Sunlight

"What do we do?" asks Malachite tersely. He staggers to his feet as he eyes the Ivory King in front of him, who looks equally horrified by the arrival of the immense worm.

Stone Bear stares blankly at Elder and doesn't answer. Velendo turns and starts to stutter. "Well, I. . . I think that. . ."

Malachite interrupts. "We don't have time. What do we do? Do we even have a chance of killing that thing?"

Velendo swallows. "No."

"All right then, our job gets easier. We don't worry about it. Concentrate on the Ivory King and Soder. If we can't kill it and we can't stop it, we don't have to make it a priority. First get that wall down and free the sunlight. Then we'll worry about the next problem."

Galthia's gray skin is pale, even for a githzerai. "It wants to eat Imbindarla as well. I don't think we want to let it become a God."

Malachite snorts. "You have any ideas for stopping it? Do you, Stone Bear?"

The eyeless shaman turns his head back towards Malachite. "Not particularly."

Mara, moving over to attack the Ivory King, shoots Stone Bear a dirty look. Her ironbodied face doesn't express emotion well, but she gets her annoyance across. "You were carrying that thing inside of you for as long as we've known you!"

Stone Bear gazes up in horror at Elder, whose thousand-foot long body is still emerging from the bone of Nacreous. "He seemed smaller in there."

"What?"

"Nothing."

Velendo sighs and takes a second to rub his aching forehead. "We're really in trouble now."

Cruciel gives an angelic little snort. "You think?" Velendo gives her a surprised look at the very human sarcasm, but stumbles backwards as she shoves him in the chest with both hands. "Watch out!"

An icy black ray lances down from the undead archmagi above them, missing Velendo by inches as Cruciel takes the beam instead. The old cleric is horrified to see her pearly skin visibly wrinkle and contort. "Energy drain," she gasps.

"Are you all right?"

"Don't worry about me. Get him." She points upwards, but Soder's dragon body and his accompanying force of svirfneblin ghouls riding giant bats are already wheeling above them, flapping out towards the corpse of Imbindarla to investigate the appearance of the gigantic worm.

"Evergreen!" Tao turns to the solar. "We have chains of light that are supposed to bind creatures of darkness. Can you try?" The solar looks doubtfully down at the human-sized chains glowing in Tao's fist, shakes his regal head, and looks out at the worm. He closes his eyes for a second, as if in grief.

"It may attract the attention of Imbindarla's pallbearers. It will surely mean my death. But I will do this."

"No, wait! If that's – " Before she can finish her sentence, the solar has launched itself away from the bone hill and flown out into the darkness after Soder. All she can see is the glow of the chains of light, and balefire arrows shot up at him from ghoulish troops below. Troops that are closing on the hill, she notes grimly. Well, maybe they'll be distracted by the worm. "Crap."

As Priggle, Galthia and Stone Bear turn their attention back to the new stone wall covering the Godlight, Mara steps next to the badly injured Malachite and faces off with the Ivory King. "My goodness, you're disgusting." She raises Lightbinder.

The Ivory King's piggish little eyes stare at her with contempt. "Stupid cow," he gurgles. "I like Soder's copy of you more. That thing is more dangerous than ten of me. I propose a truce. We defeat it together, then we can all decide what happens to the Dark Mother's body."

Mara taps one iron finger on her perfect chin. "Don't think so," she says airily, and swings her mace as hard as she can into the side of his stomach. The blow sets off a vast jiggling of fat that rebounds across his naked body, and Mara watches dozens of tiny carrion worms fall twitching from the wound.

"Slut!" the Ivory King hisses. "Then I'll do it myself. This is too important to ruin. But you probably miss your friend Nolin. Let me reunite you." He convulses, his vast stomach heaving in and out, and with a noise like a draining swamp he vomits on top of Mara's head. The gout of bile pouring from his wide mouth seems endless. The sizzling acid etches Mara's iron skin, and through the horrible pain she realizes that she'd probably be utterly dead if it weren't for her protective spells. She winces as a half-digested chunk of Nolin's shoulder slides down the front of her chest. The pain is horrible.

"When we're finished this, you'll be my personal slave," the Ivory King confides in a glutinous whisper. "For the moment, though, I need to go assure my Godhood." She feels his hideous tongue licking her face, almost caressing her, and then the undead King shimmers and disappears.

"No!" Mara screams. "Where is he?" She tries to mop the vile fluid off her face.

"He's slipped into the ghost world," reports Stone Bear. "He can't be touched by our own."

"Correct," confirms Agar. Next to him Galthia shatters the stone wall blocking the sunlight, and once again they're all illuminated in the warm glow of Aeos.

"He's gone ethereal. I think it came from his crown of bones. And do you notice? As soon as he left this plane, the horrible pain disappeared."

"So did the hunger," says Priggle. "Can we chase him?"

"I don't think we should leave the sunlight," says Velendo. He looks his age for a change. "I'm almost helpless out of it."

"If we don't leave the sunlight, one of those things is going to win." Cruciel's voice is flat as she places a worried hand on her charge's shoulder.

"I know. Who's the biggest threat, Soder, the Ivory King or the Worm?"

"The worm," answers Malachite. "It fought the pantheon to a standstill, so it's not going to be affected by us! But hopefully Tao's solar can slow it down. We still have to find a way to stop the Ivory King."

"Well, exploit weakness is still up, and everyone is hasted except for Priggle." says Agar.

"As usual."

Agar continues. "That gives us a slight edge. Soder's still gone, but coming back any minute now. And I can still see the Ivory King. But he's starting to move." He suggests a plan over the mindlink that is instantly refined and expanded.

"It may not work," worries Velendo.

Tao grins. "If our plan is predicated on 'everything we try is going to fail,' then we need better planners."

"All right. Let's do this." Velendo hands his unique wand of maximized dispelling to Cruciel, and moves so that he can get almost everyone in a mass heal. After casting the spell he stares up at ceiling above him and shouts self-consciously. "Calphas, I have it on good authority that when I ramble like this you're listening. In case you don't know, one of those big worms that ate the world way back when is right here, right now in Nacreous! We think it has designs on the body!"

No response but the distant screams of undead and the endless slithering of Elder.

"Oh, well. I suppose dealing with this is why I'm here in the first place. Only three charges left on that thing. Cruciel, go!" Cruciel takes the wand that Velendo gave her and flies over to Mara. Mara takes the wand, utters a complex syllable and turns ethereal with her magical armor. It feels to her like popping through a soap bubble as she slips between dimensions. The Ivory King is standing almost next to her as she manifests on the plane of ghosts. His skin is still smoking from Nolin's fire. Mara is pleased to see that even here the afterimage of Aeos is shining brightly.

"You followed me here?"

"Yes."

"I will make you one final offer. We can join together against that thing. I will give my solemn vow not to make you my slave until we have driven it away or destroyed it." He eyes her with hungry eyes, and his many arms wave encouragingly. "I can easily kill you here. Ally with me, or die."

Mara clucks her tongue. "Maybe we should talk about this with my friends." Hoping to dispel his etherealness, she steps back into the light and aims the dispel magic wand at the grotesque undead in front of her. He shimmers, flares, and warps back into the material plane with a noise like tearing fabric.

The horrible pain snaps back in for everyone nearby, as if their joints were being jabbed with broken glass. The hunger returns as well. They cheer nonetheless.

Agar pats his familiar for luck and looks up. "I really, really wish that my next spell gets through the Ivory King's spell resistance!" Portions of his life force are drawn out by the limited wish, squirming beads of light that exit Agar's mouth and circle around him, glowing and poised. Agar begins to cast again and the life force leaps onto the Ivory King. It sinks into his body, writhing, and forces a shimmering vulnerability for Agar to cast his spell into. Agar almost misses as the Ivory King tries to dodge, and only a hastily cast fate's generous bargain steers the beam back into the center of the eldritch weakness. The green ray hits the Ivory King, ripples, and breaks through into a dimensional anchor. Everyone cheers once again, and Agar's tentacular earth elemental shambles over and attacks.

"Check," says Malachite.

Priggle looks at the dimensionally bound Ivory King looming above him. "I want to try and sunder his crown of bones," he says, "but I can't reach it! I suppose I could climb the. . no, wait, I'm not sure I like. . waah!" He squeaks as Stone Bear scoops him up and flings him onto of the Ivory King's head. Unable to hit the crown, he finds himself clinging to the mushroom-like flesh of the ghoul's left shoulder. "Makes perfect sense," he mutters. "Let him choke on the deep gnome. I'm surprised they didn't try it earlier."

"Coming!" Burr-Lipp leaps forward with his spear. He jabs it into the belly, twists, and yanks it downwards in a strike that would kill most creatures. The Ivory King hardly seems to notice. Tao runs up to flank Burr-Lipp, but her sword sticks in the congealed flab of the ghoul's side instead of hurting him. The ghoul regains his balance.

Galthia also leaps upwards to try and sunder the crown, but this time the Ivory King's tongue plucks him out of the air with perfect accuracy. The tongue tries to entwine itself around Galthia, but the monk twists free and smashes his fist down onto the undead's head. The crown doesn't break, and Galthia realizes with sick horror that the crown of bones seems to descend right into the ghoul's pustulant skin. He braces his feet, boots sinking into undead flesh as he braces his body and pulls on the crown with all his strength. Nothing.

Small yellow eyes swivel over, and a barbed tongue snaps out. Galthia is tripped, snatched in mid-air, paralyzed, and popped into the Ivory King's gaping mouth in one fluid movement. With the githzerai safely trapped and almost dead, the Ivory King concentrates. Dark energy pulses within him, and he turns outsiders. Tao and Cruciel both scream as they helplessly turn to flee, and Galthia's paralyzed frame twitches as he tries ineffectually to run.

"Hang on!" Velendo concentrates as he wills the power of Calphas through his shield to try and counteract the negative energy that is driving away Cruciel and Tao. He draws on the sunlight, his rod of authority, and the endless hours he's spent in prayer. He's barely successful, and he sighs with relief as the darkness is driven from Cruciel's form. He tries it again with Cruciel helping him, and this time blasts the fear from Galthia as well. Tao is beyond his reach, however, and she retreats from the fight in a panic.

Malachite turns and flips a battered old book to Velendo. "Velendo, you're the most likely to survive this. Here is my journal. It goes to Sir Marcus if I die. There's a non-zero chance that this is going to kill me." Wit that said, he takes a few short steps and plunges his body into the pure and unwavering light of Aeos.

After a timeless moment of pure bliss he regains his senses. He's just hanging there, suspended in prayer. The light and power isn't absorbed into his body; Malachite feels like a hard wooden ball dunked in a bucket of water, when he had hoped to become a sponge. He is surrounded by holy power, that's certain, but he feels unable to touch or control it.

"It's not working!" he cries, but with the roaring in his ears he's not sure if anyone has heard him. Then he's joined by Mara, solid once more and standing in the light beside him. They can feel their holy symbols vibrating with power, their holy weapons and shields growing warm to the tough. They still haven't closed the gap that separates them from the divine, though. It occurs to one of them that perhaps only death will do that.

Then Stone Bear is there, plunging his hands into the sunlight.

Stone Bear is a shaman, in touch with the ebb and flow of life. He can feel the power surging from the pillar of light. It has become a focal point for local ley lines, drawing and amplifying the natural power of the earth. Nacreous was built on such a point anyways, and the corpse of Imbindarla seems to be an overlapping nexus of negative power. That should be impossible, he thinks, but his philosophy has never been to question the ways of nature. Or of my spirit guides, he thinks with shame.

I told you I didn't like him, thinks Bear in his head.

Stone Bear shuts out the voices, the pain, and focuses on the now. He grabs Mara's right hand and Malachite's left and uses his own spirit to lock the three of them into the power nexus in front of him.

The force keeping the two paladins separate from the divine energy dissolves. Sunlight kindles in their eyes and mouth, and the light ignites in their holy weapons. At first the power level of the energy seems manageable, but Stone Bear suddenly realizes that Mara and Malachite are acting as amplifiers and are raising the power each time it touches them. It occurs to him that if they don't do anything, he's probably going to catch on fire.

"Can you. . ." he gasps.

"Hey, fatso!" Malachite's voice carries clearly despite the din. He raises his sword Karthos in front of him, concentrates, and a blinding gout of golden energy streams from the end of the blade and strikes the corpulent ghoul in the chest. The Ivory King howls with pain as once again his skin catches fire and begins to bubble. The fierce golden light sprays across him like water from a geyser, and Malachite's smile is terrible to behold. "Check."

"Soder!" If there is an answer from the distant archmage flying above the massive worm, no one can hear it. The Ivory King sweeps up Galthia's strengthless body and tries to use him as a shield, even as he works to bite off the monk's head. He doesn't entirely succeed, and Galthia is still barely alive by the time that the King realizes he makes an ineffective barrier to block the beam of light.

Priggle jumps free of the Ivory King's head, and Agar tries an useless flame arrow. "Ah, what the heck," he says. "I have a clear shot." He points his fingers and casts a disintegrate at the crown of bones topping the ghoul's head. The shimmering gray beam strikes the bone crown directly, and Agar feels the burst of power that means the spell is successful. . . followed by a horrible and unexpected drain of power from his own soul that can only mean that the halfling archmage has just destroyed an artifact.