The Thunder Worm
9/16/370 O.L.G., 4 p.m., the Temple of Elemental Good
The crack and boom of thunder echoes through the little valley the Temple of Elemental Good sprawls within. There are literally hundreds of people there, now, between Lester’s religious followers and those enrolled at his school for adventurers. Many of them hurry inside as fat drops of rain start to drop down from the pregnant clouds above. Others stay out for the moment, finishing important tasks or covering things that might be harmed by a storm. Lightning flashes, followed by another boom, very close by.
A group of four miners from the surrounding mountains come jogging up, mostly out of breath. Their foreman, though, is a tough dwarf. He has kept his breath easily; and now he shouts out, “Help! Help! There’s trouble!!”
Inside the the temple building, Sybele, Gerontius, Horbin and Inoke are relaxing over a cup of tea. Seconds later their cups are left behind, forgotten, Inoke’s overturned in his haste.
”What’s going on?” calls Horbin as he rushes out the front of the building.
“Some sort of
worms,” the dwarf cries, horror in his voice.
“The prophecy,” exclaims Gerontius, adding a colorful curse.
“Where?” Inoke demands.
“O-over the crest,” gasps one of the other miners. The rain is starting to pound down steadily. “By the mines.” He points.
“How many? What kind of worms? Where are they?”
“They... you can’t miss them.” The human, too, shudders. “There are a lot of them... and they’re
huge.”
Inoke grunts. “Let me get my armor,” he declares, hurrying back inside.
***
4:20 p.m., in the Bendrock Mountains near the Temple of Elemental Good
Our heroes ascend quickly, finally reaching an outcropping from which the four of them can see the worms in question. Gerontius gives a choked, wordless cry. There are indeed a lot of them; and they are indeed huge. Mostly twined together in a ropey mass, boiling forth from a collection of holes soaked in weird mucus and slime, the worms vary wildly in appearance. Some crackle, some are furry, some are pale; some move quickly, some are eyeless, some appear to be made of glass or metal or wood. Some are slithering away, some are boring into the ground.
“Those are disgusting!” exclaims Sybele. The wind whips around the group. From their current position, they can see that the clouds are roughly at their height.
“Agreed,” nods Horbin. “But what do we do about it? Lester and Orbius are off getting supplies for the temple, and the others went shopping with them.”
“They largely appear to be going down into the holes,” Gerontius remarks. “We could take one that’s on its own from the air- that way we probably won’t have too much trouble with it.”
They decide that, as much as anything, this is probably a good idea. So the group takes out one worm from the air in an amazing and quick display of long-distance damage infliction, then returns to the outcropping. By now most of the worms have gone underground.
“Well, that’s a good start,” Gerontius says.
“Except that now those worms are all in the mountains,” Inoke remarks.
“Hmm, somehow I thought ‘worms’ would mean dragons,” Horbin muses. “You know, I think-“
BOOOM!!!
Suddenly there is a thunderous loud crack of sound that blasts through our heroes. They scream in pain as their skin is abraded, their teeth cracked, their guts vibrate nauseatingly by the incredible sound.* Then one of the clouds uncoils and strikes! There’s a blast of lightning and thunder and Inoke staggers back, shaking his head to clear it. Electrical burns cover him.
”This thing is dangerous!” he cries, pulling out Deadly Avalanche. He splits his mind in two, and his ‘spare brain’ then
expands him immensely. Never a small man, Inoke is suddenly almost 25’ high. Still, the cloud worm is considerably bigger.
Sybele drops back, firing her bow as she goes. Some of her arrows pass through it harmlessly, but some of them actually manage to deal damage to it. Gerontius uses his
ring of invisibility to vanish and then attacks from surprise. The worm, meanwhile, shrugs off an attempt at
destruction levied by Horbin, and then touches him and discharges another blast of lightning and thunder. Inoke pounds at it with no success, as his club just whizzes through the worm’s immaterial body.
Horbin gets off a
mass heal just in time to save Gerontius’ life. The worm emits another bone-shattering
BOOOM!!!!!, and the halfling staggers.** “That one was even worse than before!” he rasps. “I can’t take another of those!”
Horbin casts another
heal on him, and he keeps attacking it on one side while Inoke takes its other flank. The worm squeals electricity and lashes out, but this time our heroes are working together on a roll. They time things right, and luck is with them; their magic weapons all bite signficantly into the worm, and finally Inoke lands one last crushing blow on it and it explodes into vapor.
“That thing was
tough,” Gerontius says, shaken. “I think we should wait for the others before going after any more of those things. That one could have killed me easily, if it had attacked me before you healed me.” He shivers at the thought. “I don’t want to be worm food!”
“I think you’re right,” Inoke replies. “We need the others.”
***
5 p.m.
The angel wheels through the sky, flying through the heart of the storm and then dropping like a stone above the site of the worms.
They might be a threat to his friends.
Alcar, former Angel of Food, has spent the time since his return from death meditating and praying. There is very little that he desires; but more than anything, he wants his backpack back.
Alcar sighs inwardly.
His
backpack of infinite food was taken from him by his so-called superiors in Heaven. He must earn it back. Well, did he not always use it for good? What lesson is he to learn? The frustrating thing is, there
is a lesson, he is sure of it, and as long as he is blind to it, he will not be given back his backpack.
The Temple of Elemental Good lies not far from here. It is where he was restored to life. The temple belongs to Lester, one of Alcar’s few friends. They’ve been through a lot together, by Galador! They went through
Fuligin together! Alcar can’t let the Temple of Elemental Good go unwarned!
He wings his way to the west, towards the valley of the Elementalist.
Next Time: Alcar joins the party! Our heroes go worming!
*This basically went like this: “Everyone make a Reflex save... What’s the highest? Okay, you all fail. 102 points of damage each.” Ouch, that’s a rough opening move!
**This time the thunderous boom did 122 hp. Gerontius, who was at full, has 128 maximum.
