In the previous session the group learned of a way to banish all those demon lords back into the abyss. However this will require gathering a list of ingredients, which they now set out to do. First stop: The Wormwrithings, an area of the Underdark dug out by purple worms. Vizeran had told them of the location of a purple worm nest, from which they needed an egg [By pure coincidence we played this on Easter Sunday], and of a beholder's lair, from which they needed the beholder's central eye.

However on the way there they first encountered a booming voice in the dark, warning them to turn back. This turned out to be a minor illusion, cast by a lost dark elf young woman, who had gotten separated from her mother and her group of purple worm egg hunters. While the rest of the group wasn't much interested, Arkoy insisted of helping her to get back home. After some mishaps he managed to teleport her close to Menzoberranzan, gaining the gratitude of House Hallen there.

Getting closer to the nest, the group experienced earthquakes caused by burrowing worms. This led a part of the floor on which they were standing to collapse, landing them in some caves. This was in fact part of the worm nursery, and started the clock on a time table I had prepared. The first event on that table was a purple worm passing them, opening up a tunnel to the cave where the eggs were. The eggs were glued into a web, and had to be hacked out. While they were doing that, a group of dark elves turned up. Those were of course the mother of the dark elf they helped earlier, which led to a truce between the two groups.

While each group was getting eggs from a different corner of the web, another purple worm turned up. While the group could have avoided a fight by using the worm's blindness (which is what the dark elves did), they decided to fight it instead. They won the fight, but lost a part of their army. Before another purple worm could turn up, they grabbed two eggs and left. On they way out they encountered a fomorian giant, but that one turned out to be not much of a challenge.

So the group went on to the beholder's lair. There they first encountered some slaves, who weren't of much help. Then they met a mage who was acting as a majordomo for the beholder, holding a staff with an eye on top of it. They decided to kill him, which was quick enough, but Surina got hit from a death ray from the eye staff, and some more troops got killed in a cone of cold. Finally they reached the beholder's central lair, a big shaft criss-crossed by bridges. The floating beholder was not easy to reach. When Arkoy and Mog'burz teleported onto a bridge right next to him, the beholder used his disintegration ray to destroy the bridge, so they fell 500 feet and suffered 20d6 of falling damage.

The beholder also used his anti-magic cone to good effect, blocking magic from one direction while firing his eye rays into another. However he couldn't block everything. Quarion the ranger dealt a lot of damage with arrows, and some spells also went through from the group casters while the beholder was looking in another direction. The fight was truly epic, although I forgot to use the beholder's legendary lair actions. Finally they managed to kill the beholder, and we ended the adventure there, with the group having reached level 11. The Wormwrithings is a really good chapter in this adventure. The next chapter, The Labyrinth, will need some work to make it as good.