Previously…

Tymon fell. The Ruinlords ran—not from fear, but from finality. The Arena of Aroden drowned in silence as the Apostle of Kyuss was born in blood and prophecy. A thousand undead gladiators poured into the streets. Citizens became corpses. Corpses became wights. The Ruinlords fled through a collapsing city, hunted by death and haunted by everything they couldn’t save. Only magic kept them ahead of the tide—just barely. Vaz’non and Cal vanished through a tear in space. Tike, Alfie and Dunner braved the shattered Basilica of Desna, while Ekalim led the way toward one last flicker of hope. Their destination: the Iron Baptistery. Their goal: survival.

What’s all this then?

Curious why Tymon is collapsing under its own dead weight? Wondering who Tike Myson is and why you should care that he’s coughing up unmentionable content? Catch up on our Pathfinder 1e chronicle of the Age of Worms right HERE, where the gods are distant, the worms are hungry, and the Ruinlords still have dying left to do.

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The Light Was a Lie

Midday over Tymon, but the light was a lie.

Overhead, a cyclone of roiling green storm clouds spun slowly, laced with sickly veins of lightning. Below, in the blood-soaked streets, the Ruinlords moved through back alleys like ghosts trying to outrun the inevitable.

Ekalim Smallcask led them, whispering directions, one cautious step at a time. Alfie, the cleric of Erastil, followed closely with his owlbear companion, Potato. Dunner, warpriest of Gorum, walked as if through water, each heartbeat fainter than the last. Tike Myson, once a juggernaut in the arenas, now stumbled like a man made of brittle sticks. His strength wasn’t just gone—it had been stripped away by the Apostle of Kyuss. He and Dunner were on borrowed time, and the sand was quickly passing through the hourglass.

The Iron Baptistery

Then, looming through blood and ruin: the Iron Baptistery. Once, a temple built for war itself. Now it was little more than a corpse. Its iron pillars shattered. Blackstone floor cracked like a ribcage split by a giant’s hand. And at the center, the Iron Font still bled Gorum’s magic—alone, furious, refusing to die.

Inside, the Ruinlords found Declan, a bard seeking refuge with little more than his name and a lot of fear. He assured the Ruinlords he was famous. Tymon had no time for fame anymore.

Worse waited by the Font. Two Ebon Triad cultists knelt in dark prayer, carving sigils into the bones of the temple, disrespecting any god not of their own design. And with them—Zalrynn the Stormcaller and Jylen the Inferno. Once members of Saint Alduin’s Silver Flight. Now, hollowed out shells filled with worms.

The Battle for the Font

Zalrynn struck first, Lightning-Stepping behind the heroes, her arrival crackling with ozone. Jylen followed with a roar, searing Dunner and Ekalim with his Infernal Optics—flame pouring over them like a broken dam.

Tike surged forward, throwing fists with destructive purpose. Dunner shielded the rear.

Not because he thought he would survive.

Because someone had to.

Dunner didn’t fall easy. His armor was scorched black from Jylen’s infernal blast, smoke rising from the cracks in the plates, but he stood anyway—shield up, jaw clenched, eyes locked on the thing that used to be Zalrynn. When the storm came—lightning flashing, rotting fists hammering down—Dunner didn’t flinch. He planted his boots in the blood-slick stone, braced for the hit he knew he couldn’t survive, and made himself a wall. 

Ekalim was behind him. 

The bard, bleeding, gasping, would have died there, one more forgotten corpse in a forgotten temple. 

But Dunner caught the blow meant for him. Took the full weight of Zalrynn’s rage across his battered chin. And when the second strike came—faster, meaner—he caught that one too. 

The third crushed him. 

It drove him to his knees, then to his back, shattering the last stubborn breath from the dwarf’s body. But it bought Ekalim the moment he needed. Dunner died the way he’d lived: Facing the enemy head-on, too stubborn to bow, too proud to run, bleeding steel and fury until there was nothing left to give. 

Not a prayer. 

Not a plea. 

Just a final grunt, a last broken smile, and the sound of a war god welcoming one more soldier home. 

Worms Beneath the Skin

Alfie felt it first.

A wriggling itch under the skin. Sharp. Cold. A wrongness no prayer could soothe. Kyuss worms burrowed deep, hungry for his heart.

There wasn’t time for magic.

Only the arrow.

He snapped it from the quiver, teeth clenched hard enough to crack. The steel tip gleamed—and then he drove it into his own arm. One cut. Two. Blood everywhere. Bile rising. Pain blinding.

But he found the worms. Tore them out.

One. Then another.

No triumph. No roar. Just a bloody arrow, a shaking hand, and a man too stubborn to die.

The Font Answers

Tike, half-dead, dove into the Iron Font, offering his blood with the hope of Gorum hearing his defiant cry.

It answered.

It purged the worms. Burned the weakness from his blood. Made him more than alive. Made him angry.

He rose, dripping red, and crushed the cultists. Smashed the risen Silver Flight with fists like hammers.

Then the ground shook.

Voragon Descends

Voragon Drakon—High Councillor of the Ebon Triad—descended through the shattered oculus. A burning titan wrapped in Dahak’s fire, holding the Medallion of the Worldbreaker like it was the key to the end of all things.

Tike didn’t wait.

He met him in midair. Fists flashing, hammering the warpriest against stone until cracks spiderwebbed the walls.

But Voragon wasn’t done. One did not ascend to the High Council by being less than. He called on his magical discipline and cast a spell, coating his hand in necrotic energy before driving it into Tike’s chest. Everything tore away. 

The instant Voragon’s magic hit him—cold, wrong, hollowing him from the inside out—he knew. The world narrowed into one sharp, perfect moment: breath ragged in his throat, worms writhing beneath his skin, his heart hammering like a war drum that would soon fall silent. 

But Tike wasn’t the kind of man to wait for death. 

He threw himself forward, every tendon and bone screaming, every drop of strength burning like dry tinder. His fists, battered and bloody, became hammers. Each punch slammed into Voragon’s armored chest, fueled not by rage, not by fear—by defiance. 

Tike hit him again. And again. And again. 

Voragon staggered. Another blow. Another break. 

The dragon-priest’s body gave way, splitting open under the final assault. Voragon collapsed against the blackened wall, sliding down in a smear of blood and fire, still smiling. Still laughing. 

With shaking hands, Voragon lifted the Medallion of the Worldbreaker—his final curse. His final triumph.

He crushed it. 

The Medallion of the Worldbreaker shattered, but the cataclysm it promised never fully arrived. The explosion ignited in a violent surge of fire and force, a scream of ancient fury meant to erase everything in its path—but something, whether the lingering power of the Iron Font, the resistance of the Ruinlords, or the final breath of Dunner’s blessing, clamped down on the blast. The eruption collapsed inward, its strength muted, the devastation contained. Heat rolled through the baptistery like a living thing, but the stone walls held. The Iron Font endured. The city of Tymon, though scarred and crumbling, refused to fall. Voragon’s final weapon failed him. 

Almost. 

Declan dove for cover, tumbling through dust and fire. Alfie, Potato, and Tike stood firm, shielded by some last desperate flicker of magic—but for Tike it wasn’t enough. The blast hit like the fist of a dying god. The shield around Tike cracked, buckled, and finally shattered. The fire rolled over him, through him, stealing the last ounce of life he’d fought so hard to keep. 

He fell without a sound. No scream. No curse. 

Only the silence a warrior earns when he’s given every last piece of himself and asks for nothing in return. 

Tike Myson died standing. Tike Myson died fighting. 

For a heartbeat, the world held its breath. 

Then Alfie moved. 

There was no time to think. No time to pray. Only the memory of a spell—a desperate prayer carved into magic—the last thread between life and whatever comes after. Alfie knelt beside Tike’s corpse, pressing bloody hands to his chest. He called on Erastil, on life, on hope, on anything that still listened to this crumbling city. The words spilled out of him, not polished or perfect, but real. Raw. 

Breath of Life flared to life between Alfie’s palms. 

The magic punched down through Tike’s battered flesh, found the guttering ember buried somewhere deep inside. Found it—and fanned it. Not into a blaze. Not into a roar. But into a stubborn, shuddering gasp. Tike’s body jerked once, twice, a ragged breath tearing itself free of his ruined lungs. His fingers twitched, curling instinctively into fists. The fists of a man who wasn’t finished yet. Alfie didn’t smile. Didn’t weep. He just stayed there, breathing with him, refusing to let him slip away again. 

Tike Myson lived. Bloodied. Burned. Hollowed-out and half-dead—but alive.

Alive because a friend refused to let him go. 

Quickly, they gathered Dunner’s body and proof of the Ebon Triad’s treachery. Proof that heroes still walked the ruins of Tymon. Together, they fled to the docks, slipping aboard Captain Joseph Lorune’s ship alongside Vaz’non and Cal, the city behind them burning, the storm still boiling above. 

The Ruinlords were not defeated. 

Not yet.