15[20:05] Xu Sim, arms crossed, streaks through the sky towards the carnage at Nexus's southern front. He has to weave through torrents of flame from Lookshyan officers and hails of arrows from Elegba's soldiers to see Nessun Dorma, crunched into a crater in the ground by the force of locking weapons with a massive woman with silver hair and wings and a barbed silver spear. His helmet's come off in the fighting; his red hair is all that's visible of his features beneath his blazing white anima. 15[20:10] Keldar oversees the eastern defense. Despite battered troops and a breached wall, his Dawn Guard ably fended off the first assault. Now there's an eerie silence on the mist-choked battlefield - what balance does he strike between resting, regrouping, and girding for another assault? [20:11] <@Ferrinus> 12Exactly the correct one, of course. Keldar's first priority is patching the damage dealt by the tidemares to the wall itself; otherwise, his troops know exactly how to assort and apportion themselves for the sake of making sure the dead and injured are dealt with and the healthy and capable get as much rest as is practical while passing up the least opportunity for productive effort [20:11] <@Ferrinus> 12or canny oversight. 15[20:12] Stranger and Xia Lan scramble through the undercity, looking for more victims of the raksha sleeping sickness that saw a little boy subsumed into a vast and alien will. Knowing the signs, they're easy to spot - four or five already just in the camphor-smelling infirmary camps they wade through now. Bedridden, writhing, unresponsive. [20:13] 14Should be fairly simple to at least reproduce the charm set ups from previous, though if Cethleann is gonna be chatty with any of them is could take awhile. [20:14] 14He's still debating whether to leave guards stationed to kill them if they start turning, but decides against it based on the likelihood of hesitation and the necessity for all their forces to be on the wall. 15[20:15] Simple enough to reproduce... but how many? Stranger only has enough iron for two wards, maybe three if he stretches. [20:17] 13We should have seen this coming, somehow. They're -- we have such limited options, and most of them are awful. [20:18] 14This isn't going to be a long-term solution. He'll stretch to three as long as it's not a huge stretch on the two most vulnerable-seeming targets, and if any of the targets happen to be people that he wouldn't personally feel bad about executing, like a career criminal or a banker, he'll do that, but they need to pursue other avenues of confronting this. [20:18] 13Xia Lan is best served as a runner at this point, particularly if they need to persuade the person at the end of her run to help them out. [20:19] 13Also, this way she won't have to see the end results of Stranger's work. [20:21] 5Xu Sim quickly scans the battlefield, caught between the broader battle and the clash of titans - how near an affair is it either way? 15[20:25] The battle is pitched on all sides, with the Wailing Wall literally grappling with the Final Word, its embankment of cannons doing scant damage to its metallic hide as the Wailing Wall attempts to tear the ship in two. Xu Sim sees more ready opportunities to contribute to the wider battle but Dorma looks to be in greater peril. [20:26] 5Xu Sim charges to Dorma's aid. 15[20:28] As Keldar and the Guard prepare to mount another defense, the mist contracts around them, surging through their ranks and weighing heavily upon them. [20:30] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar's eyes flare orange. "On your guard!" [20:53] 14So Stranger will set up what meager guards he's got to watch the sleepers, refrain from throatcutting because the last thing the defenders need right now is a riot from their own people, and pursue a more direct and elegant solution. 15[20:58] The mist chokes dozens of Keldar's troops, causing them to slacken on the spot, jerking back to life, eyes wide, lidless, and violet. They raises their weapons as one. [20:59] <@Ferrinus> "Lay 'em out!" 12thunders the Tiger of Nexus. "Be nice if they were in shape to wake back up but they're worth less to Nexus than you are!" [20:59] 5Xu Sim sprints across the battlefield as the Judge reborn in rosehips winds up for a terrifying attack on the Dragonlord. With a perfectly-timed leap and a powerful shout, the sorcerer bunts the monster's falling weapon aside with a leap kick. He pivots for another glancing blow at its enormous frame. [21:00] <@Ferrinus> 12Maybe Keldar's men aren't quite willing to give it all against their own, or maybe the sleeping soldiers are moving far too quickly than they should be given that they're not even conscious. 15[21:02] Xia Lan scrambles for more iron, finding the odd cookpot or dagger of the stuff. The only place she'll find iron in appreciable amounts is in the hands of the Dawn Guard and the stores of Xu Sim's thistledown machine. [21:05] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar himself has more luck, thundering through the ranks of his former soldiers. He taught them everything he knows, but there's things you can't teach. To his credit, and his waking soldiers' reliefs, there's a lot more clobbering than slashing involved. [21:05] 13Ugh. Those -- we need those to defend against the enemies at the walls, we can't ask them to give it up for the dreamers. I mean, we could, and she could probably even convince them, but-- anyway, out of the question absent some sort of massive outbreak. She provides the iron to Stranger, and makes sure they'll have some kind of, giveaway, or otherwise reintroduction - giving up your foodware is... well, it's a greater sacrifice [21:05] than she could have ever asked for outright. [21:05] 14We knew the dangers of putting all the iron in the city into offense when we made that decision. [21:06] 13Did we? Because this is a new one. [21:06] 14Intellectually. [21:06] 14We also thought they'd at least wait until night time to start with the dream attacks, though. [21:06] 14In retrospect, not the wisest of moves. [21:12] "Dorma!" 5Thunders Xu Sim, moustache and sleeves flying in the midst of his efforts- "You have to go!" 5His outstretched finger points at the bulk of the Wailing Wall, tearing at the sides of the great Lookshyan battleship. "We will distract one with the other - you're the bait!" [21:15] 5Xu Sim interposes himself between the Dragonlord and his titanic foe. [21:15] 14Stranger grasps the Codex. [21:19] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar presses two fingers of one hand to his ear while holding the hilt of his stabbed-into-the-stone daiklave with the other, stepping back and forth and using it as a piece of immobile cover. "That gonna make a quarter of my soldiers stop trying to kill the rest?" 15[21:24] Nessun Dorma all but bodily hurls Xu Sim aside. "We will not prevaricate! HOLD THE LINE!" [21:24] 14Stranger: "Not unless you get them further inside the walls, but it might weaken them a bit." [21:29] 14Stranger: "Now, we have a chance to fire the Tomb once before we're overwhelmed in here, by my calculations, but it's a close thing and we need a target you both agree on right now. I'm on my way to the Tomb now." [21:30] 13Xia Lan: "Do you want me there? Or-- stopping a riot?" [21:32] 14To Xia Lan: "I think we're going to chance the dice on this one. Honestly, it might be best if you put those weapons to use and headed to the front." 15[21:32] Dorma and the giant Zuniga's weapons clash again, throwing silver sparks that rise like dust on an updraft in the surge of essence surrounding them. [21:33] 13She hesitates for a second. "I -- all right. I'll be at the wall -- call if you need me to shift, yeah?" 13She's sprinting off before he can reply. [21:37] 5Xu Sim, now enveloped in a beam of light that pierces the clouds and reveals spinning iridescent mandalas of power and enlightenment, hurls himself again to block another titanic blow of the beast. [21:41] "There! The Wailing Wall! It's huge, that means it's got huge guts! She'll rend and tear!!" 5Xu Sim frantically gesticulates at the Dragonlord, hoping to get the plan across. 15[21:41] Dorma whirls on Xu Sim with murder in his eyes. 15[21:42] Over what feels like several minutes, his eyes glide toward the Wailing Wall. 15[21:42] "So be it." [21:49] Over Codex to Xia Lan: "Check the North front if you would before swinging over; we haven't heard from them in a bit and I'm getting concerned." [21:49] 14Over Codex to Xia Lan: "Check the North front if you would before swinging over; we haven't heard from them in a bit and I'm getting concerned." [21:50] 13She adjusts her path. "On my way." [22:00] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar's a beacon for his troops, pulling them together and even waking a few who'd begun to drowse off but hadn't quite switche sides - but that also makes him an obvious target. He's too slow to bring Terminus properly to bear after pointing it dramatically skyward, and pays for it by ceding a whole lot of ground. 15[22:02] Xia Lan sprints north through the vacant, misty streets of Nexus, following the sounds of battle at the northern banks. She sees thralls and hobgoblins being bodily dragged into the river by the Grey and teeming undead, to drown. More arms seem to rise from the river with every surge. Screaming spirits buffet the raksha hordes from the sky as skeletal archers rain arrows down and a the Governor stands on the bank, staring down a tall woman wreathed in thorns as he gives orders and swings a massive bone-white sword at any stragglers who make it through the river. [22:05] 14It's swift and serious work arranging the first blast once Stranger arrives at the Tomb -- but thankfully due to the Codex, he can let Xu Sim know exactly when the rain's coming. [22:07] 6Hey. This fucking sucks, man. She dutifully reports what she sees through the Codex, but that doesn't make this any better. [22:08] 13Hey. This fucking sucks, man. She dutifully reports what she sees through the Codex, but that doesn't make this any better. [22:14] "Run!" 5Xu Sim emphasizes, as the Judge blasts him again. 15[22:22] Dorma tries to run, but his lost lover's reach is too long. 15[22:22] Up and down the southern front, the armies hesitate, holding their breaths and looking upward as the sky falls. [22:22] 5This plan sucks. New plan: We kill, together. [22:25] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar's troops have rallied, and now so does Keldar himself. He shoves his way into the depths of the dreamers, them rounds to catch them in a savage pincer attack between himself and the entire rest of his army. They're threshed, dropping from hundreds to dozens - some disarmed, some clonked heavily on the head, and some, out of sheer need for expedience, shorn clean in half. 15[22:25] The thistledown is indiscriminate, pitting armor and scoring flesh up and down the line. [22:28] 5Xu Sim takes shelter in the logical place: directly underneath the Judge. [22:35] 14Inside the Tomb, everyone's doing everything possible to get the next blast ready as soon as possible, but that mostly amounts to hurry up and wait. [22:39] 5Xu Sim curses in improbably mathematical terms, before whirling his entire body around in a leap to deliver a cracking blow to the Judge's kneecap. 15[22:39] The blow is precisely calculated and mercilessly accurate. The Judge falls to her knees, though from this position she still dwarfs the two Chosen. [22:43] <@Ferrinus> 12Now Keldar's got their measure. The dreamers move with inhuman speed and strength, but with a bizarre, swaying cadence that's nightmarish to the layman but predictable to the seasoned warrior. Keldar lays in to the remainder of the traitor unit, and when he's done, well, there's at least a comparable number of sleeping or unconscious bodies to dead ones. 15[22:58] The Judge's lance evades all efforts to block it, and pierces Nessun Dorma's heart, withdrawing to leave unblemished armor in his wake. Dorma's eyes go small with untethered fury. "From bended knee you are NOTHING to me! I am the Rock of Kimauga! I am a Prince of the Earth! I- AM- IN14DOMIT15ABLE--" 15[22:58] His voice gets smaller as he speaks. Nessun Dorma's imposing figure somehow becomes lost in the melee. Fading into the background. 15[23:00] Her spear pierces him from heart to spine. White jade scatters like paper on the wind. 15[23:01] 10It's not Zuniga's voice that Xu Sim hears: "A prince alone is just a man." [23:01] "Dorma!" 5screams Xu Sim, tears streaming down his ash-streaked face. [23:01] 14Well, shit. [23:01] 5It is audible over the Codex and, no doubt the din of battle as well. 15[23:02] The fury in his eyes goes out as Nessun Dorma slides off the spear, his body resting like a meteor in the crater of his last stand. 15[23:08] The fire in the sky descends in torrents. The wanderers, revolutionaries, and people's champions dragged into the raksha's mad war cannot withstand it. Those who aren't incinerated outright and quickly wiped out by a resurgent Lookshy. [23:08] 13Oh, no. [23:08] 5Xu Sim rushes to the body, beneath the shadow cast by what remains of the Judge. [23:09] 14We're not doing that again unless it's against Thorns. [23:10] 5Xu Sim might have exulted in this destruction in another time, but his heart is extinguished in grief and anguish. He clambers along, dragging the body as far as he can towards the Lookshyan lines and ducking torrents of the thistledown. 15[23:11] A pair of Gunzosha troops charge forward, spiked arms extended. "To safety!" a voice crackles through the din. [23:12] 5Sobbing through gritted teeth, Xu Sim scrambles along with them. 15[23:14] As they retreat from the field, Xu Sim hears a hideous shriek and sees Akasha recoil from the Final Word, buffeted by cannon and thistledown and casting its head about as it sees no other survivors. [23:15] <@Ferrinus> 12None of this is apparent to Keldar across the city, of course. Right now he's patrolling the ranks, waking sleepers and disposing of the dead (well, mostly instructing his guardsmen to do so). As soon as he's got a spare moment, he's talking into the codex. "North and south holding? I need Xu Sim or another magician here as soon as practical - someone's lobbing spells at us out of [23:15] <@Ferrinus> the fog and I want to know from exactly where." [23:18] 5Xu Sim allows himself to be evacuated. 15[23:18] The last thing Xu Sim hears before he's out of range of the battle is the crack of a dozen thunderbolts. [23:22] "Where is everyone? What's going on?" 5he croaks, speaking into an empty alleyway and into the Codex. [23:22] 14Stranger: "We're here. We're holding." 15[23:22] Xu Sim is ferried swiftly underground by infantry, to the infirmary where he meets Xia Lan and Stranger(?) [23:23] 13Xia Lan: "It sounds awful -- can't keep track...!" [23:23] 14Seems about right. There's little more to do at the Tomb for now. [23:24] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar: "East is secure, but taking attrition. Repeat, I want someone who'll pinpoint the source of hostile sorcery, or at least check my math on it." 12He's actually leaning over a battlement and peering at the fog right now, scraping figures and sightlines onto some stone with a gauntleted finger as he squints. [23:24] 14Stranger will have sent one of the sorcerers who is not on rotation yet over. [23:26] 5Arriving in the infirmary, Xu Sim casts a bleak glance around. "The Dragonlord has fallen. I think it was Cethleann - she appeared in the form of Judge Zuniga. She struck him down, bizarre attack. It hits your heart, your emotions. She escaped. Akasha, the Wailing Wall, withdrew and the rest of Elegba's army is in tatters." 15[23:26] Keldar is soon joined at the eastern front by Red Tien. "I've been briefed. Sorcerers in the mists. What direction did they retreat to? What direction did the mist come from? 15[23:27] " [23:27] 14Stranger: "The Wailing Wall will be back. It's going to be a close thing as to whether we can get the iron in the air before Cethleann manages to do something with all the people she's invading right now. [23:27] " [23:27] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar points. "There and there. The exploding water bird from... thereabouts. Direction of drift was..." 12He's at least demonstrated a careful eye. [23:29] "Have you exorcised her influence? Is it like the honey-maze?" 5Xu Sim's voice is becoming steadier, more clinical. Colder. 15[23:29] The sorcerer strokes his wispy beard while contemplating the mist. "I think... yes. Your heading is here--" he points. "No more than 300 yalms." [23:29] 14Stranger: "No overt honey-maze-like symptoms but I didn't have time to do a deep dive and it seems rather similar. [23:29] " [23:31] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar: "Yeah? Hmm. Can you tell anything else about the guy from here?" 12He doesn't spend too much time looking where Tien pointed, and can't do anything about it immediately either way because he's currently burning like a torch. Soon, maybe... [23:32] 5Xu Sim: "And you're holding her at bay with the thistledown? You've reconfigured my pylon?" 15[23:33] Tien: "This is the work of many sorcerers. Dozens. But I don't see any evidence of the Sapphire circle. That's something." 15[23:33] "Has such a confluence of magicians gathered in Creation since the First Age...?" [23:34] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar: "Dozens? That's a lot of necks to snap. You can't set up some kind of barrier or countermagic here, can you? Maybe even a warning when the next spell's coming?" [23:34] 5Xu Sim cracks open a chest sitting in the corner. He retrives the Skullclamp. "We need to change the game." 15[23:35] Tien shakes his head. "Not in a matter of hours." [23:35] 14Stranger: "Same basic idea, really. We just don't heat it up first. But the iron won't go up for a little bit longer, we're still resetting the works." [23:38] 5Xu Sim examines the device in his hands, turning it over once or twice. Intriguing. But still mysterious. [23:38] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar: "Fuckers. All right, you got any wall-repairing magic I want you to have at; otherwise, dismissed." 12He resumes pacing, broadcasting out to his fellow Solars across the codex again. "I have a bead on sorcerer - sorcerers, according to Tien, maybe dozens. We could melt 'em with our last thistledown shot, or try to move out and crush 'em, or attempt an assassination." [23:39] 14Stranger: "Thistledown is a no go. Our iron shield needs to get the air as soon as possible or we'll have Cethleann in our back ranks. [23:39] " [23:40] 5Xu Sim: "Keldar, I'm on my way to your position." [23:42] <@Ferrinus> 12Keldar: "Gonna think on it for another hour, but if anyone thinks they can sneak in and out of a raksha army least as well as I can they should speak up." [23:45] 5Xu Sim stalks through the Undercity on his way back towards the East Gate. 15[23:48] NEXT TIME: Earth died screaming