The party took a moment to catch its breath. Theryn sighed heavily as he treated his wounds. He painfully got to his feet, looked over his companions, and realized the decision he needed to make. “This is where I leave you,” he said. “What?” the party exclaimed. “Believe me, it is not my intention to abandon you in a time of need, but the longer I stay down here underground, the longer I realize that I am neglecting my true calling. My order calls me to walk the earth in search of enlightenment, and there is no light to be found here in the darkness. If we tarry here, we risk everything.” Varien nodded slowly. “This is not goodbye,” Theryn said. “But merely farewell.” He grabbed his bo staff, lit a torch and picked his way through the rubble, disappearing into the dark tunnel that led back to the surface. Nobody spoke for a long time. After a time, the party sensed it was time to move on. As Radegast gathered her things, something caught her attention. There were markings on the wall of the tunnel’s dead end, half-hidden by dust-laden cobwebs. Radegast brushed the cobwebs aside and took a closer look. The markings were words, scratched into the wall by a frantic hand. The message, if that’s what it was, was written in Ancient Netherese. Radegast concentrated, mindful of the lexicon she had been reading during whatever downtime she could manage. One by one, the letters began to resolve themselves into something she could recognize. WHERE LIES THE STRANGLING FRUIT THAT CAME FROM THE HAND OF THE SINNER I SHALL BRING FORTH THE SEEDS OF THE DEAD TO SHARE WITH THE WORMS THAT GATHER IN THE DARKNESS. Radegast realized she had been holding her breath and let it out slowly. “Guys,” she said, struck by a sudden certainty. “We need to get back to the Library.” “Why?” Varien asked. “The worms,” Radegast said. “Not the green ones infesting these zombies, but the blue ones in the jars. They’re the key to this whole mystery.” “Anything’s better than another secret tunnel,” Bob muttered. “Quickly!” Radegast said, rushing into the tunnel. The others followed. The party wound its way back through the spiraling tunnel and found themselves in a cavern strewn with the corpses of their enemies, left over from a previous battle. Ernie and Bert began to growl, their hackles up as the group picked their way through the rubble and the dead. “Step softly,” Varien said. He reached out with his divine sense and picked out the approaching forms of a pair of undead. “We are not alone down here.” He drew Talon from its scabbard and whispered a prayer. His prayer was answered by a scream from behind the group as a third undead, a wormspawn zombie, staggered out from behind a large boulder that had obscured Varien’s divine sense and ran full-tilt towards those bringing up the rear. Additionally, a prone corpse’s belly ruptured, and a bloody slurry full of writhing worms began inching forward. Other wriggling forms began to show themselves. Giant grub-like maggots wriggled out from corpses of other worms and closed in. Alec and Radegast each took a slashing attack from the wormspawn, but Alec managed to dodge a worm vomited in his direction. Xylon’s eyes widened at the approaching maggots. He cast burning hands , lighting them up. Ernie and Bert leapt towards the single zombie, biting and clawing into the creature. Erwen-Wolf couldn’t help but nothing that both of his conjured creatures were acting a little strangely, frothing at the mouth and yelping as if in pain. The druid understood. Those worms are inside my friends , he realized. He dropped out of wildshape and stepped forward. Ernie and Bert looked at him with doleful eyes. A single tear rolled down Erwen’s cheek. He cast erupting earth . The ground before him shook and a churning plateau of broken rocks heaved upwards, sweeping up Ernie, Bert, the wormspawn, giant maggots and the swarm of worms in a crushing collapse, slamming into the cavern ceiling with a tremendous crash. “Holy shi-” Bob shouted. The wormspawn zombie was caught fast in a pile of rubble, but reached out to claw at the nearest party member. Bob raised his hand and cast toll the dead . A dolorous ringing sound filled the cavern, causing the wormspawn to wither visibly under a necrotic blast wave. “Ha!” Bob said. “That’ll show-” A rock fell from the ceiling and struck his head. “Ow!” Bob cried, turning to Erwen. “Thanks a lot!” Erwen shrugged. Radegast drew her rapier and neatly severed the wormspawn’s spine. The creature tumbled to the ground, worms splashing every which way. Then she turned and fled for more stable ground as tremors began to rock the cavern. Radegast skidded to a halt as she realized the undead that Varien had sensed were shambling towards them. “Uh, guys?” she shouted. “Time to go!” Xylon said. He darted forward past Radegast into the tunnel and ran straight into the outstretched arms of the approaching wormspawn zombies. “Hell no!” Xylon cast burning hands on the oncoming creatures, lighting them up but not slowing them down in the least. The wizard kept his hands held out and cast shield, smirking as the howling zombies’ fists crashed ineffectually against the magical forcefield. Then a burrowing worm wriggled its way into his outstretched palm. “Ouch!” Xylon cried. Varien used his boots of striding and springing and jumped headlong through the tunnel, landing near Xylon. He cast eldritch blast on the two wormspawn. Erwen followed into the tunnel and saw the creatures menacing Xylon. He cast erupting earth again. “Erwen, no!” the party shouted in unison. The tunnel in front of them collapsed like a chewing mouth, grinding the two wormspawn. As the churning earth settled, the party could see a path forward, but it would be difficult going. The zombies dragged themselves out from under the chunks of blood-smeared rock, moaning. The caves began to buck and heave and a wall of rubble slowly filled in behind them. Cursing the druid’s choice of spells, Bob picked his way clear of the piles of rubble and pulled his wand of magic missile , sending a barrage of glowing darts at the wormspawn. Sheathing her rapier, Radegast pulled her dagger and darted in, grabbing a second dagger from Xylon’s belt, and slashed skillfully at the nearest wormspawn, slicing and dicing rotting flesh from its frame. The wizard cast burning hands again. To his horror, he realized he’d forgotten about the worm on his hand, which was now in his hand, wriggling beneath his skin as it traveled up his forearm. Xylon kept his shield up as the burning zombies continued their assault. Varien slashed at the scorched wormspawn. Rocks continued to fall as the cave system collapsed. “We’ve got to get out of here!” Bob shouted. Erwen nodded and wildshaped into a new form. As the rest of the party watched, the druid’s shape blurred and expanded into that of a majestic giant elk, whose antlers spread so wide that they scraped both walls and ceiling of the cave. Erwen-Elk snorted, lowered his head, and dashed forward, pushing rocks and wormspawn alike into a rolling morass as he plowed a pathway towards the tunnel mouth ahead of them. He shoveled the load of rubble out into the expanse of the pit, sending a cascade of rock, crushed worms, and shattered zombies into the void. Erwen-Elk pulled up at the last minute, his hooves at the very edge of the precipice. Alec crawled beneath the elk’s legs and grabbed for Radegast’s ropes, beginning to pull himself overhand towards the main level of the ziggurat. Varien grabbed Xylon and shouldered his way past the wildshaped druid. “What about the other tunnels?” Xylon said, holding his forearm in a vain attempt to keep the worm from continuing to burrow up his limb. “We’re going up, not over!” Varien said, reaching for the rope. “But what if there’s loot?” Xylon complained. Xylon looked at the rope, and then looked at Erwen-Elk. He cast spider climb on the druid and climbed onto the elk’s back. Erwen-Elk walked up the sheer surface of the pit, Xylon hanging on for dear life. Bob got to the edge of the tunnel, rolled his eyes at the spectacle, and misty stepped his way to safety. Radegast jumped for her rope and swung away from the mouth of the cave as the tunnel collapsed once and for all behind her. The party caught its breath, sprawled on the tiled floor of the ziggurat’s main hall. “Someone get this worm out of me!” Xylon cried. Bob began to methodically set out the tools in his healer’s kit. Varien knelt down beside his friend, placed his hand over the wriggling part of his arm, and tapped into his celestial light, casting remove curse . There was a flash of light, and the worm inside Xylon was no more. Bob stared at the paladin for a moment and shook his head. “‘We need a healer in the party,’ they said,” he grumbled. “Meh.” “We need to plan our next course of action,” Varien said, ignoring Bob as he straightened up. Erwen-Elk snorted and stamped his hoof, a snatch of otherworldly poetry on his mind: O’ artifice, invert thy shape unlike its antlers Point for me the way; If where my dreams are, Pirate of the freeze, - do trees become lancers; Irrelevance lies still too, as the snow slows far Eidolons shall drift in search for many answers. Radegast pointed towards the library. “Our answers are there,” she said. “I have a feeling that Netherese magic is at work.” Varien turned at looked down into the pit. Then he closed his eyes, beginning to pray. But not to Sune. He prayed for guidance from the Celestial Light. “Oh Sacred Flame, what should I do?” As he stared into the pit, he heard a voice whisper like ash inside his head. Illuminate the Dark Below… As Varien watched, the green fog that swirled in the dank darkness of the pit took on a new malevolence. Bob prayed to his deity, and swore he could hear Sune sobbing quietly. He received no further guidance. Xylon also sent up a prayer to Sune, and was rewarded with a sensation not unlike being held to a woman’s heaving bosom. He realized why most priests of Sune chose to pray in seclusion, usually with a lock on the door. As the rest of the party tended to their wounds or were otherwise occupied, Radegast entered the library and made a beeline for the jars full of worms on the long table in the centre of the chamber. She stood before the jarred worms, which turned lazily in the clear fluid. She took a deep breath and recited the Ancient Netherese words she had seen scratched into the tunnel walls. “Where lies the strangling fruit that came from the hand of the sinner?” she said haltingly. The worms twitched in unison. She had gotten their attention, it seemed. “I shall bring forth the seeds of the dead to share with the worms that gather in the darkness,” Radegast continued with confidence. The worms grew agitated, writhing until the liquid in the jars frothed unpleasantly. Radegast waited. From one of the stacks nearby came the unmistakable sound of a leatherbound tome sliding from its place to fall onto the stone floor. “Aha!” Radegast said triumphantly as she walked down the aisle to where the book had come to rest. She picked it up. It was a heavy volume with its title embossed on the front cover in Ancient Netherese. She read the title. The Chamber of Hosts. “Now we’re getting somewhere,” Radegast said.