That was how I found myself at the top of Spire, awaiting the Drop. My story had reached its conclusion. So had I.

The two ogres, bored of all the talking, had wandered off a short distance and taken a seat. One looked like he had even dozed off, his head leaning back against a shimmering white stone wall.

The elf, though, he had watched me intently the whole time. I couldn't be sure but I had gleaned a hint of interest coming from him. That isn't necessarily the reaction you want from an elf, but he was listening, and more, wasn't showing any obvious disbelief in it either.

"A fascinating tale," he commented when at last I had finished.

"And every word of it true," I replied.

His head tilted off to one side. "I can see that you believe it. Was your tale accurate to events that occurred?"

"As best as I can recall. A lot has happened this last week." More or less. There were a few minor details I was keeping from him, so that others didn't suffer a similar fate simply by having been associated with me.

Slowly the elf nodded, tapping at his pipe. "You never told anyone else about these Worms, as you call them?"

"Who could I have told and not endangered, and if I did so, who would have believed me?"

"There is that," the elf stated. Then a smirk came from him, a twitching of the corners of his lips. "It is good that you did not."

"Why so?" I asked.

The elf rested a gloved hand on my chest. "It saves me the trouble of having to hunt them down as well. It is best none discover it, like you have. Even knowing it, you blundered around in your ignorance. I almost pitied you, trying to fathom just what you gotten involved in."

I looked down at the gloved hand resting on my chest, spotting a silver ring sitting on one finger, set with a luminescent fire opal. Then I spotted movement beneath the glove, of some manner of thing writhing about. Out from under the glove emerged a pallid white worm which crawled along his arm before turning about and vanishing back under the glove again.

I returned my gaze back up to the elf. A cruel smile twisted his face. Then the flesh of it heaved and for a moment the mask slipped away, revealing a roiling mass of worms beneath, writhing together. The illusion returned though a number of the worms remained, peeking out through the mouth and the eyes.

I smiled at him. "I expected that."

His brows rose before his eyes narrowed, a hint of uncertainty creeping into them. "You expected that?"

"Yes. I knew it was you. From the pipe. The same type of pipe that you used when you were Mister Kochak. Neither of you smoked it either. You simply played with it."

The elf shrugged, as if it were not concern. "Sometimes old habits and personalities bleed through. It matters not though. No one else will know or find out. And you are the one that will die today for the crime."

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"The crime you committed to frame me."

"Of course."

"And the Kochaks?"

"Ah, yes, the dear, sweet Kochaks." The elf laughed, one of mocking edges. "Salt of the earth. So well regarded by those that knew them. Wouldn't harm a soul. All a lie," he sneered. "All a sham. Even I was impressed by how well they hid their true nature, preying on the weak and vulnerable. Even you fell for that ruse. Imagine doing their dirty work for them. Such sweet irony."

"Except it was you, not them, that I met."

"True, but I was merely carrying on with what they had started."

"What happened to the box in the end?"

"No one knew what they had with that box. It was far more valuable, and powerful, than any of them could have imagined. I knew though. It was a means to power. Through it I was able to come into contact with this body, one of the elite. He came to me, eager to have it. Poor deluded fool. Instead of he having the power, I took him and assumed his form. You can not imagine the opportunities that this affords me. I and my kind will come to rule this place and none will be wiser for the fact."

"I will."

"But you will be dead," the elf told me, his amusement and glee evident in his sneer.

“You tried to kill me before, with the attempted assassination, yet I survived that."

The elf laughed. "There is no coming back from this. If I had wished you dead earlier then it would have been done. No, that was to simply keep you motivated, on the hunt."

"Then why frame me for the murder so soon after, why bring me up here?"

A shrug of the shoulders answered. "I have other matters of interest to amuse me now. You are no longer important. But I could not leave you alive, nor Mister Hanes. Not that I feared you would cause me any problems. No, you killed my spawn and for that you must suffer. It is true that she did not matter all that much to me. Others will follow after her, but she was of my flesh and so punishment must be meted out for that. I do approve of the methods that they employ here. Such a delicious death. Such a long way down, contemplating in terror your death."

"You seem to have thought of almost everything."

His head tilted to one side and I caught a fleeting moment of doubt in his eyes. "Almost?"

"You should never have let me talk so long."

I brought my hands out from behind my back, no longer bound, and I smiled at him. All through the long tale that I had spun I had worked to free them. The worm host had been too distracted and the ogres too bored to notice.

The elf's eyes widened in shock and he started to reach for the sidearm at his side. Too late, far too late though. I reached out and with one hand grasped his belt and with the other took a hold of his coat.

Gripping tight, I took a step back, out over the long drop. I began the fall, and the weight of my plunge dragged the worm host over the edge after me, into oblivion. Hanes and Miss White would never know what I had done for them but at least now they would be safe, free to start their new life together. Free of the wrath of the worms.

I tried to cling to that thought, to give me some peace as the terror took me over. It pounded at my mind, sending it yammering in cold fear. The wind shrieked through my ears. Or it could have been me. I could not tell, could not remember. The side of Spire streaked by me as I went down, down, down. Everything was a blur.

I cannot remember much of that for the mind shies away from it. There is the sense of falling, of plummeting, and a terrible cold sweat that comes from trying to recall it. Memories come in bursts, in flashes, and as sensations more than anything.

The elf's sidearm roared. Even as he had gone over the edge with me, he had managed to pull it clear. I felt a punch to the chest harder than any I had experience before. A spurt of blood bubbled forth and my grip broke on the elf. I spun free, my vision starting to fade.

As all began to darken, my final sight was of the elf. His skin began to twist and thrash about as the worms within sought freedom as they went into a blind panic. The skin stretched and expanded and then suddenly just burst, shattering into a million parts as the host came apart. The worms span off into the void, leaving an empty shell of clothing behind, a white rain starting its own long fall to oblivion.

A ray of light caught on the scintillating fire opal ring, a flash of brilliance that was to be my last living memory.

And then the dark took me.