21: In Defense of Blackwall Keep, Against the Lizard Men, part 2

The heroes regrouped behind the effects of the Spike Growth and Fog Cloud spells. Healing spells were cast and they decided to move through the deciduous tunnels to circumvent the spells.
After some wandering, they moved through a few living chambers for lizard men, now vacant. They stumbed across the entrance they had entered the Mangaroo tree and back tracking found a new room, obviously the garbage pit for the tribe. Upon entering the room a horrible monster sprang up. Composed of four gelatinous tentacles, a tentacle with several eye, and a gaping maw, the creature vaguely resembled an Otyugh.
The creatures acidic tentacles immediately wrapped up Morgrim, Bornir, Stigand and Aardgal. The other four fire bow, spell and slashed at the beast. Azrael healed as fast as he could. Just as the creature was nearing death, a horrid noise came from Stigand, and he stopped moving and breathing, his spine broken. His eyes clouded and he quickly succumbed to death. Rallying the remaining heroes slew the beast.
Mindful that they hadn’t rescued all of the soldiers, the heroes took the unconscious body of Marzena and Stigand’s dead body and trudged back to Blackwall Keep, knowing they could find no rest in the Lizard Folk’s den.

The heroes reached Blackwall Keep in darkness. The Keep loomed dark and qiuet. No torches or signs of life could be seen. The heroes approached cautiously, in case the Lizard Men had returned to finish their grisly business.
The gate to the keep was unbarred and open. The heroes had just left the keep this morning, of the 6 surviving troopers nothing could be seen. The heroes devided into two groups to search the keep faster. Morgrim, Bornir, Felnar and the guide Dawson went down, while Aarth, Lath, Aardgal and Azrael went up.
Soon screams could be heard from the dwarves and men who went downstairs. The elves and men came rushing down to find the four screaming in utter fear. They clawed at the walls and cowered from a trio of greenish zombies. Two of the zombies wore soldiers armor like that worn by the Troopers stationed at the Keep. Most frightening of all were their eyes, or should I report lack of eyes. Where their eyes should have been, crawling from their mouths, and writhing under in their skin were multitudes of green worms. Small gnawing parasites which seemed to burrow and eat the undead flesh constantly.
Aardgal's presense allayed the fears of his fellows, but the other four were insane with fear, they also showed signs of being infected by the horrible green worms. Lath called on the power of Corellon Larethian to turn the undead one by one. Even with the undead sent away, Aardgal was infected and the other four were also.
Immediately the heroes turned to potions to try and save themselves, Bornir recieved a potion of Cure Disease which stopped the worms in his brain immediately. He then went to work with a dagger, first cutting a worm out of Feldnar's flesh. He then set to work on Aardgal. Azrael likewise tried to cut the worms out of Dawson, but succeeded in sending him into shock from a nasty knife wound. Morgrim was saved only by a lucky potion from Stigand's pouch which had a neutralize poison potion inside. Dawson wasn't so lucky. His eyes sucked into their sockets, and his skin turned greenish, worms spewed from his empty eye sockets and he rose as another 'Spawn of Kyuss', as Aardgal named them.
He was quickly turned and destroyed.
Panting as the terror faded, the heroes laughed not a little maniacally as they dubbed Bornir, Bornir 'the Barber' for his effective dagger-work.
Searching found two more soldiers, one of them Hawkins, still dressed in the Commanders armor, dead, bludgeoned to death before the worms could transform them. The last two troopers were no where to be seen.
The heroes would spend a full day and night at the Keep recuperating before heading back to the Lizard Man lair. During the day Aardgal, Morgrim, Bornir, Azrael and Azrael's air elemental dug graves for the fallen soldiers and burried the men of Greyhawk. During this grisly work they found a small miracle. One of the troopers still lived! A hulk of a man, he was caught outside the wall without a weapon and looked near death. A bit of minor healing from Aardgal got him on his feet despite the fact he looked pale, had lain on the cold ground for 2 days left for dead, and with the caked grime looked more dead than alive.
He named himself Krech. After some more minor healing he insisted he would go with the heroes to rescue the rest of the men of the garrison. He could not be persuaded not to go, and seemed a trifle slow.
Also during this time Marzena was revived and looking at the re-undead she figured the third spawn, which was dressed in torn and ragged purple robes, golden bracers, and bore a small trinket with the symbol of Boccob, was the Keep's previous battle mage. He had disappeared two years ago, deserted, or so she was told. She said she would check the Commander's journal and try to glean some clues while the heroes were gone.
Felnar asked her if she knew why she had been captured by the Lizard Folk? She responded the tribal leader, a tatooed lizard man named Shukakk, had ordered her captured and questioned by the Tribes Shaman - Hishna. They were torturing her. They thought she and the other 'pink skins' had infected the tribes young with green worms, killing them all. The attack had occured several years ago, before she came to the Keep. When she told Hishna this, Hishna seemed to take it to be true, but Shukakk thought she lied, so broke her jaw, and beat her unconscious.
With that the heroes departed once again into the Mist Marsh.