As the dawn light struggled feebly to overcome the perpetual gloom of the Worldwound, the heroes of Kenabres exited their tents. Asami had spent much of the previous evening with Jiro, Runa, and Aravashnial, strategizing spells for their return to the vescavor nest. Asami had been too weary to scribe a scroll before resting. She had prepared a spell of fire and one of lightning that she hoped would be effective against the queen, and planned to summon an archon from Elysium to provide aid to her friends. She also hoped to be able to use some of the arcane power granted her by the Spirit of the Forest to make herself and her companions invisible to the infernal vermin.
In addition to selecting spells for the assault, the group members had also determined who would go to the caverns this time. Out of fear that the vermin would devour the sword Radiance, they agreed that Irabeth should remain at camp. Sosiel was also asked to stay behind, since his healing ability would affect the insects as well as his comrades in arms. Aron of course would remain with his partner. Only Anevia would make a second visit to the caverns, because she could move stealthily enough to avoid the notice of the vescavor swarms.
To further protect themselves from the vescavors' ability to consume almost any substance, the five friends decided to leave behind their most valued possessions. Runa abandoned her armor and Asami would grant her magical armor instead. Aravashnial provided similar armor for everyone else. Jiro left his enchanted lantern and the basket pack he usually carried, along with his extra clothing. Though Asami knew that without Kirara she wouldn't be as capable of moving through the caves unnoticed, she decided that her magic would have to suffice and told the little white cat to stay behind.
Before they descended a knotted rope into the caves again, Asami granted both herself and Runa magical armor and resistance to acid, which they knew to be a weapon of the vescavor queen. She also caused her wooden sword to shed light. She waited until they were farther into the caverns before summoning a sphere of arcane power that would cloak all of them from sight. The spell required everyone else to remain within 10 feet of Asami to receive its effect, so the group crept slowly through the tunnels within arm's length of each other. Unfortunately moving this way made Asami clumsy, and she bumped into one of her friends several times.
As the group entered a larger chamber, Runa whispered that she saw no sign of the queen. The insects in the chamber stirred restlessly when Asami's light fell on them, but they couldn't see the source of the illumination and didn't sense the group of people passing by. The party would have to exit from that chamber into a narrow passage that would force them to go in single file. Asami took up a position in the center of the line to keep everyone else in range of her invisibility spell. The swarms were growing denser. Before anyone but Runa could enter the narrow tunnel, Asami trod on one of the creatures, its shell cracking loudly under her foot. The other vermin crawling over the walls began to surge toward the six invisible people.
Jiro summoned a wall of wind across part of the chamber, blocking some of the vermin from crossing the barrier it posed to their tiny bodies. But Anevia had had enough of creeping along and trying to remain out of sight. She crossed the wind barrier and hurled a flask of holy water at the evil creatures. The mass of insects spread out around everyone's feet, their droning buzz overwhelming. Both Jiro and Asami became confused by the noise. Asami began to recite spell formulae, randomly combining the words of various different spells into a nonsensical babble. Runa and Zosta grasped Asami and Jiro by the arms and pulled them through the barrier.
More vescavors surged into the chamber, swirling around Anevia. Their droning befuddled Zosta as well. Vermin started to climb up Runa's legs. In her state of confusion, Zosta kicked Runa's legs out from under her and stamped on her. Runa glared furiously at her comrade. Asami had recovered by this time. She used her special power to allow her to fill the area around her with silence, shutting off the maddening buzzing noise. This meant she would be unable to cast spells, as would anyone else who needed to speak to cast, but she felt it was worthwhile to escape the noise. Just before Asami cast this spell, Jiro had also recovered from confusion and created a second wall of wind diagonal to the first to hold off more of the vermin, but there were still many of them in the chamber and the noise from Anevia's attack and Asami's babbling had drawn them closer.
Anevia moved into the narrow passage and froze. Jiro followed her. Looking down another passage that intersected with the one he was in, he saw another swarm of the insects crawling over the walls. He gestured for those behind him to wait. Runa also entered the passage, which took her outside the range of the silencing spell. The passage was filling with more of the horrid creatures. Jiro and Anevia both hurled flasks of holy water at them. Runa could hear the sound of the insects' buzzing getting louder as if even more were approaching. The insects in the larger chamber they had just left were coming in behind her.
Runa moved forward and found that the passageway exited out into a big chamber, which was dark. Her eyesight could penetrate the darkness, but she couldn't see clearly what was there. Suddenly Bohgong, who had been riding on her shoulder instead of Jiro's, grabbed the torch from its sconce on her shield and hurled it into the center of the large space. Runa could see a large creature on the opposite side, which looked like a greatly enlarged version of a vescavor. Surely that must be the queen they sought. Runa immediately called on Iomedae's power to fill the part of that chamber nearest to her with blinding radiance.
In response, the queen surged across the chamber toward Runa and spat a glob of acidic spittle on her and Bohgong. The monkey leapt off her shoulder and fled. At the same time, Jiro's first wind barrier vanished, its magic expended. Jiro himself had been healing the damage the insects dealt to his friends, and he was now in poor condition. The vescavors had also consumed his sandals. Anevia threw more holy water into the swarm at her feet and that destroyed them, but they all knew that there were uncountable numbers of vescavors left in the nest. Jiro and Zosta moved toward the queen's chamber, Zosta dropping a flask on more of the creatures swirling around her feet.
Asami was still in the last chamber and had yet to enter the narrow passage, but she decided that it was time to dismiss the silence so she could cast a spell. A wooden sphere infused with green fire formed on her sword and shot down the passageway over the heads of her friends into the queen's chamber, exploding in a blast of green fire as she made her first casting of the spell she had newly learned from Aravashnial. A swarm had emerged from the room to threaten Runa, and Asami's spell burnt it to ash, along with the rest of the vescavors that were near Jiro and Zosta.
The vescavor queen had flown across the chamber and disappeared from sight after spitting on Runa. Runa decided to step just inside the space to find out where the queen had gone. Another swarm attacked her, but a spell she had cast on herself let her avoid a slashing attack from the scythe-like forelimbs of the queen, who had taken up a position just next to the passageway opening where the Runa stood. Asami decided it was time to call for help. She began the spell that would call an archon from Elysium. As she concentrated on her spell, Jiro told Bohgong to stay back and ran in front of Zosta, casting a spell that sent a spray of freezing snowballs blasting at the queen.
Anevia was still in the passageway, between Asami and the others. Two other passages intersected with the one she stood in, meeting it at the same point to form a cross-shaped junction. Anevia moved to the junction point to look down the other tunnels for more swarms. Asami couldn't see her face, but she could tell by the way the woman stiffened that the tunnels were full of yet more infernal vermin. More of them had surrounded Runa, and in moments their ravenous gnawing utterly destroyed her shield. The room fell into darkness again as the torch Bohgong had thrown was also damaged by gnawing mandibles.
The queen retaliated against Jiro's spell by slashing and snapping at him. Runa took a step back and brought divine radiance down on the vermin again. The archon Asami had summoned appeared near Jiro and Zosta, shining a warm greenish light on the passageway. Asami directed the globe of light to lend its aid to Jiro and it cast a spell on him, offsetting some of the harm the queen had just done him. Jiro sent another flurry of snowballs at the queen, which destroyed the swarm gathered around her.
Asami hoped to block more insects from coming down the other tunnels and getting behind her friends, so she told Anevia to go past her, turned her back to the queen's chamber and summoned a mass of sticky vines to fill the junction of tunnels. In her anxiety to do this, she neglected to back out of the area that the vines occupied, and found herself trapped. To add insult to injury, the vescavors were unaffected by the vines except to slow their movement a little by reducing the space they could crawl through. As they surrounded her, she felt nauseous and her wits deserted her. She began to beat herself about the head with a scroll case. Jiro had earlier told Bohgong to protect her, and the white monkey sitting on her pack was trapped in the vines as well. Asami was unaware that the insects had eaten the wand sheath on her wrist and her wand had fallen on the floor of the cave. The lanyard attached to her wooden sword also fell victim to the ravening monsters, and the enchanted pearl she carried was cracked by their mandibles. Only her fragment of the Wardstone survived their depredations, as the creatures seemed to find it unpalatable. The creatures gnawed her flesh as well.
Though Asami was unable to see what was happening to her friends, or even to think clearly, the archon she had summoned continued to minister to Jiro. This was fortunate, as further attacks from the queen had left him unconscious on the ground. Inside the queen's chamber, the vermin damaged a curative wand that Runa carried. Runa charged the queen just as Jiro collapsed. Zosta shouted, "Little Sister!" and activated the holy flames of her bladed brass knuckles, punching the queen and observing with satisfaction that the flames appeared to harm the repulsive monster.
By this time Runa was sorely hurt. She wanted to attack the queen again, but if she did so she might fall herself, so she stepped back to heal herself. Jiro had revived for a moment but another slash from the queen had sent him back into unconsciousness. He woke again after another wave of magic from the archon touched him. Anevia had moved closer to Jiro and Zosta when Asami told her to get out of the way, and she now stepped back toward Asami to toss a vial of alchemical fire into the vines, burning enough of them that Asami and Bohgong could get free. The fire also burned Asami slightly. Now that she was free her mind was clear, but she still felt ill.
Jiro attempted to cast a spell at the queen from his prone position, but the magic failed. He got to his feet and Zosta tried unsuccessfully to block the claw that the queen swiped at him. When the blow connected the young man fell over once more. Bohgong, freed from the vines along with Asami, leaped off her pack and ran out into the queen's chamber. Asami weakly moved over to stand near the summoned archon. There were still many vescavors at her feet and crawling on her body and among her possessions.
Inside the chamber, Runa lost her fight to stay on her feet. The queen turned her attacks on Zosta, the only member of the core group still standing besides Asami. The crawling horrors chewed the magic brush Asami used to scribe spells in her spellbook. Then they began to eat her as well. She had already been injured by other bites, and this was more than her vitality could withstand. Asami joined Jiro in a heap on the floor. The queen attacked the archon and sent it back to Elysium. Only Zosta and Anevia were still upright. The buzzing of the insects was maddening to Zosta, and she recalled that Jiro had said anyone who stood in the midst of a swarm too long might be driven insane. To avoid that fate she stepped away from the queen, where the swarm was most concentrated.
Anevia had run into the large chamber, and she now raised her bow and fired on the queen, one arrow after another. Only Zosta witnessed the result of this attack: the queen, already wounded by Zosta's and Runa's attacks and Jiro's spells, toppled over backward after Anevia's arrows impaled her. The swarms immediately began to disperse when their queen fell.
But before Zosta could breathe a sigh of relief, the queen revived and flew up toward the roof of the chamber. Zosta heard a thump on the ground behind her. She turned to find that Bohgong had transformed himself into a large ape and was standing with his fingers interlaced and his hands cupped as one would do when boosting another person onto a horse. Zosta immediately realized what he meant her to do. Just as Jiro opened his eyes again and looked around, Zosta bounded from Bohgong's cupped hands and leap high into the air, her flaming fist outstretched. When she hit the vescavor queen her fist went right through the creature's abdomen, penetrating it from front to back. Gobbets of vescavor guts and unborn larvae spewed from the gaping hole. The queen dropped to the floor in a mass of limp wings and crumpled limbs, the wound Zosta had dealt her too severe for her to regenerate from it. Zosta landed in the corner behind the fallen queen while Jiro and Anevia watched in amazement.
With the queen truly dead, Jiro got to his feet and began to heal himself and his friends. As Runa and Asami regained consciousness, the vescavors, deprived of their queen, wandered away.
Once everyone had recovered a little from their wounds, they looked around the queen's chamber and realized that one of the other tunnels letting into it was glowing with a sickly purplish light. When the group cautiously went through into the next room, they saw a strange energy emanating from a crevice in the wall, which seemed to pulsate and quiver as if it was a living thing. Several vescavors crawled out of this repellent opening, though they were too few to form a deadly swarm. Jiro, Asami, and Runa realized that this crevice was a portal to the Abyss. This must have been how the vescavor queen came to be in these tunnels. It would have to be closed to stop other demons and monsters coming through, but the Crusaders lacked the resources to close such a rift now. They would have to continue their mission to Drezen first, and come back for the rift at a later time.
Next: part 28, Terror in the Forest
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