Sraddhanvit was born, her province that of faith, belief, trust, confidence, reliance, credit; calmness or composure of mind; intimacy; respect, reverence; hope, wish, vehement desire, the longing of a pregnant woman; and purity done in faith. The three faced Devatta blessed those she once called friends and with Mahabhalla at her side ascended into the celestial heavens. The very presence of the Harbingers at this event opened up a new insight into the great void of the Loom of Creation giving them all a renewed hope.
The funeral for others would continue, those of House Ravi, that of the Swami Durjaya who's influence can be said to have set all of this in motion. Durjaya's funeral was less grand, but the collection of a score of Hengeyoki from as far away as Vriscika was a site to behold in and of itself.
Events conspired against the faithful and Bhalluka however. Traitors inside the city, Tainted Ones of the Yuan-ti and Purebloods continued their war of terror inside the city walls as more were assassinated. This terror found its way into the very home of Lord Prasad, but in the end Shamad killed, once and for all Tej Keji Prasad the One Armed. That very night the gates of hell were opened. Rhokti, sleeping outside the city, was alerted to a mass movement of serpents. His warning to the city watch may have saved Bhalluka from being over run in one swift move. For over 100,000 Yuan-ti and their allies attacked the City of the Bear. Battling along the parapets the Mantrika Rhokti rained down fire and offered protections to the captains of the watch before moving off to find the Harbingers who he protects.
The next morning a meeting was to be with the Raja of Bhalluka, but now that meeting would never take place as Lord Prasad saw the events unfolding around him. The Yuan-ti had come for the Harbingers as much as they had come for their life long enemies of Bhalluka. The Harbingers were rushed to exit the city, before it was totally cut off and surrounded. They must escape; they must seek more enlightenment into the Prophecy if there was any chance of stopping Saurama's release from her divine prison. With the help of Toranoshi's friends and family at the House of the Red Lotus, a den of sin, the group escaped out of a small sewer culvert on the south side of town. The escape was not easy, and a difficult battle with a giant overgrown Chul, and elite Lizardmen nearly spelled the end for Hamin the Brahmin.
In the end, they escape into the Mahavana, headed toward the Yuan-ti homeland and the former capital of Mahasarpa itself, the ruins of Mahanaga seeking a mystic from far off Zakhara who had some weeks before seeking the Harbingers but was turned away.
The travel through the Mahavana began, and was filled with, blood and battle. Down the river the group moved until they cut inland and found themselves at Durjaya's old cave home south of Pequot. They discovered a new foe there, Surupa the Tangled, a medusa of great power. They drover her off, but not before she turned Nakan Fiji, now a Vassal of House Prasad into a stone statue like so many of the apes that now adorned Old Baboon Hill. Without a means to help Nakan the group pressed on eastwards toward the ancient ruins of Mahanaga hoping that since so many Yuan-ti had poured out of it to attack Bhalluka they might be able arrive without walking into a death sentence.
What they found along the way was that the jingled had turned black and tainted. Where small ponds were swamps now lived. Hundreds of thousands of acres of jungle had turned into a dark thick marshland infested with disease, undead, and death. Locating the new home of the Stained Scale Tribe of Lizardfolk, whom they defeated so many months before, the group sought an alliance, and an guide through the swamp. The lizardfolk asked for aid, and a trade was made. The Harbingers would destroy a small Yuan-ti camp to the north that was seeking to press the free Lizardmen into slavery, and in turn they would send with them their best scout into the swamp. The entire thing was a set up, and a ambush battle in which Ghanji was nearly slain, along with a few others began. Leading the battle was a strange man that they had seen once before atop the Ziggurat of the Sun - Samakar. In the end Samakar was slain by Azora and Rhokti as he tried to flee, unfortunately the Muni could not clear up the mystery of the Mhuktar before he died, of which he seemed to know of.
Battle after battle took place as the group moved deeper and deeper into the jungle bog until disaster struck again. Like the Prophecy said "Now the six shall start to fall" another of the group fell in battle. This time it was the Bhramin Hamin Al-Raftha that came from the Temple of Ancestors in Singh. His loyal jaguar Miikra was also slain as a tide of skulls, a Gaki horde, swarmed the Harbingers as they battle some undead apes. Hamin and Miikra were devoured by the tide, while at the same time Hamin saved Rhokti from the fate, sacrificing himself for the Hengeyoki. As Hamin's skull was ripped from his body and joined the tide, his soul forever doomed, Pazi, the little monkey friend of Rhokti freed his spirit from damnation striking his skull with a pot of holy water, releasing the Brahmin from the horrors of undeadhood.
Without clean water, their food tainted and running out, their strongest warrior drained of their life forces from the tide, the group pressed on, the thought of turning back entertained more than a few times. An encounter with a strange man among the swamps would be their salvation. Vivec Vaashi, a Brhamin come all the way from far off Lakshama to the south was found. The man, seeking to appease his ancestors and clean away the taint in the region joined in alliance with the Harbingers who seem to share similar goals. Eastward they pressed on, renewed by the Deva's blessings from Vivec. The first ruins of Mahanaga came into view, stone statues, road markers, and eventually a fortress infested with Yuan-ti and their captured slaves...
