Extinction Curse: Now in Text

((For those not in the game reading this, we are picking up in the middle of Act 5 of a campaign that has moved from live to PbP))

Finding all three clues makes the location of Xul-Khundur easy to find. After a day's travel, with no need for additional wandering and searching, the group finds that the jungle opens into a wide clearing, revealing a stepped pyramid of majestic proportions rising nearly to the treetops of the primeval jungle surrounding it. Two staircases with moss-covered steps angle up and across the east face, converging forty feet above. From there, a single staircase leads up to the top level, some one hundred feet above the jungle floor, which houses a small shrine open to the air. Two doorways on the east face of the third level afford entrance to the pyramid’s interior. There, however, does not seem to be an aeon orb circling the pyramid's top.

Emilia frowns as she looks up. "What's your bet, do you think? Someone beat us here and messed with the aeon orb, or it's just hidden inside instead of up top?"

"Hidden inside, I bet," says Felix. "Let's go in there and find it."

"I'd bet on Xulgaths makin' off wit' it," Ashva frowns. "But it's worth checkin' out anyways."

With agreement on a plan of action, the group moves to ascend up towards the pyramid.

As the group ascends Baraz puts his arm up to signal the others to halt, then points to the shadows on one of the tiers. "We are not alone. There is a skeleton with a scythe up there."

"Sounds like somethin' we should kill," says Felix.

Before anyone can disagree with him, the skeleton attacks. It proves to be quite nasty, having an aura that makes their attacks miss more often than not. Delilah is knocked out during the fight, but she quickly gets back up. She and Felix do their best to blast the thing with magic while the others engage in melee. After Baraz heavily damages the skeleton with a big bite, Henrietta follows up with a flurry of pecks, and the skeleton falls apart.

After Delilah patches everyone up, you ascend the stairs to the shrine at the top. At the center of the shrine lies a heavy stone slab with a round cavity the size of a human’s head carved into its center. Around the hole, several carvings depict xulgaths performing various religious tasks. Behind the stone slab stands a twenty-foot-tall obelisk bearing a carved symbol in the shape of twisted tentacles that end in vicious talons. The top of the pyramid is badly scarred, as though from thousands of ancient lightning strikes. As you enter the building, two obsidian statues whirr to life, intoning "In...truders. Unauthorized. Must... Remove," as they ready their sharpened claws and wings.

Although it seems the statues are immune to the magical attacks of Felix and Delilah, the rest of the party makes fairly quick work of them, beating each one down with a flurry of attacks.

Felix examines the stone slab and finds that it can be moved. Ashva and Baraz take care of that, revealing a pit below. Ashva jumps down, then quickly jumps back out after finding a bunch of severed heads below. With nothing much left here, they proceed to another room, where they are attacked by a group of undead xulgath. More fighting ensues, with the wayward wanderers winning as usual.

After exploring the upper chambers, the group moves down the next floor, encountering a group of rotting, undead male driders with one more intact female drider near the back, carrying a bow, with stark white skin and sharp fangs. The driders use webs to hinder the group while tearing in with magic and fangs, though Felix devastates them with a sunburst that temporarily slows the leader, who barks commands to the others, and slowly the adventurers press closer and closer, taking down the minions one after another. When Ashva closes on and grabs the leader, she bites them, sinking her fangs right into their neck and draining their blood from their veins. She tries to cast a spell and takes a devastating bite from Baraz, but still gets it off, sapping the life from much of the group to restore her own, but it's not enough, with Emilia and Henrietta closing in together and finishing her off with a paired beak and rapier stab. As Emilia's blade pierces her ribs, the drider dissipates into red mist and starts to flow up towards a crack in the ceiling.

"Great, a vampiric drider," Felix spits. "As if normal driders aren't bad enough."

After exploring a room with nothing in it, the circus troupe finds something interesting. Several rounded stone beds fill the northern part of this room. The tables, chairs, and other furniture are also neatly crafted from stone. Statuettes adorn small niches built into the walls, and carvings on the walls show xulgath priests performing various religious duties: curing diseases, collecting taxes, sacrificing creatures, and performing rituals. On the ceiling above, a large carving shows a stylized map of the Vault of the Black Desert with six softly glowing orbs, one of which is over the site of the Cradle of Worms. A stone desk contains an open book and a large metal cage about three feet square. A mass of slimy purple flesh sits within the cage. A sign on the cage reads "Wurples".
Delilah immediately gives Wurmples a soft poke with the blunt end of her trident, and discovers the group has a baby purple worm on their hands! "Can we keep it?" Delilah asks, only half joking.

"It is kinda cute," says Felix. "Seems smarter than the average purple worm, too. Though that's not saying much."