The Sons of Bugman AEC had been busy. They would be paid (and paid well) for their work, but they were still stretched thin, like coalesced aether-gold being spread thin over armour plating. But they had done their job; a small fleet of metaliths was now attached to the great worm. Even now, as the Dawnbringer leadership were deciding which ones were to be brought low to create walls or watchtowers, and which were to stay aloft, The Sons were busy helping the refugees. “Refugees” was an odd term to use in this instance. Citizens of Nassolotyl that had worked on Neolotl were pouring off of all sorts of vehicles into the new city atop the worm. They had started the day prior as “Defenders of Nassolotyl”, had quickly turned into refugees, and within hours of arriving soon found themselves as unintended Dawnbringers. Such was life in Ghur, always moving, always having to adapt, looking for the next meal, yet always wary of the trap…
It was one of these refugees-turned Dawnbringer that first peered into a large crack in one of the metaliths that had recently been brought down on the future city’s outer edges. He saw a massive eye staring back at him, and was subsequently squashed as a cliff-face came crashing down over him. The bellow was heard across the new city as the metalith poured forth its force of tooth and claw, Gargant, Orruk, and Grot. The metalith had been hollow, and how Bristlewhakka had convinced such a crowd to keep as quiet and still as they had, only Mork knows. But they had done it, and although they had missed out on the siege of Neolotl, their party had just begun.
Further up the worm, at its head, another group that had allied themselves with Fauncrest now stood at the edge of a large outcropping. Lord Calaec, Glade Lord Dharnialas Alalvon and Glade Lady Vahy, as well as Raedheil Shorehaunter were among the few that now stood some distance away from their charge; Sylvene Lyonaver.
She had stood there, magic swirling about her for an age as the sun slowly fell towards the horizon, her fingers working away, pulling this way and that. Slowly, ever so slowly, a pool of sorts began to form in front of her. Up ahead, the great worms head ploughed through the earth, and the watchers could see both Nasson and Neolotl from their vantage point. They could tell they not only stood at a precipice in space, but also in history. Something was happening here, if only they had known what exactly was happening, they might not have chosen this particular path. If only.
The pool in front of Sylvene suddenly tore apart, reality itself splitting a half-kilometre into the air in front of the wizard. She turned to the small group and as light poured from the widening tear behind her, a shadow fell across her face. It was Lady Vahy who first cried out in horror, but Calaec caught her by the arm before she could rush forward. Sylvene smiled, her face melting with the grin as it turned manic. Power coursed through her body as she raised her hands, cackling in the setting sun. And then, as the threshold began to expand into a portal behind her, a massive black hand reached out and grabbed at her. For one last brief instance, the mask of insanity fell away from her, as scared eyes widened behind a cage of fingers. And then her head was pulled through the gap, leaving her body on the cliff with the assembled Dawnbringers staring up at what they had done.
Hogrog Ug Weirdklaw had been at work where Sylvene eventually pulled her portal together. As the sun had begun to lower, he had climbed to a higher vantage point and had watched the party of Aelves and men flee the scene as daemons flooded into the Mortal Realms. He had intended to snap his trap shut on these puny city-dwellers, but destroying a portal to the Chaos Realm and the infernal creatures that poured forth? Yeah, that would also do… a bashin’ was a bashin’.
As their world shifted high above ground, as power twisted and pulled atop a cliff, it was below ground in the deep and dark that Drakazra played with his own fate.
His forces had cut their way through the chaos on Neolotl, using cunning alliance and forceful battle, the followers of Drekazra had pulled through the city, like a scalpel through bloodied flesh. He had stood before the church but an instant before his entourage, accompanied by Xavian, rushed him into cover. It had not taken them long to find the stair, and they had descended down it for most of the day. The stair grew rougher as they went down, but a greenish glow always accompanied them as Xavian lit torch after ancient torch, down, and down. Eventually, it grew warm, and orange light soon fought and won over the green glow of Shyishian magic. They soon entered a small room, a library of sorts. How long the room had been there, and for what purpose it was made, not even Drekazra knew. But that did not matter, as it was closer. A stream of lava coursed its way through the middle of the room, and next to this stream Drekazra soon sat. Kneeling for a time, conjuring will or magic, or both, he began to shake. To Xavian’s horror, he saw the man throw his hands into the stream of fire. As the flesh pulled away from bone Drekazra cried out, but kept his hands in the flow nonetheless. It made him closer.
Deep below Neolotl something stirred. An egg, long created, and only ever whispered about by elderly hunters and crazed outcasts, had grown in peace for untold millennia. Until now. Drekazra poured forth his magic down through Neolotl, searching for the life force he hoped he would find there. As he cried out to the Necromancer for help, a well of power poured through him. Willpower seeking outward to Shyish while hands and magic sought down, he finally found the flicker in the dark. He struck out as soon as he found it, Amethyst magic struck at the egg, cutting down into the growing creature.
Drekazra could not tell how big the egg was or how developed the creature was, he could not even picture what form it currently took, or what it would have taken had it ever had a chance to hatch. He also did not care. Like the weavers of fate, Drekazra knifed his way through the Ghurite powers that tried to keep the creature safe. Neolotl himself lurched, causing ancient dust to drop down around Xavian and the group, while towers toppled and forges exploded far above them. And then he snipped it; the thread of life deep within the creature, he snuffed the life that had yet to escape into Ghur. Suddenly all stood still. Neolotle settled, and Nasson came to a grinding halt. Never had the citizens of Nassollotyl ever seen this. Not even Gorkamorka had seen them so still.
Both creatures then cried out, voices deep and full of sorrow, the two god-beasts lifted their heads to the night sky and cried out to a world that cared little for them.
But Drekazra was not yet done, and the bones that stuck out from his wrists beneath the flow of lava wove something new. He moved bone and flesh from afar, destroyed the egg about the being, and instilled a will found only in Shyish. Drekazra’s body then caught alight, and he himself poured down through Neolotl into the beast that now began to tear its way through rock, lava, and deep spring. It cut its way through its progenitor’s protective body, and burst forth into a realm it would see burnt to the ground. Ghur and Shyish had mingled here, amber and amethyst, life and death, beast and undead. Something new and old.
This short story is the third Act of the Vurm-tai Campaign. It is intended as an overview, and to be read in tandem with the various Quests that can be found in the Quest board that have been made specifically for the Campaign.
– The Weaver
