In the aftermath of freeing the chapel of Iomedae from the followers of Kabriri, the champions of Kenabres rested overnight, prepared to spend the following day cleansing and restoring the chapel. They also discussed Nurah's apparent betrayal of them by siding with the demons. They still didn't know whether she had done so voluntarily or been compelled. She had also never before shown any sign of the ability to magically compel another person, despite Aron's belief that she had forced him to run for help. Zosta questioned why Asami had attacked Nurah and not one of the babau with her sphere of wind. Asami responded that she had wanted to stop Nurah from giving aid to the demons without doing her much harm, and she had also believed that her spells would have little affect on the babau. Jiro then suggested that Asami could have used that spell to knock the babau away from their targets, which could have denied them the opportunity to flank a single foe. Asami took that suggestion to heart and hoped she would have a chance to use it later.
The next morning Zosta observed Jiro and his monkey Bohgong going through the series of physical movements they performed every day, but on this occasion she paid more attention to it than she had previously. Coming so close to death on the day prior had given her a different perspective. After she completed her own morning stretching exercises, she approached and asked if she could learn some of the routines that Jiro was practicing. The previous day she had been unconscious when the rest of the group heard Bohgong speak, but the others had told her about it so she wasn't shocked when it was the white monkey who replied to her request. Bohgong advised her that they performed this routine at the same time every morning, clearly with the expectation that Zosta would join them from now on.
While Jiro and Zosta were busy exercising, Asami prepared her spells for the day, including one that would allow her to assist with cleaning the chapel. After Jiro was free, he asked her if she would use her ability to restore some of the magic to one of his wands, and she agreed. She had already used that ability to channel magic back into one of her own wands the previous evening, but Qi Zhong or Iomedae must have looked more kindly on her that morning, as she was able to restore more to Jiro's wand than she'd been able to do for her own.
Meanwhile, Runa gathered up the remains of the broken statue of Iomedae and assembled them together, annointing them with holy water, then encouraged all present to join her in a prayer. After praying with the paladins, she said a prayer of her own, then cast a specially-prepared spell to restore the statue. As she stood with her eyes closed reverently and her hands raised toward the heavens, the statue reassembled itself into its original state, as a figure of Iomedae standing with her hands upraised. When Runa opened her eyes she thought she saw a smile appear briefly on the statue's face before it assumed its original rather stern expression.
The spirits of the group were raised after witnessing the restoration of the statue. Irabeth, who had recovered a great deal of her lost strength, overheard some of the troops referring to her as "unkillable," a rumor that she quickly quashed. The group members all went to work then removing filth from the chapel buildings. Jiro pulled out weeds and dead plants, Asami removed demonic inscriptions, and Zosta carried broken stones and furniture. When most of the clearing and cleaning had been done, Irabeth called on Iomedae's power to consecrate the chapel again in her name.
The group remained at the chapel another night before continuing on toward Drezen. The following morning Zosta again practiced exercises with Jiro and Bohgong. After they had finished, she was amused to see the monkey suddenly produce a wand from an unknown location and use it to scratch his back.
In the morning Irabeth sent a bird with a message to Kenabres to inform the rest of the army that the chapel was cleared. Afterward the army from Kenabres set off once more toward their goal, the demon-occupied city of Drezen. When they had traversed approximately 10 miles from the chapel, the scouts preceding the army returned to report that up ahead they had seen a large area filled with green vapor that showed signs of movement within it. Five of the champions from Kenabres went forward with Anevia, Aron, and Sosiel to take a closer look.
They found the gorge ahead filled from wall to wall by the green cloud. On observing it, Aron identified the creatures moving within it as vescavors, insects from the Abyss. The cloud couldn't disguise that there were innumerable swarms of them milling about. As the group discussed what to do, their combined memories recalled that vescavors always attacked in such swarms, and were difficult to deal with for that reason because they were too small to easily strike with a weapon or targeted magic. They were also more difficult to burn or electrocute than ordinary insects from the Material Plane. It was likely that there were so many of them here because there was a vescavor queen nearby. If the queen could be killed or driven away, the swarms would disperse.
It was impossible for the army to go around this section of the gorge; the walls were too steep to climb and to circumvent the area would mean going back past the chapel and making a very lengthy detour into territory that was probably infested with demons. The eight companions decided that their best course of action would be to find and dispose of the queen. They had observed some vescavors crawling in and out of openings in the gorge wall, and there were openings large enough that a person could enter them. Aron reassured them that if they moved quietly the swarms wouldn't notice them, so they carefully made their way past the swarms to one of these openings. Anevia went ahead to examine one of the openings, finding that while it was small enough to force them to crouch, it dropped down into a vertical shaft that was larger. She measured the shaft with a rope to determine how deep it was. They decided to set ropes to help them descend as most of the members of the party weren't skilled climbers. Though they worried it would attract attention, they feared the cave would be too dark for most of the party members besides Runa, who could see in the dark, so Asami imbued Zosta's amulet with light and Zosta descended first.
Once they had reached the bottom of the shaft, they found the cave warm and filled with a monotonous droning noise. The walls were covered in a red substance that appeared to be dried mucus, which made the interior of the cave resemble the insides of a living beast. The band began to make their way cautiously along a passage that appeared to open out into a larger chamber. Sadly Runa's heavy armor made moving silently difficult. When she scraped a shoulder guard against the wall Jiro involuntarily gasped. That was enough noise to attract two swarms of vescavors to the area.
As the vescavors rushed the small band of people, Zosta ran past them into the bigger area. Vescavors surged around Runa and Anevia, who had been walking just behind Zosta. The approach of the creatures was accompanied by a maddening chittering, which left Anevia confused. Zosta hurled a flask of alchemical frost at the swarm, but their sound also confused Bohgong, and Kirara, who began meowing plaintively and squirming about in Asami's pack. Vescavors began to crawl around the corner into the passageway where Asami, Aron, and Sosiel stood. Asami summoned up a sphere of wind to push them back. Sosiel handed a flask of alchemical fire to Aron, who threw it into the vescavor swarm, but the flask's contents did nothing to harm the creatures. Asami could no longer see Zosta, Anevia, or Runa, as they had all gone around a corner into the next area. The swarm closed in on her, skittering around her feet. She felt nauseated. She directed her sphere at them and succeeded in pushing them away from her. She, Aron, and Sosiel all took a few steps back to get away from the creatures' continuously biting mandibles. Asami was covered in bites, which left her weak as well as sick.
Runa called on Iomedae and released a blazing light in the other room, which did more harm to the swarm there than anything else the group had done. A moment later she warned those still in the passage that she intended to do it again. Sosiel cried out when the brilliant radiance left him briefly blinded, but the vescavors were gone.
With the vermin eliminated, the members of the group realized that the vescavors had been gnawing on their clothing and equipment as well as their flesh. They recalled too late that these diminutive creatures were capable of consuming almost any substance, making it even more difficult to combat them directly. They had been woefully under-prepared for this encounter.
Though they worried that if they left the queen would fill the cavern with more of her spawn, they agreed that it would be wiser to return to camp and prepare with more effective spells before continuing their search for the queen. Jiro had linked his life force to the others to heal them, but he now needed to use his magic to heal the many wounds he had absorbed from his companions. Asami swallowed one of the potions she'd taken from the chapel cache. When everyone was recovered enough to climb up, they left the cave and crept away from the vescavors to get back to the army.
As soon as she had safely returned to the army's camp, Asami approached Aravashnial to ask him if he had access to certain spells she knew of but didn't have transcribed in any of her spellbooks. Her affinity for wood had always led her to avoid learning spells that could conjure fire, but even though she knew the vescavors were resistant to the effect of fire she felt that blasting a larger area with intense flames might be successful in harming them. She had already realized that slaying the queen would be much more challenging than fighting the swarms, and it would be her task to keep swarms away from her friends while they attacked the queen.
Aravashnial did know the spell she desired and he agreed to permit her to copy it from his spellbook into her own. He also had a prepared scroll of the same spell which he offered to her. After thanking him for his help, Asami retired to her tent to scribe a scroll of her own. As the rest of the group made their own preparations, Jiro informed his friends that when they returned to the cave he wouldn't be able to heal them through sacrificing his own life force, because he planned to call on the spirit of an ancestor who had been a wizard rather than the ancestor whose wisdom he usually channeled. Runa also told them that she would go prepared with more of her spells of brilliant light. Equipped with this magic, they hoped they would be able to better withstand the vescavors.
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