Outside, the old man glares at Tanith, but holds back. "Why should I believe you?" he growls. "The word of one priest over another? I worshiped Kord long before I met Forwell, and the Kordian priests in this city are a bunch of festering fools! He's the best thing to happen to our faith in years. And what are you?"
"Nobody important. Just the people who've saved this city from not just one, but two insidious threats lurking under our feet."
Hearing the old man defame the late Varda makes Tanith clench his fists in anger.
"Varda was a good man and the Muddle's suffered without him. The only fool here is you if you're going to continue falling for Forwell's tricks."
Tanith's booming voice becomes a growl as he begins to pick up on the clues.
"You knew what Forwell was up to. You were part of it you piece of s%@@. Come here, I'll show you who the festering fool is."
"Wait, he was in on it? I'm off my game today."
"You know, I'm still pissed about you insulting my friend too."
"You're lucky I don't feel like facing mob justice."
Farrukh steps in and (nonlethally) turns him into pulp.
Farrukh cuts shallowly along the man's forehead and neck, catching him severely off-guard.
Rodrigo's mephit breathes fire again.
This time, the fire breath proves substantially less effective, though it does burn away a few more.
Johannes, meanwhile, is horribly burned. He writhes on the ground, somehow still alive but screaming in pain.
Knowing its greatest threat is attempting to escape, the Forwell crawls and skitters, screeching, after the undine alchemist.
Hurt.
Hurt.
Hurt.
As Carina struggles away from the swarm again, she realizes that the spiders are beginning to crawl upon each other, slowly coalescing into a form once more.
Initially off-balance (and badly bloodied) from Farrukh's attacks, the man recovers swiftly, slashing at the slayer with remarkable skill. Despite his age, he seems to know his weapon very, very well. As it cuts into Farrukh, it crackles with electric energy, zapping him repeatedly.
Farrukh and Tanith see a number of townsfolk approaching from up and down the road. They look alarmed. A few of them look familiar—Doran and Nordan, the alchemist's part-elven sons; Yalexex, the arrogant artist, Mistress Crump; some of the workers from Wake's Construction warehouse, etc.
Carina manages to shake off the nausea again!
She runs back to the half-orc priestess' side, throwing a bomb as she moves.
Hurt.
Hurt.
Hurt.
"Finally, something I WANT to do to you."
One of the horsefly swarms is burnt to a crisp by Carina's bomb. The spiders, meanwhile, fall by the thousands—yet more rise up in their place, chittering angrily, as a solid shape begins to form once more.
Astraden points a finger at the silver dagger on her belt, muttering, "Tem ne meneye vozdukh," and sends a little greenish spark into the hilt. Suddenly, all sound around her ceases completely, and she runs after the spider swarm with the dagger in one hand.
Farrukh, pissed, decides to just try and kill the old fart.
"All right that's it. The kid gloves are off, a*&++$&."
Farrukh cuts brutally into the old man until, on his last slash, his klar blade slices straight into his throat and brings him bloodily down.
The townsfolk approaching stop and stare, wide-eyed with horror.
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"It's uh...not what it looks like. His boss is a bug!"
Tanith hesitates at the sight of the mob. How many more of them had been in league with Forwell?
"Stay back!" Mega-Tanith warns. "Forwell's been playing all of us. He was feeding the old folks of the Muddle to a giant spider. This bastard was in on it."
The big man pauses to reflect on the fact that the story didn't sound any less crazy no matter how many times he repeats it.
"The Fire. Varda's Death. It was all a setup to turn you from Kord's strength and into Forwell's fangs."
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Farrukh cuts brutally into the old man until, on his last slash, his klar blade slices straight into his throat and brings him bloodily down.
The townsfolk approaching stop and stare, wide-eyed with horror.
Tanith joins them.
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"What? Whaaat? Look at this! I'm bleeding all over the place from where that guy stabbed me. Three times he stabbed me!"
Tanith positions himself to keep the mob from stumbling into the shrine and becoming swarm chow.
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Eben is vaguely aware of Tanith and Farrukh outside, trying to make yelping excuses for public murder, but at the moment he's too focused on the remaining bugs indoors to realize things are about to get ugly.
Instead, he takes a step to fire off another snapdragon at the remaining swarm of flies. Johannes, for his part, crawls blindly along the floor, leaving a glistening trail of burned skin and blood behind him like a macabre slug. If only the poor fool hadn't had his yees devoured by that last swarm, he might have known that he was crawling headlong into the other one...
Eben turns to face the re-assmebling form of Forwell. "... ... ... ...", he says smugly, deeply pleased that he just thought of the greatest witticism of his life that would be appropriate only under these extremely specific circumstances.
Eben burns away the rest of the swarm as Forwell reels from the biting quip.
The mephit moves over to the other swarm—Forwell—and waits for its breath weapon to recharge. It waits a moment, then, clearly bored, takes a swipe at the prone Johannes.
It chatters something at Rodrigo in Ignan, shrugging.
A high-pitched, clicking laugh comes from the doorway. The swarm crawls there, and, before everyone's eyes, rises and stands. A man made of spiders, devoid of face or feature but slowly taking on the basic shape of Forwell Hog, laughs at the lot. "Edane did not know the half of my work. A bitter old man with too many grudges, too many stinging wounds, too many words he wanted too desperately to hear. Just another useful maggot within the great rotting corpse that is your fair city. Come and fight me, if you dare. The outcome matters little. Soon the Gem of the Flanaess will crack and crumble away entirely, leaving only the vermin to feed upon your bloated, walking carcasses."
As he speaks, spiders seem to crawl from the dirt and grass, replenishing their numbers.
Seeing Forwell's monstrous face, several in the crowd scream and run. Most linger, however—Nordan and Doran, the part-elven brothers; a sleepy-looking Tarquin; a vaguely familiar-looking man in his thirties; Mistress Crump; Ageelia from the Yarpick Roast; Souf the lizardman; Jharan Hubris of the tattoo parlor, and a short, balding human recognizable as Meply of Meply's Alchemical Curatives. They hang back nonetheless, all showing varying shades of wariness.
Carina glares at the Forwell-beast. "Too bad you won't be around to see it, abomination."
She draws another bomb vial, this one misted over and with frost trailing from its cork. She throws it after giving it a good shake!
Carina's bomb lands straight in the center of the Forwell's chest cavity just as the spiders crawl over it to complete the coalescence.
BOOM.
Frozen spider-bites are sent flying—one striking Johannes in the eye socket—as the swarm is nearly blasted to bits. The figure trembles, shakes, barely still standing.
Tanith is equal parts impressed and annoyed at how calm the crowd is about the whole reveal.
"It'd help if you guys backed up now", the big kordite explains. "We're going to kill the monster and we wouldn't want any of you getting hurt."
The northern crowd is already starting to edge away as Forwell moves nearer to them.
Astraden grunts in annoyance and steps into the doorway, lobbing the dagger point-blank towards Forwell's center. She pulls her rapier from its sheath silently.
The dagger passes through Forwell's masses, skewering a single spider.