Returning to the city with this new information, the party still finds the city's magistrate apathetic. They befriend the Holberkians when they save one of them from a mob. Far from the traitors they had been painted, it turns out the Hoberkians are faithful friends. Being half-elves and half-Orcs, they have knowledge of the orcish hordes, earning the enmity of the city, which thinks they are responsible for the Orcish siege of the city. They also have noticed a pronounced change in the Orcs' activity, suggesting an outside influence. They reveal a long-absent sorcerer living on an island in the swamp who could have been responsible for the changes in the orcs. The next day, one of the Hoberkians takes the party to the sorcerer's tower. There the party finds numerous experiments and letters all pointing to a person known only as Borborad and his shipment of two worm queens. One queen was delivered but a second was lost en route when the urn sank with a cargo ship in Riva's harbor during a storm. Research notes further reveal a wealth of information on the worm spawn from the queen. They possessed extreme intelligence and could possess hosts by entering their brains through the nose. They were also linked telepathically to the queen who spawned them and could not be killed unless you killed the queen who resided within a hive which was invincible to attack due to the queen's magic.
After returning to Riva, the party speaks with the magistrate about their suspicions. Instead of immediate action, the magistrate dismisses the group. Within the day, they are framed for murder. It is at this time that an underground movement contacts the group and offers them sanctuary as well as the use of a tunnel system that surfaces in every temple. They are informed of the movement's suspicions that the magistrate is under some unknown influence, possibly a worm spawn. If so, it would explain why the party was framed for murder—they know too much and are a threat to exposing the entire plot. They are told to rescue a group of wizards from the magistrate's prison island during the night. There they see attempted worm implantation which the wizard manages to fight off. After the rescue, the wizards inform the group that it was the magistrate who had an expedition to recover the sunken ship items from the harbor. One of the urns was brought to him. Upon opening the urn, the worm queen was released. It possessed the magistrate, established a hive, and used its worm spawn to possess various people around the city. The worm queen is able to hear and see everything the possessed townsfolk see and hear. The group is told that the one remaining urn in the sunken ship is required to learn more about the queen and a means to defeat them. After obtaining the urn from the merfolk that lives in the waters near Riva's harbor, the wizards spend a few days studying the queen inside.
When theyambiguous finally summon the group, they give them a shrinking spell that reduces them to worm size, allowing them to enter the magically reinforced hive. They fight their way through the hive, pick their way through a confusing maze, and fight off telepathic nightmares sent by the queen. Finally, they come face-to-face with the massive queen and stave off her magic and pincer attacks. After killing the queen, they return to their normal size, destroying the hive as they grow, since the magic protecting the hive walls broke with the queen's death. Everywhere in the city, the worm spawn are dying and falling out of their hosts. Unfortunately, none of them recall them being under the influence of the spawn, so the group is still considered to be a band of fugitives. They are forced to escape the city, but they go with the knowledge and satisfaction that they saved everyone from the orcish invasion. Without the queen's leadership, the orcish horde fragments back into their warring tribes. Even though they still outnumber the alliance of elves, dwarves, and humans, they are no match for their combined might. The realms of Arkania are safe once again thanks to the group of heroes. But somewhere Borborad rages. He swears vengeance against all who managed to defeat his plans.
Side-stories
There is a side quest involving the disappearances of corpses from the city cemetery known as the Field of Boron. The group finds one freshly dug grave to be a fake which leads to a shapeshifter's quarters below ground. Upon killing the shapeshifter and its demon summon, there is information indicating the presence of a felimia, an elven vampire. This leads the party to another side quest to investigate the sewers where they run across a massive humanoid rat, the city's rat catcher, and an old slight hag. Upon further wandering through the sewers, the group runs into the city's secret underground resistance. There, the old hag suddenly displays inhuman powers as she grabs the nearest elf, kills him, then changes into a beautiful elven female sporting vampiric canines. The group finds out from different citizens that, the last time the city caught the felimia, they imprisoned her in a coffin buried in the Field of Boron. Digging up the coffin the group finds it empty with a hole in its bottom that leads to the shapeshifter's quarters. The felimia had bypassed the charms placed on the cover of the coffin by breaking through the bottom of the coffin. Later, the resistance contacts the party and tells them that, the last time they fought the felimia, they learned that Moonlight can kill the felimia. With the help of the resistance, the group finds the felimia's lair behind a magic mirror. Inside, they find a magically locked trunk that belonged to the resistance and open it with the password given to them. Inside is a moonlantern, moonstone, a cloak, and a magic dagger. The cloak turns out to be an invisibility cloak that allows the wearer to turn invisible to normal people but also bestows the ability to see the felimia. At this point, the resistance member dons the cloak, sees the invisible felimia standing right next to them in the room and attacks her with the dagger. He chases her into a room of mirrors. Finally, the group kills the felimia in the room of mirrors when they light the moonstone and place it into the lantern. The beam of the lantern rebounds off several mirrors until it strikes the felimia, which was charging at the group. The moonlight kills the felimia, reducing her to nothing in a brilliant flash of light. With this, the underground resistance is forever grateful to your group and later aids you when you are framed for murder.
