The Storm Beyond

The monk leaps off the stalagmite with the deep gnome Priggle clutched under his left arm, hitting the floor gracefully and sprinting for the cave's exit as fast as he can. Dozens more beetles latch painfully onto him as he does, digging their pinchers deep into his flesh as they try to consume tiny chunks of his body. By the time he reaches the safety of the outer cave, he's bleeding from over sixty spots. He's far from alone; beside him, Splinder spits out a beetle that has attached itself to his lip and wipes away the bloody saliva with the back of his gauntleted hand. "What in the Soulforger's dark dreams caused that?"

"Quiet, everyone!" hisses Velendo. "We're probably under attack!" He stares nervously out into the darkness, but sees nothing. Sixty feet away, the cleric's darkvision ends like a flat black cloud, and Velendo is keenly aware that anything could be crouching unseen just beyond the range of his perception.

Splinder stiffens under the mild rebuke. "Tarm, Grimwald, go!" He snaps his finger towards the outer cave. "Thurrock, Delthor, you're clerical support. Move with 'em!" The still-injured dwarves stride off into the darkness to take up scouting positions. Velendo looks aggrieved, but Splinder just shakes his head and listens.

Two dwarven voices echo down the passage, followed by another two. "Clear!" "Confirmed!"

Splinder turns to Velendo. "I think we're momentarily safe. No enemies, at least not yet." Priggle slips off after the dwarves to do some stealthy scouting of his own. From the other end of the beetle cave, Tao is doing the same, and her voice is muffled by the insect-covered walls.

"No one over here, either!"

Velendo rubs his forehead. "Then how...?" He narrows his eyes at the beetle-filled cavern. "Hey, Tao? Is this sort of beetle behavior normal?" Tao strolls back over, her feet crunching the insects that are trying desperately to consume her bit by bit. She shakes her head.

"No, you know it isn't. You see that wall?" Velendo nods. "Well, look at the way they all crawl on it, when they aren't anywhere near as many on the other three walls. I should have noticed it immediately. Something is odd here." Tao pauses to cast true seeing.

"Oh, my."

"What is it?"

"There's some sort of black cloud blowing right through the center of this room."

Agar fights down his phobia and perks up. "Really? Let's see!" He casts a divination spell himself and studies the area. A low whistle slides out of his lips.

"Fascinating. Tao is right; there is some sort of energy blowing right through the surface of the wall. It doesn't seem to be any kind of attack on us, but it does look like negative energy. I believe that it's sopme sort of side effect of Imbindarla's death. It must be driving the insects into some sort of horrible hunger." Everyone looks at one another.

"Well, that's not good," hazards Nolin.

"Certainly not!" exclaims Agar happily. "But it is fascinating. Even now, the amount of mist is lessening. I wonder if we can collect a sample...?"

"NO!" Shouted simultaneously by almost a half dozen people, it takes a few seconds for the echoes to die away.

"Well, fine." Agar almost looks abashed. "But I've never seen anything quite like this before."

"Let's try to keep it that way."

* * *

Three hours later, one of the forward scouts trots back to the group. He glances at Tao, who has been lost in private prayer for hours, and then turns to Splinder to report. "Galthia sent me. Problems up ahead, sir," says the dwarf. "Three dead bodies, totally stripped of flesh."

Splinder frowns. "Hungry ghouls cause it?"

"Dunno, sir. Don't think so. Ghouls normally break open the bones 'n suck out the marrow."

"Let's go see."

A few minutes later, the group kneels down in a semi-circle to examine the corpses. The goblinoid bodies still have a full complement of gear and clothing covering their skeletons, but hardly a scrap of flesh remains. The bones are strewn face down along the tunnel. A number of chewed-through wicker cages and net frames also litter the tunnel floor behind them. Tao pauses her prayer long enough to examine the tracks, and then quickly lets out a sick laugh.

"They were beetle hunters!" Several party members turn pale as they consider the implications, and Tao nods. "They were out collecting large beetles from the Running, and they seem to have walked right into one of those clouds of Imbindarla's breath."

Nolin lets out a breath. "I'm betting that isn't the place you want to be when you're carrying a whole lot of large insects."

"You think? Poor bastards."

Agar swallows drily. The image of the goblins devoured by bugs confirms what he always knew would be true, and he shudders to think what would have happened to him if he was in the beetle corral in Akin's Throat. Even after the group continues on, he keeps glancing behind him, as if the beetles might still be following.

* * *

The Defenders never do make it all the way back to Akin's Throat. Near the end of a long day's hike through the icy caverns and utter darkness, the tired group runs across a group of kobolds that have been waiting for them. Loyal to Nolin after his phenomenal bardic performances in the 'Throat, these new followers have been gathering information for the bard in case he returns this way. Crouching out of the way of the howling spiritwind in a small side corridor, they offer the Defenders both warm food and important information.

"No light!" one of them says, restating the obvious as he bats away an errant flumph. "Everyone ssscared. Many rumorsss, hrmmmm?" The kobold offers Nolin a skin of mushroom beer to go with his hot rat soup.

"What else?"

The kobold's eyes roll back in his little reptilian head as he thinks. "All the zombiesss fell down and died. The merchant Mirjik left. The fire creaturesss from the duergars'ss forge essscaped and killed many people. Sssome of the giant mussshroomsss fell over when the earth ssshook. Gatesss to ssscity are closed, not to be letting anyone in or out. We sssnuck out sssecret way." He looks proud.

"Don't forgets magic!" says another kobold, poking the first in the ribs with a long and scaly finger.

"That right!" The first kobold smiles widely, revealing sharp and pointy teeth. "Master, much magic not working. Our great kobold sssorcerers not know why. Sssome think it isss end of worldes."

Nolin sighs, and then forces a congratulatory smile of praise. "Let's hope not. You've done a great job! Please keep collecting information for me. You can tell people that the goddess of the ghouls is dead, and that is what is causing the problems."

The kobold stares at the bard with unblinking lizard eyes. "Isss that not the thing that isss good?"

Velendo harrumphs. "We hope so. But don't make any bets." He slurps down the rest of his soup, flings a narrow and sodden rat tail back into the empty bowl, and eyes Nolin. "We done here?"

Nolin sighs, and drains the beerskin. "I suppose so. We best keep moving. We're heading down towards the gogglers, and we can get an hour or two further today.

* * *

Finally, the group prepares to camp at the edge of what would normally be a beautiful cavern. One end is filled with flowing white rock that looks like it was liquidified and then frozen in place. Priggle whistles appreciatively as he examines it.

"They still aren't working," worries Velendo. "A sending from one of us to another person just fifteen feet away is barely audible; there's no way one is getting from us back to the surface. And now our other divination magics are failing, even the powerful ones like true sight."

Tao stops her constant prayer and lifts her head. "I can still feel my Goddess, of course, but I don't know if I can talk to her." She frowns tiredly. "I'm offering her my strength and faith, in case it may help. I would give everything I have, if she wishes it."

Velendo looks at her in sympathy. "I know."

Stone Bear sits down on an outcropping. "But I see that we have no way of knowing where the body of the Goddess fell, or how people are on the surface." He hears a faint chuckle of a spirit in his ear, but he does not turn around.

"I hope she fell on Eversink. I hope she fell on Eversink." Nolin chants his new mantra quietly to himself.

"Hey!" Tao raises an eyebrow. "I own property there now, remember?" Nolin doesn't look even vaguely sympathetic.

"Wouldn't you trade your new prison for the sight of Griggan crushed to death by a divine weight?"

"Good point. But there is Shara to think about..."

"She can teleport."

"Another good point."

"Well, we may be able to find out," pipes up Agar, lifting his nose from a thick spellbook. "I have a new spell that should circumvent the divination problem, because I believe it works by utilizing the very forces that are probably scrambling normal spells! I should finish it by tonight, so we'll see if it's successful. With luck, it will give me uncontrolled visions of what is happening elsewhere in the world."

"And that's a good thing?"

Agar smiles. "I hope so."

"Well," says Velendo as he lurches to his feet, "first let's get some rest." He raises his holy shield and casts Calphas' Comfortable Castle. "Ladies first," he offers to Mara as he opens the door into the homey extradimensional space.

But instead of the normal food-laden and fire-lit interior, the door opens into a whirling gray hell of wind and mist. The pull of the storm almost yanks the elderly cleric through the portal and into its midst. He braces himself just in time.

"Auggh!" screams Velendo over the howling wind as he pulls back. "That's not comfortable!"