After lunch, Jack and Aiken return to the corridor where Aiken had his nightmare, and head down it. Jack explains a bit of the story of the Vermite King, and how aside from the usual necromantic powers he could control vermites and even use them to infect people with parasitic spirits.

They eventually make it to the Hall of the Vermite King, and it's exactly as Aiken remembers from his dream – there are even vermites huddled into crevices. The vermin stay away though, as Jack makes rubbings of carvings in the pillars. The skeleton of the King is still there are well, and Aiken gets a bad feeling and wants to leave.

Jacks looks at the King's remains and turns to tell Aiken not to be so silly, when the skeleton animates behind the otter. The vermites rush out of the walls then, forming a mass around the skeleton. It crushes them as it walks, their remains flowing up to start forming new flesh for the necromancer.

Jack and Aiken try to flee, but the doors to the chamber close them in. They set up a circle of fire, and Aiken trades insults with the Vermite King when he threatens to hurt his family. The King urges his vermites to attack through the fire, and the two adventurers busily hurl flaming bodies away from them. One sets fire to the King, who swings wildly with one of his attached vermite legs and breaks a hole in one of the doors.

Aiken gets bitten by some of the vermites, but squeezes through the hole, and Jack follows. As they run up the corridor, they come to a point where the horde of vermites seems to his an invisible barrier, but Aiken can hear them chanting for him to join them.

The Kadie babbles about not wanting to become a vermite, while Jack gets him to the surface and has Midge prepare some medicine and start breaking down camp. The bite wounds begin to turn black and squirmy, until Jack cuts them open with his knife and drains out some of the ichor. But they've gone numb by then, and Aiken is fading fast.