The Ghouls' Ritual

They almost freefall instead of flying straight downwards, instead using their fly spells to steer them around the massive stone outcroppings that continuously jut from the cavern's wall. The descent is terrifying; only Priggle can see more than 60 feet ahead of himself, and at a descent rate of over 100 miles per hour the heroes have virtually no reaction time at all. Danger after danger flashes by in an eyeblink, and the Defenders barely avoid all of them. Ahead of them, the thurn's massive body bounces off of an outcropping as it ricochets steadily downwards for almost a mile.

Nolin blinks his eyes. "Was that a ship we just passed?" But it's gone almost as soon as he registers it, as is what briefly appears to be some sort of humongous skeleton of a sea creature. Shriekers and beetles and stone carvings and cave entrances flash past during the uncontrolled power dive, and everyone prays that the Rift won't end in a sudden, short stop.

It doesn't. Far from it.

Instead, the plummeting Defenders emerge out into a tremendous cavern redolent with the odor of fresh rot and old mold. Hundreds of feet below them, a luminescent sea bathes the crumbling remains of an ancient and long-abandoned city, all angles and spires and gem-like domes. Outside of the city's main plaza, the shallow sea rises up towards the cavern's ceiling in a two-hundred-foot-tall wall, kept away from the bizarre architecture by some sort of magic.

Below them on the wave-washed plateau are countless ghouls. Some swim, some stand, many crouch on rafts made from dozens of twitching zombies but at least a hundred are gathered in a chanting, moaning, gesticulating ring around the outer edge of the city's plateau. The rest of them are clustered tightly at one end of the ruined city, thousands of them waiting their turn to.. to..

"Good God," whispers Velendo. "What IS that thing?"

He refers to the monstrosity that the ghouls surround. Perhaps once it was the long-dead skeleton of an undersea behemoth at least 300 feet long. Now, though, it has been changed by the foul magic of the ghouls. It trembles and quivers in the center of the ghoulish circle, its body an amalgam of bone, beetle carapace, and rippling undead flesh. Purplish fires race across it, transforming and hardening where they touch. As the Defenders look, it's quickly evident that the ongoing ritual is in the process of fully fusing ghoul and beetle and bone together into a horrible whole. One by one, the tightly packed ghouls at the eastern edge of the plaza are being herded into the interior of the behemoth, where their screaming bodies are fused into it by the skittering purplish flame. Beetles both huge and small surge into the juggernaut as well, and it's clear that their presence will shape its ultimate appearance. Pinchers, legs, carapace, wings a hundred yards of crawling abomination and death.

"They're preparing," says Malachite in a kind of awe. "That thing will be able to slide through earth like it was water. All those thousands of ghouls, delivered anywhere, like the necropede. No one will be able to stand against them."

"It's a buggernaut!" crows Nolin.

"It's got to be stopped," growls Tao.

"I think it's already alive," frowns Mara.

"I'm going to throw up," announces Agar.

It's coming, hisses Elder into Stone Bear's ear. Any second now. "Enough," hisses Stone Bear back. "If you can't tell me something that isn't obvious, you should be silent." Elder chokes back a chuckle before fading into silence.

"Let's go," says Galthia.

Most of the group stays hundreds of feet in the air. From that height, the hole in the tightly-packed ghoulish ranks caused by the falling thurn is quite evident. Tao drops fire seeds and a well-aimed flame strike. Nolin reaches deep into Rides the Sun's soul to let loose with a tremendous firestorm, aiming it along the outer ring of chanting ghoulish clerics and wizards. Velendo places a maximized blade barrier right at the entrance of the behemoth, slashing into both the monstrous construct and the undead gibberlings waiting to board it. Agar grits his teeth and thinks about how many insects will die; with that kept in the forefront of his mind, he gleefully unleashes his destructive magics as well.

Others swoop downwards. Mara power dives to within 50' of the water's surface. Calling on her tremendous force of personality, she turns undead, and watches as the radiant power blasts ghouls into ash. A handful survive, but even those tumble into the oily water as the moaning zombie-rafts they're standing on disintegrate into bone and dust. A richly-dressed female ghoul with stringy, wild red hair shrieks as she burns and tumbles backwards. "I hope you're Murliss," Mara says. "If you are, we killed your boyfriend." Behind the radiant knight, Malachite's positive energy bursts fill the cavern with emerald light, blasting ghouls with the holy light of Aeos.

The ghoulish chant that rippled through the air devolves into screams, shrieks, and the sound of bursting flesh.

While most of the Defenders concentrate on the bulk of the undead, Galthia dives downwards to the far side of the behemoth, where the leaders of the ritual are concentrated. His sharp githzerai eyesight picks out one ghoul in particular for a target: cadaverously thin, impossibly old, richly dressed, and once human. Standing on a pedestal carved in the likeness of a giant beetle, the ancient undead directs tendrils of purple fire across the juggernaut, drawing them from a massive gem around its neck the size of a baby's head. Beside him, another dozen spellcasters merge their power with the leader's. Slow to respond due to the concentration needed for the ritual, they look to be mentally conferring with one another, perhaps deciding the best way to destroy the living invaders. In any case, they are looking at the conflagration around them, and haven't noticed Galthia at all.

Don't give them the opportunity, thinks Galthia to himself as he recites the creed of his Order. The only power is your own. You can not fail. Your will is your strength, and your will can not break. Break others with it instead. He smiles with tight lips.

His dive is perfectly timed. Fist weighty with blazing ki, Galthia does not strike at the ancient ghoul; instead, he appears from nowhere in a diving charge and hammers his fist into the center of the huge gem around the ghoul's neck. As Galthia's ki shatters a few of the crystalline bonds holding the gem together, fine cracks appear across its previously unblemished face. In a second, the ghoulish archmagi's face changes from hungry speculation to abject horror and surprise. "No!" it croaks.

Yes, Galthia thinks. He has no more attacks left, but he reaches inside of himself to find a reserve of energy, using pure will power to strike once more before the wizards can react. His blow hits the gem once more, hammering it partially into the dried flesh of the archmagi's neck. Break, Galthia thinks, and the gem does, most horribly. It is as if the gem is the center of a retributive strike. Purple fire consumes the ghoulish archmagi, arcing to consume nearby ghouls like coals tossed into a white-hot furnace. Galthia somersaults backwards into the water in order to avoid the blast, and the last thing he sees is the dying ghoul reaching out towards him imploringly. He splashes into the suddenly boiling water with a self-satisfied smile on his face.

Malachite unleashes another burst of rippling emerald energy, and watches the undead beetle behemoth start to die. "I think –" he starts to say.

Then, suddenly, a chill wind whips through the cavern, a wind heavy with the smell of death. It batters the flying Defenders like they were rag dolls, and it carries the crushing weight of unmeasurable sorrow and hatred and anger. A sudden earth tremor shakes the cavern, causing a stalactite to shatter and drop.

It's here, Elder chuckles into Stone Bear's ear. The fall is over. Don't say I didn't warn you.

With that, the world goes pitch black, everyone's chest explodes with irresistibly sharp pain, and for thirty seconds magic simply ceases.

For the Defenders that were flying hundreds of feet in the cavern's air, that means that they fall, tumbling like rag dolls into the shallow water beneath them. They hit with bone-shattering force. None are killed by the fall, but everyone quickly finds themselves fully underwater when the magical parted walls of water around the city collapse and smash down to flood the area. The most unlucky land in the midst of tangled, screaming ghouls. They thrash desperately in the pitch-dark water, confused and disoriented and still in pain, bumping against similarly struggling ghouls as they try to reach the surface. It is a moment of pure fear and panic, and those who manage to swim to the wave-tossed surface can hear a moaning scream on the rising wind. It's impossible to see; with no magic and no light, there is only the roiling water and the shrieking scream of the wind.

Only Velendo is spared. As magic and light fail, he feels himself falling – and then someone catches him beneath the arms. He hangs in space in the wind and darkness, and he can sense wings heavily beating the air behind him. He smells someone's skin next to his, and it is the smell of mortar and wind.

The old cleric blinks his eyes, but the darkness remains. "Who.. who are you?" he manages to gasp out over the wind and the pain. He hears a muffled shout from a drowning dwarf, but can do nothing.

A radiant female voice answers him, whispering in his ear. "I am Clariel, Angel of the Arch, Patron of the Broken Siege. I am your guardian angel." Velendo blinks again in surprise, and the rich voice continues. "Mourn, Velendo of Calphas, because the Goddess Imbindarla has died this day. She has been struck by the arrows of the Goddess of the Hunt, and She has fallen for seven days. Now She has struck Spira and for better or worse She is slain. The world will not be as it was, and the heavens are wracked with sorrow – but I shall keep you safe." Her pinions beat the air, and Velendo hangs above the abyss, safe in her arms.