Seekers of the Epitaph: World of Azeroth

by Xarmar13

Ahn'Qiraj, Part 4: The Infested Temple

Once they returned to the ruins entrance, the party soon found that the sandstorm conjured by Ossirian continued to rage over a wide area. It was likely that it had enveloped the entire city, at least.

Once everyone emerged from the portal, Andorov and his troops bid them farewell before they left to give their report.

It would be some time before the allied forces would be able to move in and secure the city due to the sandstorm, but they only had so much time to prepare for their assault on the temple. There was no telling when a new wave of qiraji and silithid would be ready for battle.

They decided to take the risk and retreat to the front line near the gates where they spotted a series of tents that served as field command structures and shelter from the storm. Entering the largest one, the command tent, the party soon found Andorov giving his report to Varok Saurfang. He was pleased with the progress in clearing out the ruins but knew that the worst had yet to come.

“Thanks to your efforts, the ruins will soon be secured. The temple is all that remains of Qiraji occupation. No doubt the deadliest threats lie within that structure. Do we have any intel on the layout within?”

“The temple itself is not very large, most of it is used to house the Old God,” Thanatas offered. “Of course, the route to that thing is not so direct. The only way to reach C’thun is to navigate a massive silithid hive beneath the temple that circles back to the objective location. Obviously, the Silithid and Qiraji leadership will be holed up there.”

Varok nodded, “I will leave it up to your group to lead the attack on the temple. Unfortunately, I cannot afford to send in forces to assist because we don’t have enough intel on the Old God.”

“It’s for the best,” Thanatas assured. “Old Gods have countless tentacles that they attack with. They also regenerate rapidly. I’m fairly certain that its reach is vast. Their most dangerous abilities are psychological as they like to get into your heads and turn you psychotic.”

“I see, as strong as our forces are, we are not properly equipped to handle psychological attacks. Get some rest, once the sandstorm subsides you may begin your attack on the temple.”

The party was glad to have this respite to regain their strength. They would need every ounce of it for what was to come.

---

The sands in the desert settled a few hours later. The Might of Kalimdor army began marching into the ruins of Ahn’Qiraj to secure it and clear it of any lingering insect infestation.

Once they returned to the courtyard beyond the gate, the party advanced west through a doorway and up a series of stairs along a wide corridor. Once they found a threshold at the top of the stairs, they spotted four anubisaths keeping watch over the area along with a single obsidian destroyer.

The destroyer was quickly disposed of when Stella channeled unstable mana into it which detonated and caused it to explode. The anubisaths had a strange power which they discovered during the fight. Each of them fought with one ability. However, when one of them was felled, its soul was fragmented and transferred to the other anubisaths, partially restoring any damage they took. Not only that, but they also gained the abilities of the fallen anubisath. This made dealing with the final one more difficult since it had its own ability in addition to the ones held by the others.

They had to repeat the encounter once again while dealing with two more destroyers, but this time they were being observed by a strange giant qiraji. This one wore a wine-colored robe and had black-spotted, rose-colored, segmented shoulder armor that extended down its arms. Its narrow chest armor looked like a dangling insect with segmented legs and a green jewel. Atop its covered face was a pair of antennae as long as its body. The legs of the qiraji resembled six tarantula legs.

Beside the qiraji were a pair of obsidian destroyers frozen like statues and holding up a pair of scepters. Behind the qiraji was the entrance to the massive structure that served as the stronghold of the Qiraji armies. Atop the entrance was a large-scale replica of the Scarab Gong.

Even though the qiraji clearly noticed them, it still did nothing as if it were confident about something.

Thanatas decided to take this time to talk about the qiraji. “This is the third type of qiraji known as prophets. Unlike gladiators and battleguards, prophets assault your minds. He is known as Skeram, probably the most powerful of the qiraji prophets we will encounter.”

“Which is why you should give up on your suicidal efforts to face my master and rejoice, for the coming darkness shall embrace this world and return it to the way it was always destined to be!” Skeram preached. “My master shall reach all across this world and bring all believers into its embrace!”

Thanatas rolled her eyes and groaned in disgust, “Just watch out for the illusions created by this overgrown pastor.”

As the party moved closer to the prophet, weapons drawn, Skeram shook his head in disappointment. “Are you so eager to die? I will be happy to accommodate you…”

Skeram attacked Lokosh and Jaqueline with his two front legs which left his arms free to cast spells. He struck Talia, Stella and Mena with the concussive force of an Earth Shock spell which Groun was able to heal.

Outnumbered as he was, Skeram knew that the infidels would eventually overwhelm him, despite that he hadn’t used his illusions yet. Alone, he would soon fall.

He was glad that he was never alone.

Suddenly, a giant eyeball manifested and zapped everyone with an eye beam. Thanatas and Sophia were also taken by surprise by the powerful attack from the echo of the Old God’s power. C’thun spoke through the eye, "̴̣̪͆̎͑Ÿ̵͆̋ͅõ̴̢͚̙̮͈̜̒͑̏̓͘ͅu̷̱̙̗̙͎͈͔̽ ̶̨̧̛̺̊͘͜ĉ̸̢̼̲͕̾̏̍̔o̷͉̙̒͐̋̆ͅm̷̺͓͍͍̟͎̞͛̔̿͆e̴̡̪̒̒̈̂̀͗ ̷̺̦̤̔̇͝t̶̛̫̟̱̐̑̽̾̎͝ờ̷̦̥̬̄̾̄͝ ̷̹̟̖̟̿s̷̨̾͌̚͘e̶̡͇̓̄͒̊͘r̴̢̮͍̥̰̓̾͆̌́̆͝ṿ̴̠̹̖̮͕̇e̶̲̦̝̯̗͚͉̊̍̍̃͘,̷̺̱̮̯̈́ͅ ̵͙͉̑͐o̵̲̭̪̺͇̰̖̿͋̀̂̚r̷̗̮̝̙̬̟͆ ̸̘͈̊̏̎̅y̴̡̗̰̬̹̻̏̈͒̋ǫ̸̠̿́͝ú̵͙̻̲̠̼̥̏͗̀̚ͅ ̵̘̞̜̆̈̈́c̷̼̩͖̞̿o̸̢̠͖̅̀̓ḿ̵̧̰̟͉̗̠̯͠e̸͓̗͑̑ ̶̡̛͈̩̳͊̅͋̑̔t̴̲͕̝͋̓ȍ̶̟̈̒̽͝ ̵͔̪̘̜̣̽̿d̵͙̩̥̦̳̓ḯ̵̠̲̙͖͔̓̾̈͘e̴͙͔̬̬̙̪̒.̸͖̦̲͎̿ͅ.̵͔͎̺͐̃̿͠.̶͈̇͌"̷͍̹̆̈̌̂̏̿̔ The voice sounded like someone trying to say something while their body was decaying.

Everyone groaned as they slowly picked themselves up. “Owie…that really hurt!” Mena complained. Groun and Bella worked together to heal everyone’s injuries, but the eye zapped everyone again.

“How are we supposed to take out that overgrown bug if that damn eyeball keeps blastin’ us?” Jaqueline asked.

“The damage is more psychological than physical, I can put up some mental defenses for us, but I need time,” Sophia said.

“I doubt that thing will give you that time,” Thanatas countered, pointing at the eyeball.

The Eye of C’thun charged up another eye beam, preparing to end the fight quickly. As the beam was released, it ended up bouncing off a pitch black dome. Flutashe was the first to notice that black smoke was rising from Mena’s eyes. The smoke began to coalesce until a familiar humanoid figure manifested. C’thun fired another beam at the defender but was countered when Violetta fired a black beam to clash.

As the two beams ended up canceling each other out, a cloud of black smoke formed between the two. The eye failed to notice the creepily-smiling figure flying toward it with her right arm emitting darkness in the form of a blade. In an instant, the phantasmal eyeball was cut in half and vanished, but not before the bits of darkness that emerged from the destroyed eye were drawn to Violetta’s body.

To the eldritch horror, that was hardly a nibble’s worth of the feast that awaited her inside.

Skeram looked up at the scene. He knew what was coming, but he also couldn’t help but wonder how the world would change should his latest prophecy come to pass. If this was the direction the future would take, the void itself would one day tremble in fear before the very creature who sought his master.

The prophet would not go down without a fight though and while he was glad that Violetta stayed out of the fight from this point, it didn’t change anything. He created illusory copies of himself that attacked with the same spells that he used and packed the same punch as his own. However, they were used to fighting multiple powerful enemies and his clones were very flimsy. Even when he created an army of clones, they quickly fell apart to the human warrior’s spinning blade technique and the shaman’s Chain Lightning spell that jumped to several clones and zapped them.

The party quickly found Skeram’s real form and blasted, slashed, bashed and utterly maimed his form until he succumbed to his wounds, his legs giving out on him and his body slumping over but not falling to the ground. The prophet’s eyes closed for the last time.

As the party was cautiously checking the body of the fallen prophet, a malevolent voice invaded their minds. They were uncertain if it was irritated since it was difficult to tell how someone felt through a decaying voice. "̸̨̛̜̯̗̞̟̮Ē̴͈̑́̏͘n̸̰̋̇̅̀͋̐͘t̶͈̭̱͐̍̈́͂͝͠è̸̡͍͗̇̏͗͝r̶̤͓̈̈͒̈́̈́͐͝.̶̘̳̖̎ ̵̞̈͂̃́̈́B̷̧͛̚͝e̵̩̼̮̠͋͛͗́ḫ̵̄̅̓̾̉ǒ̸̬̙̗̒̉͠ļ̸̛̰̌́̉́̀̕d̵͖͋ ̴̺̔͛̉̄̀̅w̵͕̌̊̽ͅh̷̨̧̧̜̫͊̎̒̏͑͘͜ȃ̶̗̱̼̣̻͒͐̀ţ̸̧͈̜͍͋̾ ̶̱̞͕̭̼͊͛̿ľ̸̜̖̺̜̈́̈͊͘͝i̸̲̇ẻ̶͎͈̦̪͇̠s̸͖̋̋̔́̾͠͝ ̸̢̦̝͕͛̀̍̍̉͝b̷̨̢̹͍̰͙͂ë̶̯n̷̜͖͕͙̪̔ẽ̵̺̱̳̣̬̙̓͆̂̂a̷̧̗̦̲̰̝̾͛t̸͔̞̟̬̞̍̃̈̈̾́̚h̸̛͔̬̲̪͙̱̝́͌͠.̵̤̾̀͛͗̄̔"̴̜̭͘

As C’thun said that, the stone doors into the temple slowly parted; half rising, half falling. Looking through the widening opening, the inside appeared intact. The stone blocks were still neatly ordered, though weathered from millennia of sandstorms, with the path leading down several sets of stairs that led deeper into the temple.

As they moved toward the entrance, a draconic roar from above halted their progress. The party looked up to find three dragons: red, green and blue. They came in for a landing in front of the entrance before shifting into their visage forms. The red dragon became a familiar human in red robes, the green dragon became a female night elf dressed in green robes and the blue dragon turned into a female gnome in a blue robe.

"We meet again, champions," the red dragon said.

"Greetings, Vaelastrasz," Stella replied with a slightly bitter tone.

The dragon picked up on the tone and quickly spoke, "I apologize for that time I attacked you, my queen told me about your kind and how Neltharion feared what you would do with nothing to control your wills. If you are an example of what we can expect from the dracthyr, then I can feel confident that his fears are unfounded."

Stella snorted, she knew that she wouldn’t get a proper apology from the dragon so this was probably the best she was going to get.

“Who are your associates?” Bella asked.

He pointed to the night elf first, “This is Vethsera,” then to the gnome, “and this is Andorgos. We were sent here to provide something to hasten your journey through the silithid hive.”

It was then that he and the other two dragons pulled out several strange glowing crystals. Some glowed green, others blue or yellow, one glowed red. Flutashe noticed the shapes of the crystals and remembered one that fell to her feet when she struck the Scarab Gong, except that one was black. For some reason, she felt compelled to take it with her.

“These crystals resonate with a single silithid battle-tank and will force them to obey you,” Vaelan explained. “We did some experimenting before we came here and discovered that they will carry people around Ahn’Qiraj, but they will cower and bury themselves in the sands if they encounter their brethren.”

The dragons then distributed the crystals to everyone except for Thanatas, who could use her skeletal wings to move around faster, and Sophia, who could outrun any silithid. The red crystal was ultimately given to Stella, the dragon possibly hoping the rarity of it might help to mollify her. Flutashe showed that she didn’t need a crystal since the one she found summoned a black silithid battle-tank.

Once the party was ready to move deeper into the temple, Vaelan had one last request for them. “As you may have learned from Anachronos, three dragons entered Ahn’Qiraj to distract the Qiraji during the War of the Shifting Sands. Caelestrasz, Merithra and Arygos disappeared when the Scarab Wall sealed them in along with the Qiraji. Each of them are children of our respective Aspects while Caelestrasz is my brother and Merithra is my cousin. I ask that you please look for them in this place. We searched the ruins but found no sign of them, so we could only conclude that they are in the temple somewhere, dead or alive.”

Stella wasn’t planning on forgiving Vaelan anytime soon, but she did sympathize with him wanting to find his brother again. “Alright, we’ll keep an eye out for them.”

Vaelan faintly smiled at her and gave a slight bow before he and his companions found a nearby empty room where they could rest. The party then proceeded down the stairs.

At the bottom of the stairs, the party saw the beginnings of the silithid hive in the form of organic walls and along with long tendrils along the ground wrapping around a clutch of silithid and qiraji eggs. Several egg sacks dangled from the ceiling. Although it wasn’t the same, the sight did remind Sophia of the inside of a Zerg Hatchery.

In the back of the room, the party spotted two maroon silithid battle-tanks along with a bluish green variant of Skeram. Farra’jin had a bad feeling about the prophet so he set his air totem to grounding magic. His fears were founded a few seconds later when the prophet tried to take control of Talia’s mind but the spell ended up being sent to the totem. The projection of the prophet’s will had also made him vulnerable as Lokosh hacked the qiraji apart with his axes. Talia and Stella burned down the two silithid reavers.

A spined, sand-colored tentacle grabbed Flutashe from behind. She screamed in surprise which turned everyone’s heads to the scene. Lokosh also noticed the look of surprise on Thanatas’ face as if she was not expecting something like this to happen.

As the tentacle began to wrap around the druid in an attempt to crush her, she quickly shifted into her snake form and escaped the tendril’s grasp. Violetta moved in and severed the tentacle from the ground, the severed portion turning into void essence for her to consume.

“What in Light’s name was that?!” Jaqueline demanded.

“That was a tentacle of C’thun…” Thanatas replied, unable to suppress the surprise in her tone. “I didn’t expect it to attack us this early.”

“That was probably my fault, mother,” Violetta said. “My exploration of Blackfathom Deeps, alongside Mena and Flutashe, was where I made my declaration of war against the Old Gods when I devoured their precious pet hydra, Aku’mai. While this act on its own would not have spooked the Old Gods since flesh is irrelevant to them, it’s how I devoured Aku’mai that led to me kicking the proverbial hornet’s nest and it’s why C’thun will try to attack us every step of the way until we reach its main body.”

“Which means you will be assisting us in this place by keeping the Old God off our backs while we deal with its minions,” her mother concluded in a tone that was less drawing of a conclusion and more ordering her daughter to clean up the mess she made.

After exploring the room, they found that the only way forward was through a tunnel of sand and hive matter. Thanatas had everyone call their silithid mounts, which came in the colors of blue, green, yellow, red and black, before she and Sophia began hovering and moving ahead into the tunnel. Everyone quickly followed with Violetta vanishing underground.

The silithid battle-tanks skittered over the soft hive tissue and sand while traveling through a narrow tunnel filled with dangling egg sacs and into a larger area that spiraled downward to a lower level that was occupied by another prophet and three maroon silithid battle-tanks along with a group of light gray battle-tanks. The latter group was a matter of using area-affecting attacks since they carried smaller silithid on their bodies.

It was quickly apparent that the majority of their journey was going to be spent staring at dangling egg sacs and organic hive matter, much to Bella’s disgust.

From the new room, there were two paths they could take. Thanatas indicated that the one at the bottom of the room would lead to a chamber that was occupied by some of the leading members of the Silithid.

Seeing an opportunity to eliminate some of the silithid leaders, the party proceeded into the chamber that was occupied by more groups of prophets and battle-tanks. Thankfully, Sophia had already developed a means of protection from the prophets’ attempts to control their minds and created a mental field to protect the others. Because of this, the groups were easily defeated.

This left the more dangerous group in the room left to deal with: a trio of silithid colossi of different sizes. The smallest was maroon with a black marking on its head, the middle one was blue with the same marking and the largest one was sunset orange with the same marking. The smallest one was spending its energy running around the other two.

“That is the trio of silithid nobility,” Thanatas said. “The smallest one is Vem, he likes to run around and slam into things. The middle one is Princess Yauj, she’s pretty much a silithid priest. The last is Lord Kri, he likes to fling poison around.”

“Focus on the priest first,” Lokosh said.

With their plan set up, Lokosh, Bella and Flutashe charged in. Lokosh slammed his shield on Vem’s face to get his attention while Bella threw a light hammer at Yauj which left Flutashe to shift into her bear form and slash Kri’s face.

To make sure Kri’s poisons didn’t become a problem, Farra’jin set his water totem to cleanse poisons. Jaqueline assisted Lokosh with Vem and the others focused their attacks on Yauj.

As the fighting began, Bella was struck in the back by a tentacle which left a wound for Groun to heal. Violetta severed the tentacle before it could strike again. More tentacles in the form of claws and eye stalks emerged from underground. The tendrils were numerous and the eldritch horror was forced to dash across every inch of the room to sever more tendrils, including slicing the occasional eyeball that appeared in an attempt to fire a deadly beam at someone.

Irritated with the exercise, Violetta placed a hand on the floor and turned the ground black. A moment later, many black tentacles emerged from the ground and wrapped around C’thun’s tentacles before they were crushed and broke into motes of void which sank into the floor to be consumed. She maintained this ability while firing black beams at the illusory eyeballs.

Meanwhile, Surprise used a silencing spell to keep Yauj from healing her allies. Bella moved the colossus away from the other two.

Jaqueline and Lokosh competed against Vem in a charging contest where the two warriors took turns body slamming the colossus and using their weapons to break into his shell. Vem occasionally knocked away one of the warriors who slammed him back.

Flutashe, being a highly versatile druid, was able to weaken the effects of Kri’s poison on her by utilizing her snake form’s resistance to poison. The nimbleness of her feline form allowed her to evade its massive claws.

Yauj went down first when Stella rapidly aged the shell that made up its head using her bronze essence to make it brittle. Bella’s hammer of light shattered the brittle shell and exposed the colossus’ brain, allowing Talia’s felguard to leap up and come down on the gray matter with his ax. Farra’jin summoned shards of earth to further stab the massive organ. Yauj desperately tried to heal itself but another Silence from Surprise ended its last hope.

Vem and Kri sensed Yauj’s death and completely ignored everyone else as they rushed for the colossus’ corpse. Much to the disgust of Bella and Talia, the other two quickly devoured their fallen ally. Feeling refreshed, Vem and Kri continued their attacks. Bella’s group had to wait a little longer after the gruesome scene before they could attack the other two because a swarm of beetles emerged from Yauj’s corpse.

Vem fell next as his carapace buckled under the repeated batterings from the two warriors and began to crack. A slam from Lokosh’s shield shattered the shell and left an opening for Jaqueline to plunge her swords into the silithid’s brain.

Kri sensed his companion’s demise and rushed to devour him, only for him to run into a barricade of bone spikes that suddenly burst from the ground in its path and pointed at it. Given its size, there was too much momentum for him to stop in time and he ended up impaled on the spikes.

Once the last of the trio lost their life, C’thun’s tentacles withdrew and its eye faded away. Violetta allowed the blackened ground to return to normal. The party took that time to rest for a few minutes while they processed what just happened. Talia, despite her undead state, felt a headache coming on. “Great…as if these bugs weren’t bad enough, now we have to deal with a creature with infinite limbs who can attack us anytime in this place,” she complained.

The others ignored her whining and proceeded back into the previous room and slightly up the ramp they came down from to enter a tunnel filled with groups of maroon battle-tanks which were no problem for the party by this point. Of course, some did try to knock some of the party members high into the air and nearly to the top of the high ceiling. The fall would have been especially painful had Mena and Stella not been there to make sure the landings didn’t end that way.

At the end of the tunnel, the party came across a mostly empty chamber. Empty except for a group of qiraji battleguards flying around the chamber at breakneck speed, one was larger than the others. At first, Lokosh figured that they were a simple group of qiraji to be eliminated, but Thanatas warned him otherwise. “The larger of that group is no ordinary battleguard. Sartura is her name and she is one of the most zealous of the qiraji battleguards. She’s pretty much the captain of the Qiraji Royal Guard.”

Once they party attacked Sartura and her entourage, the zealot spouted that they would be judged for defiling the sacred grounds. Her skills and those of her companions mainly amounted to striking with their scythe-like claws under their sleeves and spinning around with their blade arms extended. To make the encounter more interesting, C’thun made a large number of its eye tentacles emerge from the edge of the massive chamber and fire beams at the party from far away.

With each tiny piece of the Old God’s essence that she consumed, Violetta gained more insight on the way C’thun thought. She needed much more essence before she could properly make use of its abilities, but her abilities could still make quick work of the eye stalks. She warned the party to avoid the black areas before she plunged a quarter of the chamber into utter darkness. When light returned to the section, the eyes that were caught in it were gone. She did the same for the rest of the room, which prompted the party to move to avoid suffering the same fate as C’thun’s appendages.

With its tactic thwarted, three Eyes of C’thun appeared and pointed their glares at the party, only for the black zone to appear under them and ended up consumed as well. Violetta quickly found that she got more essence from the phantom eyes than from the tentacles which was fine by her.

The party soon put down the zealous battleguard who proved to be simpler than what most of the enemies in the ruined city threw at them, especially after Sophia sliced off her arms.

“Just how big is this place?” Stella wondered. “We’ve gone pretty deep into this hive, are we even halfway yet?”

“What are you talking about?” Thanatas asked. “This is only the beginning.”

“They may have used the tunnels in this hive to escape under the Scarab wall to establish their own hives,” Flutashe guessed. “Either that or the Wall was only made to keep the Qiraji from escaping, giving the Silithid an opportunity to expand.”

“What else can we expect in this place?” Talia asked. “This is a hive, I would have thought there would be swarms of these vermin crawling around.”

“Funny you should say that…” Thanatas slowly responded. “If you listen closely toward the next tunnel, you will know what I mean.”

Talia and the others did that. It was faint, but they did hear a faint cacophony of chittering, skittering, and screeching. Thanatas continued, “The tunnel ahead is infested with silithid drones and our advance requires going through them.”

“Ah, but that’s not all, mother,” Violetta declared singsongly. “Tell them who lies at the other end of the tunnel…”

Thanatas giggled, “Kurinnaxx has a big brother named Fankriss the Unyielding. He doesn’t have his brother’s talent in playing with the sand, but he does have plenty of friends who help him.”

“Don’t you have anything that can make our journey through the tunnel a little easier?” Bella asked. “We simply don’t have the numbers to deal with so many. And what of this Fankriss? What if he became involved?”

“Why don’t you tell me?” The death knight tossed her one of the crystals that she collected after their encounter with Ossirian. With it being a shard, she wasn’t sure the paladin would receive a clear vision of the future, but perhaps it was for the best as there was too much risk that C’thun might try to attack her mind in the attempt.

Bella did receive glimpses of the future where they tried to force their way into the tunnel, but she saw some of her friends and allies fall during the process and few of them made it through to face Fankriss.

“We can’t force our way through, we need another way,” Bella declared.

Thanatas stared at the paladin for a few moments, narrowing her eyes at her and receiving the same look in return. The death knight shrugged and casually walked toward the entrance. “Good enough for me.”

Once she neared the tunnel, she pulled out a vial of black liquid and tossed it at one of the silithid drones. The vial shattered on its carapace and splashed it and a few nearby drones with a few drops of the stuff. The concoction took hold quickly as the affected began to slow down and their carapaces began to turn black. A moment later, one drone curled up and stopped moving.

That was when the chaos began in the tunnel.

The drones that died from the concoction exploded, splashing nearby drones with its remains. The goo sprayed from the dead drone was contaminated with the mixture that reproduced itself from within the silithid and infected other silithid. The drones had no idea what was happening and ended up spreading the plague throughout the tunnel. Tens became hundreds, then thousands. The chittering cacophony became a splattering symphony as drone after drone exploded and spread the disease.

Upon seeing this, Midnight handed Twilight a waste bin for her to throw up in. She would never get used to the way that Thanatas could so casually dish out death by unleashing such vile diseases. Bella, Stella, Jaqueline, Mena, Lokosh, Farra’jin, and Groun all followed suit as their lunch ended up in the sand. Talia, being a forsaken, lacked the means to actually throw up and just dry heaved instead.

Once that was done, Thanatas tossed another vial in the tunnel that shattered and released a white foam that reacted to the disease by neutralizing it. Within a minute the foam had covered every inch of the tunnel before it ended up being soaked into the sands. Assuring everyone that the tunnel was now safe, she spread her skeletal wings and flew into the tunnel. Reluctantly, everyone else called upon their battle-tank mounts and proceeded to follow.

Traversing the tunnel took a few minutes but they soon made it to the next chamber. This one was occupied by a few drones and the sand reaver in question. The silithid knew that these were the ones who killed his brother and he would wait no longer for his revenge. With a screech, the drones in the room moved to attack along with Fankriss.

Lokosh charged in along with Flutashe who used her cat form to dash from drone to drone, smashing them or ripping their chitin apart.

More drones skittered into the room as the fight progressed along with claw tentacles of different sizes rising from the ground that Violetta had to sever and consume. Talia and Farra’jin proceeded to burn the coming bugs.

Occasionally, worms would emerge from the smaller entrances around the chamber which Jaqueline was able to handle herself as she blocked a bite from one worm with one sword and cut its head off with the other. Groun crushed another worm with some strong roots.

A few eye tentacles would emerge from the ceiling and attack the party from above but were not around long when Violetta fired a black beam that erased them.

It wasn’t long before Sophia jumped onto Fankriss’ back and sliced off his tail, followed by his legs. Lokosh dealt the finishing blow by slamming one of his axes deep into his head.

Once the appendages of C’thun retreated, the party took a small break to regain their strength after what happened and what they saw earlier. While they hoped that some conversation would help them repress the images of what they saw, C’thun decided to mess with them by making the images flash in their heads repeatedly, causing some to repeat what happened earlier. Thankfully, Sophia and Violetta’s mental wards drove off the Old God’s influence.

C’thun was not done with them yet though, it still had a few more minions for them to fight to keep them away from the Qiraji Emperors.