To Forrester and Maudlin, who just received the Bad News, and to everyone else who soon will, I have a new treat for you.
My treats, you do not want, but here it is, whether you want it or not.
Rhialto states:
By the way, no reason to steal from the Shade--we've just become allies.
Also, we're dumping the Blood around like there's no tomorrow--spoiling enemy crop lands, evaporating
slums... you get the idea.
- - -
So, with the Shade and the Black Brotherhood working together, the Red Goo is being spread rapidly, dumped into major lakes, dumped into rivers, dumped over prime cropland, dumped into cities, dumped everywhere.
And everywhere it is dumped, it produces more of itself, and more, creating new ponds and even lakes of Red Goo as the ground dissolves.
The fumes from all these pools rises into the heavens, and fills the air with it's pungent smell.
All over Oerth, people become elated, or sick, or manifest strange behavior.
The fumes continue to build, and a reddish halo appears around the sun over many parts of the Flanaess.
Where the sunlight comes through that reddish haze, crops become blighted, fungus and mold growing on them.
A great part of the summer crop of the Flanaess was just ruined irrevocably.
Where the sunlight touches the trees, the leaves become spotted, some of them turning yellow, some wilting and drooping.
A distant smell of rot comes along the breeze.
Lakes cloud, the water tasting awful, making those who drink it feel lousy.
The reddish light tinges the clouds with scarlet, turns the sky purplish, throws a fatal vermillion upon the cities of the Flanaess.
Where people stand exposed to the reddish light, they feel it keenly.
It is unpleasant.
Long exposures cause rashes, sores, and very long exposures cause boils and bleeding.
This ill effect in the atmosphere is spreading far and wide, as the Shade and the Black Brotherhood spread the goo without control.
10th level magic will stop the reddish haze from spreading into new lands, where there are no pools or lakes of goo.
10th level magic can be used, slowly and painfully, to erase the pools of goo and lessen the sickness.
But the Shade and Black Brotherhood are spreading the illness far faster than any 10th level magic can halt it.
Meanwhile, the Shade Poisoning of Oerth continues to deepen.
The Nyr Dyv and Wolly Bay are now completely dead.
Travel over them by ship is impossible, because the water has turned into a yucky grey mud-like substance.
The illness deepens in the lands around the Nyr Dyv and Wolly Bay, spreading to all of the Pomarj, spreading through all of the County of Urnst, spreading northward through the Shieldlands and clear up to Riftcrag in the north.
It spreads westward into southeastern Furyondy and as far west as the Kron Hills.
Everywhere, trees wilt and their leaves turn grey.
The fields rot, crops failed, a greyish sheen covering crops and meadows.
Birds fall out of the sky, animals wander out to die in the grey meadows.
Rivers turn dark, their sound muted, and drinking from them becomes deadly.
- - -
Vecna, seeing this, smiles.
He will watch the world die, and then resurrect it in his own image.
But first, he will destroy the only hope that Oerth has of survival.
He will destroy the only people with any hope of gaining 11th level magic in time to stop the spread of the illness, and reverse it.
He will unleash the City of the Gods on the Torilians, and watch them be destroyed.
Vecna (who hopefully sets a new definition of the word EVIL) smiles, and speaks:
Revenge IS a dish best served cold.
Revenge, is mine.