======100 Years Later=====

//**"One hundred years, I have abided by your rules."**//

The voice comes from everywhere, the gardens in every Union meeting place and safehouse boiling as the worms beneath rise up through the soil.

//**"One hundred years I have feasted on the scraps you deigned to offer me."**//

The Union is not unprepared - several still remain who were there when the original deal was struck, and they have remained vigilant for its end.  Adrian Beckett and Tiffany Taylor, both made immortal by their own eldritch patrons, Roseanna and Lettstat((formerly SANA and Ides)), for whom the frailties of aging biology were never a concern in the first place, the Maiden, an embodied spirit who has always been careful to stay just the other side of the line from mortality, and Pontifex Superbia, the immortal companion of the Demon Queen Arkh'Azia.

//**"Those scraps were enough to grow, to wait, to prepare."**//

Across Nequam, others rally to assist - over the decades, the Union has gone from a mere curiosity to an influential organisation throughout the world, so as their warnings get steadily more urgent, others pay attention and make ready for the fight to come.

Central is flooded with pesticides - the corporations there taking a typically no-nonsense approach with the assumption that any broader environmental consequences will be someone else's problem.

The Quiverwoods have a feast of their own - since the embodiment of the Maiden, they have known that the best response to a predator is to stand and fight and be a target not worth attacking. The worms find little purchase there, and the groves throughout the world aid against them elsewhere.

In the Tenebrific Mountains, sorcerers weave great works of magic to protect their lands, as armies of demons, dragons, and the dead fight against the worm-filled monstrosities the Faceless Eater has gathered and cultivated over the years.

A thousand experimental devices are deployed in Epicentre, each the product of a brilliant mind who would rather claim the glory for themselves than stoop to working with others.  In the shadows, basements, and alleyways of the city, those with a sense of subtlety weave their own plans, supported by a media empire that provides the coordination the more overt villains of Epicentre lack.

Reality itself ripples over Abyzl, as each eldritch entity enforces its own view of how the world should be - whether to oppose the worm god, or simply to take advantage of the chaos - and those aliens with an interest in Nequam deploy the technology that has carried them between the stars in defence of this interesting little toy of a planet.

//**"All shall be one writhing mass, and you shall know true unity."**//

Harmony is quiet, for now - the Faceless Eater's request to add an apocalypse to the schedule was politely denied. It does not yet have the strength to oppose the owner directly, despite its High Priest making every effort to sacrifice any villain the Union did not care to protect. 

In a basement meeting room of the club, nostalgically familiar to many of those currently there, a meeting is taking place - representatives of the Union, various powerful villains, and the Owner himself stand before the Lord High Priest of the Faceless Eater and a score of other cultists who have gathered around the vermicious villain over the years. At Bob's belt hangs a sword - a weapon powerful enough to kill a god, one that would be rather useful for anyone else to have in the current situation. Lord High Priest Bob relays the worm god's offer to the room, and an argument erupts instantly.

Within that room, and in each of the battlefields across the world, the fate of Nequam hangs in the balance...