“Are we ready?” Daerth Tromlane asked in his typically dour hiss.
“Nearly,” Exador said. “All beacons are in place; we want to fine-tune the ship beacons and assure they are aligning properly. We should be able to test within two hours. If the tests go well, we should be able to bring it up shortly before dawn.”
Daerth Tromlane stood there. Exador took a small motion of his helmet to be a nod of acceptance. They were on schedule after all.
“We will join you at the command center for the activation,” Exador finally said.
“Very well. I go now to arrange for the storm clouds to block the morning atunlight,” Daerth Tromlane said before pivoting on his heel and marching back to his dragon.
Exador stood silently watching the Lord of the Sky as he left them.
“He is ever so sociable,” Ramses observed.
“If you think he has a stick up his butt, you should have met Stoivenychas, whose work we have recreated. That guy had serious issues,” Exador told his colleague. “Serious issues,” he repeated, shaking his head.
“The Wardens are reporting changes in air pressure indicating a storm front is moving in,” Warden Commander Fielos, Eldon’s most senior commander, reported.
Ashena Brightfeather chuckled. “Well, they wouldn’t be the Storm Lords if they didn’t bring in their black storm clouds to shield their armies from Atun’s light. We will have a little surprise for them this time.”
“You are going to break up the storm clouds?” Garion Hearthhand asked.
“Indeed. While our mortal priests have not been able to break their lock on the clouds in nearly ten thousand years, I have every confidence that with the power of Krinna at my disposal, we will not have too much trouble,” Melona Tramen replied confidently.
“One question, if I might?” Stevos asked. Dashgar nodded to the saint. “They are going to need an incredible amount of time get their forces in place. They have not bothered with any attacks, not even aerial, and we do nothing to disrupt them, either. Why is this?”
Dashgar grinned. “War with the Storm Lords and the Citadel is something like a game of chess. Rushing too fast causes errors. They will not launch aerial attacks until they have the proper ground game in place to support the attacks.”
“The moat is filled with running Holy Water,” Eileen Sealegs added. “That will prevent any casual ground game by the Storm Lords; they will need to do very coordinated tasks to cross it on the ground. Further, the running water disrupts many of their aerial forces; they will want magical support on the ground ready to be able to counter the running water on behalf of the aerial forces. From the sea? We have strong currents in place sufficient to act as running water and similarly disrupt their air game.”
“I believe I saw Jacquesparrow heading down to the docks earlier,” Inethya noted.
“Indeed. They will not come by sea while he is there,” Eileen Sealegs replied.
“Now as for us?” Dashgar said. “We are going to be observing where they set up their various support operations — specifically those Eileen just mentioned — we want those all located and well understood so that we may attack them directly while they are at their weakest and we can do the most damage. Meaning we want all of their forces here, not in the surrounding woods or on the roads. They will need most of the day to construct their war machines. We should have the lay of the land by dawn, so we strike then with Atun in the sky, and the storm clouds dispersed.
“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.”
“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.
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.