Gash opens a portal to the edge of the cave and Gish helps him drag the trolley of salt through.
L: Once they crossed over, I had to have faith in them. That's all I could do.
"Now what?" he asks, "Do we drag it around the cave? You think there's enough salt to go the whole way."
"Probably not if we're just pouring it," says his sister, "But I've got an idea." The worms nearest to them begin oozing in their direction. "You protect the salt; I'll make the circle."
Gish draws her scimitar and channels energy through the blade. She reverses her grip and runs, dragging the blade through the ground behind her. As she races around the edge, the worms from the mass launch their bile from the sky. Gish deflects the few in her path with a small energy shield and keeps moving.
Ahead of her, more worms crawl forth to block her path with mouths wide open. Gish channels energy through her gauntlet and punches blasts of energy right into the open maws. "Get!" Fire. "Out!" Acid. "Of!" Ice. "My!" Lightning. "Way!" Sound. The energy attacks stream out from her fist and explode inside of each target, disorienting them.
L: Gish once taught me her 'Five Fist Power Punch'. D: What's that have to do with the salt? L: I just mean, I knew she could defend herself.
As she continues to run, she thinks hard. What does she have that could draw attention away from herself? ...Herself? That could be it. She reaches into her shadow, faint as it is in the dim cave, and rips it out of the wall. In an instant, her shadow multiplies and scatter about; each 'her' racing off in a different direction, leading most worms away.
The majority of the undead horde's attention remains on the tower and its defenders, witnessing the desperate flinging of spells infuriates the tallgoblin. She has to work faster, she has to BE faster. She channels more energy into her legs, Stomping up a storm, ripping through the ground, leaving a trail of flame behind her, Gish pushes herself as far as she can.
She can see her brother's position again. He swings his axe, launching cleaving waves through the cretins approaching him. More crawl over their writhing split open brothers and some attempt to burrow under them; the latter being stopped by the metal plating that has covered the ground in Gash's location. There's still enough room behind it for Gash to complete the almost-circle.
As she approaches, another worm lunges for her. She pulls a pillar of earth up into it, the force flinging it head over tail back where it came from.
Gish keeps running, dragging her blade to complete the loop. As her blade reconnects with its starting point, she stumbles, trips, and rolls along the ground.
"Gish!" yells her brother, "Are-"
"DO IT NOW!" yells Gish.
Gash stabs open the bag of salt and as the salt pours into the crack in the ground, he enchants it into a two-headed snake. The senseless salt serpents separate and slither through the scar, spreading symmetrically around the circumference. As it flows, Gash screams a forceful wail at the worms still attempting to navigate the still-living (unliving?) wall, pushing them back off.
Gish stands and opens a portal back to the tower. The duo fling themselves back through and yell, "Circle's ready, Boss!"
L: I don't how they did it, but they ran like the clappers to get it done.
Outside of the tower, the spellcasters continue to hold off the undead tide.
"Don't you have anything more offensive, Ling?" asks Oighrig, still floating, still maintaining a barrier above, and now gesturing to have her storm spider rain acid spiders onto the mass.
L: What she was attempting to do was have her acid react to the basic bile of some of the worms, but basic worm bile was pretty rare.
"Sorry," says Ling, sarcasm dripping from the word, "I was told to prepare for an ecological disaster, NOT AN UNDEAD ABOMY!"
Melandria winces, "I mean, it's both of those things..."
"Would have been great to know before I brought my daughter down here," yells Ling, conjuring a giant lemon inside of the wormsworn, "Thought it was just going to be some sick plants or the mold flood came back, but no, it's zombie wormageddon." The lemon explodes. "And then ya've got the nerve to talk about my mum."
"What is wrong with your daughter wanting to know her grandmother?" asks Melandria, her shadow arms fling several worms on the ground into the air.
"My mum's a f******g assassin, Mel," says Ling. She slaps the earth and the worms attempting to burrow under the teeth wall turn to solid stone. "She has killed a s***eton of people. Why do think she moved from the surface?"
"Is this really the right time for this?" ask Oighrig, as she and her storm spider launch bolts of lightning into the airborne worms.
"The sun'll go cold before I let my daughter go down that path!" says Ling.
L: Didn't mean that literally, but good work making it true, Jevoi. Guess I can't stop ya from living your dream now. J: At this point, assassin is a step down, but thanks so much for your permission, Mum.
"I am almost out of things to throw at this," says Oighrig, conjuring a web to trap more worms attempting to burrow.
"Mel, don't ya have another Dark Hole?" asks Ling, conjuring a phantom chef that slices, dices, and juliennes several worms.
"I'm running on empty now, too, Ling," says Melandria, her shadow arms skewering worms onto adamantine spears, "Killing the previous ones took too much out of me."
"How many of these things have you fought today!?"
"This is the fifth," says Oighrig, continuing to order her storm spider's blitz.
"Why did ya wait this late to call me?"
"I thought we could handle this," says Melandria, her shadow arms grabbing and tearing the worms open, "I wasn't expecting it to be this incessant."
"I'ma kick your sexy a**e, Mel!" yells Ling, "If it's not dead the third time ya kill it, it's not staying dead!" Gravity reverses for a group of worms and they are brought helplessly up to the phantom chef's cutting zone. "I'm going to make ya watch me destroy Oighrig."
"What did I do?" asks Oighrig, almost taking her eyes off her spider.
"No, positively!" says Ling, "Ya're doing lovely! Keep not-f*****g-up!"
"Boss, we've got the salt!" says Gish and Gash, hauling a large bag on a makeshift trolley.
"Gash, I'ma kick your a**e, too!" says Ling, pulling a book out of pouch, "I gave you one b****y job, you b******d!" She has the book turn itself to the right page. "F**k it, Gish, help your idiot brother make a salt circle around the entire cave."
"The entire cave?" asks Gish, "You cannot be serious."
"Ya heard me!" says Ling, inducing a relative increase in speed to the group, "We need to sanctify this entire place."
The mass of undead giant worms continues to grow. Bile pours out, sliding down their sides and pooling on the ground.
Melandria raises her hand to the abomination and yells, "BEGONE!" Suddenly, half of the mass is ripped into a black void. The remainder force their way free.
L: She called that spell 'Dark Hole'.
"So cool," says Jevoi. She turns to the Shadow Queen, "Sorceresses are so cool!"
"Child, it is not safe here," says Melandria, "Please, go back inside."
Jevoi grabs onto Melandria's dress, "Tell me how to do that!"
"I promise to later."
Above them a translucent barrier forms blocking bile being launched at the group. Oighrig yells at the worms.
J: I didn't speak Vrow, but I assume she was cursing at them.
"That's what Nana Ning said, too," pouts Jevoi, "Mum won't let her teach me."
"If you work hard," says Melandria, disintegrating a line of worms, "You'll be able to be whatever you want."
"Mel, stop," yells Ling, "Don't encourage her." Ling gestures and the ravaged crops begin wrapping around the worms on the ground.
Melandria is so confused that she cannot respond.
"We're not talking about my mum now," says Ling, blasting a bolt of magic that transforms one worm into a still writhing giant carrot; it's companions immediately begin eating it alive.
J: You never let Ning teach me anything. L: Think hard, Jevoi, why'd that be. J: I only saw her twice before she died, Mum. L: Is that why ya're obsessed with her? D: Can we get back to the story? L: Right. Also, that spell's 'Veggification'.
"Boss!" A pair of armored tallgoblins step out from the tower with weapons drawn, "Give us your order!"
"Gish," yells Ling, raising a wall of large blunt teeth covered in smaller sharper teeth to hold off the tide of zombie worms dropping off the damaged mass, "Where's your salt? Get me all of it! Gash, watch my kid!" Melandria's shadow arms raise out of the gaps and begin forcibly grinding the worms against the teeth.
"Yes, Ma'am!" says Gish, racing back into the tower as Oighrig conjures a massive storm cloud spider. It magnetizes several worms out of the mass and pulls them into its mouth, electrocuting them all the while.
"Why me?" asks Gash, launching a flaming boulder over the wall.
L: Dental Palisade, Conjure Storm Spider (not to be confused with Conjure Spider Storm), and... er, Big Flame Rock. J: Goblins tend to be straight forward.
"We need someone to protect the-" Melandria taps the side of her head, "Idea: take her to meet Gank. Then you can keep them both safe while we get this under control."
"Understood, Boss!" says Gash, sheathing his weapon, "With me," he says to Jevoi.
"Fiiiine," says the child.
Ling quickly throws on her robe and wizard hat. "Get your stuff, kid," she says, "We're going out."
Jevoi grumbles, but pulls a pink tunic out of the dresser which it was hanging out of.
"You're bringing her?" asks Melandria, "Into the Underdank?"
"It'll be fine," says Ling, "We're with ya." Out of the corner of her eye, she spies Jevoi picking up a knife from the counter. "Ya don't need that."
Jevoi mutters to herself and puts it back. Ling and Melandria reenter the main room and the group stand in a circle.
L: Is it really a circle with three people? J: Fine, we stood in a triangle.
Melandria's dark aura swallows the geckos and the group are shunted through the earth. In a manner of seconds, the group arrives in the parlor of Melandria's castle.
The trio stand in the teleportation circle in the center of the room. The walls display banners of Melandria's silhouette in various poses. A few black leather benches set along opposing walls with grand doors on the other pair.
A Vrow sorceress is waiting for the group. Her left arm is incorporeal and her left eye is a spark in a dark void. Her attire is immediately recognizable to Ling, nostalgic even.
"Oighrig," says Melandria, "Has it returned?"
"Thankfully not, Your Darkness," says Oighrig with a bow, "Ah, great wizard Ling, thank you for coming."
As Ling talks with Oighrig, Melandria turns her attention to the upset little gecko. "Are you alright? That wasn't scary was it."
"Are you another wizard?" asks Jevoi, bluntly.
"Not exactly," says Melandria, "I'm a sorceress."
"What's the differ-"
L: Wizards study magic; sorceresses are given it free. J: Sorceresses create magic; wizards copy it. L: Ya stole your power; ya didn't create s***e. J: Language, Mum!
"Well, if ya've already killed it," yells Ling, "Then why the house call?"
"Because it keeps coming back," says Oighrig, "And we still don't know what it even is." She contorts her phantom limb into a hydra. "It's a massive-"
Suddenly the earth quakes, the tower vibrates from the force outside.
"Good timing," says Ling, as she charges out the door and kicks it open. The stench of death is immediate and overwhelming.
"That is unnecessary, Ling," says Melandria, racing behind her with Oighrig and Jevoi on her rear.
The women look out to the writhing mass of worms pouring into the cave crushing the ravaged farmland. Each worm large enough to swallow a person whole. The infestation blocks out the crystal "stars" in the ceiling.
"How in f'ell!?" yells Ling, "Is that a b****y warsworn!?"
"Giant worm!" yells Jevoi, ecstatic.