Zatal erupted, spewing lava, ash, smoke, and volcanic stone into the sky. Sizzling rivers of molten rock flooded down the slopes of the mountain, while chunks of the peak tumbled through the sky, wheeling gracefully before plummeting to earth. Steam billowed upward as a hissing black cloud of ash spread across the valley.
With the release of the volcano, like the popping cork of a bottle, Lolth's power surged into the True World. As the gods of the humans wrestled below, she laid her dark curse across the land.
That curse settled first upon the drow, huddled deep within the bowels of their exploding mountain. Most of them had reached temporary, imagined safety in their subterranean lairs, but even here the curse of Lolth crept toward them. Like a dark fog, her spidery essence slipped into the lairs, punishing her children for their dedication to a god of humans. She cast her curse upon the dark elves, and they changed forever.
Crying out in agony and horror, the drow thrashed and writhed, their bodies wracked by the all-consuming vengeance of their dark goddess. The sleek elven shapes grew grotesque and bloated, trailing great, immobile abdomens as their lower limbs withered and fell away. From these abdomens sprouted legs — eight legs each — that were covered with coarse fur. Dark elven heads and torsos — and minds — remained, so that they could know their disgrace. But the grotesque and hateful bodies would belong to them as long as they lived.
In horror, the drow regarded each other, no longer slim, handsome figures. Lolth had visited upon them the ultimate punishment, and the repulsive, spidery forms of the Ancient Ones would serve as a constant, painful reminder of their deity's vengeance.
For they became driders, outcast spider beasts of the drow.
But Lolth's vengeance was not merely directed at her wayward followers. Her power reached the cult of the Viperhand, since that order had flowed from the bidding of the drow. And its members were marked by the crimson brand.
A great, oppressive cloud lowered from the sky. Across the city, the ash of the volcano mixed with the rain to form a thick sludge that dropped, hissing, to the ground, coating the warriors of Maztica, and the legionaires, and the people of the city. Its corrosive touch burned skin and stung eyes, though they brushed it away without permanent hurt.
But not so with those who wore the brand of the Viperhand. When it struck those warriors, those priests and fanatics, a terrifying transformation occurred.
Once-human faces twisted into bestial expressions of hatred and rage. Bodies distorted, becoming grotesque and misshapen. Some grew into hulking brutes, surrounded by thick sinew. Stooped and hideous, they chomped mouths full of dull fangs and raised rocklike fists to crush any who stood before them.
Others became green and scaly, tall monsters with great, hooked noses and gangly, yet powerful, limbs. Warts burst from their horrid skin, and black eyes, sunk deep into monstrous faces, gleamed wickedly at a world gone mad.
The great masses of warriors who had been branded became ores. Snuffling through broad snouts, baring wicked tusks, the brutish, evil beasts quickly formed bands and turned upon the humans — Mazticans and legionnaires alike — of the city. Still armed with their stone weapons, they also used savage jaws to tear at the helpless victims of their rage.
The knights, Jaguar and Eagle, who had been branded by Hoxitl became ogres, huge, hulking brutes who cuffed the smaller ores around them, gruffly commanding their attention and obedience. The giantlike ogres seized beams, trunks, and other huge devices to use as clubs.
And finally, the priests of Zaltec who had been branded into the order grew to twice their height, with a ripping and tearing of skin and sinew. Their appearance distorted most horribly from the human norm, as their skin turned dark green, their features horrible in the extreme.
For they became the trolls. And so the ultimate contortion of war seized the land, while death spread through the city and lava spilled ever closer.
"Run, man! Run for your Men" Cordell gasped at Daggrande. The two legionnaires staggered like drunks along the nightmarishly contorted causeway. Finally they reached the city, even as waves crashed over the narrow roadway and carried it into the black depths of the steaming lake.
"Where?" groaned the dwarf, pausing to fill his straining lungs with air. The ground heaved and buckled underfoot, and they both sprawled to the stones of the street.
"The lakeshore — it's our only chance! We can steal some canoes and get out of here!"
Once again they lumbered forward. A huge beast reared out of the darkness before them, chomping its fang-filled maw. It reached out a wickedly clawed hand, striking for Cordell's face.
"Look, by Helm!" cried the captain-general, stumbling backward in horror.
On the breast of the beast, like a blood-red scar, Cordell saw the diamond-shaped brand of the Viperhand.
Daggrande chopped at the troll with his axe, driving the monster backward and pushing it out of the stream of escaping refugees. Then the men swept past, losing sight of the beast in the swirling advance of the mob.
The fleeing Mazticans, like the few legionnaires among them, hurried toward the lake, trying to escape the crumbling city. Buildings fell, toppling across roadways and crushing hundreds of people at a time. Great cracks opened in the ground, and these swiftly filled with water, forming deep and treacherous moats where moments earlier had stood a pastoral garden or graceful two-story manor.
More and more of the soldiers joined with them as they passed. Cordell saw the weeping form of Kardann huddled beside the road. He roughly pulled the assessor to his feet and dragged him along in their flight.
"Monsters — ores, ogres! They're everywhere!" wailed the assessor. "I saw them attacking the people, the women, even the little children. They — they simply tore them to pieces!"
"Stop it, man!" Cordell barked. "Just worry about getting away, getting to somewhere safe!"
But this testimony to the savagery of the monsters of the Viperhand made him wonder if there could be anyplace safe left to them. As if to emphasize his fear, bands of ores, ogres, and trolls snapped at the fringes of the crowd.
Then they reached the shore of the lake. Cordell vaguely recognized the dark, brackish water called Lake Qotal. But now its surface tossed chaotically, too turbulent by far to bear the passage of any canoe.
Hoxitl tossed back his huge, maned head and howled his rage at the skies, his widespread maw revealing long, wickedly curving fangs. He stomped a massive foot, sending cracks shooting outward through the ground. Around him stretched the wreckage of the pyramid.
"You have betrayed me!" he cried, though the words made sense to him alone. All others heard the yapping and snarling of a savage beast. He shrieked his fury at his god, sensing Zaltec's weakness even as he saddled him with blame.
"You, Zaltec! I curse you and your name!" Hoxitl knew dimly that the curse that had wracked him and the members of his league was more than the work of one god, even a god of Zaltec's might. The influence of Helm, the strangers' god, could not be denied. Nor the presence of the dark punisher of the Ancient Ones, the one who had corrupted her followers even as Zaltec had twisted and deformed his own.
With a snarl of animal rage, Hoxitl tore himself from the rubble of the collapsed pyramid, rising to his full height of nearly twenty feet in the courtyard beyond. Around him, snorting and groveling, cavorted the bestial masses of his league, slaying those human warriors who still lived and had not yet fled.
The beast howled again, a shrieking, devastating sound that blasted through the ruins, causing all who heard it to stop and tremble in abject terror. Lurching forward with a rolling, lumbering gait, like an ape's, Hoxitl led his creatures through the ruins.