There, amid a massive nest of books, scrolls and papers, a large green naga looks up from his reading and raises an eyebrow at his guests. “Hello?” he says, an engages Yldar in cautious but curious banter. Looking at Vasco who has come down the hall, Sruggut, as he introduces himself, raises his eyebrow higher, could this learned elf help him get out he wonders, and proceeds to engage in a negotiation with Vasco over the potential use of teleport to get him out, anywhere out, beyond the obsidian ring. Zeek and Jorel join in the polite conversation in the room while Maeron and Nadroc stay just outside. The naga has no clear explanation for why he is unable to get beyond the obsidian wall himself, but does offer a curious view of his being another interloper in this ziggurat, avoiding the fate of an undead worm while spending extended time studying the vestiges of the powerful necromancy that Kyuss’ birthplace has to offer. Zeek, sensing that Vasco is extremely uncomfortable with the teleport request decides to end the conversation with a blow from his hooked hammer. The naga had expected such treachery and lets forth his sorcerous ways, nearly destroying Yldar with a spell that for Yldar luckily only grazed him. Suffering a few more hits and realizing that this may be his only way out, Sruggut moves over to Vasco and grapples his whole body around him with a fully charged Harm spell readied to course through him. Teleport me out or you die. Vasco agrees and the aggressive party carefully backs away and lowers their weapons. With Vasco just free enough of the naga’s grasp to cast the spell, Zeek recognizes that the spell Vasco is putting together is not the same teleport that they have done together before. He lets unleash a furious blow against the naga, who succumbs and is left dead. The battle has left the naga’s library of arcane and religious tombs smouldering with at least a quarter of the books in ruin.
Zeek, disrespectfully mocking the dead corpse of the naga he had just killed, asks for a further conference out in the hall and away from the smells of the burnt literary nest, to make further strategic plans for getting past the Overworm. While the conversation drags on the party’s minds are filled with an alien and unrecognizable voice. It soon clarifies into one that asks each of them to reveal how many of the prophecies of the Age of Worms have come to pass. Most other than Vasco don’t seem to actually know, and Vasco wisely suppresses the reply in his mind. The alien voice leaves and the strategy resumes.
And goes on for some half and hour.
Maeron, seeing her fallen comrades and the battle that has clearly been fought entirely on the Kyuss Knights terms, decides that powerful gifts are sometimes too long kept back, summons the Solar angel who committed to watching over her at Manzorian’s Fountain. The angel appears moments later and time appears to stop. The Solar immediately understands the situation, assessing the wretched evil these former Generals of Kyuss represent, and the precariousness between death (and subsequent undeath) and the goodness of life that this party may represent. Maeron humbly requests aid in destroying these evil Knights, and the Overworm that lurks in the room just behind them. Holy Words are uttered and the Knights are immediately destroyed. Time moves forward and the party sees their foes crumbling to the floor as the Solar walks over to the shore of the sea of worms. The worms part around him, not entering anywhere near his holy aura. The Overworm senses his presence and lunges up to smash and pulverize the new intruder. Again, time appears to slow down for Maeron and then arrow after glowing arrow is let loose into the Overworm. The party sees in one instant a whole slew of arrows bleeding out the Overworms’ festering unlife force, as it crashes into the sea of worms and is gone from the world forever. The Solar walks out and with a glace at Maeron, she knows that there is one final evil in this place, but which is for them to overcome.
The party heals, rests, regroups, and sits with new respect for Maeron and her connections with the gods (and their angels).
Eight hours later – the time of day or night now completely lost – debate over tactics is quite. Nadroc quietly suggests building a wall-of-force bridge to carefully walk over the sea of worms and see what is beyond the last two doors. Silence is exhausted consensus. Yldar walks over and sees the open door of the Generals quarters. They are once-luxurious rooms that reflect a now spartan eternity of undead brooding. Leaving that place, the party crosses the final span of the bridge over the sea of worms to the final double doors, listening for what might lay beyond.
Listening, their minds are filled again with the alien voice, again probing the question as to how many of the prophecies have already been fulfilled, and fades away. Yldar opens the door and sees sitting in an elaborately foreign room, arranged in unfamiliar ways for this world, and with a tall six-armed creature standing mutely in his metative space. Yldar asks who he is and it explains it is Mak’ar, an ancient spell weaver who has long ago come to favour undeath. Maeron realizes she has seen here her first lich. He continues to explain, mutely, through his thoughts, that he is the architect of the Ago of Worms, that he wanted to bring on the End Times for this world to draw on the vast necromantic power that would come of it. Vasco remembers more about the prophecies he had learned had not yet passed: “A tripartite spirit once again becomes one, and at its advice are the mighty undone,” and “On the eve of the Age of Worms, a hero of the pit shall use his fame to gift a city to the dead.” Mak’ar is listening to these thoughts and is pleased to know how far along the Age of Worms has come. He says that if he is finally destroyed here, then these may indeed be the people who bring the End Times on, while if he defeats them, then they are nothing but more bodies for Kyuss’ undead army.
The room melts away into darkness as the air fills with strange and frightening whis pers. It sounds as if a hundred different voices speak in a hundred different languages, but an instant later, the voices have joined into one and the language resolves into familiar words. These words speak of the prophecies of the Age of Worms, and as they speak, visions of the prophecies coming true manifest before you, allowing you to observe the events as if you were a god looking down upon a troubled world. The visions are violent and horrific. Legions of worm-eaten dead rise from soggy graves. An immense and demonic tree explodes into destructive life from the heart of an unfamiliar city. A burning comet lances down from the heavens to strike the earth in a tremendous, mushroom-shaped cloud of devastation. Another city, its town square wreathed in a cloud of black smoke filled with eyes, is held in the grip of shadows that move independently from their source. A cackling man attaches a clawed and withered hand to the bleeding stump of his arm, and the hand writhes into unholy life. A city built in the heart of a volcano suffers tragedy during a partial eruption that sees the collapse of its southeastern quadrant. As each of these scenes flash by, they are accompanied by a crushing sense of certainty—these events have already come to pass. Yet finally, the whispering voices speak of two more prophecies, and these are accompanied by blackness. “A tripartite spirit once again becomes one, and at its advice are the mighty undone,” the voices whisper. And then, “On the eve of the Age of Worms, a hero of the pit shall use his fame to gift a city to the dead.” After this, there is only silence.
They come out of this vision in time to feel the ground shake, knocking Jorel right to the ground. The massive spire has fallen down and crushed the obsidian ring outside and destroying much of the ziggurat above. None of Kyuss’ magic is left in tact within these inner chambers. It will not be long now before the creatures of the jungle around Kuluth-mar will become the new denizens of the ruined city.
Taking an hour to pick through the few treasures and valuables left in the now ruined ziggarut of Kyuss, the party loads up and teleports back to Magepoint to rest, recover, re-equip and debrief with the archmage Manzorian and his advisors who by now, they hope, have finished their research on the Ebon Triad and its links to Kyuss, whom they feel now they are much more knowledgeable about.
