THE COMING OF THE ELDER ONES
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Mina plunges her sword into Melkor's vanishing shape.
The God Emperor plunges his sword into Melkor's vanishing shape.
Phibrizzo plunges his sword into Melkor's vanishing shape.
And others take their revenge on his shrinking and dissipating form.
It is too late.
Melkor destroyed himself to accomplish something.
That something, is accomplished.
A great explosion occurs from where Melkor was.
This explosion is not in the Prime Material Plane, but rather in the Ethereal, yet it can be seen from the Prime Material, for it permanently shifts the light spectrum there into the purple.
As the shock wave passes across Oerth at trans-light speed, and flashes past the two moons, everything turns purple, or grey, or black, or a dullish white.
The sun glows a dim purple in the mauve sky, shedding heat but little light.
Purplish leaves hang from greyish limbs.
Purple light reflects from mauve waters, echoes off of towers and battlements, reflects off the darkened snows of the mountains.
As the blast wave passes through Greyspace's sun, the spectrum changes forever.
The drow will always be comfortable on the surface now.
So will the illithid ... the weak, wan sunlight in it's purple and mauve colors bothers them not at all.
Oerth and it's moons reflect the purple sunlight back in ghastly dim hues of lighter purple and deeper purple, black and grey, looking ghoulish and ghostly.
Even the stars in the sky become faint, purple echoes of what they were.
This is permanent.
The shock reaches the Crystal Sphere, but the Phlogiston outside is not affected ... the blast wave was almost entirely in the Ethereal Plane, and for some reason it has no manifestation in the Prime Material outside of Greyspace (which may well be renamed.)
The shock passes outward, through the Ethereal Plane, travelling faster and faster, exceeding lightspeed by thousands, then millions, of time, until it reaches places that few have ever heard of, and fewer have ever gone to.
Finally, the shock reaches the very remote Ethereal, where nobody has been for millions of years.
It passes into the Border Ethereal of that remote area, and at the edge of the Border Ethereal, just where it meets the Prime Material Plane, is a wall.
This is a wall made of material similar to what Crystal Spheres themselves are made of.
It is unbreakable; it was made to be unbreakable, and for good reason.
The Ancients who made this wall, made it to keep what was behind it well imprisoned.
Up until now, for millions of years, that Wall has held, although What Lies Behind It has been using every effort to breach it, using means mundane and magical.
The blast wave hits that Wall.
The Wall, cracks.
The crack, widens, and from behind the Wall comes a maddening roar of exultation.
Then, the crack expands remorselessly, each new branching weakening the wall further and further, while What Lies Beyond smashes at it from the other side.
With one titantic explosion, a large section of the Wall erupts outward into the Ethereal, shattered rock scattering back through the Ether towards Greyspace.
And, somehow, creating a Bridge, through all the vastness of the Ethereal, directly to Greyspace.
The Wall is magical, and has the power to repair itself.
Indeed, it has had to do so before, and What Lies Behind It cannot stop it from repairing itself and sealing them back in.
However, it takes the Wall several minutes to do that.
Several minutes to reseal itself.
During those several minutes, They come through the breach, and They cross the Bridge into Greyspace.
They come. Nobody knows how many there are, nobody will ever know. It is best not to know.
To even look upon Them means insanity.
Only the greatest of mortals can hope to fight even one of Them, and win.
They descend upon the world of Oerth from all directions, coming down towards every continent.
The two moons, Luna, and Celene, each have their own invasion force.
They realize the illithid are servitors of their own kind, and ignore them.
Those that Came are the Elder Race, and the goal is to diffuse the very reality of Oerth itself, taking apart all substance atom by atom, and then taking apart the atoms themselves.
The Lortmil Technomancy and the United Commonwealth of Toril both have Deep Space Radar, and both Radars detect the beings that are incoming.
Then the radar systems overload, start to burn, then explode, shattering into burning fires and superheated scrap metal.
The Angels, engaged in their life and death battle with the Red Army, see what is coming, and stop fighting.
The Red Army, sees what is coming, and stops fighting.
Mina's Dead, stop fighting.
A look of awe spreads over the maddened faces of the Red Army; awe and terror.
The Dead, cringe in fear, slinking down as if they would hide in the imagined safety of the Oerth itself.
The Angels look upward, where the stars are blotted out by the ranks of What Is Coming, and they openly weep, knowing It's strength and purpose.