Astraden speeds through the questions as quickly as possible, cognizant of Carina's grumbling. "One. When did you die? Two. Did Sruggut betray Kyuss, or the other way around? Three. Did you serve Kyuss? Four. What was your purpose before death? What is the spellweaver lich's greatest power? And six - where did you live?"
The corpse speaks in Flan.
"I don't know who Sruggut is. I think he was one of the mages who managed the books.
"Yes.
"I served as a guard at the gate, but I did get to hold some artifacts once while another man polished them.
"His magic.
"In the house with the crane weathervane on the roof, right next to the grocer's house on the street corner, across from the pond."
"Well, that was efficient. Thanks," Astraden says, letting the corpse collapse backwards. "Should've expected that," she mutters.
As the only other Flan-speaker besides Astraden in the room, Eben is rolling his eyes well before the corpse is done. "Well, that's super useful. Gotta love those literal minded dead."
Cuetzpalli likewise stands by as their enchantments run down. "What now?"
"Oh, that's right, you can speak Flan. What did it say?" Astraden asks Eben.
"Now I take Eben, Farrukh, and Sruggut out of here," she tells Cuetzpalli as she stands and walks towards the naga's room. "You'll have to survive a few minutes without my scintillating personality," she says with a self-effacing grin.
"Literally, nothing useful. Did you know liches use magic?" Eben runs down the list of other answers the dead man gave.
"Great. Sounds lovely." Carina cringes and looks around at the spire's walls. She fingers her bombs as she feels her protective extracts start to expire.
Cuetzpalli shrugs, and begins scratching at the tight spots under his armor.
"Hm. Yeah, I did."
As the party walks to Sruggut's chamber, Astraden casts some more protections on the group.
"So how does this spell work? Do we all have to hold hands or something? Does that mean one of us has to put their hands on Sruggat's wormy skin? Because NOT IT." Eben says, invoking the sacred anti-dibs clause honored by five year old children everywhere as the group heads back to the naga wizard's room. As he goes, he refreshes his various protective magics.
Sruggut looks up as Eben, Farrukh and Astraden arrive. It stares at them, and again they feel that the gaze attack is being actively suppressed. "Oh, good. You came back. More questions? Or is it time to leave?"
"Yeah, you all need to hold hands, and then I speak the name of the place in Abyssal and touch one of you. But it'll only be for a few seconds," Astraden reassures Eben as they walk.
"No questions until we're all safely out. It's time to leave," Astraden says. "I assume the worms won't bother you, so let's slither over to the exit room before I teleport us out. Just to reduce the chance of sneaky liches trying to hurt my friends as soon as the rest of us port." She points back northeast, then after making sure Sruggut follows starts fastwalking towards the complex's strange foyer.
Upon reaching the room, she rattles off one last spell of protection, then says, "Alright, Farrukh, Eben, and Sruggut, put your hands and various appendages in a power circle." When they have done so, she shouts, "Exodachtylídi!" and grabs Eben's hand, then concentrates hard. For a moment, the four of them seem to freeze in time, become unmoving flesh statues, and then they suddenly are gone as if they never existed in that space.
A ten-foot square outside the ring is suddenly filled with one worm naga, two humans, and a half-orc.
"This circle makes me feel very powerful."
Powerfully ill, but...
Carina feels her protective magics wink out one at a time, her false life and mutagen being the only things protecting her now.
Still, being invisible does have its perks.
She sidles up to Tanith and gives him a hug.
Eben grabs one of Farrukh's hands and lays the other upon Sruggart's moist, wrinkled hide. Ew ew ew ew ew hurry up Astraden... As soon as the spell is cast and the circle has moved, he breaks contact with the worm naga as soon as he can without being bltantly rude. And since 'rudeness' in this case is applied to the perspective of an ancient wormlike abomination, that is to say he removes his hand pretty much immediately, and might even be seen to surreptitiously wiping it off on his clothing after.
Astraden quickly extricates herself from the pile of people and nagas. "I, uh, did not realize that we would all land in the same space. Sorry about the cramped conditions." She nods up at the wall. "We should get up there to watch for them. Sruggut, wait down here."
Sruggut is looking around, squinting against the dim, clouded light from above. "Free. I'm free!"
Tanith chuckles and squeezes the invisible undine back.
As the cleric air-runs back over the sea, she says (a little out of breath), "Also, we should figure out who's going with me when I take Sruggut out. I can only take two others, besides the big worm naga. Maybe Eben and Cuetzpalli?
Astraden calls down as she ascends. "Yes, it's very touching. After like 2000 years or whatever you have escaped Kyuss' prison. Now keep an eye out for trolls, yuan-ti, and rowdy adventurers for us. Don't fight the rowdy adventurers, though."
Cuetzpalli begins truding up out of the worm-hell on the air.
Carina takes Tanith's hand and starts following suit.
"Hm?" Sruggut doesn't appear to be listening. "Oh, yes, yes. Of course."
The group reunites outside without incident, perhaps thanks to their speedy exit.
"We've learned a lot so far. Wonder if it's worth going back in..."
"Why not? If we find something especially dangerous, that means we'll probably learn even more. These things tend to work out that way."
Astraden waves hello as the rearguard arrives. "You got here quick. And yeah, I'm not sure. Before I thought it was just an endless sea of worms and nothing else, but maybe it'd be worth exploring to the south? We should chat with Sruggut before we make any decisions."
"Among other things, we still haven't learned exactly what took the monolith, or where it is now. If Kyuss is stuck inside that, then it's out there in the world like a ticking time bomb one of Carina's explosives attached to an hourglass..."
"Wasn't it a dragon that took it? There can't be too many of those big enough to carry a big ol' monolith. But that's true; it would be nice to find out where it is," Astraden says as she descends to near Sruggut.
"Who says the dragon physically carried it?" Carina pipes up as the others touch down. "Maybe they used powerful magic to move it elsewhere."
"Well, Farrukh said his vision showed the dragon flying away with it. Maybe that was the only way it could be moved outside the anti-Kyuss barrier. Maybe it teleported after getting it to the other side of the obsidian wall, though. Depends on what the dragon itself could do or who it was working with. Of course, that means it could be anywhere instead of somewhere relatively nearby."
"Sruggut, you know anything about that dragon? About where the monolith imprisoning Kyuss could have been taken?" Astraden asks, interrupting the naga's reverie again.
"And how long ago, exactly, did the monolith get stolen? Assuming you could tell from down below the Spire." Eben adds as a postscript to Astraden's question.
"Good question."
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"It was a great red," Sruggut says, beady eye twitching. "I did not always live below the ziggurat. A mortal wyrm. Greedy, I think. The wormcallers climbed up to fight it, but it seemed more interested in a souvenir than a battle. It was...a long time ago. Oh, so long, and the history becomes so clouded." It squints, as if trying to see something very far away. "When was it? There was the binding: the angels' foul work...and then there was silence. And then centuries. And then the wyrm came. And then...then...agh!"
Sruggut thrashes violently for a moment. Its loathsome form slaps wetly against the dead leaves beneath. "The Storm! The Storm! They hold me, too. Damn them! It doesn't matter what happened after the wyrm. It doesn't matter. What matters is, Kyu—uuugh!" It shudders and wretches, though this time out of fear, not out of frustration. "What matters is, the Wormgod is...as it was. It is fifteen hundred spins around the sun since the wyrm came. Fifteen hundred! And then came the...and the hateful Storm. And then..."
It takes a deep breath and speaks very delicately. "And then the Wormgod was quiet again."
"Huh, so something came after the dragon. You didn't tell us that before."
Astraden uses a bit of Olidammara's stored and prepared energy to examine Sruggut, muttering, "Ilmestys."
"Carina, you got any idea if we can break whatever's got Sruggut tongue-tied?"
Carina ponders Astraden's question.
"I didn't tell you nothing," Sruggut grumbles. "Nothing came after the wyrm. Nothing came here. It was far, far. The Storm. I can't speak of it. It's like breathing through sand."
With no established precedent, the chirurgeon is set to theorizing. If a magic did exist to conceal an event from history, whoever devised it might have an interest in hiding that very magic's existence—and would have the means to do so very effectively. If that's what's happening here, it would certainly explain why she's never heard of it. Perhaps this is some sort of ancient spell that bound all who knew of an event into silence. It would need to be something that erased texts, too, since there was clearly the written word two thousand years ago, and there would be some record otherwise. Some sort of epic magic that would have spanned a large portion of the world, if not the entire Material Plane.
If this is the case, it does appear to be weakened in some way—Sruggut can clearly get around the limitations to some degree. It might be that some of the creatures here are less affected than others.
"Hm. Maybe Manzorian can figure it out." Astraden points in a random direction forestward, intentionally not pointing towards the party's camp. "Should we take Sruggut back to camp and have it tell us its story there, or do it now?" she asks her friends. "There is, I think, something you still have left to tell us," she says to Sruggut. "Whatever you told Bucknard that freaked him out."
"Ah, yes." Sruggut bobs its head. "I told him the name of the wyrm that stole the monolith. Greedy creature. I did not know its name then, but I later learned it as...as that distant event transpired.
"It was the former consort of Tiamat, Dragotha the Mighty."
". . . Rings a bell." Astraden looks to Eben.
"Hmm... could be powerful magic, could be something entirely mundane..." Carina mumbles to herself as she puzzles things over.
Could be a spell that was specifically designed to bind all who witness a specific event to silence. That would have to be a massively powerful spell, though... and if it is, it appears to be weakening to some extent, if Sruggut can get around it.
However, it's more likely that she's just that scared of Kyuss. Or her memory is going. Or she's out of her mind.
"...Astraden, the way I see it, there's two possible answers to your question." Carina looks up at Astraden and starts tapping her foot. "One theory is that Kyuss bound his subjects to silence using magic to conceal the events that happened here from history. That'd require an impressive amount of spell power--it'd be a spell that would have to not only bind witnesses to silence, but erase all traces of it from paper, books, scrolls--basically, anything that could be used to record a message. That level of power, I feel, would likely be beyond even Manzorian's capabilities... it'd be a feat of magic straight out of myth."
"The alternative explanation is that Sruggut is simply that damn terrified of Kyuss to the point where even speaking his name is difficult for her to do, or that her memories have been, at best, distorted by extended periods of isolation and fear."
"Hmm. Interesting. That could explain why Bucknard came here in the first place - it's the only way he could hope to track down the info. But if the magic's weakening, or Sruggut's just scared - we could maybe get the truth eventually. Sruggut, how do you feel about coming back to our camp and eating some real food? Maybe this could be the beginning of a wonderful alliance."
Sruggut twitches, looking unsteady. "I think I would rather leave now, while I can."
"Oh, that's how Dragotha comes into all this? She's the one that stole the monolith. I wonder if that's what turned her undead. But damn, if that was a millennia and a half ago, that thing could be anywhere by now."
Eben looks somewhat nauseous at the thought of breaking bread with the worm naga, but tries his best to put on a cheerful face as he follows her lead. "Yeah, most of what we eat is just Astraden's conjured god-made food, so it's kind of bland, but Farrukh supplements that with stuff he hunts and forages up. You should try his roast plantains!"
Sruggut seems to warm to the idea. It sidles alongside Eben, giving a crescent-shaped smile. "Very well. I will...stay for dinner, at the least."
"Great. Let's see if we can rustle up some 'grub.' Ha ha." Astraden winces. "I wonder how Bucknard knowing Dragotha's name led to him leaving so quickly. He must know something we don't."
"I don't think I can find any plantains around here, but I can look for some proper spices if you want." Farrukh says, also a bit uneasy at the thought of eating in an enclosed space with this thing.
