When Arios arrived, the exhausted grunt of the Forge Maiden came with it. Having toiled for a full year in order to create a bell large enough to repel even the worst of storms, the exhausted Ethne threw down Her hammer and revealed the bell to Sapience. After the Illuminai had relentlessly forged dejanite for Her to repeat it following an attack by the Shadow, its brim spanned almost the entire Siroccian range and, when questioned, the Rekindled stated with amusement that it would be virtually impossible to move it elsewhere. When asked about ringing it, Ethne informed those gathered that the Djinn had told Her they would know when the moment was right.

Shortly after, a portal from Rewh'va opened above Enorian and Damariel, significantly empowered from His time spent on the Plane, returned to Prime with a dire warning: Ozeroth was coming. The Unbound Lord declared a plan to launch a last ditch siege against the Primal Eye, instructing Enorian to inform the rest of the continent and to prepare for the week to come. Kalena rapidly alerted the world at large and arrangements began.

In Bloodloch, Bamathis called the Empire's citizens to meet with Him in the Alcazar beside the captive Ati. The Warlord spoke of Nega-Iosyne and the decision facing the Empire in the imminent battle: to kill or capture in hope of restoration. Bamathis posited that the latter would be extremely difficult, but that He would take on board the choice made by the Empire given they knew Iosyne best. Most - though not all, some unwilling to counteneance the deliberate death of a Varian-born God - present immediately opined that, having fallen to the Shadow twice, She should be slain in accordance with Her own tenets, and punished for Her treasonous betrayal. Xenia Seirath had the hardest choice; as Iosyne's Voice, She ruefully admitted agreement with this course, but insisted she would re-gather Iosyne's essence and make the situation right. With preparations of His own to make, Bamathis assented to the decision and confirmed that He would fight to kill, and acknowledged the likelihood that the essence could be retrieved should She be slain.

At the same time, Severn visited Spinesreach with the news of Ozeroth. It would only be a matter of time, said the Minotaur God, before Ohlsana is freed, and He began to outline a plan to the gathered Spireans. To their shock, He declared His need for eight of them - four Sciomancers, and four Syssin - to become shadowbound, not to Ohlsana, but to His own will. Aliyah, Feirenz, Inkh, and Duncan would be the Syssin. Raynia, Evlentesh, Rhyot, and Teeh would be the Sciomancers. Bringing all but Teeh - whose time would come - under His will then and there, He took His leave and bid them to prepare.

~ ~ ~

The following week soon rolled around and an atmosphere of tension hung in the air. As the appointed hour drew nearer, Raynia Riahl's shadow mark went haywire, destroying her in a confusion of maddened whispers, ostensibly an early warning of danger and ruin to come. At the Eye, Generals Azgon, Diyomexas, and Saglozol took their leave in an orderly procession, returning to Czjetija.

Beams of argent and aureate light clove the outermost edges of the Primal Eye, portals of unrepentant brilliance opening to reveal the Unbound Lord and the Son of Autumn. The moment They arrived, merciless beams tore across the Eye, eradicating shadowbound divisions and preparing the way forward for a siege. Damariel rallied adventurers to His side and Bamathis followed suit, the former granting a boon of immunity to Ohlsana's rot while the latter imbued all and sundry with a well of heroism, significantly bolstering their abilities.

At the tip of Mount Gallows, all gathered and, led by the Gods, pressed forward into the Eye. Some six hundred shadowspawn filth dwelt within and were cut down in the painstaking advance. The essence of Strife eradicated dozens where they stood in concert with Damariel's light, slowly but surely carving a path to the centre where the rift to Czjetija yet lingered. Over a hundred adventurers joined the Gods in Their siege and, though many fell even with the Gods' protection, the last of the shadowspawn finally expired. Quiet lasted barely a minute though before disparate mist and roiling gloom spilled out of the planar gash to form Shadow Major Zhriskal.

Zhriskal fought fiercely, inciting colour-blindness in all who stood against it while laying waste to swath after swath of adventurers. With the aid of Truth and Strife, that force of one hundred eventually prevailed, and the Major in the Endless Spawn fell, broken by the combined forces of Sapience. As it toppled and dispersed into naught, the world seemed to hang suspended, progression quelled and halted by the sheer imposition of that which should not be.

Severn gathered His shadowbound back to Spinesreach, ordering the rest of the city to either barricade themselves in the catacombs or stay outside the walls and fight. While the Spireans hurried to make a decision, shadow blanketed the firmament from horizon to horizon, the mighty bulk of the Sun Drinker taking flight from Her perch atop the Spire. Acceding to Her presence with a deafening sonic boom, the skies exulted in Her passage as She glided away from Spinesreach and turned west, circling above the barren landscape of what once was Sterion.

Silhouetted against the skyline, the northern spires shivered against the fabric of the heavens. Fingers of darkness crawled up and through the topless towers with a spider's grace, their spun webs a cloying twilight of tightly wound spirals enveloping the structure of each steepled ascent. Atop the tallest brooded the Artificer, His bovine gaze locked in a frown of utter concentration. Umbrael draped an inky mantle across His shoulders, the gathered force of night pouring from Him and into the city proper as He worked like unto an artist painting streaks of darkness across His chiaroscuro canvas.

With a confounding flicker and a crack like a brandished whip, Severn's web of Artifice snapped into place. The Minotaur God drew His cloak about Himself, spared a lone, indifferent glance to the embattled world below Him, and was gone. Spinesreach simply ceased to be. Disappeared from sight and isolated from the perils yet to come, the once magnificent spires left behind naught but empty air in the distant, deepening dark.

~ ~ ~

Pressure built at the Primal Eye and around the shadowgate, what once was a meagre pinprick now a gaping wound between worlds spewing forth its blackened filth without surcease. Ripples in the dark soon became writhing convulsions, the enveloping shadow shifting to shape a towering figure of achromatic insubstantiality. Reality buckled beneath the manifest imposition of the Firstborn as it observed the Prime with appraising derision, eerie translucence wreathing the eidolic fringes of its phantasmal form.

"Nek Czal vyv, lecz Nota vanyv." It spoke in a terrible voice, somehow concurrently booming yet laced with saccharine sibilance, gnawing at the mind of all who heard it in an attempt to carve away their clarity and resolve. "Where Light goes, Darkness follows." Its eyeless glare swept the heavens where the winged Goddess Tanixalthas hovered, Her presence alone a dire portent of violence imminent and untold. And yet, without even a glimmer of faint hesitation, the Firstborn spiralled skyward to battle the Dragon in Her own domain.

Tanixalthas banked away from the incoming Ozeroth and pivoted to exhale a crackling stream of azurine lightning at the General. Shadow came alive to repel the assault, the indignant forks neutralised and turned away from its ethereal presence to discharge harmlessly into the ether. Enraged, Tanixalthas redoubled Her attack, wounded Pride driving Her forward.

Bright silver and golden light twined as one resplendent whorl; unlikely allies, Truth and Strife arose together at the flanks of Ohlsana's Firstborn. Blossoms of burning spirit exploded from Damariel's hands, mercy and compassion a mere distant dream set against the fury of the Unbound Lord. Bamathis, armoured in polished steel and with Caelestis held aloft, brought Lobyl's skill and Godly Strife to bear, launching into a brutal assault against a long-detested foe.

The Primal Eye heaved, ejecting General Azgon through the planar bore amidst an icy wheeze. The tainted Akkari shied away from Damariel's brilliant light, litanies of the Shadow Mother spilling from his lips to form a darkened shield against the ruthless dawn. Yet in the movement of Azgon to join the growing battle, his befouled manta blade in hand, brilliantine cascades of light rose up against his passage: Aban, Berrad, and Saebi, Exarchs all. Soaring to battle with the practised ease of veteran soldiery, the trio encased and surrounded Azgon in a tight-knit triangle, nary a gap in their dazzling bladework as the noose tightened. With pity neither offered nor asked for their traitorous once-brother, calescent tongues of glimmering flame scoured the light-blessed air as Berrad fervently recited prayers to Dejaani in repudiation of his former mentor's profane chant.

Amorphous and intangible, Ozeroth effortlessly weathered the Gods' assaults, each exertion of Divine might repelled and turned back on its attackers. Bruise-like smears marred the sky with the Firstborn's own expenditure of power, the air frothing in effervescent rejection as the General drew yet more and more shadow to its aid. Rainfall bathed Sterion in purifying waters even as pillars of fire speared down from above, the curtains of flame abruptly parting to unveil the Ogress Ethne, Her expression as bleak as the hammer She wielded. Amidst the downpour stood the form of Slyphe, trident in hand and determination writ large upon Their features. As the gathering storm sundered into clouds of billowing steam, the two Gods levelled twin glares at the still-churning rift. And the rift glared back.

The towering frame of Diyomexas coalesced within the roiling churn of the nightgate, his form and figure unmarred by all that was once inflicted on the eastern front. Irradiance teemed about him like unto repulsive aurae, wrought in polyhued shades of galvanised ylem shot through by oil-charred black in sickening, diseased streaks. Fire and Water wasted no time, hammer and trident working in unison to turn back each spear of crystalline energy as They pressed forward against the eld core of his chest cavity. Ethne's strength married with Slyphe's incredible dexterity, forcing Diyomexas onto the defensive. Chromatic rainbows poured out from the ether, technicolour whorls sparking with Astral-born stars. From the canvas of sky's artistry stepped the form of the Imago, the feline Goddess spitting out a hiss of disgust before lofting spear and claw. A multiplicity of prismatic fireballs orbited Her Divine frame, an echo of Her Astral authority.

Triune confrontations played out within the theatre of heaven, casting Sapience in a phantasmagoria of ever-shifting spotlights. Unleashed power collided with untrammelled might as God met General blow for blow, actors in a grand and deadly performance of unprecedented, world-sundering import.

Celestial mist coursed from the planar portal then, whirling into a gyre of memory made manifest. General Saglozol ascended through clouds of pallid smoke and hoary brume, casting a cruel, clinical consideration across the triple-pronged battlefield before it. Though it motioned in the direction of Ozeroth - still comfortably engaged with Tanixalthas, Damariel, and Bamathis - the Memory Eater froze suddenly as a slender figure shimmered into existence beside it, entwining sheeting rainfall with the scents of jasmine and nightshade. Corruption's glare bored through Saglozol's sullen shroud as She struck with Might in one hand and Malice in the other, staring past Her opponent to arch an eyebrow at something beyond. The General rebuffed Chakrasul's display and wheeled around, face contorting in confusion as its eyes landed upon the figure of a small boy, childlike features cast in a mien of authority asserted.

Koduses made no move save for the stubby fingers twitching rapidly at His sides, the workings of Elder Time unhurried and deliberate. Jade flames and duskywings scourged the General, and the child-God lifted a hand, Saglozol's timeless features ageing, atrophying by the will and whim of the eternal hourglass. Lexadhra shed Her borrowed guise and shifted again; She was Helera and Yanai, She was Nalibhtavi and the Magician, each facade its own technique born of long-bereft Azhoa brought to bear beside the commanding figure of Chakrasul.

Howling cries of bird and beast presaged the outpouring of verdant wildflame upon the battlefield, the grizzled face of the resolute Hunter manifesting within its shrouding aura. Rhythm's Spine thrummed in His hands and He immediately moved between Damariel and Bamathis, deflecting a blast of shadow from Ozeroth before responding with savage blows of His own. Shadow and dictated malady forged a path to finality as the fallen Akkari Azgon proved himself a match for even the seasoned Exarchs, yet finality held no sway over the trio - holy illumination renewing bodies and souls within the hallowed, sacrosanct radiance of the Angelic Triad.

Cerulean lightning yet splintered down from Tanixalthas soaring above, the ire of Midwinter's Star lashing at each and every General. Sterion's heart pounded once more like a noisome drum and Shadow General Nega-Iosyne skittered through, the gaping wound in Her chest staunched by Ohlsana's rot. Scarcely did She begin to take in the clamour unfolding all around Her when the ground ruptured and Ivoln emerged from the deep fissures of the earth, bellowing an Earthen war cry. Soil and stone answered the call of the Earthen Father, the very crust of the world rent asunder as He cast forth titanic slabs of rock at the Goddess standing in opposition. Yet for all the fury of Azvosh, Nega-Iosyne was too quick, and the Hlugnic God too slow; She barreled towards Him on eight legs, essence of Pain streaming from Her hands.

Heavy chains of anaxagorite formed before their master came into view, charnel energies empowering He Who Is Death to battle against the tendril wisps of Pain. The Underking's reaping scythe sliced at the many-legged form of Malevolence, the blood-stained blade striking swift and true towards the skittering appendages in an effort to halt Her progress. While the Fourteenth General worked to counter Death and Undeath alike, the Progenitor stepped forth from shadows. Disgust plain upon his face, Abhorash hurled himself at Her with a snarling hiss, elongated claws carving deep furrows in the carapace of the arachnid Goddess.

Locked in Their battle encompassing heaven above and earth below, the Gods of Sapience gave no quarter - but gained no ground. The Firstborn rampaged freely in the skyscape, easily withstanding Dragon, Hunter, Unbound, and Warlord, while the remaining glut of Ohlsana's Generals weathered the storm of force arranged against them. The gateway to Shadow wailed out in haunting, sepulchral tones and Shadow General Irgech once more took leave from Czjetija. "Hyst, rilijes, jilacz dvi Lanos jyv tsekur, svam mejn Olsana Mizra-Kitivav Etolijat nyv!" Angelbane waxed triumphant, his absolute confidence in the battle's outcome inspiring the remaining Generals to fight with greater fervour and seemingly unconquerable determination.

"Lanos has lost. Mother comes."

Penned by my hand on Quensday, the 13th of Arios, in the year 505 MA.
Discuss this post on our forums:
https://forums.aetolia.com/discussion/4546/events-post-340-the-second-war-of-night-part-xxxii-the-beginning-of-the-end