As the group advances past the mysterious pool, the dim corridors go silent. A chill descends upon the passageways of cold, smooth marble.
~So,~ says the voice, pounding and unignorable, but also very calm, ~You're here. I appreciate your punctuality.~
The green light grows brighter as the group draws nearer. ~I know that you are no doubt intent upon finishing this. I am responsible for the deaths of your own, and I understand the pain this causes. But before you enter into a battle you cannot win, there is something you should know.~
At the end of the ramping hall, a grand chamber opens to a height of eighty feet. To the right is a tall octagonal column of jet-black stone, glowing with green symbols running up one of its faces. A deep pool of placid green liquid stands before the column, bathing the entire chamber in an otherworldly light. The party stands before a balcony forty-five feet above the floor, with no apparent way down.
~I am as much a victim in this as you are. What I did was not on my own initiative based on any personal antipathy, but at the request of an old ally who I believe has ill used me.~ Floating above the pool is a humanoid form with rubbery grayish flesh, dressed in black robes, wielding a long rod of twisted, red hot metal and bone. Its head is hairless and bulbous, with four long tentacles where its mouth should be, and its form shifts with the by-now familiar displacement effect.
It is, of course, Zyrxog.
"Something is coming," he says aloud, his voice utterly inhuman, inconsistent, like the many-pitched whine of a deafening mosquito. "My ally has plans for a new age, and he does not act alone. The worms are naught but the beginning, Ilthane but a mentally diseased puppet of older evils."
Down below, Farrukh can hear two normal octopins clutching the wall right beneath the balcony's edge, ready to strike. Eben and Carina can hear one of the two. "Master," hisses the hound archon back to Rodrigo, "I cannot hear them, but I can smell at least three creatures like that corpse in the other room." Farrukh also spots something in the pool, something large and totally submerged. It's not moving.
Towards the far end hums an enormous swarm of what at first appear to be insects. With shining green carapaces and long sharp stingers, they appear fairly mundane—until the party realizes that this cloud's "humming" is in fact nonstop Abyssal gibbering. Every single insect is making the sound, and so it's too garbled to be understood from this far off. That's probably a blessing.
Zyrxog continues. "I wish to learn more of this Age of Worms. Rot and decay are not any more in my interests than they are yours, you know, and what my old ally has planned could be my undoing. So here comes the part where you make a choice.
"You can fight me, and lose, and I will enslave those of you who survive. You can flee, and I will catch you, and I will enslave those of you who survive. Or you can surrender now. Put aside your pride and submit to my will.
"I can teach you much that Eligos does not know. I can fund you, guide you. You can be my agents, learning more of the writhing doom, and I will leave you the freedom to exercise your own judgement in how best to combat it. With my help, we can put an end to this foul prophecy and save the world. When the struggle is over, I will even release you. You do not strike me as practical long-term servants—you are willful and arrogant, full of dangerous emotions that are not conducive to extended servitude to any but a god.
"You are weary, and angry, but that is not my doing. Put aside your hunger for vengeance and see that my way is the best way to protect that which you care so much about. Submit to my will, and we can accomplish great things together."
Farrukh scans the room carefully, noting the visible threats, and speaks to Zyrxog to buy time.
"What exactly do you mean, 'submit to your will'? Work for you, or do we have to submit to the whole Domination thing?"
Rodrigo whispers to the others, "Sounds reasonable to me, but wasn't my friends he killed. This one is on you guys."
"Domination is unreliable and easy for others to detect. There are more subtle ways to control. You would all submit to a simple seal that would prohibit you from disobeying my commands. While under my control, you would act in the best interests of your master and otherwise be free to do as you see fit. The seal would be removed if and when the matter is resolved."
"That's definitely a reasonable precaution when dealing with people like us." Farrukh says, nodding his head.
"When would the matter be considered resolved, exactly? Is there a time limit, or just whenever whatever this is is sorted out?"
Tanith stares at Farrukh is disbelief and levels his poleaxe down at the figure below. ”Your minions killed our friends and ate Astraden’s godfather”, he growls. ”We’re here to settle the score and you’re as insane as you are ugly if you think we’d work for you. We will stop this ‘writhing doom’ and the ‘Age of Worms’ but we don’t need a monster like you to do it.”
The big Kordite grabs for the extract Carina gave him earlier. ”For Cuetzpalli. For Astraden’s Godfather.”
"My immediate priority is to investigate the activities of my colleague. While that potential threat is being addressed, I would work with my own contacts and attempt to discover Ilthane's location. You would—"
Tanith's tirade gives the illithid a moment's pause. He sounds annoyed when he speaks, this time in the mind again. ~So be it.~
The mind flayer lifts up five feet. ~Quite. A. ~ The last word screams through the party's heads, blasting into their brains and driving all thought from their bodies.
One of the octopins clinging to the wall goes stiff, though it doesn't fall.
"You DOLT, Tanith, I was trying to get some useful information from the guy before picking a fight! Maybe we could have gotten him into a more vulnerable position!" Farrukh says, looking at Tanith in frustration...just before being hit with the crippling Mind Blast.
Astraden's visage grows dour as she hears the word of more octopins. We could barely even take the last one . . .
"Tanith, wait, - S!$$"
The cleric's nose begins bleeding afresh as she weathers the mental assault, her speech slurring into sounds alien to human ears before coalescing back into recognizable speech. "- I think we need to retreat."
Will (protection from evil/law, good hope): 1d20 + 11 + 2 + 2 ⇒ (15) + 11 + 2 + 2 = 30
Will (protection from evil/law, good hope): 1d20 + 11 + 2 + 2 ⇒ (5) + 11 + 2 + 2 = 20
Carina's sheer disbelief and shock at Farrukh's words is short-lived as the mind flayer's mental assault crashes against her mind. Thanks to the combination of the magic around her and her own anger, all the blast does is make her blink and give her a headache.
"We're not that easy to break." She growls in defiance.
Seeing Farrukh go stiff, Astraden reaches forward and hooks the hilt of her rapier over his shoulder, pulling him back. She then side-steps as he crashes to the floor, smiling in spite of the situation, and moves up to take his place. Then, standing on the edge of the precipice, she sheathes her blade and shouts, "Olidammara, bless us fools!"
Eben, his mind already weakened from the giant brain statue's rendings, nearly succumbs to the mind flayer's mental assault, but his rage (and more than a little bit of magic) pulls him through. "I can see wanting to pretend to hear him out, but really, I doin't think even I could have faked the fact that we never planned on doing anything but cutting this thing's head off and sticking it on a pole outside the Crooked House," he says through clenched teeth.
Seeing Farrukh go stiff, Astraden reaches forward and hooks the hilt of her rapier over his shoulder, pulling him back. She then side-steps as he crashes to the floor, smiling in spite of the situation, and moves up to take his place. Then, standing on the edge of the precipice, she sheathes her blade and shouts, "Olidammara, bless us fools!"
[dice=Spell resistance vs. Zyrxog, if applicable]1d20+7
[dice=Vs. archon]1d20+7
Zyrxog looks on impassively as the spell washes off him harmlessly.
The octopin still alert climbs up so that it is right along the edge, then unleashes its attacks against the archon.
The archon is unaffected by its single hit, however.
Suddenly, another octopin appears, level with the party. It is skittering over on the wall to also attack the archon. It enjoys slightly better luck as its claw leaves a shallow cut along the noble creature's cheek.
Tanith grits his teeth as Zyrxog's unseen blast bombards his mind. He shakes it off and steels himself for whatever comes next.
"You know guys, I'm willing to bet that other corridor connects with the stairs we didn't go down before. In case you guys think it would be smarter to run down there instead of being pinned up on this balcony. And we can get there nice and fast too." Eben gives a shake of his glass rod, presses the button, and unleashes a quick-cast spell over the party, who feel electric speed running through their tendons, all the while trying to avoid the gaze of the octopins.
Unaffected by the slowing gazes of the tentacled creepers, Eben sends a salvo of adamantine arrows Zyrxog's way.
The arrow tears through Zyrxog's flesh—or, it seems, rips away something fake; some sort of false life dwelling over his normal form, granting him an additional buffer against annoying arrows.
[dice=Knowledge (planes) (good hope, prayer)]1d20+6+2+1
"Carina, bomb those things as soon as you can," Astraden calls back. "It's a vescavor swarm, from the Abyss. Poison f#%+s up your head."
"Which sort of bombs?!" Carina calls forward. "Fire or ice?"
"Oh, um - ice, I'd guess?"
As if reacting to Astraden's warning, the vescavor swarm flies quickly to immerse Astraden, Farrukh, Tanith and the hound archon. As they are immersed, the nonstop ravings of the creatures can be heard—and though their meanings are impossible to decipher, all those within suspect they would be extremely troubled were they not protected against compulsions. Even so, it's extremely unsettling. The voices bring in images and concepts unwanted, troubling the heroes.
The creatures begin ripping into those they can reach—and also attacking the weapons and armor they can reach.
Astraden keeps her mouth firmly shut, careful not to let the swirling motions of the vescavors get to her head. When she realizes they're going after it, she quickly tucks her holy symbol under her chainmail.
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The hound archon winces as the octopins gaze at him. Then the swarm surrounds him and starts eating him. He begins barfing in slow motion as his sword shatters. In between puking he manages to say, "I hate you, master." Then he swings his sword at one of the octopins, which he misses.
Rodrigo, seeing how this is probably going to turn out, casts a protective spell on himself.
As the swarm advances, Carina twirls a bomb in her hands and lobs it into the swarm!
"Sorry about this, Canis!"
She then takes several steps backwards to get out of the hallway! "Tanith! Can you get Farrukh out of that hallway?!"