maintain their vigil until Kyuss’ return. This then was one of the four. Acting on impulse, the inquisitor began chanting a prayer, filling his mind with a litany of this particular knight’s past transgressions, and the list was impressive. As he began uttering the charges, calling on Kelemvor to punish this sinner for his life of evil, Nezzarin recoiled, hissing, his skin blistering as the Deific Vengeance of Kelemvor washed over him.
Still at the top of the stairs, Havok could clearly see the battle raging below, and he could also see that the undead knight and beetles were just as he wanted them, grouped together in a tight knot. Eldritch power arced from his hand, striking Nezzarin first, then leaping to the nearest beetle, and then to the next, in a chain of emerald devastation. As the chain faded, the warlock dipped deep into his magical reserves, and unleashed a lighting-fast eldritch spear, stabbing it deep into the Kyuss knight’s chest.
Nezzarin felt pain, a sensation he had not experienced in millennia. It was something novel, and therefore not entirely unpleasant. His discipline allowed him to focus past the feeling, however, and continue his assault. Darting past Grim’s hovering tower shield, the knight drove his sword straight into the dwarf’s gut, then slashed across, practically eviscerating the mineral warrior in the process. At the same time, one of his eye-worms struck again, feeding off of the dwarf’s mental energy, and healing some of Nezzarin’s own wounds in the process. The second beetle attacked as well, its mandibles scouring Grim’s shoulder, negative energy pouring into the wound, further weakening the dwarf. Its companion continued to strike at Hawk, the civilar unable to effectively defend himself or counter the attack due to the maddening chittering of the beetles.
Staggering from blood loss, Grim nevertheless managed to strike at Nezzarin again, this time smiting the knight with pure earth-power, another gift bestowed upon him by his transformation. This final blow sapped what was left of the dwarf’s strength. He sagged to one knee, fully prepared to meet Hela Brightaxe. It was not her hand that reached out to him, but rather that of Drasek. Calling once more upon Kelemvor, the inquisitor sent healing energy into the mineral warrior’s body, closing his most critical injuries.
Havok tried to back away from the mind-numbing clicking of the beetles, while still keeping the combatants in sight. Seeing the state of Hawk, Grubber, Shay and Storm, he knew that he had to take down the necrotic insects, and quickly. He unleashed a second chain, this time starting with the nearest beetle, then arcing to the second, and finally to Nezzarin. Again, he followed this with a quickened spear of eldritch power, and with this last blast, the Kyuss knight went down.
Finally, Hawk managed to shake off the effects of the beetles mandibles. Fending off the nearest insect’s attack, he thrust his sword through one of the holes in its carapace, loosing a surge of electricity as he did so. As he withdrew his blade, the giant bug collapsed.
As the last of Grim’s wounds began to close, the sole remaining assailant lunged again, piercing the newly formed skin on the dwarf’s abdomen, ripping at tearing at the soft entrails beneath. Grubber, also now free of the beetles’ mind effects, quickly stepped forward, and summoned his most powerful Healing spell, instantly closing every one of Grim’s wounds, as well as restoring the damage done to the dwarf’s mind by Nezzarin’s eye-worms.
One last time, Havok released his eldritch spear, striking the beetle at the same time an orb of lightning hurled by Storm did. Its mandibles closing for good, the beetle flipped onto its back, its legs contracting like a fist.
Beyond the antechamber, the group found themselves in a huge room. The once-grand chamber suffered from long neglect. The dark green stone floor lay broken in its center, giving way to a gaping pit. Writhing tendrils of sickening green vapor slithered up from the pit, only to break apart and fade before seeping much further into the room. Great pillars lined the outside walls of the vast hall, but those near the center of the room lay broken…blasted outward by whatever force caused the hole in the center of the chamber. Immense, stone double-doors stood in the center of each wall.
No sooner had the entered the vast chamber than Hawk and Drasek looked at each other. Both paladins could sense the overwhelming evil, on a scale like nothing they’d ever felt, emanating from the pit. Grim cautiously approached the edge.
“Careful,” Hawk warned. Grim nodded and tentatively peered over the side. The hole fell away into darkness, its perimeter pock-marked by large, round holes.
“Leave it for now,” Hawk said. “Let’s secure this area first, and then check these doors.”
A short time later, confident that the room was unoccupied, they team approached the northernmost set of doors. As per their routine, Grim turned the handle on one of the two doors, and shoved it open. The green walls of the room beyond seemed to writhe and glow with an unhealthy light. Scattered around the chamber were instruments of torture…rusted and pitted iron hooks, ancient blades, and other tools of horrid intent. Three beings stood around the perimeter of the room, looking expectantly at Grim. For a moment, the dwarf could only stare, open-mouthed. Two of the figures were as large as giants, fully nine-feet tall, yet they were gloriously beautiful. Male in form, they had golden hair and eyes to match. Large, feathery white wings, edged with gold, sprouted from their muscular shoulders. The third figure was of normal size, but no less impressive. He appeared to be an elf of noble bearing, wearing exquisitely crafted breastplate, and carrying an ornate greatsword.
Kelvos smiled at the dwarf’s obvious confusion. Three celestials were surely the last thing he and his band expected to find in this stronghold of darkness. So much the better, Kelvos thought. The ghaele eladrin and his sword archon brethren had indeed come to this place long ago, intent on stopping the vile necromancer Kyuss from achieving divinity. It was folly on their part, and utterly in vain. They were fools to have believed they could ever hope to defeat one as powerful as he. In the end, Kyuss had shown them the error of their ways, and now they too patiently awaited the return of their lord. The years had been long, even for immortals, and there was little opportunity for sport. Until now…
When Kelvos spoke, his voice was musical and hypnotic, but there was a cold cruelty to his words. “You have desecrated the temple of the Worm God, and for that you cannot be suffered to live!”
Sensing what was coming, Grim slammed the door shut, then gripped the handles tightly. “Fan out!” he called over his shoulder to his teammates, and then the doors were ripped from his grasp. Looming over him was one of the Angels of the Worm. In the blink of an eye, the celestial’s arms both transformed into wickedly barbed blades.
Havok had heeded Grim’s warning, and ducked behind one of the pillars in the outer chamber. Now, as the sword archon stood in the doorway, the warlock unleashed one of his most powerful blasts, striking the angel, and then letting it arc to the eladrin, whom he could just make out from his vantage point. The bolt bounced harmlessly off the archon’s bronze skin, but the eladrin grimaced in obvious pain.
Directly behind Grim, Drasek leaped into action. Though confused as to why three celestials would be serving as guardians in such an unholy place, his senses nevertheless told him that they were unredeemably evil. Calling upon Kelemvor to guide him, and forgive His fallen children, he loosed a cone-shaped Diamond Spray upon all three, but when the glittering shards cleared, there was not a scratch on any of them. Simultaneously, Storm hurled a sizzling orb of electrical energy at the archon in the doorway. The sphere struck unerringly, but the current merely played over the surface of the angel’s chest, leaving behind no trace of injury.
Kelvos could tell that he and his brethren faced a seasoned, and well-coordinated band. Though the outcome of the battle was assured, he intended to give himself every advantage possible. Calling on the power of his own god, he rendered himself invisible, and moved to a better tactical position.
“Grim, move!” Hawk cried, charging past the dwarf, sword poised to strike. As he came, however, the sword archon struck, stabbing one of his arm blades into the civilar’s knee. Though he stumbled, the paladin did not falter. He immediately struck back, his holy blade gouging deep into the celestial’s flesh. With blinding speed, he called upon Helm to guide his hand, and struck again. The angel recoiled, and as he did so, a second orb from Storm, this one made of acid, struck him full in the chest. The archon screamed as the caustic fluid burned away his skin, eating into the sinew beneath. With a final howl of pain, he succumbed.
“Holy power is their bane!” Drasek called out to his comrades, and as he did so, he chanted another prayer, this one meant to bless the blades of each of his teammates.
That would be quite enough of that, Kelvos thought to himself as he stepped over Gabriel’s ruined body. Standing unseen (save by Havok) in the door, he clenched one immaculately manicured hand and spoke a single word, so vile that it caused his lips to sting a bit, though he had been wholly corrupted for over two-thousand years. Its utterance had immediate and dramatic effects on the entire League. Each of them felt the strength drain from their muscles, with Havok so weakened that he almost collapsed under his own body weight. Storm became rooted to the spot, unable to even blink her eyes. The rest of the team were so stunned by the blasphemous energy that they could do nothing but stare in dazed confusion.
“Excellent,” Kelvos smiled. “Now, for my next trick…”
A fan of vibrant, prismatic colors fanned out from the invisible eladrin’s fingers, engulfing the League, each of them struck by at least one band of the color spectrum. Grubber’s skin blistered as acid coalesced from thin air around him. A shock of pure electricity jolted Drasek. Grim was immolated in fire. Hawk retched as a cloud of noxious green vapor further sapped his flagging fortitude. Havok felt his flesh momentarily harden to the consistency of stone, before it snapped back. Shay saw the room around him waver, replaced by a roaring inferno, pools of magma, and the screams of the damned, but just as suddenly he was back in the temple of Kyuss. A purple beam struck Storm, but the drow’s innate resistance to magic allowed it pass harmlessly through her.
As the prismatic spray vanished and their dazed state abated, the team struggled to regain their wits and resume their offensive. Grubber lumbered quickly to Hawk’s side and once more cast his most powerful Healing spell upon the civilar. Instantly, all of the paladin’s wounds closed, and he felt his strength and vigor restored. Hawk still could not see the eladrin, so he instead closed the distance to the remaining archon. Again as he came, the angel’s impressive reach allowed him to make a token slash at the civilar before he reached striking distance. At that point, Hawk opened the archon’s right pectoral with his sword, calling on Kelemvor’s wrath once more to smite his foe. The archon reeled, and Hawk struck again, backing the giant celestial into a corner. At this point, the archon raised his sword-arm to strike, and Hawk ducked behind his shield, bracing for the blow. Incredibly, the fallen angel missed the civilar by a large margin, striking the wall next to him instead. It was only at this point that Hawk realized the horrible truth about the writhing green light within the walls of the smaller chamber. They were made of glass, and when the archon’s sword shattered the barrier, a swarm of the horrid green worms were released from their terrarium, tumbling down upon the paladin.
Havok still had a clear view of Kelvos, and though the warlock was still pathetically weakened, he could still summon his birth-right, releasing another maximally empowered eldritch chain at the eladrin, and then having it arc to the archon. To Havok’s complete dismay, neither of the celestials even seemed to notice the withering blast.
From previous experience with swarms of vermin, Shay knew it would be useless to attempt to target the slithering worms with his bow, so instead he turned the now-blessed weapon on the archon. His first shot struck the angel in the shoulder, and the archon quickly tore it free. The second shot, however, was more precise, piercing the celestial’s left eye. He howled in agony, clawing at his exploded orb before collapsing to the ground.
Grim was struggling to move his four-hundred plus pound frame even a single step, weakened as he was by the eladrin’s blasphemous attack. Drasek hurried to the dwarf’s side, uttering a simple restorative spell which removed Grim’s fatigue. Kelvos watched as the inquisitor and the goliath continued to undo the damage he had wrought, and he decided the pair must be neutralized. Concentrating on a point in space between the two, he caused a bubble of silence to envelope them, preventing them from uttering the words to their potent prayers.
Grubber recognized the silence spell for what it was immediately, and knowing its limitations, he began moving towards the perimeter of the room until he reached a point where he could once more hear his own heavy footfalls. The eladrin still eluded his perception, but Hawk was obviously in trouble. The civilar was struggling in vain to sweep the writhing worm-swarm from around and on him, but it was a hopeless effort. The goliath focused on the swarm itself, and with Grumbar’s blessing, unleashed another spray of holy diamond shards into the mass. He was relieved to see a large number of the vermin shrivel and die, but more than enough remained. Once more, he loosed the holy spray, and then he saw that Drasek had managed to leave the sphere of silence as well, and had conjured his own Diamond Spray. One final blast from the goliath consumed the last of the worms, freeing Hawk.
All of the distractions were serving Kelvos’ purposes well. The eladrin used the opportunity to heal some of his own wounds, watching the pathetic mortals stumble around like rats in a maze.
Storm still stood paralyzed within the zone of silence. Havok decided to attempt to undo both ills simultaneously. Summoning a dispelling field, he dropped it over the area in which the drow stood. Instantly, sound returned to the zone, but Storm’s state was unchanged. Following the warlock’s lead, Drasek cast a dispelling field upon Storm herself, knowing he risked undoing many of her protective spells, but knowing that, more importantly, they wouldn’t help her if she remained a sitting duck.
With tremendous relief, Storm felt mobility return to her limbs. Realizing that their remaining foe was free to strike at them with impunity as long as he remained unseen, the sorceress cast a spell, touching her eyes as she did so. When she opened them again, she could clearly see the eladrin still standing in the small chamber.
“He’s there!” she cried. “In the far left corner! Don’t let him escape!”
Grim did not hesitate. Moving quickly through the doors and into the room, he headed for the corner Storm had indicated, but Kelvos would not be so easily trapped. He stepped nimbly into the air, walking upon it as if it were solid ground, moving over the dwarf’s head, through the doors, and into the temple beyond, until he stood, unseen, right next to Grubber, the source of the hated Celestial light that had been searing his skin ever since the goliath had appeared. Reaching out gingerly, almost lovingly, he caressed Grubber’s left cheek…releasing his devastating Harm spell as he did so, hoping to draw all but the barest essence of life from the priest. To his astonishment, the goliath was unfazed. Knowing full well the possible nature of the undead they would in all probability be facing in Kyuss’ temple, Grubber had prepared himself with a Deathward, a spell that protected him from all life-draining effects. He now thanked Grumbar that he’d had the foresight to do so. Recoiling from the unseen touch, Grubber quickly uttered the prayer he’d been waiting for the right moment to use. In a flash, the area all around the priest was purged of all invisibility effects, showing everyone clearly exactly where Kelvos was.
Hawk charged, roaring in indignation at the abomination that the eladrin had become. The civilar railed against the fallen celestial as he struck again and again, but Kelvos only smiled at him as he deftly side-stepped each blow easily.
“Drasek, now!” Havok cried. “Dispel his defenses!” The inquisitor and the warlock then both dropped dispelling nets over the eladrin, hoping to strip him of his magical protections. Kelvos felt some of his more minor magics falter, but he was unconcerned. They could be easily replaced. What concerned him more was the charging mineral warrior bearing down on him. As he braced himself for the impact, he failed to see Shay knock another arrow, and as a result he also failed to avoid it. The black-fletched missile pierced his thigh, and he hissed in irritation. The distraction was just enough for Grim to make his move. Sweeping his axe in a looping arc, the dwarf swept the eladrin’s feet off the floor, and Kelvos landed hard on his back. With cat-like reflexes, the celestial vaulted back to his feet, Grim slashing at him as he rose. Dodging around the dwarf, Kelvos walked out over the gaping pit in the midst of the chamber, hovering there, daring any to follow. Once in place, he casually gestured towards Drasek, Havok and Storm, causing a wall of impenetrable force to spring up in front of them, separating them from their teammates.
Havok did not grasp the nature of the spell Kelvos had created, and the warlock thought to catch the eladrin flat-footed now that he was in plain sight. Hurling a blast of noxious energy in Kelvos’ direction, he was shocked to see it stopped in mid-flight.
“He’s erected a barrier of some sort!” Havok shouted.
“A force wall,” Storm agreed. “But if he has made it wide enough to bisect the entire chamber, I’m guessing it does not reach the ceiling. We can go over it.” The sorceress then placed a fly spell upon herself while Drasek did the same for Havok.
“Get me over there Grubber,” Grim snarled, glaring at the eladrin that sneered back at him, well beyond his reach.
“As you wish,” Grubber said, placing his hands upon the dwarf’s shoulders and murmuring a spell to imbue the mineral warrior with the feathery wings of a celestial. Grim launched himself into the air and over the pit, closing rapidly with Kelvos, but at the last instant, Kelvos smiled…and created a dispelling field around the dwarf.
For a moment, Grim did not know what had happened. Then he felt as heavy as lead and realized that his wings had vanished. He dropped like a proverbial stone, the walls of the pit flashing past him as he fell, and fell, and fell. Five-hundred feet the mineral warrior plummeted, crashing to a stone floor what seemed like an eternity later. The wind was driven from his lungs and he was sure that he had felt bones snap. It was only the supernatural hardness of his flesh that had kept him from dieing instantly. As he struggled to look around him, he wasn’t sure that the latter option wasn’t preferable. He lay in the middle of a small room, the floor of which was literally crawling with green worms. Then he heard it…the tell-tale clicking of mandibles…