Apostles of Doom

“Other than clearing the sky of clouds, this is all part of the standard plan that has developed over the millennia. The major difference is that this time we have the firepower to quickly cut their knees out from under them and press the offense.” Grob said. “However, for now, we want things to go exactly as usual so that we may take them by surprise.”

Fassbindr chuckled ominously. “They are not going to know what’s hitting them.”

Nysegard, Exador’s Command Center: Early Second Period

“We are ready?” Daerth Tromlane asked, or was it stated? Exador was not quite sure which. His voice was almost entirely without inflection — simply a single monotonous note of dour ominousness.

“All tests have been passed, all beacons are online,” Ramses said.

“Then begin the spells to bring them up,” Praelgeis, Lord of the Night, instructed.

Exador glanced to the circle of lich wizards assisting him and Ramses. They all nodded readiness, and he began the chant to bring up the wizard links. Unpleasant, moldy-tasting wizard links, but wizard links nonetheless.

Citadel Command Center

Hilda watched intently as Dashgar laid out the battle plans that would commence within the next few hours. The key would be to allow Atun to rise sufficiently high in the sky so that when Malona# stripped away the Storm Lord’s black clouds, the unfiltered atunshine could do its work on the unprotected night dwellers.

At the same time, the Sky Wardens would launch their aerial assault against the daylight-safe troops, hitting the aerial ones first to disable their air power. Meanwhile, they had located all the major zombie squadron locations and would be targeting the Holy Water catapults on them. The Storm Lords, being tricky, had made several of those into difficult targets; the catapults were deadly, but not new.

“Now, as for the ice dragons and liches…” Dashgar began before suddenly trailing off.

Hilda suddenly felt a deep coldness sweep over her, coldness and nausea.

“What in the name of Krinaeria?” Ashena exclaimed, turning ashen in the face.

“What in all that’s unholy?” Eileen Sealegs cried.

Several other people in the room, mortals, started shouting startled remarks as well.

Hilda swayed. Something was very seriously wrong. Incredibly seriously wrong. The feeling was extremely similar to when the Inferno had vanished, yet different. Far worse. Far, far, worse. She tried to synchronize with her HALO, but it was gone! Her HALO and every one of her illuminaries had suddenly vanished! She quickly reached towards Tierhallon’s master HALO, only to find that it too was gone — Tiernon himself had vanished as well!

“Tierhallon is gone!” Hilda shouted, even as Stevos said the same thing.

Ashena looked at Hilda, her eyes wide in shock. “As is Krinaeria!”

“Namorafjord is also gone!” Eileen Sealegs cried.

“The only links I have are personal links to people here in the Citadel,” Hilda said.

“Me, too!” Stevos said with a note of panic in his voice.

“I am able to manually reconnect personally to people here on Nysegard,” Dashgar exclaimed over the increased shouting in the room, “but I can’t reach my HALO or the god pool!”

“Hendel help us!” Garion Hearthhand exclaimed. “I can get to every illuminary I have tried, so I think the local ones here are fine, but I can’t get to the god pool.” He stared at Seliana, his archon. “Our personal link is up, but I can’t verify anything with our HALO links.”

Seliana nodded, concentrating. “I am in the same position. My illuminaries here in Nysegard went down, but I can manually relink to them. I am not finding any of my off-world illuminaries that I’ve tried. While I can manually reconnect to illuminaries here on Nysegard, I am unable to reach any on the other Planes of Man.”

“What in the name of the Abyss just happened?” Inethya asked.

“It seems we are cut off from the Outer Planes and other material planes as well,” Delilah, the archon for Torean said. She glanced to Timbly and then to Fassbindr, who both nodded.

“I’ve got a link to you, Stevos,” Teragdor said, turning to the saint, who was deathly pale.

“You are the only illuminary I have left,” Stevos said.

“What in the names of the Five Siblings have they done?” Rasmeth asked.

Citadel of Light, Refugee Quarters

Beragamos woke from his sleep in sudden shock. He had come to Nysegard with his incarnated body rather than his usual avatar body in order to better hide his nature; thus he had been sleeping in a bunk down with the refugees.

Something was horribly, indescribably wrong. He felt at a complete loss. He felt empty, empty in a way he could not remember ever being before, at least not in any recent Phoenix Cycle.

“Where is Tiernon?” Beragamos exclaimed, suddenly realizing what was wrong.

“In Tierhallon; now go back to sleep!” someone shouted at him.