After leaving the Leviathan behind, Aurash, Sathona, and Xi Ro finally complete their journey towards Fundament’s core. They had done some pretty crazy things over the past few years. Exploring wrecks, eating food from the sea, sailing into stormy waters… and all while in exile and on the run for their lives. But what Aurash does next, almost certainly at the behest of Sathona’s familiar, is downright insane.

Aurash exits the needle ship! Deep within the crushing pressure and ferocious heat of the innermost core of a gas giant! But she is not crushed or vaporized. Instead she is somehow protected. And very quickly her protector comes into view. A giant jawed winged worm approaches past her. It speaks to her calling itself Yul and points out how powerful it is and how it is the only thing keeping her from harm. It then introduces her to more of its kind: Eir, Xol, Ur, and Akka. It must have been quite the sight for Aurash to see these giant creatures surviving in the harshest climate imaginable.

Yul explains that itself and the others have been trapped in the Deep of Fundament for millions of years and that they have been calling life to Fundament in order for it to evolve into suitable hosts that will allows the worms to escape. It tells Aurash that the Leviathan and the forces of the Sky are arrayed against her and her sisters, and that it was the Sky who rearranged Fundaments moon and caused the approaching God-Wave because they were afraid of the potential of Aurash’s race.

Fortunately for Aurash and her sisters, the worms want to help them in the struggles. Yul offers them a deal. If they ingest some of the worms’ newborn larva they will gain eternal life and enough power to right anything they find wrong with the world. There is one catch, Yul explains, but it seems to be a very minor one. From now on, each of the sisters will have to follow their true nature or their inner worm will consume them. And, as they grow in power, their inner worms will grow ever more hungry.

All the sisters of the Osmium Court every wanted to do was explore and seek knowledge, or strength, or cunning. Now, all they have to do is keeping doing what they would have done anyway in exchange for great power and eternal life? It seems like such a simple choice to the three brave exiled sisters! So simple, apparently, that none of them think to ask what Yul might have meant by calling life to Fundament or what their inner worms would actually hunger for.

Recall, that at some point, long ago, the homeworld of the short lived three-eyed race crashed into Fundament. Did the worms somehow bring it there? How could they have done that if they were trapped? And wouldn’t that have caused millions or billions of deaths? Unfortunately, instead of asking these questions, Aurash and her sisters take the deal offered by Yul and the other worms.

It’s at this point that each of the sisters finally well and truly makes the transition to adulthood. Aurash takes on the king morph just like his father. He renames himself Auryx which we learn means Long Thought. Similarly, Sathona at long last transitions from her childhood state to that of a mother and renames herself Savathûn and Xi Ro becomes a powerful knight and renames herself Xivu Arath.

From here on out, the worms take on the role of gods to the three siblings. And their first instructions to Auryx and his two sisters are to, essentially, plunge all of Fundament into a holy war!

Sources:
IX: The Bargin
X: Immortals
XI: Conquerors

Previous: 6: The Cryptic Leviathan
Next: 8: The Conquest of Fundament