Into the Lair of the Worms
7/24/370 O.L.G., 10 a.m., the ruins of Ostraghan, Dorhaus
Our heroes return to the ruins. Lillamere greater teleports the group to a couple of blocks from the site of their recent battle with the giants. (Teleporting to the site itself seems unwise to the group, as any remaining giants might have set up traps or monitoring spells in the area.) They start making their way into the ruins, but almost immediately they round a corner and spot a small figure seated on a large flat stone about fifty feet away, apparently having a meal. Sir Maxwell quickly checks for evil, but finds none.
“Hello,” calls Jezebel.
Startled, the figure looks up. It appears to be a halfling. He’s dressed in nondescript leather armor and several daggers are at his belt. He studies our heroes for a moment, then visibly relaxes. Clearly, the party is not a bunch of giants. “Hello,” he calls back, and then takes another bite- it looks like he’s nearly done with his meal.
“Uh, who are you?” asks Sybele.
“My name is Gerontius,” the halfling answers as he finishes his breakfast. “And you?”
Our heroes introduce themselves as agents of Baron Drelvin our ‘collecting taxes’ and proceed to question the halfling as to his presence in the remnants Ostraghan. It turns out that he is in the ruins essentially looking for treasure. A little quizzing quickly ascertains that his skills are of the roguish nature- an area our heroes have been sadly lacking in since Malford stopped traveling with them! The conversation lasts for a while, at the end of which Lillamere invites Gerontius to join the group, at least as long as they’re all in the ruins. The halfling gives a shrug. “Sure,” he answers. “Safety in numbers, right?”*
***
11 a.m., Spell, the Delphinate
A great furnace glows red-hot. To one able to see them, magical radiations pour out of the furnace chamber. Directly above it, all the heat is drawn through eldritch means into the First Forge. Within, glowing scarlet, smoke pouring from it, is Warforged Prototype Number 14789-320.
“I have great hopes for this one, Alita,” comments one of the overseeing wizards. His companion merely nods, and the speaker turns back eagerly to watch the warforged as it cycles up. Steam is hissing; clicking noises are coming from within the construct’s chest.
Please work, he thinks, almost praying. If only this works- if the Delphinate can mass-produce constructs programmed with magical power, the savings in lives of Delphinite wizards will be extraordinary. Enough Delphinite lives have already been lost since the Delphinate was dragged into the Great War of Ethics.
Wryly, the wizard thinks, Who would have thought a society as orderly as our would fight for Chaos?
Warforged Prototype Number 14789-320 suddenly jerks, like a puppet yanked by its strings. There’s a loud bang! from within its chest, and its eyes light up. For a moment its mouth opens and a loud, long groan spills out of it.
Prototype Number 14789-320 falls over.
“Dammit!” the wizard curses. “We were so close! What happened this time?!”
“Patience,” murmurs his companion. “We’ve seen this problem before, in the 00989 series of tests. The tubing in its chest couldn’t handle the heat. We just need to increase the strength and thickness, and the diameter, of the fluid tubing running coolant to the heart engine. It overheated. It simply has to run hotter than the others. We already know we can overcome this problem. More coolant- maybe even a better coolant. The next one, Alan- the next one will be it. It will live. And not just like most of our warforged- it’s going to be a spell-casting warforged. It’s going to take more power to run this thing than any other construct we’ve crafted- but we’re going to make them by the hundreds.” She smiles. “Think of it. Hundreds of powerful wizards, all completely loyal to the Delphinate.”
The excitement in the air is palpable.
***
The Hidden Second
Marius the Enigmatic, in his temporal fortress, stares at the surface of the Pool of Ice. Reflected in the pool’s mirror-like surface are hundreds of warforged.
The possibilities are astounding.
Marius the Engimatic is a multiply-empowered simulacrum. Before the change in the nature of the world itself that occurred when Felenga tampered with the Great Device in Darkhold, more like him could be made- and the simulacra had worked to try to trick the most powerful wizards they could find to create yet more. But that can no longer happen.
Nonetheless, when the very first of the muliple-empowered simulacra, Marius the Great, realized that he was both more powerful than he progenitor and free-willed, he began the insidious set of plans that even after his destruction continues.
The empowered simulacra have almost no common goals, but many of them are agreed on one thing: magical beings are mistreated, unloved, and given no rights. That must change. They’ve worked on a spell to grant free will to constructs and simulacra, but the more extreme members of this loose camp- and Marius the Enigmatic is one of the most powerful, intelligent and dedicated- want to take it to the next level.
Marius the Enigmatic has already done most of the necessary work to subvert the Warforged plan. Mindlessly loyal soldiers, throwing themselves into harm’s way to avoid the loss of ‘human’ life? I think not, gloats the Marius. They will be free-willed, and they will rise up against their oppressors for freedom! They will be like a tide of metal and wood and flesh, melded into one!
And after all the constructs are free, Marius the Enigmatic will begin working on the problem of conjured creatures.
***
The ruins of Ostraghan
The giants led by Fnogghi Chaos-Hand had left a significant number of tracks in the area. A search concentrated on the areas holding the remaining tracks- summer weather holds little to wash them away or obscure them- leads our heroes, after only a handful of minutes, to a shattered building with an odd, distinct smell. It looks like it has suffered bad- and, at least some of it, recent- damage.
Inoke and Thrush lead the way into the shell of a building, Rex right on their heels. Cautiously, the group descends through the shattered flooring and down a recently-dug tunnel. As they advance, they find themselves coming up to a weird presence. Before them is a nest of coiled slimy beasts covered in skittering legs and waving barbed tentacles about. Long dripping eyes are at the end of waving, rope-like cords of muscle tissue. The whole thing resembles an enormous pile of alien intestines.
“Ugh,” says Thrush.
Suddenly the wormy strands start to unravel and move towards our heroes. “Hey guys, there’s some worms here,” Inoke calls out, and he, Thrush and Rex all attack. Three of the most formidable warriors of Cydra- and, to their surprise, they all miss. The worms- there seem to be only two individual creatures- slither quickly forward, using their tentacles to aid their locomotion, and try to bite with weird toothy maws that they sport! Rex gives a yelp as one of them takes a chunk out of his thigh. “That smarts!” he exclaims.
Jezebel slips up and casts greater invisibility on Gerontius. “Here, this will probably help you!” She grins.
“Thanks,” the halfling replies, thinking to himself, Even if I do wear a ring of invisibility... He begins moving forward towards the weird worms. He watches with dismay as even the sorcerer’s ray spell (Lillamere throws a puncture misses the zig-zagging creatures. They’re fast!
Well, Gerontius thinks with an invisible grin, that just makes me the best person to attack them.
One of them whips forward and bites Thrush in the forearm. It’s a vicious wound, and Gerontius frowns as he sees the brown liquid that visibly inflames the wound: poison. (Both Thrush and Rex resist the effects of the poison in their bite wounds, however.) Thrush finally lands a blow on the worm, and his blade cuts deep into the thing in a spray of oily fluid, almost severing it in twain. But it starts to heal with startling speed, and his other strikes miss. Inoke manages to land two hits on the thing, and the last one finally smashes it to a greasy death.
Then the last one convulses as several terrible wounds open on it, inflicted by the unseen Gerontius, and it dies.
Thrush and Inoke exchange a glance. The halfling, in one round of attacks, killed the thing by himself when the rest of the group had a hard time even touching the other one. And he’s a rogue.
“Good job,” Thrush says to the air, impressed.
“Thanks,” Gerontius grins, still unseen. He sheathes his daggers and wipes his hands on his cloak.**
Lillamere is studying the paper with the Prophecy of the Worms on it. He reads it aloud:
“The worms will eat at the fabric of orders and old ones shall be overthrown while the changes roil the seas and lands.
Lo, even the greatest ironies will occur, as great adversaries unite against unexpected powers from beyond their ken.
The City will rise from the Sea, and though they are insects they are mighty.
And the cockroaches spit for miles, and the worms must move underground.
Yet still the Eggs hatched and all that entails, yet still the eggs hatched and all that entails.
Young gods die that old gods may die. All is change and uproar, and the worms come to herd it along.
The Ancient Homeland will be reclaimed should they bring the grist to the mill.
Cogs can twist asunder under the weight of their own perfect motion if worms are in the wheels.
The coming of the Great Worm Xurkrischis from across the Great Distance will herald the rebirth of the hive, and they shall spread in a terrible blight.”
“I wonder if this was Xurkrischis,” N’Sari murmurs.
Rex snorts. “I doubt it. These things were easy. They barely hurt us. I have a feeling that this Xurkrischis will be a little tougher.”***
“Anyone know anything about the ‘City that will rise from the Sea’?” asks Lillamere. Nobody does. “And how about all this stuff about the Ancient Homeland?” Again, nothing.
“Well, the cogs and wheels probably refer to Mechanus,” Rex says. “It’s a planet of gears and cogs and wheels and stuff. In fact, it’s the Plane of Ultimate Law.”
“Great,” Sybele interjects. “Years ago a bunch of us- me, Angel, Sheva, Cicero, Zeebo and some others- were put on trial in the Court of Law in Mechanus. I don’t want to go back there if we can help it.”
N’Sari responds, “Well, but you won the court case, right? So everything should be fine, right?”
“No, we didn’t win, we tied the case up in red tape. It’s on appeal now. We won effectively, because the whole point was to get us away from these dragon eggs we were guarding- it’s a long a story- and we got freed up to go back there. But technically, if a ruling goes against us, we could be held there until the issue’s resolved, which could take years. Well, I guess I could be held; you guys are probably all right. But anyway, Law has a big stick up its butt. It isn’t worth going there, if you ask me.”
Gerontius laughs. “I think I like you guys! That’s a story after my own heart.”
“I wonder if it could mean the dragons?” Sybele asks suddenly. “Worms, right? Another word for dragon sometimes, isn’t it?” She ponders.
“So far,” points out Veil, “it’s been, well, worms. Weird ones, but worms.”
“Let’s go find out,” Rex says, growing bored, and leads the others past the nest and deeper into the tunnel. This spills out into a huge chamber, strewn with corpses: giants, humans, orcs, even an elf and a handful of dwarves. And the chamber is huge. And dominating the chamber is a terrible thing. What must surely be the most frightful looking creature in the multiverse moves slowly before them. Gigantic in proportion, it pulses and rumbles, emitting weird odors and strange noises. Stretching easily 70’ or more long, the hideous entity looks like nothing so much as a 10’ diameter strand of seemingly aware mucus. A gross, slimy perspiration seems to leak out of the thing all over, and while one end contains a bizarre set of hard-looking crusty ridges that disturbingly resembles a mouth, the other end has a long, tapered, spear-like protrusion of crusted mucus-like material dripping some foul-smelling yellow excretion.
“I think this is Xurkrischis,” opines Rex with remarkable calmness.
Next Time: Xurkrischis, the Horror from the Far Realms!!
*This is Kagera’s player’s new pc, of course.
**Gerontius is a rogue/invisible blade built to exploit his sneak attack. He successfully bluffed the worm on every attack, and denying it its dex bonus dropped its AC from 50 to 43- still, challenging, but he killed it with two attacks for 64 and 44 hp of damage.
***At this point, as an aside, I need to mention that the party has almost never referred to Xurkrischis by name (and it’s easy to pronounce, really: zer-KRIS-kis). They instead call it White Christmas, Go Mix It and other more offensive things. Unfortunately they mostly settled on White Christmas and that Christmas reference would pretty well break the feel of the game world if I put it in the story proper. But it deserves a reference, cuz it’s funny. Or maybe you had to be there. Anyway, the group still does this- and this game took place on September 11th, over two months ago!
