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Vurm-tai: Finale

Oct 1, 2021

The Weaver

“Only the Faithful!” 

Those were the final words that rang through the skull of the Bonereaper that crawled through the small rift, back to Shyish. Where, or rather to whom, the being went was anyone’s guess right now, and Lord Kuru felt no inclination to follow as yet. His Order of the Sacred Blot had fought hard to claim this gate; using cunning in encouraging the likes of grots and troggoths (of all things) to spread the Father’s blessings, to brute strength, they had finally claimed the inside of the great worm as their own. And as Kuru looked about him he was glad. Their intel had come back with information before taking on the Ossiarch, “Lāzawardcháros” is what they had called the massive creature. The name did not translate perfectly, but “The Azure Death” was as close as they were likely to ever get. And aptly named it was, for although the Bonereapers had ignored them while they panned for bone, the worm was absolutely full of green-blue crystals; a sort of strange lapis lazuli. Kuru could not make out exactly how he would use this new resource (was the Troggoth’s small brain impacting on his ability to come up with something?), but he knew that it was surely valuable, and the realmgate to Shyish would turn out to be simply an additional tool.

The Faithful were much more well-off now, in possession of great resources and tools, hidden below, infecting the worm even as they sat tending their wounds or planting their new plantations about the realmgate. Hysh would not rise above them when it did so outside, but their future looked bright nonetheless.


Far above them, the settlement swiftly growing on Larimar (the name the Vurm-tai had given the worm), was beating back the last of her attackers. The settlement, as with most that were created from Dawnbringer Crusades, went up at an absurd pace. While the likes of Lord Calaec, the Sons of Bugman, the Kegslayers, and Raedheil’s “True Aelves” defended the city, every citizen that wasn’t in combat was putting every waking moment into getting the nascent town up and running. Walls went up (or came down from metaliths), aqualiths were put into place, and Guardian Idols were erected. Finally, as the defenders broke the siege, the various attackers disappeared over the horizon or were cut down in their attempt to get inside the new walls. Some of these were successful, and even now, as the sun dipped below the horizon, the town’s leadership knew that their community had been infected before it had even begun. The Purple Serpent, yet again, gaining a foothold in the city, as it had done in Nassolotyl so many moons ago. Still, for the most part, the town was now as safe as it could get, and her citizens watched a new horizon disappear into the night; a moving one with Nasson and Neolotyl at their backs.


Meanwhile, up at the front of the worm, the dust of half a dozen battles was finally settling. The leylines that had been pulled taut by the worm had finally snapped. They had burst the portal opened up by Sylvene which split into a number of smaller gateways throughout the area. It was on this field of battle that Hogrog Ug Weirdklaw had rallied the warclans of Bristlewhakka, fusing them into a semblance of order, and pointing all that energy at the armies of Chaos that had been pouring into Ghur. Never had the Orruks, Grots, Troggoths, Gargants, and Ogors of Nasson or Neolotl ever been united as they were on this day. On multiple fronts they had descended on the daemons, pushing them back, step by bloody step, stopping the flow, and then, one by one, closing the portals. It was as if Ghur itself had taken the intrusion as an affront, and used its residents to purge itself of the infection.

But it was not without help, for the worshippers of the dark powers could not come together even when they desperately needed to do so. Brawen, who had stood on the council of Nassollotyl, was found to have betrayed the city by passing on their internal plans to Vorgur. But she had loftier goals, for even as Vorgor stood in front of one of the great portals to the realm of chaos, Brawen come up beside him and tore his head off of his shoulders. Holding the head high above her, surrounded by chaotic forces, she ascended to daemonhood before the former followers of Vorgur.  


The city of Nassolotyl had gone through hell and back. Beliana Fauncrest had not expected such turmoil by the advent of the worm, and she certainly had not expected such opposition to the city as had been shown atop Neolotl. Once the worm had passed, scouts from the back of Nasson reported seeing a massive flying creature above Neolotl. As Nasson was now moving again, and away from Neolotl, she had not seen it herself but later reports had confirmed that Drekazra had summoned some sort of massive beast to the field of battle.  A creature born of both Shyish and Ghur, it had ripped through the city, breaking and burning all that it descended on. The dead had risen against the city, at the time overrun by the warclans of Bristlewhakka, and it was falling fast. Those few citizens left had been slowly beaten back into a small portion of the city, defended by Raedheil Shorehaunter’s True Aelf Phantasms and a handful of Duardin. And then the tide had turned, with the warclans moving on, and destroying the undead on their way out, the citizens atop Neolotl had finally received aid; the ships from the Dawnbringer crusade had returned, with firepower and a willingness to fight. The last word that had gotten back to Beliana was that that half of the city was essentially destroyed, but was mostly purged of both Orruk and undead.

She wasn’t sure what to make of it, if she was being honest. By all accounts, Bristlewhakka’s forces had controlled the city, completely, and without a foe insight. And yet, although they had turned on the undead when they arrived, most reports made it seem as if their primary goal was something else entirely, the closure of this “split in reality” that had occurred at the hands of the betrayer Sylvene Lyonaver. Whilst the warclans had ostensibly destroyed that half Nassollotyl, they had also preferred the saving of Nasson and Neolotl than their own wanton behaviour within her city. Ghur itself had gone from the attack to the defence. Drekazra was also nowhere to be found, his creature had flown into the sunset when the city was being re-taken. She shuddered whilst thinking about where he might be headed, and what his eventual goals might be. That said, she was happy to see his back, let someone else deal with him, she had a city to rebuild. It would be a week or so before Nasson collided with Neolotl again, and only then would the rebuilding really get started, but there was much preparation to do in the meantime, and they also had to make a reliable trade route between Nassollotyl and the new settlement atop the worm.  If all went well, they may well still make it out of this entire ordeal better off, they were wounded indeed, but possibly not mortally so.

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Lar'yan the Scrivener
2 years ago

Thorn looked around, taking in the other Ghur natives, now milling about and just resting for a bit. The tears in reality had been closed, daemons weren’t pouring into the realm, and that meant… what? He scratched his head, trying to figure out what it all meant. A soft, off-rhythm thumping sound heralded the approach of Mama Feeshie, her tree-trunk walking staff striking the surface under their feet with every step.

“Well dat was sumfin!” she mused, looking down the length of the wurm to where the Order forces were building a new city with alarming speed.

“Yep. Sure wuz. Only… dun feel roight.”

“Wut?”

“I dunno. Feelz good ta knock dem slicey-deemons back inta da hole, but wut now? Oi dun fink oi wanna live onna wurm.”

She nodded. “You too, huh? Well, mebbe we finds a good place ta get off an keep lookin?”

Thorn mulled the idea over in his head for a while, before giving a slow not. “Yeah. Yeah, dat sounds loik a good plan. Lotsa ovver fings ta thump, and plenny of caves ta look inta.”

That decided, the Troggboss set about gathering up his crew and prepping for departure…

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