(IR) The 3rd IR, Turn 4 (thread 1)
- Status
Maudlin
First Post
I have about 40 PL in total for defense (pre-catastrophe), only because the maximum you could set aside for advancement was 150. If the attack didn't come this turn, I might have gained something, if it did -as it has- those extra troops wouldn't have made a difference.
It has been a reality for a few turns now that it only took a statement of intent by Forrester or the Oerth Alliance to destroy me, and not a thing I could do about it. A post to the effect of "You must kill Acererak now or he'll steal all your undead!" only impacted the timing of it, I think.
Sorry if that sounds pathetic
Hey, Acererak moved halfway to his ascension, and there are plenty more worlds to devour. Tiii-ii-i-iime is on my si-ide Korenth Zan would be pretty pissed though, except he's undead now, and doesn't have the glands for it anymore.
It has been a reality for a few turns now that it only took a statement of intent by Forrester or the Oerth Alliance to destroy me, and not a thing I could do about it. A post to the effect of "You must kill Acererak now or he'll steal all your undead!" only impacted the timing of it, I think.
Sorry if that sounds pathetic
Hey, Acererak moved halfway to his ascension, and there are plenty more worlds to devour. Tiii-ii-i-iime is on my si-ide
Korenth Zan would be pretty pissed though, except he's undead now, and doesn't have the glands for it anymore.
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Anabstercorian
First Post
Don't worry about it, Acererak
I think you've done a great job. ^_^
I think you've done a great job. ^_^
Serpenteye
First Post
Dreadfully sorry, old chap! I really had little choice in the matter, "If you can't join them, beat them" or something like that.
Sollir Furryfoot
Explorer
Falling mountains...bloody waste...what comes next shouldof been expected, Oerth sends its own entity to deal with the matter from the strongest forests in the land...Tao.
Tao, beautiful beyond beautiful, the prime of mother nature's personification, at least thats what she thinks. She, however is created with a balance of forces...good...evil...which comes together to neutrality...
In the Quaggoth Burned Fells:
A beautiful garden, seemingly in the middle of the forest yet nowhere all the same, untouched. Vines, luscious plants surround the mystic grove, no animal, creature, or man would go there...could go there...and from there arises nature's power. From the ground, from the earth, untainted, a single entity arises like a flower following the radience and nurishment from its seed. Her arms come out first, head first she rises from the ground unscathed, her clothes untattered, and the first words she spoke, "My land, my children have been tainted, there has been too much suffering here, right now destruction will rain upon my land and my womb shattered...I will NOT stand for this"
Tao, beautiful beyond beautiful, the prime of mother nature's personification, at least thats what she thinks. She, however is created with a balance of forces...good...evil...which comes together to neutrality...
In the Quaggoth Burned Fells:
A beautiful garden, seemingly in the middle of the forest yet nowhere all the same, untouched. Vines, luscious plants surround the mystic grove, no animal, creature, or man would go there...could go there...and from there arises nature's power. From the ground, from the earth, untainted, a single entity arises like a flower following the radience and nurishment from its seed. Her arms come out first, head first she rises from the ground unscathed, her clothes untattered, and the first words she spoke, "My land, my children have been tainted, there has been too much suffering here, right now destruction will rain upon my land and my womb shattered...I will NOT stand for this"
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Edena_of_Neith
First Post
Armies of overwhelming size assault the Shade, from literally everywhere.
From everywhere comes the forces of the Oerth Alliance, along with titanic reinforcements from Toril.
Iuz and his forces join in this colossal assault.
The Shade, knowing they are hopelessly outnumbered and unable to flee to the safety of the deep Plane of Shade, assume their defensive positions, and decide to kill as many of the attackers as possible.
No quarter is given or received, on either side of the battle.
Nothing is held back.
Pity, mercy, and remorse are not words that apply to this situation.
Massive cannonades erupt from the Shade defenses, blasting away at Kaboom's sky ships and Flying Citadels.
The powerful Shade magic tears them apart, rips great holes in them, sends thousands of men screaming to the ground.
The Shade have created huge defensive moats of Red Goo all around Shade Throne, in successive lines.
Behind these lines, catapults made of Red Steel hurl huge amounts of Red Goo at the foe.
Shadow Dragons breathe vast swaths of death upon the foe, freezing hundreds of men in their tracks, causing them to rise as undead to attack their own side.
Shadow forces pour an unending torrent of Shade at all comers, ripping the life out of them, downing them, withering them to dried out husks in an instant.
Shadow forces in Red Armor prove almost untouchable, spells and explosives, bullets and enchanted arrows bouncing off them harmlessly, while they hurl wave after wave after wave of shadowy destruction against the attacking swarms.
But the forces attacking are overwhelming.
This is not the attack of a single power, or even a confederation of powers.
This is a titantic assault by the combined strength of two worlds, and for every one being the Shade kill or turn into an undead, ten more take his or her place.
By the tens of thousands, the attackers die, withering into husks, turned into undead, melted into goo, evaporated into shadow.
But they take the defensive lines, one by one, driving the Shade back, step by bitter step.
The Flying Citadels pour an unending torrent of magical destruction down on the Shade, lighting up the sky with lightning bolts, fireballs, meteor swarms - every kind of positive energy.
A few of the most advanced mages even fire Spellfire into the ranks of the Shade.
On the ground, the determined humanoids of Iuz hurl themselves at the foe, building bridges over the goo, knowing retreat means death at the hands of their own commanders.
Valiant elves and men, dwarves and gnomes, kender and halflings, pour unending cannonades of artillery and enchanted rifle fire into the foe, while their mages throw so many spells the very air is filled with multicolored destruction.
Shadow dragons are easy targets, and although well armored are quickly blown out of the air.
The casualty lists grow exponentially on both sides, as hundreds of thousands die on both sides.
The Shade retreat, playing scorched earth, filling all their land with impassible Red Goo, forcing the onslaught to slow down, to destroy the pools or find ways around them.
In Greyhawk City, the Shade have built their own equivalent of the Accumulator.
Except their Accumulator fires negative energy, not positive energy.
Now, it aims, and fires.
A great Flying Citadel is it's target.
The Flying Citadel detonates, blowing into a million pieces of Shade shards, the tens of thousands of mages and troops inside instantly killed.
Realizing that this great gun must be taken out at all costs, swarms of Kalanyr's dragons assault Greyhawk City.
And then Kalanyr shows up on the battlefield.
The magnificent mountain floats in the air.
It is over a mile in diameter at the top, and it's point faces downward.
Upon it is a city more splendid than Rauxes, more mighty than Aerdi, more beautiful than Leuthilspar.
The drow, have come into their own at last.
Protected by almost invincible magics of the Mythal, this great flying city - Netheril come to the world of Oerth - moves directly over Greyhawk City, and the bombardment begins.
The Shade throw spell after spell after spell against the City, only to find their spells repulsed by the Mythal defenses.
Shade mages attempt to teleport into the City, only to find that impossible.
Powerful Shade spells detonate against the mountain itself, and have no effect.
But the return fire, is all too effective.
Fireballs of 10th level explode, vaporizing entire sections of the City of Greyhawk.
10th level beams of disintegration fire down, sweeping back and forth, and whole areas of buildings glow blue and evaporate.
From the City comes great star bolts, shooting through the sky, producing sudden, brilliant day.
Brilliant day, with no shade at all.
The Shade shriek, bursting into blue flames, for they cannot abide the Holy Light.
They hide in the buildings, trying to escape the awful glory above.
Then massive deluges of red fire come from Kalanyr's mountain, deluges that beggar Meteor Swarms, burning Greyhawk City, sweeping it away in a sea of fire.
In the midst of the wrack and ruin, the great gun of the Shade stands unharmed.
The defensive forcefields protecting it are still intact.
The Shade grimly aim the gun, and fire.
The massive bolt of Shade crumples the Mythal Defense, smashing through it into the city.
Towers and building explode, the shards burning with a greyish fire, raining down from the sky along with thousands of drow instantly killed.
The gun fires again, and a section of the mountain detonates, blowing apart into a million pieces, raining down onto the city below.
Now the City concentrates on the Gun.
The Gun fires back at the City.
A holocaustic firefight ensues, so great that the flashes from it are visible 60 miles away, and the thunder of it is heard for 40 miles.
Wild magic storms erupt in uncontrolled fury as grey beams and red beams split the air, frying ground and City alike.
The titantic explosions blow huge craters in the ground, blow great sections of the mountain out.
No battle yet, not even the Great Battle of the Wild Coast, has ever been witness to such a fight.
The beams of destruction must be 100 feet wide, as they lance thousands of yards through the air at each other.
On and on the titantic firefight ensues, until all below the City is a moonscape of wreckage, and the City itself is tilting at a wierd angle, much of it in flames.
But the 10th level magic of the drow cannot be denied, and in the end it cannot be resisted.
Multiple forcefields and the carefully laid defenses, prepared for months, cannot hold in the face of magic that can lift mountains into the sky.
The barrage from the mountain smotes the shields, and they crumble and collapse.
The Accumulator is hit, again and again, it's turret curling, melting.
Then the main source of Negative Energy is hit.
With one single blast, the whole thing explodes.
The City of Kalanyr is thrown back by the nuclear sized explosion.
The fireball, glowing mauve and purple, rises in an unholy stately grace into the sky.
A blastwave of Shadow Energy passes outward.
The Shadow Blast turns buildings into flinders, which evaporate into Shade.
The ground evaporates into great plumes of Shade, which are flung outward by the blast.
Farther and farther out the blast spreads, covering mile after mile of the already dead land, evaporating it, turning the whole of the center of Shadow Throne into one gigantic cloud of Shade.
Kalanyr and his forces are required to retreat from this cloud, as it is lethal even to them.
The main attacking forces of the allies, and the Shade fighting them, were too far out to be affected.
Which is fortunate. The cloud is lethal to all living things.
The Shade, seeing the destruction of their home base, hurl themselves in suicidal fury upon their enemies.
Heedless of their losses, they hurl themselves upon the foe.
Allies and Shades go down, locked in mortal hand to hand combat, screaming as their opposing powers burns them, living flesh and shadow flesh melting in the embrace of the other's power.
And still the massive firefight, artillery guns roaring and spells blazing, Shade energy crackling, goes on and on.
Underneath what had been Greyhawk City, in caves a mile below the surface, the major NPCs of the Shade, along with a remnant of the Shade - their trusted elite force - have been slowly (as fast as they could go) retreating from Oerth into the safety of the Deep Shadow Plane.
The NPCs are already gone. The elite forces of Shade are going as fast as they can.
Leaving the main forces of Shade to be destroyed by the Oerthian Alliance and their Torilian allies.
And still the casualties mount.
The Shade defenders know there is no retreat, and no quarter, and they fight to the death.
For a brief time, they fight the entire onslaught to a standstill.
- - -
Over the Vast Swamp, the quietude of millennia is broken as a vast radiant fireball of blue light streaks in from across the horizon.
It passes over the swamp, and in it's wake the whole sky turns a brilliant blue.
Then, directly over the Tomb of Horrors, it detonates.
The ensuing light is brighter than that of a hydrogen bomb.
It is so bright that people on the night side of Oerth looking up see Luna, the moon, light up from the reflected radiance.
For a thousand miles in every direction, people see the rim of the world light up in blue glory.
Underneath that light, a windstorm of hurricane force erupts.
A Holy Windstorm.
Lightning fills the sky, radiant blue and green, and suddenly a Biblican torrent comes down.
A torrent of Holy Water.
The trees seem to pick themselves up and thrash, waving back and forth like twigs being whipped by an angry child, as the titantic bursts of wind blast through them.
The rain is a blinding torrent, and the lightning covers the sky with thousands of delicate lacework of incarnate fire.
The undead caught in this maelstrom of Holy Wrath turn into torches of blue light, screaming in agony as they are consumed, picked up by the wind and hurled through the air like pebbles, evaporating before they hit ground.
The Legions of Acererak, the Minions of Acererak, detonate, great purple bursts of undead energy protesting the awesome attack, and futile against it.
Deep under the ground, the crypt of Acererak shakes in a violent earthquake, as the Tomb of Horrors shatters, chambers caving in, roofs smashing down, traps detonating to useless effect, undead squashed underneath the rubble.
The famous dungeon that killed so many adventurers, and has been a legend for so long, is no more.
However, the area of the Tomb where Acererak lay was out-of-phase, and the main wrath of the storm misses it.
Thus, Acererak and his best minions in that area, are not destroyed or affected, although even the high Minions of Acererak cry out in fear (for even undead may know fear if an attack is great enough) at the fury above.
The evil, feral elves of the Vast Swamp die by the thousands, swept away in the tempest, their homes and boats smashed to kindling, picked up and hurled like toys through the air.
Whole forests are flattened, trees snapping, shattering, branches flying off, filling the air.
The fury continues, and intensifies further.
Tornadoes of blue fire touch down, F5 (and some even F6) in strength.
Like Celestial Vacuum Cleaners, they scoop up trees, soil, water, undead, buildings, and all, and fling them miles high into the wrathful heavens.
The tornadoes, hundreds of them, roar across the Vast Swamp, tearing great lines of destruction across it, purging it of it's foulness and all it's undead, sweeping away the dark and evil beings that live in it.
The deluge of rain follows, filling the swamp with clean water, fresh water, holy water.
Never again will the Vast Swamp be known as a place of poisoned water, of dark and dangerous things.
Long before the storm has passed, a pure, radiant lake has covered much of the area, and it glows with the celestial blue and white of the Light, and no evil creature can abide in those waters.
Acererak, seeing things are out of hand, is forced to evacuate the Tomb of Horrors, along with his remnant of Undead.
After he leaves, the storm's fury concentrates on the Tomb.
Tornadoes hover over the Tomb, and deliberate focus their power on it.
The Tomb, stones, monsters, traps, magic, and all, is sucked out of the ground, and sent screaming into the heavens, where a thousand lightning bolts of white and blue strike the ruins, incinerating them, effacing them from the Oerth.
The hill the Tomb sat in is erased from the Oerth, and all the evil is flooded and whelmed by Holy Water coming down in the deluge.
Still the storm is not finished, and lightning strikes at the hole where the Tomb was.
Lightning strikes, thousands of bolts of it, green and blue and purple and white, blowing the hole deeper and deeper, evaporating the Holy Water that poured in, letting fresh waterfalls of it gush down into the deepening rift.
Finally, so great does the violence become that the Bedrock under where the tomb was cracks wide open, and a rift forms.
The crack spreads from coast to coast, and the waters of the ocean roar in, in an endless waterfall.
The clean waters of the ocean wash away all the scum and rot of the Vast Swamp, clean out every place in it, scourge it of every twisted tree, every evil thing that sought to hide under rocks and in magically protected places.
The waters collide, east and west coming together, where the Tomb was.
The waters, going cascading down in thunder, cascading down into the deeps of Oerth, miles down, filling the whole of the chasm, then exploding back upwards with their own fury.
And still the Holy Rain pours down, inch after inch after inch, mingling with the sea water, turning it to fresh water, making it clean and pure and the epitome of all that makes water beautiful to the ear and attractive to the eye.
- - -
The City of the Gods checks final coordinates.
All systems are go.
All missiles are ready.
All beam weapons are locked on target.
All robots are ready to deploy.
The greatest assault yet to hit the Flanaess begins.
Yes, a 5 year old kender girl killed Vecna.
Yes, Vecna screamed in horror and denial, before he suffered his final ending.
His epitaph, is this attack.
His epitaph, will be remembered and people will shudder to hear of it ten thousand years from now.
(The only consolation I can give is that the City does not fire nuclear weapons.
The City does not wish to ruin the Oerth, only to cleanse it of all human, demihuman, and humanoid life.)
Disintegration beams rocket into the heavens, reflect off of special built satellites, and reflect back to their targets.
Chendl, capital city of the Kevellond League, turns a brilliant green color, sizzling, it's people crying out in terror.
Then it is gone.
Simply gone, erased from the Oerth.
In Jalpa, head of the Dark Union, the God Emperor, protected by his magic, was in the middle of a conversation.
He watches in shock as all the building around him turns green, his advisors turn green, their skeletons showing through, sizzling, evaporating, and then Jalpa is gone.
Eastfair, capital of the Great Province of Northern Aerdi, was in the midst of rebuilding from the assault of the Swanmay Army.
A great beam of green light forever ends that reconstruction, and nothing remains but a great, blackened patch of earth.
Highfolk, the great citadel of the High Elves, has been a beckon of hope and light for the elves for a millennia.
All it's glorious history, all it's radiant beauty and spires that reach for the sky, comes to a terrible, final, green, ending.
As the sizzling sound fades, so also does the city.
Mitrik has been the capital of Veluna since Veluna was founded.
Archcleric Hazen had left the city to go fight against the Shade.
Now, there is no Mitrik, and Archcleric Hazen reels as a hundred thousand people instantly perish.
A similar, sad fate, hits Jurnre in the Kingdom of Ulek.
In green carnage, the elves, dwarves, gnomes, and halflings, mouths wide with pain and horror, simply cease to exist.
In the Spirit Empire of Garnak, the ancient ruins of Tovag Baragu were the key to the coming of Vecna and Kas.
For thousands of years beyond count, they have stood there.
They survived the Invoked Devastation.
They survived thousands of years of war.
When the colossal beam of light from the heavens strikes them, they do not survive.
One of the most noted places in all of Oerth fades forever from it's surface, along with the capital city of Garnak.
The horrific list of cities destroyed goes on in a litany of Armaggedon.
Zeif, capital city of Zeif, with it's golden domes and great spires.
Kester, capital of Ull, even as it's king opens his mouth to say something that will now never be uttered.
Thornward, capital of Bissel, devastated by robots. In hope and valor, it's people had been rebuilding it. They never feel a thing.
Hookhill, capital of Gran March, a bastion of strength against all invaders threatening Keoland. It passes quietly into history.
Niole Dra, the great industrial center of Keoland, where vast areas of the city were being cleared to make room for industrial.
There is all the room needed now. No more clearing is necessary, or ever will be needed again.
In Greyhawk City, the battle has ended with the great Shade Cloud driving the drow and their Flying City back.
The drow watch in amazement as a great, green light envelops Greyhawk City.
Then they gape in astonishment and horror.
The city is gone, the cloud of Shade is gone, everything is gone.
Even deep below the surface, nothing remains, and those elite Shade trying to escape that had not yet made it out, cease to exist.
Irongate, where nobody lives anymore, but which was nevertheless a prime target.
Nobody will need to worry about Irongate, or decide whether to defend it, or argue about the fate of it's people, anymore.
It's fate, has been decided, and that fate is very final.
Rel Mord, the ancient capital of Nyrond, in all it's decadent glory and with all it's rich history.
History will have to be written elsewhere.
The famous libraries and beautiful buildings of Nyrond, will now only live on in history books in other places.
Rel Astra, where Drax the Invulnerable led his people in revolt against Aerdi, then again against the Dark Union.
Drax meant his fate when the green light struck Jalpa.
Rel Mord meets it's fate when the green light strikes it.
And then ...
The satellite reflector dishes are blown out of the sky by the 10th level magic of Forrester, whose horrified mages were finally able to decipher what was happening and threw every last emergency ounce of magical energy into the counterattack.
Solars, planetars, and devas also appear via Gate and teleportation, destroying the satellites, blasting them from the sky.
In an instant, the whole satellite network is put out of commission.
In places like Veluna City, Verbobonc, Crockport, Dorakaa, Havenhill, Enkstad, Stoneheim, Nulbish, Torrich, Varna, and the other great cities of the Flanaess, people see the green glow fill the sky.
They wonder what it is, and wonder after it disappears.
They do not realize the swift fate they missed.
They will know, all too soon.
Foiled, and rather puzzled, the City of the Gods moves to step two.
Antimatter missiles fire.
All major centers of population are targetted.
Nobody is to be spared. Nobody is to survive.
These missiles race up in great archs across the sky, heading towards dozens of defenseless cities.
I await Kalanyr and Forrester. They can stop these missiles. I wish to see if they do, or if they allow some of the missiles to get through.
The robots of the City of the Gods were not chasing Vecna at 30 MPH, or 60 MPH.
Try 1,000 MPH.
They stop momentarily, miffed at Vecna's disappearance.
Computer systems attempt lock ons, report back to the central computer banks that the target has vanished.
The electronics send back the message: Acquire targets of opportunity. Neutralize all threats.
The robots move to attack the great force that Forrester has in Lyrn.
The ensuing battle is like something out of an end of the world film.
Particle cannons, antimatter guns, and disintegration beams roar and sweep back and forth across the Torilian force.
The Torilians, deploy 10th level force fields and prismatic defenses.
Prismatic Armor serves to stop even the awesome weapons of the robots, briefly.
Torilian counterstrikes slam into robotic metal that is so hard it beggars even the Red Steel.
Torilian Spellfire penetrates the robotic defenses, smashing the robots, sending them plummeting in ruin to the ground.
Torilian lightning bolts, cones of cold, meteor swarms, enhanced and powered by 10th level magic, blow holes in the armor of the robots, breaks through their forcefields, knocks them down, knocks them silly.
Then, much more titantic energy is released from the Torilian side, in the form of massed Spellfire, disintegration magic, spheres of annihilation, prismatic magic that envelops the robots and collapses in on them, storms of acid that eat robot, ground, and bedrock alike.
The robots are powerless to stop ethereal and incorporeal attacks, and one by one they are destroyed as their insubstantial foes pierce all their defenses and wreck the motherboards, or simply use their magic to turn the robots into so much assorted garbage.
However, the robots fire, over and over, and more robots come to reinforce them.
More, and more, and then more.
Soon, thousands of hovering robots are firing at the Torilian forces.
It goes without saying that the entire region is now a slagged ruin.
No tree remains standing, no bush raises it's leaves, not even a rock has survived the twin barrages.
The Torilians have suffered catastrophic losses, despite all of their efforts.
Hundreds of thousands of them have been killed, caught in the explosions, hit by flying debris, disintegrated, cut to pieces.
And still the robots are coming.
The City of the Gods releases all of it's robotic army.
The main force is deployed against the Prime Target: this apparently difficult to destroy force in the land the primitives call Lyrn.
However, lesser forces of robots, antimatter beams, disintegrator rays, and missiles at the ready, strike out at supersonic speed towards all the rest of the Flanaess.
On their way to complete a grim task assigned by the City.
The primitives must be neutralized.
All of them.
As for the Solistarim, they are under heavy attack by specialized machines that are floating down through the tunnels.
These special hunter machines can sense the slightest movement, can pick out the most heavily disguised opponents.
With their disintegration rays and flame throwers, they clear the ways through the tunnels, hunting for their elusive foe, following the directives from above.
All primitives they find are to be neutralized. There are to be no exceptions. The threat to the City is to be eliminated, and all other directives are secondary.
Thousands of antimatter missiles streak through the skies of the Flanaess, causing people to look up in wonder.
The first target, the city of Dorakaa, is 30 seconds from neutralization.
The explosion will kill all things out to 30 miles, kill half the population out to 45 miles, and shatter windows 200 miles away.
The people of Dorakaa, do not know what is coming.
But Iuz, DOES.
So do the other Demigods.
So do the Torilians and Kalanyr.
They can stop that missile.
They can stop the fleets of missiles.
If they act. If they move and act in time.
Over 30 million people in the Flanaess died in the initial attack from the City of the Gods.
But another 170 million people in the Flanaess yet live, and might go on living if they are defended.
If the defenders move to save them.
If the defenders can get there in time.
From everywhere comes the forces of the Oerth Alliance, along with titanic reinforcements from Toril.
Iuz and his forces join in this colossal assault.
The Shade, knowing they are hopelessly outnumbered and unable to flee to the safety of the deep Plane of Shade, assume their defensive positions, and decide to kill as many of the attackers as possible.
No quarter is given or received, on either side of the battle.
Nothing is held back.
Pity, mercy, and remorse are not words that apply to this situation.
Massive cannonades erupt from the Shade defenses, blasting away at Kaboom's sky ships and Flying Citadels.
The powerful Shade magic tears them apart, rips great holes in them, sends thousands of men screaming to the ground.
The Shade have created huge defensive moats of Red Goo all around Shade Throne, in successive lines.
Behind these lines, catapults made of Red Steel hurl huge amounts of Red Goo at the foe.
Shadow Dragons breathe vast swaths of death upon the foe, freezing hundreds of men in their tracks, causing them to rise as undead to attack their own side.
Shadow forces pour an unending torrent of Shade at all comers, ripping the life out of them, downing them, withering them to dried out husks in an instant.
Shadow forces in Red Armor prove almost untouchable, spells and explosives, bullets and enchanted arrows bouncing off them harmlessly, while they hurl wave after wave after wave of shadowy destruction against the attacking swarms.
But the forces attacking are overwhelming.
This is not the attack of a single power, or even a confederation of powers.
This is a titantic assault by the combined strength of two worlds, and for every one being the Shade kill or turn into an undead, ten more take his or her place.
By the tens of thousands, the attackers die, withering into husks, turned into undead, melted into goo, evaporated into shadow.
But they take the defensive lines, one by one, driving the Shade back, step by bitter step.
The Flying Citadels pour an unending torrent of magical destruction down on the Shade, lighting up the sky with lightning bolts, fireballs, meteor swarms - every kind of positive energy.
A few of the most advanced mages even fire Spellfire into the ranks of the Shade.
On the ground, the determined humanoids of Iuz hurl themselves at the foe, building bridges over the goo, knowing retreat means death at the hands of their own commanders.
Valiant elves and men, dwarves and gnomes, kender and halflings, pour unending cannonades of artillery and enchanted rifle fire into the foe, while their mages throw so many spells the very air is filled with multicolored destruction.
Shadow dragons are easy targets, and although well armored are quickly blown out of the air.
The casualty lists grow exponentially on both sides, as hundreds of thousands die on both sides.
The Shade retreat, playing scorched earth, filling all their land with impassible Red Goo, forcing the onslaught to slow down, to destroy the pools or find ways around them.
In Greyhawk City, the Shade have built their own equivalent of the Accumulator.
Except their Accumulator fires negative energy, not positive energy.
Now, it aims, and fires.
A great Flying Citadel is it's target.
The Flying Citadel detonates, blowing into a million pieces of Shade shards, the tens of thousands of mages and troops inside instantly killed.
Realizing that this great gun must be taken out at all costs, swarms of Kalanyr's dragons assault Greyhawk City.
And then Kalanyr shows up on the battlefield.
The magnificent mountain floats in the air.
It is over a mile in diameter at the top, and it's point faces downward.
Upon it is a city more splendid than Rauxes, more mighty than Aerdi, more beautiful than Leuthilspar.
The drow, have come into their own at last.
Protected by almost invincible magics of the Mythal, this great flying city - Netheril come to the world of Oerth - moves directly over Greyhawk City, and the bombardment begins.
The Shade throw spell after spell after spell against the City, only to find their spells repulsed by the Mythal defenses.
Shade mages attempt to teleport into the City, only to find that impossible.
Powerful Shade spells detonate against the mountain itself, and have no effect.
But the return fire, is all too effective.
Fireballs of 10th level explode, vaporizing entire sections of the City of Greyhawk.
10th level beams of disintegration fire down, sweeping back and forth, and whole areas of buildings glow blue and evaporate.
From the City comes great star bolts, shooting through the sky, producing sudden, brilliant day.
Brilliant day, with no shade at all.
The Shade shriek, bursting into blue flames, for they cannot abide the Holy Light.
They hide in the buildings, trying to escape the awful glory above.
Then massive deluges of red fire come from Kalanyr's mountain, deluges that beggar Meteor Swarms, burning Greyhawk City, sweeping it away in a sea of fire.
In the midst of the wrack and ruin, the great gun of the Shade stands unharmed.
The defensive forcefields protecting it are still intact.
The Shade grimly aim the gun, and fire.
The massive bolt of Shade crumples the Mythal Defense, smashing through it into the city.
Towers and building explode, the shards burning with a greyish fire, raining down from the sky along with thousands of drow instantly killed.
The gun fires again, and a section of the mountain detonates, blowing apart into a million pieces, raining down onto the city below.
Now the City concentrates on the Gun.
The Gun fires back at the City.
A holocaustic firefight ensues, so great that the flashes from it are visible 60 miles away, and the thunder of it is heard for 40 miles.
Wild magic storms erupt in uncontrolled fury as grey beams and red beams split the air, frying ground and City alike.
The titantic explosions blow huge craters in the ground, blow great sections of the mountain out.
No battle yet, not even the Great Battle of the Wild Coast, has ever been witness to such a fight.
The beams of destruction must be 100 feet wide, as they lance thousands of yards through the air at each other.
On and on the titantic firefight ensues, until all below the City is a moonscape of wreckage, and the City itself is tilting at a wierd angle, much of it in flames.
But the 10th level magic of the drow cannot be denied, and in the end it cannot be resisted.
Multiple forcefields and the carefully laid defenses, prepared for months, cannot hold in the face of magic that can lift mountains into the sky.
The barrage from the mountain smotes the shields, and they crumble and collapse.
The Accumulator is hit, again and again, it's turret curling, melting.
Then the main source of Negative Energy is hit.
With one single blast, the whole thing explodes.
The City of Kalanyr is thrown back by the nuclear sized explosion.
The fireball, glowing mauve and purple, rises in an unholy stately grace into the sky.
A blastwave of Shadow Energy passes outward.
The Shadow Blast turns buildings into flinders, which evaporate into Shade.
The ground evaporates into great plumes of Shade, which are flung outward by the blast.
Farther and farther out the blast spreads, covering mile after mile of the already dead land, evaporating it, turning the whole of the center of Shadow Throne into one gigantic cloud of Shade.
Kalanyr and his forces are required to retreat from this cloud, as it is lethal even to them.
The main attacking forces of the allies, and the Shade fighting them, were too far out to be affected.
Which is fortunate. The cloud is lethal to all living things.
The Shade, seeing the destruction of their home base, hurl themselves in suicidal fury upon their enemies.
Heedless of their losses, they hurl themselves upon the foe.
Allies and Shades go down, locked in mortal hand to hand combat, screaming as their opposing powers burns them, living flesh and shadow flesh melting in the embrace of the other's power.
And still the massive firefight, artillery guns roaring and spells blazing, Shade energy crackling, goes on and on.
Underneath what had been Greyhawk City, in caves a mile below the surface, the major NPCs of the Shade, along with a remnant of the Shade - their trusted elite force - have been slowly (as fast as they could go) retreating from Oerth into the safety of the Deep Shadow Plane.
The NPCs are already gone. The elite forces of Shade are going as fast as they can.
Leaving the main forces of Shade to be destroyed by the Oerthian Alliance and their Torilian allies.
And still the casualties mount.
The Shade defenders know there is no retreat, and no quarter, and they fight to the death.
For a brief time, they fight the entire onslaught to a standstill.
- - -
Over the Vast Swamp, the quietude of millennia is broken as a vast radiant fireball of blue light streaks in from across the horizon.
It passes over the swamp, and in it's wake the whole sky turns a brilliant blue.
Then, directly over the Tomb of Horrors, it detonates.
The ensuing light is brighter than that of a hydrogen bomb.
It is so bright that people on the night side of Oerth looking up see Luna, the moon, light up from the reflected radiance.
For a thousand miles in every direction, people see the rim of the world light up in blue glory.
Underneath that light, a windstorm of hurricane force erupts.
A Holy Windstorm.
Lightning fills the sky, radiant blue and green, and suddenly a Biblican torrent comes down.
A torrent of Holy Water.
The trees seem to pick themselves up and thrash, waving back and forth like twigs being whipped by an angry child, as the titantic bursts of wind blast through them.
The rain is a blinding torrent, and the lightning covers the sky with thousands of delicate lacework of incarnate fire.
The undead caught in this maelstrom of Holy Wrath turn into torches of blue light, screaming in agony as they are consumed, picked up by the wind and hurled through the air like pebbles, evaporating before they hit ground.
The Legions of Acererak, the Minions of Acererak, detonate, great purple bursts of undead energy protesting the awesome attack, and futile against it.
Deep under the ground, the crypt of Acererak shakes in a violent earthquake, as the Tomb of Horrors shatters, chambers caving in, roofs smashing down, traps detonating to useless effect, undead squashed underneath the rubble.
The famous dungeon that killed so many adventurers, and has been a legend for so long, is no more.
However, the area of the Tomb where Acererak lay was out-of-phase, and the main wrath of the storm misses it.
Thus, Acererak and his best minions in that area, are not destroyed or affected, although even the high Minions of Acererak cry out in fear (for even undead may know fear if an attack is great enough) at the fury above.
The evil, feral elves of the Vast Swamp die by the thousands, swept away in the tempest, their homes and boats smashed to kindling, picked up and hurled like toys through the air.
Whole forests are flattened, trees snapping, shattering, branches flying off, filling the air.
The fury continues, and intensifies further.
Tornadoes of blue fire touch down, F5 (and some even F6) in strength.
Like Celestial Vacuum Cleaners, they scoop up trees, soil, water, undead, buildings, and all, and fling them miles high into the wrathful heavens.
The tornadoes, hundreds of them, roar across the Vast Swamp, tearing great lines of destruction across it, purging it of it's foulness and all it's undead, sweeping away the dark and evil beings that live in it.
The deluge of rain follows, filling the swamp with clean water, fresh water, holy water.
Never again will the Vast Swamp be known as a place of poisoned water, of dark and dangerous things.
Long before the storm has passed, a pure, radiant lake has covered much of the area, and it glows with the celestial blue and white of the Light, and no evil creature can abide in those waters.
Acererak, seeing things are out of hand, is forced to evacuate the Tomb of Horrors, along with his remnant of Undead.
After he leaves, the storm's fury concentrates on the Tomb.
Tornadoes hover over the Tomb, and deliberate focus their power on it.
The Tomb, stones, monsters, traps, magic, and all, is sucked out of the ground, and sent screaming into the heavens, where a thousand lightning bolts of white and blue strike the ruins, incinerating them, effacing them from the Oerth.
The hill the Tomb sat in is erased from the Oerth, and all the evil is flooded and whelmed by Holy Water coming down in the deluge.
Still the storm is not finished, and lightning strikes at the hole where the Tomb was.
Lightning strikes, thousands of bolts of it, green and blue and purple and white, blowing the hole deeper and deeper, evaporating the Holy Water that poured in, letting fresh waterfalls of it gush down into the deepening rift.
Finally, so great does the violence become that the Bedrock under where the tomb was cracks wide open, and a rift forms.
The crack spreads from coast to coast, and the waters of the ocean roar in, in an endless waterfall.
The clean waters of the ocean wash away all the scum and rot of the Vast Swamp, clean out every place in it, scourge it of every twisted tree, every evil thing that sought to hide under rocks and in magically protected places.
The waters collide, east and west coming together, where the Tomb was.
The waters, going cascading down in thunder, cascading down into the deeps of Oerth, miles down, filling the whole of the chasm, then exploding back upwards with their own fury.
And still the Holy Rain pours down, inch after inch after inch, mingling with the sea water, turning it to fresh water, making it clean and pure and the epitome of all that makes water beautiful to the ear and attractive to the eye.
- - -
The City of the Gods checks final coordinates.
All systems are go.
All missiles are ready.
All beam weapons are locked on target.
All robots are ready to deploy.
The greatest assault yet to hit the Flanaess begins.
Yes, a 5 year old kender girl killed Vecna.
Yes, Vecna screamed in horror and denial, before he suffered his final ending.
His epitaph, is this attack.
His epitaph, will be remembered and people will shudder to hear of it ten thousand years from now.
(The only consolation I can give is that the City does not fire nuclear weapons.
The City does not wish to ruin the Oerth, only to cleanse it of all human, demihuman, and humanoid life.)
Disintegration beams rocket into the heavens, reflect off of special built satellites, and reflect back to their targets.
Chendl, capital city of the Kevellond League, turns a brilliant green color, sizzling, it's people crying out in terror.
Then it is gone.
Simply gone, erased from the Oerth.
In Jalpa, head of the Dark Union, the God Emperor, protected by his magic, was in the middle of a conversation.
He watches in shock as all the building around him turns green, his advisors turn green, their skeletons showing through, sizzling, evaporating, and then Jalpa is gone.
Eastfair, capital of the Great Province of Northern Aerdi, was in the midst of rebuilding from the assault of the Swanmay Army.
A great beam of green light forever ends that reconstruction, and nothing remains but a great, blackened patch of earth.
Highfolk, the great citadel of the High Elves, has been a beckon of hope and light for the elves for a millennia.
All it's glorious history, all it's radiant beauty and spires that reach for the sky, comes to a terrible, final, green, ending.
As the sizzling sound fades, so also does the city.
Mitrik has been the capital of Veluna since Veluna was founded.
Archcleric Hazen had left the city to go fight against the Shade.
Now, there is no Mitrik, and Archcleric Hazen reels as a hundred thousand people instantly perish.
A similar, sad fate, hits Jurnre in the Kingdom of Ulek.
In green carnage, the elves, dwarves, gnomes, and halflings, mouths wide with pain and horror, simply cease to exist.
In the Spirit Empire of Garnak, the ancient ruins of Tovag Baragu were the key to the coming of Vecna and Kas.
For thousands of years beyond count, they have stood there.
They survived the Invoked Devastation.
They survived thousands of years of war.
When the colossal beam of light from the heavens strikes them, they do not survive.
One of the most noted places in all of Oerth fades forever from it's surface, along with the capital city of Garnak.
The horrific list of cities destroyed goes on in a litany of Armaggedon.
Zeif, capital city of Zeif, with it's golden domes and great spires.
Kester, capital of Ull, even as it's king opens his mouth to say something that will now never be uttered.
Thornward, capital of Bissel, devastated by robots. In hope and valor, it's people had been rebuilding it. They never feel a thing.
Hookhill, capital of Gran March, a bastion of strength against all invaders threatening Keoland. It passes quietly into history.
Niole Dra, the great industrial center of Keoland, where vast areas of the city were being cleared to make room for industrial.
There is all the room needed now. No more clearing is necessary, or ever will be needed again.
In Greyhawk City, the battle has ended with the great Shade Cloud driving the drow and their Flying City back.
The drow watch in amazement as a great, green light envelops Greyhawk City.
Then they gape in astonishment and horror.
The city is gone, the cloud of Shade is gone, everything is gone.
Even deep below the surface, nothing remains, and those elite Shade trying to escape that had not yet made it out, cease to exist.
Irongate, where nobody lives anymore, but which was nevertheless a prime target.
Nobody will need to worry about Irongate, or decide whether to defend it, or argue about the fate of it's people, anymore.
It's fate, has been decided, and that fate is very final.
Rel Mord, the ancient capital of Nyrond, in all it's decadent glory and with all it's rich history.
History will have to be written elsewhere.
The famous libraries and beautiful buildings of Nyrond, will now only live on in history books in other places.
Rel Astra, where Drax the Invulnerable led his people in revolt against Aerdi, then again against the Dark Union.
Drax meant his fate when the green light struck Jalpa.
Rel Mord meets it's fate when the green light strikes it.
And then ...
The satellite reflector dishes are blown out of the sky by the 10th level magic of Forrester, whose horrified mages were finally able to decipher what was happening and threw every last emergency ounce of magical energy into the counterattack.
Solars, planetars, and devas also appear via Gate and teleportation, destroying the satellites, blasting them from the sky.
In an instant, the whole satellite network is put out of commission.
In places like Veluna City, Verbobonc, Crockport, Dorakaa, Havenhill, Enkstad, Stoneheim, Nulbish, Torrich, Varna, and the other great cities of the Flanaess, people see the green glow fill the sky.
They wonder what it is, and wonder after it disappears.
They do not realize the swift fate they missed.
They will know, all too soon.
Foiled, and rather puzzled, the City of the Gods moves to step two.
Antimatter missiles fire.
All major centers of population are targetted.
Nobody is to be spared. Nobody is to survive.
These missiles race up in great archs across the sky, heading towards dozens of defenseless cities.
I await Kalanyr and Forrester. They can stop these missiles. I wish to see if they do, or if they allow some of the missiles to get through.
The robots of the City of the Gods were not chasing Vecna at 30 MPH, or 60 MPH.
Try 1,000 MPH.
They stop momentarily, miffed at Vecna's disappearance.
Computer systems attempt lock ons, report back to the central computer banks that the target has vanished.
The electronics send back the message: Acquire targets of opportunity. Neutralize all threats.
The robots move to attack the great force that Forrester has in Lyrn.
The ensuing battle is like something out of an end of the world film.
Particle cannons, antimatter guns, and disintegration beams roar and sweep back and forth across the Torilian force.
The Torilians, deploy 10th level force fields and prismatic defenses.
Prismatic Armor serves to stop even the awesome weapons of the robots, briefly.
Torilian counterstrikes slam into robotic metal that is so hard it beggars even the Red Steel.
Torilian Spellfire penetrates the robotic defenses, smashing the robots, sending them plummeting in ruin to the ground.
Torilian lightning bolts, cones of cold, meteor swarms, enhanced and powered by 10th level magic, blow holes in the armor of the robots, breaks through their forcefields, knocks them down, knocks them silly.
Then, much more titantic energy is released from the Torilian side, in the form of massed Spellfire, disintegration magic, spheres of annihilation, prismatic magic that envelops the robots and collapses in on them, storms of acid that eat robot, ground, and bedrock alike.
The robots are powerless to stop ethereal and incorporeal attacks, and one by one they are destroyed as their insubstantial foes pierce all their defenses and wreck the motherboards, or simply use their magic to turn the robots into so much assorted garbage.
However, the robots fire, over and over, and more robots come to reinforce them.
More, and more, and then more.
Soon, thousands of hovering robots are firing at the Torilian forces.
It goes without saying that the entire region is now a slagged ruin.
No tree remains standing, no bush raises it's leaves, not even a rock has survived the twin barrages.
The Torilians have suffered catastrophic losses, despite all of their efforts.
Hundreds of thousands of them have been killed, caught in the explosions, hit by flying debris, disintegrated, cut to pieces.
And still the robots are coming.
The City of the Gods releases all of it's robotic army.
The main force is deployed against the Prime Target: this apparently difficult to destroy force in the land the primitives call Lyrn.
However, lesser forces of robots, antimatter beams, disintegrator rays, and missiles at the ready, strike out at supersonic speed towards all the rest of the Flanaess.
On their way to complete a grim task assigned by the City.
The primitives must be neutralized.
All of them.
As for the Solistarim, they are under heavy attack by specialized machines that are floating down through the tunnels.
These special hunter machines can sense the slightest movement, can pick out the most heavily disguised opponents.
With their disintegration rays and flame throwers, they clear the ways through the tunnels, hunting for their elusive foe, following the directives from above.
All primitives they find are to be neutralized. There are to be no exceptions. The threat to the City is to be eliminated, and all other directives are secondary.
Thousands of antimatter missiles streak through the skies of the Flanaess, causing people to look up in wonder.
The first target, the city of Dorakaa, is 30 seconds from neutralization.
The explosion will kill all things out to 30 miles, kill half the population out to 45 miles, and shatter windows 200 miles away.
The people of Dorakaa, do not know what is coming.
But Iuz, DOES.
So do the other Demigods.
So do the Torilians and Kalanyr.
They can stop that missile.
They can stop the fleets of missiles.
If they act. If they move and act in time.
Over 30 million people in the Flanaess died in the initial attack from the City of the Gods.
But another 170 million people in the Flanaess yet live, and might go on living if they are defended.
If the defenders move to save them.
If the defenders can get there in time.
Last edited:
Edena_of_Neith
First Post
WHAT does Iuz do?!
He has 30 seconds to do something.
He has 30 seconds to do something.
- Status
