IMPORTANT - PLEASE READ
Forrester travels back towards Realmspace, as noted.
He does not need to find the Angels this time; they find him.
They are waiting for him in the Ether between the worlds, and they prevent him from reentering Realmspace.
Beautiful, ethereal, transparent, with robes of gauze and slim, shining weapons, the Angels halt Forrester's magical travel, and form a ring around him in the Ether between the worlds.
Forrester speaks (as per his post above):
-Okay, boys. When Vecna himself comes to see me, and asks me diplomatically to leave, and warns me of the Darkness coming, I know that I'm in trouble.
I need to know what you know. The lives of millions of my troops, and tens and hundreds of millions of innocents on Oerth, hangs in the balance. I need to know.
What stirs? What comes?
Does it bear a particular animosity towards *me*, or all of Oerth?
If I were to leave Oerth, would it leave Oerth as well, and leave those that remained untouched -- or would it begin to devour THEM?
And you know Vecna far better than I do. I was made to understand he would love nothing more than the utter destruction of Oerth -- and of Toril. Is this little heartfelt speech on his part nothing more than a ploy? It seemed to be more -- but I can be fooled.
Am I endangering Oerth by being there?
Would I endanger it more by leaving?
Do you have any of the answers for which I seek?
I especially desire to know -- no, I MUST know -- whether this Great Darkness seeks me, and me alone, or whether it seeks to devour all of Oerth.
- - -
One of the Angels, shining face very solemn, steps forward, and with slender fingers points at Forrester's feet.
An image appears below Forrester, as if he were looking down into water.
Forrester sees himself in that mirror.
Then he becomes larger, and larger.
Then he is too large to fit in the mirror, and only a part of him is seen.
Then, only a patch of his skin is seen.
Then, the skin zooms in until the individual cells are visible.
Then, the image seems to pass through the cells, and Forrester is looking inside himself, at his own blood cells.
They are the classic red blood cells of a humanoid, and they seem perfectly fine.
The cells get bigger and bigger as the picture zooms in, and then Forrester sees the virus.
The image could have been that of a fine microscope, but no microscope ever invented could convey the raw evil, sheer necromantic power, and malevolant red gleam all emanating from those tiny life forms.
A magical virus, the result of some demented dream by a mind steeped in the deepest of insanity.
It is invariably fatal.
It is extremely contagious.
It is magical, so antibiotics are useless against it.
It is lurking in Forrester's blood, incubating. In 2 weeks, 3 weeks at the most, it will attack to kill.
But the Angel is not done. Forrester is pulled back forcibly from that vision, and he sees another one, and wishes that he had not.
A man is lying in bed. He is in an advanced state of this illness.
The skin of his hands and feet is gone, and underneath that the flesh has turned black, is dead.
The putriescence has spread throughout the man's body, and his flesh is dark with blood poisoning from the disease.
And around the man is a bright red mist, a mist centered around a glow coming from the man's heart.
Those trying to help the man shriek and look away from that red mist, blood running from their eyes, and the side of their bodies facing the red glow and bathed in it turning black with burns.
As for the man, he is screaming in a pain beyond imagination, as the disease attacks not only his body, but his soul. Blood pours from eyes, ears, nose, while pus and rot ooze from scores of holes in his flesh.
His body rots in minutes, shrinking as it does so, turning into a withered corpse, the red mist turning into a brilliant crimson sheen, but somehow that man is still alive, and still screaming - screaming silently, for his tongue and vocal chords have rotted away.
Finally, nothing remains but a skeleton and ash.
From the skeleton arises a brilliant white light, but the red smothers it, suffocates it, and it changes into an image of the man as he was in life.
The new undead rises, hideous delight in it's visage, disease in it's touch.
It swiftly moves from the bed, on it's unholy mission, for it's every touch will infect a new victim with the disease that killed it.
Forrester is pulled back from this vision also.
The Angel looking at Forrester is angry.
To Forrester, it looks and feels like he is looking into the sun, in the desert, at high noon.
He feels the anger of the other Angels too, all around him, like the shimmering heat from molten metal.
Angelic voices whispers:
You forsook Irongate ...
You forsook those who pleaded for your intervention ...
You forsook them to eternal suffering ...
You forsook them to endless horror and pain ...
You are guilty ...
Guilty ...
You have committed a great crime ...
You are guilty ...
The battering is like being hit by the blows of titans, from all sides, knocking Forrester first this way and that.
There is nothing he can do to avoid the blows.
No amount of self protection stops them from penetrating through.
Now will you forsake your people?
Will you leave them to die?
Will you allow those who trust in you to perish in this way?
Will you allow Oerth to perish in this way?
Will you forsake your people as you forsook Irongate?
Will you forsake your people as you forsook Irongate?
WILL YOU FORSAKE YOUR PEOPLE AS YOU FORSOOK IRONGATE?
Forrester sees another vision.
It is all but thrust into his head by a sledgehammer.
Vecna has returned to Shadow Throne.
The Shades and Vecna's undead are immune to the illness.
Vecna is laughing as he says:
The foolish Child.
He will return to Toril, and kill his own world.
What a shame, that I could not convince him to go myself.
Then I could have taken part credit in the destruction of Toril! How sweet that would have been!
But nay, I cannot take credit. I must give all due glory and credit to my friend the demilich.
Vecna raises his glass, cradling Ahlissa to his side.
All hail Acererak, bringer of death to the Torilians and traitors alike!
To his health! (Vecna chuckles) Well, to his Unhealth!
The vision fades.
Forrester faces a circle of angry Angels.
They speak in unison:
Go! Return to Oerth. You have a mission to accomplish, and a world to protect.
GO!
Forrester is hurled away by that final word, and returns to where he started on Oerth, stunned.
Anxious attendants come up to see what went wrong with the travel magic.
Forrester, looking around with detect magic and detect evil, sees it immediately.
The Torilian encampment is a sea of red, a sea of evil.
There must be hundreds of thousands of infections and incubations, and thousands more are starting every minute - literally.