The stage's lights brighten only marginally as the curtain rises,
revealing the illithoid Nyggoth standing in a dark cavern, surrounding
by a crowd of miserable illithoid scavengers.

The sound of countless soldiers marching echoes out from the darkness,
followed by several loud cracks and crashes.

Nyggoth: Shards of Illith, do you hear the creaking and cracking of the
stones? The hives march against us, to do to us what Keph could not do
to Illith.

Chorus (weeping and wailing): Save us from extermination!

Nyggoth: Be silent and listen to your betters.

Chorus: We will cling to your every word.

Nyggoth: Now all who can fight must take up their arms, lest our prison
turn into a tomb.

Nyggoth: I have sent a spy among them, and I'll soon hear his report.
Only then will my orders be given.

Chorus (with a faint hint of hope in their voices): May your prudent
orders save us!

A short illithoid wrapped in black robes slinks out onto the stage.

Nyggoth (turning to the spy): Speak! Tell me all that you have seen.

Spy (bowing): Honored master Nyggoth, grand cenobite, they have made
eight breaches in the walls.

Chorus (shrieking and flailing their arms through the air): Grim words!
Our doom is marching towards us.

The chorus bitterly laments its fate in a wordless wail of anguish.

Nyggoth (angerly): Cease your lamenting until the slaughter comes. Be
silent, and let me hear the report.

Spy: Each hive has chosen a single champion, who surpasses all the rest
in valor and skill. Each has sworn to conquer or die.

Nyggoth: Come now and speak. Have you learned of the mind and heart of
each?

Chorus (desperately): Speak, spy, and give us better tidings!

The spy gazes at Nyggoth and slowly nods his head.

Spy: I have lingered in their camp, I have heard them make their plans.
I know of all who march against you.

Nyggoth (grimly): Then tell me all you know.

Spy: The Tutotophet send a great soldier against you, and Sanun is his
name. He has no need of weapons, nor does any hammered steel shield his
flesh from the bloody wounds of war.

Spy: His face is tattooed with a grim portent, an eagle feasting on a
mass of worms. He is eager for battle, and he can scarcely be restrained
from marching on our prison now.

Chorus (shaking in fear as they shriek out their words): Horror! Surely
there is nothing that can save us!

Nyggoth stands quietly for a moment, rubbing his temples.

Nyggoth (slowly): I know the one who can save us from his wrath.

Nyggoth: We have his equal, I know the man. He can shatter solid stone
with his hands. You will find Thugulat, who dwells deep in the darkness,
and pull him away from his practice. He will meet the Tutotophet, and he
will triumph.

Chorus (hopefully): May his strength preserve us!

Loud crashes boom across the stage.

The illithoid of the chorus throws itself onto the ground, writhing,
weeping, and rending their garments as soon as they hear the sound.

Spy: The Akhari also send a soldier. He has a stout staff which has
claimed a thousand lives. He moves swifter than any I have seen. He
cannot bring himself to linger in one place, but darts from here to
there as quick as the starving man runs to catch a grub.

Spy: He too bears a mark inked upon his face. A dozen glaring eyes stare
out from his head, and each has a gaze full of unending hate.

Chorus (despondently): We shall all be slaughtered!

Nyggoth: Send for Dhogtla, he will not fail me. He is so broad as to
block the breach himself, and I've seen him bear a dozen wounds. He
feels no fear, and he feels no pain, so he will stand and he will slay
his foe.

The spy slowly nods his understanding.

Nyggoth: Come, now tell me of the rest.

Spy (quietly): The Khementen send a soldier against us, who bears two
fearsome crescent blades. He longs for nothing more than glorious war,
and to triumph by shedding our blood. I have seen him kill a fierce
cavefisher for sport, when he had been from the slaughter for too long a
time.

Hearing the spy's words, the chorus moans and sobs in fear,

Spy (with evident fear in his voice): His face bears the mark of the
cavefisher itself, as it reaches out to kill its prey.

The chorus suddenly ceases its lamentation and stops all movement as it
waits on Nyggoth's words.

Nyggoth: He will be no trouble, for we shall destroy him. Send for
Ithacys, who can build cunning traps. He will triumph without so much as
grasping his chain.

Spy: And what of the Mumhatuti, who also march against you? I've seen
the one who marches as their head. He has wandered far, and he has seen
many things, and he wears a strong suit of steel. I know of no weapon
which can pierce it.

Spy: His face is hidden, and he wears a grim helm, of a shape such that
I have never seen. It is like a beast with long fearsome fangs, and
covered with many scales.

Chorus (suddenly, and with great terror in their voices): Such a man
will surely slay us!

Nyggoth whips his head around to glare at the terrified illithoid.

Nyggoth: Be silent. Be silent, or I swear that I shall make you so.

Nyggoth: If this one has traveled far, then we must match him with a
traveler of our own. Goakep will best him, for he has travelled far
away, and he has shed the blood of many men. He will know the secret to
piercing such armor and slaughtering the one who hides within.

Spy: Now, the Nefereti are cowards, and they do not march against us,
but they send an ally in their place. She has two tall antlers sprouting
from her head, and her face is painted with the red of flowing blood.
She carries a cudgel, and plants grow where she lingers. I know nothing
of her kind.

Chorus: All the world is calling for our deaths! Should we not shed our
own blood, and meet our fates now?

Nyggoth (furiously): You shall do no such thing, nor will you speak of
your dooms.

Chorus (with tears streaming from their eyes): Why not speak of what we
cannot escape?

Nyggoth: Nothing is certain, and your fear is contagious. You'll shatter
the hearts of those who fight.

Chorus: But we shall be slaughtered where we stand!

Chorus: We will not die in battle with our courage in our chests, and we
will not take comfort in killing our foes.

Chorus: A harsh death awaits us if you are conquered. You must let us
vent our fear.

Nyggoth (in a voice full of contempt): I must find victory. I must think
of the battle, and think of nothing else. I cannot spare a thought for
your fates.

Nyggoth turns is back on the chorus and gives the spy his full
attention.

Nyggoth: Now, as to their foreign friend, she shall be met by our own.
One from the surface lingers here with us.

Nyggoth: Veref is his name, and he comes from city far above that grasps
at all power without fear. He has a strange servant, he calls it a
demon, and he shall fight in our defense.

Spy: The Rashepera have sent a sly soldier against us. His mind is
cunning, and he has no love for battle. He will come when we are weary,
and cut our throats in our sleep.

Spy: His face bears two marks, one on each eyelid, such that even I
could not say if his eyes were open or closed. He nearly eluded me, and
I can say no more about him.

Nyggoth: I've not met the trickster who had any strength in his limbs.
Send for the architect, send for Taugot, and let his workers go with
him. Let him go to work, and prepare the tunnel's collapse, that our foe
might be crushed under a mountain of stones.

Spy: It will be so, but they send their own digger from the Sethetmun
hive. He will widen his breach and bring in his whole hive's army at
once to destroy us.

Spy: What can be done to one such as him?

Nyggoth: He is a danger, I shall not deny that. A greater threat than
the rest, since he is no champion. A moment, I will find the way to
preserve us.

Holding his head in his hands, Nyggoth slowly walks away from the spy.

Chorus: Is this one to be our destruction?

Nyggoth (distractedly): I must think, be silent.

Chorus: We have none who can oppose him!

Nyggoth turns back towards the chorus.

Nyggoth (with contempt in his voice): False. I have found him, I know
the one who will save us.

Chorus: Speak, and say how we might be spared.

Nyggoth: Stighu can best him, if his beasts are with him. He bred them
for their power, and he raised them from the moment of their birth. They
are terrors, and our foes will flee before them.

Nyggoth: Now, tell me. Who comes from Ptoma?

Spy: They send no soldier against us. They have sworn to serve some
surface power, and are forbidden from joining the war.

Nyggoth: Good, good. That is to our benefit. Are there more who oppose
us?

Spy: There is one other, and I fear that she who comes from the Imhohet
hive is the greatest.

Nyggoth: I shall find her peer, just as I have found those of the
others.

Spy: They call her a princess, and she fights without weapons, she
fights only with her mind. She has mastered all of the psionic arts.

Nyggoth takes a slow and deep breath.

Nyggoth: Then I shall meet her, for my skills are the same.

Chorus: No! Stay, lest our champions fall and you need to turn your mind
to our final defense.

Nyggoth: Reason demands that I go.

Chorus: What reason demands that of you?

Nyggoth: None will follow a coward. They will not fight if I hide behind
their courage and their strength. I must go, lest they disobey me.

Chorus: She will destroy you!

Nyggoth (shrugging): I will live or will die as my own skill decrees.

Nyggoth: Go, spy, and pass on my orders.

Nyggoth and the spy rush offstage in opposite directions.

The sounds of battle and bloodshed fill the stage as the chorus cringes
in fear.

The chorus runs about the stage, shrieking and wailing as they lament
their fate until they suddenly stop and all is silent.

The spy silently slinks in from offstage.

Spy(suddenly): I come bearing news from the battlefield.

The chorus shrieks in fear as they hear the spy speak.

Chorus: Speak! What has fate decreed?

Spy (in a grim monotone): The kephera have fled. We need not fear for
our lives.

Chorus: Nyggoth has triumped!

Spy: No.

Chorus: Did you not say they have fled?

Spy: I did.

Chorus: Then how could he not be triumphant?

Spy: He is dead.

Chorus: Horror! His foe must still oppose us.

Spy (shaking his head): She is dead.

The spy points off into the distance.

Spy: If you set foot outside and look upon the battlefield, you will see
a mountain of corpses. At the summit of the mound, you will see the
fallen princess and Nyggoth beside her.

Chorus: How could that come to pass?

Spy: They were equal in skill, and so they killed each other.

Chorus: And what of the others?

Spy: He chose his soldiers well. They all live, and they all rejoice in
their triumph.

Chorus: And the kephera have gone?

Spy: They fled in terror from our tunnels.

Chorus: Then we are saved!

Spy: Now we are saved. Go back to your work. As we all live, it cannot
be shirked.

The chorus rushes offstage, laughing with joy as they go.

Spy: For now we are safe. I must watch for their return.

The spy slowly creeps out of sight.