This illness brought advantage to no one. not even the evil ones who sought to gain from it Whether allied to demons or devils, whether the conglomerate empire hammered together by the half-demon Iuz or the scheming forces of the Scarlet Brotherhood, the forces of Evil could garner no profit from the madness that seemed to sweep over the world. If their enemies were torn by factiousness, so too were the hosts of the netherworlds as they sought to conquer.

In the deadly game being played out on Oerth, attrition was the sole benefactor. Creatures died, fire and storm wrought havoc, famine and plague spread. As if in protest at the fighting, or perhaps in harmony with the desire for extinction, the very planet itself brought forth devastation. Freak weather, cold or hot, flood or drought, conjoined with tempests and tornadoes to decimate whole regions. Earthquakes tore gashes and leveled cities, while old volcanoes thundered to life after centuries of slumber and new eruptions built ever larger blotches of desolation.

Even those states whose military forces gained victories found their borders contracting. With their resources, populations, and strength of government dwindling, there was no way for conquerors to maintain control. Cartographers in the court might redraw maps to show extended territories, but in actuality the writ of each prince shrank to little more than the territory which he and his soldiers happened to occupy at the moment.

With such turmoil occurring, trade withered. Land and sea commerce dwindled. With markets gone and food scarce, people began reverting to subsistence activity: find enough to eat, avoid being slain by soldiers, bandits, or monsters, and be ready to take what could be taken if the opportunity arose.

On that portion of the cosmic game board that was Oerth, the little figures remaining in play became fewer and fewer, while the squares upon which they had stood altered to show ruin and wilderness. A whole continent disappeared under the waves. The waters rose. The form of Oerik shrank, and its coastline moved inland.

All of the multiverse was afflicted to some degree. Far-removed worlds, alternates of Oerth, were in flux; star-roving beings fought with others over galactic empires; entities combated with one another over planes and dimensions unimaginable to most humans. Woe was everywhere and every when. The darkness of Evil spread to stain all, yet its minions grew no greater. Evil pervaded the cosmos, but as it spread it thinned and grew tenuous in its power.

The vast disaster brought only sorrow and death. This condition was perceived by the lords of all the warring factions, but even they could do nothing about what was occurring. At least, they could do nothing short of ceasing their warfare — and that, of course, was unthinkable. Could the bright minions of Weal ever rest until dark Evil was destroyed? Never! So too, the ordered phalanxes of Law had only one reason for existence: the extinction of Chaos's wild realms. If no advantage was to be gained, then ideology became paramount. Each infinite cause continued to struggle in its contention with that it opposed.

All losses, no gains, and the very stuff of the multiverse turned inward and began to consume itself.

At the nadir of the nether spheres, Infestix saw the dire course that was unfolding. He raved and raged and redoubled his efforts to bring the pieces of the great relic together. Reasoning that only Ultimate Evil could redress things, Infestix brought more diabolic aid to the war in the Abyss at great personal cost to himself, promising the dukes of the Hells much in return for their reinforcements. Similarly, the Master of the Pits scraped the gloomy planes of Hades for fodder, sending regiment after regiment of hordlings, daemons, and mixed bodies of dreggals and dumalduns to be slaughtered in the fight.

Although the massive influx of evil soldiery had its effect upon the tide of the war, there were repercussions. The higher spheres saw the destruction occurring on all levels of the cosmos and attributed it to the proximity of the three parts of the malign artifact. Solars, planetars, and companies of devas, unable to strike directly in the realms of demonkind, roamed the channels between the lower planes, ambushing all Evil they encountered there. The slaughter was great, and soon only the most powerful of dark beings could travel these areas; lesser devils and daemons, for example, were destroyed by the roving minions of the spheres of Good.

Although the lords of the Hells were much disturbed at this turn, Infestix himself was pleased. The troops he had already moved into the Abyss, committed to his fight against Graz'zt and the allies of the demon king, were now consigned to the fray for an indefinite period. They had no real choice; to fight there and die at the hand of others of Evil was preferable to being destroyed hideously by shining squads of devas and their even greater officers.

The arrival of Infestix's minions actually brought some relief to Graz'zt. Other demon lords who had been wavering, thinking about throwing their force against Graz'zt, resented the intrusion into their domain by outsiders. Thus, they ultimately decided to remain neutral or elected to side with the ebon demonking. The weak rulers of Pandemonium were moved to send cacodemon conscripts to the assistance of Graz'zt. The reinforcements Graz'zt had thus gained saved his horde from prompt annihilation, but he remained ringed by enemies.

The great, black-hued demon dug in and prepared for the worst. The sole portion of the relic he possessed, even along with the Eye of Deception, a mighty magical artifact of malign force, was insufficient to stave off the two parts of the key that his foes now wielded against him. Magical as well as numerical superiority meant that only time stood between the advancing enemies and their victory. Graz'zt determined to make them pay dearly, though. He conducted a brilliant defense, in large part thanks to his marshal, Vuron, and the dark elven high priestess called Eclavdra.

Then the invading force became divided. Iuz, backed by Iggwilv, the Eldest Witch, and Zuggtmoy, the demoness Queen of Fungi, demanded that his armies be the ones to march into the heart of Graz'zt's realm. When Demogorgon, Mandrillagon, and their captains objected, desiring the honor for themselves, Orcus threw in his lot with the cambion Iuz, for he was ever opposed to Demogorgon's aims. Thus the besieging host was suddenly split into contending halves, and their Theorparts, their one-third portions of the relic of all Evil, opposed each other.

Back came the regiments of the ebon king of the Abyss. With his own Theorpart now able to neutralize the forces of the contending thirds held by his enemies, Graz'zt used the Eye of Deception and a score of lesser magical objects along with his forces to crush spearheads of attackers, tear through their lines, destroy their bases, and totally disrupt their advance. Soon the legions of devils, phalanxes of dreggals, daemon and hordling divisions, and all the rest too were pushed back and nearly off the plane that was the heart of Graz'zt's empire.

"Now there is but one thing remaining," Graz'zt announced proudly to the assembled demon lords and generals of his array. "We will defeat the enemy in detail. First comes the two-headed dungheap calling itself Demogorgon. Then it will be the turn of the sprat, Iuz, my by-blow. That will be the culmination of my delight, and great will be my glee as he and his mother Iggwilv writhe in final agony under my hand!"

To counter the resurgence of Graz'zt's force, Infestix himself came to the Abyss with a deputation of the dukes of the Hells. The Netherlords of Acheron with their undead and maelvis were with him. Gehenna and Tarterus too were represented by their monarchs. By paying over objects of power, by promising and cajoling, the factious demons were reunited. Now outnumbering their encircled foe by six or better to one, and with an actual strength of at least twice Graz'zt's own, the reforged alliance closed its iron jaws once again, advancing slowly this time. Only after the ebon king of the Abyss was finished would they again allow their differences to surface.